Great American Beer Festival

I attended the Great American Beer Festival this past weekend. What a blast!

I volunteered to help with setup on Saturday morning (in exchange, I got a free admission ticket). I got up at 5AM on Saturday, drove to Denver, parked my car at my hotel (Burnsley hotel), walked about a mile to the convention center to start working by 8AM. The work wasn't too bad - actually kinda fun to see how it all happens. Worked until about noon and then started tasting all sorts of good beer.

Here's the list of beers I remember tasting:

Bell's Brewery - Bell's Wild One, Bell's Two Hearted Ale
Brewery Ommegang - Ommegang Adoration
Brooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn Local 1
Brugge Brasserie - Tripel de Ripple
Cascade Brewery - Cascade Kriek, Vlad the Imp Aler
DogFish Head - Theobroma, Pangaea
Kona Brewing - Coco Loco
The Lost Abbey - Inferno Ale
New Belgium Brewing - Transatlantic Kriek
New Glarus Brewing - Wisconsin Cranberry Ale
Pizza Port Carlsbad - Trigger Hoppy, 20th Anniversary Imperial Red Ale
Pizza Port San Clemente - Killer Dana
Samual Adams - something awful - oak barreled moonshine!
San Diego Brewing - Hopnotic Imperial IPA
Shorts Brewing - The Liberator, Ale La Reverend, Anniversary Ale 2009
Sierra Nevada - Belgian Trippel
Spencer Brewing - Abbey Triple
Stone Brewing - Stone IPA
Three Floyds Brewing - Dreadnaught IPA

So, that is 25 1-oz shots of beer and there were more. :)

Anyway, fun was had and I am looking forward to next year.

Busy, Busy September

I attended Virgilio's Italian Festival (The Children's Hospital benefit) on 9/20. I had a slice of cheese pizza, a couple of garlic knots and a couple of small links of italian sausage.

Everything was delicious but the sausage was exceptional. I found out that they get their sausage from Carmine Lonardo's Italian Meat Deli. Carmine Lonardo's is located in both Aurora and Lakewood.

Since I am on vacation today (one day thing), I drove to Lakewood just to pick up some of their sausage. I stocked up and bought 3lbs of hot italian and 1lb of sweet italian. I also bought a lb of their homemade ricotta cheese.

Tonight is Ales for Females so the sausage and cheese will have to wait until tomorrow. Yum!