This past Saturday I headed up to Breckenridge along with Kim and our friends Ryan and Rob.  We made plans earlier in the week to attend the Breckenridge Beer Festival and arrived just after the event had started.  It was fairly cold and windy out, but that didn’t stop a pretty decent sized crowd from gathering outside to taste unlimited beer samples from over twenty breweries.  The website said, “Rain or Shine, we’ll be there and hopefully so will you!” We didn’t see any rain, but there was plenty of snow.

On to the sampling.  The first surprise was the beer from the Rifle Brewing Company.  I’d never heard of the city of Rifle, Colorado, let alone the brewery there, but their IPA was delicious as was their Anvil Point Amber.  Another brewery that I had never heard of before was the Grand Lake Brewing Company, also from Colorado.  While I wasn’t as blown away by their brews, they did have a couple of tasty entries.  Of the larger breweries, I was very happy to get a taste of small batch offering from Deschutes.  I walked up to their booth just as a bottle of Hop Henge IPA came out of hiding and encouraged them to give me a pour.  It went fast, but all in our group were able to try it.  We also enjoyed beers from Great Divide, Kona, Breckenridge (obviously), Avery, and many more that I am forgetting.  It was a great festival, and my only suggestion would be for them to add more restrooms into the mix, as we had to wait for fifteen minutes or longer each time.

Breckenridge on Dwellable