For our first stop on our brew pub tour we were in the college town of Grand Junction, also known as “GJ” we learned from the bar tender who said, “Yea, GJ’s actually a lot of fun for being such a small town.”
Grand Junction’s Kannah Creek was an exceptional brew pub. We sampled their Land’s End Amber, it had nice citrus hints and was full-bodied. Michael tried their Broken Oar IPA, which he enjoyed frothing up on his goatee. We found a lively environment and a friendly staff and exceptional beer. Kannah is certainly worth the stop in GJ.
We were told that the Rockslide Brewery in Grand Junction is celebrating their 25th-year anniversary. Rockslide was prominently located in the middle of GJ’s meandering Main Street. We couldn’t sample their beer for the long drive ahead of us to attempt to get over Vail Pass and to Golden Colorado.
We traveled on I-70 through the towns of Aspen, Glenwood Canyon (which has a nice brew pub we visited by the same name). The Rocky Mountains were very impressive. I made this drive only once before but what was most incredible was that Vail Pass was 10,600 feet in elevation. Less than an hour after we left Glenwood Springs we were hit with a blizzard.
Totally unprepared for the blizzard in my Toyota Matrix with bald tires, we were fishtailing on the highway in the rapidly accumulating wet snow.
We went through the Eisenhower tunnel and decided for our safety to stop at Georgetown. Which is a very small mountain town, much less populated and less gentrified than Aspen or Vail. The hotel attendant at Georgetown Mountain Inn was giddy with excitement for the prospect of enjoying a powder day due to the late winter blizzard.
As my white knuckles (from gripping the steering wheel) began to recirculate, we enjoyed a pizza and a beer and watch the blizzard calm.
Read our previous installment intro to our beer tour.
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