Beer Pairing at The Melting Pot

Some of my favorite things in life are beer, cheese and chocolate.... last night I got to really really combine those for an amazing evening!!

The Melting Pot Annapolis hosted a Beer Pairing dinner with their fondue. Let me start by saying if you haven't been to a Melting Pot then you are missing out! It's not only delicious food it's an incredibly fun experience. We've visited The Melting Pot for date night just the two of us but we've also brought large groups of people and had a blast that way too! It's the kind of place that is fun for everyone. (By the way - Guys if you need to impress a gal definitely take her to The Melting Pot! Also if you're ever in trouble some flowers and a night at The Melting Pot will get you out of almost any trouble you've gotten yourself into!)

Needless to say I was super excited when I found out that the Annapolis Melting Pot (http://www.meltingpot.com/annapolis-md/welcome) was doing a beer pairing dinner with Heavy Seas Brewery (http://www.hsbeer.com) a Maryland craft brewery which has some AWESOME beers! Not only was it a pairing but the Brewery Founder Hugh came along for some fantastic entertainment. Plus how can you not love a group that gives you an eye patch with your dinner?!

After a great intro from Hugh we dove into our first course which was of course.... CHEESE!!

1st Course

Red Pepper Stilton Fondue

Paired with: A Small Keg of Pale Ale called Powder Monkey made in collaboration between Heavy Seas & 2 Melting Pot team members (Rich & Greg)

Of course with it being cheese you just know it was good. Honestly I think the cheese course is my favorite - in fact the last time Ken and I went to The Melting Pot we had 3 courses of cheese and nothing else.... but I digress... let me get back on topic! The pairing was a good one and the beer was fantastic! 

2nd Course

Strawberry Almond Salad

Paired With: Small Craft Warning Uber Pils

I know you might be thinking that a salad course isn't worth it when it comes to all the options of deliciousness but truly the salads here are fantastic. I am not much of a salad person but this is the one place that I actually eat nearly all my salad. There was great balance between the flavors of the salad with the raspberry vinaigrette and the Pils. I definitely love he Uber Pils and Ken & I get a kick out of it's name! As Hugh said - why the heck would you want a Small Craft Advisory when a Warning is really what's needed!

3rd Course

Loose Cannon IPA-marinated Pork Tenderloin

French Quarter Chicken

Jalapeño-marinated shrimp

Teriyaki-marinated Sirloin

Paired with Loose Cannon IPA

Meat! Very tasty meat! The sirloin is always delicious but the marinated pork was probably my favorite. Naturally Ken also loved the Jalapeño-marinated shrimp. Neither of us were in love with the chicken but we ate it all so obviously we didn't dislike it too much! The Loose Cannon IPA is definitely the Heavy Seas flagship beer if you will and even though I am not a big IPA drinker I enjoy the Loose Cannon. Ken is a HUGE IPA drinker (the hoppier the better!) and the Loose Cannon has become one of his absolute favorite beers.  To add to the delight of this course we got an entire pint of the Loose Cannon in a glass that we got to keep! Bonus!

4th Course

Mint Dark Chocolate Fondue

Paired with Peg Leg Stout

Bring on the chocolate! This was an absolutely perfect ending all around. Though I was at first fearful that the mint flavor would be overpowering it certainly was not. It was balanced enough to add to the flavors not overwhelm them. The Peg Leg Stout also delicious! Great chocolate roasted tones but not really any "coffee" taste so right up my alley!

Needless to say it was a delicious and fun night. I personally think The Melting Pot should do one of these a month! We had such a good time I was already on the Heavy Seas website looking for other opportunities for their beer dinners. Lo and behold I found one - April 22nd at Stan & Joe's which is within walking distance. TOTAL BONUS!

On the topic of The Melting Pot in general - if you go to the Annapolis location I highly recommend requesting Rich. He is an absolutely wonderful server. He's attentive, knowledgable, incredibly personable and he really knows his beer. (I had met him a previous time I was at The Melting Pot and was thrilled to see him again at the beer dinner.)

We left VERY happy campers :)

Cheers to beer, cheese & chocolate!!!

It's National Drink Beer Day - Raise a Toast My Friends!

It's National Drink Beer Day - who knew?!! Well now you all know! What a great day!

I encourage you all to go out and grab a quality beer and toast to your friends and good times!

We are lucky enough to have some great friends visiting us this weekend (and they came with beer in hand - bonus!) and I am certain we will be celebrating National Drink Beer Day.... Oh wait some of us already are! We went to McGarvey's for lunch and had an Aviator Ale (Amber Ale).


If you need some suggestions of some good beers to hoist for toasting lemme know and I am sure I can help you out with that :)

Need some help with a toast or just how to say "Cheers?" Well here are some suggestions....
Russian: Hа здоровье! (And in Russia the 3rd toast is always to the women!!)
German: Prost!
Irish: Slainte!

Beer Drinking at Troegs

And as far as I'm concerned the Irish have some of the best toasts including the following....

There are good ships,
and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea.
But the best ships, are friendships,
And may they always be.

First Trip to the Guinness Mecca

May you always have a clean shirt, a clear conscience, and enough coins in your pocket to buy a pint!


Here's to women's kisses,
and to whiskey, amber clear;
Not as sweet as a woman's kiss,
but a darn sight more sincere!

My friends are the best friends
Loyal, willing and able.
Now let’s get to drinking!
All glasses off the table!

2nd Trip to the Guinness Mecca

May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.

Drinking Odell's Brewery

Great American Beer Fest 2011

And then there's the completely politically incorrect one we used to say in college....

Here's to the men that we love

Here's to the men that love us...

If the men that we love

Don't love us...

Then $%K the men

And here's to us!!

So raise a drinks and toast with me.... CHEERS! (In any language you choose!)

Winter Park Trip Report

We have found that we absolutely love to be able to travel with good friends and all stay together so when we decided that WInter Park was our destination of choice for Thanksgiving vacation I immediately got on VRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner) and Homeaway.com to see what kind of houses were an option. Turns out a lot of places in Winter Park are on these site but managed through Winter Park Lodging so the dialogue about houses continued with them.

Amy at Winter Park Lodging Company was absolutely fantastic and incredibly helpful. I had several houses I wanted more info about so she sent me that as well as a couple that I hadn't noticed (or maybe they weren't on VRBO etc.) She was patient as I had lots of questions about very specific details about the houses and was even more patient as I couldn't commit as I was waiting for the other folks in our group to commit. Eventually we settled on a fabulous house at Base Camp.

I figured out a few years ago that a big house is the way to go on a vacation like this since we LOVE to travel with our friends. A house affords you luxuries that you can't get in a hotel such as a big living room to lounge in and a kitchen to cook in. It's a central meeting place to hangout. Not that you can't go into town and hangout but sometimes it's nice to just hang out and eat and drink in a house that all you have to do is crawl to bed in! And as far as finances go to be honest if you have a few families it is certainly cheaper than several hotel rooms would be. Plus you can save loads of money by cooking at home sometimes and stocking your fridge and such with snacks and drinks (of any variety!!!)

The actual house we got....

Base Camp 456

• 4 bedrooms
• Downstairs
• 1 Room with 2 sets of bunks (so 4 beds total)
• Full bathroom just across the hall from this room
• Upstairs

• 1 Master with King sized bed, fireplace, full bath
• 1 room with Queen sized bed and twin bed with own bathroom
• 1 room with Queen sized bed
• Full bath just outside of the bedroom in the hallway
• Huge living room on middle floor with fireplace & wet bar
• Half Bathroom downstairs which is easily accessible from living room
• Huge Kitchen (overlooking the living room half a floor up) with dining room and fireplace
• Kitchen is fully stocked (and then some!) with pots, pans, dishes etc.
• Huge fridge, dishwasher
• Small deck off the kitchen area 
• Fireplace is double sided so is outside as well (enclosed in glass)
• Hot tub
• gas grill
• Second smaller living area on ground floor with pull-out couch and wet bar
• Garage
• Ground Floor - area to store your jackets boots etc.
• TVs in every bedroom as well in both living room area
• Technically ski-in ski-out (I say technically because we were there early enough in the season that half the mountain wasn't open so we could ski-out but couldn't ski back in
• Bus stop that will take you to Village is right outside the door

This house was absolutely perfect for us (3 families so we took the upstairs rooms and the boys got the bunk room downstairs) and we would go back in a heartbeat! We cooked every night and enjoyed the huge living room to relax in and chill out. 

Winter Park Skiing & Snowboarding

We got lucky and they had gotten a bit of snow - it was a bit early in the season so there was a risk that there would be only a run or 2 open had there not been any snow (the can make some snow provided the weather conditions are right.) So there were more runs open on Winter Park than necessarily expected but still not many in the scheme of how many runs are available at Winter Park/Mary Jane. However it was plenty for us! Ken and I had pre-bought 4-pack passes from Christy sports when we were in town for GABF and that was a great deal. When we got there we found that it was early enough in the season that you cold still get those at the mountain for just a bit more than we paid. What is nice about these passes is that you can ski/board any 4 days during the season as opposed to tickets you buy at the regular ticket window where if you buy a 4 day pass it's 4 out of 5 days meaning you can take 1 day off in the midst of your trip but that's it. 

The staff at the mountain are very friendly and helpful. The village itself is nice with several restaurants and shops and of course bars. For comparison sake it isn't as extensive as the village at Whistler but it was still decent. 

Cheeky Monk

By far our favorite restaurant/bar to hit apres ski was the Cheeky Monk. It's a Belgian themed place that also happens to have some fantastic local craft beers. (And as usual I loved that they had no crap beer on tap!!!) Cheryl and I bellied up to the bar one day to enjoy a few drinks and found the bartender to be very friendly and helpful with suggestions of things to try (and not to try) around the city. We went back another day for lunch and enjoyed some amazing mussels (if you go you've gotta get the bacon gorgonzola mussels) and then back another day to hit the bar again. Each time we had fantastic food (the fries are so addicting), awesome drinks (their tap selection is fantastic) and some of the best service we've seen. HIGHLY recommend this place!

Doc's Roadhouse

Another restaurant/bar in the village. Okay food (nothing spectacular about it but it's certainly good), a so-so tap selection and decent service. My complaint was I asked for a local beer and the gal quickly says "Oh you should have a Mary Jane it's brewed specifically for us." Sold! Well after a few sips I find out that it's actually a Coors product. DAMN! Okay so that's local but it's not craft.... I should have been more specific apparently....

Derailer Bar

This one is right at the bottom of the slopes so it's the most convenient one to get to (though to be fair it takes all of 2 minutes to walk to the others from the bottom of the slope!) and it has the most TVs for football watching so that's what brought us in there. Didn't have a meal but had some chops and queso which were less than fantastic but they were food after a day of boarding so they fit the bill. Beer selection was okay but again they had a Coors product trying to masquerade as a real craft beer. GRRRRRRRRR! The service at the bar itself was fantastic. The gal was very friendly (and yes to me not just to Ken!) and that's no small feat when you are stick at work on Thanksgiving!

Winter Park Winery

We heard about this place so we asked the bartender at Cheeky Monk and he said it was pretty good and worth checking out so we did.  It's a quaint little "shop" that has a handful of tables and a bar area for tastings. The gentleman there was the owner who also happens to be a very accomplished mountain biker who is trying to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. We really enjoyed chatting with him. The wine was decent enough to buy a couple bottles for table wine but certainly not anything I'd be willing to buy a case of.  But if you are in the area it's worth the stop in. The tasting itself is a modest price $5 and it's a nice locally owned and run place (which I always like to try and patronize if I can.)

Tubing

On the last night after we had finished Thanksgiving dinner we somehow managed to drag ourselves out to Fraser (town nearby) to go tubing. I haven't laughed that hard in I don't know how long. When someone says tubing you may be thinking a small hill to hp on a tube and slide down. Forget that! It's a big hill and I will tell you that you are hauling ass by the time you get to the bottom! Add to that the fact that apparently the idea is to link everyone together and go down as a group. We had 8 of us and 5 of the 8 were fairly decent sized guys... It doesn't take a physics major to understand the whole mass velocity relationship! Joan and I squealed and laughed the whole way down every time I think! This is the perfect activity for a group of people to do together!

Tommy Knocker's Brew Pub

This is not in Winter Park, it's in Idaho Springs which is between the Denver airport and Winter Park so we stopped there for some food and drinks on our way back to the airport. As you can tell from the picture they had quote the extensive sampler. And I have to say ALL of it was very good! We ordered up so me food too. I had the buffalo burger which was VERY tasty and the homemade potato chips as a side which could have been totally addictive if I went there often! All in all this is a great stop on your trek between Winter Park & Denver!

Saint Louis Travel & Rock and Roll Race Write-Up

I'll be honest I wasn't real sure what to expect with Saint Louis in general but I really wasn't expecting much. Pretty much the arch was the only thing that came to mind (beside the Cardinals baseball team but being a Cubs fan you know how I feel about them!) I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the city!

I arrived in on Saturday morning and met up with Mel and BJ. We headed towards downtown and on the way needed to stop for lunch.

Imo's
This is a pizza place that is a Saint Louis institution apparently due to their unique cheese provel. (Not sure how you spell it but I am guessing that my guess is close and no it is not provolone.) The pizza is very thing crust - Mel described it very well as like a saltine cracker crust. The pizza was okay but certainly nothing to write home about. I ate it but do not think I would ever go back again.

After that it was off to our hotel to get checked in so we could go to the Half Marathon expo to collect our goods.

Crowne Plaza Downtown
I've already told you all about my affinity for the Intercontinental Hotels Group so the Crowne Plaza was a natural selection for this trip (especially since there isn't an actual Intercontinental in this city.) I had chosen this hotel before the race course was even announced and got lucky that it was about half a mile from the start, finish and expo! Woo hoo! Upon arrival they had a room ready for us and we were pleasantly surprised to find we were upgraded to a suite. Even better - we have an incredible view of the arch and even though we are a few blocks away if there was a baseball game going on we could see into the stadium for the whole thing!

There is a bar in the hotel (which is apparently open until 3am on weekends) but they have a lousy tap selection (just lousy Bud!) and we didn't check the place out because we wanted to go see the town when we decided to grab a drink. There is no hot tub at this hotel which is a bummer but overall this is a great place to stay.

Marathon Expo
After dropping off our bags we headed to the Convention Center for the Marathon expo to pick up our numbers etc. and check out what "goods" they had there. As usual Rock and Roll Marathons do a great job of merchandising. They had some fabulous designs on their shirts etc. and I am happy to report that they (as best I can tell) have stopped selling finisher shirts at the expo. (As we like to say at the expo the only thing you have finished is coughing up some money!!) The expo was a little smaller than I had hoped and pretty packed but all in all not bad. The shirts definitely leave something to be desired. They are very plain comparative to other race shirts.

BJ raved about gooey butter cake (which I had never had but Mel had and said it was fabulous!) so we headed out to Park Avenue Coffee for what some folks claim is the best gooey butter cake of anywhere. Along the way we wandered through a park area with some art which was very interesting.

We had beautiful weather and it was great to see so many folks out enjoying it. There are a lot of really pretty and interesting buildings to check out as well.

Park Avenue Coffee
After a stop right down the street at a very cute pet shop (where there were some cute dogs "shopping" that we enjoyed visiting with we arrived at our destination for some yummy goodness. I have to say they did not disappoint!  We ordered 3 different flavors of gooey butter cake to share: traditional, double chocolate and pumpkin. (We tried to order Turtle but they were out. Bummer!) The traditional and double chocolate were melt in your mouth delicious. I am sure the pumpkin was good too (Mel & BJ said it was) if you like pumpkin but I do not so I didn't even mess with that flavor. We all decided that it was a good thing that gooey butter cake is a Saint Louis thing and not down the street from any of us where we live because we might all be 300 pounds!

Square One Brewery & Distillery
You didn't think we'd spend a day wandering about the city and not find a brewpub if there was one did you?! Luckily this one was right down the street from Park Avenue Coffee. We found ourselves a table in the bar area and proceeded to order a sampler to contain one of each beer they have. This actually meant 3 samplers since each contains 4 beers and that's the number of varieties they had available. These sample sizes were 5oz samples which is larger than the standard size which was just fine with us!

We decided to grab a little snackage and ordered some pretzels, beer cheese soup and a scotch egg. The pretzels were decent, the soup was okay but nothing fabulous and BJ said the Scotch egg was really good though I was not a fan of it in general (it was my first time trying it and I don't think I'll have it again irrespective of where I am eating it.) The beers were really quite good with a wide variety including several IPAs, a pumpkin, a weiss, a stout and a few others. Had they bottled there was one or 2 I would have considered buying to take home with me. Definitely stop here to try the beer!!!

We then wandered back towards our hotel. We walked passed Busch Stadium which, in spite of the beyond lousy company it is named for, is a great looking stadium. I really look forward to coming here some day to catch the Cubs beating the Cardinals there for a game. Obviously the city is very excited with them playing in the World Series and all over town there are signs and such, the fountain is red, some statues have jerseys on... it's great to see so much excitement about America's Favorite Pastime.

Apparently Saint Louis is also the birthplace of Toasted Ravioli so BJ had some recommendations from folks as to where we should go for that. It was Saturday night so lots of places were so packed it was out of the question but we found a great place.

Trattoria Marcela
While this place looks small when you step into the bar and hostess area we found out that it is really rather large with a nice outdoor area as well. Since we didn't have a reservation and didn't want to wait until 8:30pm we opted for a table outside. (The weather was nice enough to make this doable.) We ordered the toasted ravioli as an appetizer to share and I will be honest - I loved it so much I wish I had ordered it as my main course! They brought out some bread with hummus which I found strange. An Italian place serving hummus just seems all sorts of wrong to me. Dinner was quite tasty as well and the portions are huge. But by far my favorite part was the Toasted Ravioli and I would go back just to have that again!!!

Solutia Rock and Roll Saint Louis Half Marathon
While Competitor Group is the official company that puts on all these races the main presenting sponsor of this inaugural race in Saint Louis was Solutia. The first impressions we had in the city of the race was that Solutia had done a really great job of signage throughout the city about the race and wishing the runners luck.

The race was set to start at 7:30am so we woke up way to early so we could all put a little fuel in our bellies and get ready to head out. The weather was about 50 degrees which is always a tough one for me to decide what the heck it is that I want to wear. I was thinking that the race was going to be a really bad one for me so I decided to go ahead and put the long sleeve shirt on underneath the short sleeve shirt I wanted to be showing since I figured that stopping to walk so I could toss my long sleeve shirt and put my short sleeve shirt on wouldn't be a problem. (Tip for any runners out there who are new to this - always check for cheap long sleeve shirts that after you wear a few times you don't mind tossing out. These are great for runs that start out cold and then you can just toss it when you are warm enough. I paid $4 or so for this shirt and had already worn it about 20 times in training runs so I had more than gotten my money's worth. And not to worry - it's not littering. The race volunteers pick up all the "discarded"and generally donate them to goodwill or homeless shelters etc.) Boy did I choose badly! (more later...) And as I pretty much generally do I ran in a tutu :) I chose to wear my Tutus for Tatas attire since I didn't run the Race for the Cure earlier in the month.

We got to the start line and near our corral. (That's one of the many things that the Rock and Roll Series does well - they do a lot of corrals to make sure people shouldn't be tripping all over one another.) They announced the race would start a few minutes late so we just hung out. It was a great area to start in - neat buildings near us and the arch in the foreground. After they played the National Anthem it was time to get started. They started letting corrals go and we started moving forward. Before we knew it we were up and it was our turn to be off and running.

I will spare the gritty details of 13 miles of running but I can tell you that I seriously goofed with my clothing choices because I was roasting by mile 3 but didn't want to slow down or stop to rearrange my clothes til about mile 9!!! The course was a very pretty course - in fact I would be willing to go out on a limb and say in the 15 half marathons I have run overall it was the best course as a whole yet! Good support on the route and lots of spectators which is always motivational! A few more rolling hills than I expected but no ridiculously steep ones which is a bonus. I finished pretty sure that I ran a personal best (we call them a PR) but hadn't worn a watch so I didn't know exactly what my time was. I would have to wait til I got back to the room to check.

After the race there was the usual snacks and photos. There was a beer garden by MGD that I simply could not bring myself to drink no matter that I was thirsty and it was free. The medals look fabulous! And frankly it's all about the bling ;)

Got back to the room and I got my big disappointment. While I was pretty sure I'd run a best when I logged on to look it up the online system didn't have a finish time for me. Apparently there was something wrong with my timing chip :( It logged my start and my 5K split but not my finish :( Mel said she saw me and she is certain I finished in front of her so when we looked up her time I knew I had run a PR because her time was better than my previous best time. Now I just really want to know exactly what my time is so I have that benchmark. They are looking it to it to try and piece it together with pictures etc. I sure hope that works out. On a happier note though all 3 of us (Mel, BJ & myself) ran PRs!!! That was cause for celebration!

Our traditional post race is that we run for shower time meaning first person to finish gets to shower first etc. So we all finished up our showers and headed out for some much desired lunch.

Morgan Street Brewery

Lucky for us this place was about half a mile from the hotel. We wandered in and got a seat right away. Great comfortable atmosphere and a pretty good looking menu. We of course ordered the sampler which included their pilsner, pumpkin ale, Oktoberfest, Honey Wheat and Decades their anniversary beer. All were quite tasty (as usual I didn't like the pumpkin) and we each picked our favorite pint to enjoy after the sampler was finished. The food was decent food nothing to jump for joy over but certainly food I would eat again. I had a burger and they have these unique sides instead of fries called Conniques which are deep fried mashed potatoes. Very interesting and pretty yummy.

After that we decided to wander over right to the arch so BJ could touch it (his requirement for the trip). It was a beautiful day so we were quite happy to be outside! We got some pictures outside and then wandered inside to check the gift shop. We had figured that there was a long wait to go up in the arch so we were okay with not doing that. Well thanks to BJ's keen observation we changed that plan! There was virtually no wait to go up in the arch so we decided to go for it. Tickets for an adult to go up in the arch are $10. The little elevator you get on is really quite small and holds 5 people. This is definitely not a place for someone who is overly claustrophobic. The elevator does almost a stair step movement to get up the arch - it's really a fascinating thing from an engineering perspective. It takes 4 minutes to get to the top crammed into the car like sardines.

At the top there are 16 (I think) windows on each side which offer a nice view. Definitely worth being able to say you did if you go to Saint Louis.

Then came time for our standard post run nap which was must needed at this point. Plus we needed to gather some energy for dinner :)

Mike Shannon's
Lately we have been trying to have a steak after our runs for dinner that night as a celebratory treat. We decided on Mike Shannon's because it was walking distance and had been recommended by someone. (We also try and go to a  local place instead of a chain and this fit that bill.) Walking in there's great decor of baseball bats, balls and photos. Sadly the food and service didn't meet the standards of the ambiance or price. The service was haphazard. For example when our bread was dwindling she came by and asked if we wanted more, when we said yes she took the basket (with 2 pieces left) but never returned with more. The visits to the table were very infrequent to see how we were doing or if we needed anything else. The steak was an average steak but nothing special with very little flavor. The sides we ordered were below average as well - the mac & cheese was plain and boring and the broccolini left a lot to be desired. Bottom line - skip this place and head elsewhere for your money because it definitely was not cheap and it certainly was not worth what we paid for it.

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard
We opted to go elsewhere for some dessert and Ted Drewes is another Saint Louis institution - this one known for their concretes (similar to a DQ blizzard). This treat was extremely tasty and very very well priced! I am not a big ice cream fan but I loved my Heath Concrete and would highly recommend that anyone in the area swing by there for a treat!

All in all it was a great trip to Saint Louis and one day I look forward to going back so I can go to Busch Stadium to cheer on the Cubs!!!

The Hop - Days 3 & 4

Our last full day in Colorado we didn’t have GABF tickets so our plan was to just wander the city and enjoy the day, some football and some beer.

Denver Diner

We started the day with some much-needed breakfast at Stacey’s favorite place – Denver Diner. It is a great somewhat old-fashioned traditional diner. No frills just great food.  We all hungrily dove in and then afterwards decided it was nap time! So we headed back to the hotel J

Ken & I stayed lounging through the entire Navy vs. Air Force game. (What a game!) But Kev & Stacey headed off to GABF. After the football game I decided it was time to go and make our rounds of the breweries that we could walk to. I plotted out options and we set off.

Denver Beer Company

First stop was the one furthest away in the direction we needed to go overall for our meet-up with the Goods later that evening.  This is a new brewery and I was quite excited to try it out especially since I had just learned that their Graham Cracker Porter won a silver medal at GABF. The ambiance is good – very minimalist – but sadly they didn’t have much beer left on tap. As I said to Ken I thought it was quite possible they would need to close for 2 weeks after GABF to make more! I was able to try

• ·      Rise of the 5^th Horseman Saison (aka Pretty Peach Princess)
• ·      ATAK Buh-na-na Hefeweizen
• ·      Ichabod’s Revenge Pumpkin’d Ale
• ·      In da Hood Hop Swap IPA
• ·      A lime chili beer (can’t remember the name and it’s not on the board)

For as unique fun as their names are I have to say I was unimpressed with the beer itself. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t come back to try it again, I just wouldn’t put it at the top of my list.

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 81 +/-60!~~~~~

Wynkoop Brewery

Ken was not in such good shape at this point (I think I had overbeered him over the previous few days) so I was shocked when he offered up that we should hit up this brewery on our way to our final destination for the evening. He pointed out it was on the way pretty much (as if I needed convincing) so off we went! Wynkoop is a brewpub but we weren’t planning on getting any food so we grabbed a seat at a small table in the bar. It was fairly busy for a Saturday afternoon between lunch and dinner hours.  I am sure you will all be shocked to hear this but I ordered the sampler. It’s a total of 10 beers so the gal said she would bring them out 5 at a time. No problem! At this point Ken is looking very rough so I told him not to worry that I would “take one for the team” and take care of the sampler. 

He was a trooper though and said he would try to do his part.  The beers we got to try were Wixa Weiss, Two Guns Pilsner, Light Rail Ale, Patty’s Chili Beer, Rail Yard Ale, London Calling IPA, Mile HIPA, St. Charles ESB, B3K Schwarzbier (had just one a GABF medal) and Cowtown Milk Stout. All of the beers were excellent but my favorite by far was the Cowtown Milk Stout.

 It was possibly the best beer I had the entire trip!! I could have sat there and drank that ALL DAY LONG! But we had places to go and people to see so we had to head out. On the way out I just had to take a picture with the ape they had in the waiting area.

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 81 +/-60!~~~~~

OLD CHICAGO

We were meeting up with the Buenos (Okay the Goods but they are the Buenos to me!) after their daughter’s soccer game so we tried to pick somewhere that had food, good beer and TVs for the college football that we wanted to watch. Old Chicago was the suggestion from several folks so we went with it. This place has good pizza but they need not kid themselves… it’s not Chicago pizza at least not in the way of Giordanos or Eduardos…. But it is tasty. They have a good beer selection though the waitress we had was useless when it came to any beer questions at all. There are plenty of TVs so we did get to see Purdue get slaughtered by Notre Dame, which made Bueno pretty happy.  Ken rallied and had a great time! 

All in all it was a good evening and I even tried 2 new-to-me beers from Boulder Brewing. I can tell you that we were going to be sad to leave the next day….

THE END OF “THE HOP”

Sunday morning we woke up and decided to wander about and see the capital building as well as the mile high markers. 

I found it interesting that there were a few with different dates so obviously there is some elevation change happening! 

We were amused by the squirrels, which were plentiful and apparently hungry! 

After wandering a bit we tried to go to a diner for breakfast (a different one than the day before – this one was a Triple D) but it was packed so we opted to gather all our stuff and head out to one last beer drinking stop on our way to the airport.

The Bull & Bush Brewery           

We had seen these guys at GABF and Ken was jealous of their jackets so we decided to check them out and get some grub too. They had an extensive menu and we both ended up with a breakfast/brunch item (available since it was the weekend). The portions were HUGE! Oh we also had the cheese dip appetizer which I HIGHLY recommend. Beers tried here included Big Ben Brown, Man Beer,  a stout and a pilsner. I would say the beers were above average though not exceptional. That said this is a stop worth making!

After that it was homeward bound… this was an amazing weekend. We had great beer, great weather, great scenery, great friends to hang out with and an all-around great time! Ken said he doesn’t know if GABF is something he wants to do every year because he prefers to just pick one beer and stick with it. I on the other hand want to make this a yearly pilgrimage!

Final tally….

~BEER COUNT of different beers not beers total: 87 +/-60!~

The Hop - Day 3

Amazingly we weren’t doing too bad when we woke up the morning of Day 3 though we did have to wake up a little earlier than I probably would have liked :) We had an event to get to!

BEER FOR BOOBS BRUNCH

Ladies of Craft Beer sponsored a brunch called Beer for Boobs at Freshcraft to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness & Research. With the cost of the ticket you got some breakfast as well as the opportunity to buy some interesting beers to try. 

The food was quite good – chicken & waffles, breakfast burritos and potatoes – and was perfect for the morning after a night at GABF! I tried the Beermosa from a Nevada brewery as well as a special Oskar Blues beer which I can’t remember the name of. But settled on a Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout because as far as I am concerned this could be breakfast!!! This event was fantastic and I wish Komen Houston would see how a “cheeky” event like this can be so good for the cause. Unfortunately my experience has been that the Houston office is a little too square for out of the box ideas like this. Here’s to hoping that the DC Chapter will be more open to these kinds of ideas!

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 56 +/- 30!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GREAT DIVIDE

After the brunch we decided to continue our Denver Beer tour. We headed to Great Divide Brewery just a few blocks away but the taproom was beyond packed with a hell of a line (the tap room is quite small) but they had an outdoor area set-up where you could go and buy beer and sit and enjoy. That worked for us! We each had some beer and enjoyed the beautiful weather! Ken saved a bug from drowning in his beer and made friends with him... it was a very drunk bug! 

I look forward to going back to Colorado at a non-GABF time so I can check out their taproom!

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 58 +/- 30!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BRECKENRIDGE BREWERY – BALLPARK

Just around the corner was Breckenridge and I needed at least a snack to eat because I was hungry again. J You know I had to order the beer sampler and with that I got 2220 Red, 471 IPA, Ballpark Brown, Regal Pilsner, Thunder Stout and their seasonal Autumn Ale. I also asked if they could add on the Vanilla Porter and they were kind enough to indulge me J All the beers were good (I drank them all except the IPA which I naturally gave to Ken) but the most noteworthy to me was the Vanilla Porter because it was different than the average beer you find. I highly recommend giving it a try if you get the chance. I didn’t order a full meal but the chips and guac were very tasty!

After this Kevin, Stacey and Scott were headed off for more Brewery hopping because they didn’t have evening plans for GABF. (They were going to the Homebrew Members only session on Saturday.) Since Ken and I were heading to GABF that night we decided that we needed to go and get in a nap!!

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 65 +/- 30!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GREAT AMERICAN BEER FEST DAY 2

One thing that Ken and I learned from the first day of GABF was that it was really rather pointless to wait in the long line (even though it moved fast) because we could show up 25 minutes after door opening time and just waltz in. The difference of 10 minutes inside was worth not waiting in line for an hour or more. So we showed up a little after 6 and walked right in.  It was definitely a very different feel than Thursday night. Thursday was more actual beer fiends who love beer whereas Friday was more younger kids who just wanted to get wasted as opposed to actually experiencing the beers. We went in “normal people” clothes this day but I think if I go 2 days next time perhaps a second beer related outfit might be in order! We did both wear Saint Arnold shirts in support of our good buddies!

I went into Day 2 with a list of beers that were must trys for me – even if they had a line. (Most of these were recommendations from others from brunch that morning.)

• ·      Banana Split Chocolate Stout from Thomas Creek – LOVED IT! It was dessert in a glass but not too overly sweet – just perfect!!!! I need to get me some more of this but can’t get it here!!! Grrrrrrrr!!
• ·   Oatmeal Raisin Cookie from Cigar City – They did have a big line but Stacey said it was worth it to wait so we did. Ken of course got some sort of IPA and I got the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie which no kidding tasted just like the cookie!
• ·      Bacon & Eggs Breakfast Coffee Imperial Porter from Pizza Port Ocean Beach – sadly they were out :(
• ·      Hopitoulas IPA from NOLA Breweing – obviously for Ken and he loved it!
• ·      Anything from Three Floyds in Munster – I tried the Munster Fest, a Marzen style beer, and was not over the moon about it. I found it average but apparently I don’t know what I am talking about because it won a medal in its category! Perhaps I just got a pour from a bad bottle….

Other breweries that I tried beers from included Hopworks Urban Brewery (Portland, OR), Pizza Port Ocean City (cracked me up their IPA is called “While the Wife’s Away), Shorts Brewing (Joyous Almond – a brown ale with lovely hints of almond, chocolate and coconut. It was a smooth well balanced beer that wasn’t too terribly sweet.), Snake River (again!), 512 (Austin) and FatHeads. I tried MANY MANY more than this but just didn’t take as many pictures this day so I don’t have documentation.

I also got into a very in-depth conversation with the guys from Goose Island. Being away from the area I did not realize that Goose Island had sold out to InBev until Kevin & Stacey told me. This infuriated me! How could a hometown brew sell out to the big evil conglomerate?!?! I was bound and determine to find out. So when Ken had to go to the bathroom (GABF is one of the only places I’ve been where the men’s line is soooooooo much longer than the women’s for the restrooms.) I headed to Goose Island to see what they had to say for themselves. I approached and there were 2 actual Goose Island guys there. (The reason I say this as if it’s noteworthy is frequently breweries have volunteers from the Denver area pouring beers.) I tried to be as nice as possible but flat out asked along the lines of “I no longer live in the area and sadly just found out that you sold out to InBev. What gives?!) The first guys was very confrontational and pissy. The second guy stepped in and was much more reasonable to talk to. Come to find out this guy is the head brewer. I won’t bore everyone with all the details (because many of you don’t give a rats rear about the evils of InBev and such) but if you want the full play-by-play let me know and I will be happy to share it with you. Bottom line is the guy admitted he was not happy about it. But he also said now he has more liberty (read money and ability to not be as efficient) to ply around and do “odd” and/or trendy things such as sours.  Oh heck… I’m going to write an entire blog entry on this Goose Island issue just as soon as I finish my trip reports because I am so bothered by the whole InBev – Goose Island thing! So hold on for that one and I’ll give you this whole story in its entirety plus some additional background on the issue.

On a happier note I got to meet Zane Lamprey and he is exactly like he is on his show J I do have to say I prefer “Three Sheets” to “Drinking Made Easy” though…

After GABF we decided that was all we had in us for the night so off to the hotel we went…. We had another day of brewery hopping ahead of us….

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 76 +/- 60!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hop - Day 2

We awoke in Fort Collins and just loved the weather so much that we simply had to go for a run! I know crazy right after a night of brewery hopping! Plus we had to make more room in our tummies for more beer!

After the run we headed out and about to purchase advance lift tickets for our Thanksgiving trip to Winter Park. If you are in Colorado before ski season Christy Sports has a great deal for 4 days of lift tickets (any 4 days not consecutive or 4 of 5) for $159. Catch is you have to be there to have your photo taken to have put on the pass. And I should say the prices I just quoted are for Winter Park – they have deals for other slopes in Colorado too!

SNARF’S

We debated and debated about what we wanted for lunch. Finally we decided on this sandwich shop based on the recommendation of someone at Christy Sports. To us it is a traditional type of sandwich shop you'd find in the North. Excellent food - no frills but extremely tasty!

ODELL BREWING COMPANY

First stop of the day for beer – Odell Brewing Company. This was the most recommended brewery in Fort Collins so naturally we had to stop by there. We lucked out and they were running extra tours for the day since it was GABF time. We snuck into a non-publicized tour as the last 2 attendees. Woo hoo! The tour itself is much less “formal” shall we say than the New Belgium one. But you literally walk right on the floor there and production is going on so it’s loud and you couldn’t hear the gal talking.  But we did get to see their brewing area, bottling line, cellar, kegging line and their centrifuge, which is a new technique. 

We also got to sample their Isolation Ale (their Winter seasonal) that hadn’t actually been released for the year yet. As I mentioned before I love winter ales so this was right up my alley! Perhaps what was most impressive was when we got out of the tour we were chatting with the gal there about which sampler we should purchase since there were 3 options. There were so many beers to choose from! No kidding between 15-20. She gave us free tasters of 2 of her favorites and then recommended we try the pilot and the classic samplers. (She was so sweet the 2 beers she gave us weren’t on the samplers. Apparently she could tell I like to try it all!!!) The samplers were quite impressive and included

·      CLASSIC:  Easy Street (Wheat Beer), Levity (Amber Ale), 5 Barrel Pale Ale, 90 Schilling (considered their Flagship – I HIGHLY recommend!),  IPA (I was not a fan but then again I don’t like IPAs. Since Ken loves IPA he’s the one to ask about that one and I am pretty sure he was a fan.) & Cutthroat Porter

·      PILOT:  Bird Seed Blonde, OomPah Oktoberfest, Nitro 5 Barrel, Town Pump Pail Ail, Fir Na Tine, Nitro Cutthroat Porter

Honestly all of the beers were very good and I would recommend trying any and all of them! You’ll notice I’ve quit describing the beers in depth and I apologize for that. Given the number of beers I tasted this weekend it’s hard for me to articulate on most of them anymore. I can tell you what I like and what I don’t like however!! I promise to try and do better in the future!

The brewery/tap house at Odell was quite nice to just lounge about as well. Lots of tables inside as well as quite a few outside. They have some small snacks (popcorn, crackers, chocolate etc.) and you can borrow their games to play as long as you are willing to give them your credit card as collateral. Given their amazing selection of beer and the “funness” of the place I could absolutely see us hanging out there on a regular basis if we lived nearby! Worth noting – here you could buy full pints in addition to the tasters. I forgot to mention about New Belgium that you can’t buy pints there – actually you can’t buy any beer to consume it’s only the tour beers that you can get.

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 26~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I decided at this point I wanted to start counting how many different beers I tried. Worth noting what is considered in this number is any beer that I tried in a sampler, pint or even just tasted off of Ken’s pint.

It as time to get on the road to head to Denver but since we lucked into an early tour at Odell we had a little bit of time to spare so…. Where to next was the thought on our minds?

LEFT HAND BREWING

Longmont, Colorado just so happened to pretty much be on the way to Denver and I am a fan of Left Hand so we decided to stop there on route. The brewery and Taproom is about 8 miles off the main highway. We arrived and noticed that the parking lot was pretty full. Walking in sadly it became clear that the staff there was not prepared for the onslaught of people that were there compliments of GABF being “in the general neighborhood.” (To be fair – all breweries in Colorado were probably slammed because since people come from all over the world for GABF any brewery within 2 hours of Denver was “in the general neighborhood.”) There were only 2 people working the taproom and they were beyond struggling to keep up. After about 10 minutes I managed to wrangle one of them to pour us a sampler. The taproom was nowhere near as big as Odell – about 4 tables inside, plus a bunch of seats at the bar (all full at this point) and a few tables outside. (Though it seemed like there was another room full of tables off to the back that wasn’t in use – why it wasn’t is beyond me.) We chose to site outside and enjoy our choices.  Samplers were quite reasonable - $1 per taster which was good size. Unfortunately the Double IPA that Ken wanted to try was out so instead we got:

·      Milk Stout on Nitro – cream stout with roasted malt served on Nitrogen; DELICIOUS! This drink is like a meal in a glass or could be a great substitute for breakfast! They use actual cream in there to give the beer it’s depth

·      Good Juju – Light Ale brewed with Ginger; Very interesting and light but I couldn’t drink too much of it because I am not a huge ginger fan (that said of course we emptied all our glasses here!)

·      400 Pound Monkey – IPA; As usual Ken was a fan I was not

·      Wake Up Dead – Russian Imperial Stout; Very big beer, very complex, enjoyed a bit of it but couldn’t drink a whole pint I don’t think

Since service was so difficult to get we decided that instead of trying to get a few more beers it was time to head to Denver and get checked into our hotel

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 30 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL – DOWNTOWN DENVER

This hotel is perfect for GABF because it’s literally a half a block away from the convention center where GABF is held and it is very close to 16^th where LOADS of restaurants and bars etc. are located. I am a very loyal Intercontinental Hotels Group customer (IHG is Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, Staybridge Suites,  Candlewood Suites and Indigo Suites.)  With all the travel we do by being a loyal customer I have found that we frequently get complimentary upgrades and this time was no exception. We got a lovely suite that had a separate sitting room with an extra bathroom. Since there are such a variety of hotels in the chain I highly recommend joining their loyalty club called Priority Club.

GREAT AMERICAN BEER FEST DAY 1!!!

Wow – where to start?

Walking into the Hall I felt like a kid in a candy store.  So many beers so many breweries…. This is Mecca for Beer Lovers.  Ken and I had to enter through a different line than Kevin, Stacey and Scott because they are Homebrew Association Members and we are not but we quickly met up with them.  Kevin, Stacey, Ken and myself decided to dress the part and wore our Oktoberfest garb. (Well to be fair – Stacey and I decided and told the husbands that they were going to!) I have to say that this added to the fun of the evening because we got lots of compliments and even some overpours as a result. You may be wondering what’s the point of the pretzel necklaces… the purpose is two-fold 1) as a palate cleanser and 2) to assist you in hopefully not getting too drunk too fast! You’ll see LOTS of people walking around with them at GABF. Many thanks to Stacey and Kev for this key tip to us newbies!

How GABF works for anyone who hasn’t been… there are breweries from all over the country in booths pouring various selections of their beers. You get a taster cup when you come in the door that has a 1oz pour line marked on it. That is all they are allowed to pour but let me tell you… you can still drink A LOT of beer that way! Throughout the festival you’ll hear large collective groans and ooohhhhhh kind of noises throughout the convention hall. This means some silly person has dropped their cup. They better hope it doesn’t break because they won’t replace it for you if it does :(

Some fun facts about this year’s GABF (according to my t-shirt that I bought there):

3 Days

472 Breweries

2,375 Beers

3,940 Beers in the Competition

2,900 volunteers

32,000 people

30 years – and still going strong

0 Larger Festivals in the Nation

You’ll notice a discrepancy between beers and beers in the competition. Many breweries will bring a special beer to be judged for the competition that they aren’t pouring because they simply don’t have enough of it. Medals – gold, silver and bronze – are awarded in a variety of categories. To win one of these is a HUGE achievement in the beer world.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the beers I tasted. Here’s where my beer count falls apart…. I would say I tasted 75 beers this night with an error factor of +/- 30… I drank a few from Sierra Nevada that I have not seen in the bottle before and they were quite good (Sierra Nevada also had some nice swag – posters, carabineer keychains, beer tasting booklets and pens). Other breweries I made at least 1 taste at include Figure Eight (Out of Valpariso, IN – right down the way from where I grew up. I can assure you I will be checking them out on my next trip back to Northwest Indiana), Lakefront Brewery (Milwaukee),  Metropolitan Brewing (Chicago), Goose Island (Chicago – but more about them in the bit about my second day of GABF),  Laughing Dog Brewing (ask Ken about the Laughing Dog tattoo application),  Napa Smith Brewery (A beer called Lost Dog – Stacey and I tended to gravitate towards beers and breweries that  had dog names when we saw them… I am sure you are all so shocked about that!), Oskar Blues Brewery (they also had some great beer can “necklaces” that held your taster glass quite nicely that they were giving away), Firestone Walker (They had a beer that had Ken’s favorite name! Of course he had to try that one!!!! What was even more hilarious was the gal pouring had no idea what it meant!!),  Uncle Billy’s Brew & Que (Austin), Snake River Brewing (Had their beers when we were in Jackson Hole before as well – I told the guys at the table that they saved my life because that was the trip I learned to snowboard and I was soooooooooo in need of beer when I got off them mountain and their brewpub was right there for me!),  Trinity Brewing Company (Colorado Springs; Our friend Brock – the owner of Saint Arnold – recommended that this was the one place we absolutely had to try. Ken loved “Slap your Mammy” a huge double IPA. On Brock’s recommendation I tried “The Flavor” a very complex and interesting black kriek as well as “Brain of the Turtle” which was a sour with some coffee and cheery notes. This is where I started to come around to the idea of sours.), Boulder Beer, Bull & Bush,  Pub Dog (Westminister, MD), Icicle (Washington State), Il Vicino Brewery (Albuquerque), Flossmoor Station Brewing Company (Illinois)… and definitely more. These are just the ones that I took pictures of the banners etc. And I know I did not take pictures of every banner where I drank beer. Are you getting the picture that there is a bit of beer at GABF? :)

I mentioned our friend Brock – he perhaps had the toughest ;) job… he was not only there representing Saint Arnold, he was also a judge. So he had to start drinking at 9:30am! I have to be honest – I wouldn’t want that job. There are so many great beers that I would have a heck of a time picking what beers were best! We did go by the Saint Arnold area and said Hello to our buddy Lennie. We were quite happy to see that many people were coming by to enjoy their beer. I’ve been telling Ken that when we move to Annapolis every extra inch of space in our cars will be stuffed with Saint Arnold since I have become so fond of it and we won’t be able to get it in Maryland!

Perhaps a highlight of the evening was that I got to meet Sam Calagione the Dogfish Head Founder & President. If you are a beer fan and you have not watched the movie “Beer Wars” you really need to. You will never buy a beer from one of the major crappy beer companies again. Sam is in this and quite the character. Was glad when I met him that he was just as I expected :) And a really nice guy!

At 9:45 after 4 hours and 15 minutes they hollered at us all that it was last call :( While it was a sad moment it was probably just as well! We got our last taster from the Pro-Am area (there’s a competition where a professional brewery partners with an amateur home brewer and enters a beer into a competition. Some of them were fantastic!) and headed out.

We need a bit of food so we trued to go to The Yard House but it was PACKED so we wandered further and ended up at a better non-chain place…

THE PARAMOUNT CAFÉ

Fantastic service, good food and a great beer selection. In fact they had a specialty list that the server was trying to sell 1 of all 4 bottles (because if he did he would get to go on a trip to a local brewery for work) so we helped him out by ordering 1. I had the bison burger which was quite excellent. At this point we all started to crater because we were tired…. So after we finished our chow we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep so we could get up and continue our beer festivities again….

~~~~~~~~~~~BEER COUNT: 53 +/- 30!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stay tuned for Day 3 of The Hop......