Rocky Mountain High

Beer Ambassadors at large USA was taken to a whole new level over the last couple of days in Colorado.
Things started well enough as we landed in the mile-high city of Denver. The sun was shining and all was well.
To really immerse ourselves in the mountain culture we decided we needed a mode of transport that would be familiar to the locals - the biggest pickup truck Denver airport had to offer…

Once we’d found a hotel we paid a visit to the Great Divide brewery. As usual great beers, much less hops than we were getting on the west coast.
Thanks to Colin for the tour.
We followed this up with dinner (a great buffalo prime rib) at the Buckhorn Exchange (not Buttcorn) and a random taxi ride around the metro area to check out the “ghettos”.

Details and videos are at BeerAmbassadors.com.

The following morning I took the truck out for a drive, and as much as I usually hate driving american cars, I can see why so many people drive these things. Although it was as big as a tank the visibility was great and the V8 had some real guts. It certainly ain’t green but it’s fun. Me and Barney were trying to find some great coffee shop but mixed up the GPS and ended up driving an hour or more around the greater metro area just to find another hotel. Still it was a nice, sunny day and a good drive…

Our next stop was Boulder to visit Avery Brewing where someone named “Truck” was going to teach us aussies how to drink and arm wrestle. We arrived pretty early (11am) so went in for a few quick tasters and arranged to meet up again later in the afternoon for the beer/arm-wrestling.
We headed downtown for lunch at the Mountain Sun brew pub where I devoured a much-needed avocado and salad sandwich and a pint of their Resinous IPA.

Things were still good. The sun was still shining and the mountains were still calling. So we jumped in the truck and headed up to see what the Rockies had to offer…

At first things went well. The scenery was beautiful (photos available), there was a random Jebus and we were all enjoying ourselves. Then Barney started freakin’ out.

Later on we discovered it was pretty common altitude sickness caused by a combination of the thin air and dehydration but at the time it just meant that we had to get down out of the mountains and call 911 as quick as we could. Kudos for Tom for not killing us on the way down, to Dodge for making an awesome truck and to myself for handling my first ever 911 call with aplomb and grace.
I also have to thank the Lyons Fire & Rescue dudes, the paramedics from Longmont and the bottle-shop owner from Lyons who didn’t object to us taking over her parking lot for the whole palaver.

Once we’d got Barney tucked up in the gurney and on his way (with sirens blazing) the rest of us took the opportunity to look around where we were and discovered that we’d parked up at yet another brew-pub - the Oscar Blues Grill & Brew in Lyons, but we thought that it might be viewed as callous to leave Barney to fend for himself through the american healthcare system and just grabbed a few takeaways for the road.
Once we got to the hospital and found Barney rigged up to a plethora of sensors and shit, but otherwise unharmed, we took the opportunity to visit Oscar Blues other venue in Longmont where we sampled their Dales Pale Ale among others. We also found some time to eat, drink some more and make an uncomplimentary video blog about Barney’s little episode. As usual these are all available at BeerAmbassadors.com, with some photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/laazyj/BeerambassadorsUsaJune2010.

The next morning we picked up Barney’s prescription Xanax (which is turning into a constant cause of frustration and hilarity) and headed to Fort Collins for an appointment with Doug Odell at Odell Brewing Co.
Doug gave us one of the best tours we’ve had thus far. Showing us every small part of their operation including the huge solar array on the roof of the main building and sampling, from the casks, the oak-aged beers that were still being developed. Not to mention all the tasters and take-aways that he loaded us up with. The thing that stood out the most for me was the much more balanced style of beer that Odells were making compared to the extreme hoppiness of the west-coast breweries we had been visiting. As usual beer-nerd facts, including a video by Doug Odell, are available at BeerAmbassadors.com.
For those interested in London, Doug will be showing his beers at the White Horse in Parsons Green on the weekend starting Thursday 1st July. I definitely recommend coming along and seeing what these guys are doing in Colorado, I’ll definitely be there.

The next appointment was at New Belgium where Beer Ambassadors had arranged to meet with Chris, an Irish ex-pat who was making it his mission to break the Australians.
He was to be bitterly, perhaps irreparably, broken in the process.

Beer Ambassadors at large appreciate Fat-Tyre.

New Belgium was a much bigger brewery than any of the craft breweries we had visited thus far, making more than 600,000 american barrels annually, making them the third largest craft brewery in the USA (after Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada). After doing the standard tour, Lauren and Chris showed us some of the interesting things they were doing with sour beers and we imbibed a few of their finer brews. Chris then took us downtown for a bit night out in Fort Collins.

Things got very loose.

Very.

Although we still broke Irish Chris before he broke us!

At some point, probably after Miro vomited in that bar, the beer ambassadors got split up only to slowly regroup at the best western through-out the wee hours of the morning. But when morning did finally come we were one short… Miro had disappeared.
Phone calls were made…hospitals, police, jail. No-one had found a random Australian and we were running short of time to catch our flight from Denver to San Francisco. There was nothing else to do but to leave his bag, our phone number and a note and hope he could fend for himself.

Beer Ambassadors were now down to 3!

Thankfully, later that morning, Miro was able to meet us in Denver in time for the flight. Minus $200 for the taxi. Missing his passport. Missing his camera (which we probably left in the truck). And missing whatever dignity the mexican dude who’s couch he woke up on had taken from him in the night. (I’m only kidding of course, the guy was super-helpful and drove Miro to his hotel, and probably wasn’t mexican either).

So, very worse for wear, perhaps wiser, definitely much-aged by our experiences, the beer ambassadors were together again and on a plane to San Francisco.

Colorado had been interesting, friendly, tasty and awesome fun. And we were glad to be rid of it…