Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow

The Mile High City is already home to the Great American Beer Festival, but while that brew blowout attracts hundreds of brewers and tens of thousands of fans from here, there and everywhere, the Winter Brew Fest, which comes to a head tonight at 7 p.m. at Mile High Station,...

By Lori Midson

January 27, 2011

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The Mile High City is already home to the Great American Beer Festival, but while that brew blowout attracts hundreds of brewers and tens of thousands of fans from here, there and everywhere, the Winter Brew Fest, which comes to a head tonight at 7 p.m. at Mile High Station, 2027 West Lower Colfax Avenue, is predominantly for locals, a smaller event where sudsy types can drink themselves into a stupor in a more civilized setting that doesn’t require muscling your way through bottle-necked aisles. “This isn’t a grungy beer festival by any means,” insists Carolyn Pitcavage, a former marketing and events coordinator for Flying Dog Brewery, who, along with her three partners, organizes the Winter Brew Fest (they spearhead a Summer Brew Fest, too). “When we started this back in 2004, there really weren’t a lot of smaller beer festivals in Denver, and we wanted to do something more intimate, so we talked to a lot of the state breweries, and they all said we should go for it,” she explains.

This year’s festival will feature forty breweries pouring more than a hundred brews, most crafted in Colorado, as well as grub from Basic Kneads Pizza and the Goods, live music from P-Nuckle and a VIP area that includes a Breckenridge Brewery and Cabot cheese tasting. General-admission tickets are $30 ($35 at the door), or $40 ($45 at the door) for VIP admission; a commemorative nine-ounce glass that you can fill to the brim is also included in the price. (The event benefits Swallow Hill Music Association.) For more info, go to www.denverbrewfest.com/winter/index.php.
Fri., Jan. 28, 6-10 p.m., 2011

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