The Ladies of the Denver Biscuit Bus “get ridiculous” while cooking up some serious eats for the masses. No lumpy oatmeal here, however.

Birthdays are great. People sing to you, and they wish you good health. Unfortunately, birthdays only come once a year, UNLESS YOU OWN A BREWERY! Then you can give yourself a four day birthday celebration!
Four days of music, four days of well-wishers, and four days of “special” beer. Today was the final day of CKBC’s big birthday beer bash, and they let it all hang out for the fans. (Figuratively. Nobody needs to go to jail.)

Pete grooves until his string breaks.

For today’s party, in addition to their usual offerings, they had:

• The Furious Five Beers
• A 2012 Barleywine
• A 2013 Barleywine
• Denver Biscuit Bus
• Pete Stein on Guitar

Twelve (yes, 12!) beers on tap.

Clearly you can’t sample them all…not at once, anyway. If you know me, however, you know that I had to go straight for the Barleywine(s). (Pictured below.)
First, however, I had to get a biscuit from the Denver Biscuit Bus. What goes well with a barleywine? A biscuit with sausage, eggs, and gravy. If lovin’ that was wrong, I don’t want to be right. (My diet detox starts tomorrow. I swear.)

Every Sunday should be Barleywine Sunday. Are you listening?

The Barleywine on the right is the 2012 version. It looks a little lighter in color than its 2013 counterpart, but only for reasons to be explained in the next sentence. It comes in at a robust 13% ABV, and, truthfully, you can’t really taste the alcohol. That’s a bad thing, right? After a year of aging, it’s incredibly smooth, and something that I hope will be bottled soon. (Hint!)

However, if they decide not to bottle the 2012 version, then the 2013 version would be OK by me as well. (Hint! Hint!)

As long as a Barleywine is bottled at some time in the future. The people want it! (By the people, I mean me. I’m being totally selfish here.)

Coming in at 10% ABV, the 2012 Barleywine is pretty much the same recipe, except (obviously) it is lower in alcohol. It’s a good move. It leaves the Barleywine a little chewier and fuller bodied.

After deciding that maybe 13% was a bit too high, “We wanted to make something where we didn’t have to cut people off at just one,” assistant brewer Gordon shared when talking about the beers. Ultimately, it was a good move.

We stuck around to enjoy some great music from Pete Stein, as well as a Lemongrass Ginger Wit, which was great for such a sunny Sunday.

So ends the four day celebration. It was cool to see so many people, multiple brewers from other places like Wit’s End, Caution Brewing, River North, all together having a good time. That’s what the local brewery is supposed to be about, right? Good, clean fun.

Well, it’s about to get messy next week, as I head to Munster, IN for Dark Lord Day.
Stay Tuned!