Any BAs out there with some recommendations? Also if anyone is up for grabbing a beer or trading (although I'm leaving the house in an hour). Looking like I'll be in the Ouray/Montrose area Saturday/Sunday; Salida/Buena Vista Sunday/Monday/Tuesday and possibly Breckenridge/Silverthorne Tuesday/Wednesday. Nothing really set in stone as I'm car camping and enjoying the great outdoors as well.
My wife lived in Cedaredge for a little while, so I know some decent stops. In Ouray there's the Ouray Brewery and the Ourayle House (aka. Mr Grumpy Pants) along with a pretty nice Biergarten, Billy Goat's Gruff. In Montrose there's Horsefly. Between Montrose and Ouray is Colorado Boy brewing in Ridgway. Both made pretty standard/traditional styles, although both did them well. Prices at Colorado Boy were notably VERY low, too. Depending on how flexible you are and what route you take - Cedaredge has a cidery making some pretty good stuff and Revolution in Paonia might actually be my favorite brewer in that entire half of the state. Neither are really on the beaten path, although you go right through Cedaredge if you take the route over the Grand Mesa.
There is another brewery open in Montrose (2 Rascals) - great building with tons of character (just west of 50 and North of 550). Beers were okay - on par or better than Horsefly. If you're coming through Delta, check out CB's - good food and about 12 taps with several local selections. Would definitely recommend Colorado Boy in Ridgeway and Elevation in Poncha Springs (first real town you hit coming down east side of Monarch pass).
Is the cidery open regularly now? I'd been trying to track it down several months ago but it seemed like they were still growing the specific varieties of trees and hadn't been releasing much of anything (either cider or perry).
It has been a couple years since I've been, but both of my visits were on Friday afternoons. I just showed up after following the signs. The brewer was a nice guy and showed me his cellar area and gave me a few varieties he was playing around with but hadn't perfected. One of them smelled horrible but tasted like candy. Never had anything like it before or since. At the time he had 3 varieties that were all apple-based - a sweeter one with the juice blended back, a drier one without, and an oddball apple brandy with juice re-added so it was almost like fortified wine.
So I ended up hitting Ouray Brewery, CO Boy, Horsefly, Elevation, Amicas, Backcountry, Fate, Shine, Upslope and Bootstrap. Between Saturday and yesterday. All breweries I had never been to, that was the goal. Some place I just had one beer or tasters. Beer at CO Boy was solid! I'm an Elevation fan already and going there made me even more so, although those heavy beers and the crowd got the best of me in a good way Backcountry breakfast Stout was good. Bootstrap Insane IPA was exactly that! Thanks for the tips.
