Weekend Recap: Pints of Phunky Phish
I love the 3-day weekend. It’s such a morale booster! The 2-day weekend isn’t nearly long enough, and the 4-day is way better for obvious reasons, but I’m not trying to be greedy. Let’s push for 3. Who’s with me?
I spent my past 3-day weekend hanging with the other wookies and hippies over at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park for some tasty sets from Phish. Beer blog, beer blog. I know, I know. But you might be surprised at the beer selection in the parking lot.
The Phish Lot is a magical place. Typically referred to as Shakedown Street, it’s a farmer’s market made for and run by Phish fans. RV’s and campers with people selling everything from artwork to clothing to stickers. Hungry? Grab a wood-fired pizza, philly cheesesteak, or the best gouda grilled cheese you can imagine. Thirsty? People set up full bars with blenders and mixed drinks, shots, smoothies and more. It’s awesome.
The Westword just posted a bunch of pics from the Lot. Click HERE to take a look.
It’s also a great place to do a little beer shopping. There were plenty of people schlepping coolers around, selling beers for $3 or 2/$5 for the thrifty shoppers in the crowd. There’s the usual load of crap to be found like Budweiser and Coors, but there’s also a ton of Oskar Blues, Great Divide, Boulder Beer, Odell, Sierra Nevada and more. I don’t have any hard facts, but if I had to guess, I’d say the amount of craft beer drinkers outnumbers the macro drinkers. The Phish lot introduced me to Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout way back when. I think I was at Deer Creek in Indiana, but can’t remember…
As far as beer, you never know what you’re going to find, since many of Phish’s fans tour for weeks at a time and could be bringing some beers to CO that we wouldn’t normally get out this way. I did a bit of shopping for the beer cellar as I found someone with a cooler full of Bell’s. I bought up a few bottles of the tasty 10.5% ABV Expedition Stout. This Russian Imperial Stout ages exceptionally well and these puppies are already 11 months old. Score!
My wife let me fly solo one night, but there were plenty of other beer geeks and good people in the crowd to hang with. I met up with a fan from beeradvocate.com that was in town from Berkeley, CA. We shared a few beers and some tunes and will probably be doing some beer trading in the future.
I also heard Kyle Hollingsworth was in the crowd one night. He’s the keyboardist from the String Cheese Incident, and is also a big advocate of craft beer. Heard of Hoopla? That’s his beer.
The Lost Abbey shirt I was wearing on Saturday sparked multiple conversations, including one with Eric Franecki, who runs the NoCo Beer Forum. Check it out if you haven’t done so already.
Oh, and then there was the whole concert thing going on. I like music. I’ve played drums most of my life and have tried to absorb just about every style of music in the book. I’ve seen plenty of concerts, from Anthrax to Yanni, but Phish has my heart. Mrs. Brewtally Insane and I have been all over this great wide country following those boys and we love ’em. Plenty of my friends don’t get it. I can’t explain it and I don’t really try. Their loss.
Here’s a tune from Saturday’s show. Not one of my favorite studio tracks, but they really rocked this thing in concert. It starts out pretty straight forward, transforms into a funky jam at about the 8:30 mark (dig that base line), mellows into almost nothing at the 15:00 mark, builds, Builds, BUILDS and just rocks out at the end. This is jamming people. Love it.
What a weekend. The people watching is worth the price of admission alone. Not to mention, everyone should experience a glowstick war at least once in their life.
Great shows Phish! Thanks for ending your Summer Tour in Colorado!
If this post was just too off base for you, I apologize. We’ll return to our normally scheduled brew news and other assorted beery things tomorrow. I’ve got some really exciting things to share with you, so check back soon. And shoot me a line if you made it out to the shows this weekend or just dig good music.
Now for some random shots I snapped over the weekend.
Cheers!
Brewtally Insane! 
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