Win a ticket to Avery's Strong Ale fest this Saturday

Win a ticket to Avery’s Strong Ale fest this Saturday

Thursday, Mar 8, 2012 at 10:00 am by PJ Hoberman

Avery’s annual Strong Ale Fest – a festival where every beer is over 8%, you drink said beers in the barrel room, and tickets are limited to give you some space – is this Friday and Saturday. And you want to be there.

And tickets have been sold out for weeks.

Good thing we have a Saturday ticket to give away.

Here’s what you have to do: in the comment section below, tell us a story involving Avery. It could be fact or fiction. It could be something that happened at the brewery, with a beer in hand, or some other wildly tangential connection. But write a story, include Avery, and knock on wood. We’ve got one ticket, and we’ll pick the winner by noon tomorrow (Friday).

Go.

UPDATE

We have a winner! John’s story, full with Creole accents, wins the day. And Avery was super generous just now, matching our ticket, giving John a +1. Start making friends with that guy!

About PJ Hoberman

PJ likes beer. A lot. And whiskey. Gin. Wine. Cocktails. Um.. what were we talking about?

Tags: avery, beer, festival, strong ale, strongale, tickets

Jan C.

In my early days of craft beer drinking I brought home a couple of bombers of Avery salvation to enjoy after a long day of working at Breckenridge. My brother and his girlfriend at the time where hanging out with me and asked what the hell I was drinking because they where still used to drinking college swill. To make a long story short I love to rub this story in because my brother is now considering getting his masters in brewing and we are both full on beer geeks.
Tim Sparhawk

I so wish I could go to Avery and their strong ale Fest this weekend! But even if I do win it’s just one ticket and a festival like this can only be enjoyed with another great beer friend! So if I win, I will have to knock on wood and hope to find another ticket too! Or this ticket is up for sale!
Rochele Smit

So, last year, I got into a snowmobile accident while riding up above Keystone, and busted up my knee pretty bad. About a month later, it still hurt like crazy. We were at a friends place, and I decided to get drunk off of Avery’s Hog Heaven, just to have a night of pain free-ness. Well, I was easily able to complete the first part of my plan, but unfortunately, my knee actually hurt WORSE. So the next morning I was nursing a hangover plus the bum knee. Oh well, at least the beer was amazing!

This is a true story!
- RocheleSmit
  
  rochelesmit@yahoo.com :)
Lauren

I was once asked during a nanny job interview “what kind of beer do you have in your fridge right now” Luckily I had a 6 pack of White Rascal waiting for me, and I was hired
http://twitter.com/aikidoka wb

I was able to fit a whole case of Avery special release beers in my motorcycle, a BMW – I swear it was designed for this reason, you know Germans…

Yes, It was a bitch to ride with the weight
Tyler

Avery has always been one of the best choices for me since they can some of their year rounds. Being from the same (awesome) state, they get that a lot of people love being outdoors while enjoying great beer. So I took them up on it, and packed a White Rascal up with me to enjoy at over 14k feet:
http://craftbeersummits.tumblr.com/tagged/Avery

Look forward to some more adventures with them this summer!
Gardiner Hammond

Young and dumb and having fun: During college five friends and I went on a
backpacking trip to Upper Cataract Lake outside of Silverthorne. Sparing no convenience despite a daunting
five mile trek with gear for two nights we packed a CASE of Avery beer per person. Yes in bottles. The favorite IPA at the time along red and
brown ales, TWO guitars, EGGS, burgers and I don’t even remember what else we
rolled along the trail in our 4 wheeled cooler or packed in our second cooler! Suffice to say it wasn’t a few freeze dried
meals and a water purifier. With beers
sticking out of our pockets we hit the trail.
It was tough going and by lunch we had made a mere mile. To lighten the load we stopped for a lunch of
beer brats and beers on the trail. With moral temporarily peaked we set out. Searching ourselves for every inkling of
strength; we pushed, pulled, and carried ourselves and our payloads until we
saw the lake! Lower Cataract Lake that
is; halfway up. It took us the better
part of the day to get there so we set up camp, exhausted and ready for some
beer and fishing. We didn’t hike to the
upper lake until the next day, and that was strictly an out and back fishing
trip. Despite the grueling over-packed
hike, it was the trip of our lives. It
was probably the most fun anyone’s had camping, and the fishing there is
phenomenal! The proper beer and real
food was icing on the cake. True story.
kale_co

The last time I attended a strong ale fest things did not pan out as I had expected. The whole night is hazy, like a Maharaja mirage. I must’ve tripped at some point and hit my head because I was seeing Czars. In the morning, I searched for Salvation, but had a Beast of a hangover. Surrounded by half-empty, Avery beer bottles, I knew my previous evening had been corrupted by Mephistopheles.
John

Avery has long been one of my favorite Colorado breweries. Their brews have been able to convert even the most staunch and stubborn beer haters among my companions. I dragged a beer-averse friend of mine to Avery’s tap room one night and suggested she try the barrel aged Hog Heaven since I knew it would be the most familiar to her since her drink of choice was wine. One sip in and the flash of surprise on her face was enough for me to know I had done my job.

Also, on a recent trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras we happened to get into a lengthy discussion about beer with our server for dinner one night. Now… coming from Micro-Mecca, aka Colorful Colorado, we thought it was only prudent to sample the local micros and see what our brewing brethren down South had to offer. Our server guided us through the local micros and was very knowledgeable about all the beers and styles they served (which was respectable for a place down South). But the highlight of the night came when our server said to us (in pure authentic Creole accent), “I can tell y’all like beer, and I ‘preciate the opportunity to talk brews wit’ y’all b’cause I feel like most people ‘dat come in here only want Miller and like I’m on my on ‘lil island… so ‘dis is rare. But I’m tellin’ ya, if y’all ever see it in y’all local corn’a store… y’all gotta buy ‘dis… it’sa India pale ale by a brew’ry out west, Avery Brewing… out ‘dere in the pristine Rockies of Col’rad’a… sweet Lord’y… ‘dat ‘dere the sweetest, smoothest brew I ever tasted. Make ‘ya wanna slap ‘ya mamma.” When we finally broke the news to him that we were from Boulder and that Avery was in our backyard, we thought he was on the verge of dropping to his knees and proclaiming “I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy,” ala Wanye and Garth.
Now a night full of Avery strong ales??? I might do the same in order to win tickets.
Chadd Nelson

The first time I brought home Avery White Rascal my wife said she would not drink it because the creature on the package freaked her out. So I neatly poured the bottle in a glass waited five minutes and said “hey babe have a drink if this.” I stood there in amazement as she pounded the whole thing. “What was that” she replied “it was amazing.” I couldn’t lie so I told her it was the devil brew she was scared of. She dropped her glass shattering it in a million little pieces. We spent the rest of the night getting sauced on White Rascal and The Reverand and bloodied picking up the glass. Once again she learned the judging a brew by its cover is a bad idea, her taste buds may have never forgiven her. If there is only one ticket she may never forgive me for going alone. Oh well one night of great brews is worth the lifetime of dirty looks that would definitely be coming my way!
Chadd Nelson, @doubledchadd
Trav

I had my bachelor party at Avery a few years ago, it was awesome! Two of my friends got kicked off the tour due to their loud and inappropriate comments. Ha!
DiabloVT600

Some friends of mine flew in from Wisconsin and said they wanted to go drinking in the mountains, so we headed up to Backcountry Pizza in Nederland. Backcountry had an awesome selection of beers on that night, so we enjoyed a variety of different good beers, but then “The Beast” from Avery caught my friend’s eye. “The Beast” is a Belgian strong ale with an ABV often exceeding 16%. Being that my friends were avid beer drinkers from Wisconsin, they wanted to know if we could buy a pitcher of The Beast to share between the four of us. At $8 per small pour, we knew it would be expensive, but we asked the bartender anyway. She told us “no, The Beast is only sold by the pour”, but it just so happened that John, the owner of Backcountry Pizza, was sitting at the bar when we asked. Apparently, he wanted to see if four guys really could drink a pitcher of The Beast, and he whipped out his cell phone, figured out what he had to charge us for it, and told the bartender to pour us a pitcher of “The Beast”. I can’t remember what we paid for it, but we finished it in fairly short order and went on to have an awesome, adventure-filled night. Over a year later, my friend (who was one of the four “Beast” drinkers) and I were eating at Backcountry Pizza, and we overheard one guy telling another guy “This one time, these four guys came in and ordered a pitcher of The Beast and drank it all in no time!”. I thought it was awesome that we will forever be know as “those guys who drank a pitcher of The Beast” at Backcountry, and it made me and my friends proud!
isaacfromfocusonthebeerdotcom

You’ll never believe this but Adam Avery came over to my house to use the bathroom once. After that, we saved some old people from the a nursing home fire. Then there was the time when Adam and I ate our weight at Godfather’s Pizza. Finally, there was the time when Adam and I went on this crazy adventure involving a treasure map and a key that looks like a skull but that’s a long story.

Denver off the Wagon