Craft Beer Folk Is Good Folk

In the Google page for "bad blogging technique" I am surely currently featured.  The last time we posted was just after Earth Day in April.  Since then a lot has happened, including, but not limited to:  we opened.  May 1 was the day; since then it's been a tad tornadoish in our lives.   As an example of where we are in the tornado, I keep finding notes on my desk saying things like (these are real-live examples):  “Sean, ½ bbl, phone #XXX-XXXX,” and, “SAM!  First hop t-shirt!”  No idea.  I hope I haven’t left Sean in the lurch and Sam surely deserved a Facebook posting with that tshirt on.  There are also disturbing letters from the CO Dep’t of Labor saying we owe them $1.07.  How they know that our latest payment of unemployment insurance is $1.07 off is beyond me, but I guess I'm getting the checkbook out.

Before we get into random ramblings about life at Horse & Dragon, let's talk beer. We're playing some with it, which is, as you might imagine, fun.  Linsey brewed up a Dusseldorf altbier with Ryan Kopp of Pueblo's Steel City Brewers club for a pro-am entry at GABF this year.

Ryan brewed a batch that Linsey thought was terrific for a homebrewing competition and the two of them have worked their magic to replicate this delicious German amber.  It's bubbling away happily in a fermenter right now (making a noise which I still avow is one of the best in the world):

We'll be serving that in the taproom come mid-August and it'll be served at GABF, too, so stay tuned.  [On the topic of GABF -- if you want tickets this year, be on-line to to try to buy them at 9:59 am on July 30 -- July 29 if you are an AHA or BA member!]

There're a couple of new brews in process and a pin and firkin in the big 'fridge with interesting ingredients that should provide a flavor sensation or two.  We'll be announcing on our FB page when we're tapping those, but for sure mark your calendars for July 23, 12-6, when one will be making an appearance on the dragon bar in the taproom for our First Annual Habitation Day Celebration.

Now to the rambling.

Meeting people in the taproom and around town at the great craft beer bars & restaurants of FoCo has been terrific.  The number of people beercationing through Fort Collins who manage to find us tucked away back here on the airpark is a bit astounding.  Although most afternoons 12-4 looks like this:

In the taproom, we've had fascinating conversations with a high school social studies teacher who is clearly inspiring but seemingly unimpressed by that and with technicians who do all manner of things I could never even begin to master.  A couple who just moved to Fort Collins delivered crab and ¼” thick bacon the day after we met them, and a family shared their craft beer treasures from a roadtrip with us just because they borrowed a growler from TimCo’s office one night.  Two people pointed out to us that our quote attributed to Plato (a Greek) is in Latin.  [We were aware of this and still attributed the phrase to Plato, but one of these folks has convinced us to take down the attribution and allow Anonymous the credit.]  We've talked with folks who are getting married and folks who are on their first date.  (Our daughters can tell you how fun it would be to have us in on the convo on your first date.)  A couple left $100 toward the next many pints in the taproom, and one day the "pay it forward" tip went on back through about 30 customers.  All of this adds up to the same thing:

CRAFT BEER FOLK IS GOOD FOLK.

As well, craft beer taprooms can be pretty magical places.

We've had some brewers and brewing teams stop in, which we love.  e.g.:  a couple of Left Hand Brewing Co. sets (missed a photo of the brew team -- sorry!):

They have -- how cool is this? -- a stretch limo with a major bike rack on the back.

The brewing team from Odell (to which we are forever indebted, as you probably know) also came by.  It's awesome to see brewers relax over a beer.

The Liquid Poets Society had a meeting, which was pretty inspiring, in the taproom.

And some long-time friends from previous lives (Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Colombia, Colorado, Canada -- good, beer-drinking folk all) have stopped in.

Around town we've gotten the chance to check out some pretty darned amazing FoCo restaurants and bars.  In so doing I managed to kick our own keg -- twice -- at The Colorado Room.

Hopefully if you're a photo-type you took a look at the opening weekend and first couple of weeks of albums on FB.  Since those, we've gotten some new fermenters in -- woot, 

Those are still being piped, but soon we'll be able to experiment with a few more brews.  So the tank forest is looking a bit more populated these days, though there's still plenty of empty space left to fill:

[Foresting the brewery.]

We co-hosted a breakfast stop for FoCo's Bike to Work Day.  Seeing all those bikers was muy fun, and we hope to be in the same spot next time.

We also had good times at the Colorado Brewers' Festival (or at least:  those of us who weren't in the ICU that weekend -- ahem, TimCo -- had good times), where we loved seeing some people sporting H&D gear:

We might have watched some World Cup games in the brewery.

Jim Hogan, the fellow from Knotty Ginger who made our taproom furniture, and his wife welcomed a baby girl into their family.  We expect to see a lot of her on the throne chair at the big table in the coming years.

Linsey did this:

...but that's a whole 'nother story.

We sold out of growlers for a minute there -- big no-no for those of us who love the growler culture -- and got some more in; we received some other fun merchandise that included Silipints -- awesome silicone pint "glasses" that travel anywhere, are almost indestructible, will hold your coffee in the morning and your #freshtastycraft beer in the afternoon (keeping it shaded so as not to let it skunk), and that really do keep your beer colder – but only if it takes you an hour to drink a beer (?!).

We tested two pints for temperature at 1 minute, 15 minutes, and an hour.  At one minute they were the same temp, at 15 minutes the Silipint's beer was a degree colder, and at an hour the Silipint's beer was 8 degrees colder.  So if you're a slow sipper, run on out here and get you some.  But wait a couple of weeks, because we're temporarily sold out of those, too.  Whoever is doing our supply chain management for merch is clearly weak.

Next up:  commissioning those 30 bbl fermenters, heading to Beer Camp Across America (Rocky Mountain Region) on July 25, a beer dinner or two, celebrating Habitation Day, and trying to keep our feet under us.

We'll do laundry next year.