In late August, Evan and I took a short trip to Colorado to get away, go hiking, and visit some breweries. The hiking and the beer did not disappoint. The first brewery we went to was Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado. We stopped at Avery on our way to Estes Park and we loved the beer and food so much that we ended up stopping there again on our way back to Denver.

The first thing we did at Avery was go on the tour. Our tour leader was celebrating his last day as a tour guide, having been promoted to a different position, and was already a few beers deep when the tour started. He was jovial and funny. The new brewhouse is enormous. One of the coolest things in the Avery brewhouse is their CO2 capture system, which captures the C02 generated from the brewing process to be used later to make Avery bottles. Avery is the first brewery I've seen something like that in. Yay technology!

My favorite part of Avery, however, was not the tour. It was the Brewhouse-Only beers they had on tap and the delicious food they served in their taproom. The veggie tacos were amazing. The brisket was amazing. It isn't often at breweries that I can find something so veggie-rich and delicious on the menu, while Evan can order meat to his heart's content. I'm really sad we don't live closer to Avery. I'd be a regular.

There was no shortage of fantastic beer to try, especially beer of the sour variety. Our favorite beer on the menu was the Twenty Two, a dry-hopped brett-forward wild ale, which we liked so much we got a growler of. I also really enjoyed the Day-Tox beer, a Belgian-style pale ale soured in barrels for 6 months with organic beet and ginger juice added.

Good work, Avery! I hope we can visit again soon!