the colorado beer scribe: 2013 GABF week-Colorado Beer Tour, Part 2

Now that the GABFest is here let's take our Colorado Beer Tour to Longmont and Niwot. This is part 2 of the GABF week series. Longmont is the home to two breweries, Oskar Blues and Left Hand. These breweries have given Longmont the name as one of the beer destinations during GABF week.

Oskar Blues Brewing has been in Longmont since 2008 canning over 100,000 barrels of beer. The Tasty Weasel is located in the brewery where fermenters, the canning line is in full view from the taproom. They can beer Monday-Friday so if your curious to see how fast their canning line is, I recommend going then. The weekends are quieter except for the music being pumped into the room via a sound system. All the taproom servers are friendly and knowledgeable about Oskar Blues beer. There are over 10 taps including the hand pull for cask conditioned ale. The bar sets plenty and there is many table plus patio seating. For GABF, the Tasty Weasel will be having events all week long. Call the taproom for more details.

Oskar Blues Brewery
Tasty Weasel Taproom
1800 Pike Rd
Longmont, CO 80501
(303) 776-1914

Homemade Liquids and Solids is another Oskar Blues venue with over 40 taps pouring only domestic craft beer and they don't have bottled beer. Check out there website to see what beers are on tap at the restaurant. I talked to Lou McKercher, who is the manager there and he was stoked about what was going to be tapped during GABF week. Each day there will be a tap takeover from a brewery.

Oskar Blues
Homemade Liquid and Solids
1555 S. Hover Rd
Longmont, Co
(303) 485-9800

Next brewery for our GABF week tour is Left Hand Brewery which is just 5 or so minutes away from Oskar Blues. Left Hand Brewing is the oldest brewery in Longmont and most of us started our beer education there when the taproom was the size of a closet. They have grown since then with many expansions of their taproom. They will be having rare beer tappings all week long starting Monday Oct. 7.

Monday - Fade to Black Vol. 5, Black Rye Ale
Ambidextrous Ale Step 5, Sweet Stout style
Sticke Alt

Tuesday - Fade to Black Vol. 4, Rocky Mountain Black Ale
Beer Week Sauce, Coffee Porter

Wednesday - Deep Cover Brown Ale

Firkin Off - competition between the
Left Hand production crew with 6 cask condition ale
of throwback series for the 20th Anniversary
of the brewery with Jackman's Pale Ale,
Deep Cover Brown ale, Motherlode
Golden Ale, Dunkelweiss, and Munich Dark Lager.

Thursday - Jackman's, Pale Ale
Motherlode Ale, Golden Ale
Fade to Black Vol. 2, Smoke Baltic Porter

Friday - Fade to Black Vol. 1, Foreign Export Stout
Fade to Black Vol. 2, Smoked Baltic Porter
Sawtooth Nitro, ESB
Milk Stout Nitro, Sweet stout
Wake Up Dead Nitro, Russian Imperial Stout
Munich Black Lager
Milk stout nitro glass giveaway, buy a pint
and keep the glass.

Saturday - Dunkelweiss, Dark wheat ale
Fade to Black Vol. 3, Pepper Port
Oktoberfest, American Red Ale
St. Vrain Tripel, Belgian Strong Ale

Left Hand Brewing
1265 Boston Ave
Longmont, Co
(303) 772-9572

There another brewery that is located south of Longmont in the town of Niwot, Bootstrap Brewing. Steve Kaczeus is the owner along with his wife, Leslie and he is also the brewer. Bootstrap is a friendly place to have a beer. They will be tapping a double dry hopped the Insane Rush IPA with Citra hops and will have a Merlot aged Brown on tap as well. If you find yourself wandering around in Niwot please stop on by for a pint at Bootstrap, the Kaczeus' will welcome you.