Beards On Parade

Facial hair is so hot right now.

Comments (0) By Drew Bixby Thursday, Oct 2 2008

Ralph Roberts probably thinks he’s seen and heard everything there is to see and hear about beards and body hair. Since he began crossing the country in May on a 38-foot-long mobile barbershop for the WAHL Let It Grow Tour, he’s seen a contender for Most Hirsute Homeless Guy shaved down to his skin from crown to chin, he’s heard a woman go “on and on and on” about how she and her husband find trimming their genital areas of the utmost importance, and he’s witnessed “a lot of Santa beards and guys with major-looking hairdos.” But he’s never been inside the Colorado Convention Center during the Great American Beer Festival -- the three-day site of this, the last stop on the tour -- which means he has no idea what sort of blacked-out, bewhiskered bedlam he’s in for.

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“We sorta have to go with the flow,” says Roberts, who feels confident about handling the less-than-sober. “If some guy starts shoving or pushing or spitting, well, you gotta draw the line somewhere.”

Even if that line is in the side of some dude’s beard? Awesome.

Let your hair down tonight between 5 and 10 p.m. at the CCC, 700 14th Street. Besides providing free facial trims and donating $10 to the YMCA for every old razor and pair of scissors or trimmers the tour collects, Roberts and crew will be looking to take photos of Denver’s best beards, mustaches and goatees, to be entered into the national WAHL Men of the Year contest. Winners in each category net 42-inch flat-screen TVs. Get details at www.wahlnation.com.
Oct. 9-11, 5-10 p.m., 2008