For the trek back home, we scheduled a pretty aggressive beer tour through NorCal and Colorado. A quick rundown of the breweries: North Coast, Sierra Nevada, Moab, Breckenridge, Great Divide, Avery, Twisted Pine, Ft. Collins, New Belgium, Odell, Funkwerks, Left Hand.
We took a jaunt north up to North Coast in Ft. Bragg. We bypassed a few other NorCal spots like Menodcino, Anderson Valley, and Lost Coast in the interest of time.
We had an ok meal at the brewery, and it was nice to see the whole lineup on draft. A secondary shop was across the street with lots of swag.
Finally heading back east, we ran into Chico to pop in to Sierra Nevada.
SN is no small operation, and their facility shows it. The great thing about breweries is that they recycle when they can. Aside from the typical practice of shipping spent grain to farms, SN composts their used material and uses plenty of solar panels to take advantage of the CA sun.
The brewery also operates a full-blown restaurant which was pretty good, and it was nice to have a good meal under the sun.
The long drive through Nevada and Utah was punctuated by a stop into Moab Brewery after some hiking at Canyonlands and Arches. The real gem of the whole trip, however, was hitting up the Denver area breweries. After some iffy weather through western CO, we rolled into Breckenridge for a handful of drinks.
Great Divide was a short walk away which had a really nice lineup.
The bar was pretty small, but the whole operation itself was pretty small, relatively speaking. Not much food to speak of, but the tour is decent and the bar is great.
I've had the chance to sample offerings from Avery now and again, always pretty good but nothing outstanding.
Seeing a full lineup from Avery was pretty cool. They do some pretty exclusive stuff. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is pretty crummy, very college UG feel. We ordered some light food, some sort of sweet potato tater tot chili cheese concoction, which was pretty great except for the swarm of flies in the joint.
The beer was pretty damn good though.
We ended the first day at Twisted Pine, which was a bit of an off place,populated by mostly older folks in contrast to Avery. The beer was a little tamer aside from the Ghost Face Killa that I tried. Brewed with ghost peppers, it is the hottest thing I've ever tasted. Plenty of chili beers have a peppery taste with some degree of burn, but this one just kept burning, most of it hitting after the swallow so you have no idea what you're in for. It's one of the more impressive beers I've have, and so I brought back a few bottles.
We were the first visitors at Ft. Collins Brewery the next morning. We showed up at open, but apparently their winter hours were different from what was on their website. They served their samplers in something that looked like an oak stave which was pretty nice. I do recall the chili beer here which I found very pleasant and well-balanced.
The next big hit was New Belgium; we had to book the tour over a month in advance. New Belgium is a brewery that's always been near and dear to me. I remember drinking Fat Tire in UG as a luxury. Even these days, it's still a solid beer. I recall reading that their were starting canning, but sure enough, I saw 12-packs of Fat Tire and Ranger in micro-kegs.
New Belgium is a pretty green brewery. They do the efficiency-driven techniques of recycling kettle water and heat exchange, but they also own a good-sized piece of property. In addition to solar, they have covered a few ponds on their property as methane generators. Pretty cool.
They do a lot of bike-related art, of which I was fond. Chairs and balanced sculptures. Also, barrels of La Folie.
Odell had a nice feel in their taproom. The tour itself wasn't much to speak of, but the tap room was by far one of the largest I've seen, lots of polished wood and windows to catch the Colorado sun.
We ordered a couple of the pre-built flights to hit pretty much everything of interest. The swag shop was displayed in crates against the wall which was unobtrusive but also weird. I will note that Odell uses brushed cotton for their shirts like Backcountry, in contrast to most folks who use American Apparel or heavy duty types like Gildan.
We also managed to get some time in Funkwerks, a tiny little operation cranking out funky Belgian saisons. Their merch was pretty good, I have to say. It reminded me a bit of some of the old Element product. There was also a onesie that was pretty awesome.
Left Hand was another sort of odd place whose crowd was akin to Twisted Pine. The beers were great and came with great regard. The merch was also pretty nice but somewhat overpriced compared to most places. I walked away with just a pint glass though all the merch, glassware included, was pretty cool.
At some point, we also hit Oskar Blues which was across the highway from the hotel at which we were staying. A jaunt across the highway and a skip under the fence led us to show up in some roundabout side of OB but we found our way inside anyway. The experience was rather underwhelming. The staff looked mostly like high school kids, the food tasted a bit pre-packaged and rather salty, and the service was fairly slow. Still, Oskar Blues's bar was good, and their brews are great.
Past CO, there wasn't much to hit. Boulevard was booked up, and we weren't passing by Shlafly. There was the standard hit at Goose Island and then a one-day haul back to NY. At some point, I would like to hit up the Ohio breweries. Overall, it was a pretty solid trip. Very few places have the density of top notch breweries like Denver area but cramming a dozen breweries into two days, not for the weak-willed, but very awesome.
