The Time I Turned a Quarter of a Century: Part I

Here are a few things to know about me: I like birthdays, I like beer, I like books, and apparently I like the letter 'B'...

For my 25th birthday I wanted to do something memorable.  Something I could look back on and be like "Boom, that's when I turned a quarter of a century."  Enter: Great American Beer Fest in Denver, Colorado.

Luckily my closest friends have the same interests as me so we packed our bags, prepared our livers, and joined the party in the Mile High City.

We started the trip with a night out in downtown Denver:

Although apparently turning 25 means you've hit grandma status because Taylor and I were in bed by midnight.  I'm only slightly embarrassed.

The next morning I discovered a new level of loving food.  Ever been to Snooze in downtown Denver?  No? Ha!  You haven't lived.

Oh. You weren't curious to see what my friends and their alcoholic beverages look like?  Here's the goodness:

Eggs Benedict, hash browns.

Biscuits, gravy, egg, other delicious goodness.

Prepare yourself: sweet potato pancake with caramel sauce and roasted almonds.

Yeah. I KNOW!  Beats any extremely overpriced steak dinner I've ever had.  Totally worth the hour wait.

As we all slowly digressed into a food coma, we packed into our rental car (because I can do that now that I'm, you know, twenty five years of age...), and headed to Golden, Colorado, home of the Coors Brewery:

After following a local recommendation to take this small, twisted road up to the top of a nearby mountain, we soon found ourselves winding through the trees, cliffs, and peaks to catch a glimpse or two of downtown Golden from above:

We topped off the day by heading to Boulder and hitting up one of their local (and one of my favorite) breweries, Avery.  We were lucky enough to snag a table in the corner and proceeded to spend the afternoon trying samplings of all their different beers:

More on Day 3 and Day 4 later.  Stay tuned...