Boulder Brewing Beer Crawl

After what seemed like years of planning (and a month of teetotalling prior), the Boulder Brewing Beer Crawl in downtown DeLand finally arrived.  Thanks to the generous donation of beer from Jeff Brown of Boulder Brewing, we were able to raise money for Mainstreet DeLand.

A few things about Boulder brewing if you're not privy: Boulder Brewing is Colorado's first microbrewery, having been established in 1979.



These guys have seen many, many breweries come and go.  Makers of the legendary Hazed and Infused dry-hopped ale, Boulder Brewing received the 43rd brewing license ever issued in the United States.  Not only is their beer great, they are also PACE Certified as a green brewery and take tons of steps to help save the environment.  In fact, every 6 pack of Boulder beer you buy, you can feel good knowing that the carriers are made from 100% recycled paperboard!  This company is truly a company that I feel very lucky to be affiliated with.

So we put together this little beer crawl to raise money for Mainstreet DeLand.  Mainstreet is the organization that is responsible for keeping DeLand vital and they do what they can to ensure people keep coming downtown.  A little-known thing about Mainstreet is that most of the events they carry on are money losers.  This being the case it's always nice to help raise money for them and help aid in those events such as Monsters on Mainstreet where the kids can come out and trick-or-treat during Halloween season.  This is also an organization that I'm proud to be a partner with and I'm always enthused at their activity.

We were able to involve 10 different location for the crawl and had 5 different beers to choose from.  This way, folks could cherry pick where they wanted to drink and we could ensure they could be in their comfort zone.  The 5 beers that we had ran the gamut of styles:  Hazed and Infused, Mojo IPA, Sweaty Betty Hefeweizen, Kinda Blue, and Singletrack Copper.

Thanks to the hard work put on by my buds at S.R. Perrott, we had a banner made for each locale that had the name of the restaurant and the Boulder Beer they were serving.  This way, people could just walk up and  know what was being served.  With some of the crowds that developed, that was a good thing.  The banners ended up beautiful and I was especially proud of the giant Boulder logos on them - but of course I'm biased.

The locations cover nearly the entirety of downtown:  Abbey, DaVinci, Bill & Frank's Brickhouse, The Elusive Grape, Casey's on the Corner, Issues, De La Vega, Mainstreet Grill, The Grotto, and Dublin Station; all took part and all poured massive amounts of brew!

I began my adventure losing a weight loss bet, but was comforted by a delicious gift of some brews that my buddy Mike at Dunedin Brewery gave me from his trip out west:  Fort George brewery out of Oregon.  We had cans of their Vortex IPA, the Cavatica Stout, and the Quick Wit, which was an unbelievable Belgian Wheat with lemongrass - Yum!

So me and my buddy Defran caught a little buzz at the house and then headed downtown for some brews.  First stop - Abbey for some Hazed.  I can't get enough Hazed.  The wonderful thing about this beer is that the heavy dry-hopping produces a massive floral aroma but the additional hops does not add bitterness so you get a huge nose, huge flavor, and and easy finish.  I absolutely love this beer.

Walking out, Steve was hooking up some Hoopla Pale Ale outside and I had to have a glass.  Another interesting beer.  This one was a collaboration beer between the brewery and Kyle Hollingsworth of the band The String Cheese Incident.  See video insert of the story behind Hoopla.  This is another that I love because you can have quite a few and not see palate fatigue on it.

Next stop was to Casey's to get me some Sweaty Betty.  In my opinion the most underrated beer in Florida.  This is an extremely flavorful bavarian wheat that has massive aromas of banana and clove and is so incredibly beautiful on draft.  It appears like you'd imagine white stained glass would when you put it in the sun.  A gorgeous beer with a gorgeous name.  I dig it!

And on to Davinci to have some Mojo IPA.  This one is a very citrusy IPA and at 7ish percent alcohol is no lightweight.  We do well with the Mojo and it always makes me look forward to the Mojo Risin' Double IPA that we get in January.  Awesome IPAs all the way around.

At Davinci we had a few glasses of whiskey, too.  Always my first love, I just can't say no to whiskey in any of its forms and when I see someone order a glass of Jack, I just hafta have one myself.  What can I say?  The point is, I was getting pretty loopy at this point and one of my favorite bands to watch in DeLand, The Republik.

So, a quick Singletrack at Issues and back to Abbey.  Singletrack is a neat little beer.  A very flavorful amber ale that just packs a ton of flavor into a very drinkable brew.  The Singletrack in glass, we head to Abbey and on to see some Republik.

This is a band that is definitely worth checking out.  They travel nationally, but play quite a bit in Florida.  I own one of their CDs that have their own material on it and they are quite good songwriters as well.  Talented band and they seem like nice fellas too.

Once inside, I settled back in with my Hazed & Infused and relished in how great my world is.  Great band, great night, great cause.  Very happy with how everything went and I'm proud of all involved.  Big thanks to everyone who took part.  Cheers!