Colorado Brewery Pilgrimage 2011 - Part II

After a good time in Fort Collins it was time to make our way to Boulder via Longmont. The first stop on our list was the Tasty Weasel, the tasting room at Oskar Blues. Even after a leisurely breakfast at the Longmont location of Lucile’s and nine holes of disc golf, we still showed up a little before they were to open. After waiting around until after the time when they should have opened we tried what appeared to be the main door, found it locked and tried another door. While it was unlocked, the person inside seemed startled and from the quick look it appeared to open to the production area of the brewery. It looked like we were going to have to give up until a guy in a truck pulled up.




I'm not sure it actually runs, but it is pretty sweet.

 

The guy explained they were closed due to the holiday (Easter), apologized and then offered to let us in for a pint anyway. Not being ones to say no to such a kind offer we took him up on it and followed him in the back door, through a very cool lounge area and into the tasting room.



We might never have left if they had actually been open.

 As it turned out the nice guy in the truck was Dale, yes, founder-of-Oskar-Blues Dale. Like most brewery folk we’ve had the pleasure to meet Dale was happy to answer all our questions, give us samples of as many of the beers as we wanted and generally make us feel incredibly welcome. Not only that, he took us into the brewery where brewmaster Dave was hard at work.



If you look past our happy, shiny faces you'll see Dave atop the tank.



Not wanting to overstay our welcome after we got back to the tasting room, we finished our pints and headed down the road to the brewpub outpost of Oskar Blues, Home Made Liquids & Solids.

Once inside we almost made a mistake by taking seats at the bar. The stars were apparently still shining on us this day however and we decided to take a table in order to be further away from the live music. I say this because our waiter turned out to be the bar manager, Nate, who upon noticing our beer geekiness, offered to pick a variety of beers off their menu for our tasting and followed it up by sitting down and talking about each of them.

After a thoroughly enjoyable time, we finally drug ourselves away from Longmont and completed our jaunt down the road to Boulder.

Our hotel being located near the center of town we took the opportunity to stretch our legs, walking to Johnny's Cigar Bar where we took advantage of a small Easter Sunday crowd and having the smoking lounge all to ourselves. Cigars, beer, cards, mixed drinks, dice, we might have stayed all night if not for the need to get some dinner.

The closest brewpub was Walnut Brewery, which we had been to before. While I wouldn't say they have outstanding beers, they do have solid beers and just the type of filling food we were hungry for. However once our bellies were full the day caught up to us and we made an early night of it.

As Monday dawned it was time to start thinking about the end of this pilgrimage and a return to the real world. After another solid meal at Lucile's, Boulder location, we headed back to Denver and spent the last few hours relaxing with beer and shuffleboard upstairs at Wynkoop.

Another successful brewery pilgrimage! Guess that means it's time to start planning the next one.