Your diet recipes » Summer Travels, Part Three: The Beer Blog

As the weather gets warmer, I’m already looking forward to summer travels. Last summer I spent many a week on the road and after it was all done wrote a mega-blog regarding all I had learned along the way. This is the final post from the series, and I hope I’ve gotten you thinking about upcoming events for this year! Don’t drink too much in the Mile High City. A trip to Denver in June proved that God has a twisted sense of humor: The Denver area is known as “the Napa Valley of beer,” but if you’re a visitor you’ll likely feel tipsy after a couple of samples, thanks to the high elevation. Still, I toured (and sampled at) some of the most successful breweries in Colorado, including New Belgium in Fort Collins, and the original Coors (now Miller-Coors) in Golden. New Belgium is noteworthy not only for its impressive growth and environmental friendliness (the brewery is run entirely on wind power) but its company ethic: Employees receive a bike and share ownership in the company after one year of employment. Smaller breweries and brewpubs also proved to churn out amazing beers on a smaller scale, like at Denver’s Great Divide Brewing Co.