Phantom Canyon Brewing Company has been a steward of Colorado Brewing since 1993 (celebrating 30 years this year). But progress is about moving with the times, and understanding the evolving beer culture while continuing to be a place where memories are made.
Charles McManus, current head brewer at Phantom Canyon who made the transition from Wynkoop Brewing in Denver, is focused on legacy, both of the brewery itself and also of his own path.
McManus was born in Macon, Georgia, but grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. He went to Florida State University (FSU) and got his BA in Food Science. Toward the end of his college career, he began home brewing. There was a solid home-brewing community in Tallahassee, where FSU is based. When he graduated college in 2011, he drove to Atlanta in hopes of finding a job with Sweetwater Brewing, a Georgia brewing institution. They, unfortunately, did not have anything for him at the time.
“I saved my money to move out here to Colorado with my friends and we landed in Boulder, which was great for me because the homebrewing scene in Boulder was untouchable, and I made a lot of connections,” he says.
Eventually, McManus connected with some friends who worked at Wynkoop Brewing in Denver. He started coming into the brewery trying to make himself useful. “A shadow brewer can be a fun day, but it can also be miserable.”
McManus said he just kept cleaning everything at Wynkoop, which boded well for him until the powers that be were like, “Oh, OK. You can come back.”
McManus then worked on the canning line, in the brew house, and moved his way up, assisting the lead brewers as they revolved through. “Finally, they had a good one. After about a year or two of him being my mentor, I was offered the job at Phantom.” Phantom Canyon is owned by Wynkoop, which opened PC in the Springs in 1991. McManus has been at Phantom since 2018.
McManus watched the IPA movement gain traction before he left Florida. When McManus arrived at Phantom, he saw that the Streamliner, which is an American IPA, was one of their flagships. “It’s a great, well-balanced, very bright, and nicely bittered IPA.”
The Streamliner’s taste has become a standard – what McManus considers an old-school American IPA. “It’s got a lot more crystal malt and it’s a little darker.” This malt creates a backbone that stands up against the hops. For McManus, this integrates into the interesting continuation of generational palette change.
“When I order an IPA or somebody my age group or a little younger orders an IPA, that [malt] is not what they want. That’s not what they’re expecting. They want that West Coast IPA with that hazy absolute hoppy aromatic flavor, with not so much bitterness, more of a juicy character.” The way he found to balance the Streamliner was with their 719 IPA, which skews hazier.
Cyclical Trends in the Beer Industry at the Phantom Canyon Brewing Company
McManus believes we are also on the precipice of another change in the craft brew industry. The younger consumers and brewers who were all about the milkshake IPAs and the wild fruit flavors and every ingredient that could be added have begun backing off on this approach.
McManus, as a brewer, says he tends to lean toward the traditional older brewer side anyway. The transition of taste is that most of the current generations, old and young, are now used to going to craft breweries. They’re used to buying local beer and supporting local businesses.
“And we always see this in beer, this cyclical element of coming back to the basics. ‘What’s something that I could have a few of?’ You can’t just have six sour beers without having your gut rot.” The tendency is becoming more, “Could I grab a six-pack of this because it’s just an easy drink? It tastes good. It’s crisp. And it’s local.”
McManus sees a return to this interest in styles that one would call “traditional.” “But it’s interesting watching that kind of go back and forth. And the older crew, they’re open to experimentation a little more than they used to be on the same point…because now they’re used to it.”
What McManus loves about beer as well is that “we are simple creatures. We tend to go in cycles. So, it’s only a matter of time before we get back to the wild crazy shit and then back to the simple stuff. On my end, I love both sides of it. I love experimenting but I also love and particularly lean towards brewing traditional solid lagers, because those are the most difficult to execute.”
McManus says it is always the mark of a good brewer when you have a solid pilsner. “That’s just like when I judge a new pizza place, I judge just a slice of a slice of cheese. If that slice of cheese is good, you could drop any other toppings you want on there, and it’s going to be a good piece of the pie. So, a good pilsner, if you can execute that, chances are the rest of your beers are going to be pretty attended to and trustworthy.”
As a brewer, McManus explains, he always tries to tap into the fact that beer is tied to agriculture, and therefore the seasons make a big difference. “We brew with the seasons, meaning we need to be about two months or so ahead of the seasons as far as having beers released and appropriately timed.” McManus always likes to have at least one good dark beer on the tap line.
“At the moment, we’ve got a 5% Irish stout and we’ve got a 9% chocolate imperial stout. But those are just two options you can get that are similar in character but different altogether, just as far as an ABV. One is less rich. One is just roasty.”
On the hoppy side of things, McManus says they’ve got a variety of hoppy beers in a variety of ABVs. He plans on a 4% session IPA soon just to counterbalance the fact that they have a 9% Imperial IPA. “So we’re always kind of keeping the balance.”
Understanding Limitations and Moving Forward
Phantom Canyon is the oldest brewery in town, but McManus explains that their brewhouse has limitations as far as how they can brew and how they can keep their yeast happy. “So how I do that throughout the seasons is timing and scheduling different brews based off of not just those [elements of climate] but also the tiny microbe that rules my life known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae.” [*also known as brewer’s yeast]
“I do my best to plan ahead. I also have to make sure that my flagships are on at all times. And within those parameters, I can experiment with different flavors, different ingredients.”
What McManus has found in the difference between when he was brewing for Denver versus Colorado Springs, reflects largely in the military crowd. “I mean, it’s once a week at least, there’s some military person, who was deployed in Germany – and they’re usually referencing the Hefeweizen – they look at me and they’re like, ‘This is it. This is what I had in Germany when I was over there for a few years. You’ve nailed it. This Hefeweizen is amazing.’ Or they’ll try the Vienna Lager and go, ‘Holy crap! I haven’t had a Vienna like this since I was over there.’”
Here in the Springs, McManus says doing those traditional approaches, particularly with German styles, is cool for him because he enjoys making those technically difficult beers anyway.
Phantom Canyon is also reflected in legacy. “I think the first step is recognizing that you are standing on the shoulders of giants, especially at Phantom Canyon. I think I’m the seventh head brewer in 30 years.” Phantom Canyon is celebrating its 30th anniversary in December 2023. “We’ve got a guy here, a bartender here who started day one with this company and is still one of our bartenders.”
McManus also talks to legacy bartender Johnny Mills and asks him, “How have we done over the years? Were there down years? Were there up years? Who was in charge when it was up? Who was in charge when it was down? And why was it down?”
McManus says one of the toughest times of his career and yet one of the strongest parts of his legacy was running Phantom when it was shut down to the public during the pandemic. “I had to run this place and I ran Wynkoop, so I was the head brewer for both. I was running back and forth from Denver to the Springs, trying to carry the torch for this company, not necessarily for any other reason than the people that [trusted and] trained me. It was like, if this torch is now in my hands, I’m not going to drop it. We’re going to run this till the wheels come off. And I’m going to go as hard as possible. These people that trained me, the people that trained them, and this lineage, this family tree that we have in this company, is insane.” McManus intends to honor it.
“I mean, the lifetime achievement award, and brewers innovation award given out by the Brewers Association every year, is named after the original head brewer at Wynkoop: Russell Scherer.” McManus is comfortable with the fact that their beer at Phantom Canyon is solid. “I want to leave a legacy of my own. What I try to do is constantly raise our standards because that’s where we should be. At 30 years old, we should be distinguished and refined and not backtracking.”
As the brewing scene in the Springs evolves, McManus also wants all the local brewers to be better and better “because this town has an awesome scene. And with both the older guard and the younger crowd, there’s demand for good quality beer.”
