Post-Pandemic, Paradox Shines with Revamped Food, New Bottle Releases

We’ve long been fans of Paradox Beer Company here at Focus on the Beer, but due to the Pandemic, we’ve felt like Paradox’s slate of beers generally played it safe favoring more clean than sour beers, and less culinary-focused flavors. After a visit up the pass on Saturday night, and a preview of some upcoming bottle releases (yay bottles!) we can safely say that’s no longer the case.

Thanks to an invite from our new media partner Side Dish with Schniper, we had the opportunity to sit down with Brian and Jeff from Paradox to talk about all things beer over a large slice of their new menu (you can read more about the food soon on Side Dish).

Since the pandemic, Paradox added a new brewer in Jeff Hanson, who previously brewed at Green Flash and Brickway Brewery in Nebraska, which has allowed Brian and Jeff (Aragon) to step away from the brewing production side of things almost entirely to focus on other aspects of the business, most notably their new in-house menu dubbed Gallos Borrachos. In my opinion, stepping into the kitchen seems to have reinvigorated their passion for Paradox, and it shows both in the food and beer offerings. The revamped food menu pulls heavily from their Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico heritage and contributes amazing flavors throughout.

From wings to burgers to birria ramen, Paradox’s new menu kicks ass.

Beer-wise, Paradox has all their taps filled with fun and interesting brews, from a requisite-these-days Santero Seltzer (complete with an entire menu of flavored add-ins) to La Fiesta, their unfiltered light Mexican-style lager, to Foeder aged Future Knowledge and Dry Hopped Sours. It’s an eclectic menu that just feels right here, also feels like a welcome change to their clean-heavy approach we usually saw during the Pandemic. We’re especially excited about the heavy influence of sour and foeder aged beers on the menu, which appear to be making a healthy comeback, and are heading to bottles soon too.

To kick things off with a bang, we start our night with Rainbow Table Attack, their Double IPA, which billows aromas of dank-fermented tropical fruit (think overripe pineapple and mango) thanks to El Dorado hops along with a slight citrus, pine and herbal finish we’d expect from the inclusion of Mosaic and Ekuanot hops. For a 9% Double IPA, we were surprised by the smooth complexity of the flavors and aromas—the experience easily betrayed its strength. Beyond the positives in this beer, we would have loved a bit more brightness from the hops profile, as our only nitpicking thought, if only to accentuate the El Dorado hops a bit more.

Next, we had the opportunity to try a koelschip collaboration between Paradox and Woods Boss, aptly named Dead Tree Scrolls, where they included Palisade peaches and derived the resulting fermentation from yeast on the peach skins. The result is fantastically wild, tart and peachy, hearkening back to the Paradox of old. Jeff and Brian tell us that bottles should be released at some point in the future, depending on when Woods Boss and Paradox can find a good date. We’ll let you know when we hear more.

We then opened a bottle of Logic Bomb, a Saaz dry-hopped Foeder farmhouse ale, which feels more wild than sour at first, but the tartness grows with each sip. It’s a wonderfully simple yet complex beer, where Saaz and sour swirl round a slight farmhouse funk. Right now, Logic Bomb is only available on tap, but Paradox tells us they’ll be releasing it in 500ml bottles soon.

Rounding out our experience was a bottle filled with liquid from when Jeffrey Airman was at Paradox, called Serafina. This Heaven Hill Distillery Barrel-aged Oud Bruin is a perfect match for the Chocolate Bread Pudding dessert from their kitchen. The oak from the barrel dances around raisin and dark stone fruit sour notes while subtly dip, diving and dodging the slight acetic note that we’ve come to expect from Flanders-style beers. The acetone was there—but not there—all at the same time. Serafina is as much a dessert beer as we’d expect from Paradox, if you could call it that, providing delicate balance between oak, sweet and sour.

This bread pudding was so perfect to pair with their Serafina Oud Bruin.

We could wax poetic about the heavily expanded food menu (things like tacos, dessert and birria ramen were amazing), but we’ll leave those details to Matthew Schniper, previously the food editor at the Indy, to provide over on his blog. Please head to this link to subscribe (it’s free) and support another local blog! Thanks to that awesome new food menu and the re-focused sours, we’re excited to drive up the pass just a bit more this coming Spring and Summer just to see what they’re up to. Here’s hoping to see more beers in bottles as well…rumor has it, the Skully Series may soon grace their bottles once again.

Cheers!