The official beer of Snowdown ’23 is an horchata-spiced ale with vanilla, cinnamon and citrus notes coming in at six percent ABV created Ska Brewing. Hornblower Horchata is available in 12 oz. 4-packs now through the end of Snowdown Sunday February 5th. By Connor Shreve This story is sponsored by StoneAge Tools and the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado
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It’s a sign of the season in Durango. The official 2023 Snowdown beer is here. This edition of the Local News Network is brought to you by StoneAge and Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado. I’m Connor Shreve. Every year for the past 26 years, Snowdown’s official beer release has been as varied as the party’s theme itself. This year, Snowdown revelers are toasting to Hornblower Horchata, a Horchata spiced wheat ale.
We recently added a person to our team and he had mentioned that he has a home brew recipe for Horchata Ale. So that’s exactly what we based this beer off of. It’s really delicious. We worked really hard on making sure it’s the right amount of creamy, a really subtle cinnamon vibe to it. It’s very crush-able, but still very much horchata.
Ska Brewings social sorceress, Chelsea Kemp says the official Snowdown beer can be as creative as the team can imagine but there’s always some boxes the beer has to check.
There’s a couple criteria Snowdown beer has to meet. It has to be crush-able. That’s probably an industry term. Crush-able is very important as with drinkable and then it has to coordinate whatever theme is going on. Ska Brewing and Snowdown have always been coordinating to make sure that whatever the theme is, there’s a very delicious official beer of Snowdown.
Snowdown and Suds is a perfect pairing. Representative of Ska’s longtime community focus, Hornblower Horchata represents the 27th year Ska has collaborated with Downtown Durango on the beer.
This is something that brings people to Durango. It gets people out of their houses, the ones that live here in Durango. So that opportunity to not get, you know, I think the original theme was the “Cabin Fever Reliever” and then years later, it started getting themes. But, so the liquid itself, that will be the official beer of Snowdown has to be that Cabin Fever Reliever.
Another nod to the collaboration Snowdown embodies can be seen in the beer can labels. The winner of the artist competition for Snowdown’s official artwork also gets to create the can. This year, Artist Shan Wells featured the Bard and his butt trumpet. Both the main element in his official poster and a common element in a satirical art of the Elizabethan time period. The beer can be purchased in the Four Corners area and in the Ska taproom, but it won’t last long.
So this is an exclusive beer. You’re right, it is hyper localized. It’s available only in the Four Corners area, Durango specifically but we’ve been having people ask for it in the Cortez, Pagosa and Farmington areas. So, available in four packs, 12 ounce cans. So Snowdown is the last month of January, the first weekend of February. So I imagine we’ll be sold out by then. So you should get it while you can.
A Shakespearean Snowdown kicks off on January 27th and runs through February 5th. You can check out the full schedule online at snowdown.org. Learn more about Ska Brewing at skabrewing.com. Thanks for watching the Local News Network. I’m Connor Shreve.
