Posted on 08/02/2002 6:17:30 PM PDT by Rodney King
HE LET HIS BEERS DO THE TALKING
The best brewers in America are more accomplished than they are famous. Gordon Knight was one of those.
Knight, 52, died on Tuesday after his helicopter crashed while he was fighting a fire near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. He was trying to drop water on hot spots in a 4,400-acre blaze. Knight, flying a 32-year-old French helicopter, radioed in about 6:30 p.m. and calmly reported, "I'm going down," a Forest Service spokeswoman, Ellen Hodges, said.
Unless you drank beer along Colorado's Front Range in the 1990s you probably never tasted one of Knight's beers. If you did, then you likely remember them well.
Knight won Great American Beer Festival gold medals at three breweries: High Country Brewery in 1993, Twisted Pine Brewing Co. in 1996 and Wolf Tongue Brewery in 1998. Each of the champion beers was very different than the others, but they shared one thing in common -- all were made on the same 5-hecoliter (about 4 1/2 barrels) system that followed Knight from brewery to brewery. He first acquired it used from Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan, who used it themselves to found New Belgium Brewing Co. in Fort Collins.
Knight bought the system in 1993 to start High Country in Boulder, Colo. In 1994, High Country moved to Estes Park and became a brewpub called Estes Park Brewery, when Knight went into business with a local restaurateur. When Estes Park expanded, the brewhouse was sold to Peak to Peak Brewing.
Knight left Estes Park in 1995 to start Twisted Pine, back in Boulder. "Estes Park got too big; he didn't want that," said Jim Parker, who was Knight's partner at Wolf Tongue (since closed). "Gordon likes to make beer; the rest of the stuff he doesn't really care about. The startup is what really turns him on."
In 1997, Twisted Pine merged with Peak to Peak, reuniting Knight with his first brewhouse. He left Twisted Pine to move up Boulder Canyon to Nederland and open Wolf Tongue in June 1997. Wolf Tongue captured gold in the GABF's Brown Porter category for Coffee Porter in 1998, Twisted Pine first in American Amber for Twisted Amber in 1996, and High Country grabbed gold for Renegade Red, an India pale ale, in 1993.
Knight was a Nebraska native who earned a Purple Heart as an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He moved to Boulder in 1988, and soon turned from homebrewing to professional brewing. He also worked as a professional helicopter pilot, most often in fire fighting.
Just a few days before his Wolf Tongue beer won the gold medal in 1998 a visitor to the brewery asked him if he'd be at GABF that weekend. "I don't think so -- I'll be flying," he said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but that was the norm. "I've got someplace else to be." "I fly helicopters into fires." "I brew beer." Gordon Knight had plenty to brag about, but bragging wasn't in him.
In informing other brewers about Knight's death, Brian Lutz - who himself left his brewing job and couldn't stay away -- of the Redfish brewpub in Boulder, wrote:
"Gordon didn't have jobs, Gordon had passions. Gordon's job was his passion and visa versa. That's a good way to live and I thank him for challenging me to do the same. If you knew Gordon Knight, please take a moment to reflect on his life and his family. I will miss him."
;0)
That one stopped me cold in my tracks, I aint anyones lackey, and won't consign to any scientific counterintuative melodramdic shenanigans that are not generally considered acceptable to the public at large. Do I make myself clear?
Well.... As I lift a Fat Tire to my lips, I salute Knight.
.....and Arrogant Bastard is a really good Ale too....
When you see it, just imagine Billy Bob Thornton saying "Here hold muh beer 'n watch this...mmm-hmmm..."
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