Roscoe’s 2nd Annual Stout Summit is coming up on Friday Feb 24th beginning at 4PM. Here’s the deets:

We will feature 14 amazing stouts on tap for your tasting pleasure. Some of the breweries (and Stouts) will include: Deschutes (2010 Abyss), Oakshire (Cordial Love-brewed with cocoa nibs and aged on espresso beans and cherries), Great Divide (2010 Chocolate Yeti), Boneyard (Sug Knite), Upright (Bourbon Barrel Stout of Monte Fisto), HaandBryggeriet (Odin’s Tipple), Fort George (Spank Stout), Caldera (Oatmeal Stout), Flattail (Nitro-Eagle Rare barrel aged 6am stout), Mikkeller (red wine barrel aged Black Hole), and more.

5 ounce taster trays will be available, and some brewers are sure to be in attendance.  It will be a fun event and we look forward to seeing you there.

Posted under beer events, events, Oregon beer, places to drink beer

Back again at Great American Beer Festival, day two. So many beers to try and so little time. It’s shaping up to be one of the best brew festivals of all times, unquestionably.

Before we got things started, we rolled west to Boulder, Colorado to one of the best breweries of all time – Avery. Last year we visited Avery during the first annual Beer Bloggers Conference and were instantly amazed. Even before visiting the actual brewery, we have held their brews in high esteem.

Avery, like Great Divide, packs in a ton of great beer into a relatively small facility. Located in an unassuming industrial park, the tap lineup at Avery is staggering. The front bar features more than Read More…

Posted under beer events, beer releases, beer reviews, places to drink beer

Our group arrived safely to the 30th Annual Great American Beer Festival, America’s largest beer festival. As we prepare for our first day of the actual fest, we reflect on our first night back in Denver, Colorado.

After a two-hour flight from Portland, we landed at Denver International Airport in the late afternoon and jumped on a shuttle toward where we were staying in the west part of town. At our lovely vacation home, we were happy to discover beer already stocked for us in the refrigerator. After those were quickly depleted, we walked a few blocks to the corner liquor store to pick up some sixers of choice regional brews. Flying Dog Pale Ale, Breckenridge Agave Wheat, and Odell IPA all hit the spot before heading out into the city. First stop: Great Divide Brewing in Denver’s LoDo district. Close to a slew of great beer spots such as Falling Rock Tavern and Wynkoop Brewing, Great Divide is an amazing example of how much brew can be produced in such a small space. Here we were given a full tour by our friend Hanna Laney, Great Divide’s “word nerd” and “the queen of bad pun” (perhaps this is why we like her so much).

After kicking their keg of Fresh Hop brew, we moved on to pours of Wild Raspberry and the mighty Yeti Imperial Stout. Then, we moved on to Star Bar, a lovely dive bar. For this particular evening the pub had regional brews including some tasty sour ales on draft from jockeyboxes.

Our last stop of the evening was at Blake Street Vault, also in the LoDo District. Here an Oskar Blues tap takeover was in effect. Tastes of their big Ten Fidy Imperial Stout served as a nice nightcap. Also, the Home Grown Hops (HGH) Dry-hopped Strong Ale was tasting quite good.

With the first night in the books, we are now set to hit the floor of the Colorado Convention Center downtown and get into some serious tasting. Stay tuned…

Posted under beer reviews, places to drink beer

While we are getting geared up for next weekend’s Ladies of Lagers and Ales tastival, next weekend at Saraveza, we look back over the past weekend and remember an amazing flavorsome celebration of another group of females – hops.

You see, hops are the female flower clusters, or strobiles, of the hop species, Humulus lupulus. At this time of year, the herbaceous perennials are reaching to high heaven, and just recently, if you’ve observed your bines, you may have noticed the flowering finger-like fruits beginning to form spicy cones.

Saraveza’s 2nd Annual IIPA Fest took place on Saturday and Sunday, July 16 and 17, and was a celebration of the most regal, magisterial, and potent of all hoppy beers. Ah, the Imperial India Pale Ale (IIPA) – bigger and bolder, and often more bitter than its already amplified parent. Read More…

Posted under beer events, Oregon beer, places to drink beer, weekend in review

Come gather with a family of Yetis next Tuesday May 10th at 5pm.

Great Divide will be in the house with Oak Aged Draft offerings a plenty,

All the Yetis will be present ,Oak Aged, Espresso Oak Aged , Chocolate Oak Aged, and the Grand Daddy of them all Great Divide Brewing’s 17th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA!!

Posted under beer events, events, places to drink beer

Over the last 16 years, Great Divide Brewing Company has risen to the top of Colorado’s upper echelon of craft beer producers. According to the well respected user-driven RateBeer.com website, four renditions of the Denver brewery’s Yeti Imperial Stout are positioned in the top five of all beers produced in the state (in 2007 RateBeer also named Great Divide as the 23rd best brewery on the planet; in 2008 BeerAdvocate named GDBC as the 8th best brewery in the world). On a recent trip to Colorado, we made a point of stopping by the LoDo neighborhood’s finest brewery. A helpful and educated staff gave us the full tour of the brewhouse and showed poured some of the freshest more desirable brews to be found anywhere. Founder/owner Brian Dunn, who established the brewery in 1994, took the time to answer some questions regarding his company’s magnificent offerings. Read More…

Posted under Beer personalities, places to drink beer