“Dude’s having trouble keeping up,” I tell Greg when he joins me at Pasquini’s Pizzeria Uptown (1336 East 17th Avenue) and sits beer-less for five minutes. I’m referring to Josh, the lone bartender responsible for the bar, restaurant and fifty-plus-person staff party just starting on the back patio. Dude’s working…

It was everywhere, the puppy piss — puddling up on the concrete beneath our chairs, flowing toward the unaware flip-flops and purses underneath the crowded patio tables. Try as we might to soak it up with napkins, the current of devastation could not be abated. So we left, but not…

Have you heard the one about the straight guy and the gay bar? Here’s how it goes: Guy walks into a bar alone. He pulls up a stool and is greeted by the bartender, who introduces himself as Dan. Dan asks for an ID, holds out his hand for a…

Even with mud season well under way in Summit County, the small smoking patio in front of Red Mountain Grill (703 East Anemone Trail in Dillon) still sports a snow shovel and other all-weather tools. Through scratched sunglass lenses, I squint at this peculiarity in the early evening sun, run…

Brian, Matt and I are already good and stumbly by the time we fall into the dim red glow of Herb’s (2057 Larimer Street) via the back patio door. We’ve just spent the last four hours at Coors Field pawning our future firstborns to get this way, and although seventeen…

“That’s not Shiner Bock, is it?” I inquire, studying the chalkboard above the beer taps advertising $3 Shiners. Unfortunately, no — it’s Shiner Black. “A stout?” “Not that dark,” responds Jen, the brunette bartendress at Wyman’s No. 5 (2033 East 13th Avenue). “Wanna try it?” Why, yes, I do. She…

“Oh, my gawd, I’m going to die!” exclaims the brunette seated to my left, the one with the new-haircut glow, probably from Stun! next door. It’s pretty dark inside Barry’s on Broadway (58 Broadway), but from where I’m sitting, the cut looks good — a little short in the back,…

What’s with cash-only establishments and their insincere apologies? “We don’t take credit cards,” read the signs. “Sorry for any inconvenience.” But is anyone on the other end of the cash register or profit-and-loss statement really sorry? If these places were more honest, wouldn’t their signs read: “Welcome to (Name), where…

I wanted to love PS Lounge (3416 East Colfax Avenue). Really, I did. I wanted to love the cash-only policy for its antediluvian charm. But when I returned from trekking down Colfax for cash and the bartendress wouldn’t keep a simple drink tally for me (even though I was nice…

When Jäger Bombs first became popular, bars served them Irish Car-Bomb style, with four to six ounces of Red Bull arriving in a pint glass or lowball and the Jäger showing up in a shot glass. After all, half the fun was dropping the shot into the pint, making a…

My sister once had a moody boyfriend who, once he had a few drinks in him, would transform like a true alcoholic into a ray of smarmy sunshine and say, “Just needed to put a little primer in the tank.” Minus the bit about being a manic, sycophantic inebriate, this…

There’s considerable difference between a competent songwriter and a talented musician. Having never received formal training in any instrument, and with no ability (or interest in learning) to read music, I must humbly hang my hat on the former hook. But then, I rarely wear hats. I’ve been playing the…

Believe it or not, beer and I haven’t always been inseparable. Once upon a time, we didn’t have the same understanding of each other that we do now. As a teen, for example, I didn’t get why beer tasted like ass, or why it didn’t “work” as quickly as Kamikazes…

The suicide slushie is classic Americana. It’s also one of my most vivid memories of childhood summers spent at a campground on Clear Lake in Milton, Wisconsin. My family began this tradition by camping in a tent when I was too young to have memories; we upgraded to a pop-up…

I have a young, hip uncle who grew up in trendy West Coast locales such as Seattle and Oakland. I came of age in clueless, couture-less Illinois. Once, when I was in my teens, he said to me, “I’d rather look good than feel good.” I could never quite get…

Is “après ski” little more than a contrived, unnecessary name for an overpriced happy hour? Yes. Conceptually, is getting drunk in long underwear, snow pants and horrifically uncomfortable ski boots (assuming said drunkard is not a snowboarder) absurd, especially considering the skis and sticks that still must be hauled home…

I’ve always been an Olde English (OE) guy. At the ripe age of eighteen, I popped my malt-liquor cherry while sitting with a high-school buddy on the stained shag carpet of my first, still furniture-less college apartment. We had just driven a borrowed Suburban the four hours from our home…

It’s 11:59 on a Saturday night, and Blackjack Pizza won’t take my call. I dial and hit send, dial and hit send. Finally someone picks up. “BlackjackPizzawe’reclosed.” “Really?” “Yeah.” “At midnight?” “Yeah.” “On a Saturday?” “Yeah.” “Really?” Click. After six rings and a three-minute hold, Papa John’s agrees to speak…

In retrospect, we should have ordered sake. We definitely thought about it, lingered on the cocktail page while our server stood impatiently behind the hot hibachi grill with the rest of the menus and her free arm outstretched, almost asked for the $22 bottle and five glasses. But then we…

Like many young smokers, I don’t mind the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act — the smoking ban, as it were, that took effect in this state July 1, 2006. I recognize my filthy habit as a phase, one I will (hopefully) leave behind once I’m a parent and a full-fledged…

This could very well have been a story of anger and aggravation, a story about waiting fifty fucking minutes for a cab to arrive at my apartment in Five Points, a story about years of frustrated anticipation and irritation, a story that was really little more than a diatribe about…

“I’m going to drink you out of house and home,” I tell Matt LaBarge sometime between my second and third mimosa at Sputnik (3 South Broadway). LaBarge, a former kickball teammate and co-owner of both the hi-dive and Sputnik, has told me more than once that he loses his ass…