If you’re Fergie, and your 34th birthday lands on the 22nd show of the Black Eyed Peas E.N.D. world tour, which happens to be in Denver, how do you celebrate? With a Bacardi V.I.Pea, which was served at the VIP after-party at Beta…
Mark Stoddard, a mixologist at Happy and its late-night alter-ego, Bitter Bar, was in New Zealand last week, competing in the 42Below Cocktail World Cup with fellow TeamUSA members Todd Thrasher of Washington, DC, and Sean Hoard of New York City. This contest is not for the timid. Over five…
“Gimme your best seasonal on tap,” I request as I belly up to the handcrafted bar at Twisted Pine Ale House (3201 Walnut Street, Boulder). Bartender Jody Valenta slides a sample of her favorite seasonal, Hoppy Man, across the planks and I can see why she digs it. (Check back…
Denver is a lush when it comes to beer, but that doesn’t mean the city’s been cut off. The producers of the Denver International Wine Festival & Competition for the past six years plans to hold a Denver International Beer Competition this May, followed by a June dinner that will…
The drink: Absinthe has such a splendid, uninhibited history — inspiring Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh and Oscar Wilde — that it must be great, right? And more of it must be even greater, right? Wrong. For its Sazerac — known as a Shazzerac ($10) — Shazz pours on the absinthe,…
Drink minimums make me think of strip clubs. Strip clubs make me feel dirty. By the transitive power of logical inference, then, drink minimums should make me feel dirty. Which they do, sort of — just not in the I-hate-to-see-you-subjugating-yourself-like-this kind of way. More in a defiant, dumbfounded, I-just-got-taken-advantage-of kind…
The Place: Venue, 3609 West 32nd Avenue; 303-477-0477 The Hours: Monday through Friday, from 4 until 6:30 p.m. The Deal: Small plates are priced between $3-12; all beer, wine, and cocktails are half-price The Digs: Contrary to what one would assume, Venue does not have a bar. The space is…
The annual Snowmass Chili Pepper Brew Fest in June attracts some of the best chili cooks in the state to an International Chili Society-sanctioned cook-off. It also attracts beer geeks looking to sample some of the best brews made in Colorado. So you would think that Twisted Pine Brewing Company’s…
People sure are funny about buying wine. Some go with a friend’s recommendation. Lots of people buy whatever’s on sale, or falls within their own personal “less than $12 is too cheap, but more than $20 is too expensive” wine price-to-quality indicator scale. Certain folks only buy wines which have…
Steve Horner, go back to your corner. This week, Westword received a packet that contained copies of a dozen letters sent to Horner, the anti-ladies’ night crusader, from Steven Chavez, director of the Colorado Division of Civil Rights, all dated March 11 and all starting this way: “This letter is…
5:00 p.m. Arrive home, shuck off Working Professional disguise and gear up with the official uniform of St. Pat’s: green t-shirt, jeans, and comfy shoes for jigging. 5:15 p.m. Hustle to the bar to meet crew, shoving a sandwich engineered for maximum booze-sponging capabilities into mouth. Curse green clad revelers…
The Place: Olivea, 719 East Seventeenth Avenue, 303-861-5050 The Hours: Sunday through Friday from 5 until 7 p.m. The Deals: $5 select wines by the glass and small plates…
Dazzle, at 930 Lincoln Street, is already a great jazz bar with an incredibly expansive happy hour, both in terms of items — big burgers and fries (with homemade ketchup) for $5, a pot roast slider that’s a meal in itself for just two bucks — and hours (4 to…
Perfection is fleeting: snowmen melt, flowers fade, breasts sag. But sometimes you catch something at its apex and enjoy it for all it’s worth — until it’s gone. That is the story of bottomless mimosas at Sputnik, the hipster hangout at 3 South Broadway, which used to offer a $5…
Beer hasn’t always been delivered by truck. In the early 1900s, it took a horse and carriage to get Denver’s suds from the brewery to the bar. Although the tradition died after prohibition, the Wynkoop Brewing Company plans to bring it back. “I’ve got a horseman, two horses and an…
Denver has its fair share of watering holes where you can grab a green beer and official Irish grub on St. Paddy’s Day, but the reopening of Clancy’s Irish Pub is good news for anyone in the western suburbs. The Wood family purchased the restaurant, located at 10117 West 37th…
I always knew Happy/Bitter Bar’s Mark Stoddard was driven, but I didn’t realize he wanted to take on the world. In New York City last Sunday, Stoddard, Todd Thrasher (Washington, D.C.) and Sean Hoard (New York) were all named Cocktail World Cup U.S. finalists. And in a week, Stoddard will…
More than 20 breweries will be on tap this Saturday at Govnr’s Park, 672 Logan Street, for a brew fest fundraiser to benefit the International Rett Syndrome Foundation. A mere $15 grants you entry into the event, which begins at 5 p.m. and includes a souvenir glass and all the…
Sick of that 3.2 swill at 7-Eleven? Tired of waiting for legislators to give you permission to buy a bottle of vodka at a grocery store? You may get a chance to change the rules yourself, if Initiative 48 makes the November ballot. Although a proposal to allow convenience stores…
Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery’s locations across the country are holding their annual fundraiser this week to raise money for fire departments and related charities. Although the Louisville-based chain typically allows each of its restaurants to brew their own beers, all of them used the same recipe for Fire Chief…
A great big glass garage door, open for warm weather, facing Sixth Avenue; more booths and tables with stools; a back-patio-length green paint job, aluminum roof and industrial heater; high-def flat-screen televisions and Golden Tee and Silver Strike video games; touch-screen point-of-sale registers; clean bathrooms with space to stretch out,…
The Star Bar, at 2137 Larimer Street, still hasn’t reopened after it was busted for serving underage drinkers; after getting popped for its fourth underage violation in as many years, the Border, a University of Denver institution at 2014 South University, shut down altogether last fall. (It reopened under new…
