Well, hello! It’s been quite a while since one of us has sat down to write. But we’re back with some new content!

After a long, exhausting, and fun filled weekend in Colorado, I am still glowing and giggly about my vacation to Great American Beer Festival. I have so much to cover that this post will be primarily about my day trip to Fort Collins and Greeley, CO. It’s amazing how much you can pack into one day when there are over twenty breweries in the area!

My husband Aaron and I landed late on Wednesday night in Denver and got up Thursday to drive up to Fort Collins to check out new spots we haven’t been to. First up was Jessup Farm Barrel House.

Jessup Farm is over a hundred years old and was adapted and restored to be utilized as mixed commercial usage for restaurants, coffee shops, and artisanal shops, including Jessup Farm Barrel House. They had a wide selection of barrel aged craft beer including saisons, stouts, and sours. My favorite that I took home was Silent G, an oak-aged golden sour with schizandra berries (known as a five-flavor-fruit berry).

It wouldn’t be a trip to Fort Collins without visiting the flagship New Belgium Brewing.

Since we were driving, we wanted to make sure we were being responsible and didn’t indulge too much at each brewery. I tried out their Peach Kick and had a surprise taste of a Transatlantique Kriek that was packed full of cherries.

 

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. Every opportunity we got we made sure to sit outside on the patio. It’s still in the 90s in Austin, so anything less than 80 degrees was a treat!

Less than a mile away we visited Odell Brewing to snag a couple tasters and enjoy more patio weather.

 

We took it easy at Odell and went with Cloud Catcher (milkshake IPA), Aqua Malone (watermelon gose), Friek (lambic wild ale), and Isolation (winter warmer). Wish we could’ve had longer at Odell, but we needed to get a move on to drive 40 minutes to Greeley!

Greeley is about an hour north from Denver and hides two amazing brewery gems: WeldWerks Brewing Company and Wiley Roots Brewing Company.

 

WeldWerks holds a large taproom for groups and guests to hang out, play some board games, and keep ordering more of their awesome and unique beers. They also just took home two Great American Beer Festival medals this past weekend; Itsy Bits took Silver in Hazy Pale Ale category and Extra Extra Juicy Bits took Gold in Hazy Imperial IPA.

Every beer was exceptional! I snagged quite a few cans to bring back to Austin, but some of my favorites were DDH 3.8 Miles, a Hazy Double IPA, Froot Camp: Apricot & Peach Sour, Tropical Milkshake 2.0, and Hubba Hubba Peanut Budda, a peanut butter milk stout. Their whimsical and nostalgic ideas that turn into liquid gold are very fun and delicious, even their can art is impressive.

 

Our final stop for the day was at Wiley Roots, which was just down the street from our last location.

Have you ever wanted to drink a cobbler before? Well, Wiley Roots puts the best cobblers in a beer hands down. The flavors of graham cracker, vanilla, and fruits are so balanced and delicious, you may not realize that what you’re drinking is over 7% ABV. I was able to try their Blackberry and Blueberry County Fair Cobbler and Key Lime State Fair Cobbler that were available at the time.

 

We definitely went a little hard on purchasing beer to go, but hey it’s vacation! And also, these fantastic breweries are totally worth traveling up to that you need to grab a few packs to bring back to enjoy.

This was just day one of my three days in Colorado for Great American Beer Festival. To see more about the festival and what I enjoyed about it as a first timer, stay tuned for a following post this week!

Cheers! 🍻
– Cheryl