Falling Rock Tap House

10/30/2025

Day 8 - Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig
1 day, a couple gallons of iced tea and 1250 miles of driving. Got up early and left Dayton by 5:30 am. Have no idea of how many construction zones I went through, but each one brought my speed down and made for a REALLY long day. Saw some really beautiful scenery in parts of the country I had not traveled in before. And then there was Kansas. I’ll just leave that there and drive away. Took an hour nap after entering Colorado and finally arrived home about 1:30 am, just 22 hours after I started. A total of 3 hours of traffic delays plus 1 hour of nap time additional to the slightly less than 18 hours on the google. Glad to be home again sleeping in my own bed and with my wife in time for her birthday.
8 days, 13 (?) Breweries, 1 distillery, 3300 miles driven, 2 signs delivered, friends visited, and countless memories made for myself and my trip companions. Back to work, I have a house to finish painting for a client. Cheers to eveyone that’s been following along. Time for some sleep and a few days not drinking

10/29/2025

Day 7 update. Let’s go see some friends on the “way back”. After the previously mentioned morning goodbyes, I hopped in the truck and headed to Dayton, OH. If you’re anywhere near a normal person, you are probably thinking, Dayton?!? But that leads to a story….
Starting withthe 1999 GABF (our 3rd), we were visited by our “out of town regulars” Patti & Larry from Dayton. Patti has been described as the “beery godmother of Dayton” and each subsequent year, it wasn’t GABF week until they showed up, usually with some other residents of Dayton in tow. They very much became part of the Falling Rock family in quick order, with gifts showing up from them following our staff having kids and many other things. About a decade ago Larry stopped traveling, so it was just Patti and friends coming in for GABF week ( I saw her this year multiple times). And while it wasn’t directly on the way back, it did get me a bit closer, and it did get me to I-70, the direct highway back home. We met up at Branch and Bone Brewing for a beer followed by a wonderful meal at Lilly’swith an equally wonderful member of their waitstaff. It felt so good to get to see them, but I had to get up way too early the next morning so after dinner it was time to get dropped off at my hotel.

10/28/2025

Day 6 - Part 2
After an emotional goodbye our next stop was at Cellarest Beer Project where I felt like changing it up a bit and chose the Grodziskie Kellerbier for my next tipple while we enjoyed the live band and laid back neighborhood vibe. After that the crew and I got back to the hotel and ditched the vehicles to continue on fot the rest of the night on foot. Dinner and some beers at White Labs and topped it off with “jUst whAt i reaLLy neeDed” a Halloween themed Tiki drink (a squid ink Mai-Tai) with the other organizer/instigator of the trip Teresa Blaisure-Clark (final picture) who I will tag in the comments below. This trip was instigated by her asking me to introduce her and some other young brewers to some of the OG brewers and breweries in our industry, something that, due to me decidedly NOT being in that “younger” demographic any more, am eminently qualified to do. After a quick meet up in the morning to say our goodbyes so everyone could head off to the various airports they were flying out of it was time for me to head out on the last stop… but that will be a story for Day 7…

10/27/2025

Day 6, Part 1 - Delivery of the second sign. Whew. I have had a standing invitation to come here since they opened, I finally made it, with a special gift. When I made my West Coast loop to deliver the other signs shortly after we closed back in 2021, I always wanted to bring this sign to their Mills River location because of one special reason, Brian Grossman (son of Sierra Nevada’s founder Ken Grossman) lives in North Carolina and he met his wife one Friday night during GABF at Falling Rock, so this sign had special meaning for them. We arrived at 11 am on Saturday morning to both Brian and Scott Jennings (25 years of brewing for Sierra and the person in charge of the experimental brewery in Chico back in 08 when I attended what would later be known as “Beer Camp #2). The two of them took our gathered group of younger brewers and assorted beer geek buddies on one of the most in depth beer geek centered tours of a lifetime around the facility. While the others were asking (amazing) questions from one or the other, I got to spend quality time with each of these amazing humans reliving so much history of their brewery and my love of it and the people who have worked there. After a truly epic tour we ate an amazing meal and were joined by Brian’s wife and 2 kids. After that meal, we got down to the job at hand and pulled out the sign for a bunch of photos amd even more hugs. It makes me happy that Paul Vismara’s artwork is once again on display for the public to see in the second best place, at the brewery that commissioned it. These signs were truly amazing when they were all together on the patio at Falling Rock, but since that isn’t a possibility, this is almost as good. These signs Sierra Nevada sign will be hung in the next few days as you enter the restaurant next to the pilot brewery kettles. I’m truly grateful for the friendships in this industry, this one has always been one of the deepest. Cheers

10/25/2025

Day 5 - Hail, Hail, the gang’s all here! If you’ve been following along this year, I did an earlier trip in April with a small group of younger brewers out to Northern California, we had so much fun that we scheduled another trip, and today we met up at the Asheville location of New Belgium Brewing company where we had an incredible tour of their facility and some wonderful tastes of beers. Then off to Zillicoah Beer Company for some beers and some amazing Fillipino BBQ and some time by the French Broad. Off to Burial Brewing’s Forest Camp location and finally back to the downtown area where I forgot to take pictures. Sorry. Getting ready for tomorrow when we deliver the second sign…

10/24/2025

Day 4 - push on to Asheville. A nice brunch with Chris Spradley in Knoxville then a “brisk” drive on the Tail of the Dragon before making it to Asheville to have beers at Bier Garden, Wedge Brewing followed by a beer at Burial before calling it a night

10/23/2025

Day 3 - the intrepid travelers decide to try out “whisk(e)y” a substance described by my Onion horoscope in 1998 as being “a magical elixir that will make all your troubles go away” and go to Lawrenceburg KY to do a tasting at Four Roses Distillery, followed by cocktails and an early night in preparation of an early morning and yet another day of driving

10/23/2025

And here’s Boulevard Brewing Company’s post on it

Earlier this week, Chris & Beth visited us from the iconic Denver beer bar, Falling Rock Tap House, a legendary contributor to the U.S. craft beer scene as we know it today. They’re on a tour delivering some incredible memorabilia that once hung on the tap house walls. We’re honored to have this beautiful piece and the history that comes with it, and we look forward to finding it a good home at the brewery.

10/22/2025

Day 2 - Whereupon we deliver the first sign. First we got a good base layer going and went to Joe’s and got a Z-Man then headed to Boulevard Brewing Company for the handover and a couple of quick pix while trying not to sail away due to the WIND (did I mention it before) then onto their pub for a couple of beers and a quick tour of their custom keg delivery system for taking kegs down into the basement keg cooler (since they knew Beth and I are geeks about that sort of stuff). Finished off the day by walking 3 blocks to The Phoenix for a live jazz jam session, a wonderful event filled day.

10/21/2025

Day 1 of Deliver the Signs Part Deux 620 miles Denver to Kansas City. Lots of wind and straight (did I mention wind) a quick dinner at a classic BBQ spot and a couple cocktails and some piano Jazz at a place next to where we are staying

Cheers,
Chris

10/08/2025

OK all you folks here in town for GABF (or because tou live here) and missing the Falling Rock, here’s a way to get a little taste of the past. And you can even take it home with you this time…

GABF Week Suprise:
These are the last bottles on the planet!

Brewed for: The Publican National Committee. Our founding members; Don Younger from Portland, Oregon’s Horse Brass Pub (the Granddaddy of all draught beer bars), David Keene of San Francisco’s Toronado, Tom Peters and Fergus Carey of Philadelphia’s Monk’s Cafe, Chris Black of the Falling Rock Tap House in Denver, and the ‘Matts’; Matt Bonney and Matt Vandenberghe of Seattle’s Brouwer’s Cafe, unanimously elected Don Younger as our “President for Life”. Whole our new leader was outside on a smoke break, Don immediately requested an impeachment vote, he was denied. We added to new members in 2010, Jesse McCann of Apex in Portland and Ian Black of the San Diego Toronado.

This bold and deliciously complex beer is an Imperial Buckwheat Stout aged in Tequila barrels for 13 months. Only a collection of pioneering, well seasoned, extensively traveled and passionate pub owners could come up with such a notion. A massive grain bill consisting of Pale, Munich and toasted Canadian Buckwheat was blended with pearled drum-kilned barley from Chile, a generous amount of Wisconsin toasted wheat and a slug of British crystal malts. A couple lumps of Mexican Turbinado sugar were added for good measure while we loaded the kettle with Styrian Golding hops. This carefully calculated collision of flavors, concocted over copious amounts of Orval well into the night, was laid down in fresh Tequila barrels wrangled over our southern border by the beautiful and gracious Meg Gill. We simply call this beer “PNC” in honor of its collaborative creators – the gothic symphony of flavors will speak for themselves. $100 USD/22 oz bottle.