In the spirit of competition, Beer Friends would like to invite everyone to our NFL season hashtag battles! Using hashtagbattle.com we will pit two breweries against each other when their NFL counterparts are facing off on the gridiron. Are you ready for some football? And drinking? And #hashtag battle?!?!?!
What’s a hashtag battle? When you’re drinking a beer of a brewery competing in the battle (#stone vs #newbelgium), throw a #hashtag of the brewery and tweet it (or setup your foursquare or untappd to push to tweet and include the #hashtag) and we’ll use hashtagbattle.com to declare a winner after the Monday Night football game on ESPN. And because football needs beer, we’re starting on Saturday morning to include the brews consumed during College Football Saturdays. Support your team, support your beer, drink local and hashtag battle!
Hashtag Battle Week Five Matchup: Denver vs San Diego (#newbelgium vs #stone)
Dreams are broken and the strong move on… who ever thought the Rocky Mountain IPA had a chance against Breakfast Stout or (the biggest upset) Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout over Bristol’s Laughing Lab, not to worry Bristol fans – Mass Transit pulled through over the strong year-round available Founder’s Porter. Can Yeti continue it’s run? can Bell’s pull through as the two seed continuing to a 1 vs 2 match-up? Vote and decide!
The 1 vs 8 match up has last year’s winner Fat Tire advancing to play 471 Small Batch IPA from Breckenridge Brewery. This is Breckenridge’s first year in the BFF4 and they had a strong showing… can they be a Butler and bring down the #1 seed?
It’s that time of year where EVERYONE is swept up in the madness… yes – Beer Friends Final Four Beer Bracket is BACK!
Forget Louisville in the First Round and bubble teams, we’re talking ales in the First Round and drinking the suds…
This year we (kinda) followed a regional bracket match up instead of the style like last year.
Brad’s Bracket includes beers from Colorado and the Michigan area (somehow Great Lakes snuck in there…). Vote your favorite brew through and pick that Cinderella team, sorry, stout. Pick the winner and hold it over your friends heads until the next year (Brooklyn’s Dark Matter anyone?) Beer! Voting!
The 1 vs 16 match up pits Last Years winner, New Belgium’s Fat Tire against a stout from Boulder – Avery’s Out of Bounds Stout. The Out of Bounds was delicious when infused with coffee, but Fat Tire seems like the fan favorite – should be interesting. See more of this entry for voting!
While one Beer Friend held down the fort in NYC, the other three travelled out to the Great (Brewery) State of Colorado for a look around. Below is a brief recap of the days and breweries we hit.
August 12th -
Garden of the Gods
Phil, James (honorary BF this trip) and Brad arrive in Colorado Springs, quickly finding themselves standing in front of a liquor store cooler inspecting the new and interesting beers in the cooler. Then a quick run around Garden of the Gods, in North-west Colorado Springs. Then a drive to Denver to pick up Graham and back home for our first beers of the tour – an extension of Christmas in July/August with a New Belgium 2 Below and Odell’s Isolation Ale to kick off the trip (beers remaining from my winter holiday trip home).
August 13th -
A beautiful drive to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. After taking some time to find a campsite (be sure to call ahead) we stop at our first brewery, Estes Park Brewery. This small brewery stays true to their roots, producing small batches to sell to local stores and supply their pub which is upstairs. A few highlights were the Trail Ridge Red – also known as the Redrum Ale (playing off the famed Stanley Hotel in Estes Park – inspiration for the Steven King novel “The Shining”) and the Estes Park Porter. Then we headed into Fort Collins to check out Coopersmiths Pub and Brewing and Equinox Brewery a short walk away. Equinox had a great feel – a bit of a coffee house vibe, it’s a bar without any heels and no Coors Light on draft. We enjoyed their sampler with six offerings – Sunrise Golden Ale, Vernal Hefeweizen, MidSummer Pale Ale, Orbit ESB, Zenith IPA, and the Sunset Stout. All we very enjoyable but MidSummer Pale Ale was a favorite of these Beer Friends. From there we headed to a favorite drinking hole – Old Chicago, had a few before returning to the forrest.
The moment you have all been waiting for is here: The Beer Friends Colorado Brewery Tour starts today! Three of the Beer Friends and one guest, who you most likely be hearing about, are heading out to the great state of Colorado today, August 12 to experience the mountains, forests and, most important, the craft beer. (more…)
After weeks of excellent beer competition, a few overtimes and a whole lotta votes – the Beer Friends Final Four has a clear winner! Congrats to New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale from Fort Collins, Colorado!
The New Belgium Brewery was founded in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1991 when the company’s Brew Master took his home brewing to the next level. Since then, New Belgium has grown into one of the more popular breweries in a state producing many top craft beers. While you can’t find their stuff out on the East Coast – yet, you can certainly find it in any store in Colorado and the surrounding states.
With seemingly thousands of varieties of beer available – this Beer Friend started to ask what’s the difference between each? The differences between a Stout and hefeweizen are obvious – but what about everything in between? The Beer Friends decided to explore this and start defining beer styles and types, but also giving our two-cents about each type. This Beer Friend starts with Amber Ale, which is my go-to beer at any bar.
Old Chicago will always have a special place in this Beer Friends’ heart. My home bar – it’s a chain restaurant – is located on the North End of Colorado Springs off the Woodmen Exit. Old Chicago is a typical bar/restaurant, serving deep dish pizza, calzones, salad bars and pasta. What sets Old Chicago apart is the beer list.
Old Chicago is my Holy Grail of drinking. This is where I learned about beer, about good beer, and the difference between bottles and draft — basically my beer-education.
Corporate Kerouac
Phil
Brad
Graham
Paul
