Ryan Evans looked across the grassy knoll at Bruz Beers on June 7. Uniform tents. Neatly aproned servers behind ice trays of dark beer bottles. Stacks of Delirium pink elephant caps poised for festival guests. And as the gates opened for the 2025 Belgian Import Festival, Evans watched as fans from across the country poured into his brewery to sample Belgium’s finest beers.

Evans is no stranger to championing or making beer with yeasts that lead the experience. Not lately, at least. Nearly a decade ago though, when he opened Bruz Beer on North Pecos Street, he was chasing a dream that he hoped would come to fruition. Belgian traditions of geographic-specific yeasts inspired him to create a brewery that is about more than beer. He sought to educate consumers about the artistry of Belgian brewing and the dimensionality that comes from embracing the whole beer and maturing with it.

As he raised a glass to a room filled with Belgian beer importers and brewery owners in the Bruz taproom on June 7, he felt the culmination of that dream.

“They make me look good, sitting here.” he said, standing before a wall emblazoned with Flemish and Wallonian brewery banners.

Bruz is all in with Belgian beer, from pouring flights that demonstrate the nuances of terroir “sours,” to annually hosting a venue for Colorado brewers to showcase Belgian-inspired beers and leading tours in Belgium focused on the flavors, regions and brewing heritage of the modern day European kingdom.

In 2023, this commitment led to international recognition, when the European Beer Star competition recognized a Bruz Flanders Red-style ale as the best in the world — the first time a foreign brewery took the honor. Belgian beer industry leaders and their United States importers took note of that dark sour beer, aged on Palisade peaches; it signaled how Bruz honored their traditions.

Soon, as importers like Bob Leggett and Michael Emrie of Artisanal Importers, and generational owners like Morgane Vanden Borre from Brouwerij Verhaeghe (Duchesse De Bourgogne) planned the 2025 Belgian Beer Week and Import Festival, Colorado and Bruz rose to the top of their lists.

June was the first time the Import Festival came to the state, and it saw the largest attendance yet for the tradegroup event. Pouring Tripel samples in the shade of the St-Feuillien tent, Bob Leggett smiled as he scanned the packed courtyard.

“All beer was originally sour,” said Leggett. “Everything was spontaneously fermented until brewers started culturing specific yeasts, and beer lost the ability to define its region.” That character remains a prominent feature of Belgian beer though, leading the flavor of each brand.

Where German and English brewing sought to eschew variation in favor of consistency and transportability, Belgian beer remained focused on regional variation and identity — honoring its sour roots.

Four hundred years later, that variability is expressed in the way a Saison (farmhouse ale) produced at a brewery in one valley will taste similar, yet distinct from one brewed one valley over, even though both brewers used the same pale malt.

Thousands of yeast generations later, house Belgian yeasts still reflect their regional origins. This singularity follows through the unique cycle of each strain, as it matures and leads each brewer to blend batches or barrels to produce a final beer. Belgian beer yeast also remains alive all the way to the consumer, allowing most beers to be conditioned in the bottle, rather than in bright tanks like most U.S. beers.

Import Festival guests tasted this careful shepherding and homage to tradition through a spectrum of Belgian beer styles: pale Grisettes, lightly-hopped Saisons, brassyTripels; copper-toned, malty Trappist Dubbels and Quads; and turbid, tart Flanders Reds and Oud Bruins. Peppering that spectrum were also hues of spontaneous and open-fermented beers, some aged on fruit. These “original sour” styles, e.g., Lambic and Gueuze, mix bacteria and yeast cultures to produce a cascading culinary experience from the lips, in the nose, and through the body.

Ultimately, as with the experiences of daily life, Belgian beer is best appreciated as a precise moment. Ryan Evans embraces this truth and how brewing these beers cannot be rushed; they are to be nurtured and savored for the palate and the heart. Someday, the importers may induct Evans into the Belgian Knighthood of the Brewers’ Paddle. In the near future though, he looks forward to celebrating Bruz’s nine years laser-focused on offering Belgian style beers at over 5,000 feet above the highest point in West Flanders. Santé!

Cyril Vidergar can be reached with ideas and comments at beerscoop@gmail.com.