A fun weekend

As many of you know, my baby (ha) brother came to visit me this weekend. We had a total blast. We had our own tour de brewery and didn't even get around to all the ones we wanted. So here's the scoop.

There he is

Friday, I picked Brian up from the airport and fought the pre-rush hour traffic with all my might. No curse words were said.... ;) We went straight to the Avery tasting room. It's next to my work, so he met some of my coworkers and then we got to tasting. I didn't take any photos on Friday. Sorry. Next, we went to Walnut Brewery, and then dinner at Gondo for the yummy bottomless pasta. Les came over and we watched The Big Lebowski, MAAAN! Love that movie every time I see it.

Saturday. I made my pancake special and we headed up to Ft. Collins. We went to New Belgium, Odell's, and Ft. Collins Brewery. We took a tour of New Belgium. I am continually impressed with this brewery's efforts. It makes ME want to go work there. They have been wind-powered since 1998, are employee owned, and are making a huge effort toward the green movement. They have something called Tour De Fat where a bunch of people go ride bikes in a parade. They give you a cruiser after working there a year, and they send you to BELGIUM, all expenses paid, after 5 years to experience the beer culture. They recycle and reuse a lot of their by-products. For example, they send all the grains to farms for cows to munch on. Also, they have their own water treatment plant for the best brewing. Go New Belgium!!



You are only allowed to sample four, so it was a hard choice with all those beers on tap.



That would be cool to get in that big fridge!

samples... delish

It was super crowded in there... can you blame people for flocking to samples of free, quality beer?

Pics of the brewery itself... I was calling it the "brewery tourey" ;)






Odell's is a lot smaller, but they make some of my favorite beers- 90 Shilling and Cutthroat Porter. Too bad Deschutes is in Oregon, because I love them too. :) Odell's was a cool tasting room, much less "commerical" and townie. Ft. Collins was the epitome of a great, local brewery. They had this red beer that was killer and also their special tap for the month- a beer brewed in whiskey casks. It was interesting.

Odell's:


Their tasting room

What you get.

What happens.


Ft. Collin's tasting room



After brew-fest, we came back to my house, had some dinner, then headed out for some Halloween celebration in Boulder. It was a fun, crazy night. Pics....

What do you think? Should I go blonde? NOOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!!

Amateur poor star next door... or Quagmire. ;)

Scandinavian bar maid. My name was Franzi. :) It caused quite the stir.

Jamie and my bro. (Jamie is my fellow TA. We struggle and give students blank looks a lot of the time. haha)

Jamie was the black knight from Monty Python. Classic!!!! He made this costume himself...impressive. He even has the arm. "Your arms off!" "No it isn't!"

Me and Leslie. She was a fairy... or another idea was she was "all dressed up and nowhere to go"

Me and Chris (the guy that carved the chuck-o-lantern. He is now famous on someone else's blog). Oops, I mean me and Indiana Jones. Jah Indie. ;)

Hopefully the black knight doesn't have any black magic.

pimpin'...yeah I guess your big sister kissing you on the cheek is not really pimpin, but you know he is. :)

Sunday was more a chill day, relaxing on Pearl St, went to Southern Sun for my favorite, local brews. And today he went home. :( It was great to spend some one on one time with my brother, it rarely happens. I'm going home to Albuquerque for the week before Thanksgiving. Yaaaay :) They only have a few breweries there though. That's ok.

Saturday is my half marathon. I can run the distance fine, but the impact still makes the arches of my feet hurt, and also the tendon right under my gastroc. Eh well. I think I'm running a 15K in Albuquerque on Thanksgiving too. Then I will hang up my running shoes (well, not really..but no more races or actual training), and start training on the bike again. I am still going mountain biking my fair share despite all the running. In fact, I did some trails I usually don't do last week- Hall Ranch in Lyons and Apex/Chimney Gulch in Golden. I've been so focused on going up to Nederland that I forgot about these gems!