KEYSTONE, COLORADO
Six miles from Breckenridge, Keystone’s River Run Village featured mall shops, luxurious condominiums, and skiing trails during August ’07 dinner trek. Intimately upscale dark-lit WOLF ROCK BREWING (permanently closed 2008) had small outdoor deck, large dining facility, and midsize U-shaped mahogany bar (cornered by televisions and next to open kitchen). Wines, martinis, vodkas, bourbons, and cognacs appeased affluent patronage.
Superb elk, steak, and lamb dishes went well with brewer Cory Forster’s corn-sugared wheat-honeyed lemon-backed white-breaded Paymaster Pilsner, lemon-wedged orange-aided honey-grained Wolf Rock Wheat, and hazelnut-butternut-ensconced red-yellow-fruited Leroy Brown. So-so seasonals were black peppered chipotle-faded grain-toasted silken-hopped Montezuma Marzen and soapy banana-sweet bland-spiced Dercum’s Dunkel Weiss. Best bet: piercingly sharp pine-topped dry-hopped grapefruit-pineapple-green apple-propped International IPA.