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| Focus on the Beer crew brewing at New Belgium |
2012 was an awesome year all around, we will certainly miss it and I'm sure we will look back to it as one of our milestones for Focus on the Beer. For us, we got Beers Made By Walking off the ground, started a number of really fun events and article series, we even got to brew with New Belgium! Our local region saw the entry of Great Storm Brewing, Paradox, and Elevation Beer Co. Many of the breweries around us have expanded or are in the middle of big expansions, Trinity has been gaining loads of popularity for the Brett and Sour beers they make. Nationally we hit the 2,000 mark for breweries in the country and we are well on the way to 3,000 breweries already. Yeah, it was a good year.
We would like to share our photos this year with you. We've got a few photos that you've already seen and we're also adding a few that we haven't published yet, and photos that come from our Twitter and Instagram accounts too. These are our experiences, we hope you'll be a part of more and more of them in 2013. Cheers, and happy holidays!
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| BFF's Forever ;) |
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| Vail Big Beers Festival is perhaps the best festival in the country, excluding the obvious GABF. |
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| The best idea ever? Thank You Crazy Mountain. |
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| Dave Chichura and Dale Katechis, brewer and owner of Oskar Blues, come to town for our Meet the Brewer. |
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| Our pal Sean from Denver off the Wagon started a nice twitter handle for us called Focus on the Water |
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| Trinity's Wild Beer and Wild Game dinner blew us away. They served beer along with Crooked Stave and AC Golden. |
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| Troy Casey of AC Golden at the Wild Beer and Wild Game dinner at Trinity. |
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| Odell Friek |
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| We created this image for our article on wild beers and the trickiness of giving them a style category. |
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| Coaltrain hosted a Barrel Aged Beer Tasting and Dinner at The Warehouse. |
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| Eric was happy to see his artwork grace the fantastic Methuselah Rookie Card beer from Phantom Canyon. |
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| Crabtree Brewing Berliner Weiss |
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| Seeing New Belgium's Shift in the hand of every person at a bar was a magical experience. |
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| Congratulations to Great Storm Brewing on their opening and their continued success. |
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| Beer samples during our first Battle of the Brewer event. |
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| We brought Doug Odell to town for our Meet the Brewer series. That was awesome. |
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| Front Range BBQ introduced me (Eric) to the beermosa and my life has not been the same since. |
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| Avery's Uncle Jacob Stout was one of our favorite beers this year. |
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| The Saison Festival is awesome, a must-attend event |
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| At the Saison Fest we got our first look at Elevation Beer Co. and they really impressed us. |
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| Funkwerks Saison, GABF Gold Medal 2012. |
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| Crooked Stave Petite Sour |
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| John of Black Fox talking with Thomas of Ska. John left Colorado Springs this year and while that was sad, we wish him the best up in Aurora. |
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| Always great to run into friends. Lee Williams of Hoptopia, Sean Buchan of Denver off the Wagon, and Stevie Calderola of Ladies of Craft Beer. |
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| The first day that Ska's Mexican Logger was released. A personal favorite all-time beer. |
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| Homebrew |
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| We learned that Judge Baldwin's is no longer brewing, but converted to a taphouse. |
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| Trinity Brewing's old fermentation equipment, they've done some major expansion this year. |
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| We visited AC Golden, inside the Coors facility. |
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| Troy Casey talks about barrel aged beer. |
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| 2,000+ breweries in the USA. |
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| Scott, Lisa, and Josh went to Dark Lord Days and this is some of the scenery from the day. |
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| New Belgium's Tart Lychee was another major favorite beer this year. |
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| Kissmeyer Denied Entry |
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| The kegs at Golden City Brewery |
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| Josh and Scott at Odell's Small Batch Festival. |
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Hanging with friends at the Beer Blogger's Conference.
Brady Walen of the Craft Brew Alliance, me, Michael Bussmann of New Belgium, and Win Bassett of All About Beer. |
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| A group of fun-loving Colorado Springers take a trip to Oskar Blues Brewery and farm. |
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| Hops starting to grow at the Oskar Blues Hops and Heifers Farm. |
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| Fun at Oskar Blues. |
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| Dave, Bryan, and Jason of Brewer's Republic at Oskar Blues. |
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| Cans o beer. |
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| Gangsta. |
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| Leah finds a friend at Oskar Blues |
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| We visited the brand new City Star Brewing and they were awesome. |
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| Barrel Chandelier at City Star |
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| Ro Guenzel of Left Hand shows us the brewery. |
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| After a long day of drinking...er...I mean a long day of sampling and tasting beer. |
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| Cans of Beer |
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| Bikes and Beer at the Oskar Blues Canned Beer Festival |
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| Battle of the Brewers |
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| Shamrock Brewing wins the Battle of the Brewers competition. |
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| Gearing up for Beers Made By Walking. We found this image online, someone had put together a 4 step instructional, making the whole thing pretty easy sounding. |
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| After opening, Elevation came down for our Meet the Brewer series and continued to blow our socks off. |
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| Cracked open a lovely bottle from the brand new River North Brewing in Denver. |
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| The Focus on the Beer crew headed to Portland and hung out with some of Eric's friends and family. Here we're at Horse Brass Pub, best place in the whole world to drink a beer. |
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| Cascade Barrel House in Portland |
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| Sampling basically every single beer at Cascade Barrel House, to the chagrin of our server. |
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| Hair of the Dog |
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| The Hop Back at Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Oregon. This is a hop head paradise. |
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| Blue Star presented an amazing beer dinner with beers from Jolly Pumpkin. |
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| The Blue Star also had a Firestone Walker beer dinner and they brought David Walker to town for it. |
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| Tyler Flynn, homebrewer and naturalist, wrote and article for our blog about the inspiration the landscape can provide when thinking about and drinking beer. |
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| Buying beer from a convenience store in Oregon. Two great beers for $8. |
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| Supernova opened in downtown Colorado Springs! Vintage arcade games and beer. We've spent a lot of time here. |
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| Paradox Beer Co. bottles their first beers. |
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| Our pal Dale Stevens drinks one new local beer every day for a whole year. |
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| Scott Simmons picks some Chokecherry for his contribution to Beers Made By Walking |
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| The hike to Palmer Lake Reservoir for Beers Made By Walking |
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| Liz Klein shows Lefty and Mike some edible plants on the Beers Made By Walking hike. |
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| Alex Ganum of Upright Brewing in Oregon made a beer for Beers Made By Walking. |
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| Beers Made By Walking went to Washington as part of the 45 mile program The Long Walk in Seattle. |
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| Deschutes Brewery also participated in Beers Made By Walking. Here's there contribution, Sage Fight IPA |
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| We got to brew with Ska in Durango on their pilot system for their BMBW contribution. |
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| Crooked Stave opened their barrel room in Denver and Scott was there for it. |
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| Colorado Mountain Brewery opened their second location |
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| Beers Made By Walking, we tasted eight beers inspired by our hike in Palmer Lake. |
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| Jessica and Oren enjoying sample trays during BMBW. |
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| More BMBW enjoyment. |
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| John and Michelle enjoying beer. |
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| We built a beer serving jockey box for some of our events. |
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| Finally got my first taste of Paradox. Enjoyed the whole bottle. |
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| We brought Eric Salazar of New Belgium to town for our Meet the Brewer series. |
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| During GABF we had a major BMBW event, hosted by Wynkoop in Denver. |
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| We had our own glassware printed along with a sixteen page menu/catalog. |
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| Enjoying some BMBW beers at Wynkoop. |
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| Wynkoop brewer Bess Dougherty made a beer for BMBW. |
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| We had a good time celebrating GABF with Deschutes Brewery. |
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| An awesome bus in downtown Denver during GABF. |
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| All beerd out or just getting started? GABF pre-gaming. |
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| Jason Yester of Trinity getting ready for the GABF crowds. |
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| Beer at New Belgium |
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| A keg of Strange's BMBW contribution, Eldorado Bel-Gin Dark Ale |
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| Enjoying a bottle of Crooked Stave's lovely Batch 1, one of our favorite beers this year. |
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| Lefty and Chris Wright. Chris is enjoying the fruit of his hard work during the grand opening of the new Barrel Room at Pikes Peak Brewing. |
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| The Grand Opening of The Barrel Room at Pikes Peak Brewing. |
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| Paradox has a grand beer release party at Pikes Peak Brewing. |
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| An interview with Lauren and Eric Salazar for our Cellarmanship series. |
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| Brewing at New Belgium |
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| Eric Salazar telling us a bit about the large foeders at New Belgium. |
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| A favorite brewery, Double Mountain, with one of their best beers, Falalalalala. |
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| A lovely sampling of some fantastic beers from The Bruery. |
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Isaac got a job in Bend, Oregon and is going to move out there soon. We will miss him dearly.
To celebrate, we opened a number of beers from Oregon. |
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| Drinking beer straight out of a bomber, like a boss. |
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We started a new series of articles on cellaring beer at home, so we went to Scott's cellar for some good photos.
And this may be the perfect photo to end on. Cheers! |
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