French Impressionists Inspire Colorado Beer
DENVER (CBS) - Usually one thinks of wine when conjuring images of Paris but in turn Colorado fashion, the Denver Art Museum is celebrating Paris with beer.
The museum asked the Dillon Dam Brewery to create a beer especially for the Passport to Paris exhibit.
Master Brewer Corey Forster explained his inspiration as the beer was tapped on Wednesday night.
"I looked at a lot of paintings, I looked at the classics, Monet, Pissarro, Van Gogh, I looked at just at the general French Impressionists. I saw a lot of sunshine so right away I thought, we want something like and refreshing, a kind of sunshine in a glass kind of beer," Forster said.
That set him on the road to create a light, yet complex beer. He started off with a lager at ale temperatures and then finished it off with Belgian Farmhouse yeast. After that he added in Meyers lemons and coriander in the boil. The dry hopping included rosebuds and lemongrass.
Forster described the beer as super light starting with a slight malt sweetness and finishing with slight amount of lemon tartness.
The name, La Seine Shine, was picked online through the brewery's and the museum's website and Facebook pages but Forster said it really speaks to him of the beer.
"The picture I'm trying to paint in the glass is that you are standing in a Monet painting, an Impressionist painting. You are looking at the River Seine and you can feel the sunshine coming off the river, you can feel it glow on your face. You can smell a little bit of rosebuds in the air and a little bit of lemongrass."
The Passport to Paris Exhibit is open through Feb. 9. You can find the beer at the Dillon Dam Brewery in Dillon and at the Rackhouse Pub in Denver.
LINK: dambrewery.com/passporttoparis/
- Written for CBSDenver.com by Raetta Holdman
