Colorado Feb 2014

Two of our good friends decided to make the move from the beach to the mountains last August.  Although they were to be missed dearly, we were extremely excited to go visit them in Denver.  What did I take away from our visit to Denver?  Beer, beer, beer, outdoors, and more beer.  This place is a Mecca of breweries and quirky little drinking holes in the middle of no where.  I really enjoyed the farm/country feel of Denver and it's surrounding towns.  I was also surprised to see how old many old brick buildings and houses there were.  I'm a sucker for exposed brick!  To top everything off, the people in Denver are very friendly and seem generally interested in your story, which is always nice when visiting a new town.

We got up bright and early on Friday and headed to Vail for a day of skiing.  The drive was fun dispite running into some traffic.  Vail is an amazing mountain.  The place was huge and we felt like we were inside a snow glob during our day trip.  

As you can see the runs weren't very crowded and this was President's Day weekend.  Such a fun day!

Saturday was a day for a little R&R, beginning the day with a tastey breakfast, going to a prohibition bar that had the best ginger beer I've ever tasted, and ending the evening at a bar to drink the night away with good friends.  

Now that we have adapted to the altitude and dry air, we can get started on the many brewery visits.  First stop, New Belgium Brewery.  This tour is awesome!  They give out 5 samples throughout the 90 minute tour and have a bar to drink at either before or after.  There's also a fun surprise at the end of the tour, but if wouldn't want to spoil it...

La Folie, my heaven.  Sours are the new I.P.A.s If you didn't know...

Me and Colin with our amazing hosts.

After a fantastic tour at New Belgium, our gracious hosts took us to another brewery called The Black Bottle Brewery, also in Fort Collins. This brewery felt more like a small bar than a brewery which is nice for lunch and watching the Olympics.  The food was really good to pair with their delicious beer.  The thing I loved about Colorado is ordering tasters. Even though I usually ordered a full drink, it's a nice option when you have a million choices for beers!

After getting full off many beers and good food, where to next?  Why not another brewery?  Our next stop is Funkwerks, Inc. also in Fort Collins.  I really really loved this place.  It was in the middle of no where.  Very few people were in this tiny spot.  I'm not sure why but I really felt a zen vibe at this bar.  It may have been the no music playing, so no filler noise. All I know is that it was very relaxing sitting outside watching the sun set while sipping on their really delicious sour:)

We ended up back at the apartment for a fun night listening to music and drinking the night away to ring in Cole's 28th birthday.  The next day was very laid back which was a perfect last day of vacation.  We visited two breweries, the first was a funky joint called Vine Street.  This place had some great native decor and I cannot complain about the beer and food.  The next and last brewery was Epic.  No I do not mean the moment was epic, it's the name of the brewery;). This place smelled like hops and had this great industrial decor to accompany the brewery vibes.  I'm not a beer expert, but again the brews were delicious.  The real treat of this visit was seeing all the presidents past walk into the brewery for President's Day.  Definitely an Epic way to end a great weekend.  Until next time Denver!  And to Cole and Kelly,  we'll see you in a week in San Diego:). 

Thank you Denver, Fort Collins, and Vail for showing us how to drink beer and enjoy the outdoors!

If you're ever in Denver, definitely check out the breweries I've listed and definitely take the free tour at New Belgium.  Also, if you have the time and are very ambitious, here's a list of all of Colorado's breweries!

I cannot believe I almost forgot to mention this.  Colin and Cole had a little challenge going.  They challenged eachother to a beard off until they saw eachother during this trip.  They both made it and both somehow kept employment;). Here are the results.