You say peculiar, I say Peculier (Ales): Raise a glass at downtown Windsor’s brewery
Peculier Ales in downtown Windsor features extensive patio seating and offers live music, comedy and family-friendly spaces. Dogs are welcome to enjoy the vibes, too. Photo by Emily Kemme.
By Emily Kemme
In the lengthy ecclesiastical history that defines England and religion over the last millennium, one sure thing are church parishes. But even there, a handful of churches dotting the English countryside like large, stone sheep (and a good number within the city of London, as well), historically were outside the jurisdiction of their dioceses.
In layman’s terms, these parishes — called “Peculiers” or “Peculiars” — were independently governed and instead of paying taxes to the diocese, retained the funds for their parish’s use.
The Peculier around which this story revolves is the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Masham, a town numbering about 1,200 folk in North Yorkshire. It also happens to be near the area where Nick Armitage’s family hails from, and the reason why he chose the name Peculier Ales for his craft brewery in downtown Windsor.
“The Peculiers were parishes that focused on the community and didn’t deal with church politics,” Armitage said.
So, how does a Peculier translate to 21st century beer brewing?
In the last 25 years, Armitage said beer brewing has gone from a fun little hobby to employing millions, with over 9,000 craft breweries in the United States. “That’s billions in revenue and jobs, and soon enough we’ll see breweries in every town and city. Brewers will need tools to make the best beer possible.”
Armitage has beer-making tools in droves, with creativity, science and math aligned in his toolkit. Two music degrees from Aims Community College, followed by two more degrees from the University of Northern Colorado in Chemistry and Brewing Science, arm him with a solid basis to analyze data. That’s essential because he believes science is the norm in brewing today.
A tasting flight of Peculier Ales featuring an end-of-summer platform, including a Blue Hawaiian Sour-Berliner Weisse, Skandi Shandi Grapefruit lager, a Festbier to celebrate harvest time and the pink, refreshing Raspberry Lime fruited sour. Photo by Emily Kemme.
Paper knowledge isn’t all he’s got: Armitage has hands-on experience working for Crabtree Brewing Company, New Belgium Brewing and WeldWerks Brewing Company. He also helped Lonesome Buck Brewing Co. get started.
To make the best beer possible, the baseline is releasing beers that customers want, Armitage said. He recognizes that brewing is a business: they can do wild and crazy beers, but people have to want them. What makes a good business practice is to make beer that’s repeatable with consistent quality.
“It’s a daily challenge because our ingredients are agronomic: barley, oats, hops, water — they’re changeable from year-to-year and batch-to-batch. You can chase consistency and make small adjustments so each batch stays consistent. The bigger you become as a brewer, the more consistent you become. But smaller brewers can make each batch unique because they don’t have funds to put in the lab work to chase the consistency,” he said.
Because his brewery is modeled after a Peculier, it’s evident that Armitage is seeking the “independent and unique” niche.
Armitage said his brewery’s motto is “beer set apart.”
“We’re not afraid to brew any style or type of beer, but we will put our own unique spin on it.”
Case in point: he’s just released Blue Hawaiian, an electric blue, tiki-inspired beer with a sour ale base and a trio of coconut ingredients: coconut cream, coconut milk and flaked coconut. Lots of pineapple adds fruit notes, and there are natural flavorings and extracts to mimic the essence of spirits. In other words, it’s a boozy blue punch sipper with a bit of beer fizziness to it. Smooth and drinkable, you’d swear it was just poured out of a blender. All that’s missing is the umbrella.
Armitage said his favorite beer styles for drinking are German and Czech-style lagers, pilsners and traditional Belgium saisons. But he wants to brew it all: each beer presents its unique challenges in that there is a scientific experiment to solve. It also needs to exhibit that Peculier artistry.
Part of Peculier Ale’s unique brand of hospitality and beer will see on on-site kitchen opening in 2021. Comn Fare is under construction, and will add creative menu options designed to complement the brewery’s craft beer and enhance the Peculier experience. Photo by Emily Kemme.
On a recent visit, along with the Blue Hawaiian Sour-Berliner Weisse, the taproom was pulling an end-of-summer platform, with Skandi Shandi Grapefruit lager that channels the classic Radler; the brewery’s German-style lager, Festbier, to celebrate the harvest season with notes of honey and freshly baked bread; a perfectly pink and refreshing Raspberry Lime fruited sour; and Drink Your Drink, a creamy New England style IPA that’s lightly hopped. While the majority of these beers fall into the ‘cocktail beer,’ category, there are a number of hop-forward IPA’s for the serious beer lover. There’s also Valley Water hard seltzer, a juicy reminder of berry good childhood drinks.
The first year in business for Peculier has been strong. They’ve hit 800 barrels in production, and the big news is they’re opening a Fort Collins location in 6-8 weeks on East Mulberry in the old CB Potts production space. From there, Armitage hopes to see production numbers hit about 6,000 barrels in the next five years.
Part of Peculier’s unique brand of hospitality and beer will see an on-site kitchen opening in 2021. Comn Fare is under construction, and according to Peculiar’s instagram page, will add creative menu options designed to complement the brewery’s beer and enhance the Peculier experience.
Visit Peculier Ales
Where: 301 Main St., in Windsor
Hours: Monday through Wednesday, noon to 9 p.m. | Thursday through Saturday, noon to 10 p.m. | Sunday, noon to 7 p.m.
Contact: https://peculierales.com | 970-460-2224 | info@peculierales.com
More deets: extensive patio and indoor seating, live music and comedy, dog friendly, family friendly, food trucks, on-site kitchen opening soon