Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Denver and Boulder Brewery Tour de Drunk

While at the GABF last weekend my friends and I made a point to hit all the breweries we didn't last year in Denver and Boulder and mainly hit ones we enjoy and have heard great things about. We started our excursion in Boulder on Friday morning with a fine hangover from the Thursday night session at the GABF and closing down Falling Rock Taphouse with some special released Stone beers. YIKES!

The first place we hit after lunch was Boulder Beer. I have always enjoyed their Looking Glass series beers like Mojo and Hazed and Infused as well as their Planet Porter so we wanted to go to the source and see what else they have going on. We sit down and ask for a sampler, the place is packed with industry tours and a lot of Boulder lunch goers so it took a little bit of time to get the sampler but when it came out, it was their complete offering and about 17 2-3oz samples of all their beers they have on tap. WOW! Nothing like the hair of the dog. LOL.

I flew through their standard offering of beers and gateway beers until I got to a homebrew comp. winner that was brewed in house. It was a weird black licorice wheat of some kind or other, I did not like it but others enjoyed the flavor spike. I have never had licorice in a beer and don't think I will start now. Of the sampler, probably my 2 favorites were a Oak cask version of Mojo and their fresh hop beer. Both had terrific flavors, and were both very drinkable and worth getting more of, the fresh hop beer should be available in Nebraska.

From Boulder we traveled over to the brewery I was looking the most forward to, Avery Brewing. Their motto is "Small brewery, BIG beers." That is definitely true on both accounts. First of all, this is not easy to find. It is in a warehouse strip down an alley, behind a car dealership and through the woods. ;-) As we are driving down this alley looking for any sign that says Avery we see two large outdoor conicals and then the brewery where they had opened the garage doors. They have packed this stuff in and have definitely out grown where they are at and are currently looking for land in Boulder, good luck and they know it. So we keep driving down the alley looking for the tap room and about a block past the brewery is the tap room and cold storage. So if you can imagine what production and distribution is like, the brew the beer in one warehouse, pump it over to another warehouse where the new $1 million bottling line is then they fork lift it back a block to the cold storage where it is shipped from. Not efficient at all but let me tell you what, when you have their beers you know that they will get that land and they will grow. I had Mephistopheles' Stout and an Oak Aged, Beer Engine served something or other that I forgot, I think just their standard Stout. Both these beers were great, amazingly complex and if you can get your hands on Mephistopheles' Stout do it, they were sold out there but it is great. A cool place with cool people working there loving what they do and hoping they get a bigger place some day but I not sure that they should give up the small guy image with fork lifts and things running all over the street.

Finally from there we went over to Mountain Sun Brewery, the hippie run brewery if you will. This is a hole in the wall on Pearl St., but they produce award winning beers and these beers were great as well. I can't recall what I had or what my friends had but I know none of us were disappointed and man, the burger there was juicy as could be and was fantastic! I highly recommend this place but bring cash as they don't take credit cards or checks.

I will post my Denver tours in the next couple days where we hit Great Divide, Flying Dog, Stranahan's Whiskey and Breckenridge Brew Pub.

2 comments:

CJ said...

Nate,

I too like Avery. They are a bit one dimensional as all thier offerings are high gravity beers. Most beers are Imperial strength normal styles. I do like The Kaiser though which is a big O'fest. And their normal RIS is good as well.

With all the recent talk about low gravity ales and lagers. I will admit that there is a place in the market for the high gravity stuff. I really enjoy some of the avery offerings, but you won't catch me drinking them all the time.

As for Boulder Beer Co. I would love to try that taster line up!! And I have never heard of the last brewery that you visited in Boulder. I may have to make a special trip to Boulder sometime.

Thanks for the write up...but where are the pics???

Peace out

Nate B. said...

the pix are coming tomorrow with the Flying Dog and Stranahan's write up. BTW, talk about two totally different breweries, Flying Dog is much larger than Avery and except for their Fermenting room and brewery you wouldn't guess it because it is held together by stickers I think. Ha!! A really cool vibe in that place though.