Beer Garden Party at Haystack Mountain Golfcourse

On Sept 9th, Ales for All along with friends from Haystack Mountain Golfcourse put on a Beer Garden party. We had about 75 people attend this event. Each person was asked to bring some beer, an appetizer and $5 donation for the band, 18switchbacks.

Local Colorado breweries donated beer for sampling. We setup a beer 'station' for each brewer to showcase their beer. Organic beers provided by Asher Brewing included their Green Lantern Kolsch, Tree Hunger Amber and Green Bullet IPA.

Grimm Brothers supplied us with a few year-round beers (Fearless Youth, Little Red Cap and Master Thief) and one specialty beer (Clever Hans).

Oskar Blues provided lots of their delicious beer - beers in cans and growlers of a few specialty beers. Garret Frase from Oskar Blues was on hand to answer questions and discuss craft beers with fellow beer lovers.

Geoff Hess from the Oskar Blues Hops and Heifers farm stopped by as well. Here he is chatting with a few beer lovers:

Craig Taylor from The Pumphouse Brewery was able to show off a few of his beers and enjoy the party. He even ran into an old buddy from school at the party..

Odell Brewing was generous to provide a variety of beers for sampling. The Cutthroat Porter is one of my favorites. Thanks, Amanda!

Bubba Love from Left Hand Brewing dropped off some 400lb Monkey IPA along with their flagship beer, Milk Stout. Thanks for the love, Bubba.

Boulder Beer donated a variety pack of their beers - shoutout to Dan the Chicken Man for that! You can see their 'beer station' here next to Garret from Oskar Blues.

We were fortunate enough to have MouCo Cheese company donate some of their wonderful cheese. If you haven't tried their cheeses, you really should. They have a wonderful Camembert, ColoRouge (munster-type cheese) and Trufello, flavored with truffle oil and flakes. These rinds are soft and delicious (and unwaxed) - be sure to eat the rind since this is where the flavor is at it's peak.

Beer lovers having a good time:

The band, 18Switchbacks, was awesome. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.

Oh, and there was croquet too....

Big Thanks to Maxine (shown below) and CJ from Haystack Mountain Golfcourse for the beautiful beer garden and for being co-hosts with me.

Ales for Females Beer Club Nov'10

I attended the monthly beer club at Left Hand Brewing earlier this week. The topic for November is Harvest Beer and Food.

Eric Wallace made recommendations on how to pair food with beer. He said you want to make sure that the intensity of each are equal. Then, you can pair them because they have complementary flavors or because they have contrasting flavors or both.

The food/beer pairing presented to us included:

Left Hand's Black Jack Porter paired with a Mushroom Ravioli with a little olive oil and some shaved 2 yr old Parmesan cheese.

The earthiness of the mushroom complements the golden hops in the Porter. The malty sweetness and bready characteristics go nicely with the aged cheese.

Next up was Lakefront Brewery's Pumpkin Lager paired with homemade Pumpkin Pie (made by Eric's daughter). The Pumpkin Lager was so lightly spiced that it actually was overpowered by the pumpkin pie.

Then, we had Left Hand's Haystack Wheat paired with homemade cranberry sauce. The cranberry sauce had lots of citrus in it. The tartness of the cranberries were softened by the Wheat beer. The Haystack Wheat has a hints of banana, clove and nutmeg. The cranberry sauce knocked out the banana flavor. This was a very balanced pairing.

As usual, I then tried mixing and matching the pairings to see what else worked and didn't work well together.

Cranberry sauce went well with the Pumpkin Lager, as well as the Haystack Wheat.
Pumpkin Pie paired really nicely with Porter.
Mushroom Ravioli went great with the Porter.

Left Hand Beer and Food Pairing (with Slow Food Boulder)

I attended a Beer and Food Pairing event at Left Hand Brewing earlier this week. The event was sponsered by Slow Food Boulder,

Josh, the head bartender at Left Hand, did a great job of walking us through the beer and food pairings and why they were paired up together. I didn't take notes so you will have to call Josh.

All beer was provided by Left Hand and the food was from a Terroir Restaurant , Haystack Mountain, and Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop.

Here's what we had:
Bruschetta with Cannellini Bean, Rosemary, Truffle Oil and Haystack Mountain Goat Cheese paired with Left Hand Brewing Polestar Pilsner - South German Style Lager (5.5% ABV)

Haystack Mountain Snowdrop: Cultured, Pasturized Goat Milk Cheese paired with Left Hand Sawtooth Ale: Extra Special Bitter (4.8% ABV)

Haystack Mountain Red Cloud: Washed Rind, Raw Goat Milk Cheese (Aged 60 days) paired with Left Hand Brewing 400 Pound Monkey: English Sytle IPA (6.6% ABV)

Belvedere Raspberry Truffle: Milk Chocolate Filled with Raspberry Flavored Chocolate (34% Cacao) paired with Left Hand Brewing Milk Stout: Sweet Stout (5.9% ABV)

Belvedere Royal Truffle: Dark Chocolate Filled with Cognac Flavored Dark Chocolate Ganache (53% Cacao) paired with Left Hand Brewing Imperial Stout: Russian Imperial Stout (10.4% ABV)

It was all delicious! I was particularly fond of the Bruschetta (fabulous!!), the Snowdrop ( I think I preferred this cheese over the Red Cloud, even though the Red Cloud is more aged and more expensive) and the Dark Chocolate was delicious.

Ales for Females - October meeting

The October meeting of Ales for Females (put on by Left Hand Brewery) focused on beers with coffee. Actually, the only beer we had was the Terrapin Midnight Project Depth Charge Espresso Milk Stout – a joint venture between Left Hand Brewing and Terrapin. It was sooooo delicious. It tasted like stout with coffee and cream. Personally, I love coffee and I love beer.

They served the beer in a glass and as an ice cream float. Boston Cream Pie was also served and went nicely with our coffee beer.

Our guest speaker was a guy named, Mike, that works for Allegro Coffee. He had us taste coffee brewed three different ways so we could see how not only does the type of coffee matter but also the way it is brewed.

Unfortunately, Left Hand was nearly out of the Expresso Milk Stout so I wasn’t able to buy any.

Today, I bought a few other beers made with coffee:
• db double black stout with coffee – a limited release by Redhook Ale Brewery

• Péché Mortel(French for mortal sin)– Imperial Coffee Stout by Canadian brewery, Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel!

•Coffee Porter by Meantime Brewing (UK)

• Stone Collaborations – Kona Coffee, Macadamia, Coconut Porter

I plan on having my own beer with coffee tasting sometime soon. Will keep you posted.