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Happy brewing!
Hop Yours!
AHA Club – Brewing Our Way!
GABF 2013
The Great American Beer Festival ran October 10th – 12th this year. Once again it was awesome! There were so many beers to try, so many vendors to see, and so many good vibes all around. Here are just a few of the pictures.
As usual, the bagpipers marched in to start off the festival. And there were a few dancing bears.
Naturally I had to renew my AHA membership
Here are a couple of pics from pre-fest hydrating.
Overall, another great GABF! I can’t wait until next year!
Colorado Brewery Tour – Day 3
We went up to Fort Collins for day 3 or our breweries tour.
Here we checked out New Belgium Brewing and Odell Brewing, starting at our favorite New Belgium.
Naturally, we had to take some pics of us there.
Then, it was time for tastin’!! Of course, they always have their mainstay beers on tap…
…but also they have some fine one-offs and experimental beers in their Lips of Faith series.
Who’s that guy sittin’ there?
Hi! I’m playing hide-and-go-drink with myself!
Outside is the New Belgium camper…fun times!
Colorado Brewery Tour – Day 2
Our 2nd day touring breweries took us to Boulder, CO. Here we got to spend time at Upslope Brewing, Boulder Beer Co, and Avery Brewing.
We started the day with breakfast at 10AM at Upslope Brewing. It wasn’t crowded at all, in fact we were the first people in the door that day. Is beer not for breakfast anymore?
After Upslope, we moved on to Boulder Beer Company, the first brewery to open after Prohibition. Here we met some very cool people and drank some insanely delicious beers. Their one-offs were outstanding!
The final brewery of day 2 was Avery Brewing. Now we’d been to Avery before, but the beer’s so good, you know we had to stop off.
Colorado Brewery Tour – Day 1
Our Colorado brewery tour began just as soon as we landed in Denver. We hopped into the car and headed for Longmont, CO, home to Left Hand Brewing, Oskar Blues Brewing, and Echo Brewing among others.
The first place we checked out was Left Hand.
Left Hand Brewing Company
Naturally, we had to pose out front… (there’s lots more of this)
This brewery was extremely lucky during the historic flooding that took place in Colorado just weeks before. The brewery, at the intersection of Boston Avenue and the St. Vrain river channel, miraculously did not flood. Check out the aerial flood photo here. The damage was still very visible, as seen in this photo below. The large chunks of concrete in the river were parts of the former sidewalk along the bank. What a mess!
St. Vrain flooding at Left Hand Brewing Company
Here’s a picture of the entrance to the brewery.
And here’s a picture of the outdoor seating area complete with cornhole. It’s a very relaxing place.
After checking the brewery out, we had to try some beer! We each ordered a 4 taster flight and had a few tasters on the house.
Here are a few more pictures from Left Hand Brewing.
After Left Hand, it was time to head to Oskar Blues Brewing and the Tasty Weasel Taproom!
We chose one flight of their 7 mainstay beers, and another flight with 7 of their one-off-Wednesday specialty beers.
As you can see, it was pretty busy, but they know how to pour beer!
The last brewery we visited was Echo Brewing.
Echo has got some AMAZING beers!!
All in all, day 1 was a huge success!
October 2012 – October 2013
What?!? Nothing happened with Hop Yours AHA Brewing Club for the past year??
Of course not, we’ve just been too busy brewing to get the pictures up. They will be coming soon!
Back from the GABF
Just got back from spending last week in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). What an incredible time. Between visiting local Colorado breweries and the GABF, we managed to squeeze in a little Rocky Mountain hiking.
Props to The Wrecking Bar Brewpub for the wicked cool sticker!
Art of Beer
The Art of Beer was an art show featuring beer as art. In addition to having great art exhibits, we had a mini homebrewing competition and tasting as part of the event. We were lucky enough to be asked to participate.
The event was held at the Cube Gallery in Atlanta.
This was by invite only so passes were required. Huge thanks to the Cube Gallery for putting this whole shindig together!!
Here’s a behind the scenes look at the fun.
This is the BCJP beer judge, Mike Fuller and a look at the competition.
We had a good sized crowd. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Overall, this was a great experience!
Taco Mac – Southern Brewer's Challenge Results (We placed!!)
The results are in. Taco Mac and Atlanta Brewing Company took the total of 103 submissions and whittled that down to 20, with five groups of tasters advancing their favorite from a field of approximately 20 per group. That group of 20 got broken down to five finalists, and then ultimately one winner. The finalists are:
- Jay Powell for “Midnight Brown” (English Nut Brown)
- Bob Southard for “The Queen’s Imperial Cherry Chocolate Porter”
- JT Beckham for “Muddy Paws” (Mocha Java Stout)
- Brian Borngesser for “BrIPA”
- Chris Payne for “St. Issadore The Farmer” (Heavy Cream Ale)
And the winner is….Bob Southard for “The Queen’s Imperial Cherry Chocolate Porter”! Congratulations to Bob.
So out of 103 submissions, we placed in the top 6. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. You can read the entire results article here,
http://www.fredsbeerpage.blogspot.com/2012/08/we-have-winner.html
Brew Day – Vanilla Cream Ale – 2
Well the Vanilla Cream Ale was such a success that we’ve had requests for more. Sooo…we’re making another 5-gallon batch. Looks good so far.
