New beergeek.TV Episode – 2008 Beer Drinker of the Year

“2008 Beer Drinker of the Year” is the latest episode of One Pint at a Time.

Just to show you that it not always about us… Our friend, Matt Venzke, won the coveted ‘Beer Drinker of the Year’ title and we were on hand to witness his triumph. This video is highlights his masterful performance.

For all the episodes of One Pint at a Time go to beergeekTV.

Beer Drinker of the Year

As promised, here is our report from Beer Drinker of the Year…

Since this is not an unbiased report of the event, I guess I should start by congratulating the two other worthy finalists; Richard Pedretti-Allen from Texas and J Mark Angelus from Oregon. Special kudos go to Mark for nailing the blind beer tasting portion of the contest.

Props also need to go out to Marty Jones from Oskar Blues for being not only the organizer but a great MC for the event.

For those who haven’t followed the story closely, we met Matt and his wife Michelle for the first time in January up in Anchorage. Prior to that, Matt and I had been emailing for about a year. Meeting them for the first time, Merideth and I immediately recognized kindred beer travelers and we became fast friends. After we got home from Alaska, we heard from Matt that he was a finalist for Beer Drinker of the Year. We had to go to Denver to be part of Matt’s entourage and to cheer him on.

We were also excited because Merideth and I haven’t been in downtown Denver for over 6 years and we wanted to see how things have changed.

We arrived in Denver Friday afternoon and met Matt and Michelle at the Great Divide Brewery taproom. When Merideth and I were last in Denver in December 2001, Great Divide didn’t have a taproom. Back then, you just kinda wandered in off the street into the brewery and some guy would pour you beer.

Now, they have a nice taproom where you can get some of the best beer in Denver. Unfortunately, we only had time for one as we needed to be at the Falling Rock Tap House for the first Beer Drinker of the Year pre-event.

The Falling Rock is rightfully mentioned in the same breath as Toronado, Horse Brass, Monks, and Brickskeller… i.e. one of the best beer bars in the United States.

Friday evening was a meet and greet where the Beer Drinker of the Year judges could meet the finalists for the first time. The judges consisted of past finalists as well as beer luminaries such a the beer goddess herself… Lisa Morrison.

I was just happy to be at Falling Rock, where I could try Colorado beers that I can’t get where we live (which is pretty much everything). The highlight was the unveiling of the 2008 Collaboration not Litigation Ale, a blended Belgian Strong Ale from Avery Brewing and Russian River.

After a few pints, the meet and greet moved a few blocks away to the host Wynkoop Brewery for dinner. And if there wasn’t enough meeting and greeting for Matt, after dinner the party moved back to the Falling Rock for a nightcap. I’ll admit that Merideth and I called it an early evening and left around 10pm.

Saturday morning was beautiful so we decided to walk to “HiDo” to check out one of the two Denver breweries that we haven’t been to. And in the only disappointment of the weekend, we walked for 45 minutes to get to the nameless place only to find out they didn’t have any of their beer. I don’t know if they had run out or have stopped brewing, but Merideth and I didn’t get any new breweries on this trip.

The finals were at Wynkoop and we were joined there by two friends Eli and Fran from Aleuminati, the not so secret society of better beer.

As for the actual contest, it is going to be hard to describe the events; you are just going to have to wait for the video. But as Merideth posted yesterday, Matt’s performance was masterful.

Being an eccentric beer geek who knows a lot about beer is what can get you to the Beer Drinker of the Year finals… what wins it is being funny and clever. Even when Matt was flailing to find an answer, he did it in a self deprecating witty way that had the crowd laughing.

But the clincher had to be the crowns. There is a portion of the contest called “Bribe the Judges”. What most contestants have done over the years is to bring beer, whether rare, local or homebrew. That makes a lot of sense and it would be probably what I would have done.

I have to say that Matt really thought outside the box on this one. He made crowns for each of the eight judges; attaching bottle caps with magnets from his extensive collection. And he didn’t just stick a bunch of bottle caps on the crown; each one had a theme. They were pretty impressive. And Michelle didn’t help him – besides being a beer geek and an amazing scrap booker – Matt is a wizard with the glue gun. In the end, Matt just didn’t bribe the judges; I think he created a new Beer Drinker of the Year tradition.

All that was left was the announcement and the partying afterwards. The party moved from Wynkoop to Great Divide to Rock Bottom. We had a great time hanging out with Marty, some of the judges, Fran, Eli, Matt, Michelle and the other finalist Mark. By the way, the judges were already trading bottle caps for their crowns.

So… congratulations Matt… you are not only the Beer Drinker of the Year, but also our hero!

Matt Venzke – Beer Drinker of the Year

It’s Sunday morning in Denver and we are getting ready to head home. Just a quick post to say that our good friend, Matt Venzke, won the ‘Beer Drinker of the Year’ contest yesterday. Matt’s performance was masterful and we are so happy for him and Michelle.

In the next couple of days, we will post a full report from Denver. Plus in the next couple of weeks, look for an episode of One Pint at a Time.

In the meantime, you can view the image gallery.

Year in Beer Side Trips

We have received an overwhelming positive response from the story about us that ran on the Associated Press wire. A heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who contacted us.

Included in all of the well-wishing were invitations to beer festivals around the country. While we would love to be able to attend them all, the reality is that time and money are huge constraints on our ability to attend events outside of the YiB schedule.

With that said, we would like to announce two YiB Side Trips:

February 22-24: We will be in Denver for the Beer Drinker of the Year contest. Our friend, Matt Venzke, is one of the 3 finalists and we will be in Denver to cheer him on. I believe Matt has even agreed to wear the Girls are beergeeks too” Thong during the swimsuit portion of the contest.

May 13-15: After our Franconia and Bergkirchweih Beer Festival travels, we will be meeting Ute and Wolfgang in Cologne for three Flogging Molly shows on successive nights… Cologne, Munich and Vienna. You will remember Ute and Wolfgang from our Bamberg episode of beergeekTV.

When other YiB Side Trips are finalized, we will let you know.

New beergeek.TV and Beer Ramblings

Our latest and greatest episode of “One Pint at a Time” was posted a few hours ago. Called Beer Beyond Denver, the episode chronicles our beer adventures when we went out to Colorado for the Cal v. Colorado St. football game back in September.

Episode highlights include an interview with Chris Katechis, ‘Commander in Craft Beer’ of Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, CO, Merideth doing her best impersonation of Elaine Benes and my reaching 350 breweries.

For all the episodes of “One Pint at a Time” go to beergeekTV.

For those expecting a Pacific Northwest episode, I struggled with writing Merideth’s voice over for the past few weeks and finally decided that I needed to move on. In the end, that was a good decision because I was able to put this episode together in a day… it practically edited itself. Hopefully, I will get the Pacific Northwest episode posted before we leave for Europe on December 12th. Maybe a few beers will inspire me…

Speaking of beer… last time we were at City Beer in SF, I bought a bottle of St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, a 10.5% Belgian. On Thanksgiving Eve, I brought it down to Ol’ Factory Cafe to share with some friends and the consensus amongst us all was that the beer was amazing. If you can find this beer, I highly recommend that you buy it straight away. And good luck because it apparently was a limited release here in the States.

In more beer news, we’ll be up in Boulder Creek on Sunday for our annual Christmas Tree Hunt which means you will be able to find us at Boulder Creek Brewery around opening time (11:30am) enjoying a few pints and having some lunch.

Our Christmas Tree Hunt is a week earlier than usual (in fact, it has never been in November) because the following weekend we will be in Chico to see Flogging Molly.

Moreover, if I can get a hold of the people at Butte Creek Brewery and schedule a visit, Merideth will get her 350th brewery. We will also be going to Sierra Nevada… which is very exciting because we haven’t been there in almost 10 years.

Finally, and somewhat a pre-announcement, Merideth is going to have a beer article in the January issue of Carmel Valley Magazine. When the issue comes out January 1st, we will be sure to remind everyone.

Slainte… and if you are in Boulder Creek or Chico the same time we are, let us know.