Round Numbers and Letters, Part II

This post is a continuous of yesterday's post that covered the first part of my run-up to the 1,000th entry in my Brew List as well as my trip with my mother to Colorado to visit my sister and her family. As a reminder, number 996 was a single-hop pale ale from Left Hand Brewing Company located in Longmont, Colorado.

Following the visit to Left Hand's tap room by my sister April, her husband Christian and myself, we hit a local Indian restaurant for dinner. With dinner, I enjoyed a big bottle of Kingfisher Premium Lager which was the 997th entry on the list. Christian called it the Budweiser of India, and I think that is about right. Kingfisher is a product of United Breweries Limited or the UB Group. I added another Indian beer from UB Group, Flying Horse Royal Lager, to the Brew List last year.

Number 998 was a can out of my sister's refrigerator. The can was Craft Lager from Upslope Brewing Company located in Boulder, Colorado. I spent the whole day playing with my nephew and niece, so I think I rightly deserved that beer.

The runner-up to number one thousand was a bottle from April's fridge. I assume it was from a Rocky Mountain Sampler pack from Breckenridge Brewery. Number 999 was a bottle of Fresh Hop Pale Ale from Breckenridge's Mountain Series. I have had several brews from Breckenridge on previous visits to Colorado.

Now a drum roll, please. Number 1,000 was a bottle of Wolf Picker out of a sampler pack from Odell Brewing. Quoting from the bottle, the beer is an "Experimental Pale Ale," and it is part of their Roots Release series. I enjoyed it on Christmas Eve during a family gathering at my sister's house. Last year, I had two drafts from Odell at the Denver airport while heading back from visiting my sister. I had their IPA and 90 Shilling Ale.

Round Numbers and Letters, Part I

This year is nearing its end, and so far, I have managed to publish a measly five posts. I have been cheating you dear imaginary reader. I hope to make it up to you at least a bit by the end of the year. This post will be first of two post that will combine two possibly independent topics. The first possibly separate post would have covered the run-up to the one-thousandth entry in my Brew List. (By the way, I changed the name of the list from "Beer List" to "Brew List" because it contains ciders and meads which are not beers along with the normal ales and lagers. I do not plan to add other fermented beverages to the list although I do enjoy wine, some sake, and the hard liquors.)

However, that particular milestone just happened to occur while I was on a trip with my mother to Colorado to visit my sister and her family. In the past, I have published a post (or several posts) about my now-annual visit to that great beer-loving state. While I did manage to add several new Colorado brews to the list and visit another brewery, this Colorado trip was definitely more about family.

I will start my updates back in North Carolina prior to my trip to Colorado. The last time I updated my list, it stood at 988 entries. Therefore, I knew the big four-digit milestone was quickly approaching. That is why I will start with number 989 which was a draft of Christmas Eve At A New York City Hotel Room (I did not know it was foreshadowing at the time) from Evil Twin Brewing. That brewery made appearances in the posts about both brews #500 and #900. I have discussed quirky Evil Twin in the past, and I just noticed on the "About" page, that they use ten different contract breweries.

Moving on, the 990th entry in the list was Old Chub Nitro from Oskar Blues. Old Chub is a Scotch ale, and the nitrogen gives it a smoother, creamier mouth feel. I had it on draft and not in a can which contains a widget for infusing nitrogen into the beer.

The 991th and 992th entries were both from Short's Brewing Company. Their brews are produced in an industrial park in Elk Rapids, Michigan. A friend of my girlfriend Sara returned from a trip to Michigan with a six-pack of different beers from Short's for her and I to try. The first four bottles were previously consumed and duly cataloged. Number 991 was Wowee Zowee which is (and I quote from the bottle) a "Golden Ale brewed with fresh mint and mango." I remember it being a generally fruity-tasting beer but not tasting overly like mango or mint. Number 992 was Alter Spalter which is (again quoting from the bottle) "A True Old World German Ale."

Now we fast forward a few days. My mom volunteered to babysit my nephew and niece while my sister, brother-in-law and I went out for drinks and dinner. We stopped by the tasting room of Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont, Colorado. The city of Longmont was greatly affected by the floods that hit Colorado last year. According to my brother-in-law, some roads have only recently been reopened after being closed for repair for over a year. Getting back to less sobering news (pun intended), I enjoyed a four-beer flight of single-hopped pale ales from their Safety Rounds. Therefore, beers numbers 993 through 996 were single-hopped Safety Round beers with Chinook, Comet, Centennial, and Apollo hops, respectively.

I will cover the 997th through 1000th entries to the list in the next post.