Tales From Across The Pond Day 6

Mark and Kev's Most Excellent Adventure

Mountain Time

Day 6 of 8

Tales From Across The Pond Day 6

Woke up at 07:30 because the sun was pouring in through my window with the pretty decorative curtains that don't close. I am not particularly rested because I didn't go to bed until 01:30 this morning. I have to make a correction to yesterdays post and say that I was drinking 90 shillings in the bar and not 10 shillings as stated. It shows the miracle of alcohol in that I cannot remember a simple number. It wss still a lovely drink.

We went down to breakfast at 09:00 and I had what is becoming my usual heart attack breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and toast with the habitual 3 cups of coffee. The service was not quite as good as we had experienced in Chicago, but I could not put my finger on why. Maybe I am just becoming too picky. Mark had granola and waffles and had the cheek to challenge my high fat breakfast choice.

We decided to do some more Christmas shopping and proceeded to try and walk to Cherry Creek shopping mall from our hotel. On the map in the brochure it looked like only a couple of blocks. Unfortunately it was a few more than that and after 45 minutes of walking in the unseasonal heat (we were down to wearing t-shirts) we found ourselves on Ogden Street South and totally lost. We found a bar that was open and went in to ask them to call us a taxi. This was about 11:45 and the barman asked if we wanted a drink and talked us into having a pint each of Alaskan Amber ($4 each). It was a very nice dark beer, but was spoiled by the cab arriving after only 5 minutes and us having to neck down the remainder of our drinks.

At the mall I proceeded to spend even more of my money on Christmas gifts. This time mainly perfumes for my sister, aunts and girlfriend (DKNY Be Delicious, Burberry Weekend, Glow by J LO and Pink Caviar from Axis) and a couple of make up gift sets by Clinique. That is now most of my xmas shopping done. No last minute stops at the gas station on xmas eve for me this year. We got a cab back to the hotel, only to find out that the hotel offers a free drop off and pick up service for guests for locations within 3 miles of the hotel.

After dropping off the shopping we head back to 16th Street for lunch and intend to stop off at Willie G's. Unfortunately it does not open until 16:00 and it is now only 14:30, so we head to the Rock Bottom brewery. This is of course a dangerous mistake after our Chicago experience of how fine the beers are and we settle down to eat. We order some good food (too much again of course). Mark had the guacamole starter, and a chicken and shrimp pasta. I had chicken enchilladas. I finished all of my food which is not a good sign for my heartslife age, but the food was too good to leave.

Our first beer choice was Molly's Titanic brown ale. This was a very heavy beer, but tasted most excellent. We were glad to drink this first, rather than have it at the end of our meal when it would be too much. Our 2nd choice was Fallen Angel, which was again a very dark colour, and had a pleasant nutty aftertaste. This was delicious and went down our necks far too easily. We were glad that our 3rd choice of beer Buffalo Gold was a very light coloured pleasingly refreshing ale. It was a very smooth drink with a delicious and suttleflavour in the aftertaste. This was my favourite of the ones we tried and was definately an Indian Pale Ale. Our fourth choice, Falcon IPA was very disappointing. It was a darker colour than we expected and had a cloudy appearance. It was not an unpleasant taste, but was not to my tastes. I thought it had a subtle flowery undertone, but Mark disagreed. This was not an Indian Pale Ale, and after some debate we decided that it could be an Imperial Pale Ale, which was not brewed to be as refreshing as its Indian namesake, that was brewed in England to be consumed by the soldiers and administrators of the British Empire who were posted to the Indian Raj for them to drink instead of the local contaminated water.

After lunch we made the appalling decision to walk to Invesco Field. Again it looked quite close to where we were on the map. But what the map didn't show was that you could not cut through the Pepsi Centre car park and after a long detour in the heat we were exhausted when we finally arrived. It was well worth the effort because the main entrance with the running Bronco's was every bit as stunning as Colorado Kitten had described in her summer tour post. Of course we had to go into the club shop and Mark bought me a dark grey McD style hoodie, and I bought myself an old light blue t-shirt with the distressed orange Bronco's D on it and an orange beanie hat. We were both amused to see Jay Cutler shirts still on sale at half the price of every other players jersey. It was also great to see some of the souvenoir stuff that they had on offer. I probably would have bought one of these for upto $500 if I had not spent so much on shopping. Darn it!

We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and headed back to downtown on the route 30 bus. At $2 each I thought it was expensive, but worth every penny to save my poor feet. We then got the free bus down 16th Street and headed back to the hotel to drop off my shopping and prepare for the night ahead.   

We got the free hotel shuttle to 16th Street and went into Willie G's to grab a bite to eat. We had to wait for a table and comforted ourselves with a couple of Fat Tyres and a dozen oysters. They were better shucked here than in Chicago and were really good to eat. The Fat Tyre was very smooth and had a sweet aftertaste. We both ordered salads for starters because we both needed the nutrients in our bodies. For the same reason Mark ordered the shrimp platter and I had the fish plater. These came with rice and vegetables. The food ws very nice apart from my scallops were overcooked and on Mark's platter was a shrimp, wrapped in bacon and covered in bar-b-q sauce. This was a completely alien concept for us and has now become a sauce of great amusement between us. Mark being greedy also had a cheescake dessert, which was far too big for any one person to complete, but he said it was nice and that the accompanying raspberry couli was exquisite. The meal came to about $80, which we thought was a reasonable price for the quality of food we had eaten. We did not order any wine to have with the meal because past experience has taught us that beer andwine do not mix.

After leaving the restaurant we headed to the Wyncoop Brewing pub on 18th street and were pleasntly surprised to find the interior well lit. We managed to find a table overlooking Wynkop street and eagerly awaited our first beer. This was a Railyard Ale, which was a delight to our tastebuds. It was very smooth, with just the right amount of hoppiness and a very pleasant citrus aftertaste. We stteled down to playing some cribbage and were very impressedthat our server recognised the game. We had a chat to him about this and it turns out he had only learned the game the previous summer on a trip to Oregon with his father. We could relate to this as we had both been taught the game by our fathers. The next beer we tried was a Light Rail Ale and this was a deliciously refreshing pale ale. It was very smooth again and had a sweet aftertaste that worked well in balance with the malty flavour in its body. Our next drink was a Monkey (something) IPA. I did my best to rember the name but it now escapes me. This was a stronger beer and had a full body and fruity hoppy aroma. I realy enjoyed this drink, but believed it would be too heavy to drink all night. The people at the table next to ours were drinking B3K Schwarzbier and even though it looked and smelt very nice, we thought that it would tip us over the edge and be far too heavy for us to drink at this stage of the evening. I had another Railyard Ale, and Mark gave this round a miss as he was starting to feel full. This will teach him to have a dessert. For our last ale of the evening we returned to the Light Rail Ale.

We have found in the past that you need to drink the heavier beers at the start of the night and then move down to the lighter ales (not Bud light!). The reason for this is that the full bodied beers are normally quite strong and they sit heavily on your stomach if you have too many of them. We finally finished the nght about midnight and looked forward to a relaxing walk back to our hotel to try and clear our heads and burn off some calories. The amount of walking that we have done has finally taken its toll on my body and I now have a large blister on my toe. That will teach me to wear inappropriate socks this morning when we went shopping.

We got back to our hotel just before one and retired to our rooms. We both agreed that the Wynkoop Brewing pub was the best establishment we visited. The atmosphere was welcoming, the ceilings were high and the lights were on. We would definately visit it again on our next visit to Denver. Our one regret was not getting to the Breckenridge brewery, but that delight awaits our next visit. We were lucky enough that our trip coincided with the Christmas lights being switched on and it was fantastic to see the effort that has gone into marking the festive occasion. There is nothing like it in the UK, and it was a joy to behold.

NFL Games 2

Real Beer Tried  19

It is not a good idea to mix and match the beers as much as we have today, but they were all so nice that it is hard not to keep wanting to taste all of them. Overall I think my favourite beer of the day was the Wynkoop Railyard Ale. I could probablydrink that all day, every day.