Lafayette’s Odd13 cans creamy sour brew

By Steve Graham

Ryan Scott isn’t very interested in standard beer styles. So when he was looking for something “approachable” to produce and can at Odd13 Brewing in Lafayette, he settled on a smoothie-style sour flavored with passion fruit, blood orange and guava.

The Haole Bartender is named after a derogatory slur in Hawaii for mainlanders, and inspired by POG, a popular Hawaiian mix of passion fruit (P), orange (O) and guava (G) juices.

“This is an adult reinterpretation of the sugary kids’ drink from Hawaii,” Ryan said.

The smoothie part comes from the addition of lactose and vanilla, creating a smoother and creamier experience than a more traditional sour.

“The smoothie-style sour creates a pretty approachable beer that is interesting to a variety of audiences,” Ryan said. “We’re using fruits in combination with kettle souring and wild yeasts. It has a fair amount of complexity for a quick sour.”

He admits the more traditional sours in his taproom have a limited clientele.

“Some of the more extended barrel-aged sours can be a little bit funky and esoteric, and the beer nerds are really into them, but not necessarily as approachable by a broad audience,” Ryan said.

Odd13 has been brewing smoothie-style sours for several years, starting with the Chainsaw Princess of Karate, a collaboration with Big Choice Brewing in Brighton. It is a passion fruit and dragon fruit beer, which has evolved into a smoothie-style sour over the past few years.

The Big Choice website describes the beer as “pink goodness that will feel like a swift karate kick to your taste buds.”

Last year, Ryan made the Hawaiian Bartender, a pineapple mango sour. It was a hit in the taproom and on liquor store shelves, but he decided to tweak the recipe for this year’s version.

“We wanted to reimagine the beer a little bit,” Ryan said.

His wife, and Odd13 co-owner Kristin Scott, said sour beers in general are becoming kinder and gentler on the palate.

“They are definitely more approachable than they used to be,” she said. “They used to be the puckering Warhead sour, and now they are trending to more approachable and fruit-forward beers.”

Ryan and Kristin are all about making intense and unusual beers more palatable. They opened Odd13 in 2013, after Ryan had been home brewing for several years back in Illinois and after moving to Colorado for Ryan’s tech job. They were both impressed with the Front Range brewery scene, if not the beer.

“Quite honestly, I felt like Ryan was making better beer than a lot of the breweries around us,” Kristin said.

She decided to use her business background to launch a new brewery.

“I just thought it would be a fun thing to do as a couple to start something from the ground up,” Kristin said.

For two years, they produced up to 1,000 barrels in a small brew house that still houses their taproom.

In 2015, they opened a new production facility with a busy canning line.

“Once we started canning, we could not keep up with demand,” she said of the original space.

Odd13 expanded into California this year, and is currently available throughout Colorado and Arizona.

The brewery name is a very personal area code reference. Kristin grew up in the Ohio 513 area code, and Ryan grew up in the 313 area code of Michigan. Coincidentally, they also lived in house number 913. All are odd digits followed by the number 13.

It also fits the unusual nature of some of their beers. But Odd13 will only push the envelope so far. Kristin wants the smoothie sour to really pour like a smoothie, but hasn’t won that argument yet.

“I want to see it in a slushy machine somewhere,” Kristin said. “Ryan is anti-slushy machine. He wants the beer to be presented like a beer should be presented, and says it shouldn’t be in a slushy machine.”

The Haole Bartender may only be on shelves (but not in slushy machines) for a few weeks, but Ryan expects to keep making smoothie-style sours.

“It’s a direction we are planning to continue for a while,” Ryan said.

Steve Graham is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor who likes taking his two young boys biking, hiking and brewery-hopping in northern Colorado.