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Mini-beer tour: Niwot, Longmont, Boulder, Broomfield CO

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As  promised yesterday, here’s the scoop on our mini-beer tour…

(Editor’s Note: driving duties were traded off and typically only a single pint was consumed between two people per stop. Also, this tour took over 8 hours to complete so there was ample sober time between stops. So relax and don’t get yer pantaloons in a bunch).

Our first destination was the less than 2 months old Bootstrap Brewery http://www.bootstrapbrewing.com in Niwot, CO. The first thing you’ll notice is a great patio followed by an interior that is difficult to describe — it’s in a business park, but it looks like a house that’s been converted into a brewery and taproom. Whatever the history is of this building, it has a uniqueness that was impressive and the ambiance was excellent. It wasn’t too loud or too quiet, just festive feeling, plus there was ample seating and quiet back-corner areas for people seeking to be recluses.

Our goal when we added Bootstrap to the itinerary was to get some of the much-ballyhooed cherry ginger ale, but alas, the keg was tapped and we were left with broken hearts. Fortunately, they had a chili beer on tap. You may or may not know that we’re chili beer fiends, so this was a welcome surprise. (As an aside: if you too like some heat in your beer, Coopersmith’s chili beer comes highly recommended, as is Billy’s Chili’s from Twisted Pine. And for the fearless souls and iron-stomached amongst you, be sure to try Ghostface Killah, also from Twisted Pine. That shit is so hot that I can only drink it from shotglasses. Legend goes that when they made this stuff they had to destroy the brewing equipment afterwards because any other beer brewed in it would come out hot no matter how much it was cleaned).

Anyway, the chili beer was tasty although not quite up to par with our benchmark Coopersmith’s.

The service was quick, friendly and attentive. Absolutely no complaints. Had we not had a drive ahead of us we would’ve tried more beers, but as it stood our short visit was pleasant. Recommended.

 

Next we headed toward Left Hand Brewing http://www.lefthandbrewing.com in Longmont, but the first whispers of trouble for the day began to surface while on the highway. My trusty 2003 Hyundai Elantra was having difficulty accelerating and was behaving sluggishly. We assumed it must be attributed to the ridiculous heat wave Colorado is currently being pummeled by and that the 86k mile car was just overheating…

We arrived at Left Hand without incident, though, and were forced to park in the very last space at the far end of the lot. This was my third visit to Left Hand, but it will likely be my last. We adore their beers and their taproom, but unfortunately I think they’ve gotten too popular for their own good, at least at this location. People were practically shoulder to shoulder in the taproom and a long line had formed for each of the three bartenders on staff. It felt like the concession booth at a rock festival, which is a nightmare that at 38 years old I am no longer willing to tolerate. We grabbed one pint to share between the two of us and I bought a bomber of their limited edition Smoke Jumper to take home. The pint we had was of Fade To Black pepper porter, and it was phenomenal, but we guzzled the thing down just so we could get the hell out of the deafening crowd.

Truly unfortunate…I suppose some prefer crowded places, but I find it irritating when I have to scream to be heard over the cacophony. Please, Left Hand, please build a second or third taproom to siphon off some of your business.

 

After our hasty retreat from Left Hand we realized that such a quick stop was problematic in more ways than one — the car hadn’t had the opportunity to adequately cool and now matters became all kinds of fucked up. As we headed toward Boulder, “Hunny” (as I call my Hyundai…shut up) unceremoniously died on the highway and coasted to a stop at a non-descript industrial park. After 86 thousand miles, at least 6 trips coast-to-coast, Arizona desert conditions, Mountainous Colorado driving, soggy Portland commutes and witch’s tit Chicago cold, she finally let me down.

As we sat hunkered under the one shady tree in the area awaiting roadside assistance to arrive, it suddenly became clear that only drinking beer all day when it’s almost triple-digit temperatures is a good way to get dehydrated. We’re brilliant like that.

Desperation lead me to attempt starting the car again, and the beer gods smiled upon us this day — she started up and we rolled onward toward Upslope brewery in brazen defiance of the laws of science, auto mechanics and common sense. Cars don’t normally just fix themselves, do they? Is my car like a starfish or some regenerative miracle from Korea? We may never know.

 

Now, Upslope Brewing http://upslopebrewing.com/ was a bit of a revelation. I’d had their craft lager, pale ale and foreign style stout in a can, and while I thought they were fine I never felt compelled to buy them other than when I needed canned beer for going to the lake. Suffice to say, I wasn’t holding out too much hope for an earth-shattering experience. Then, when we got to the place it looked pretty typical of most new upstart breweries — industrial park warehouse space with a fairly non-descript (and surprisingly small) taproom.

I ordered the Belgian style pale (a limited release), and Jenni ordered the oak aged dark belgian. My pint was good — a perfectly quaffable belgian. Now, I had assumed I wouldn’t care for Jenni’s oak aged beer because my last experience with an oak aged beverage was a disaster. One of my favorite beers in all the land, Arrogant Bastard Ale, released a special oak aged version of the signature drink. Shit cost $18 a six pack, so I figured, hell, it’s gotta be good, right? Wrong. It tasted like drinking the lumber department at Home Depot. I don’t know how, but they so over-oaked this bastard that it was almost undrinkable — a bitter, two-by-four plywood disaster. The Upslope oak-aged Belgian was the polar opposite sensation. This marvel of a drink had subtle yet rich oaky flavors that made me feel like I was drinking the finest oak aged wine in the world while surrounded by majestic oak carvings in a giant oak lodge on top of some kind of oak tree mountain. It was transportive. Holy fuck, it was rapturous. This glass contained one of the 10 finest beers I had ever had the honor of consuming. I practically demanded a growler at gunpoint, but alas, supplies were too limited to sell one to a mere mortal such as I.

We also tasted the Doppelbock which was the smoothest 9% beer we’ve ever encountered. Dangerous, to be sure.

Overall, I’d say HELL YES, GO TO THE UPSLOPE TAPROOM. Oh, and their service was outstanding, too. I think this experience alone will make me re-appraise their other canned offerings. Highly recommended.

 

Our final stop on this mini-odyssey (and 75th Colorado brewery overall!) was Big Choice Brewing www.bigchoicebrewing.com in Broomfield, CO. Formerly, I never felt compelled to visit Broomfield — it’s a good 30-40 minutes away, is essentially just a suburb, and the only reason I’ve even considered going there was to see Portishead or Radiohead at the First Bank Center….but I’m way too stubborn to pay Ticketbastard’s exorbitant “service” charges, then drive all the way out there to watch a band from 50 yards away while paying for $9 Coors Light. So yeah, screw that venue.

Anyway, tucked quietly (and I mean quietly) in the corner of yet another industrial park was Big Choice. Just a warehouse for brewing and a simple taproom out front. No frills. And frills are completely unnecessary when the atmosphere and service at a taproom are this outstanding. Without question, this was by far the best customer service experience we have ever had. I hesitate to call it “customer service” because we essentially had a genuine quality conversion with the bartender/co-owner/wife of the brewer (Andrea was her name). I don’t mean just shooting the shit and beer-fueled smalltalk, but an actual intellectual and heartfelt discussion. What we learned from Andrea was this place (like many others) are labors of love. Genuine sacrifice goes into a small brewing operation, and brewers can be (and often are) genuine artists. This isn’t commerce, this is creation. This is dream fulfillment for many of these upstarts, and when you walk into a brewery as new as this one (just a few months old), you can sense the vitality in the place, as well as the blood, sweat and tears that helped it come to fruition — and the fears that come from that fateful first year of a new business.

It’s easy to forget that micro-breweries are often individuals going out on a very high limb in a very hostile business environment. It isn’t just big-time investors and real-estate deals and that kind of bullshit. It’s beer lovers like you and me. Beer lovers that took on an enormous task so that their art can provide us with entertainment, refreshment and comraderie. Next time you go into a brewery, thank the brewmaster for making Colorado one hell of a place to live and dream….and make the next brewery you visit Big Choice.

Notice I didn’t even mention the beer? We had the pablano stout and it was delicious, but again, we visit bars and breweries for the overall experience, and Big Choice was one of our most memorable ever.

 

 

 

The post Mini-beer tour: Niwot, Longmont, Boulder, Broomfield CO appeared first on The Beer Drifter.


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