A Moment in Falling Rock Tap House

It's minus fifteen degrees celsius outside and a torrential blizzard is blowing wildly. Somehow I've convinced my Dad to make the hour-long drive from Fort Collins into downtown Denver and we've set ourselves up at the bar in the Falling Rock Tap House, away from the cold. I sink a pint of Stone's Go-To IPA in what seems like minutes. It's all mango and pineapple, a delight, but I've already got my eye on the tap handle that reads 'Pliny the Elder.' 

"You had several pints of Pliny yesterday, try something new." My Dad urges me to break out of my comfort zone and I settle for a pint of Epic's Escape to Colorado. It's gorgeous, a hazy golden glow neatly wraps itself around the kind of grapefruit and pine resin nuances that make India Pale Ale my favourite style of beer. It's not Pliny though, nothing else is. 

My Dad locks himself in conversation the barman who, completely without any hint of irony, is clad in a Sam Smith's t-shirt. For some reason I don't think he's ever been to Tadcaster. He regales us with tales about the evils of big beer, about how he'll never stock Goose Island again for as long as he lives. A young man walks up to the bar and asks "What good IPA's are you pouring?" Without pausing the barman immediately switches his attention from my Dad to the young man. "I don't even like hoppy beer but we've got Pliny, is that good enough for ya?"