Brewer Borrows from His Mexican Heritage<\/h2>\n
\u201cI want to create beer that isn\u2019t intimidating and to have Mexican cuisine and culture influence our beers,\u201d says Javier P\u00e9rez, founder of Cheluna Brewing Company in Aurora, Colorado. \u201cMy wife and I want beer to be like food; before food becomes a gourmet, high-end dish served and priced to pay off someone\u2019s culinary school loans, it\u2019s first about common people creating amazing meals in grandma\u2019s kitchen, and we want our beer to be about celebrating those common people coming together. I love that I can walk into our brewery and it feels like it\u2019s my living room filled with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n While P\u00e9rez revels in the Mexicanism of Cheluna, he also welcomes American sensibilities to play a role in how his beers are marketed, especially to Hispanic people. Despite Mexico\u2019s cultural wealth, the country of 125 million inhabitants has at times struggled to craft inclusive messages in its pop culture. La India Mar\u00eda, a famous indigenous television character<\/a> whose buffoonery in Mexican slapstick comedies has been the topic of social justice grievances in many a collegiate theses, is just one example of mainstream disaffection toward ethnic minorities. P\u00e9rez says he wants to develop an IPA rendition paying tribute to Mexican indigenous women instead of mocking them.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make an IPA that\u2019s really, really hoppy and call it La India Pale Ale, but our logo for it would be a Zapotec tribal woman, maybe with a rifle or something, so we don\u2019t think of La India as an ignorant, barefoot person, but as a warrior who is intelligent and strong.\u201d<\/p>\n (READ: Advice for Your Next Bottle Share<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n Some of the many nods to Mexican culture and cuisine served up at Cheluna include a mezcal barrel-aged blackberry imperial stout, a German-style witbier with habanero and chile (reminiscent of a popular street food treat in Mexico), a tamarind gose, and a porter infused with cacao, vanilla and toasted coconut. The Rozha hibiscus lager, the brewery\u2019s most visually striking beverage, is Cheluna\u2019s take on agua de Jamaica, a refreshing hibiscus tea sold in street stalls throughout all of Mexico.<\/p>\n If you visit this colorful taproom in Aurora, you can also expect to be served complimentary peanuts with lime and chile, Mexican style. Prepackaged bags of these delicious snacks are also available for purchase, in case you want to continue the fiesta at home.<\/p>\n Another brewery dabbling with Mexican ingredients is the Epic Brewing Company. In August, Epic and Mexico City\u2019s Casa Cervecera Cru Cru brewed a beer together as part of an 18-brewery binational endeavor spearheaded by the Brewers Association (publishers of CraftBeer.com), ACERMEX (Mexican Craft Beer Association), and the USDA office in Mexico City.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a really good experience,\u201d says Matthew Allred, communications director at Epic. \u201cThe head brewers from Cru Cru and Epic got together stateside to make Chapuline Gose, a gose seasoned with crickets and an interesting critter called an agave worm.\u201d<\/p>\n (VISIT: Find a U.S. Brewery<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n Although the ingredients might sound exotic, the flavor profile of the beer keeps with how a more conventional gose would taste.<\/p>\n \u201cThe crickets mostly contribute in color and add a bit of earthiness and smokiness,\u201d Allred says. \u201cThe agave worm salt does add a bit of a spicy punch, but overall, it tastes like a gose.\u201d<\/p>\n The beer goes on sale at the end of November.<\/p>\n Not many breweries can boast about having an in-house \u201cbeer archeologist,\u201d so Avery Brewing\u2019s Travis Rupp takes his title seriously. He says the position came about as a fusion of his two professions: researching and developing beer for Avery and teaching archaeology and ancient history at the University of Colorado at Boulder.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was working in the taproom as a bartender, a bunch of employees asked if they could come to one of my lectures to listen in,\u201d Rupp recalls. \u201cOnce a month, I would go buy a selection of beer that was BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program<\/a>) true-to-style, then I would give a lecture about the beer style and history. Once I moved into production, I started to put together more formal presentations at the production meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n In his research, Rupp discovered there were large gaps in the documentation of certain beers in history, so he set out to find out everything he could about those beers. Not satisfied with knowledge unapplied, he decided to recreate the beers as best he could in the modern age, which led to the production of his line of beers, Ales of Antiquity.<\/p>\n![\"Javier](\"https:\/\/cdn.craftbeer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cheluna-Brewing-Javi-From-the-Hip-Photo.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"cheluna](\"https:\/\/cdn.craftbeer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cheluna-Tamarind-Gose-From-the-Hip-Photo.jpg\")
Recreating Ancient Beer Recipes<\/h2>\n