"Beer in Colorado" is dedicated to that divine elixir born of the marriage of water, malt, hops, and yeast as interpreted
by those living in Colorado. Follow the author as he visits every brewery in the state, creates experimental homebrews,
attends beer festivals, tries interesting beers from around the world, and spreads the good word of beer. Prost!

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

A Baby's a-done a-Brewing

Back in March Nicole and I released the news that we were womb-aging a child and shared a series of weekly photos documenting the progression of the pregnancy.  Well, there have been a lot more pictures since then:

No clever sayings for this one but it was around the time of March 3rd AKA 3/03 AKA 303 Day so we just went with a Colorado pride theme.  I remember 38 State Brewing Company having an interesting taproom.  I believe it was a former mechanic's workshop as evidenced by the many garage doors.  One of the more peculiar (but also neat) features of the taproom was an unfinished-looking side room that served as sort of a rec room.  With big glass garage doors on opposite ends of the room, it almost felt like being outside.  We also visited Locavore Beer Works on this particular trip to the southern suburbs.   


Goldspot Brewing Company's got a quaint little space near Regis University.  A small brick building with low, wooden rafters interwoven with patio-style filament lights, this brewery has the vibe of countryside love shack.

I guess if we're trying to show off the baby-bump we shouldn't have put Nicole in a red shirt and have her stand in front of a red wall.

This was taken at what should have been the half-way mark of the pregnancy.

At this point, we had not yet found out the sex of the child.  But, as you can ascertain from our chalkboard, we were about to find out. SPOILER ALERT: it was a girl.

I would like to amend this one slightly.  We're not "trading in" anything, we're simply adding to the bottle collection.  There're still plenty of beer bottles at our residence.

A jazz-themed brewery calls for a jazz-themed chalkboard message. 

Likewise, a metal-themed brewery calls for a metal-themed chalkboard message.

We were at Week 26 of the pregnancy so, naturally, we took our picture at Station 26 Brewing Co.

CO-Brew, the homebrew shop/brewery hybrid on Broadway.  At a glance, it's more homebrew shop than brewery but the check-out register is also a bar and there's a seating area off to the side indicating it's dual nature.

Math is hard!

We weren't revealing the baby's name until she was born which prompted a lot of prying questions from friends and family.  So, being cheeky, we composed a poem and snuck her (technically misspelled) name into it.  Nobody caught the hint.  

We turned Nicole's parents into grandparents with this baby (my brother already did that honor for my parents).

I think this was taken near Father's Day.

Yes, but the actual giving birth part?  Not so much.

We took this picture out of convenience; it's the closest brewery to our hospital where we were headed to take a birthing class.

I apologize for the crappy-looking boat we drew.

Awesome spot and great beer!  I had their Luntbier, a nearly-extinct style of German smoked beer; it was delightful.  The taproom is a mix of industrial American and classic English pub.  It's in an old barrel-roofed building with lots of garage doors but within the rough-edged matrix floats classic details like a hanging pane of tin ceiling plates and a massive, ornate, dark-wood bar.  

We were actually at a different brewery when we realized we could come up with a better message at this one.  So, we packed up and drove here.

It was actually at about the same time the real, celestial blue moon was in the sky when we took this picture.  As you can see, we forgot our chalkboard for this one.

Nicole was overdue at this point; we were ready to blast this little cannonball right out of her!

And then, on August 12th, Sloane Viola Jane was done fermenting and was ready to be tapped for the world to enjoy!  I promise she doesn't always look so blobby and disgruntled, the photographer just caught her at a bad time.

Prost!

Chris