Live from the High Country
Top Hops opens new location, scenes from a Colorado road trip, and more #TrainBeers content
Hello from Alamosa, Colorado, where my friend and I are enjoying post-hike beers at SquarePeg Brewerks after trekking up sand dunes in Great Sand Dunes National Park. I’m sipping a Helles Bock, he’s enjoying their Pilsner. And honestly, even if these beers weren’t good, I’d be okay with these beers. I’m a big “situational beer” fan — as in, any beer fits the bill in particular situations. Among my favorite situational beers:
The post-hike beer
The post-run beer
The post-snow shoveling beer
The beer after a long travel day
The beach beer
The lawnmowing beer (which doesn’t necessarily have to be a lawnmower beer)
The dive bar beer
What are your favorite situational beers? Let me know in the comments.
SquarePeg, by the way, is one of two breweries separated by a single storefront in downtown Alamosa. Both have been going strong for five years. The other, San Luis Valley Brewing Company, has an awesome green chile lager that you have to try if you end up in this part of the world.
Top Hops goes downtown with second new Urbanspace location
Top Hops has a new location — their third in a food hall in Manhattan. Top Hops at Urbanspace 100 Pearl opens tomorrow, offering bottles and cans and draft beer to pair with over a dozen different food vendors in the 15,000-square foot ground-floor space in the Financial District. It’s Top Hops second venture with Urbanspace — their bar at the 570 Lexington location has been open since 2018.
The new outpost is surrounded by cozy tables and leafy environs and will complement food vendors like Plant Junkie, Bao by Kaya, Coney Shack, Que Chevere Puerto Rican Cuisine, Senshi Ramen, and more.
Top Hops is open tomorrow from 11:30am-9pm.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,767
Total breweries visited in 2022: 227
Total breweries visited in Colorado: 222
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2767, High Alpine Brewing Co., Gunnison, Colorado (Visited 18-Aug-2022)
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And that’s what happened today, in the midst of a Colorado road trip, when a tire pressure warning appeared on my friend’s dashboard, and to our dismay, we found a screw in one of his tires. So, while we wait to (hopefully) find out that the tire can be repaired today, we walked 15 minutes to this conveniently-located spot on Main Street in downtown Gunnison.
This spot has been around for seven years and seems to be doing swift business based on the lunchtime crowd on a Thursday. It’s got a narrow storefront that maximizes its space, from the mezzanine seating area to the outdoor balcony to the wedged-in brewhouse in the back. The brewery celebrates this region of Colorado’s love of the great outdoors with local art featuring scenic vistas, and donates 1% of its revenue to Gunnison Trails, an organization that maintains the area’s local trails.
Hopefully, before long, we’ll have a functional vehicle to explore those trails.
Long Read of the Week
Here’s more #TrainBeers content for you. At VinePair, Nicolette Baker has the scoop on the MTA’s complicated history with alcohol on board trains — and recent rule changes by that agency that have put drinking on commuter rail in a legal gray area.
One Last Thing
Apologies for the late newsletter today, but being in the Colorado wilderness does not lend itself well to newsletter writing. Here’s a pretty vista from that stretch of road with no mobile phone signal:
Cheers,
Chris
Shower beer of course.
Cooking beer, especially in a hot kitchen.
Coping with an afternoon of work beer
• Post-tattoo beer. And probably some whiskey, too.
• Post-competitive sports activity beer.
• Beer while cooking beer, especially when grilling outdoors.