greg's blog

We went up to Fort Collins this weekend and had a great time. Here are some tips to make your trip up there even better:

1. get tickets to New Belgium early

We started the day with lunch at coopersmiths. Good food, good beer. Not bad. Unfortunately, we should have started the day around 11:30 at New Belgium getting tickets for the afternoon tours. Then we could have gone to lunch and then O'Dells and finished at New Belgium.

As it was, we took the "self-guided" tour of New Belgium, which was great, but not as good as a full tour.

I've been in Argentina for almost two months and finally found some decent beers. Quilmes and Brahma and friends are, frankly, not going to cut it for me.

Buller Brewing Company

The first place that was recommended to me was Buller Brewing Company (ratebeer review) which turned out to be pretty good. They have a selection of about 8 beers which were all decent, though none were really amazing. The dry stout was probably the best variety that they had. I went to the location near Recoleta cemetery which of course is a nice tourist area on its own.

Cossab Cerveza Artesanal

In a non touristy location is Cossab - at Carlos Calvo 4199 - which is just a standard corner bar which happens to serve hundreds of local and international beers. The international selection is dominated by Dutch/Belgian varieties and a few standards (Guinnes - duh). In addition to great beers, Cossab also has quite good food including a Wednesday Night "Pizza Libre" night where "Libre" means all you can eat instead of just "free". For 10 Pesos, it's a good deal.

Bangalore Indian Restaurant - Stone IPA (cask style)

Without looking for beer, but just Indian food, we happened upon Bangalor (4990 Humboldt in Palermo) which serves not only delicious Indian curries but also several Stone offerings including a stout, an XB (extra bitter?) and a "cask style" IPA (not as cold and not so bubbly). Since Stone IPA is one of my favorites I was said to find that the cask style version is not as good...but all the same it's a great find.

More Argentine Beers

Overall, the best guide I've found is the list from ratebeer.com which covers Argentina. Though it would be nice if ratebeer.com's listings were broken down by cities where the beers are available.

Last night and this morning we finished off bottling the first batch of stout (pretty basic recipe) which had a final specific gravity of 1.011. Now that Denver is socked in with so much snow I'm looking forward to a nice stout.

This morning when the wort temperature got down to the low 70s the initial ABV for the pumpkin ale that we brewed last night was 1.045. We were a little late in brewing the pumpkin ale - ideally it would have been just ready for thanksgiving and really ready for the winter solstice. So, now it will be ready right around Valentine's day. And nothing says romance like a pumpkin ale, right?

I went to the North Star Restaurant and Brewery last night and had a pretty good time. They just opened up a few months ago after having a bit of a hard time getting their licenses agreed to by the neighborhood. Congratulations to them on persevering and turning a basically dead corner property into an anchor for a small commercial strip. This area of Denver is really growing and it's great to see.

As they promised on their website, it was a fun, relaxed atmosphere to meet some friends and have dinner. The beers, on the other hand, were a little disappointing. It's just their first batch of a pale ale, but it had a distinctly Wynkoop flavor to it which makes sense given that the brewmaster used to work at Wynkoop. Their selection of other brewer's beers wasn't my set of favorites, but the Dinner (burgers with tasty toppings, tater tots, fries, and onion rings) was still delicious.

Earlier this year I made two delicious porters:

Double Mocha Porter - with two tablespoons of chocolate powder and two pots of coffee
Triple Mocha Porter - with three tablespoons of chocolate powder and three pots of coffee

They were delicious and while not my most popular beers it was the one that I liked most and that got the only unsolicited "This is the best beer I've ever had" from a person who didn't know me nor that it was home brew. Sweet.

Well, it's been months since I drank the last one but I went up to my mountain retreat this weekend and found 5 more of them that had been neglected in the fridge. They were even more delicious now.