Great American Beer Fest 2025
Thursday-Saturday. The Great American Beer Festival returns to Denver Thursday, Oct. 9-Saturday, Oct. 11, with hundreds of breweries from across the country serving thousands of beers inside the Colorado Convention Center. This year, festival organizers are including a spirits-tasting area for the first time, with 20 distilleries, offering 0.25-oz pours. In addition, there will be cider, hard seltzer, ready-to-drink cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages. Tickets, $85-$95 per session, are available at greatamericanbeerfestival.com.
The festival also means there will be dozens of tappings and other events taking place all over metro Denver, with rare and special beers available at many of them. Some of the hot spots this week will be Hops & Pie, 3920 Tennyson St., which has nightly tappings of dozens of brews; Finn’s Manor, 2927 Larimer St., along with Walter’s 303; Fire on the Mountain; and Ephemeral Rotating Taproom. Some of the local breweries to check out include Cerebral Brewing, Full Frame Beer Co., Ratio Beerworks, Renegade Brewing, and Westbound & Down Brewing’s taproom in the Dairy Block Alley. – Jonathan Shikes
Champagne and … French fries?
Saturday. Champagne Tiger, the self-described “joyously fabulous American-diner-meets-French-bistro,” hosts the 11th annual Great American Bubbles & French Fry Festival – or GABFFF – a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Great American Beer Festival, which also takes place this weekend. But this party is decidedly different because it includes bottomless champagne from NV A. Bergère, drag queens Pony & Anita Goodman, a piñata stuffed with caviar, 13 styles of French fries (from shoestring, curly, side winders to tots), and “every sauce worthy of dipping.”
The party, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., also marks Champagne Tiger’s one-year anniversary at 601 E. Colfax Ave., in Denver. Dress code: “sequins welcome, sweatpants forgiven.” Tickets to the 21+ event start at $98, but there are VIP packages as well. Call 303-942-0593 or visit champagnetiger.com for more details. — Jonathan Shikes
Aurora Borealis Fest
Friday-Saturday. The second Aurora Borealis Festival, an artist-driven gathering of light and sculpture, takes place at High Prairie Park in Painted Prairie, Friday, Oct. 10-Saturday, Oct. 11, with plenty of family-friendly spectacle. It features glowing installations and performances from across the state, including vibrant projects such as Cody Borst’s “Fictive” (an interactive greenhouse with colorful orbs and mysteries to solve) and B.J. Nolletti, Jenny Beran and Martin Beran’s “Forest of Confusion,” which “immerses families in a 60-foot grove of glowing Blue Spruce that change colors and build to a collective light show when touched,” organizers wrote.
The event, which is also sporting another Global Gift Bazaar and Flavors of Aurora Food Court, takes place 4-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 21448 E. 59th Place in Aurora. Tickets are $17.33, including taxes and fees; kids 4 and under are free. Visit auroraborealisfestival.com for more information. — John Wenzel
El Día de Muertos
Saturday. Longmont’s Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) party happens to be the longest-running event of its kind in Colorado. This year’s 25th anniversary celebration finds The Longmont Museum partnering with various organizations for “an experience for Día de Muertos that is rooted in respect and authenticity,” organizers wrote.
That makes the colorful Mexican appreciation of departed ancestors one of the best in the state, with a free, all-ages street festival in downtown Longmont that includes “traditional live music and dance performances, sugar skull decorating, face painting, crafts, cultural education, food trucks, a kids’ play zone, local vendors and a Gigantes Procession,” according to organizers.
11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, at Fourth Avenue and Main Street in Longmont. See more information and check out related events at longmontcolorado.gov/museum and firehouseart.org. — John Wenzel
