Interested in our Basque Country & Rioja Spain Food & Wine Tour, but have questions?
Join us for a Q & A Session with Jenny Siddall, our local Rioja guide, and tour organizer, Kris Keys. They will be providing an overview of the tour and discussing Spanish food, wine, culture, and anything else you’re interesting in hearing more about.
Upon registering, we will send you the dial-in information to use on August 3rd. Hope you can join us!
Colorado is one of the top craft beer meccas in the world. Not only does it boast over 300 breweries including five of the top 50 craft breweries in the United States, but it is also home to the Brewers Association trade group and the American Homebrewers Association.
Even more enticing, Colorado hosts the largest beer festival in the world – the annual Great American Beer Festival with over 700 breweries and 3,500 different beers. The GABF is a three-day event and spawns many affiliated parties, including the amazing Denver Rare Beer Tasting with rare, vintage, and exotic beers from 54 craft breweries from around the country.
Our new Colorado Beer Tour, set for October 6-9, 2016, includes the GABF and the Denver Rare Beer Tasting. But it includes much more. In addition to Denver, we visit the beer cities of Boulder and Fort Collins and have tours and tastings at major breweries including Wynkoop, Avery, Boulder Beer Company, Oskar Blues, and New Belgium. All dinners are included and two of these will be special beer pairing events.
On a beer tour you, ahem, need to be into beer. But we also take walking tours of all three cities, have a bit of downtime, and learn quite a bit about the state and its beer as well.
Please note registration must be completed by July 31 as GABF tickets for Brewers Association members (we have special access) go on sale August 2 and sell out to the public the following day.
And if you can’t imagine vacationing in Colorado without being active or seeing the mountains, consider joining our sister company Zephyr Adventures’ Beer, Hike, and Bike Adventure from October 3 – 7.
Photo copyright Brewers Association
With the craft beer scene continuing to boom, beer tourism has found a solid spot in the travel industry. It has evolved quickly over the past several years so much so that it has begun to rival wine tourism. People love to search out new beers to taste and new beer adventures to experience. They want to see how the beer is made and speak to the people who make it. They want to discuss the specific hops used, where they were grown,and the thought-process the brewmaster had while creating a specific beer.
Being a beer tour operator ourselves, on top of organizing the Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference and the new Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference, may make us partial to traveling to seek out delicious brews. But we think beer tourism is something a large number people can enjoy – here’s why:
Many times breweries treat their own tap rooms as their testing lab. They serve up some of the craziest and peculiar beer concoctions that might not ever be distributed to the stores or bars. It’s fun to try new and interesting flavors, even if they aren’t quite ready for the public’s taste buds. But who knows, you may have the chance to be one of the first to taste that brewery’s next big hit.
Brewery culture can be summed up as friendly people who value taste. Much of the craft brew culture of today has stemmed from the homebrewing movement that began in the late 1970s. Around that time, the commercial beer companies were consolidating into larger and larger macro breweries that focused on light and low-calorie beers and touted big marketing budgets. Many homebrewers, and now most commercial craft brewers, are just really passionate beer geeks that are a lot of fun to talk to over a tasty brew.
Wherever I’m traveling, I love to try the local and regional beers. Not only because it’s fun to taste a variety of different beers than you can get at home, but you are also supporting the local community you are visiting.
Unless you’re going to some of the larger craft breweries, seeking out a local brewery to visit and potentially tour is a great way to take a break from more touristy areas while on vacation. Smaller breweries may still be busy with locals (which is a good sign actually) but it will give you a completely different feel for the local culture.
On our Taste Vacations beer tours, we visit a mix of big name breweries that everyone has heard of, with smaller, unique microbreweries to give our guests a little taste of everything.
