Visited on: Thursday 7th June 2018
Bob Thompson
If you are driving along Interstate 70 and blink, and you may miss it! That’s Edwards, Colorado, that is! It’s actually part of the Eagle-Vail complex of modern hotels and homes associated with these well-known ski resorts that surround an old town centre.
I was with Linda and our host in Colorado, John, was chauffeuring us around the state. On this day was a very long drive from Durango to Dillon, albeit with several comfort stops.
One of these stops was Edwards as we had come quite a way from Grand Junction and needed a break. I think that Gore Range is a fairly typical pub-restaurant-brewery. It’s mostly restaurant yet the stools around the square-shaped bar counter were almost fully occupied this late afternoon. You got the feel that these drinkers all knew each other.
Well, that is good but there is a large gulf between them and the large number of groups of people, mostly families, that come in to dine, yet have no interest in the house produced beers.
We eventually negotiated a small table near the “meeter and greeter” pedestal near the entrance and settled in to try a few beers. We soon discovered another “black mark”. The beers were far too gassy. This is a bad sign in the USA as this the way domestic beers are served. We are talking about Bud Lite, Miller Lite, Coors Lite and the rest. I looked at the menu and this is a place that also sells a number of domestic beers, why?
The restaurant’s owner is Pascal Coudouy, a very accomplished French chef, He required a new brewer in 2016 and Richard Carnes, a long time customer, engaged a good brewer on a part-time basis. Then, Mr Carnes said "This is not a brewery that happens to serve food; it's a restaurant that happens to make their own beer," Well, why can’t you have a restaurant that serves fantastic food with a brewery that serves fantastic beer? Here the issue with the excessive CO2 provides a clue to their attitude towards the beer. So sad, it could be so better.
The brewery is housed in a glass walled extension at the rear of the building. This is the beer list as displayed on a monitor in the pub: Great Sex Honey Lager (6.7%); Hoppy Valley IPA (6.4%), an American IPA; Springtime Saison (4.2%), a Belgian saison; Beaver Logger (4.7%), an American light lager; Irish Red Ale (6.7%); Blanche (abv unknown), a wheat beer; French Rosé (6.4%), a raspberry wheat beer; Vail Tail Pale Ale (5.6%), an American pale ale and on the guest tap from Boulder Brewery: Chocolate Porter (5.9%).
Some of the beers listed above had vastly different abvs than those listed in the pub. Nevertheless these are the ones we tasted and what we thought of them: Logger Lager (6.8%) was very full flavoured with a hint of bitterness; Irish Red (6.7%) was fairly true to its style with a bit more bitterness than expected, good. Vail Tail Pale Ale (6.1%) was far too sweet for the style, very low bitterness. Hoppy Valley IPA (7.6%) had a nice hop aroma then only medium bitterness, not quite enough for an IPA.
It would be wise to do as we did and let the beer stand for ten minutes to allow the CO2 to dissipate. That said, all is not lost as some of the beers were good. I would commend anybody to visit and judge for yourself. However, I don’t understand why more attention isn’t given to produce high quality beers to match the food.
Important Information:
Gore Range Brewery, 105 Edwards Village Boulevard, Edwards, Colorado 81632. Tel: 970 926 2739
Monday-Sunday-Thursday: 11.30-21.30; Friday-Saturday: 11.30-22.00
Eagle County Regional Airport is around twenty minutes drive from Edwards.
There is no other known public transport to Edwards.
