Colorado Trip 2013: Days One and Two

Near the end of last month, my girlfriend Sara and I flew to Colorado for my now annual visit with my sister April and her family. I previously posted about my trips around Labor Day last year and back in April of 2011. Colorado is well known as one of the best states for beer. My previous two Colorado-related posts were heavy on beer consumption, but this trip topped both of those in that regard. So much so in fact, that I am going to break up this trip into several more-easily-digestible posts.

On the first day, I was happy to discover that my sister has a sample pack in her refrigerator from Left Hand Brewing Company. I tried a bottle of the Stranger American Pale Ale which was new to me and a bottle of their flagship Sawtooth Ale which was already on my Beer List. Left Hand's brewery is located in Longmont, Colorado.

On the afternoon of the second day of our visit, Sara, April and I had ourselves a little outing. We started at Avery Brewing Company's tap room in Boulder. I decided to have four IPA tasters. Their standard IPA is on the Beer List in almost every imaginable form. The other three samples, Simcoe/Chinook IPA, Summer’s Day IPA, and duganA IPA were all specials of the tap room. It was interesting to taste the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the four flavors of IPA.

The next stop on our second day beer outing was Twelve Degree Brewing (or 12° Brewing per their logo) in Louisville, Colorado. They seemed to be a relatively new microbrewery. They focus almost exclusively on Belgian-style beers which I appreciate. The three of us sampled six of their own brews plus two from guest taps. The six of their beers that we tried were the Soleil Saison which is a Belgian farmhouse ale, Walter's White which is a which is a Belgian-style white ale, Brabant Tripel, Foxx Rougge, Sorach which was another farmhouse ale, and Sorach L'Orange which was brewed with oranges. The two guest brews were Powder Daze Pale (now Powder Run Pale) from Echo Brewing in Frederick, Colorado and Hop Savant from the Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project out of Denver.

Our next stop before getting some ice cream was Lucky Pie Pizza & Taphouse which is also in Lewisville. In addition to some great food including their hand-made pizzas, I elected to go with their Colorado beer sampler. The sampler included Tivoli Helles Lager. Tivoli Brewing Company is located in Denver. The sampler also included Hoppy Bock Lager from New Belgium Brewing which is located in Fort Collins, Colorado (and soon to be Asheville, North Carolina) and Moirai IPA from FATE Brewing Company in Boulder.

After enjoying some ice cream and before heading back to April's house, we dropped in at Gravity Brewing which was down the street and across the railroad tracks. While there, I had an Ante Meridiem Espresso Stout and a Schwag Session Ale.

I will cover the rest of my Colorado trip in a subsequent post (or posts). However, I did want to mention that Boulder and the surrounding areas were hit hard by devastating flooding a couple of weeks after Sara and I were safely back home in North Carolina. I am happy to report that my sister, her family and their house were all spared any harm from the flooding.

Jim's Travels: Colorado

Yesterday, I posted for the first time in over two months. Today, I am going to write the post that I intended to do yesterday before I went off on a tangent about Facebook. About two and a half weeks ago, I flew to Colorado to spend eight days including Labor Day weekend with my sister April and her family. They live in a small town outside of Boulder. As I mentioned yesterday, April has posted about my trip on her site, and we have both posted photos of the trip on Facebook. I have made several previous trips to Colorado to visit April and her family. My last trip was in April 2011, and I posted about that trip. That post primarily focused on beer, and since most of the rest of this trip has already been covered elsewhere, this post will focus on beer as well.

On my first full day in Colorado, April and I took my nephew Jack and niece Grace to the Oskar Blues restaurant location in Longmont, Colorado. April ordered food for the kids off the children's menu. I remember one of them got macaroni and cheese, and I think the other got chicken fingers with french fries (which were tasty). I do not remember what April ordered for herself, but something possessed me to order the special of the day which was fried chicken and a waffle. The chicken was peppery which was good. The waffle was good as well, but I did end up sharing about half of it with the kids.

Oskar Blues Brewery is primarily known for featuring beer in cans, but at their restaurant, I enjoyed two draft beers. The first was One-Nut Brown Ale which is a nutty English-style brown ale of the Newcastle family. The second was Dave's Pale Ale which is not to be confused with their flagship Dale's Pale Ale. The Dave's was a very nice summery brew which reminded me of Oberon Ale from Bell's Brewery.

The next day, we picked up a sample pack from Twisted Pine Brewing Company. The 12-pack contained two bottles each of six different brews. The package shows their complete product line, so I was disappointed that the box did not actually have a bottle of Billy’s Chilies which is a wheat beer brewed with a variety of peppers. Over the next few days, I drank five of the six varieties that we did get. April's husband Christian and I both skipped the Raspberry Wheat, so April must have drank both of those. The first one I had was the Honey Brown Ale which was a good drinkable beer. I followed that with the Cream Style Stout. On Twitter, I noted that it was pretty smooth and tasty. It reminded me of another local beer, Left Hand Milk Stout. The next day, I tried the Blond Ale which was not particularly memorable, and the following day, I had the American Amber Ale which was reminiscent of other amber ales. I saved their flagship brew for last. On Twitter, I stated that their Hoppy Boy IPA was hoppy, as expected by the name, but not insanely so.

Backing up a couple of days in my narrative, April, Christian and I went to the Boulder Brew and Music Festival on the Saturday before Labor Day We attended the first session in the afternoon. I would not attempt to cover all the different beers that I sampled even if I remembered them all. I will mention that I did finally get to try a sample of the Billy’s Chilies brew from Twisted Pine. It was quite spicy, and the one-ounce sample was plenty. I will also mention that I was surprised by all of the fruits that were represented. According to the festival webpage and the scorecard that was provided, there were 21 breweries with booths. Three of those 21, Angry Orchard, Colorado Cider, and Crispin, were cider brewer. There was also Twisted Tea which has a Raspberry Hard Ice Tea. Plus several of the traditional breweries were offering fruit-flavored beers.

On Sunday, April and I traveled up to the Rocky Mountains with the kids. First, we rode the Estes Park Aerial Tramway up and down Prospect Mountain. We then had lunch at the Estes Park Brewery. The food was standard bar food. I believe April and I split some sliders and a plate of nachos that wase much larger than we anticipated. I had two drafts, the Trail Ridge Red and the Staggering Elk Lager. Both were drinkable although neither were particularly memorable.

I have one final beer to mention in relation to this Colorado trip. April dropped me off at the Denver airport on the Wednesday after Labor Day. I had a connecting flight to Chicago which was delayed about an hour and a half. I stopped into one of the airport bars and ordered a beer. I picked the Singletrack Copper Ale from Boulder Beer Company. Singletrack is an American pale ale, and it was very helpful while I was trying to down the spicy soup that I ordered.

Not a Mystery

Yesterday, I had dinner at the new location of the Flying Burrito which happens to be near my place. The restaurant recently moved from its original location in Chapel Hill into the empty location that was vacated last year by Lynnwood Grill. There is some hope around the neighborhood that this new place will recapture the atmosphere of the old Lynnwood Grill before it moved across the street into its fancy new digs.

This was actually my second trip to the Flying Burrito. My first was on a Saturday for lunch, and I enjoyed their flagship entree, the Flying Burrito. My second visit started at the bar. I asked the bartender about their specials, and she informed me that they had mystery beers for a dollar. Those of you that are familiar with my Twitter posts know that I enjoy mystery beers. There is usually a big drum filled with ice and random bottles of beer. My understanding is that the mystery beers are bottles which the distributor is looking to get rid of. They could be from a broken case or seasonal brews that are out of season, a Christmas ale or a winter warmer in the heat of summer for instance. In this case, the one-dollar mystery beer was a Budweiser. As I posted on Twitter, I had the least mysterious mystery beer in history. It might just be me, but a Bud just does not live up to my expectation of a mystery beer.

For food during this occasion, I ordered their shrimp burrito which came smothered in buffalo sauce. The buffalo sauce was also not mysterious since it seemed to be Texas Pete. Discounting the tortilla, rice and black beans, I essentially had grilled shrimp covered in Texas Pete along with a bottle of Bud to wash it down. The whole experience seemed to be more Southern than Southwestern.

My two trips to the Flying Burrito had one thing in common, and that was very good service which bordered on annoying. Unfortunately, this good service seemed to be primarily due to the lack of customers in the place. Granted, I visited on a Saturday afternoon past the primary time for lunch and on a Monday evening. Hopefully, that is not a sign of things to come for this place. Soon, I hope to try the place some weekend evening. Perhaps, it does have the spark of the old Lynnwood.

The Great Lakes Family

This post is just an excuse to show the photos to the right. Last week, I traveled to Las Vegas for a conference. On my trip to Sin City, I had a layover in Cleveland. My layover happen to coincide with lunchtime. While walking through Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, I found that the Great Lakes Brewing Company has a brewpub located in Terminal C. I saddled up to the bar with the intent of trying a new beer to go along with my lunch. Instead, I elected to sample five of their brews.

The Great Lakes family sampler includes samples of five of their popular year-round beers. The five sampler glasses were served in paddle intended for only four glasses. The fifth glass was squeezed on the handle. As seen in the top photo, I had already tried the first beer when I decided to take the picture. That first beer was their Dortmunder Gold Lager. The bartender told me that the golden lager was their most popular brew. It was also my favorite of the five.

My second sample was the Eliot Ness Amber Lager which was my second favorite of the bunch. The third and fourth were the Burning River Pale Ale and Commodore Perry IPA. Despite not being a big pale ale fan, I found these brews to be tasty. The final beer and the dark glass on the right side of the photo was the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. It was a good finish to the sampler.

For food, I went with the bratwurst and pierogi as seen in the bottom picture. I had been craving German food, so this hit the spot. While it was nowhere near as good as J. Betski's, it was a very enjoyable lunch.

Great White North by Northwest, Part I

As previously promised, here is my post on my recent trip to Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR. The trip was for both business and pleasure. I was in Vancouver for business to attend the SIGGRAPH 2011 conference. The stop in Portland was to visit my college friend Alan.

The SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics) conference was held in the Vancouver Conference Centre which is located on the shores of Coal Harbour. The conference center is an interesting building and is known for an interesting piece of art. The views around Coal Harbour (which also seems to be known as Vancouver Harbour) are simply spectacular. Located next to the conference center is an airport for seaplanes called the Vancouver Harbour Water Airport. My coworkers and I all regretted that we did not have the opportunity to take a tour on one of the seaplanes.

Past the seaplane airport is the Mill Marine Bistro which is a restaurant and bar that overlooks the harbor. My coworkers and I had lunch there on our first day and then later returned to enjoy some of the local beers on tap. The bar features draft beers from the Whistler Brewing and Granville Island Brewing. I tried the Altitude Honey Lager and the Weissbier Wheat Ale from Whistler and enjoy both. It seems that the name of Whistler's honey lager has now been changed to Bear Paw.

I tried three different brews from Granville Island Brewing at various places around Vancouver during my trip. The first was the Robson Street Hefeweizen, the second was a pint of the English Bay Pale Ale, and the last was the Island Lager.

While in Vancouver, my coworkers and I enjoyed several fabulous dinners. The bartender in the hotel bar assured us that Gotham Steakhouse was the best of the breed in Vancouver. It was the only steakhouse that we tried during our visit, but it definitely got our vote as the best. Our waiter assured us that the grass-fed beef available in Canada was much better than the best grade of meat grown in the United States. The restaurant's website tells me their beef is from the prairies of Alberta. Interestingly enough, our waiter suggested that I not get my steak rare which is my usual preference. He told me that Canadian beef is lean, so rare is not sufficient for getting the juices flowing. I acquiesced and enjoyed a fabulous medium rare steak.

The next night, our group wanted seafood. Our hotel bartender again provided an excellent suggestion with a place called Joe Fortes. From what I remember, the raw oysters were fabulous, as were the calamari and beef carpaccio. For my entrée, I had a dish that was the daily special. I believe the fish was sole. It was buttery and sweet which was unexpected. I thought it was an excellent dish which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I enjoyed quite a few different brews while I was in Vancouver. The restaurant in our hotel had Rickard's Red from Molson on tap. I enjoyed several brews at Mahony & Sons, an Irish pub located in the convention center complex which also seems to be called Burrard Landing. In addition to some of the previously mentioned brews from Granville Island, I tried the Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale and the Stanley Park Noble Pilsner. In my tweet about the Stanley Park brew, I stated that it compared favorably to Sam Adams Noble Pils.

On our last night in Vancouver, our team had dinner at Smiley's Public House. It was Thursday, so I enjoyed the steak frites special for $13. That would be Canadian dollars, of course. I also enjoyed Driftwood Farmhand Ale which is a Belgian-style saison.

In a future post, I will cover my visit to Portland which was the second part of my trip.

Beer Dinner

I have a list of draft posts that are aging in the queue. I also have a backlog of beer to discuss. At the end of the year, I hope to move the Beer List to a stand-alone post as a summary for the year. I want to cover those brews before then. The topic of this post dates back before my trip to China. Unfortunately, the Chinese government's block of Blogger kept me from posting while I was there, and I have not gotten around to finishing this post until now. The week before my flight to Shanghai, El and I attended a beer-sampling dinner at Zely & Ritz which is a tapas and wine restaurant in the Glenwood South area of downtown Raleigh.

El and I have always thought Glenwood South would be great for tapas hopping. The area has four tapas restaurants within a few blocks plus several great restaurants featuring a variety of cuisines. The tour could start at Zely & Ritz which is at the south end of the stretch. A block north is a relatively new place named Cashmere. I have never visited Cashmere nor the restaurant previously housed at that location which was first named April & George and then just the George. I have visited the final two stops on our proposed Glenwood South tapas tour. The next stop would be the Red Room which is another block north. Red Room is one of several local restaurants owned by Rocky Top Hospitality. Two others, Bogart's and Hi5, are in the same building. Our tapas tour would finish up at Tasca Brava which one of our favorite restaurants.

Back to the beer dinner, the featured brewery was Fullsteam which is located in Durham. The dinner featured four courses including desert, and each course was paired with a different beer. I kept a menu to help me remember which is very convenient since two months have now passed. Two representatives from the brewery, Sean (also from Pop the Cap fame) and Chris, were in attendance, and they regaled us with stories for each brew. Unfortunately, I have waited too long to write this post, and I have now forgotten their stories.

The first brew was their Summer Basil Farmhouse Ale which was served as people were arriving at the restaurant. This beer was the first produced by Fullsteam. I know that farmhouse ales are flavored by a variety of fruits and spices, but I thought the basil in this beer resulted in a odd taste which reminded me of soap.

The first course was a Swiss chard salad with goat cheese, apples, pecans and maple syrup. The brew paired with the salad was the Rocket Science IPA. I do not remember why they decided to call this particular beer Rocket Science. I suppose brewing a very good beer is complicated work, but the finished product is much tastier than a Saturn V. The IPA is an enjoyable pale ale that does not go too crazy with the hops.

The second course was an arugula salad with shiitake mushrooms and barley. It was paired with the Carolina Common beer which now seems to be named Southern Lager and is their flagship brew. The style is steam beer or California common beer and was made famous by Anchor Brewing out in San Francisco. This was my favorite of the brews we sampled.

I remember the third course being completely fabulous. It was smoked bacon and pork rib roast with mashed sweet potatoes. Some of the mashed sweet potatoes were purple which made for an interesting look on the plate. The pork was from Coon Rock Farm which is located over near Hillsborough. The paired beer was Hogwash Hickory-Smoked Porter. I was not overly impressed by the smoked porter. Most of the people in the place either did not like this beer at all or absolutely loved it. El fell squarely in the later category.

For desert, a local bakery named Crumb provided their take on the Moon Pie. It was another hit. The brew paired with desert was the Working Man's Lunch which is a chocolate stout. Both the desert and the beer were quite tasty and the pairing provided a great end to the evening.

Lesson Learned

Beer Update: On Sunday, El and I cracked open the first bottle of the second home brew batch, and each of us had a pint. Honestly, it was a bit strong. El felt that it needed aeration and even grabbed a stirrer to help with that. Hopefully, the other bottles will be more drinkable.

Also on Sunday, El and I had dinner at Savoy, a local French restaurant. We have dined there before, and it was quite enjoyable. For those that may not know El, she is quite a foodie. One of her favorite foods is foie gras, and Savoy is one of the few restaurants in the area that have foie on the menu. We were both looking forward to dinner and to some succulent foie gras in particular. Unfortunately, we have repeatedly discovered that Valentine's Day is the absolute worst day for dining out. In the past, we have encountered poor service, limited menus, and lower-quality food (even resulting in a possible case of food poisoning). Alas, this year was no different. Instead of their full dinner menu, Savoy offered a limited fixed-priced menu which did not include foie. I asked about substituting or adding a dish of foie, but neither was allowed. I assume this was due to the large number of diners. On our previous visit, we had plenty of attention from our server as well as other waitstaff. On this visit with a packed house, our server barely had any time for us. The food was still good, although the desserts were a bit disappointing. The bottle of wine (Guido Porro, I believe) was nice though. All in all though, it was another disappointing Valentine's dinner.