Ignite Denver kicks off beertastic event Wednesday

A wise man once said, “To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life’s problems,” and it’s a sentiment we heartily endorse. Turns out, we’re not the only ones—the good people behind Ignite Denver are embracing the universe’s most awesome fluid at Ignite Denver 10, this Wednesday, Sept. 28 at the Sherman Street Event Center.

Like all Ignite events, this one is a series of short, briskly paced presentations on a variety of topics. Each presenter has but five short minutes to drop some knowledge on your ass, aided (or hounded, depending on how you look at it) by slides that auto rotate every 15 seconds. What makes this Ignite event special is the overarching theme: alcohol, most especially beer. All of the 16 scheduled presenters are focusing on the gods’ greatest gift to man. (okay, the title of one is pretty ambiguous, but it’s probably booze-themed, too.) And it’s not just hearing about beer, either—the $10 ticket price also gets you free, all-you-can-drink beer from breweries such as Ska Brewing, Renegade Brewing, and Great Divide Brewery. If you can’t or won’t drink beer, you can get a discounted ticket for $5 that includes free soda, so you can get all jumpy and over-caffeinated on Mountain Dew instead.

That list of presenters includes a number of brewery owners, CEOs, and brewers, plus such beer experts as Westword’s beer-loving managing editor Jonathan Shikes, a piece on distilling spirits as a palate cleanser, and a presentation called “BEER & METAL” which should be awesome, since someone went to trouble of putting the title in all caps. Tickets for the event are expected to sell out, so if you want to drink a bunch of free beer while learning about the wonders of beer and other libations at a rapid, highly entertaining clip, you’re going to want to act fast to buy your ticket.