Tony Rau isn’t going to lie. He was a little nervous. An experienced beer maker, Rau had spent eight years honing his craft at Odell Brewing before joining Great Divide Brewing in 2019 as the Innovation Brewer, overseeing the company’s two five-barrel pilot systems in Denver and Castle Rock. He was pretty confident in his ability, but even so, the latest project he’d been tasked with came with a little bit of pressure: revamping the recipe for Titan IPA. The beer has a legendary history — as any titan should. Created in 2004, Titan was launched at a time when bitter IPAs were capturing beer drinkers’ attention along with their tastebuds, and it quickly became a favorite in Colorado, where there weren’t that many similar hop bombs. By 2008, Titan was being used by beer judges nationwide as an exemplar of the American IPA style — alongside California icons like Bear Republic Racer 5, AleSmith IPA, Sierra Nevada Celebration, Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’, Stone IPA and Russian River Blind Pig.