The plan: Hit up the Winter Brew Fest on Jan. 26 and down as much as I could from the fourteen or so breweries and rogue meadery of the group. Write about it as my consciousness fades and I wait out the dizzy blur against a wall.
The execution: Not so much.
Prologue - The pre-beer beers.
I got to the Oriental Theater late owing to - of all things - a previous beer-drinking engagement. Parking in the area is always pretty tight, but with the streets lined up and down with cars so that only one car could make it through the icy, rutted bobsled run at a time, I knew it'd be packed. The Oriental Theater's a wide, squat kind of joint looking further across than it is deep. Bands have a way of looking awfully isolated unless you get up close. Same goes for country musician/idea man at Oskar Blues Brewery
Marty Jones. I reflected for a moment about how that might be the most authentic country music experience you could hope for: playing for a noisy crowd that couldn't give a damn about anything past their glass. It was kind of
Blues Brothers. To drive the point home, a random drunk lobbed coasters and what looked like a plastic cup or two on stage. They didn't get a cage, but then, the bottles were safely in hands of the beer men keeping their solemn charge of sobriety.
Disclaimer
It's worth a warning that I'm no beer snob. I've had more whiskey by serving and probably by volume than I've ever had in beer and I'm not going to drop pompous tasting notes about toffee, dried leather and a candied finish for either of them. Now then, on to the beers.
Beer One - Left Hand Sawtooth
I can tell my first choice, Left Hand's Saint Vrain Tripel was popular - they're already out just after 7 p.m. Having had the milk stout before, I give Sawtooth Ale a try in my little - what is it, six ounces? - cup. Smooth - not bad at all, but you need a taste for bitters.
Beer Two - Boulder Beer Mojo
It's dawning on me that beer drinkers might not be the best kinds of people to cram into a tight theater. They kind of shamble zombie-like to the table, get their fill, and just stand there once the need has been sated, while the remaining beer zombies like myself try to shamble past them. Try that with a camera bag. Mojo's a pale ale and oddly sweet. I'll pass on a foamy beer that tastes like orange with an alcohol aftertaste - something like a spiked Orange Julius. For what it's worth, it seems to be pretty popular with the serious beer crowd.
Beer Three - Odell's Easy Street Wheat
Kind of a cop-out choice on my part. I need something inoffensive to clean the palette here, and while I hadn't had Easy Street, wheat beer is a pretty safe guess. That's about what Easy Street's name suggests, and it delivers. It's not going to kick you in the face or really grab at you with complexity. Just a good, inoffensive beer. Give it a go after work.
Beer Four - Steam Engine Lager
I take this one out with me to grab a few shots of Marty Jones as they run through some covers of
Johnny Cash, a
Willie number requested by yours truly, and a Jones standard: a countrified honky tonk take on
AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." You're not going to get signature Angus riffage out of a country cover, but hillbilly sound really takes the edge off those
Brian Johnson vocals. I know drunks love AC/DC, but when we're only getting loosened up a little, no need for that freakish little leprechaun of a man to foul it up. Props to Marty for not trying to imitate him. I get Steam Engine out of a can, which is a bit off-putting, but it's damn drinkable - must be what won it several Great American Beer Fest awards. A cleaner take of the everyday mass-produced lager. If I find myself drinking to forget something, I'll be swinging by Argonaut for a pack.
Beer Five - Arrogant Bastard Ale
The camera bag's too much trouble by this point, so I run out to drop it off and get back in with a whopping ten minutes left until the brewers close up shop. Hey, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and that's why I find myself in the bathroom line with an old man who'd clearly made it around to more beer tables than I had, if you get my drift. Alternative pee solutions are proposed. Among them:
*Front guy, pee in the sink. Every one else go in the back pocket of the guy in front of you.
*Everyone unzip and get it out ahead of time. No time to waste!
*Forget this bathroom stuff. I'm ducking out the fire exit.
Alternative pee solutions are proposed. |
Answer #3 wins out among about half the line - enough that I get back to the table in time for a last round of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Okay, so I picked it up on reputation. It's got a good name among beer drinkers, and an old friend of mine swore by it. Pretty hoppy and bitter. But you can't expect much else from a beer that so aggressively markets itself as being so beyond your intelligence and manhood that you wouldn't be able to appreciate it. Good comic marketing or The Emperor's New Beer?