The Craic is Mighty in Denver

I will forever be grateful that the Mister can trace his ancestry back to Scots-Irish immigrants in the early 1700's. Without that, we might have to be searching out all of the German beer gardens rather than the Irish Pubs. Although we probably would still be enjoying great beer, the music and the fun just wouldn't be the same!

We are going to be very hard pressed to have more fun than we had on our road trip to Denver this past weekend. Yes, technically we did go for work, but thank goodness we had help, because that left us plenty of time for fun.

Saturday's festivities began at the Irish Rover Pub. We just happened to come across an advertisement for The Irish Pub Drink Up! 2010 in the Celtic Connection publication that we picked up at Katie Mullens when we had lunch there soon after arriving in Denver on Thursday.

The timing was right, so we immediately called for reservations. Am I ever glad we did. As you can see above, the weather was wonderful, and the place really began to fill as people were lining up to get registered. We arrived right at 3:00, which gave us plenty of time for conversation and to enjoy a late lunch/early dinner and some great beer. The Irish Rover is a cool little pub located at 54 S. Broadway, just south of the downtown area. The cab ride from our hotel was only $10, so not far. The Irish Rover just might be our neighborhood pub if we lived in the neighborhood. It wasn't long before things really started rockin' and rollin'. Two hundred of our newest close and personal friends gathered for the pub crawl. Four buses waited outside to ferry us around to some of the best Irish Pubs in the Denver area. The Pipers were on hand to let us know it was time to go. They stayed with us the entire night, giving us the ten minute warning that the buses were headed for the next destination. Naturally, the party didn't stop just because we had boarded a bus. We learned a new little fun fact, and that is that while Red Stripe is a Jamaican beer, it is actually imported into the U.S. by DIAGEO - Guinness USA, Norwalk, CT, which explains why it was the beer of choice for the bus trip. First stop was the Irish Snug at 1201 E. Colfax Ave. The Mister and I enjoyed a wonderful evening singing along with Brian Clancy the last time we were in Denver for St. Patty's month. We were too early for the entertainment Saturday night, but the craic was still going strong! At first the bar seemed to live up to the "snug" name a little too close for comfort, as 200 of us descended upon it, but we soon discovered "under the snug", which is somewhere we hadn't made our way to on our last visit. We started out the evening knowing absolutely no one, but Barbie and DJ (not in this photo) made us feel at home very quickly, and we soon found that while everyone was enjoying themselves, they were also interested in knowing that everyone else was having a good time too. Soon the Pipers heralded the arrival of the buses and it was time to move on down the road. Next stop, Fadó Irish Pub, right outside of Coors Field in the Lodo area of Denver. Unfortunately I didn't get any really good pictures of the inside of Fadó's, but when you go to Denver, you absolutely HAVE to go to Fadó's. It claims to have been imported directly from Ireland, lock stock and barrell, and I believe it. It is absolutely wonderful.

Some of the other friends we made were David and Sallie. David is heavily involved in the Denver Irish community, including the St. Patrick's Day Parade and the Colorado Irish Festival. Thank goodness there are people like them to make all the fun happen. And then the Pipers began their song telling us it was time to go. Let's see, who else did we meet? There were Jeremy and Katie (The Mister says Christine, it was kind of late). Jeremy's ancestors were Germans from Russia, and he hopes to make a visit to Lincoln some day to go to the geneology center at the museum there to track down their records.

The last stop (for us anyway) was Nallen's Irish Pub, at 1429 Market Street.

Nallen's is a landmark, but it is kind of on the small side, and definitely cozy with 200 pub crawlers crammed inside. Fortunately, the Mister and I arrived just as a young couple was headed out to the theater, and they gave up their table to us. We soon were sharing it, but it was nice to be sitting down.

One of our new friends is a Rugby player who gave us a quick rundown of the sport, the athleticism of the players and why it is probably the best sport there is. We have promised that at the earliest possible opportunity, we are going to go to a game. Right now, any of my kids reading this are ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing, that is mom). They know how much I HATE watching sports, but I just might have to experience this one just this once.

Then the Pipers started in again and we had to part company with our new found friends. Nallen's is only a short distance from the free Mall ride on the 16th Street Mall, which would take us to within a block of our hotel. Because we had to work at the show again on Sunday, we called it a night.

Thanks for stopping by. We really needed to coffee Sunday morning. Hope you enjoyed the visit. (Oh yeah, craic is Gaelic, roughly translated as fun, and lots of it!)