So, we finally headed out at noon and I took him to Fort Collins, we ate a Monoglian place called Hu Hott. It was yummy. It was similar to BD's but I think we both decided we like BD's better, probably becuase that is what we are used to. Mike spoiled some of the plans by having a beer, but I figured we would be okay. After we ate plenty of food, we headed out. We passes a farm feed plant and I told him we were taking a tour of it, Mike just looked at me. We drove just a bit further and made our first stop. Fort Collins Brewery.
Fort Collins Brewery is a smaller brewery, but considering, it is a decent size. It sends beer to about 12 to 15 states. While we waited for our tour to start, we got a smapler of their seasonals....now if anyone knows me, I do not drink beer, at all. It is not an acquired taste to me, it will never be a taste I enjoy...but for Mikey's birthday, I made some due. I treated it like a coffee tasting... They gave us cards for the 6 beers we tried and the flavors of each. Now throughout the years with Mike I have takens sips of a lot of beers. I always smell them and Mike has always laughed, the cards with descriptions encouraged smelling the beers and getting the scents of what was in them! Well, I sipped each of those beers, and I was once again reminded that I least like the dark beers and I hate the hoppy taste of beer! But I finsihed the common ground beer all by myself...Miek enjoyed himself much more than I did....
This the double chocolate stout that I did not taste any chocolate in....
Finally we went on out tour, it was quite interesting. Their bottles are made in Windsor, pretty cool. They also bragged on how the just got a few new tanks that held 150 barrels of beer at one time. Mike and I were pretty impressed. We left there going "WOW" that was pretty impressive and really cool.
Our next and final stop was the Anhauser Busch plant, we made it for the last tour there which was lucky for us. We waited a few minutes and was able to do a tour with a total of 4 of us. The first place we stopped contained the same barrels that Fort Collins Brewery had, but we realized how much more popular Bud Light was than Fort Collins is quickly. On of the tanks for Anhauser held 4400 barrels of beer and they had 17 of these tanks! It was amazing!!! We went throughout the tour and each stop made us realize the difference between the two companies.
Here is one of the aisles in the fermenting area, there are some above this and another aisle.
When we were finished, we were given free samples here, we tried the new Platinum, it was not bad. Then we tried two of which ever we wanted, well, I tried one and that was more then plenty. Afterward, they gave us a sample of what they call a "dessert beer" weird, I know. It was blueberry. It looked like grape juice and tasted like blueberry juice, but a good taste to end our beer tour adventures...
Now, we have to go to the Coors tour in Golden to compare. Hhhhhmmmmm, I wonder what we will find there.
Happy Birthday Michael! Hope you had as much fun as me!
