Beer and Cheer: Tommyknocker Winter Warmer

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukah! Feel like drinkin’? Why not try any number of awesome craft beers that are released only around the holidays. Try the one below, or read about many others in our Booze News blog archive. Cocoa Porter Winter Warmer Tommyknocker Brewery Idaho Springs A rich, dark porter…

Alps in Rosso at Osteria Marco

Yes, Denver, there is a Santa Claus. And if you still need to get in the holiday spirit, this cocktail will take you there — fast. Osteria Marco’s Alps in Rosso ($9), made with Hangar One Spiced Pear Vodka, house-infused rosemary gin, Leopold Brothers’ Three Pins Alpine Herbal Liqueur, Strega…

Park Tavern

Bar time at the Park Tavern (931 East 11th Avenue) is roughly fifteen minutes fast, which means, of course, that last-call and you-can’t-stay-here cries leave the mouths of bar staff between 1:30 and 1:45 (real time) each morning, sometimes earlier. Boo, hiss and other profanities. It also means that when…

Beer and Cheer: Bell’s Winter White

Winter White Ale Bell’s Brewery Comstock, Michigan Warning: This beer isn’t available in Colorado as far as a know, but a friend who lives in Indiana brought it to me as a gift, so what the hell. Also, when I blogged about the superiority of Colorado and California beers during…

Grizzly Rose

The trick to making any mechanical bull your bitch is to choke up on the saddle with your knees and thighs tight against the frame, lean loosely over the rope so that your center of gravity points toward the sky when it bucks, and hold on with one hand while…

Yoga meets wine; yuppie spirits rejoice

For devotees of yoga, the practice is all about cleansing and strengthening the body, searching for a higher purpose by standing on your head, and twisting your ankles behind your ears. Hardcore yogis don’t smoke, or eat burgers after class, or pour too much Splenda in their organic, free-trade tea.But…

Beer and Cheer: Santa’s Private Reserve

Santa’s Private Reserve Rogue Ales Newport, Oregon If you’ve been bad this year, Santa will bring you a six-pack of Miller Chill. If you’ve been good, he’ll put a bomber bottle of Santa’s Private Reserve in your stocking. The perfect present for any hop-head, this dark red beer from Rogue…

Beer and Cheer: 2 Below Ale

2 Below New Belgium Brewery Fort Collins Argh, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get into the beers from New Belgium Brewery. Fat Tire, Mothership Wit, 1554, 2 Below Ale: I’ve tried them — repeatedly — in an effort to figure out what I’m missing, and what…

Fresh Strawberry Malcriada at Tambien

Money’s tight, times are hard, here’s your fucking Christmas card. Given all the bad news, I’m having trouble getting in the holiday spirit this year — so I’m making an effort to get out of the house and spend time with friends rather than stay at home fretting. Still, even…

Burgers and beers at the Cricket

The Cherry Cricket (2641 East Second Avenue) — formerly Duffy’s Cherry Cricket and, before that, Mary Zimmerman’s Bar — didn’t always have a door guy checking IDs and stamping hands at 5:30 p.m., or a forty-minute wait for a table on a Tuesday night, or a national reputation for serving…

Stranahan’s named best hooch

We’ve known about the delights of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey for a couple of years now, awarding it Best Colorado Distillery in 2007 and enjoying its warming company on other occasions. But now Men’s Journal has named Stranahan’s one of its favorites as well, including it on the magazine’s list of…

Beer and Cheer: Ten FIDDY Imperial Stout

Ten FIDY Imperial Stout Oskar Blues Lyons Ten FIDY is a big, bad mutha. Almost completely black, it looks like motor oil when poured out of one of Oskar Blues’s unusual black-and-silver cans. But it tastes fantastic – rich, complex and brimming with roasty, toasty chocolate, nut and coffee flavors…

Beer and Cheer: Big Shot Seasonal Ale

This beer was a welcome change of pace from a multitude of sweet, dark, heavy beers. But it wasn’t exactly light – more like a brown than an English strong ale, with thick head and a lighter, red hue. The nutty, roasted flavor reminded me of a holiday-season toffee –…

Steuben’s toasts the end of Prohibition — 75 years ago

  How to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the 18th Amendment? At Steuben’s, the two-year-old restaurant/watering hole at 531 East 17th Avenue that celebrates regional cuisines and quirks, they marked the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933 — which effectively ended Prohibition…

Five cents a beer at the Fainting Goat!

Tonight, and tonight only, starting at 9:30 p.m. all Smithwick’s pours at the Fainting Goat, the new bar at 846 Broadway, will be just a nickel. Until the joint runs out of the Irish ale, that is, and we’ve been assured they have at least sixty pints. Cheers!…

Beer and Cheer: Isolation Ale

Isolation Ale Odell Brewing Company Fort Collins Isolation Ale is one of several local winter warmers – Avery’s Old Jubilation, Boulder Beer’s Never Summer and Breckenridge Brewery’s Christmas Ale among them. But this traditional English-style strong ale is lighter and easier to drink than some of the others. It’s a…

Ho, ho, ho: Twigs has closed — for now

Above is the season’s greeting that Nancy Levine, our intrepid Drink of the Week columnist, found when she was out last night judging the 2008 Holiday Cocktail Competition. Seventeen restaurants — all members of the Denver Independent Network of Restaurants — had signed up to create special holiday drinks for this contest…

Beer and Cheer: Double Bastard

Double Bastard Stone Brewing Company Escondido, California Double Bastard, made by one of my two favorite breweries in the country, packs a punch — and feels no guilt about the violence. This beer, highly alcoholic (more than 10 percent), highly sought after, rich in flavor and texture, is one of…

Cheers! We’re not number three in binge-drinking

The report in today’s Rocky Mountain News was a real eye-opener (and we’re not talking a Bloody Mary): According to Bill Scanlan’s “State fades a little in health stats,” Colorado fell from the 16th to the 19th healthiest state in the latest report from America’s Health Rankings, largely because of a rise…

Downtown’s last true dive

The bummer about Bar Bar (officially the Carioca Cafe, at 2060 Champa Street) is not that the bathrooms are glacial, grimy, graffiti-covered dungeons. It’s not that the volatile mix of white, black, brown and out-of-town patrons are wont to drink until an altercation seems like a good idea. It’s not…

Beer and Cheer: Anchor Christmas Ale

Christmas Ale Anchor Brewing Company San Francisco Like other spiced beers, this one hides the malt and hops, but in this case, it worked. The usual pumpkin pie-like suspects — like cinnamon, ginger and clove — were there, as well as what I believe was a touch of myrrh. (By…