Denver International Beer Festival set for June

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…

Shazzerac at Shazz Cafe and Bar

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,…

There’s nothing funny about drink minimums

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…

Happy Hour Hunt: Venue

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…

Swirl Girl: Don’t judge a wine by its label

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…

St. Patrick’s Day 2010: One woman’s Denver drinking log

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…

Happy Hour Hunt: Olivea

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…

Drink local at Dazzle

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…

We’ve reached the bottom of Sputnik’s bottomless mimosas

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…

Clancy’s Irish Pub is back in business…just in time

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…

Make an early toast to a sudsy Saturday at Govnr’s Park

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…

The more things change, the more they stay the same at Don’s

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,…

Underage drinking in Denver: Sweet 16 and never been blitzed

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…

Help Twisted Pine Brewing name its latest beer

With 1,500 craft breweries across the country making tens of thousands of different beers every year, it’s getting hard to come up with new names. So Twisted Pine Brewing in Boulder is asking for help by running a contest on Twitter and Facebook soliciting the perfect moniker for a vanilla-oaked…

Happy Hour Hunt: Delite

The Place: Delite 32 South Broadway; 303-722-1278. The Hours: Monday through Friday from 3 until 7 p.m. The Deal: Appetizers range from $2 to $4; all beer, well drinks and select red and white wines by the glass are half-price…

Weight for it: Study says drinking can make you thin!

Spring is almost here, which means that thoughts will soon turn from warming plates of spaghetti to spaghetti straps. And ladies, here’s the best news yet for those of you who want to get rid of the winter wear around your midsection: Dr. Lu Wang, a preventive health expert at…