The Crafty Ladies Beer Club is great fun. Monthly gatherings are normally held at Highland Tap & Burger; but this time, instead of having the brewers go to us, we went to them. And by “them” I mean one of my very favorite Colorado breweries: Great Divide.

I was quite excited when I learned we had been invited to Great Divide for an evening of beer & cheese pairings and a brewery tour.  It was a very different Crafty Ladies experience than I’ve had before, as the usual is remaining seated the entire time while people bring beer and food to your table as you listen to the brewery representatives tell you about each pairing.  Upon our arrival at Great Divide we were allowed to pick any beer from their tap wall to start with. (I chose the Chocolate Yeti).  From there we split into 2 groups, as their brewery and tap room are somewhat small, and half of the ladies enjoyed beer and cheese while the other half started the tour.

Great Divide chose their Denver Pale Ale with Prima Donna Gouda.  While I don’t really like DPA much by itself, the very sharp & flavorful taste of the Gouda paired nicely with it.  The DPA helped mellow out the strong taste of the cheese, causing it to be a bit more mild.  That Gouda was one of the best I’ve ever had…I couldn’t stop eating it.  And then there was one of my favorites: Rumble Oak Aged IPA, with a Roaring 20’s Bleu cheese.  

The brewery tour was interesting.  It had been several years since I toured a brewery, so now that I have a better working knowledge of the brewing process it was a great experience for me.  The neatest thing, I thought, was that we got to sample Titan IPA in four different stages.  The first taste was extremely sweet and contained almost no alcohol at all.  As we went on, it started to taste more and more like the Titan I know and love.  What a fantastic idea, Great Divide!

I was quite impressed with all the questions the ladies had for the brewer that night.  And they weren’t stupid questions either (yes, I know–there is no such thing as a stupid question.  Sure…).  The questions being asked showed that many of the women already possessed a fair amount of knowledge about the brewing process and were eager to learn more.  Very exciting!

A huge thanks to Great Divide for a successful and interesting Crafty Ladies event.