Monthly Archives: August 2014

by Becki | August 25, 2014 · 8:49 am

Grand Opening Weekend

I don’t think I remember what it’s like to feel rested.
Snowbank Brewing’s grand opening was this past weekend and it was absolutely insane in the best way.
I got to the taproom early on Friday to set everything up.
Pictures were taken so we could remember what it looked like way back when it was pristine and unused.
Ahh, my beautiful taproom.
Around 10:30am a gorgeous bouquet arrived from the brewer’s grandparents congratulating the brewery on making it all the way to a brand new beginning!
One of Fort Collins’ most popular food trucks, Umami, pulled into the lot and started setting up.
I put my order in for lunch about three hours early after reading this sign. The sweet caramelized onions and roasted beef paired perfectly with our Pawnee Porter, if I do say so myself.
And then the people started flowing through the doors in waves. I shoved my face at any free second, which were few and far between. Within an hour, we were at capacity.
Our first full dishwashing load! A customer begged me to take a selfie in front of it. I happily obliged.
The night wore on with the flow of people never stopping. I don’t think my staff, Broox and Stacy, got any chance to breathe except for the half hour I forced them to go grab lunch from Umami. They absolutely rocked it! We finally closed shop around 11:00pm once the crowds had dwindled (we technically close at 9pm), wiped down tables, swept and mopped. I fell into bed around 1am after throwing our rags in the washer to prep for the next day.
Saturday was quite similar to Friday, except I actually had a few seconds to sip some beer! I spent some quality time with my laptop and BeerAdvocate, Untappd, Foursquare, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook updating all of our location information, claiming our brewery and editing all of the extra beers people had added in. (C’mon people, I added those beers into Untappd last week for easy check-ins!)
Bottlecap BBQ out of Loveland made their way up and served some of the best bread pudding I’ve had in a while. Brioche soaked in our Pawnee Porter, studded with raisins and cinnamon swirls and served hot with whipped cream. And the sliders! 1/2 beef 1/2 bacon sliders from The Boar and Bull in Loveland, topped with pulled pork. I inhaled that slider and remembered I needed a picture only after I looked down at the crumbs. I could’ve died happy.
Plenty of brew tours were given over the span of the weekend. My bro redesigned our brewery control touch screen to welcome us every brew morning.
So freaking cool!

Sunday marked the 1 year anniversary of my crossing the state line to live in Colorado! The Snowbank Brewing crew and I headed next door to Gravity 1020 for a bloody mary celebration.
Ghost Marys, amazing friends and a brand new brewery with some of the kindest, coolest, most eccentric customers I’ve ever met and delicious craft beer.

This is going to be great.

How did you spend your weekend?

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Tagged as grand opening weekend, Snowbank Brewing, Umami Fort Collins

by Becki | August 20, 2014 · 9:04 am

Brewery Life

I definitely should be heading out to the restaurant supply store right now to pick up things for the brewery. And I will as soon as I hit “post”, but first I wanted to give you guys a quick update since I may never ever have a chance to blog again ever. Ever. (I’m kind of kidding…)
The brewery I work at (which I will affectionately refer to as “my brewery” from now on) is having our grand opening on FRIDAY!!! We’ll be open from 12-9pm and Umami will be there all day! See our newspaper article here.
We started off with a whirlwind of releases to our favorite spots. Here I am with my rats’ nest hair writing our beers up on the board at Cranknstein last Thursday!
And may I introduce Snowbank Brewing’s owner and brewer – Dave Rosso.
We brought three kegs with us: Bike Trail Pale, Moon Arete Wheat and Pawnee Porter, and tapped them at 6pm and watched as the crowds grew. (For those who were there, our beer names have been updated. Take note!)
I seated myself on the comfy couches for a lot of the night to be “social” all by myself updating our social media outlets on the happenings. Snowbank Brewing Facebook, Snowbank Brewing Twitter and Snowbank Brewing Instagram. (That’s a *hint hint* for all of you to follow us).
The Liquid Poets Society homebrew club members began to filter in. Dave has been a member of LP for years, from which many a brewery has been created.
About an hour in, the first keg blew. Two hours in, the second. We were beyond ecstatic. It was about 9:30pm when we decided we should depart and seek out some food. My bro went to lift the kegs in back and told me there was only a few pints left of porter, so I decided to order one final beer to speed the process.
We killed ALL THREE KEGS! Massive amounts of cheering throughout the crowds ensued and we went for a celebratory dinner at Coopersmith’s down the road before heading home to pass out from exhaustion.
The next day all of the really fun stuff began. I mopped all of our walls to rid them of the construction dust, vacuumed and mopped the entire taproom and washed our windows.
I also took one of our kegs of Colorado Red on a road trip to Matador’s – a delicious burrito joint that we are obsessed with. If you want to try some more of our beer before we open on Friday, head to Matador’s ASAP! They think they’ll kill the keg by lunch!
I took a break from jeans, tank tops and construction dust to attend my bestie’s bridal shower. We spent Sunday afternoon down in Denver celebrating the pending nuptials of this beautiful woman.
Best friends since age 7, and here we are twenty years later. Holy crap, 20 years??? I feel old now…
Jeans went back on and I headed back to my new home, the brewery, for photography, cleaning and mass amounts of social media. I’ve never had so many emails in my entire life!
Luckily, there’s always time at the end of the day to take a deep breath, enjoy the gorgeous Fort Collins summer sunset and thank God for how blessed I truly am.

Who’s coming on Friday? We’re open from noon to 9pm!!

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Filed under brewery, Daily Life

Tagged as Cranknstein, killed the keg, new beer release, Snowbank Brewing

by Becki | August 14, 2014 · 8:46 am

Snowbank Brewing

Here we go…
The cat’s out of the bag! I’ve alluded to this over the past few months. Actually, I’ve basically showed you in depth over my Twitter and Instagram.
Brew boots…
Grain out…
Social media blasts of malt and sight glasses…
And quality control tastings!
I’m now working for a brand new 15bbl brewery in Fort Collins called Snowbank Brewing! I’ll be the taproom manager and social media manager for this wonderful place, along with anything and everything else that needs to be done – including beer pairings and creating recipes with our amazing brews.
We’ve been in a mad rush getting everything ready for our very first event which is TONIGHT at one of my favorite Old Town spots – Cranknstein.
If you’re in the Fort Collins area around 6pm tonight, stop by and be one of the first to try a few of our brews and meet the brewer!
Remember this beautiful monstrosity from my Instagram? Odell mac ‘n cheese, pulled pork and barbecue sauce wrapped in a waffle cone from Common Link. That wasn’t just for fun. That was research! We’ve booked our first food trucks for our grand opening!
But…. you’ll have to wait on that date for just a little bit longer! We’ve got some more quality control to do!

And now I ask for all of your help/interest. Like Snowbank Brewing on Facebook and follow our new account on Twitter? I’ll be live Tweeting and Facebook posting from our event tonight. And I’ll love you forever!

Who’s coming to join me at Cranknstein tonight for our tapping party??

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Tagged as Cranknstein, new brewery, Snowbank Brewing, tapping party

by Becki | August 11, 2014 · 7:00 am

Puppy Love

Even with that awful, crappy day I had last week, I’ve been in an awesome mood. Everything has seemingly turned around in amazing ways I never could have seen coming.
Getting custody of this handsome guy for a week definitely helped. My parental unit went on a vacation in the mountains to celebrate their anniversary (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!). Barley was stuck with me.
He got trapped in the car a lot as I took him between houses for work and the like. Here he is trying not to get carsick (seriously) as I take him to my bro’s house to play with his cousin puppies while I went to work.
When I went back to pick him up I was treated to vegan burritos, this spicy and slightly hot (yet still freaking delicious) Houblon Chouffe and a dog covered in slime from other dogs.
The next morning I took him for an insanely long walk and let him wade in the lake we strolled by since he needed to be bathed anyway to remove the lovely dog slobber that had solidified overnight.
FLUFFY POST-BATH PUPPY! This picture kills me. He kind of looks like he might kill me.
But besides the pup… I’ve enjoyed rainy evenings with glasses of merlot…
Free brownies from work that were deemed “too dry to sell” so I rehydrated them with butter pecan ice cream for lunch. Obviously. Have I mentioned yet that I love my job?
And more puppy. I’m completely infatuated with him, even after a year.
I got a new sink! The sink that came with my house was brand new stainless steel that began rusting the day after I moved in. They replaced it with a shiny one that hopefully won’t rust. Hopefully…
I felt like I should counteract the brownies and ice cream lunches I’d been having with zucchini noodles, onions, garlic and parmesan. This is one of my absolute favorite dishes.
I worked late on Friday night and then went out for a beer with a bunch of friends in Old Town, played pool, kicked ass, blinked and it was 2am. We closed down the bar and everyone continued on to party at someone’s house while I was feeling sleepy from my one beer I had around midnight. So I went home and passed out. I’m a party girl.
Sunday was my day off and it was time to get out and enjoy Colorado the right way – Kayaking!
My pops and I loaded the kayaks onto the car and drove about five miles to a local lake with tons of coves and inlets, and spent the morning paddling around.
Glassy water, storm clouds and mountains.
Blissed out.
And blistered out too. I ended up ripping up my thumb pretty gnarly with my supercool intense paddling. Battle scars.
The only way to really heal battle scars such as these is with a trip to a local pub and a local brew. Between Worlds Belgian White IPA from Verboten Brewing.
And now I must head off to work, so I’ll leave you all with this beautiful face. Because I’m sure you haven’t seen enough of him. Happy Monday!

Ever been kayaking before? Do you prefer the sit-in or sit-on?

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Tagged as kayaking, ramblings, rescue puppies

by Becki | August 4, 2014 · 7:00 am

One of Those Days

Ever have one of those weeks? Everything is perfect.
It starts off wonderfully with delicious cake mix cookies.
And continues on to barbecue at Nordy’s. I have absolutely nothing wrong with brisket and mac ‘n cheese, but I should’ve seen the signs.

Those rainy days. Those blissfully rainy days.
Curled up inside my cozy house, sipping a hot mug of Bhakti Chai with candles lit all around, the rain trickling down the windowpanes in little rivers. And then real life beckons.
Luckily enough, brews at work is one part of my real life.
As are (free) medium rare bison burgers with more mac ‘n cheese.
And then sneak peeks of new beer rained down upon my front stoop, begging to be paired with wonderful foods. Stone Coffee Milk Stout (out in distribution today!)!
So I paired it with firecracker shrimp and soba noodles. The rich, creaminess of the stout cut through the intense spicy bite of the shrimp and rounded out the dish with an emphasis of earthy roast. There wasn’t as much coffee as I was expecting, but plenty of smoky roast in place!

And after that great week, on a Sunday afternoon, everything falls down. And it becomes one of those days.

One starts reminiscing of happier days where responsibility didn’t exist – freshman year at UCSB… (Plaid pajama pants, scarves and aviators. Could I be any more stylish?)
Steven Bauer from Scarface wishing me a happy 21st birthday at Saddle Ranch in Hollywood…

Jonas getting shot after we crashed our car…
The boys and I at the season 1 finale of Lonelygirl15…

And then the danged dog headbutts you and gives you a bloody lip to top off the worst day to end a wonderful week. (It wasn’t that bloody, but I also didn’t feel like I should force any of you to look at my swollen lip and sad, pitiful eyes.)
I thought Sharknado 2 would make everything better, because the original Sharknado was so bad it was good… But this was so bad that it just compounded every bad thing in my life into two hours of wasted time. And I was so very excited too!
Luckily, I had something sweet to end this craptastic day – Senorita Imperial Porter: Horachata style! Intense rich chocolate dancing with sweet vanilla and spicy cinnamon, and just enough bitterness to balance out the sweetness.