Hit by a Pitch

It’s beer week in Denver, and saying “Holy crap I’m so excited about  beer right now” would totally be an understatement.

I was going to write a list of tips for people attending the Great American Beer Festival but, as luck would have it, somebody already did. I agree with most of these tips, although I recommend eating something cheesy and greasy before the fest and I don’t think pretzel necklaces are necessary. I’m a hungry hippo much of the time but don’t need to eat during a beer fest. Also, you can use beer as a palate cleanser. Most of the time, Ben and I focus on our favorite style of beer (IPA). When I start getting hopped out, I switch to my next-favorite styles of beer, porter and stout, until I’m ready for more hoppy deliciousness. I generally limit myself to IPA, porter, stout, and anything else that seems really exciting.

My additional tips are as follows:

• The importance of water cannot be overstated, especially if you’re from out of town.
• Women! The bathrooms at the convention center go back really, really far — there are tons of toilet stalls in there. As soon as there’s no line in front of you, start walking toward the back. No matter how many women are scrunched up in line by the sinks, there are almost always empty stalls at the back of the ladies’ room.
• There are also porta potties by the docks/smoking area. There’s not usually much of a wait for these.
• Another one for the women: consider wearing a skirt or dress, because it makes peeing much more efficient. (Of course, you should feel free to wear a skirt or a dress if you’re a guy, but I don’t think it’ll make your pee process any easier. I just said “pee process.” I need to get off my internets.)
• This is a duh, but wear reasonably comfortable shoes. There’s not a ton of seating and the seating that exists isn’t all that convenient. You’ll probably be on your feet the whole time.
• Don’t freak out when you see the line outside the convention center. I’ll be the longest, most insane line you’ve ever seen in your life. It moves very quickly.
• Get the app. Taking notes on paper is a great idea but if you’re like me, you can’t be bothered. The (free!) app lets you star beers you like, which is easy.
• If you’re attending the Saturday afternoon members’ only session, grab a list of GABF award winners. The winners are announced at 1:00 and lists will be floating around soon after. You can find the information online later, but it’s fun to check out some of the winners at the fest (although lines might be long for winning beers because just about everybody wants to do this).
• Remember that children under 2 are allowed at GABF if carried the whole time (according to GABF FAQ). We don’t bring Soren (dude is heavy), but we did bring him to a beer fest when he was 2 months old and it was awesome. If you see a baby at GABF, please refrain from asking whether he or she is having the milk stout. This is a mildly amusing question, but trust me, baby’s parents will have already heard it at least 500 times.
• Eat something like pizza or nachos soon after leaving GABF.
• Most important, be responsible and have fun!

Yay beer!

Today we went to Denver Beer Co. for the first time (they opened on 8/12). It was, as they say, the shit.

It’s reasonably roomy for a brewery. There’s a large bar and tables inside (some bar-height and some regular height — the regular height is good if you’re at the brewery with a toddler, holla), plus several long picnic tables with benches outside facing the street. There are giant garage doors on the front wall that were open today, making the transition from inside to outside almost seamless. Denver Beer Co. serves beer and pretzels. (The “tiny pretzels” for $5 as advertised on a sign above the bar are in fact gigantic and amazingly delicious, which is really saying something because I’m one of those people who always wants to like pretzels but usually finds them disappointing. They give you a huge pretzel in a little cardboard thing like you’d get when ordering a hot dog and then present you with a giant container of spicy mustard with a pump.) From what I understand, there’s usually a food truck outside. Today they had Paris on the Platte, which was serving some type of German sausage. The guy working the truck was very nice.

Ben and I both had the Gear Up IPA. It wasn’t the hoppiest IPA I’ve ever had by any means, but it was delicious and very fresh tasting. It was subtle. It’s one of those beers that tastes amazing fresh from the tap at the brewery. We also shared a taste of the graham cracker porter, and holy mother of God that beer is delicious. It’s one of the best porters I’ve ever had in my life. Porter is my second-favorite beer after IPA although, truth be told, I don’t often want to drink porter in the summer. This is the beer you want when you, I don’t know, spend the afternoon sledding on the nearby hill people use for sledding (I think it’s at Riverfront Park but don’t quote me on that) and want to stop for a beer before heading home, where you’ll try to kick the snow off your boots before walking through the house. You’re wearing the dorky hat you bought from J Crew or Banana Republic that’s made of off-white wool and has a big pom pom on top. Do you have that hat or is it just me? Porter manages to combine smoky and sweet into something that makes you think you’d be willing to camp in the mountains where it gets really cold at night as long as you have at least a couple growlers of it with you. If you don’t agree with my beer philosophy (“The hoppier the better.”), you should try porter because it’s dark, rich, complex, and quite possibly something you might enjoy.

Beers are $5 and taste-size portions are $1. The taste size is enough for two people to figure out that a beer is awesome. They also have growlers. We encountered no difficulty bringing a toddler here (we kept him busy with the aforementioned pretzel) and they are very dog friendly (there were polite dogs outside and inside). They also have fantastic goat and other farm animal artwork on the walls, which you can buy if you’re rich (the “Small Cock” painting was $500).

I’d say Denver Beer Co. is an awesome addition to Denver’s beer scene and we’ll definitely be back. Happy drinking!

*Note: I was not compensated in any way for writing this post. I’m just telling you about something I really enjoyed.

In honor of International IPA Day, let’s talk about India pale ale, my very favorite type of beer. In general, when it comes to beer, the hoppier the better, if you ask me. If it were possible to liquefy hops and drink them straight, I’d be down (I suppose this is theoretically possible, but ???).

Anyway, here are some of my favorite IPAs, in no particular order aside from sort of trying to put my favorite favorites toward the top, with links to the breweries (to the specific beer when possible):

• Gubna Imperial IPA (Oskar Blues)
• West Coast IPA (Green Flash)
• Imperial IPA (Green Flash) (This is the closest to pure hop flavor I’ve ever found.)
• Modus Hoperandi (Ska)
• Snake Dog IPA (Flying Dog)
• Double Dog Double Pale Ale (Flying Dog)
• Stone IPA (Stone)
• Avery IPA (Avery)
• Maharaja (Avery) (seasonal)
• Titan IPA (Great Divide)
• Hercules Double IPA (Great Divide)
• 471 IPA (Breckenridge)
• Odell IPA (Odell)
• Rotator IPA: X-114 (Widmer Brothers) (limited edition)
• Racer 5 (Bear Republic)
• Mojo IPA (Boulder Beer)
• Ranger IPA (New Belgium)
• 400 Pound Monkey (Left Hand)
• Hop Ottin’ (Anderson Valley)
• Two Hearted Ale (Bell’s) (I imagine their Hopslam is awesome but we haven’t had it because we can’t get Bell’s in Colorado.)
• Alpha King (3 Floyds) (Also, I hear good things about Zombie Dust and Dreadnaught, which I think I’ve tried and liked but honestly, sometimes I drink and don’t remember. Oops!)
• 60 Minute IPA (Dogfish Head)
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada)
• Sierra Nevada Torpedo (Sierra Nevada)
• Long Hammer IPA (Redhook)

Not an IPA but just as good:

• G’Knight (formerly Gordon) – Oskar Blues

I’m also happy to report, after reviewing a big gigantic list of IPAs to try to make sure I’m not missing anything, that the name Ben and I selected for the IPA we’ll make someday when we have a brewery does not seem to have been taken yet. It’s the best IPA name, ever. Someday, I’ll buy you one!

Also, you haven’t had enough Childish Gambino. Go here and listen to this.

Yesterday, Ben was in charge of coming up with something fun for us to do. Does that sound weird, that someone has to be in charge of coming up with something fun for us to do, as if our lives our filled with drudgery and sorrow? They’re not really, but take last weekend for example. One or more of us was constantly busy doing shit like helping a friend move, going for a run, going to the gym, cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, going to the beer store, etc. All of a sudden it’s Sunday night and you’re all, wait what, the weekend is over and we have to go to work tomorrow and where’s the fun?!

So this weekend, there had to be at least one fun thing. Matters were complicated by the fact that it was pretty cold out and we don’t have big wads of cash to spend.

Ben suggested that we walk to the Great Divide Tap Room to have a beer. This sounded good. We packed up a few things for Soren (including markers and paper in response to the “What the hell is Soren going to do at the Great Divide Tap Room?” question). We had a nice, scenic walk past Curtis Park and down Arapahoe and I briefly ooohed at the arepas cart outside the tap room. (I’ve had arepas exactly once in my life, and it was at a restaurant in Chicago [Wicker Park/East Village-ish area?] a friend took me to a long, long time ago. The restaurant [Colombian? I wish I could remember the name.] had no menu and the chef just made whatever he felt like making but he wasn’t snotty about it and totally hooked us up with the most awesome, vegetarian meal, like, ever, in part, I suspect, because my friend, who by the way was smokin’ hot, went there all the time and he was probably secretly in love with her. I wonder whatever happened to her. She was cool. Also here are more commas because this aside didn’t have enough already: ,,,,,,)

Unfortunately, the tap room, which is tiny, was packed and probably not really toddler friendly. By then I was getting that light-headed hungry feeling (and already forgot about arepas) and also our timing was terrible because the Rockies game (which I’d turned off innings ago because they were getting killed) wasn’t over but apparently it was so bad everybody was leaving anyway so it was like, oh crap, everything is going to be packed. We settled on Blake Street Tavern anyway, because it was close, we like it, it’s very kid friendly, and we didn’t think it would be too crowded because who in the hell is really at a Rockies/Pirates game on a crappy day, anyway.

On the way we passed Hi Rise, which wasn’t open, and I reminded Ben that we have to go there for waffles soon. They’re my Twitter pal and vegetarian friendly.

At Blake Street, we settled into a table (it wasn’t crowded) with a colorable place mat and some crayons. Ben and I had a beer (FYI they are phasing out their Flying Dog selection now that Flying Dog is no longer local) and Soren had water. We shared an order of hummus. We also chatted with some peeps who had a 20-month-old daughter and were so cool we’d love to hang out with them sometime but Ben and I are both completely incapable of closing the deal on random new friend pickups (it’s so much more complicated than dating or maybe we’re just not good at it).

The best part of the day was walking home, because Soren acquired a new word. (It’s funny how physical development, which seems to come easier to Soren, has these big milestones, like learning to crawl or learning to walk, and verbal development at first is just a gradual, little stream of new words that eventually, I suppose, becomes a babbling brook or some such if you want a tortured metaphor and then a full-on ocean of talkity talk.) The word was “tree!” and it comes complete with its own exclamation point (!) because it’s so exciting. As we walked up Blake Street, each time we passed a tree, Soren yelled, in the cutest, high-pitched babyvoice you’ve ever heard, “twee!” He also made up his own sign for “twee!” This involves throwing up his arms with the fingers on his right hand all extended and the fingers on his left hand forming an L. Every time we passed a tree: “Twee!” Arms up! Hands in proper formation! (Full disclosure: Sometimes his interpretation of “tree” was overbroad and included utility poles but I’m not gonna hate.) Ben and I said “tree!” along with him until eventually we ran out of trees for a while (but don’t fret, by that time, even though we each had only one beer, we had to “pee!”).

It was fun.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re not going to the Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival in Vail this weekend. I’ll be honest. As the day approaches (we usually just go to the tasting on Saturday), I’m getting more and more bummed about missing it.

My general philosophy when there’s something coming up that I’m bummed out about missing is to plan something equally awesome that will take place at the same time. That helps make it so I don’t, say, sit around on Saturday thinking about how right now we should be drinking some Green Flash Imperial IPA in a delightful hotel in Vail instead of sitting at home on our couch that’s covered in cat fur oh hey we need to vacuum for the 6th time this week and then somebody vacuums and then we’re sitting around our relatively clean (for five minutes) house not drinking Green Flash Imperial IPA with a bunch of awesome people who also like really good beer. For example, if I was supposed to spend this weekend hanging out with @mayoremanuel and @nothawk, two completely fictitious Twitter accounts, snorting cocaine off the well-toned bellies of strippers in a Costa Rican brothel, but they blew me off, you’re damn right I’d find something really awesome to do instead. It’s like that one time your boyfriend was going to spend the night at a bachelor party and instead of sitting at home alone pining away wondering if what they say about bachelor party strippers and lollipops is true you went away to a luxurious bed & breakfast and got totally shitfaced.

(What I’m not telling you here is that there is some drama in my life right now, not involving my relationship, child, family, livelihood, or anything you might consider feeling bad about, but annoying the hell out of me nonetheless, which I’m not going to discuss so you’ll just have to settle for me saying things like “snorting cocaine off the well-toned bellies of strippers in a Costa Rican brothel,” when the fact is I don’t even know whether there are brothels in Costa Rica.)

Long story short (too late!) I figured the best way to handle not being at the beer fest was to plan something awesome to do on Saturday so we won’t even miss the beer fest. Because I’m in a beer state of mind, we could do something that involves beer. Something that involves beer, isn’t too expensive, doesn’t require travel, and — wait, I know! We can go on a walking beer tour of Denver! Why didn’t I think of this before? It’s awesome.

We can strap Soren into the Ergo, which is how we carried him at the beer fest last year, and head out from our house to any of the 9,000 breweries in Denver. Okay, maybe there aren’t quite that many, but there are several. Walking with a baby in the winter isn’t ideal, but it’s the best way to travel when you’re going to be drinking and you don’t want to carry a giant carseat around (I’ve never seen a cab with a carseat. Do they exist?). We can have one really awesome beer at each brewery, and then go to another one. After a few stops (we’re not marathon drinking champions like we used to be), we can head home. We’ll get a nice walk and enjoy some great beer in our own city. There ain’t nothing wrong with that, and it sure beats vacuuming again.

Our stops might include:

• Blake Street Tavern
• Falling Rock Tap House (not a brewery but awesome nonetheless)
• Great Divide Tap Room
• Wynkoop Brewing Company
• Breckenridge Blake Street Pub
• Vine Street Pub
• Uptown Brothers Brewing Co. (this one is new and I know nothing about it)

Wish us luck!