If the word beer makes you think of lukewarm Bud Light, you owe it to yourself to broaden your horizons, beer-wise, that is. My Brewing Love Trilogy—Book 1, Love On Tap, is available now—is all about a Colorado craft brewery, and there’s plenty of beer and romance to go around. Once you start investigating artisan brewing, you’ll find it includes everything from chocolate to apricot to oatmeal. And sitting on the patio at a Colorado craft brewery, sipping a beer as you watch the sun go down behind the mountains, ranks as one of my all time favorite things to do. So here, in no particular order, are some great places to stop in and sit for a while if you’re visiting the Centennial State.
- Avery Brewing, Boulder. Avery is at the top of everybody’s list of favorites for legendary beer, but for a long time they were in a very small, cramped space. Now they’ve moved into a spacious new facility that has two bars and a dining area. The people are laid back, the ambience is mellow, and the beer is adventurous. As a very happy beer blogger once told me while knocking back another brew, “God, you live in a wonderful place.” Please bring back The Beast, Avery. It’s one of my favorite beers.
- Fate Brewing, Boulder. Fate is many things, including a first-class restaurant with great barbeque. But they brew their own really tasty beer, and they also feature first-rate beers from other small breweries. I remember trying a watermelon saison one Fourth of July that still ranks up there as one of my favorite hot-weather drinks.
- Oskar Blues Brews and Grill, Lyons. Oskar Blues is so big that it’s almost out of the craft brewing category, but their original facility in Lyons is funky enough to be worth a special visit. Music memorabilia is everywhere, and there are live bands on the weekends and sometimes during the week in the summer. As the original home of Oskar Blues, Lyons is also the birthplace of Pale Dale. Have a can to commemorate the occasion.
- Butcherknife Brewing, Steamboat Springs. And now for something completely different. Butcherknife is a small brewery near the road from Steamboat to Hahn’s Peak. You’ll want to sit outside both because the building is small and because the view is gorgeous. This works for spring, summer, and fall, but Coloradoans would add winter too because it’s sunny and we’re sort of nuts. Wear a parka and have a Hefeweizen. It’s tasty.
- Westminster Brewing, Westminster. There are so many craft breweries in Colorado that you can have one you think of as the neighborhood brewery, and this is ours. It’s small and friendly. They have popcorn. They have great beer. And the bartender did her best to help me out when I told her I needed to figure out how to describe the taste of red ale. You can’t go wrong with their brews, but the Moses chocolate porter is really good.
CHEERS!
Grab your favorite brew and snuggle up with Meg’s new release
Love On Tap
Wyatt Montgomery knows a barrel of legendary Zoria imperial stout will help his Denver gastropub stay on top. The only problem is the brewery that made it is no longer in business. When Wyatt hears the brewmaster has only one barrel left, he won’t stop until it’s his. He doesn’t consider what this mythical barrel might cost him. And he certainly doesn’t anticipate his reaction to the heart-stoppingly beautiful brewmaster he needs to convince to sell him the beer.
When Wyatt rushes into Bec Dempsey’s small-town cooperative offering to buy the last barrel of her precious Zoria, she’s thrown for a loop. She’s been burned by city-slickers before, and she’ll be damned if she’ll let it happen again. But when things start heating up between them, Bec decides to make Wyatt a counteroffer. One she hopes he won’t refuse.
Meg Benjamin spent twenty-plus years teaching writing and Web design in South Texas before pulling up roots and starting all over again on the Colorado Front Range. Her comic romances are set in the Texas Hill Country and the Colorado Rockies, which has given her the chance to sample some great wine and some wonderful food (research—it’s all research!). Her new Brewing Love series for Entangled has also given her the chance to get some experience with the wonders of Colorado beer (more research, honestly). Although she now lives in the foothills of the Rockies, Meg travels back to Texas regularly to visit her sons and her twin grandchildren. She and her hubs love to travel the back roads of the Rockies and you can find see pics of their adventures on Facebook and Twitter. For more information about Meg’s books, check out her website. Meg loves to hear from readers; contact her at meg@megbenjamin.com.
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