GABF week 2015, day 3

Tuesday was Upslope Brewing GABF specials that hit both our fancies, mine and my husbands. Upslope Brewing has something new on tap everyday of GABF.  Upslope has two taprooms, the original at Lee Hill Rd in North Boulder, and the Flatirons Circle in east Boulder.

The Lee Hill taproom had on their Lee Hill Vol. 3 barrel-aged series. It was an imperial stout that was aged for 6 months in a barrel and then keg aged for another 6 months.

At the Flatirons taproom, the special beer was a 3 year old Barleywine.

For more GABF specials at Upslope Brewing, http://upslopebrewing.com/blog/

Day 2 of GABF week, 2015

Monday at Backcountry Pizza was an IPA event with Melvin Brewing, Comrade Brewing, and Cannonball Creek Brewing. 

The lineup was fantastic!

Melvin 2x4 and Comrade Hop Chop.

1. Melvin 2x4                                       

2. Melvin Fresh Hop 2x4

3.Melvin The New Sheriff

4. Melvin Ch-Ch-Cherry Bomb

5. Melvin Donkey Punch

6. Comrade Superpower

7. Comrade Superdamp

8. Comrade Honeyman VII

9. Comrade Hop Chops

10.Cannonball Creek Not Mind Bender

11. Cannonball Creek Project Alpha 4

12. Cannonball Creek Black 28

13. Cannonball Creek Mocha Porter

14. Fresh Hop Featherweight Pale Ale

Also- Classic Kung Fu Movies on the TVs, Wu Tang on the stereo. this is tradition when Melvin Brewing is featured at Backcountry Pizza.

(list from Backcountry Pizza Facebook page) 

GABF 2015 week, day 1

It's GABF week again and this is going to be another great week of beer events going on before the festival. Let's start with Sour Sunday at Backcountry Pizza and Tap House in Boulder, CO.  Owner, John Fayman has done it again with over 50 sour ales from all over the world. This is the third year he has kicked off GABF week with Sour Sunday.

Backcountry Pizza opened at 10 am that day but there was a line that started much earlier with enthusiastic beer drinkers. We got there at 10:05 at the place was packed, it was a good thing our friends got there earlier and saved us two seats.

This was taken around 10:30 am, place was packed!

For Sour Sunday, beers were either a full pour or half, where full pours were 10 ounces. I decided that to be able to taste more beers I would order half pours. I ordered two sour ales, The Cut, a 5.0% ABV cherry sour from Casey Brewing and Blending and Peach Oscar, a 8.5% sour from New Belgium. I didn't like the Cut at all, it had some really funky tastes going on but the Peach Oscar was really good.

Cherry Busey and The Cut.

My next sour was from the Sun King Brewing, Cherry Busey. It is a barrel aged Flanders-style Oud Bruin with Montmorency cherries that is 6.5% ABV. It was another tasty sour ale with a cherry aroma and just the right tartness.

The last beer for me was one of the reason I love Sour Sunday, a cask of Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus. It's a lushous fambroise that's only 5.0% ABV. The nose of this beer is full of raspberries with a rosey colored body. I waited 2 hours for a pour of this beer and it was worth it.

Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus and a slice of cheese pizza.

There was also a special menu for this event. Breakfast was served,  eegs, biscuit and gravy, raspberry scone, mushroom and goat cheese quiche, and a fruit parfait. There was also a special lunch menu that had some tasty looking entrees too. I had the mushroom and goat cheese quiche, it had a little too much goat cheese for my taste. Larry, my husband, had the eggs, biscuit and gravy. He said it was good but there were ham pieces in it which he thought was kind of weird.

Mushroom and goat cheese quiche.

Sour Sunday was a success with good friends, great beer, and good eats!

The servers were hopping that day.

Sour Sunday 2015

Sour Sunday at Backcountry Pizza, kick off to GABF. Opened at 10:00, a line started at 9:30! John Fayman stores up sour ales from all over. This is his 3rd year of doing this.

Barley's Angels and Boulder Beer

Barley’s Angels Colorado had an event at Boulder Beer in Boulder on Sept 2.  There are two reasons why this was a rare event, 1) only 3 angels were there including me, Boulder Beer said it was okay so we went with it, 3) this is the first event that a man was included, my husband Larry.  Boulder Beer hosted a beer and food pairing.

Chicken Dan, Larry, Eola, and Kirsten

Our tour guide was Chicken Dan, yup, that’s what he called himself. He told us how he was bestowed that monicker, apparently it has to do with that 70’s Commodore song, “Brick House”  and the line, “shake it down, shake it down, shake it down down”, someone changed it to “Chicken Dan, Chicken Dan, Chicken Dan Dan.”  He is quite a character to say in the least.  Dan has been employed at Boulder Beer for 13 years and is in Marketing.

He took us on the tour of the brewery and it was very interesting. Their facility is still very hands on which is odd since most of the biggies have gone to mostly automation. They have a bottling and canning line plus they wash other breweries kegs with their keg washer. We asked about that after seeing Bootstrap Brewing kegs. They even have a few Bourbon whiskey barrels which surprised me, I didn’t know they had a barrel-aging program.

Canning line.

After our tour, we got down to business with pairing beer with small plates of food.  First course was a large soft pretzel that is brushed with Mojo IPA, sprinkled with kosher salt and on the side is chili con queso dipping sauce. This was paired with the Mojo 
IPA. My husband thought that the hoppy bitterness of the beer cuts the hotness of the queso. I didn’t really like this pairing because the queso was really hot in my mouth and no milk to cut the capsaicin.

Second course was a special that isn’t on their pub menu, a Cuban sandwich that was paired with Dragonhosen Imperial Oktoberfest. The name of the beer comes from their brewer who invertedly said he didn’t know what to call the Oktoberfest cause he’s just a guy dragging hoses around. Ha!  The Oktoberfest paired well with the Cuban sandwich, the sweetness of the sandwich contrasted with the richness of the beer.

The last course was a complementary pairing of their Shake Chocolate Porter in liquid form, beer and in frozen form,  ice cream.  Of course, this was a good pairing.

Great thanks to Jaime, the taproom manager for going through with the event for our small group of Barley’s Angels.

Jaime, tarproom manager.

It was a nice evening of conversation within our small group. I hadn’t been in the Boulder Beer taproom in many years and who knows, I might go there another time but much sooner.