Post Birthday Post

Tuesday was my birthday. That's hardly convenient for celebrating, so on Saturday Jen and I, along with both of our sets of parents drove up to Fort Collins to tour the New Belgium Brewery and the Odell Brewing Company. I had to schedule our tour of New Belgium 2 months in advance, but it was well worth it. We got 6 glasses of beer, some of which were rarities. The tour was 90 minutes and really enjoyable. Our guide was a good story teller, amiable personality, and enthusiastic employee. Of the 6 beers, the one that surprised me was the Kick beer. It's a sour beer aged in wine barrels that previously housed red wines. It also has some pumpkin and cranberries in it. It's unlike any other beer I've had, and it was quite enjoyable. So far it is not in wide release. I was sad that they didn't have any of the dunkelweiss beer I had enjoyed. Sad.

Odell Brewing was fine, and had I not just been on an awesome tour at New Belgium that included a spiral slide and 6 glasses of beer, I might have appreciated it more. If you go do brewery tours, hit New Belgium last so everything else doesn't feel like a let down.

After the breweries we hopped on I-25 and drove down to Denver for a meal at my beloved Euclid Hall. They did not fail to impress and the food was excellent. I did finally try the bone marrow, and although it didn't taste bad, it's nothing I'll repeat. The texture was more gelatinous than I had expected, so it mainly was like eating fat. But the spaetzle, cabbage, and poutines did not disappoint. Unfortunately, we had to skip the waffle ice cream sandwich, but fortunately it was for a good reason. Back at our place we had ice cream cake from Sweet Cow Ice Cream. Delicious!

On my actual birthday, Jen had to work, so I went and had dinner with my folks. They got me the game Dominion for my birthday, so I taught them to play that. It's a great game with a clever way of slowly building up what you can do. It has a ton of replayability based on different combinations of cards that you can play with. We had played it before with friends, but I was hungry to have it for my own. Last night Jen and I played it 4 times. The first time we tied (though she technically won), and the next 3 times she gave me pretty solid thrashings. I may need to reformulate the way I play...