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Hurricane force winds and art festivals don't match. It was late April in Left Hand Brewey's Beer Garden. The clouds and wind chill were keeping the potential buyers away. However, I did do a little networking. One group was planning a festival at Großn Bart down the road.
A freak snow storm would ruin these plans, but I didn't know that at the time. One day, I decided to walk to Großn Bart. It was harder than anticipated. The place was tucked away behind the only sketchy Safeway in Colorado. After walking around along fence and down a dusty rock pile hill in heels, I arrived.
I looked at the menu. It was far from my typical fair. I'm a California refugee who spent a good eight years and six figures on fine food in Seattle. When I lived there I would tell anyone who asked "In winery I drink the wine. At bars I drink the cocktails and in brewery I drink the cider."
Why? well Seattle is an IPA town. You go to brewery and the menu is as follows
- IPA
- IPA
- IPA
- Double IPA
- IPA
- Cider
As a girl who prefers sour to bitter, this was not my jam.
Then I moved to Colorado. It took a couple of years, but one day I found my following my intuition and for reasons I can't explain, I came to Left Hand Brewery. I have the Flamingo Dreams: a beer that is literally pink and since then, I started drinking wheat, hops, malt with fruit.
But now I was in Großn Bart. This was man's beer place. Not a pencil pushing, number crunch man's beer. Not a fast talking, V8 driving, sniffly nose on the Friday night man's beer. A bearded man's beer, and by beard I mean a real beard. Not a goatee, or Abrocome Model's 5 o'clock shadow. A lumberjack beard brewery. The kind of beard that neck-beards wish they were. The kind that a hipster wants to grow but can't. The sort that makes zero apologies for its masculinity. If that beard had a brewery, it would have a menu quite like Großn Bart's.
So it was no pink drinks allowed. Crap, I thought in my high heels and form fitting dress, I might have to drink real beer for once.
I asked the bartender for a recommendation. We go back and forth and then I reveal that I'm here because I plan on selling art there in the next month. I wanted to do a piece featuring their beer. I looked up and something caught my eye. A brightly colored peach face that looks like it was drawn in crayon by someone who tried really hard.
"Is that Ivan Drago?"
Yes, the bartender confirms. She lets me onto a secret. The version with coconut is a winner. I tried it and she wasn't wrong.
This was my attempt to make Soviet Art Inspired poster for one of cinema's most iconic fictional comrades. The Ivan Drago inspired "I Must Break You (Coconut)."