You know what they say: Cold beer, warm heart. OK, they should say that. The modified truism applies when you crack open a bottle of Bristol Brewing’s Venetucci Pumpkin Ale, Smokebrush Smoked Porter and Cheyenne Cañon Piñon Nut Brown, the beloved seasonal brews that comprise the Bristol Give Back Mix Pack. Since Bristol began those collaborative Benefit Beers in 2007, the brewery has donated 100% of the beers’ profits to their respective nonprofits. By the time this year’s Bristol Give Back Mix Pack sells out, owners Mike and Amanda Bristol expect to top $800,000 given from those three beers alone.
That’s a lot of money given back to the local community from one craft brewery. But generosity and community support have been part of the ethos since Bristol Brewing opened 30 years ago in 1994. The brewery is known for its Karma on Tap events when a dollar of each beer sold that day is donated to a selected nonprofit. And their renovation of the former Ivywild School in partnership with the Blue Star Group revitalized the shuttered structure into a thriving community hub.
“It’s always been in our DNA since we started,” Mike says. “If you think about it, our whole business model is: We settle in the community. We want to be a local brewery. We’re not shipping our beer all over the country. So we’re relying on that community to support our vision, and we feel that needs to come back around. In the beginning it was much smaller things — we would donate beer to almost any nonprofit that asked.”
“We sponsored the volleyball team from a Hewlett Packard department right up the road and got invited to the pizza party,” Amanda says with a laugh.
Bristol’s Benefit Beers grew out of asking, “How do we do more than just donating beer?”
“We’ve never had a lot of cash to just throw at things, but being able to do it through beer — I like to call it beer philanthropy,” Amanda says. “We are able to get the regular beer drinker who buys the beer to be part of it.”
Giving money was part of the motivation, but the couple wanted to raise awareness for unique community organizations and places as well. “It was also about our acknowledgment that there are some really great things happening in this community and we need to showcase that,” Mike says.
“It’s a partnership between us brewing the beer, people buying the beer and then us donating the money back,” Amanda says. “It’s just a cool combination I think.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the Bristol Give Back Mix Pack, here’s an introduction to the beers, their nonprofit partners and some insights into the difference they have made in the community.
Behind the Bristol Brewing Benefit Beers
Venetucci Pumpkin Ale
The first of the Bristol Give Back series was the Venetucci Pumpkin Ale in 2007. Nick and Bambi Venetucci had given away 1 million pumpkins to school children from the 1950s until his death in 2004. Bambi donated the farm to the Pikes Peak Real Estate Foundation (PPREF) and Pikes Peak Community Foundation (PPCF), and it was preserved by a conservation easement.
In 2007, Venetucci Farm was getting its footing as a community urban farm, and few people at the time were doing pumpkin beer, Mike says. The entire Bristol staff and their families harvested pumpkins on the farm, and when the beer was released, eager fans waited in lines around the block to get their hands on the coveted 22-ounce bomber bottles.
Since 2016 the pumpkins have come from Smith Farms in Rocky Ford, after the groundwater at Venetucci and the Security Water District was found to be contaminated by PFAS chemicals from firefighting foam used at nearby Peterson Air Force Base. But the Bristol team still does all the pumpkin cutting, gutting and roasting on an open fire in front of Ivywild School.
“The beer itself is all about the pumpkin and the spice, so there’s not a lot of hops to it,” Mike says. “It’s got a nice malt backbone to it. It’s a fun beer, and we haven’t really messed with it much over the years because people love it.”
Cheyenne Cañon Piñon Nut Brown
Mike Bristol was serving on the board of Friends of Cheyenne Cañon when this collab beer was developed in 2007. At the time, the city park’s greatest need was restoring the historic Cub cabin into a visitor center. “The beer and everybody who drank it provided much of the money for that,” Mike says. “Not the whole thing, but it was enough to get the ball rolling.”
Since then, Friends of Cheyenne Cañon has partnered with the city to shape the unique park’s master plan and develop new trails that include Mt. Muscoco, Daniels Pass, Sweetwater Canyon and last year’s Ladders Trail extension. Being able to help fill funding gaps in partnership with the city and other organizations has been vital to completing those projects, says Calla Balliett, board president of Friends of Cheyenne Cañon. “We wouldn’t have been able to do that without this beer,” she says.
The Piñon Nut Brown won a medal at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival in a crowded American-Style Brown Ale category. “This a very nice rounded beer with a little bit of roast character,” Mike says. “The hops are there to just balance the malt. The roasted piñon nuts are really more to round out the beer, so they’re a lot more subtle.”
And like the Venetucci pumpkins, the Bristol staff goes all-hands-on-deck to roast the pine nuts each season at the brewery and in their own homes.
Smokebrush Smoked Porter
Bristol’s Smokebrush Smoked Porter got its start in 2008 with an art contest to design the beer’s label. Its namesake Smokebrush Foundation for the Arts began in the ’90s and has been a pioneer in creating public art and launching creative collaborative projects.
“Oh my god, what Smokebrush has done for our community since 1992,” says Don Goede, the organization’s current special projects director and former executive director. “But it’s always changing, so it’s hard for people to keep up with Smokebrush: the theater, the gallery, the Uncle Wilbur Fountain. The list goes on and on.“
Always an eclectic organization, Smokebrush’s current projects focus on sustainable agriculture, healing arts and indigenous culture. It regularly hosts sell-out farm-to-table dinners at its Rockledge House in Manitou Springs.
It was Goede’s idea to make Bristol’s collab beer a smoked porter with a nod to the organization’s then-location in the Colorado Springs Depot Arts District. It’s a British style beer, but its beechwood-smoked malt comes from Germany. Mike says balance is the key to brewing with smoked malt.
“Our intention with this particular beer is to have that subtle smoke and really nice roasted character,” he says. “You get a little bit more of that coffee, espresso and smoke character. Like my kids, I don’t have any favorite beers, but I have been drinking this beer a little more lately.”
Where to Find the Bristol Brewing Give Back Mix Pack
Be sure to grab your own Give Back Mix Pack while you still can this season — or pick one up as a gift. The brewery is already sold out, but the 12-pack is still available at Colorado Liquor Outlet, Coaltrain, Cheers and select King Soopers around Colorado Springs.
You can read more about Bristol Brewing and our other Best Breweries in Colorado Springs here.
