Boulder

On July 4th we went to downtown Boulder and found the Walnut Brewery and Restaurant. They had some pretty good food and a few beers that looked good. Karen had a grilled chicken Ceasar salad and the Devil’s Thumb Stout on nitro. I liked my Hickory Bacon BBQ burger and the St. James Irish Red Ale. We were off to a good start, although some of the breweries on our list were closed for the holiday.

Our next stop was Avery Brewing. The place was packed but just as we got to the head of the line to order, a couple of bar stools became available and we grabbed them. Shortly after we got seated, a worker hollered out over the loud din that anyone wanting to go on the brewery tour should line up outside. That really cleared the place out and quieted it down allowing us to enjoy Karen’s 3 Point 7 Milk Stout and my Out of Bounds Stout.

A couple of days later we headed back to Boulder to take a couple more breweries off our list. Our first stop, though, was the Boulder County Farmers Market. There was plenty of organic vegetables, fresh eggs, meats, breads, flowers and even potted hops plants (you know, what they use to make beer). The biggest crowds were at the food court – pizza, barbeque, tamales, burgers and a lot more.
Boulder Beer Company was one that had been closed on the 4th and after a short visit at the farmers market we headed on over. Our best option there turned out to be their Planet Porter which was just okay – not bad, but nothing special. It was a little disappointing for “Colorado’s first microbrewery”.

From there we ventured over to a brewery that is as small as it is new, Wild Woods Brewery. Anything lacking in production volume was made up for with a very good beer. We had the Ponderosa Porter and enjoyed our conversation with David Foley, a local professional artist who is originally from Louisiana.

Golden

On the day between visits to Boulder we kept it real local and after work on Friday headed over to the small Latin food restaurant, El Callejon, in downtown Golden for a snack of their Salvadoran specialty, pupusas. They were pretty good but it was only a snack so we knew we’d be eating again but we also knew we needed something on our stomachs before our intended stop at Cannonball Creek Brewing. This brewery is so new that it didn’t even show up on my Google maps app so we missed it on our first night in Golden. I ordered their Soul Doubt Stout and Karen asked for a taste of the Brickyard Porter. There must have been some confusion because her taster of the porter looked and tasted exactly like my stout and unfortunately, the stout had almost no taste. It looked good, the body was right, the bitterness was there, but there was zero flavor. Too bad we didn’t actually get a taste of the porter – it might have been really good.

Well, as disappointing as that was, things were about to get worse. We had seen Mannie & Bo’s Pizzeria online and it was highly rated on Yelp and even claimed to be “voted best pizza in Denver”. What a load of bull! It was the absolute worst crust ever. I swear I have had better frozen pizza.

Well, they can’t all be winners and tonight certainly proved that. So that we could end the evening on a positive note, we went home and cracked open the first bottle of my own Seven Oaks Brewing Chocolate Coffee Porter. It was actually quite good – the best of the four batches that I’ve brewed so far. And it’s still pretty young so it’s liable to get better with continued bottle conditioning.