Help the Wynkoop celebrate a beery hoppy birthday

Twenty years ago this month, a group of intrepid entrepreneurs opened Denver's first brewpub in LoDo, which had just become an official historic district that year, before the city even had a major-league baseball team, much less a Coors Field that would rise to the northeast of the old warehouse district in 1995, or a candidate with an unlikely name and resumé who would become mayor in 2003. Westword, which officed opposite the Wynkoop Brewing Co. for a decade, is doing its bit to mark this big birthday (and commemorate all the beers we drank there) by asking readers to submit their memories of the Wynkoop.

My own memories spill across two decades — from the day the Wynkoop opened with a free lunch that attracted every freeloader in town — to a late-night party after the opening day of the Democratic National Convention, when John Hickenlooper stood, listing slightly to the left (of course) to introduce the Flobots. But my favorite may well have been when the then-brand-new brewer invited Mayor Federico Peña over to celebrate his birthday, and presented him with a little something he'd picked up at a pawn shop up the street: bongos.

We dutifully covered the occasion, but some typographical gremlin changed Hickenlooper's gift to the man whose job he would one day hold to a "thoughtful set of birthday bongs."

Pour out your own stories on our Cafe Society blog at westword.com. Did you meet your future spouse at the Wynkoop? A future mayor? The best story will win free beer at the Wynkoop — and the chance to make some more memories. Last call is Wednesday, October 22, the day before the Wynkoop's twentieth-anniversary celebration begins.