Colorado Mtn Brewery Tasting

A friend and I went to the mountains of Colorado to check out a few breweries. We didn't pick the best weather day - it was raining and sleeting a little bit but we had a great time.

First stop was the DAM Brewery in Dillon.



We had samples of:
Extra Pale Ale (brought home a growler of this one)
Sweet George's Brown
McLuhr's Irish Stout




Their logo is so cute - 'Get your own DAM beer' - we had to each buy a t-shirt!



Next stop was Breckenridge Brewery in Breckenridge. This place felt more corporate and the service was crappy. In fact, I didn't even take any photos. We had their Belgium Wit.



As we headed back towards home, we hit up the BackCountry Brewery in Frisco. We sampled their Telemark IPA and Peak One Robust Porter. Both were delicious.

Our final stop was Tommy Knocker's Brewery in Idaho Springs. Here we tasted their Cocoa Porter and their Black Powder Stout.





As we drove down the canyon into Golden, CO, we spotted three young Big Horn Sheep.



It was a great day. I hope to do something like this again soon.

Cheers!

GABF Beer Tasting at The Pumphouse

The Pumphouse in Longmont has been doing these really great beer tastings every month during 2010. I have attended them all except for the Strong Ale one in February (I missed out on getting my ticket in time).

The tasting for October focused on winners from the Great American Beer Festival. The guest speaker was Gary Glass from the Brewers Association. He explained how the judging process works and presented the 14 different winners. He also reviewed the category for each winner. There were 3,594 different beers entered in the GABF from 522 different breweries. These beers were judged by 150 judges. That's a lot of beer!

Our greeting beer was the Pumphouse 4-Alarm Copper Ale. This beer is a German-style Altbier that won a GABF medal in 2004.

The beers we sampled were:

Miller Light - Gold winner in the American-sytle Light Lager (category #29)

Trumer Pils - Gold winner in the German-style Pilsner category (#25)

Del Norte Manana - Gold winner in the American-style Amber lager category (#33)

Pyramid Apricot Ale - Silver winner in the Fruit Beer category (#3)

Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale - Gold in the English-sytle Pale Ale (#43)

Mountain Sun Illusion Dweller Pale Ale - Silver in the English-style IPA (#44)

Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale - Silver in Double Barrel Ale (#52)

Firestone Walker Pale 31 - Silver in American-sytle Pale Ale (#45)

Bristol Laughing Lab - Bronze in the Scotish-style Ale (#54)

Walnut Brewery Old Elk Brown - Gold in the English-style Brown (#56)

Ommegang 3 Philosophers - Bronze in the Belgium-style Abbey (#67)

Bristol Old #23 Barleywine - Silver in the Barleywine category (#79)

Twisted Pine Big Shot Espresso Stout - Bronze in the Coffee-flavored Beer (#6)

CB and Potts Dark Side Lager - Bronze in the European-style Dunkel category (#32)

My personal favorites were the Firestone Pale 31, Firestone DBA and Twisted Pine Big Shot Espresso Stout. Yum!