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Gary Wong 7/18/21 Gary Wong 7/18/21

Denver, July 2-5

For the long holiday weekend, I took my longest flight during the COVID-19 pandemic, flying from LGA to DEN.

Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️⚾️
Flights ✈️✈️
Ramen 🍜🍜🍜
Doughnuts 🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩
Museums 🏛🏛

#milehighbeersandbaseball

For the long holiday weekend, I took my longest flight during the COVID-19 pandemic, flying from LGA to DEN. I’d only been to Denver one other time and that was well over a decade ago for GABF, so it was long overdue. Denver is only two time zones west but flying out early in the morning to get a full day in took more out of me than I expected. It’s either rust from not having traveled much in the last year or it’s just another sign that This is 40. Don’t even ask me how my runs at altitude went (spoiler alert: they didn’t).

Anyway, to the point of this trip - crossing another MLB ballpark off the list. Coors Field makes for 26 ballparks visited, leaving me with four to go. With luck and an ever-improving pandemic outlook, I’m hoping to get this done in 2022. There’s increasing uncertainty of just how rooted in Oakland the A’s are, so there’s certainly the possibility of having to visit a new home ballpark of theirs before I get the current set of 30 done if I don’t pull this off next season.

What did I think of the Rockies’ ballpark? I liked it a lot but it’s been around a while and there have been enough new stadiums built since they opened in the mid-90s that it’s feeling a little dated. Among the 26 I’ve been to, it’s solidly mid-tier. The sight lines from the locations I sat in at the two games I went to were spectacular, even from the last section in the upper deck along the 3B line. My only real gripe was the lack of an open concourse above the field level but it’s a minor one on balance. I’d visit it again, for sure.

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Colorado Rockies, July 2

If going to a new-to-me ballpark was reason 1 to travel to Denver, reason 1-A was to check out the craft beer scene. When I’d last been out here, most of the breweries we visited were a drive out of Denver to the surrounding areas; this time around, almost all of the breweries I visited were a walk or a quick bus trip or rideshare away. There’s so many breweries where craft beer can be had fresh that it’s pretty much made old-school craft beer bars like Falling Rock Tap House obsolete which is a shame, really.

Most of the breweries I visited had fine, if not spectacular, beers on offer. Even in a beer mecca like Denver, the explosion in the number of breweries per capita hasn’t led to much of an increase in quantity of incredible beers being produced. While I’d revisit just about every brewery from this trip, I’m struggling to think of anything I had that was truly memorable.

Finally, let’s get to the last, best part of most of my trips - the food! There wasn’t anything particularly Denver that I felt I had to eat so I just went nuts with random cuisines. Of course, there was ramen (when do I not have ramen) and two of the three bowls I had there were great with the other one being adequate but would not make a point of eating there again. The best bang for the buck was Bourbon Grill which is a place that serves the kind of grilled chicken that wouldn’t be out of place in a mall food court. You know, the kind that always gave out the free samples you go back to for seconds and thirds when you’re in high school and college; except this place was actually good.

The standout meal was at The Wolf’s Tailor, a Japanese-influenced Euro/American restaurant. Tons of flavor combined with farm-fresh ingredients results in a spectacular five-course meal. As far as blowout meals go, $95 for a pre-fixe menu is a pretty solid price to pay.

The List

Breweries

Denver Beer Co
Cervecería Colorado
Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery
Banded Oak Brewing Company
Baere Brewing Company
TRVE Brewing Company
Diebolt Brewing Company
Cerebral Brewing
Ratio Beerworks
Great Divide Brewing Co.
Woods Boss Brewing Company
Spangalang Brewery

Restaurants

Walter’s303
Uncle
Bourbon Grill
The Wolf’s Tailor
Oishii Ramen
Osaka Ramen

Bars

Star Bar
First Draft

Coffee & Baked Goods

Jubilee Roasting Co
Rebel Bread
Little Owl Coffee
Voodoo Doughnut

Museums

Molly Brown House Museum
Denver Art Museum

Gary Wong 6/10/21 Gary Wong 6/10/21

Buffalo, June 5-6

If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border.

Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️ ⚾️
Flights ✈️✈️

#ballpark32

If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border. Well, those restrictions are still in place but with summer approaching, the club had to find a new home or fall victim to the warmer, more humid weather to come.

Enter Buffalo - Sahlen Field, the home of their Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons would become the new temporary home for the Jays.

Sahlen Field was built with the intention of possibly being a home for an MLB team. Well, a little over 20 years later, it happened with the Blue Jays playing their home games there in 2020 due to the pandemic. With US-Canada border still closed, it was pressed back into service for 2021 as their home after they finally “broke camp”, leaving Florida after their final homestand in May.

You can tell that there were higher ambitions for the ballpark as it’s a fairly large one by MiLB standards. That said, it’s still too small a footprint and would need considerable upgrades, even more than the ones made the last two years to have it be serviceable as a temporary home for an MLB team. That’s no knock on the stadium itself - it’s an awesome minor league venue and a fantastic place to take in a game of any caliber. It’s just not a major league stadium. It was, however, the 32nd ballpark I’ve seen an MLB game.

Also? I caught my very first foul ball here!

The start time for the Saturday afternoon game was a very Toronto home game time - 3:07 pm. That left me with just enough time to take a tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright home - Martin House. Alas, photography was not allowed inside the house on this tour so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the interior is phenomenal. Several rooms were incredible but the kitchen may have been the standout of the spaces we had access to.