Eat & drink

[eat & drink] J.Fargo’s in Cortez has its own little microbrewery Pair the Coyote J Brewing IPA with a chili if you can

A white chili at J.Fargo’s.

During our most recent trip to Cortez, it occurred to us that we had been to every brewery in Montezuma County ... except one. To an outside observer, J.Fargo’s Family Dining & Micro Brewery looks like a restaurant. But as its full name states, it is indeed a microbrewery. So we stopped in for a meal and beers.

Coyote J. Brewing, as the restaurant’s microbrewery is called, has four beers on tap at any given time. And they’ll do a tasting flight with four beers, so we tried all of them. At present, there’s a red ale, a nut brown, a white Belgium wheat, and an IPA.

We started off with the wheat beer and were immediately surprised by its bitterness — for an instant, we thought perhaps it was actually the IPA, but mislabeled. On subsequent sips, however, we realized that it was indeed the Belgian one. The bitterness, we suspect, is the result of the Curacao orange peel with which it is infused (and probably the hops, obviously). Whatever the case, the flavor mellows out quickly and opens up to the beer’s spices — in this case, coriander. Once you get into it, this beer actually becomes citrusy and slightly sweet, but that initial bite is a shocker.

Naturally, we wanted to see how this compared to the IPA, so we sampled that next. Surprisingly, it was the opposite — it wasn’t very bitter at all. The beer was quite hoppy, but in a more citrus-heavy American-beer way. The soup of the day when we stopped by was a white chili, and it paired beautifully with the IPA. We’re not sure if it was this combination that did it for us, but this one ended up being our favorite of the beers.

We then sampled the red ale. This was the first beer that tasted how we thought it would: a little bit hoppy and a little bit malty. In the distant reaches of our palate, it may even have been a little bit buttery. When we tried it against our meal, we noticed that its bitterness, while not intense, lingered quite a while.

Finally, the nut brown was the maltiest of the beers we had. It had a bit of caramel heaviness to it. Like the red ale, it had a medium hop aroma and medium hop bitterness. It tasted darker than the other beers, but not like a real dark beer such as a stout or a porter.

For dinner — we were there for a meal after all — we ordered the Rattlesnake “Jake” Burger. (We’re not sure who Jake

Nick Gonzales/DGO

Nick Gonzales/DGO » From left: the red ale, nut brown, IPA and white Belgium wheat from Coyote J. Brewing at J.Fargo’s in Cortez.

is, but based solely on the name of the restaurant and the microbrewery, we assume he’s the “J.”) The burger was a grilled brisket/beef burger with blackened seasoning, ghost pepper cheese, tomato, cilantro, red onions, and pico de gallo on a toasted Kaiser bun. The first thing we noticed was that the bun looked, smelled, felt, and tasted nice.

The Rattlesnake “Jake” Burger at J.Fargo’s in Cortez.

Nick Gonzales/DGO

The patty was also pretty tasty, especially alongside the other ingredients. Despite the ghost pepper in the cheese and the presence of a salsa on the burger, it was not especially spicy — certainly not the rattlesnake bite we were expecting — but the flavor of the burger more than made up for that.

All around, our trip to J. Fargos was a pleasant burger-and-beer experience.

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[eat & drink] Sipping cider at EsoTerra Ciderworks, Dolores’ newest tasting room Cidery has a number of beverages on tap

When it comes to local libations, we’ll flavor. Sommeliers we are not, but if we a bit more apple-y, on the other hand, drink pretty much anything you throw at had to compare it to a wine, we’d prob- stick with one of the other ones. us. So when we found out that a second cidery had opened in Montezuma County, we knew we’d have to pay it a visit. ably have to go with a Moscato. Come to think of it, the name of the cider may also refer to its noticeably high gravity — Finally, we concluded with EsoTerra’s Chokecherry cider. If you’re looking for EsoTerra Ciderworks opened on Sept. 25 in Dolores in what used to be the old Mountain Sun Juice factory. We imagine it comes in at a higher-than-average-fora-cider 9% ABV. Our next sample was of the Crimson something tart, choose this. Whoa, Nelly, it was easily the most astringent cider we drank. Like with the apricot cider, the that much of the property is used for Gold. This one didn’t surprise us as much. brewers very much captured the flavor the production of the ciders themselves, Its flavor was bright, crisp, and a little bit of the fruit. We liked this one a bit more which are made from local apples and floral. But it was also significantly more than the Apre All Day, but only for very other fruit, but it still has a pretty large tart than the Brix, with a citrus flavor subjective flavor-preference reasons. It tasting room and patio. that lingered on the tongue. If there is a may even last you longer than the other The tasting room’s drink menu had 12 items on it, including wines and guest ciders, but we decided to try what appeared to be the four flagship ciders on tap. The first one we sampled hit our palate like a ton of bricks. This is probably why they named this particular cider “Ton of Brix.” We detected notes of honeydew and a distant strawberry, but they didn’t prepare us for the flavor. eling is ciders after wines, so we were prepared for some dry drinks. Instead, this one was a little bit sweet, noticeably » Nick Gonzales/DGO » Ton of Brix, one of EsoTerra’s flagship ciders. Platonic ideal form of what cider is, this was the one at EsoTerra that probably most closely approaches it. For the third one, we went with the Apre All Day, a cider flavored with wild apricots found around the region. It was easily the driest cider we tried that day, but boy did it taste like apricots. Dried apricots in particular. The carbonation even brought across a bit of fuzziness that reminded us of the fruit. We feel like if you love apricots, you’ll love this ciders, as sipping it makes you want to pucker up a bit. We have a bit of a sweet tooth, so Ton of Brix ended up being our favorite. We’re looking forward to the next chance we have to visit EsoTerra. Next time we’ll have to try Zoe the Tail, the food truck stationed at the cidery which is apparently named after the cook’s short-tailed poodle.

We knew that the cidery was mod- effervescent, and carried a bold apple cider. If you’re in the mood for something — Nick Gonzales

PLEASE

The folks at DGO miss leaving our homes for concerts, drinks and dinners out. We don’t like cooking or cleaning the kitchen — and we certainly don’t like mixing our own drinks, all things we’ve had to do since the start of this pandemic. PLEASE wear your masks and practice social distancing so we can get back to our regularly scheduled (fun) programming.

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