Oskar Blues Liquid and Solids Restaurant

Happy Holidays! Christmas Eve at Oskar Blues in Longmont. Drinking nitro Winter Warlock and Strange Brewing Farmhouse Ale, all is good. Crab and corn fritters on the side. Oskar's has a great lineup with Jewbelation 15 and Genesis 15:15 by Hebrew brewing.

Bottle Sharing of Belgian and American Beers

The best way to get beer lovers together is through a bottle share. This is where we go down into our beer cellars and grab bottles that are rare, aged beer, or just to clean out the cellar.

A few of my friends have met up at various locations to share some Belgian and American ales. Larry and I started with a few male friends and it's ended up being almost a couples event. We sometimes forget that women are beer enthusiast as their counterparts.  One of the couples significant other likes wine so she brings her own bottle which sometimes gets shared by a few who for whatever reason don't want to drink beer. This is a social get together as much a beer share.

We used to share at a local brewery but it felt odd drinking beers not from them and I was told it's basically illegal to do it. I'm not sure if that's true but it made us uneasy so we decided that the best place for our bottle share is at one of our homes. Each one of us have had a bottle share in our homes. I like to eat while drinking beer so we potluck snacks to share as way to help to absorb some of the alcohol.

This bottle share was at a local brewery.

One of our friends, Max travels to Belgium every year and brings back beers that are really good and hard to find here in the states. He also goes back east to Detroit and has brought back beers from Michigan such breweries as Founders and Kuhnhenn. Another friend, Mitch has traveled back East and we have enjoyed the ales he has brought back. We haven't been traveling as far as our friends been but we do find some rarities locally, either at the brewery or at a liquor store.

We once bought a couple of bottles of Double Rainbow, a double Saison from Trinity Brewing in Colorado Springs and at Liquor Max Warehouse in Loveland, we found a bottle of Winter Warmer, a barley wine from Equinox Brewing in Ft Collins.  I realize that most people share what's in their cellars but you can find beers that your friends might not have had before from a local liquor store.

I took photos of our empty bottles as a memorial of the great beers we shared.

Kuhnhenn's Barleywine and Bourbon barrel-aged Mead,
Dragonmead Brewing's Crown Jewels IPA, and
Pappy Legba, an Imperial Saison from Trinity Brewing.

Ommegang Choc. Indulgence, New Glarus Serendipity, O'so Brewing Lupulin Maxim,
Perennial Artisan Ales Abraxas, New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb,
Great Divide Barrel-aged Old Ruffian, Crooked Stave Nightmare on Brett,
Harviestoun Ola Dubh, Three Floyds Brewing Alpha King, and
Brooklyn Brewing Local 2.

These were fun in sharing beers but also sharing great times with friends.

Belgian beer

Prearis Quadrupal, Vicaris Generaal, Panneport Reserva 2009 all from Belgium. The Quad was big and rich while the other two were sour. Beer and friends, a great afternoon!