W is for Wits End Brewing Company

The end is in sight.

After V is for Vine Street Pub and Brewery, I only have 4 more letters in the alphabet.

So far, I've found Denver-area breweries that have started with all the letters from A to V. Will I be able to finish off the alphabet? Considering you've probably read the title of this post, you know I've found my W brewery.

Just in case you're new to this blog, and the concept of what I'm talking about ... check out Sheppy's Blog: A to Z ... I think you'll be able to figure out the concept. Pretty simple, I'm attempting to visit local breweries, and I'm following the alphabet to decide the order that I am visiting them.

And after V comes ... W.

W is for Wits End Brewing Company

Some Thoughts on #GABF Award Winners

If you've been following this blog, you know that I attended a couple of GABF sessions last weekend (see 2014 #GABF Members Session and Friday Night #GABF). It was an overwhelming spectacle, and awesomely fun.

But, man, is that a lot of beer!

The competition winners were announced pretty early on Saturday, and you can look at the list at GABF Winners.

For what it is worth, California won the most medals at 46. Colorado won the second most at 39. Those two states together won almost a third of the total medals. Half the medals were won by top 5 states (California: 46, Colorado: 39, Oregan: 22, Texas: 16, Pennsyvania: 12).

Biking the Beermuda Triangle

So, Denver has lots of breweries.

Take a look at Dave's map on Fermentedly Challenged. Sure looks like a lot. And the number is growing all the time.

I should visit more of these breweries. I've been thinking for some time that it would be a good idea to put together a series of bike-rides to visit sets of breweries. Sort of brewery/biking mini-tours.

One set of breweries that I thought would be perfect, recently started calling themselves the "Beermuda Triangle Coalition". Take a look at Westword's article "West-side brewers form the Beermuda Triangle coalition in the face of increasing competition".

The breweries in this area between Lincoln Street and Federal Boulevard, Alameda and Colfax avenues (really more of a square ... but whatever) are:

• Renegade Brewing Company 925 W 9TH AVE, DENVER, CO 80204
• Breckenridge Brewery 471 Kalamath Street, Denver, CO 80204
• Black Sky Brewery 227 Broadway #101, Denver, CO 80203
• Trve Brewing Company 227 Broadway #101, Denver, CO 80203
• Wit's End Brewing Company 505 West 2nd Avenue #13, Denver, CO 80219
• Strange Craft Beer Company 1330 Zuni, Unit M, Denver, Colorado 80204

I put together a google map to give some perspective: See it by following this hyperlink.

Weekend Sans Kids

I have mentioned before on this blog that our family has a kid-swapping arrangement with another family. They have two boys who are each within a couple of weeks in age as our two boys. Every couple months or so, our families take turns taking all four boys for a weekend.

This past weekend was their turn to take all four boys. This made us sans-kids for the weekend.

Of course, if you have read this blog over the past couple of days, you know that one of the things we did was brew some beer (see Brewing the Laser Salt).

But we also did some other stuff.

For quite some time, I've been wanting to check out Dad and Dude's Breweria. Dad and Dude's is a little brewery / pizzeria close to where I work. I've heard really good things about their pizza crust, which they make from spent grain from their brewery.

Friday, I dragged my wife to the Breweria, and we were not disappointed.