Beer Up

“For too many people,” says Marty Jones, organizer of Wynkoop Brewing Company’s thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest, “the term ‘beer drinker’ conjures up a man in underwear and an ill-fitting T-shirt watching professional wrestling and drinking flavorless beer. But that is not the crowd we see.”

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• Marty Jones
• Food and Cooking
• Beverages

Jones’s crowd? Men and women for whom beer is a way of life — connoisseurs, home brewers, experts on hops and barley malt. For the past twelve years, dozens of such beerlitists from coast to coast have competed for the prize of free beer for life at the Wynkoop, $250 worth of beer at their home brewpub or bar, assorted apparel and, of course, supreme notoriety. Not once, however, has a Coloradan taken first place (though a few have made the finals). A goddamn shame, you say? The tides must turn toward local domination, you scream? We shall overcome? Love the enthusiasm, champ, but it won’t be easy…

“There aren’t a whole lot of people who can run for president of the United States,” explains Jones. “There aren’t a whole lot of people who can be a hall-of-fame quarterback. A similar theory applies to being Beerdrinker of the Year.”

The road to victory will not be paved only in sixers of Keystone Ice and tattered ticket stubs from the Great American Beer Festival. Applicants who think they have what it takes must e-mail their beer resumés to beerdrinker@wynkoop.com by December 31. For a full description of rules and application advice, visit www.wynkoop.com/happenings_drinker.html.
Sept. 9-Dec. 31, 2008