La Cumbre On The Return Trip 29May18

Tom & Leslie and Kala humored me on the return leg of our drive from PHX to COS with a stop at La Cumbre and Pho 79. Pho 79 is a Vietnamese place I chose for lunch. La Cumbre is a very fine craft brewery in Albuquerque and one especially talented with IPAs. You may have had their Elevated IPA, it's available in a few spots in CO and is very good. I had really enjoyed Project Dank on tap at Richardson's (and once prior in COS in a bottle) so was in pursuit of the on-site experience and some of this tasty project IPA when stopping by at the taproom & brewery today. Project Dank is only produced in March of each year and sold out quickly but some southwestern spots, including the taproom, are still tapping kegs. They didn't have any Dank to go but I did enjoy a couple pints while there. El Cumbre had a cool vibe, great labels and very good IPAs - I tried all they had but still drank the Dank (check the taproom menu where Dank is declared with IBUs of "a lot.") ~ so good.

Oh yeah... saguaro and barrels are bloomin' to beat the band right now. The are prolific in drought years especially, as they "think" they need to procreate due to tough times - in typical years there are fewer flowers but the Sonoran Desert had only 3" of rain last year when the average is 7".

Finally today, I tried a really good NE style IPA called Boom Sauce from Lord Hobo Brewing in Massachusetts. Matt recommended it and it is very good.