Colorado produces the most beer in the country. Like all good beer-lovers, we challenged ourselves to average a new brewery a day for our month in Boulder. We almost succeeded. (But if you count duplicates, we passed with flying colors.)
Thanks to the Pittsburgh beer scene (especially Wednesday tastings at Carson Street Deli), we were already familiar with many Colorado breweries, such as Great Divide, Oskar Blues, Avery, etc. These breweries definitely lived up to their names with their high quality and consistent base line-ups augmented by seasonal specialties and one-offs. They have the money and capacity to experiment with long aging in wine, whiskey, and rum barrels for months or years at a time. Also, their tasting rooms and/or restaurants are staffed by friendly, informative people able to make careers in the beer industry and give great recommendations.
Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, there are many brewers that are just as big and just as good but haven’t made it to our city yet. Some, like Odell’s, are sticklers for refrigeration and the West Coast, swearing they will never cross the Mississippi. (Our Pittsburgh tour guide compared their distribution strategy to Yuengling, but he was doing Odell’s a disservice.) Others, like Left Hand Brewing, with their great nitro milk stout and a 2.5% session ale, dot the East Coast but haven’t crossed paths with the PLCB yet. Twisted Pine, makers of the infamous Ghost Face Killah, are closer still. They send to Philadelphia, so start calling your Pittsburgh distributors today.
Of course, the most numerous breweries are small ones you may never hear of, many of which don’t even bottle or can (the biggest trend in Colorado beer). They don’t have to have a standard lineup, and our favorites eschew standards in favor of experimentation: herby brews from Strange Brewing; light coffee ale from Renegade; Trinity, whose flagship is a malty English-Belgian fusion; and Southern Sun whose February stout month is a Boulder institution when dozens of house stouts take over the taps. Cara prefers Jul-IPA.
All serious beer drinkers know about the Great American Beer Festival held in Denver every October. But every weekend since we’ve been here has had at least one respectable beer festival or anniversary party. We lucked out. Avery’s 19th anniversary party was beer geek heaven with exclusive access to their most complex and high-octane experiments. If you’re in Colorado, check the papers and the blogs to find your own beer event. You won’t regret it.
In addition to all this awesome beer, Colorado has 54 14,000+ foot mountain summits and a ludicrous quantity of bike lanes. More on that later.
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