I have always considered myself a beer expert. After all, I am from Germany, beer epicenter of the world. (At least, that is what we like to tell ourselves).

I grew up northern Germany, where beer was a central part of the culture. Later, I lived in Munich, where it defines the culture.

I was convinced that I knew a lot about beer.

Then I came to Denver.

In town as a Denver Post guest reporter, I was looking forward to exploring the local beer culture and immersing myself in craft brews. Perhaps, I thought, I could even impress some of the locals with my German beer expertise.

Talk about foolish. Nobody around here seems to need expertise, let alone that of a German.

I was stunned to discover the array of different styles, the creativity and the finesse that has come with the craft beer boom. Some people I met on my research trip through Denver’s breweries seemed just as stunned — by my lack of knowledge.

On my visit to a bar famous for its sour beers — Crooked Stave, located inside The Source in the River North neighborhood — bartenders served me their Surette saison, a petite sour blueberry, and their Nightmare on Brett, which was pitched as a “10-second journey on your palate.”

Barman Jesse predicted: “You will taste caramel, dark coffee, dark chocolate, a hint of smokiness, roasted malts, and a balsamic tartness.” My German palate tasted at least tartness and coffee, and I did smell the caramel.

I dared a Crooked Stave bartender, Molly, what a saison actually was. “I am surprised you don’t know this,” she said. It’s “funky,” she explained, then added, “You must have them back home.”

The thing is, we don‘t. German beer culture sticks to its own traditions: Pils in the north, Kölsch and Alt in the west, Dunkel in between, Helles and Weizen in the south. Our beer has been good for centuries. Perhaps, it dawned on me now, this has led to a certain isolation. Even the Belgian saison can seem more foreign to a German than to a Coloradan.

On my stop at Great Divide on Arapahoe Street in Denver, a bartender poured me their Yeti staple, both the oatmeal and the chocolate oak aged versions. It was great beer, even though it was hard for me to taste the nuances.

On my tour, I had some almond milk stout, a lot of sours that made me squish my face with distaste, and a jalapeno blonde ale — yes, it tasted as hot as it sounds. It was a whole new world for my senses.

Sure, they were all good, but where were the good old German beers? When I asked for a pilsner at Great Divide, one of the women sitting at the bar gave me a short, disdainful look. Was that a strange thing to ask for around here?

“It‘s just that everybody does them, but we don’t,” the bartender said. She offered me a rice beer instead.

Everybody does pilsners? Well, I did not find one at Crooked Stave. I did not find one at Black Shirt Brewing on East 37th Avenue and Walnut Street in Denver, where they focus on their Red Ale Project and needed 167 attempts before they finally found their Colorado Red Ale. (That final attempt was tasty though, no doubt.)

I have come to admire that precision, tenacity and creativity that small brewers display in Colorado. But at some point, I started to miss uncomplicated German beer.

We do have craft breweries back home, too. (In Berlin, I can recommend the laid-back Eschenbräu.) But we also have local and regional breweries that have been around for centuries. From my time in Bavaria, I can say my favorite beer is Helles, which breweries like Augustiner or Tegernseer have made forever.

I asked Jace, the friendly and knowledgeable bartender at Black Shirt, about it. He had heard of Helles, but didn’t believe he had ever tried it.

They did have a Kölsch, albeit a red Kölsch. (Technically, for a beer to be called Kölsch it must be brewed within 50 kilometers of Cologne, but nobody around here seems to care.) One customer, Zach, sat next to me at the bar and suddenly became interested in the Kölsch. He tried a sip and looked unimpressed. “It has no bite. There is nothing after,” he said. And I have to admit: The Kölsch seemed a bit lame compared to their more complex brews.

But in my world, a bit lame is OK. In Germany, when you meet for a beer, you meet to talk. You have the beer — or two or three or four — but the beer is not the subject of your conversation. In Colorado taprooms, it seems to be different.

A nice surprise came at Comrade Brewing on East Iliff Avenue in Denver. Their bestseller is, of course, an IPA (it is good), but they did also have a Helles on tap.

Brewmasters Marks Lanham and Mike Durland said the brewery wanted to make beers that you can drink several of. That resonated well with a German.

Needless to say, the Helles was good. Why is it so rare in Denver then? “It took us 81 days to make it,” Marks said. It is much faster to make an IPA (just one more thing I did not know).

So at the end of my crawl, I made it to an all-German brewery, Bierstadt Lagerhaus in RiNo. They brew according to 500-year-old German purity laws that allow only water, barley and hops. And they had a Helles on tap. It took just one sip to feel at home. The Helles tasted like Helles, and the slow-pour pils felt like home.

The owners were traveling through Bavaria when I got there. Bartender Michael provided me with his take of the scarcity of German beers in Denver. “It is harder to make one,” he said. It takes longer, “and with more alcohol, you can balance out bad tastes more easily.” The more experienced brewers get, the more they would turn to regular 5 percent beers.

Was I relieved to hear that! So, after all, good old German beer might eventually claim its spot in Colorado.

In fact, several of the brewers I spoke to said the trend was moving toward sessionable beers again. The German way!

Even at the Mecca of Belgian sours, Crooked Stave, the brewers have a pilsner and Kölsch in the making. “I am just wondering,” bartender Jesse told me, “what our brewmaster will add to Americanize it.”