Stout Month is True Madness

Kevin J. Daly, Proprietor of the Mountain Sun Pubs and Breweries, has grabbed the month of February by the scruff of its neck and made it his and his alone.K

Yes, Valentine’s Day and Black History Month make their presence felt. But for beer geeks, hearty black ale connoisseurs and pretty much anyone within driving distance of the Front Range looking for an encyclopedic selection of stouts — which for someone with ample chemical motivation includes pretty much the entire Lower 48 — Mountain Sun Pubs and Breweries’ 22nd annual Stout Month has no peer.

All the Mountain Sun properties — including Boulder’s original Mountain Sun on Pearl Street, the Southern Sun and Under the Sun brewery and tap room in the Table Mesa Shopping Center, the Vine Street Pub in Denver and the newly opened Longs Peak Pub in Longmont — will go oh so dark beginning Feb. 1 for a month.

“It’s insane,” Daly said. “It’s our best month of the year.”

In addition to the popular home grown offerings — like Addiction Coffee Imperial Stout, Megatron Imperial Stout, Chocolate Dip Stout and Dark Harvest Pumpkin Stout (27 in all) — the various Mountain Suns populate their taps with 26 stouts from area visiting teams like Avery, Fate, Odell, Left Hand, Gravity, Upslope, Twisted Pine, Yak & Yeti, Strange, Telluride, Sanitas and more. But best of all are the rare, one-of-a-kind, high ABV stouts from nationally renowned breweries like Stone, Deschutes, Dog Fish Head, Young’s (from England) and others. As you would expect, Mountain Suns’ savage stout shenanigans draw a rabid crowd of fans, resulting in standing room only situations virtually every night of the week. Insanity indeed!

A comprehensive list of stout offerings from Mountain Sun and local breweries can be found at mountainsunpub.com, but tune into the Mountain Sun Facebook page daily to find out about the rarities that emerge throughout the month.