CollabFest: Collaboration, Chaos (the good kind), and a Whole Lot of Root Shoot

There are beer festivals… and then there’s Collaboration Fest.

If you’ve been, you know. If you haven’t—imagine over 160 breweries throwing out the rulebook, teaming up, and brewing things they’d never attempt alone. It’s one of the few festivals where the beer list reads more like a group text than a menu. It’s creative, a little chaotic, and exactly how this industry should feel.

We’ll be there Saturday—and a good chunk of what’s pouring started as Root Shoot grain.

Living the Dream, Littleton Brewery, Root Shoot Malting

Collabfest by the numbers

CollabFest brings together more than 160 breweries, all working together instead of competing, to create over 120 collaboration beers brewed specifically for this one day. Every single beer on the floor is a true collab—at minimum two breweries teaming up, and often quite a few more. Since launching in 2014 as a fundraiser for the Colorado Brewers Guild, the event has continued to grow, with some years pushing past 180 breweries and 130 beers. All of it packed into one room with roughly 2,000 people sampling their way through it.

What makes it actually cool isn’t just the scale—it’s the process behind it. Brewers spend months working together ahead of time, sharing yeast, recipes, and ideas that wouldn’t normally leave their own brewhouse. The result is a lineup of beers you literally can’t find anywhere else. Styles run the full spectrum—from clean, dialed-in lagers to smoked beers, fruit and spice experiments, and the kind of “this probably shouldn’t work” concepts that somehow do.

It’s often called a “brewers’ beer festival,” and that tracks. This one isn’t built around selling beer—it’s built around making it, together. If a beer exists at CollabFest, it’s because someone said, “what if we tried this?” and someone else said, “yeah, let’s do it.”

Exploring Beers with Root Shoot

Glenwood Canyon Brewpub, Black Tooth Brewing, Root Shoot Malting

CollabFest can be a little overwhelming—in the best way. You walk in, grab a glass, look up… and suddenly you’re staring at 120+ beers, all brewed once, all worth trying, and no real roadmap.

So here’s one.

Think of this as your field guide to Root Shoot beers at Collaboration Fest—a way to navigate the room, find the beers built on our grain, and maybe string together a tasting path that actually makes sense (or at least starts that way).

Because while every beer here is a collaboration, these are the ones that start a little further upstream—with barley grown on our farm, malted at Root Shoot, and handed off to brewers who decided to do something interesting with it.

So whether you’re hunting for precision, chasing something weird, or just trying to make a dent in your tasting list, start here:

Lagers + traditional

Prost Brewing + Zwei Brewing + Woods Boss

Export Pilsner

Root Shoot Malts: Low Color Pils

Storm Peak Brewing + Roadhouse Brewing + Elevation + StillWest + Hideaway Park + Citizen 33 + Mother Earth

West Coast Pilsner

Root Shoot Malts: Low Color Pils, Malted Corn

Grimm Bros + Crystal Springs Brewing

Dortmunder Lager

Root Shoot Malts: Thunder Pils

Grimm Bros + Black Tooth Brewing

West Coast Pilsner

Root Shoot Malts: Thunder Pils

Gilded Goat Brewing + Urban Animal Brewing

Heller Bock / Maibock

Old 121 Brewhouse + Ratio Beerworks

Chai Lager

Glenwood Canyon Brewing + Black Tooth Brewing

Pre-Prohibition Lager

Root Shoot Malts: Malted Corn

Bent Barley Brewing + Joyride Brewing

Kolsch

Root Shoot Malts: Low Color Pils

Timnath Beerwerks + Tight Knit Brewing

Pale Ale

Prost, Woods Boss, Zwei Brewing, Root Shoot Malting

hoppy/modern

Vail Brewing + Oskar Blues

West Coast IPA

Root Shoot Malts: Genie Pale, Thunder Pils, Munich 4

Wild Provisions Beer Project + Hello Brew Co

West Coast Pale Ale

Root Shoot Malts: (100% Root Shoot)

Broken Compass Brewing + Breckenridge Brewery

Session IPA

Root Shoot Malts: Genie Pilsner

Peculier Ales + Rally King Brewing

Orange Creamsicle Hazy IPA

Odyssey Beerwerks + Second Dawn Brewing

Pain Killer-ish (cocktail-inspired) IPA

Hello Brew Co + Full Frame Beer

Hazy Pale Ale

Root Shoot Malts: Malted Oats

Oskar Blues, Vail Brewing Co, Root Shoot Malting

Dark/malty/big

OCC Brewing + Root Shoot + Brewing Science Institute (BSI)

Barrel-Aged Doppelbock

Aged in Root Shoot Spirits barrel

Los Dos Potrillos + Zuni Street Brewing

Rye Schwarzbier

Living The Dream Brewing + Littleton Brewing

Schwarzbier

Root Shoot Malts: Roasted Buck (naked, hulless barley), Genie Pilsner

Ratio Beerworks, Old 121, Root Shoot Malting

wild cards (the fun stuff)

Green Mountain Beer Co + Old 121 Brewhouse

Blue Corn Cream Ale

Root Shoot Malts: Blue Corn

Two22 Brew + Woods Boss Brewing

Forage & Flow Kolsch w/ Chanterelle Mushrooms & Ponderosa Pine

Alidade Brewing + 105 West + Wild Blue Yonder + Rockyard Brewing, Los Dos Potrillos

Smoked Cherry Beer

Alidade Brewing + Public Offering

Blonde Stout

Verboten North + Mythmaker Brewing

Petite Saison

Collabs worth seeking out

All brewed with Root Shoot malts.

• A Bit Twisted + Elizabeth Brewing

• A Bit Twisted + Monolith Brewing

• Alley Brews + Monolith Brewing

• Barquentine Brewing + Green Mountain Beer Co

• Black Shirt Brewing + Westminster Brewing

• Crystal Springs Brewing + Zymos Brewing

• Littleton Brewing + Tight Knit Brewing

• Littleton Brewing + Los Dos

• Luki Brewery + Stay Tuned Brewing

• Old 121 + Westfax Brewing + Landlocked Ales + Green Mountain

• Old 121 + Barquentine Brewing

• River North + Los Dos Portrillos

• Two22 + Bearded Brewer Artisan Ales

• Westminster Brewing + Roadhouse Brewery

• Windfall Brewing + Westminster Brewing

Public Offering Brewing, Alidade Brewing, Root Shoot Malting

Why this fest matters

This is collaboration in its purest form. Breweries sharing ideas. Styles getting pushed. Beers that only exist because people decided to work together.

And for us, it’s the full loop: Grain grown here in Colorado, malted here at Root Shoot, pushed into something new by brewers we’re lucky to work with.

Some of these beers are clean and precise.

Some are a little weird.

Some are straight-up “only at CollabFest” energy.

That’s the point.

See you Saturday. If you’re there: Find a Root Shoot beer (there are plenty), talk to the brewers behind it, try something you normally wouldn’t. We’ll be the ones bouncing between lagers and whatever the hell that mushroom Kolsch is. Come say hi!