Tour de Beer

This week has been relatively uneventful. Work has finally picked up a bit and I'm now doing a few procedures a day. It's still a far cry from the amount of work we had in Arizona, but it beats being continuously bored.
The highlight of the week was a 2nd bout of using Seth's fryer. We made home-made corn dogs and crinkle fries. Yum!
Saturday, Mike and I took a tour of several of the Denver (and surrounding area) breweries. Our first stop was in Fort Collins to check out New Belgium. New Belgium has recently started distributing it's wonderful brews in North Carolina, so I was extremely excited to check out their brewery. The tap room itself is huge and sees hundreds of visitors on a weekend afternoon. They allow you two tasters (about 4oz) of any of their beers. I ended up tasting the Abby Ale and the Tripple Belgian. Both were exceptional and haven't made it to NC yet, so I picked up a few bottles of each.
A mile or so from New Belgium was an awesome little brewery called O'Dell Brewing Company. The crowd and tour (which was given by the founder's daughter) were a lot smaller, but the beer was exceptional. Apparently they are in the middle of a brewery expansion to increase the production of current brews as well as start expanding their selection. Of particular interest was their Cutthroat Porter. This was probably my favorite beer of the day and warranted bringing a few bottles home.
Venturing further south, we stopped in a little town called Lyons (which is apparently the gateway to the Rockies) to try beer from Oskar Blues. The interesting thing about Oskar Blues aside from the blues themed pub is that they can their beers instead of bottling. The rationale is that cans tend to be more environmentally friendly and keep the product fresher for a longer period of time. I can attest that they have wonderful beer on tap and will try some of the Old Chub scottish ale from the can when I get home.
Again moving south back toward Denver, we made a stop in Boulder and stopped by Avery Brewing Company. Avery had the day's most interesting selection of beers. The majority of their brews were over 8% alcohol. While I'm not a huge fan of incredibly strong beer, they did have a great deal of character.
The Tour de Beer ended up being a great way to spend a Saturday in Colorado. Not only did we get to see a little bit more of the front range of mountains (specifically the flat irons), but we sampled and brought home a wonderful variety of microbrew beers. If we had more time it would have been fun to tour the Coors brewery in Golden. I'm sure the contrast would have been spectacular!
This week is my last in Denver. Early Saturday my bags will be packed and I'll say goodbye to the Rockies for a while. I've really come to enjoy Denver and could envision staying for a little while. This summer trip out west has been a well deserved break from the hustle and bustle of dental school and life in Chapel Hill. I'm ready to head back to good friends and to finish up the remaining 9 months of school which will likely fly by just as these past two months have.