2016 Western Trip – Days 10-11 – Brewery and The Brown's

After the visit to Brighton, we returned to Sweetie to realize that Riley was scheduled to fly home that night rather than the next night as we believed, so she flew into getting ready so we could still participate in the evening activities – a brewery tour and dinner at Breckenridge Brewery.  

Before the tour we enjoyed a beer and a brief history of the company in the tasting room.

The brewery began in Breckenridge, CO in 1990 but as the business grew, they felt it necessary to open a brewery in the Denver area and are now at the third area location in Littleton.  They have gone from less than 2,000 barrels/year to around 60,000 barrels/year and were recently purchased by Anheuser-Bush ( AB InBev) – I’d say the owner just got very rich and hopefully AB will maintain a hands off approach.  The tour was very good and conducted by a knowledgeable and bubbly young lady.  

Following the tour, we were served a tasting flight of four beers and I especially enjoyed their 471 Small Batch IPA (double IPA) but it made the others taste like flavored water.

After the tour we went next door for dinner at the Farm House Restaurant at Breckenridge Brewery where we had good food and excellent service with the only negative being the noise level – but it was a brewpub after all.  I had an elk burger and homemade chips both of which I enjoyed and I sampled Bev’s fish and chips and Riley’s fried chicken with mashed potatoes and thought they were both very good as well.

After supper and a nap, we made our second trip that day up the E-470 toll road to take Riley to the Denver airport for her 1:15am flight – yuck.  Since her dad had paid a fee for unaccompanied minor, we assumed we would drop her off at security and the airline would take her from there, but that was not the case and Bev had to accompany her to the gate and stay there until the plane pushed away at 1:30am – yuck again.  Bev finally called and said to pick her up but she couldn’t find her way to the pick-up place where we were but eventually made it outside to the departure area, so I told her to just stay put while I made my 4^th trip around the airport (several miles).  We linked up this time and headed for Sweetie finally getting into bed about 3:15am – super yuck.

After sleeping in until nearly 10am and straightening up Sweetie a little, we headed over to Lea Ann and Bob’s for dinner along with their son Sean, and friend Heather.  

Lea Ann served up appetizers of assorted olives and delicious Pickled Shrimp with Spinach Cream Dip – I don’t know how much shrimp was cooked but last time I looked there were only a couple left.  The main meal was pulled pork soft tacos with salad and refried beans (provided by Heather) – here’s a shot of my plate and as expected, everything was very good.

After dinner we sat around on the patio, sipped wine, and visited (the most important part) - thanks LA & Bob for another fun evening in Highlands Ranch.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/29 – 7/30/16 event dates