Colorado: Day 1

I'd love to tell you I didn't spend 20 minutes trying to think up a more creative title than that, but I don't want to lie. When did title-writing become so difficult? Maybe the better question is when did I start caring? Nobody needs fake chuckles at lame play-on-words headlines. Besides, it's not like any of my readers have a post with a similar title...

The goals of this trip (beyond the obvious family bonding, outdoor adventures, yada yada yada):

1. Visit any number of the numerous--and there are tons--breweries, brewpubs, saloons, gastro pubs, beer bars and watering holes in the central Colorado area.
2. Purchase, consume, ponder and review a wide selection of beers unavailable in Minnesota.
3. Leave with taste buds intact and functioning.
4. Don't alienate and/or piss off family.
5. Don't be 'that guy.'

That's sort of a prerequisite goal of any trip, outing, situation. Has being 'that guy' ever been a good thing? Unfortunately, I believe I became 'that guy,' drunkenly chucking bean bags across the cabin deck by myself well into the morning hours.

Day One.

Missed the 7:15 am flight to Denver. Several reasons. Incredible congestion at airport. One security person funneling all passengers to one bag-checking metal-detecting line. Random bag-check selection. Most remote departure gate. Whatever the reason, the four of us somehow made it onto the next flight when twelve connecting passengers missed their connection. Arrive in Denver around 11 am. Bags, shuttle, rental car, and we're on our way to Boulder, and stop number one: Liquor Mart.

This is what I love about liquor stores, and exactly what I was getting at at the top of this post. Rarely does a liquor store have a creative name, and more often than not, the facade simply says "LIQUOR." They know it, we know it, everyone knows it--you need not say anything more. How many "Liquor Marts" or "Liquor Depots" or "Wine and Spirits" are there in the country? Sure, you could throw your name in front of 'Liquor,' but people are stopping all the same. Why bother?

Liquor Mart was the stop because I read they had the best selection of singles in the area. I was surprised in general at the lack of favorable liquor store reviews in Colorado, specifically Denver. Luckily, Boulder was directly on the way to our destination, and I had a car full of booze-hungry fiends ready to splurge. I picked up a dozen or so single bottles and cans--yes! cans! (20% off mixed six packs!), mostly from mountain/west coast breweries I'd heard of but never tried. I just made my monthly exclamation point quota. Had to grab a Chupacabras Pale Ale from Mexico because I simply love the chupacabra. A label-saver if I've ever seen one.

Before leaving Boulder, we stopped for lunch at the Lazy Dog Sports Grill and Bar. Maybe wouldn't have been our top choice but we were famished and already feeling the one hour time difference. I tried the Lazy Dog Amber, which I later learned was an in-house brew contracted by Firestone Walker Brewing Company in Paso Robles, California. Oh well. It was decent, but really fell off toward the last third of the pint. Ambers are difficult for me. This one was pretty nutty, biscuity (don't like using that word. feels awkward) and had an aftertaste akin to a handful of dirt. My last two comments: "Gets worser and worser. Skunky." Decent may have been overstating it I guess.

Stomachs and trunk filled, we meandered toward the Estes Park area and location of Luther Lodge. Where, it turns out, bloody marys were being served, with Left Hand's Polestar Pilsner as chaser. I believe that was the role this beer was meant to play. I'm not one for pilsners to begin with, but this one was "like gnawing on a sock." Not even worthy of my traditional complaint about lackluster pilsners tasting like grass. No matter, the bloody was putting me in the right place.

Next up was Great Divide's Denver Pale Ale, a malty English pale ale with a bit of a metallic hop finish. I like these beers, but this one wasn't my favorite. Next. A can! I like cans, and I enjoyed canned beers from three different Colorado breweries on the trip. This one, SKA Modus Hoperandi, was my favorite beer of the night. Nice grapefruit hop smell as soon as you crack it. One of the reasons I love cans. You can't crack a bottle like you can a can. That sizzle snap followed by bursting scents is pure and untouchable. This was one of those beers I could tell I was going to love just by its color and how it rolled in the glass. Nice creamy texture; not too thin, and definitely not syrupy, but with enough flavor to satisfy. Terrific pine bitter finish as well.

My final beer of day one was the Alaskan Summer Ale, a kolsch. Again with the styles I don't terribly enjoy. On the night's spectrum, this one fell somewhere in between the Lazy Dog and the DPA. Not skunky, for sure, but not a lot to keep me coming back to the glass. Had a ciderish quality to it, like a sweet, flat British tap cider. I'm not sure the words sweet and flat could be used to describe anything in a pleasant way. Maybe a frosting-slathered graham cracker. Day one in the books.

January Snackers: Domestics

I wasn't sure I could make it, but I went four consecutive days without having a beer. Let's just say I'm rewarding myself tonight. In the meantime, here's a brief recap of some of the best domestics I've had this year.

Victory Prima Pils

Victory
Downington, Pennsylvania
5.3% ABV
3.5 stars

I guess I was too busy hammering Bell's and Surly last year to really get into Victory, but the third of their offerings I've had this year (and I'm probably tackling Old Horizontal and Storm King later tonight) was probably the best pilsner I've ever had. Apologies, of course, to Pilsner Urquell, but the flavors were unbelievably clean in the Victory, which I had on tap at Bryant Lake Bowl. Nice and grassy, with a large dollop of bitter hops. Pilsner definitely isn't one of my favorite styles of beer, but I liked this quite a bit. It's easy to see why Prima Pils ranks among the top ten pilsners at RateBeer.

Avery Old Jubilation Ale

Avery
Boulder, Colorado
8% ABV
4 stars

Via friend recommendation. Lovely winter scene on the label, for starters. This beer had a terrific round flavor--you could taste layers from the time it hit your tongue til the moment it splashed your stomach. Chewy, thick, but with a nice spicy hop kick. A beer that has a bunch of alcohol, but is disguised quite well. Plus, the Gophers were en route to a shocking overtime victory at Wisconsin at the time of consumption, so it gets an extra boost there.

Great Divide Hibernation Ale

Great Divide
Denver, Colorado
8.1% ABV
4 stars

Strong. This flavor would survive a simple rinse of the glass, I think. It's dense and rich; very malty. Not a lot of bite in it, but it's meaty enough to take up an hour of your time and not feel laborious. Would serve well as a nightcap, as it has that pleasant warming feel that we all enjoy around midnight.

Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner

Boston Beer Company
Boston, Massachusetts
8.8% ABV
4 stars

So, if Prima Pils was the best pilsner I've sampled, how does this one get an extra half star? Check the alcohol content amigo. This is massive. I'd never even heard of an imperial pilsner when I saw this on the shelf, and I was skeptical upon purchase. Remember, I'm not a huge pilsner guy to begin with. I guess you can add me to the imperial pilsner facebook group, though, because this baby satisfied me to no end. It reminded me in flavor a lot of Surly's Bitter Brewer, heavy on the citrus, but about five times as strong. Had a buttery texture but somehow was still quite crisp. I loved the extreme bitterness up front, and fear that this could be a dangerous beer to drink in mass quantities. Good thing it's sold in four-packs, because six of these would equal one large morning headache.

The Skunk List: 6. Northern Premium Light

Brewery: Cold Spring Brewery, Cold Spring, Minnesota

Style: Pilsner

ABV: ??

Rating: .5 star

Looking back, this could easily be ranked the worst beer of the year, but as a low-carb light beer, that's predictable. So putting it at the top of the list would be boring. That said, Northern Premium Light was notably worse than even the worst beastly lights out there.

At its original time of rating, I called it "the most tasteless beer to date." That was in August, and if my memory serves me correctly, I would still describe it that way. In fact, the brewer's website describes it this way: "This beer is a lightly hopped beer with low body and a pale golden color." Lightly hopped? Low body? Pale golden color? Not exactly the best PR work here. And no, you can't buy a single bottle of this beer, though I've paid more for an individual bottle many times than I had to pay for an entire case of this. There's your sign.

Unfortunately, I had to offer this swill to my father-in-law after an evening of manly labor, something I was admittedly embarrassed doing. When I asked him what he thought of it, he said, "It's cold." That's really the best you can do. There are, as in the case of Harbin, plenty of drinkers out there that can do a much more eloquent job of describing these beers, and I strongly encourage you to read a sampling of them at ratebeer.com. Since this is a year-end recap, I don't have all the flavors fresh in my mind, so I have to rely on my initial notes and hazy memory. In this instance, I was as terse as possible in my original rating. So again, I'll let the raters take over.

heemer77: "Wow, this pours out of the can with a pale yellow that is not even straw. It’s like looking in a trough at a stadium and seeing the water washing away the urine. White scum of a head on top. The aroma is light vomit and corn flakes. There is also some petroleum based aroma, like motor oil. The taste is light corn flakes with a metallic finish."

jpm30: "Strange, unappealing nose, even for a light beer, that apple juice scent that so many Gluek beers have, corn syrup, metallic fusel alcohol. Active carbonation without the light body, more medium, watery feeling. Unpleasant taste, weak, watery sour apple juice, the thinnest of sweet pale malts, hints of boiled sweet corn, used up, tasteless hops, finishes with a big taste of metal. There is also an artificial sweetener twang in the aftertaste, making you want to wash your mouth out."

asedzie: "Aroma is rotting compost and a little bit of cigarette smoke. Flavor is light diacetyl with rotten vegetables. Watery palate. Putrid. Can’t think of any redeeming qualities to this beer."