**Rawstralian IPA**
Brewery: VisionQuest Brewery
Location: Boulder
IBU: 20 (est.)
**ABV: 4.7 percent**
Photo: Neill Pieper

Boulder brewer has a vision: no-boil beer in new styles

By Steve Graham

Adam Kandle is doing something ancient and groundbreaking at the same time at his east Boulder brewery.

VisionQuest Brewery, which Kandle runs with his partner Greg Kallfa, is one of the first craft brewers in Colorado to make a raw beer, also known as no-boil beer. His most recent experiment is a raw, hazy Australian-style IPA fittingly called the Rawstralian. He also has used the raw process to brew a more traditional IPA, and both owners like to constantly craft new beers.

“The dynamicness of our whole operation is the sell,” Kallfa said. “We are always doing different ones, and it will never be exactly the same.”

The idea may be new to many American drinkers, but Europeans have been making raw farmhouse ales and other styles without boiling the wort for centuries. Kandle started learning about these ancient methods while researching kveik and other newly popular but equally ancient yeasts.

Kandle quickly realized he could use these unusual ingredients in making flavorful and interesting beers without boiling the wort.

“It isn’t necessarily easier to brew just because you’re not coming up to a boil,” Kandle said. “In fact, there’s other concerns there. Like if it’s not boiling thermonuclear hot, are things actually being perfectly sanitized?”

The first directions in nearly any homebrewing guide are to sterilize all your equipment and boil your wort. Kandle realized he could keep his equipment clean, and perform quality control on the end product, avoiding any off-flavors, spoilage or other problems in any of his raw beers, including the Rawstralian.

“I had to take a leap of faith and do it,” Kandle said. “Once I saw the results, I was like ‘oh my goodness.’”

And once he found the winning formula, he knew just where to get more of his ingredients. VisionQuest shares space with Boulder Fermentation Supply, which sells homebrewing supplies and equipment. Kandle and Kallfa left another home-brewing shop in Boulder to open the store in late 2013.

“We found a welder dude who was in this building, and we rented space in the back of his shop,” Kandle said. “We set up shop with no bathroom and a store down here in this alley. Not a sterile retail environment, but I kept saying that people didn’t want a sterile retail environment.”

What they wanted was something to drink when they came to shop.

“People have been coming in forever to our homebrew shop saying ‘do you have beer,’ because they think it’s a beer store,” he said.

Two years later, they decided to expand into a larger space and open a brewery that has grown into a 7-barrel operation. He first considered making sake instead of beer.

“Rice doesn’t grow in Colorado,” Kandle said. “I wanted to keep it local agriculture-supported. Colorado Malting Company has been our partner since day one.”

VisionQuest is in good company in combining a brewery and fermentation store. Kandle notes that Dry Dock, Ballast Point and Sierra Nevada all started as homebrew shops.

With connections to a variety of brewing suppliers, Kandle and Kallfa can take a deep dive into specialty ingredients, such as a yeast strain isolated from moth stomachs, and advanced brewing equipment.

“We have fruit processing equipment and fruit presses,” Kandle said. “We infuse our beers with lots of whole fruits that we press ourselves.”

The brewery and store are in a warehouse district, but they are also along a popular bike path, and central Boulder is only separated by an easy walk or bike ride under Foothills Parkway.

Take that bike ride or call the shop, and you get a raw beer or learn how to brew your own creative beer.

“It’s never too late to learn how to homebrew,” Kandle said. “If all this seltzer and all the hazies have got you down and you don’t even want to leave the house because it’s a haze zone everywhere you go, you can come to the safe haven of a brew shop. We can teach you how to make clear beer or hazy beer or cider, kombucha, sake, wine or mead.”

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.