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.

The Rare Barrel Brewery: No tasters!

I was recently in California and was eager to visit The Rare Barrel Brewery in Berkeley. I first encountered the brewery at the 2014 Great American Brew Fest in Denver and I was amazed by the sour ales from such a young brewery.

It took awhile to find the place, the brewery is in a receded kind of alley way between two other buildings.

The taproom reminds me of Oskar Blues Brewery, where it's part of the brewery not a separate room. You can drink your beer with a view of the barrels in the back. There were many many barrels, I had to remind myself that I wasn't at Avery Brewing with barrels going up towards the ceiling.

We approached the bar that was full, but there's a space for ordering beers by the cash register. The bartender asked what we wanted to order and when I asked for a taster set, we were told that on the back of the menu it's stated they don't do tasters. Okay, so I order a beer and went to a barrel table and stood there while drinking my beer. Low and behold, at the bar another bartender was giving a couple tasters of the beers.

What, I thought they didn't do that! So my husband asked another staff member about it and she said it was up us to ask for tasters, what!

So my dilemma is, what constitutes a taster? I get a confused look by waitstaff who don't understand what I want, a full 4-5 ounce of beer or a splash of beer. What is the right vernacular for ordering a taster?

On a positive note, the beer was excellent. I had the Keen Observation of the Echo Series, a golden sour aged in unrinsed Map of the Sun, their golden sour aged with apricots. It was really tart and very flavorful. i would recommend going there but just be warned, NO TASTERS!

Taste Travel Vacations is offering a Belgium Beer Tour this summer. It will be July 26 - Aug 1 2015, starting in Brussels, the highlight of that day will be going to Cantillon Brewery for a tour and tasting of their wonderful beers. Then a conversation with Jean Hummler of Moeder Lambic. It will be a world wind vacation, 7 days in 7 cities in Belgium but it will be worth it. Belgium is a small country that travel within doesn't take too much time on the road, for instance it's only two hours travel from Brussels to Bouillon. 

The cities that are in the itinerary are; Bouillon, Dinant, Ghent, Mechelan, Watou, and Brugges. Each of these cities has famous breweries and tap houses that will astound your beer taste buds. The tour includes 10 breweries and two museums with enough time for you to go off and explore.

The Belgium Beer Tour is $3,300 which includes accommodations, transportation within Belguim, and breakfast and dinner. You will get to experience the cuisines of these cities along with locally made cheeses and chocolates at Laurent Gerbaud. 

There is also different options in addition, such as public or private tours that are either classic or deluxe. For private tours, you can book it with friends, colleagues, and the like on any day with availability of accommodations. Public tours are all classic. 

All you need is to book the flight, bring extra for personal expenses, gratuity of tour guides, and unfortunately transportation to and from destination.