Weekend Getaway

Perhaps you recall that our little yellow duck courageously fought his way to a 12th place finish in the 2011 Breckenridge Duck Race. Well, he did. (see Pictures from the 2011 Breckenridge Duck Races). When you are talking thousands of ducks, 12th place is pretty impressive.

It is in fact impressive enough that it earned the Colorado Shepards a prize.

That little yellow ducky won a gift-certificate to Beaver Run, which is a resort in Breckenridge. The amount on the gift-certificate was enough to cover one night in a two-bedroom suite during a non-peak time of year (it would have covered about half a night during ski season).

My wonderful wife figured out that based on everything else we have going, this weekend was when we would have to use this.

So, we headed up to Breckenridge this weekend.

With ski season over, and not being summer, this is the very definition of the slow season in Breckenridge. It is sort of nice. No where we went was crowded at all. We got right into Down Stairs at Eric's (the kids call it "Daddy's"), which is usually ridiculously busy when we go.

For the most part, we enjoyed the resort area. We went swimming in their indoor / outdoor pool. Sat in hot tubs and saunas. We played mini-golf and played video games in their game room.

So we had a relaxing weekend. The kids had fun. It was wonderful. Thank you little ducky.


IN YOUR FACES, Tweedle Beetles!

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If you follow the SheppyBrew Brewery on Facebook or Twitter or you saw my post on the Mr. Beer forums, you may already know that the SheppyBrew Beer Model is going to brew this coming weekend.  

We are not sure what we are brewing. I told her to decide what style to brew and I would help her come up with a recipe. Her requirements on the beer seem pretty simple. She doesn't want to brew anything "too hoppy or bitter" and she doesn't want to brew anything "too dark".

I've blogged before about how I don't like the term "dark" when describing what you like or don't like in a beer. When the Beer Model says she doesn't want anything "too dark", she means she doesn't want a beer with coffee-like flavors.

"Too hoppy" and "too bitter" leaves itself open to interpretation as well. "Too hoppy and/or bitter" for me is much different than "too hoppy and/or bitter" for my wife. Luckily, I know the Beer Model's tastes well enough to have a pretty good idea what she considers "too hoppy" and "too bitter". 

Quite frankly, the requirements of "not too hoppy or bitter" and not any coffee flavors in the beer leave a wide variety of room.

I asked for suggestions on Facebook, Twitter , and the Mr. Beer forum post. But,I don't know how helpful that is actually going to be. I got lots of good suggestions, but really what we need to do is narrow down beer styles. The suggestions opened up more possibilities.

Oh well, we will figure it out. We are going on a group camping trip in early June, and will probably bring the keg of this beer with us. The quick-turnaround narrows things down a bit. The fact that we have to share the beer with lots of most-likely-not-beer-geeks also eliminates a good number of the possibilities.

Stay tuned. I'll let you know what we decide.