Happy Friday! Wife (pregnant) and I are headed to Boulder & Estes Park for a long "babymoon" weekend. I was looking at doing tour tomorrow at Avery, any must stop spots for local IPA's? Thx all!
Other people can offer help with Boulder (there are a ton of options), but in Estes the easy answer is Rock Cut Brewing. They have 3 different IPA's that are are all quite good. Estes Park Brewing is only about 100 yards away from there. They have an old school IPA, but I doubt most people would be "wow'd" by it. It's good for what it is, though. Avoid their food, but grab a bottle of their barleywine in the cooler before you leave. As far as taps go, in Estes you'll want to hit up the Barrel and Wapiti Pub. Both have a boatload (80+ taps or bottles) of great offerings from all over CO. Most other places in town aren't worth your time beer-wise.
Melvin, Odd13, Station 26, Cerebral, Cannonball Creek, Weldwerks, Outer Range and Comrade are the best IPA brewers around in my book. The first three are easy to find at most bottle shops and the last five would have to be on tap. I don't have any recommendations for breweries around there
i like the Upslope DIPA and (especially) their Citra Pale Ale, but last time I actually went they were in their original facility. (I actually don't know if they still operate their taproom there or whether it moved to the larger new-ish plant). Plus you can get these anywhere.
Backcountry Pizza in Boulder always has several incredible IPAs on tap. Right now they have stuff from Russian River, Melvin, Comrade, Cerebral, Boneyard, etc.
Thanks again fellas. Had a great time having my DD wife bring me around a bit. We checked out : Fate, Upslope, Odd 13 and backcountry (Melvin IPA) in Boulder area. Odd 13 was fantastic, did a flight and a can pour of Lupilin. Bought noob and Lup to bring home. Estes area we stopped at wapiti, Barrel (juicy bits... wow) and Rock Elm. Great beers with great weather. Cheers
Haha, went to Avery Sunday for lunch and brews before going to Estes park. Little foggy, Forgot about that!
Don't mind me while I revive/hijack this thread, but my parents are going to be stating in Estes Park in October. I'll be visiting them over Christmas so it would be cool if they could bring me back some barley wines as I know they will still be good around the Holidays. My question is, what will be available barley wine wise in the Estes Park area in mid October? I don't want to make them run all around looking for something, but they'll be willing to look in the area. Thanks in advance!
What's the best beer shop in boulder, I'm hoping I can find a few things I can bring back to California.
While their line-up might not typically be very exciting, Estes Park Brewing has an excellent barleywine. It's definitely available in 12oz bottles at the brewery and they'll probably also have it at neighboring stores, too. I'm not sure about others in October, though. It feels like Nov/Dec is when most of the barleywines and old ales show up.
