The Ska Rainbow

Posted by: Stonecipher

Jan. 27, 2011

This is slightly off-topic, but still beer related and I thought it was a great looking picture.  For those of you who don't know Ska Brewing Company out of Durango, Colorado, you really need to check them out.  They currently only distribute to five states: Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina and Illinois, but I am more than happy to make a trade via Beer Advocate, so send me some Beer Mail and we'll talk.

 EDIT: Apparently it is now available in eight states, Missouri is one of the others, but I do not know the other two.  If anyone can help me out on this, I'd appreciate it.  Couldn't find the others on their website.

EDIT 2: Looks like we've got Kansas and Texas as well, that's the eight.  Don't think there are any more.

EDIT 3: We have State #9 - My former home of Nebraska.  Thanks Nate B.!

Anyhow, more about the picture here: the four cans are the only four that Ska is currently canning, from left to right: Euphoria (A hoppy, winter IPA), Modus Hoperandi (Probably their most well-known brew), True Blonde (A delicious and light blond ale) and ESB (Might be their flagship beer).

In addition to their canned line-up Ska also has some excellent bottles and even better specialty beers available in 22oz. bombers, my favorite of which, of course, is the Decadent Imperial India Pale Ale.  Sadly, it has not cracked the Top 20 of most reviewed DIPAs on BA yet, but I might just do a review of it sometime soon anyway.  It is certainly worthy of being there, just not quite distributed enough to get there at this point.  Although, Ska was recently upgraded from the status of microbrewery to regional craft brewery. 

Here's a link to Ska's BA Profile - link.  So I guess this is now just going to turn into a full-blown post about the brewery, here's some pictures from my visit:

First up, the canning line cranking out some ESB:

And this is what came straight off the line and into my hand.  The people there were so friendly and so excited about their beer:

 In the tap room:

Both times I have been in the tap room the sun has been shining outside and it feels like it is shining inside too.  The room is bright, open, airy and a very comfortable place to be.  And that brings me to one of the best parts about traveling to Ska, Zia Taqueria, located right outside on the patio:

So there you have it.  What began as my desire to simply post a picture of some pretty cans of beer I had a few weeks ago turned into a big, long post about my favorite brewery.  Enjoy and leave a comment.  Tell me what your favorite Ska beer is, or let me know about your experience at the Brewery.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.