Rocky Mountain High

Last weekend I surprised Micah with a weekend trip to Colorado, because you know, recreational use of marijuana is totally legal there now. Kidding. While there was no toking up for us, we did partake in copious amounts of beer swilling.

We've been to Colorado several times before but all previous visits were during the Great American Beer Festival week, which you can read about here.While GABF is all sorts of awesome, I thought it would be fun to visit during an off-period and besides, last-minute flights were $140 roundtrip! Can't pass that folks.

Most of the trip revolved around visiting breweries that we haven't been to before but I did make Micah hike with me for a very short period of time. The mountains are so close, you have to!

Here's the eating and drinking recap!

FRIDAY:

We started off with an awesome creole breakfast at Lucile's in Fort Collins.

Then I abducted Micah and took him to Lory State Park. We didn't hike too far though, just enough to get a decent picture.

We had to hurry on the hike because I had booked us for a 1 p.m. tour at the New Belgium Brewery -- which we've been to before but it's such a fun tour and delicious samples.

Micah was really disappointed that they weren't serving La Folie. Apparently it's in such high demand that they didn't have enough for the tours, we got Frambozen instead. But all these new barrels should help with the sour beer output.

Right down the way from New Belgium is Odell. We've tried to to visit Odell the past two times but they were closed each time, that wasn't happening on our third trip!

 

{TX needs taprooms like this. Oh wait, breweries can't sell their own product at their own shop! Lame!}

{L: pilot tray at Odell Brewing, R: Equinox Brewing}

SATURDAY:

I booked us a room at the Edwards House B&B and it was a great choice! We got a free room upgrade and a fabulous breakfast!

Despite most of the clientele at the B&B being on the older side, we did have breakfast with a young couple that lo and behold, were homebrewers too! We said we were going to Funkwerks Brewery after we check-out and they were already planning to do the same thing! Small world. We ended up hanging out with them at Funkwerks for a couple of hours!

We actually did buy a bottle of Funkwerks' Mistral to take home! After leaving Funkwerks, we made a beeline straight down to Denver -- so little time, so many beer places! We actually drove straight from Ft. Collins to Crooked Stave. A friend told me about this place and they specialize in sours, so obviously we went there.

While we didn't love any of their beers (there were only 2 on tap), Micah did buy a small bottle that was $12 to take home. Hopefully it's delicious! The tap room is small and it gets packed, so come prepared!

For dinner that night, we visited Hops & Pie (highly recommended from the new b&b friends as well as our SA friends).

While they didn't have any Russian River on tap that day, Lost Abbey was and tons of other great beers. The pies are delicious too!

After dinner, we visited River North brewery. The beers here were decent but nothing to write home about and we definitely didn't buy any beer to go.

SUNDAY:

Since our flight was at 7 p.m., we pretty much had a full day in Denver and didn't want to waste any time!

To kick off my morning, I got this awesome sausage, spinach/artichoke bagel sammy at Hi Rise.

After eating breakfast, we walked over to Mr. B's Liquor store (the store came recommended from the b&b homebrewer folks we had just befriended). While the selection wasn't great, the service was friendly and Micah did pick up a bottle from Russian River. To check out a bigger beer selection, we went to Argonaut's on Colfax. We (and by we, I mean Micah) loaded up on 3 or 4 bottles here.

After our beer shopping, we headed over to a fairly new brewery called Renegade Brewing. They're open on Sundays! At 11 a.m.! I'm down with that and so were other patrons!

My favorite was the Cuban Missle Crisis -- a RIS aged in rum barrels.

Not only did humans like the bar, this pup wanted in on the action too! BEST.PICTURE.EVAR.

After Renegade, we visited Great Divide (we go there every time!) and Dry Dock Brewing on our way out!

I think I've had my fill of beer for the next few weeks! Until next time, CO, cheers!

Off-Centered Beer, Cheese, and Celebs

What does Dogfish Head brews, comedians, films, and food all have in common? Well, in Austin, it turns into the Off-Centered Film Fest!

For the past five years, Dogfish Head has teamed up with the Alamo Drafthouse for this fest (I really think it's because founder of Dogfish Head, Sam Calagione, really likes any excuse to be in Austin!).

While the festival is mainly about the short films and competition, beer and food plays big parts as well.

When an e-mail came into my inbox to attend a beer and cheese event, it took me 2.5 seconds to forward it to Micah with the following text "Don't you want to meet him up close and personal!?"

 {cheese, it's not just friends with wine}

On a balmy Saturday afternoon, Micah and I got a chance to go to a beer and cheese tasting at the Highball. Dogfish Head brews were paired with some delicious cheese from Antonelli's Cheese Shop (this biz is everywhere! Anytime you see a beer/cheese pairing event in ATX, it's with Antonelli Cheese).

{blurry picture of the Highball, I'm the worst at taking pics}

While Sam (the brewer) was still doing interviews, we got started with the first beer/cheese pairing: Namaste (witbier with tons of citrus notes) + Cana de Oveja cheese (soft-ripened sheep's milk cheese). I really love wit beers so this one was my favorite. Micah thinks the Namaste beer is priced too high in the stores, so we don't actually buy it very often. I really liked the lemongrass notes in the beer and it paired beautifully with the soft cheese.

{first pairing}

The second pairing: Aprihop + Pantaleo cheese (hard, goat's milk). This cheese was the one that everybody loves! It went fast. If you don't like apricots, you probably won't like Aprihop, thankfully, I like apricots. The sweetness combined with the hoppiness was nice to cut the fatty cheese.

{second pairing}

Third pairing: 75 Minute IPA + Appalachian (semi-soft cow's milk cheese from Virginia). I'm not a huge fan of IPA's but I can drink a lot more of it when it's paired with delicious cheese! While the cheese was good, I think an even bigger more pungent cheese would have been even tastier!

{third pairing}

While we were enjoying our third tasting, Sam Calagione showed up to hep serve his goods and mingle around the room. We've seen Sam before at GABF, but those events are huge and it's hard to get to talk to him when he's surrounded by hundreds... thousands of beer NERDS! Since this was a much more intimate setting (max 60 people), we got to take a pic with him and talked to him about the now defunct show, Brew Masters. He said he really enjoyed filming the show, but a BIG beer advertiser on Discovery was not happy about the show so they decided to cancel it. That's his account of what happened anyway.

{Us with Dogfish Head Founder/Brewer Sam Calagione}

I also asked him what his favorite Austin breweries are. He said he was friends with the (512) guys, so he liked their beers as well as Live Oak -- he has good taste!

Me: Sam is so nice.

Micah: Yeah, he sure likes to hug. I wonder if he works out? He was kind of buff.

Me: Um. Yeah? Also, he doesn't have a beard like most brewers.

*or something along those lines*

While we were enjoying the beer, Micah pointed to a guy he thought was one of the guys from Stella. Since I knew it wasn't Michael Ian Black, I wasn't interested. Kidding. It was actually the non-Michael of the group, David Wain. He was sitting with a group of folks from Alamo Drafthouse -- I'm sure talking about movie thangs.

{Ken Marino, me, David Wain, and Micah}

Anywho, we grabbed him and mentioned how much Micah loves Stella, he said "thanks," we got a picture and moved on. Oh yeah! We also took the picture with Ken Marino. He looks familiar, yes? He's been in Role Models, Reno 911, and tons of other movies here and there. IMDB that shiz, I can't type it all here.

When we left the party, we both commented on how much fun it was and how random it is that Sam Calagione is friends with these actors? How did those friendships come to be? Was he a fan of their stuff or were they a fan of his beers? Who can say?! But I appreciate that they were all in one room this Saturday afternoon. Too bad Michael Ian Black wasn't there.

GABF Virgins

GABF cherries: popped. We have done the deed... now we can go back to drinking beer at a slower pace.

The Great American Beer Festival is where beer fanboys can geek out at the sight of Sam Calagione, founder of DogFish Head Brewery (side note: he is actually kind of cute in person), without being ridiculed!

We had tickets to Thursday and Saturday afternoon sessions. Some people we talked to went to every.single.session. I was exhausted with just two sessions, I can't imagine attending ALL four!

Saturday's afternoon session is only open to AHA members so there was actually less people to run into inside the convention center. The line was ridiculously long though.

Here are my highlights of the GABF:

1. Breweries that we liked: TAPS, The Lost Abbey, Oskar Blues, O'Dell, Sierra Nevada, and Russian River. I'm sure there were more but we didn't take notes, so there.



2. Women's restroom never had a line, but the Men's did!

3. Wearing this awesome matching t-shirt that Micah got me! HAHA. Church of Zymurology all the way!

4. Not having to drive while intoxicated since our great condo was 1.5 blocks away! SWEET!

{view from our condo}

5. Running into several Bexar Brewers and a few familiar faces from Houston's homebrewing scene.

{Bexar Brewers unite!}

6. Denver. Neither one of us have spent any time in this city so it was fun to explore a new city and it was easy to get around.

7. New Belgium Brewery: The beer was good, the facility was pretty, and the tour was informative.

{Micah would've stolen this if he could}

8. Great Divide Brewing Co.: 4 free tasters always makes for a good tasting room. They even gave impromptu tours the day we were there.

{yummy Hefeweizen}

9. Micah breaking my "GABF Commemorative Glass" 10 minutes into Saturday's session. I got an earful of this:


10. Blanco's Real Ale Brewery taking home a GOLD medal for their Rio Blanco Pale Ale! Representin' the TX Hill Country!

{Real Ale founder and brewer}

I think the GABF is a great place to try beers that you can't get your hands on in your respective state, but all-in-all, it's a bit overwhelming. SO.MANY.BEERS. Not all the beers are great either. Why would you knowingly serve bad beer at this thing?!?! Maybe they didn't know their beer was bad? Who can say.

I would go to GABF again but I would allot some extra time to do more stuff in and around Denver. Next time!

If you're interested in the list of the winners at GABF, click here.