My first experience with craft beer was a modern classic, Allagash White! It was the first beer I had that actually tasted good, and I was thrilled. After that I tried every craft beer I could get my hands on (and afford…I was in college) which helped me to start developing a sense of what styles were out there. In grad school, I met my husband and we shared craft beer exploration and travel as mutual interests. We planned elaborate cross-country roadtrips all centered around visiting small breweries. Once we earned our Masters’ degrees in Geology, we moved to Denver and got jobs in beer and coffee, further developing our sensory language and deepening our love for this collaborative and passionate industry. After years of working in the taproom and brewhouse (me and Brandon respectively), we decided to open a passion project focused on our newly discovered excitement for Belgian Lambic and Geuze. Running Primitive has been a TON of work, but when we find our people (excited lambic-loving weirdos like us), it makes everything so worth it!
What is your brewing philosophy/How would you describe your brewery’s style?
We brew one style of beer. While we release many discreet blends, packaging types, and ages, they’re all coming from one base beer. We’re emulating Belgian Lambic and Gueze. We follow all the rules laid out in this
Méthode Traditionnelle document and if we were located in the Zenne River Valley near Brussels, we’d be allowed to call our beers lambics, but alas! After a specific brew process (involving a turbid mash and marathon boil), all our beers spend a night in our koelschip to cool down and collect airborne yeast and bacteria. They then ferment and age in neutral oak puncheons (large barrels) for anywhere from one to five years. Then the fun starts! We taste these beers to determine how we’d like to release them, unblended, blended, spirit barrel aged, fruit refermentations, etc! Our final blends are then packaged in either firkin/keg (for cask engine or tap) or bottle or Bag-in-Box. We use all Colorado-grown ingredients to support local agriculture and small businesses and have creative friends design our Bag-in-Box labels!
What’s your favorite beer on tap right now and why?
We have a beer right now that’s a fully spontaneous beer collab with Wild Provisions Beer Project. We blended our two- and three-year spontaneous beer with their 1-year spontaneous beer and refermented on naturally macerated whole organic raspberries! We sell it to-go in Bag-in-Box and serve it in our Barrel House in Longmont on a cask engine, resulting in a fluffy, creamy mouthfeel and an explosively bold raspberry flavor. There’s a hint of bitterness at the end that keeps you wanting another sip! We were emulating Belgian raspberry greats such as Cantillon’s raspberry lambic (on cask at the Moeder Lambic bar) and the tank-served raspberry lambic at De Cam Geuzestekerij!
What Spotify or Pandora station is most likely to be heard in your taproom when you’re working?
I’m partial to fun and funky beats that keep you in the zone, be that working or relaxing with friends! We’ve usually got some combination of Vulfpeck, Poolside, LCD Soundsystem, and Tame Impala going on.
