Well, friends, it’s FINALLY happened. After two years of purchasing tickets and not being able to attend the one and only Great American Beer Festival, the year has finally come that I’m able to go!
Ben and our friend, Steve, from the amazing Haw River Farmhouse Ales, and myself flew from NC into Denver yesterday and drove out to Fort Collins to kick off our beercation! And our day was AWESOME.
Here’s how it went down!
I was getting a little hangry on the hour drive from Denver to Fort Collins, so we hit up my friend, Sam, who we planned to meet later and who’s lived here for a few years now, for some lunch suggestions.
We landed on grabbing some sandwiches because he said there was a really good beer selection at this particular spot – Choice City Butcher and Deli. I thought to myself, “I’ll just have a nice little sandwich so I have plenty of room for beer after.”
Ha.
No.
These sandwiches were giant and amazing. Here’s what was left of my Italian sandwich that I quite literally destroyed.
I guess the little side of mashed potatoes that the woman at the deli recommended didn’t help me to not feel full either, but they were totally worth the added 10 minutes extra it took for my food coma to wear off.
And the New Belgium Blackberry Love:Oscar was perfection as my first beer of the day.
With full bellies, we trekked on to Funkwerks (my second time there!) to crush some amazing beers. We sat outside on that gorgeous day. It was probably around 60-65 degrees out, which was super refreshing compared to the 80 degree weather we left in NC.
Sam and his awesome new wife, Julie, came to meet us. (Our last beercation was to fo to their wedding in Maine in May.) Beer is ALWAYS better with friends and old stories.
It had been two and a half years since I had been to Funkwerks. Their house yeast has evolved incredibly since then with a discernable farmey funk to it. We shared a few flights and a bottle of their 2015 Oud Bruin. Paisley was probably my favorite beer there, and I’m regretting having not grabbed a bottle.
From there, we went to Horse and Dragon Brewing, which was all of a 30 second car ride away. We got a few flights there, and I was pleasantly surprised with everything. They had a great range of styles.
Sam and Julie left after that, and we headed to make what we thought would be a brief pit stop at New Belgium Brewing before we went to check in to our Airbnb.
We had been talking earlier about how Lauren Salazar of New Belgium, without question the most badass woman in the industry, and one of the most respected people in the industry, apparently was a fan of a Haw River beer.
We sit down at the bar and order a few beers, and just a minute or two later, in walks none other than Lauren fucking Salazar. Steve grabbed some Haw River bottles from the car to give to her, and we all began chatting.
As if that wasn’t enough to be the highlight of the trip, she asked us if we wanted to come back to the foeders and have a beer with her.
We and a few cool guys from Austin Beerworks joined her and tasted some Whiskey Fat Back and laughed about the names she’s given to some of the numbered foeders. They’re completely out of chronological order in the first half of the room, and Lauren joked that there’s one number they can never find, so she calls it “Stepchild”. She then apologized to my red-headed husband (red headed stepchild), and we all shared a good laugh about that.
Other fun foeder names included Old Dirty Bastard and Darth Vader.
I’m still in awe that we got to drink beer and chat with her. She was so gracious.
After we left New Belgium, we pinched ourselves, realized this was real life, and threw our stuff in our stunning Airbnb before grabbing dinner at The Colorado Room.
You can almost never go wrong with poutine with a fried egg on top.
At this point, I was starting to hit the wall, but out old asses decided to move on to one more spot before calling it a night.
We went to The Mayor of Old Town as our last stop for the night. They have 100 beers on tap and were rated one of the top 15 beer bars in America by craftbeer.com.
Pliny was on tap and that was the perfect beer to finish my night off with!
Here’s to hoping day 2 is even better than day 1!
webeerlongtogether.com 