My weekend

I know its been a few days since my last post, but I do have a good excuse. This past weekend I headed up to the land of beer and mountains, Denver Colorado. My fiance and I were doing a little wedding planning, but since Denver and the area surrounding Denver are infested with Microbreweries I was VERY happy. Amongst the planning we were able to stop by two craft breweries, Estes Park Brewery, and Oskar Blues and have a sample of their fine brews.
Estes Park Brewery is of course located in Estes Park across the lake from the Stanely hotel (the creepy hotel in the Shining). The brewery is a Brew pub serving ok food, and pretty good beer. When we got there we headed to the tasting bar for a few short glasses of beer (since these were small pours I won't be grading the head):
Estes Park Porter: Dark, ruby colored, coffee notes, creamy, smooth with a light bitterness at the end, very nice.
Estes Park Renegade: This is their IPA, oranges, bitter, fruity, balance the bitterness with some malt, good carbonation. Pretty good.
Estes Barleywine: Very nice at 13%, raisins, Roasted sweet malts, chewy, dark fruit. Could use some aging, but already very good.
Estes Tripel: Weighs in at 8.8%, fruity, golden in color, white grapes, like a Riesling, honey suckle, melons, Extremely smooth, no alcohol flavor.
Estes Park Oatmeal Stout: Flavors of roasted malts and chocolate, a tad bit of oaty flavor. Some esspresso notes, with only a bit of mild bitterness. An ok attempt.

Oskar Blues of course is that small brewery that has become famous for serving their beers in cans, something not many craft brewers do. The brewery is a small venture in a Lyons Colorado. They serve food, but we didn't get any, instead we sat down on a Sunday afternoon and ordered a sampler tray of 6 beers:
MoneyShot Cream Ale: Light, lemony, cloudy, crisp, and tart. An ok beer, but I don't have much experience with a Cream ale.
Gordon Strong Beer: Big hops here, no malts, orange peel notes, a little much, but not to bad.
Dale Pale Ale: The flagship beer. Poured cloudy, nice smooth hops, well balanced, refreshing, Very nice.
Bitching Creek ESB: A guest beer from Jackson Hole, that they were pouring. Bitter, some chocolate notes, smooth cocoa-y, very nice.
Old Chub: Another one of their popular beers a Scottish Ale. Dark brown, sweet dark raisins, dark cherry notes, smooth a little bitter, but very nice.