“It was pandemonium!”

Well, things got a little crazy these past few weeks, which is a shame, because we’ve gone tons to tell you. Metric tons! Anyway, I thought I should actually blog something useful, so the missus and I decided to attend River North Brewing’s 1st anniversary party.

Oh yeah, I took this gig very seriously.

The roses say, “he’s totally serious.”

I broke out my bowtie, and this nifty little notebook. You can’t help but realize that a man wearing a bowtie and writing into a pink notebook with little roses means business.

Anyway, back to the party. I love River North. They’re my kind of nerds. Beer nerds. Math nerds. Enginerds. Math nerds and Enginerds who brew great beer.We showed up at about 5 o’clock, and the place was more than bumpin’. It was packed. The barrel room was loaded with your average assortment of hipsters, dudes with mohawks, Nick from TRVE Brewing, and everyone in between. A regular crowd, I suppose, for downtown Denver.

Yes. The glass is empty. The bottle, however, is full and currently resides at home.

We started with (of course) a glass of the Anniversary Ale. The Belgian yeast left the ale pretty smooth, and we couldn’t believe that it was 12.5% ABV. (Note: As of this publishing, there are very few bottles left.)
“It was an amazingly easy drinker,” said the missus. Ten minutes later, we agreed that it was indeed 12.5%. Still, it was delicious nonetheless. Around this time we headed back over to the barrel room, where we found an older couple looking for a lost leather jacket. More on them later.

In addition, I saw something pretty interesting aging in a barrel…I had a picture of it, but I figured since RNB hasn’t announced what it was yet, it wouldn’t be cool of me to show the picture. Needless to say, we were intrigued.

Deliciously delicious.

Next up was the Barrel Reserve. The Barrel Reserve is a combination of their Quandry quadrupel (9.6% abv),  J. Marie Saison (7.5% abv) and their black IPA, Hello Darkness (6.2% abv) aged in a bourbon barrel. Heaven in a glass. The missus says in a year of aging, it will really be special. I tend to agree with her. (Note #2: Barrel Reserve will be available in bottles this upcoming weekend!)

At this point we decided to pony back over to the bar to gather some intel. I introduced myself to Nikki (taking a guess on the spelling – apologies if I got it wrong. I guess I’m not as professional as I thought.) I told her I was an algebra teacher, she said she figured, because of the bowtie. Score another point for the bowtie. Not only is it an attention-grabber, but it lets people know that I mean business. Math business.
Anyway, she points out that it was absolute chaos in the taproom for quite a while. “Our sales record was beat in 2 hours.” Based on the crowd we saw that night, we were not surprised.
On Velocity vs. Speed: “Velocity.”

We then spoke with Matt and Jess Hess, the owners of River North. Matt is a former Lockheed chemist, and Jess is a vet. Based on their beers, my wife and I decided that they made a good career switch. We then spoke with Grant’s mother. Grant is a bartender at River North, and she offered me some of her wings. After initially refusing for fear of getting myself ridiculously dirty, I threw caution to the wind and decided to join in. They were awesome! Crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside.

We’re making friends! And on a happy note, the man looking for his lost leather jacked found it. Everyone wins!

After leaving with a bottle of the anniversary ale, we decided a good time was had by all. Definitely one of my favorite places to stop when I’m in the city…now I need more excuses to be in the city on a regular basis.