Cellar West: History and terroir in a world of hype
By Xandy Bustamante
I watch as Zach steps back and smiles from behind the bar as he pours us another glass. This one, his classic Westfield, is a beautiful unfiltered farmhouse ale with a thick collar of white foam.
“I was always attracted to the tradition and history of saisons,’ says Zach Nichols, who is the Founder and Head Brewer of Cellar West Artisan Ales, ‘I grew up in Wisconsin surrounded by farms and something about the mythology around saisons as a farmhouse beer for the working man really called to me.”
As a recovering liberal arts graduate I could immediately relate to Zach’s attraction to beer mythology and history, after all it is what drew me into the world of rustic beverages as well. After all, the history of saisons is something that is still hotly debated in beer nerd circles. One side arguing that they are simple traditional farmhouse ales first made during the middle-ages in Belgium with farmers paying their workers in saison as well as money for their work during harvest. The other side argues that this is pure fairytale, told by brewers, both American and Belgian, to sell their rustic beers in an age when hazy IPAs, hop bombs, and fruit smoothies dominate Instagram and the hidden beer trading pages of Facebook.
“I know I could be making a killing dropping a new Hazy every week, but that is not what I want to do, I want to brew beers that are highly drinkable, yes, but I also want them to have character and mean something.’ Zach says, ‘most of my beers take at least seven months to make, are conditioned in barrels, and carbonated the hard way, bottle-conditioned; even our limited cans of IPAs, saisons, and Keller Pils are can-conditioned.”
That is what attracted our small team at Culture Beverage to Cellar West, and why we brought them on as the first Colorado brewery in the Culture family. Zach’s passion, dedication to developing his own terroir, his tiny brewhouse and humble plans in a world tilted in favor of mega-corporations and buyouts was simply something we believed in.
“I just want to brew saisons and sell them to people who care about great beer,’ Zach says from behind the bar, ‘what happened to subtlety and finesse? You can make beer that has soul and can also be drunk in quantity while watching a Packers game.”
While I can’t forgive Zach for his love of the Packers, I couldn’t agree more with him about his beers and philosophy. History, not hype, is what got us both into beer in the first place.
Cellar West got their start in Boulder, a few years after Zach left his first brewing project, Sanitas Brewing Company. Opening their tiny tasting room on the northside of Boulder in 2017, Cellar West survived by selling glasses of saison over their bar to locals who were looking for something different from the IPAs at Avery or lager at Upslope. Winning a GABF Silver with their Make Hay, a speciality saison, the year that they opened brought some attention to the brewery. Their reputation has continued to grow, with Westfield winning a Silver medal in 2019 at GABF as well, and Cellar West is consistently rated one of the top Colorado breweries on Untappd.
As we sipped on Westfield, I couldn’t help being taken by the beer’s subtlety and depth, something that rarely happens with American made saisons. His beers are reminiscent of the Belgian classics, similar to the beers of Blaugies and Fantome. Westfield itself is amazingly versatile. On Sunday afternoon, you can quickly and easily enjoy a pitcher of it, and then on Monday evening, you can linger over a single sip, and stare into its depths to analyze its brilliance.
As we talked beer with Zach while he relaxed behind his bar, we knew almost immediately that Cellar West was the perfect fit as a partner. Zach’s passion for Belgian beer and his easy-going manner made him the kind of brewer we started Culture to work with in the first place. His beers are a shining example of what saisons can be, bright, balanced, and full of the flavors of the countryside, hay, wheat, and stone fruit.
“I love brewing beer that takes time,’ he said, ‘that is one reason saisons call to me, but it is also why unfiltered pilsners and complex IPAs are something I enjoy making too. I don’t want my beers to be everywhere, but I want them to be accessible to those that care about well made beer.”
When we set out to find the select Colorado breweries we wanted to represent, we knew that our partners couldn’t be people who wanted to see their beers on the shelf at every grocery store; instead we were looking for partners that wanted to be sold by those who are as passionate about their products as we are; at bottle shops, bars, and restaurants who know what makes a beer like Westfield stand above the hundreds of other saisons made in Colorado. We knew that we needed partners that could explain the history and who looked beyond the hype.
While the debate concerning the modern origins of Saison may never end, and that saison may never have the hype of Hazy IPAs or fruit slushies, we know that we couldn’t be happier to have Cellar West’s farmhouse ales as part of the Culture family. Zach may not be Colorado's most famous Belgian-style brewer, or even the biggest Saison producer in the state but we definitely think he is the best, because of his ability to create beers with subtlety, intention, and flavors unmatched in most modern breweries.