When I jumped back into indie flag waver and working-without-a-net status some 18 months ago, I had a few important goals.

The most important of them? Have more fun and adventure. Take on some new creative and professional risks. Expand my aiding & abetting efforts from beer makers only to a changing array of hungry and passionate enterprises. Those goals, I can check them off. Hooray.

Another objective was to get back to doing what got me into my so-called career in the first place: writing about beer and other life-changing wonders. In particular, I wanted to restoke my journalist fire by writing humorous pieces about beer. Why? In part to wage a one-man-mutiny (thank you Tommy Stinson) on the increasingly too-serious and under-funny craft beer culture.

I’m happy to say that I can now check that box on my work-to-do punch list. Last fall I received a call from Jonathan Ingram, editor-in-chief of the lovely Beer Connoisseur magazine, that ended with him offering me a slot for indulging my quest for penning some beery humor. Yes!

Here’s my first BC piece in the current issue of the magazine. It’s a winking recap of the, uh, highlights of the 2014 GABF. Thanks for the opportunity, Jonathan! I had a ball writing this. And it gave me a chance to use some of the best — and several unused — jokes from the GABF-week debut of my new creative challenge, The Brew Night Show. I hope you dig this piece.

This year’s Great American Beer Festival was incredible. In Denver there were over 3,000
tasty, intoxicating pleasures from about 700 different suppliers, in nearly 100 different varieties, all available in 1-ounce portions. And if all of that pot wasn’t enough for you, there was also the beer at the GABF.

Yes, this year’s GABF was the first since the war on weed ended and “recreational” marijuana was made legal in Colorado. It created new thrills for fans of recreational beer in the especially Mile High City, where in some parts of town the aroma of Channel Number 5,280 wafting from grow houses blends with the smell of hops emanating from breweries.

The tartan-clad bagpipers who’ve always welcomed attendees into the fest hall? Replaced with a tie-dyed quintet playing a gurgling refrain on water pipes. At brewery tables all dump buckets had lids (to avoid anyone drinking their contents) and the newly required bowls of Chips Ahoy cookies and Doritos were a big, ahem, hit.

Read the full piece here