~Golden City Brewery~
It's motto: " Golden's Second Largest Brewery." ~~~*~~~
Golden Colorado....
Golden is the quintessential mining town nestled between the wrinkled, alluvial fans and flat topped "mesa" uplifts of Colorado's nor'eastern foothills. Golden is where kayak river wrestlers, local flyfishers, and geology students, hikers, mountain bikers live and dance their dances.
And yes, there are two very disparate breweries in Golden. One is the Coors Brewery. Coors was once a closely held family local company. They expanded their sales nationwide and expanded into the development of aerospace and military ceramics in conjunction with Ball Aerospace. They have recently joined in a multi-national partnership with the Canadian brewer, Molson.~~~*~~~
The other, well, the other, "second largest" is a microbrewery:
Golden City Brewery could be a post-modern iteration of Tolkien's "Green Dragon" in Bywater, Hobbiton. It is small, home grown and gritty, producing exceptional ales and stouts without any pretense other than to brew and sell good beer! It's best that you learn about it from the folk who make it all happen:
These are pics of their brewery:
That being said, Golden has a history, 150 years in the making:
"The historic City of Golden is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the eastern edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
The Golden City "National Guard Armory."
Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was originally named Golden City in honor of Thomas L. Golden. Golden City served as the capital of the provisional Territory of Jefferson from 1860 to 1861, and capital of the official Territory of Colorado from 1862 to 1867. In 1867, the territorial capital was moved about 15 miles (24 km) east to Denver City. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 17,366 in 2005.
Lookout Mountain upstream on Clear Creek
The Colorado School of Mines, offering programs in engineering and science, is located in Golden. Also there are the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Coors Brewing Company, CoorsTek, the American Mountaineering Center, and the Colorado Railroad Museum. It is the birthplace of the Jolly Rancher, a candy bought out by the Hershey Foods Corporation. Famous western showman William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody is buried nearby on Lookout Mountain." ~ Wikipedia
Yesterday, my long time friend Peter Forss and I rambled up the old stage coach road from Northwest Denver to Golden. Peter is another one of these tangential thinkers who blends science with art, right brain with left brain... Photography and Physics....Color and the Coriolis effect...Short wave radio jazz and the breath of Boreas whistling in the sails offshore in the Carib Sea.
Mostly we enjoy strange, eclectic food and drink..odd and ancient vehicles, electronics and astronomy, and, beloved, the subtle yet brilliant mixing of colors in the Colorado sky. And yeup, we are men; mesmerized by distinctively feminine fannies toasting in the sun, or waltzin' down the walk in brite-white oxford shirts and tight levis.... Or the sight of tanned and slithering shoulders working a kayak in and out of the rapids or curling close against the current....or simply a soulful and quiescent Daughter of Eve, quiet, soaking up the sun's radiant heat, clothed in little else except a thought and a prayer covering the soft, supple clay vessels that contain their true beings.
I am convinced that God loves creating, and enjoying beauty!
Hey Sven, Your Golden tales reminded me of another day trip out of Denver (See Svens Mt. Silverheels-Boureas Pass post) that my friend Mark and I took while visiting the mile high city. We decided to go to the Coors brewery there in Golden on Saturday so that our host, also named Mark, could join us. A short 2 beer ride from Denver,we arrived at 9 am only to be given parking slips for 10 am and told to come back then for the tour. After an hour self led tour of Golden we arrived back at the parking lot and were herded aboard a bus which took us to the brewery. We were led inside and seated while a young lady gave us, a group of about 30, a 15-20 min description of the brewerys workings. Having already consumed a "few" Coors, we three were soon identified as the group's cutups and comedians. We entertained the group as well as the tour guide with our jokes and had an older fellow kind of fall back and hang out with us "young" kids laughing and cutting up at the tail end of the group. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and at the end we were led into a nice sized room with a bar that ran the length of the one wall. We were thanked for taking the tour and invited to enjoy 2 large pilzner glasses of fresh Coors beer. Our guide said Good By and left to go and take another group for the tour. WooHoo fresh Coors. We, us 3 youngsters and that old man, went up to the bar and got a beer each. They wouldn't let us have more than one at a time. The old man didn't drink and he gave us his to split. After we finnished the first beers we went up to the bar and got our second and sat down to drink them when the shift changed behind the bar. Well that just ment that we got up after the second beer and got in line with another tour group and proceeded to get two more beers each pluss the beers that the old man didn't drink because the bartenders didn't recognize us. Woo...hic...Hoo! We made it back to Denver safely, God looking after drunks and fools and all. I'm not sure if it was that night or a few nights later that Mark and I were talked out of leaving at night to go north to Yellowstone to visit another friend. The next day the road that we were going to take was washed out in the Fort Collins flood. 1976. Greg (gsebes)
ReplyDeleteGreg,
ReplyDeleteThe Big Thompson Flood of 1976 was one of those "100 year" storms that are impossible to predict and prepare for in any manner.
I met my first wife as a result of that disaster.
She was attending CSU in Ft. Collins. Her plan was to spend the summer of 1977 working and finishing needed classes. She couldn't find any affordable housing because of huge numbers of clean-up and restoration crews renting space.
Instead, she took a job as a cook at Geneva Glen Camp. As fate would have it, I was hired on as a head counselor at the same time.
Heh!
I did not have time to visit the train museum when I was there with Brigid, Jr. but will the next time. It's a beautiful area, and I'm glad that post graduation, she has settled and found happiness there.
ReplyDeleteBrigid,
ReplyDeleteThe Colorado Railroad Museum is a real treat. Their restoration work, truly awful, in the original meaning of the word.
They have three of the seven original "Galloping Goose" engines. They are strange beasts to say the least, looking like a nightmarish morph of an old schoolbus and a narrow guage rail car.
Pics and history here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galloping_Goose