ginger saison & kyle's brew fest

With our wedding celebration right around the corner, it was time for me to start brewing up our farmhouse ale - a ginger saison. The special ingredient - diced candied ginger:



Brewing went off without a hitch on a nice summer day, shaded by the big tree out back. Chillin' the wort:



French farmhouse yeast added and carboyed!



Saturday was Kyle's Brewfest at Boulder Beer. Kyle is (was?) the keyboardist from SCI. Not really a fan, but for $25 you got all the free samples of beer, a hamburger, and a souvenir pint glass. The band was essentially back ground music while we tried out brews from the (mostly) colorado breweries in attendance.



Kyle also worked on some collaborations with local breweries for limited release. This offering from Avery being my fave:



There was another I can't recall (pretty sure it was from Great Divide, and his new flagship beer for Boulder Beer:



After the fest we went back to Jeff's pool and mowed some Snarf's subs for dinner.

BAT TL ES

Scored a free ticket for the Battles show at the Bluebird Tuesday night, and boy was it a hum dinger! I caught them in '07 with Tyondai Braxton and they did just as good of a job, if not better, without him. Check out my video below for 'Wall Street' > 'Ice Cream'.



I do not have the selist, but more vids are available on my youtube channel...

longmont libations

Wed we met up with Carley for a free concert at Waneka, our new entertainment mecca. The band was called Funkifino or something and they were fun playing mostly covers and funkin' it up.

Saturday we went over to 3959 to pick up some old fence boards we plan on using for wedding signage. Afterwards we headed to Lefthand and had a few samples. They didn't have much on tap that we hadn't already tried so we hopped over to Liquids & Solids for some grub and a more exciting variety of brews.



Chilled out that evening and watched some movies. Sunday we watched the World Cup final, which was kind of a let down after the awesome game against Brazil last week.

a nice pair

Saturday afternoon we headed in Denver to check out a couple of breweries we had yet to go to. First stop was the new kid on the block, Strange Brewing, tucked away in an industrial area near Mile High.



Still only producing kegs & growlers, we tried their current full line of offerings. I really enjoyed their Tainted Black Pale and the Cherry Kriek.



We stopped at the Lobby for some between brewery snacks.



Next stop was Great Divide, one of my favorite Colorado breweries. We took the tour and I spotted this tasty looking batch of Hibernation aging in Stranahan's whiskey barrels since march. The regular Hibernation is already in stores, and I cannot wait to score some of this.



Had a few samples, including the Grand Cru and all three of the Yeti varietals on tap.



Good beer deserves good rewards - here's their GABF medal wall.



After the Divide we met up with Kim and a bunch of folks for her birthday dinner at a sushi joint in LoDo.

Sunday we watched the exhilarating US / Brazil women's world cup semi final which was a nailbiter!

14er of july

For 4th of July weekend, Steph & I went camping up off Guenilla Pass. We headed up friday and found a nice secluded spot a bit off the road. Once we set up camp, we went for a short hike checking out the flora & fauna nearby.



We also had a nice raging river close to us.



The biggest score was this fire pit the previous campers had left behind.



Choppin' wood for the massive pit.



Fire pit in action!



Saturday morning we planned on hiking the Bierstadt 14er, but when we got up to my car, the front tires were way low on air. I had a similar problem wit the rear tires a couple weeks ago - the bead seal was leaking from years of crud on the wheels. So we had to go to Evergreen to the Big O and get them resealed so we wouldn't wind up stranded on the pass. We had to wait a while and got some breakfast at a baglery. By the time it was all done, we missed the window to finsih the hike before adverse weather, so we just headed back to our campsite and chillaxed.

Sunday morning we headed back home and spent the day unpacking/cleaning/etc.

Monday morning Steph raced in the Avery 4k on the 4th race behind the brewery. We met up with Barb and some other F4 folks and bumped into Greg whose mom was running (and won 2nd in her age group). After beers & breakfast we headed home and prepped for our BBQ with Meg & Paul. After dinner we walked to Waneka for the revival of the Lafayette fireworks which were dang good for a small town.