(Ale) Trailblazing Across The Country: Part 4 - Along The Two-Eight-Seven

Previous Ale Trail Blogposts
Part 1 - Beer Tourism and The Ale Trail (with a focus on the Columbus Ale Trail)
Part 2 - Brewery/Ale Trail Comparisons with similarly-sized metro areas to Columbus
Part 3 - A Compendium of the Nation's Ale Trails

From a United States craft beer perspective, there are a select few cities that make the craft beer seeker's palate water just from the mere mention...Portland, Oregon...San Diego, California...Asheville, North Carolina...and so forth. For these cities, extra ancillary promotions like an ale trail concept are pretty much not needed; for all intents and purposes, the attraction and strength of these craft beer scenes speak for themselves.

For this post, I had originally considered taking a brief look at how all these cities promote their craft breweries and how it fits in the overall picture.  Upon closer inspection, it turned out one of these meccas, recently named as one of the top craft beer destinations in the country by a prominent online travel site, provided a contrasting approach to the ale trail equation: one part of the named metro has an ale trail, while the other part does not.

The Art of it All: Denver Art Museum

The Denver Art Museum holds one of the largest art collections
between Chicago, Illinois and the West Coast

The spouse and I have been through a fair number of museums during our travels. Some can be experienced in about an hour or so (the quaint Little Traverse History Museum in Petoskey, Michigan comes to mind) while others take longer. Many of the museums we have visited in both Ohio and California are the types which can be done as part of an itinerary of several destinations within close proximity to each other.

The Denver Art Museum, located In the city's Golden Triangle Museum District, is not one of those places. It lies up there with many of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. in that to fully appreciate its contents, you really need close to a full day to do so. We had only a few hours to roam around the museum, and we quickly found out it wasn't going to be near enough time to see and appreciate the over 70,000 pieces of art spread out among ten dedicated collections, not counting special exhibitions.

There's a lot to see both outside and just as you enter the museum

Like similar previous posts where the visual medium best tells the tale, I'll leave most of the telling to photographs to hint at what lies within the facility's 350,000 square feet (the museum consists of two buildings connected by an elevated passenger walkway.)

Altar Piece, Keith Haring's final work before he passed away
of AIDS in 1990, was one of the first pieces of art we focused on

The Northwest Coast portion of the museum's American Indian section,
which featured artwork from Tlingit, Nuxalk and Haida peoples.

Not surprisingly, many of the works in the  Pre-Columbian and Spanish
Colonial Art section had religious/Catholic themes

 

 

The section dedicated to ancient artwork from Mexico and the
Americas to the south was a favorite of mine.

Some of the quilt works found at the museum, including
one with references to the Buckeye State

This elevator sign gave us a quick primer on some of the art
we wouldn't be seeing on this particular visit

Visitors to the museum can observe employees preparing art
pieces for display, as in this 18th century Flemish tapestry

 

The Denver Art Museum has lots of interactive opportunities for
its visitors to experience, with hands-on displays, and old-school
(books and magazines) and new-school (iPads) media available.

Denver Art Museum

100 W 14th Ave Pkwy (Golden Triangle)

Denver, CO 80204

(720) 865-5000

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Aurora Appetizers: The Donut House/Sunburst Grill/Coffee Place Cafe

Driving through the very suburban city of Aurora, Colorado, the word "diversity" would not normally pop into your mind. The housing developments (sans the mountain ridges in the distance) aren't too dissimilar to those in the outer burbs in this area such as Gahanna, Reynoldsburg or even Dublin.

However, this outside facade hides the fact that this city of just under 350,000 is one of the more diverse populations in the state. As noted in this Denver Post article, Aurora is the first major city in the state of Colorado to be minority-majority in population, according to the latest Census figures. The City of Aurora is trying to use this fact to its advantage in various ways, including the culinary diversity found within its limits. Prior to our visit last month, I located a fairly comprehensive ethnic eateries guide produced by and located on the website of the city highlighting this very fact.

Indeed, our culinary encounters within the city displayed this diversity to full effect in that they were all the products of immigrants to this country trying to make good, a tale oft told but never seems to get old.

The front of what is arguably Aurora's favorite donut shop

The Donut House - The story of the Dieyleh family will sound awfully familiar to fans of Columbus donut institution Buckeye Donuts. Similar to Buckeye Donuts owner Jimmy Barouxis' tale, Moe Dieyleh currently holds the head baker position of The Donut House, a business his father Omar opened in 2009. Omar, who still is very much involved with daily operations, immigrated from Jordan to Colorado over 30 years ago, integrated and established ties with the surrounding community, and learned the craft by working several years at a local Winchell's Donuts prior to opening up his store. Those ties the Dieyleh family built up over the years, as well as Omar's incredibly welcoming and friendly personality, have helped transform the store into a locally beloved institution.

The Donut House sorts a simple and cheery interior, with a basic focus
of donuts and coffee (plus other assorted goodies)

There's nothing fancy about The Donut House, from its non-descript exterior to its simple but cheerfully painted interior. While there are some unique items you can find here (such as some pre-packaged Middle-Eastern sweets such as baklava and namoura, a cake made from semolina with rose and orange blossom water) the main focus here lies in that revered combo of donuts and coffee.

We stopped here twice for quick bites on the go. Our first time, we had a small sampling of their donuts: texture-wise, while their cake donut was nice enough, the true standout is their standard donuts. These fulfilling creations reminded me of a slightly toothier version of the big airy constructs that Columbus' Destination Donuts puts out.

The Donut House has looked to upgrade their coffee, and has taken steps to upgrade their beans (they now source local coffee roaster Shiva) and their equipment with the addition of an espresso machine. Can't vouch for prior, but the coffee we received was a notch above diner-level coffee.

The donuts were excellent, but the fritters might be even better

On this first visit, we noticed some delectable-looking fritters that we couldn't justify based on our schedule that day. We rectified this on the day we left town when we grabbed a couple fritters and coffee to take on the road. As good as the donuts were, we discovered that the fritters might actually be just a little bit better.

Donut House
3124 S Parker Rd
Aurora, CO 80014
(303) 337-2771
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Behind these doors lies a menu of Filpino standards

Sunburst Grill - While there were many places that my spouse and I would've loved to have visited during our stay, my brother-in-law's family kept both of us very well fed. Still, we did have one day to ourselves, and some childhood bias crept in here as we decided to have dinner at Aurora's lone Filipino restaurant, which started operations in 2008.

Though the home cooking almost always won out, I was blessed to have numerous Filipino restaurants nearby and within the cities where I resided in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sunburst Grill really isn't all too different from many of those restaurants, lying in a non-descript strip mall and sporting touches of the Philippines within its interior. Unlike those restaurants, however, Sunburst Grill is more in the traditional sit down and order style restaurant versus the more common "turo turo" (literally, "point point") buffet style of eatery I was used to.

Sunburst Grill sported a quaint interior and a basic menu of Filipino standards.

Sunburst Grill's menu has a very select inventory of Filipino dishes, including standards such as lumpia and pancit along with a couple items I had not encountered before. I knew I must have been too long starved for the cuisine when I decided, despite my distinct indifference to seafood in general, ordered their Inihaw na Tilapia, a grilled tilapia fish stuffed with tomatoes and onions, along with a swath of other items which we figured would be a probably a bit too much food but easily transportable for later consumption.

Clockwise from Top Left: Lechon Kawali with Adobo Kangkong, Lumpia
Grilled Tilapia, Pancit Canton, and Leche Flan

Of these items, the Lechon Kawali (fried pork belly) and Lumpiang Shanghai (Filipino egg rolls) by far were our favorites. The former was fried up perfectly the perfect crispy exterior and a fatty, juicy interior; it came accompanied by a tasty lechon sarsa (a liver-based sauce) and a side of Adobo Kangkong (one of the items I was unfamiliar with), essentially vegetables cooked Filipino adobo style. The latter proved to be a huge portion of lumpia, more suitable for a party of four, but that didn't stop us from chowing them all down.

The tilapia reminded me why this fish is something I never cared for much, due to its rather bland taste. Coupled with the presence of numerous pin bones, it would be a hard sell for most non-Filipino customers. Still, it was like being at home and I got into the simple fish preparation as the meal went on. The Pancit Canton, which is essentially a variation of Chinese Chow Mein, also reminded me of something you would find in an American-styled Chinese Restaurant versus what I was used to growing up. I'm sure most people would find it perfectly tasty, though.

Service was earnest to the point of almost being TOO helpful at times; there were several visits to our table to confirm the details or give an up-to-the-minute status of our order. I think I got the hint why this might be standard procedure as we got through our meal; a couple of groups of diners who came after us who weren't too familiar with Filipino cuisine were given detailed explanations and occasional reassurances when menu items were explained.

We could not NOT leave this place without some Filipino dessert; since the halo halo (what looked to be a towering version came out for a neighboring table while we were there) was not really an option, we went with their Leche Flan to take back to my brother-in-law's place for later consumption. This version was nicely thick, with a sweet carmelly sauce that brought some fond memories of my mom's version from when I was a child.

Sunburst Grill
2295 S Chambers Rd
Aurora, CO 80014
(303) 752-6389
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Coffee Place Cafe - This was meant as a quick stop over for some iced coffee caffeination the day after a St. Patrick's Day party, but based on my brief experience here, I think more exploration is in order on a return trip. The business' simple name and somewhat hidden location, camouflaged inside a modern-styled strip mall along a major north-south highway with numerous such commercial developments, doesn't exactly scream promising at first glance, but I quickly saw that initial impressions can be deceiving.

If you can locate Coffee Place's location, you can treat yourself to
car-oriented artwork, European-styled pastries, and a Silan-flavored latte

The first thing that caught my eye was the eraser board touting "Fresh Bureks", a big hint that this wasn't quite the usual run-of-the-mill cafe. Thse cheese-filled bureks are the creation of chef Katerina Larden, a Latvian native who immigrated to the U.S. via Tel Aviv along with her husband Nisso and children. These bureks along with other European-styled baked goodies provide the backbone of Coffee Place's food menu, along with a selection of soups and paninis sandwiches for lunch.

The next thing that caught my eye was the iced coffee flavors - along with the usual Torani-syrup variations like vanilla and hazelnut, an intriguing option appeared at the very end of the list. Silan, or date honey,consists basically of boiled down dates and is a common Middle East condiment used in all manner of food preparations. I most certainly had never seen it as a coffee flavoring option.

I passed (regrettably) on the bureks and stuck with the iced latte drinks, one with silan and the other maple flavored. My spouse found the date honey a bit too strong for her tastes and opted for the maple iced latte, which turned out nicely reminiscent of Cafe Brioso's similar creation. On the other hand, I enjoyed the unique flavor profile that the silan had provided; the date syrup had turned the surrounding iced latte closer to mocha colored as it slowly absorbed into the surrounding liquid.

Coffee Place Cafe
2295 S Chambers Rd
Aurora, CO 80014
(303) 752-6389
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Crafty Colorado (Pt. 1): Falling Rock Tap House (Denver, CO)

Founded in 1997, Falling Rock Tap House is an institution
in one of the capitals of the craft beer world.

Our recent road trip to Colorado was as much about family traditions as anything else. Our central goal was to visit my spouse's brother and his family to spend some quality time together. It was also meant to experience something my spouse had always wanted to attend in their annual St. Patrick's Day party. For them, St. Patrick's Day came to signify special meaning in the development of their relationship together.

Our ancillary goal was to do something my spouse and I have found we love doing in taking long road trips to see the country. My spouse's first visit out to California, roughly five years before this Colorado trip and when we were still just good friends, ended up to be a fairly extensive tour of the Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada Mountains around Yosemite National Park. After that trip, we were no longer merely "good friends" either; we figured it out on April Fools Day, and that day has held a special meaning for us ever since.

Of course, the trip had other benefits too. Not only were we able to see an area of the country that we had not visited before, we knew our craft beer pursuits would be well satiated while in one of the premier craft beer areas of the United States, if not the world. We were determined to visit as many as we could, and we had a perfect chauffeur as well in my spouse's brother, a fellow craft beer aficionado and early-generation home brewer dating back from the 1990s, while he was residing in the Columbus, Ohio area.

With work schedules and the like, we picked a weekday where he would able to take off work and show us some of his favorites in the area. It only seemed appropriate to start off at one of the meccas of the area's craft beer scene: Falling Rock Tap House in the LoDo District of Denver.

Falling Rock lets the beer do the talking on their walls and
their menu, but more traditional bar/pub trappings
like pool tables and darts are available downstairs.

Opened in 1997, Falling Rock Tap House's motto of "No Crap On Tap" has been a credo that has drawn thousands of craft beer enthusiasts through its doors. Their Blake Avenue location yearly becomes a pilgrimage for many during the Great American Beer Festival, held annually in Denver at the end of September.

Both outside and inside this modest-sized building, the beer really does the talking. Painted motifs to various craft beer companies, lines of bottles and tap handles, and all sorts of craft paraphernalia leaves the visitor with no doubt to Falling Rock's main focus. Their 70 taps, often featuring some hard to get beer offerings as well as a selection of locally-based beers, combined with their hundreds of other available bottles means that pretty much any visitor can find a beer or similar drink they can enjoy.

A close up of Falling Rock's beer menu, flanked by their Black and
Bleu Burger, Carlos' Street Tacos, and the Tamale Plate

Falling Rock offers pretty standard pub fare as its meal items with two twists: all food is prepared from scratch and never frozen, and almost everything on the menu can be made gluten-free. This feature has made it a regular stop for my brother-in-law and his wife when they have business in the area due to her gluten-intolerance issues. Probably the closest match in terms of food quality level here at this eatery from a Columbus-metro area standpoint would be the original Barley's Brewhouse on High Street.

Of course, we could not stop by here and NOT have a beer, and we all got our individual pints. Perhaps the star of our selections here was not a beer but rather a cider: Wyder's Reposado, a barrel-aged pear cider, was shared and universally liked by all. My spouse and I ended up with two pleasant offerings from Denver-based Bull and Bush Brewery in their Man Beer (an English IPA) and my Big Ben Brown Ale, respectively.

Service was perfect during our visit, but noting the place's modest-size (Falling Rock does have a lower level with more traditional pub trappings like pool tables and dart boards), I can imagine Falling Rock being something of a crowded madhouse during the weekends, especially when the Rockies are have a home game (Coors Field is less than a block from the tap room) or of course during special craft beer related events. Perhaps the perfect time for a first-time visitor to make a visit to this iconic destination is during the midweek as we did. A non-rushed hour or two would allow one a chance to absorb all the sights and beer-related history that nearly twenty years as a beer-lovers destination spot has brought within their brick-lined walls over a delicious brew or two.

Falling Rock Tap House
1919 Blake St (LoDo)
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 293-8338
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