REVIEW: Trinity offers promising brew

Excitement over Trinity Brewing Co. started to bubble among local beer connoisseurs long before the place poured its first pint in August.

Trinity seemed like an ale and lager version of fantasy football: Pick and choose the best parts of the local brew scene and put them together for a dream team. Part 1: Jason Yester, the dreadlocked genius who was brewmaster at Bristol Brewing Co. for five years, churning out one blue ribbon beer after another. Part 2: Todd Walton, former owner of Kinfolks Mountain Outfitters in Manitou, which has a tiny bar in the back serving hard-to-find artisan beers.

Put them together in a ZIP code desperately in need of a good brewpub, add environmentally friendly practices such as giving a discount to customers who ride or walk to the brewery, and top it off with a menu celebrating natural, local and organic food, and you have a restaurant deserving of all its buzz.

Every time I go, the place is packed. The mountain bikes of pedal-to-work dudes from nearby bike-partsmaker Sram crowd the rack as the dudes perch, pint-in-hand, on the patio. Inside, a row of about 30 taps lines a long, illuminated bar made of recycled glass. Vast chalkboards above display food and beer options. A long, hallwaylike file of tables leads to a back room full of comfy couches. The Grateful Dead plays on the iPod. Dreadlocked employees ferry frothy mugs of excellent stout and amber to standing gangs of after-work drinkers and those lucky enough to score a seat. Trays whisk through the crowd carrying sizzling Belgian-style fries, vegan hot wings and steaming bowls of beer-cheese soup.

It's a lovely scene, and people clearly treasure it, but in the few months it has been open, Trinity has yet to live up to its potential. Service is clunky and uneven. The inventory is inadequate. But the potential of Trinity is so great that even when it falls short, it lands in the top tier of local eateries.

The beer is top-notch.Trinity's six handcrafted varieties include some stunning, unusual brews. Beyond an exceptional, fresh, hoppy India Pale Ale, Yester brews an obscure but delicious, malty English relic called a Horkey and an ever-changing seasonal French farmhouse ale that may be seasoned with anything from pumpkin and squash to lavender, white sage and garam masala. This place is a haven for beer geeks.

Yester has even hooked up something called a "randler," which allows him to pour the lovely IPA through an aromatic thatch of lemon grass, calendula (a type of aster) and organic Colorado hops. I could drink it until I died. It's heaven.

What brings you back to earth is the brewery's nasty habit of running out of its fine beers. I've never seen all of them on tap. No doubt they are a victim of their own success - too good to last. Hopefully Trinity can adjust. In the meantime, it stocks many fine, rare brews from around the country.

The food is more problematic. On the brewery spectrum, Trinity's kitchen lies somewhere between Bristol Brewing, which serves only pretzels, and Phantom Canyon, which cooks up everything from mussels to lamb chops. In size and scope, the tiny Trinity kitchen reminds me most of Shuga's. It offers some salads, soups, a cheese plate, some humble entrees and a good list of easy-to-share beer food. It just doesn't do it as well as Shuga's.

Trinity often runs out of menu items, and even when it has them, getting them takes much longer than it should. I've tried to order the all-natural chicken tenders ($7) and the bacon-wrapped dates ($6) twice, but had no luck.

Trinity's motto is "Artisanal beer, slow food, conscious people." Every time I've gone, someone has made a wisecrack, while waiting and waiting for sweet potato fries, beer-cheese soup, or some other food that shouldn't take that long, about how Trinity sticks to its promise of "slow food."

When it finally arrives, the food is pretty good and getting better all the time. Belgian fries ($3) that a few months ago were thick and limp are now slender, perfectly crisp and delicious. The beer-cheese soup swims with fresh carrot and celery, and isn't overpowered by heavy cream like so many of its ilk.

The vegan wings ($6, made from wheat gluten) are slaked in a delicious, slightly bitter, red chile hot sauce. And all the bread comes from La Baguette. The menu is thoughtfully designed to go with beer and has pairing suggestions.

Trinity is still working out the kinks. For a long time, the menu was only on the chalkboard, to save paper, but people couldn't read it, so they've added a few reusable paper menus. The kitchen is too slow, even on the rare occasion when the place isn't packed. And perhaps most maddening of all, servers insist that diners get their own silverware. One who brought me soup with no spoon nodded toward the silverware and napkin station at the other end of the restaurant and said, "Obama is in office, empower yourself."

I debated writing the same thing on the tip line of my check. If servers are going to bring you a bowl, is adding a spoon so hard?

These are small annoyances that hardly lower the aim of the place. To provide great food and beer with sustainable practices and all-natural products is an admirable target, and if the crowds are any indication, the community is eager and willing to stand by until Yester and Walton hit it.

DETAILS: TRINITY BREWING COMPANY

4 out of 5 stars (Good for what ales you)
Address: 1466 Garden of the Gods Road
Contact: 634-0029, trinitybrew.com
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily
Entrees: $5-$9
Vegetarian: Lots
Liquor: Thirty of the finest beers on Earth
Plastic: Yes

Contact the writer: nathaniel.glen@gazette.com