5th and Garfield LLC
Keystone’s Bacon & Beer Festival Celebrates 13th Anniversary With More Bacon, Bourbon, And Music Than Ever Before
by Mark Smiley
Bacon: The Keystone Bacon and Bourbon Festival celebrated its 13th year in June, 2024.
The 2024 Keystone Bacon and Bourbon Festival brought a dozen different food vendors, alongside four bacon companies, and 15 bourbon and spirits attendees to the mountains. Pairing with all this bourbon and bacon, guests were treated to an impressive band line-up. Twelve rock bands played over the festival weekend including Summit’s own CB3 and O’Connor Brothers Band, the world’s premier KISS Tribute Band STRUTTER, and the Bacon and Bourbon Festival staple AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles. In total there were three festival stages placed throughout River Run Village.
This year, the festival featured more bacon, bourbon, and beer than in years previous. More partners joined the bourbon tour tradition with 15 bourbon suppliers showcasing numerous brands for Hungry Hog ticket purchasers to enjoy. Local mountain man, Bacon Bill, made his debut heading up the event’s kid-centric Camp Bacon.
“After 13 years of a festival you’d think it may be tough coming up with new ideas.” says Maja Russer, Director of Events and Marketing for the Keystone Neighbourhood Company. “The highly creative events and marketing team at the Keystone Neighbourhood Company sat in a room and threw every idea at the wall. The new Harley the Hog mechanical pig, as well as a revamped Camp Bacon were just two of the many items that will make the weekend all about the bacon. A 2023 Festival guest provided feedback in a survey saying, quote: “Draw in the crazies, draw in the committed. Blow me away with bacon.” We are doing our best to fulfill this guest’s and many more enthusiasts’ visions.”
Hell’s Belles: The all-female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles closed the fest with an over 90 minute show that had the crowd dancing and singing the entire time.
The 13th Bacon and Bourbon Festival supports the Colorado mountain community by featuring local businesses, restaurants, and supporting the non-profit Friends of the Dillon Ranger District, the Festival’s beneficiary. For 2024, organizers are working with another prominent community partner, Climax Molybdenum, who this year is helping to power the entire summer festival series volunteer base.
Upcoming festivals in River Run Village include Bluegrass & Beer, August 3-4, 2024; Mountain Town Music Fest, August 17, 2024; and Oktoberfest, August 31, 2024. Visit www.keystonefestivals.com for more information and to purchase tickets.
Photos from KNC Events
Soak Up Straw-Hat Days
Valley Gadfly
Welcome to August: It’s “Summertime and the livin’s easy!” Sure, it can be hot, but it is always filled with adventures that ignite excitement and energy to generate summer happiness!
This month brings up a lot of different feelings. It signifies the lazy days of summer and the excitement of the seasons changing. Gentle and dreamy days, just don’t give up the shade.
To help you enjoy the last breath of summer, here are our choices for shopping, dining, and entertainment, to soak up time outdoors, in the pool, and under August’s Full Moon:
Soak up sunshine and the blissfulness of Denver at DCPA’s outdoor Sculpture Park Aug. 3, starting at 2 p.m. British DJ Lee Burridge brings melodic shades of technicolor emotionalism to All Day I Dream. Information: 303-893-4100.
Grammy winner Angelique Kidjo and singer Meshell Ndegeocello play at the Botanic Gardens Summer Series Aug. 7, 6:30 p.m. Information: 720-865-3500.
View work by national artists with live acoustic music at Cherry Creek’s Smash Fine Arts Festival Aug. 10-11, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Information: 720-300-4924.
Enjoy smoked bliss by pitmasters from across the country at the Denver BBQ Festival on McGregor Square Aug. 16-18. Information: denverbbqfest.com.
Here’s a hot August suggestion: Keep the summer heat out with Solar Shades — either manual or motorized — from Cherry Creek Shades & Drapery on E. 6th Ave. Family owned, locally operated since 1968. Information: 303-355-4223.
Make this August sweet by visiting Cherry Creek North often. Stroll 16 blocks of chic boutiques, cool galleries, fun fitness studios, sun-soaked happy hours, and buzz worthy eateries. Days to enjoy as you please. Information: 303-394-2904.
See juried fine arts & crafts at the new Park Hill Summer Art Festival on the Masonic Lodge grounds Aug. 17-18, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Information: 303-324-5956.
Snag the chance to hear the Hot Tomatoes Dance Orchestra do Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington numbers at Dazzle Aug. 19, 6 p.m. Information: 303-839-5100.
Let your taste buds try the bottomless Denver Brunch Fest at the Tivoli Quad on the Auraria campus Aug. 24, noon to 4 p.m. Information: brunch-so-hard.com
Hear the Doobie Brothers’ picking and harmony that’s tallied five Top 10 singles and 16 Top 40 hits at the Ball Arena Aug. 29, 7 p.m. Information: 303-405-1100.
Plan to participate in this year’s Special Olympics Plane Pull Challenge at DIA Aug. 24. Event is at Signature Aviation, 7850 North Harry B Coombs Pkwy., 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pull funds Special Olympics to provide sports & healthy living for children & adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). Teams of up to 25 compete to pull airplane 12 ft. in the fastest time. Create or join a team or register as an individual to support Denver, state athletes. Information: 720-359-3100.
Infrequent, uncommon, as rare as hen’s teeth! It’s an event that happens every two to three years, and the saying, “once in a blue moon,” is what describes this August’s Supermoon.
Mark the date, time: August 19, 7:36 p.m., Mountain Daylight Time. It’s unique because it’s a special seasonal blue moon and it will be the last blue moon until May 20, 2027.
Need a hot date? Pick any August day, they don’t get much hotter than that! This month will sip-away like a bottle of wine. So, do what sheep do on sunny days, have a baa-baa-cue.
— Glen Richardson
The Valley Gadfly can be reached at newspaper@glendalecherrycreek.com.
The Denver News Media — What Media?
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
In spending my entire adulthood in Denver media — when people ask me where did I grow up, I always respond with I think it’s gonna be Denver. I have witnessed the slide of sources of information for Front Range citizens from a time period of a powerful KOA Radio, two vibrant newspapers in the city, to seemingly all the TV stations getting more than their fair share of viewers.
Interesting enough, more than 8 in 10 of us now get all of our information from a digital device. When is the last time you turned on your television to watch the news?
More than 8 in 10 of us say they get their news from a phone, a computer, their tablets, or something they’re constantly checking, social media.
Now remember, like the Front Range, the country is rapidly losing trust in traditional media providing straight news about politics. Notice the coverage of homelessness in Denver. Those who have lost faith now reaches more than 50 percent in newspaper and daily TV news — in less than a year trust in news media has fallen from 46 percent to 36 percent. A Gallup statistic.
And people have turned to forms like blogs, to influencers, to electric tribal chieftains. It’s important that you know or remember that these are not news organizations. No one is editing, no one is fact checking, as I’ve learned the hard way, no one is certainly writing retractions or corrections.
Separating what is straight news in the Front Range from influencers seems to be one of the first steps. And then also, heads up Kyle Clark, separating reporters and news anchors from commentary. Have you noticed that one on air person will wear all of those hats? And after that these turn out to be just people with opinions. And I say take all of them, including my work, with a grain of salt.
Thomas Jefferson schools us that we are responsible for our own knowledge and well-being about the state of politics or the state of the union. One of the breakdowns that I read to get ready to write this is where people get their news.
This will floor some of us.
78% of us get our news from YouTube.
55%, hold onto your hats, say Facebook.
51% claim they go to Instagram also.
Pinterest 37% visit for news.
Reddit, x (twitter), and an outfit called Snapchat, are other sources.
What does that do to what’s left of Denver’s daily newspaper the Post, or radio stations, or television stations?
Remember, because I do, when I could name media personalities that appeared in Pittsburg as a kid growing up or in Denver as a young man.
We were focused on print and broadcast news. I doubt if my grandson ever actually turns TV on.
Most Americans 65 and older say they get their news from broadcast TV news.
As the age dwindles, younger people, 26% of adults between 30 and 65, say they use cable TV or affiliate websites.
Adults under 30 use social media 41% of the time, YouTube 27% of the time, as news sources. None of them want to use the options the 65 plus Americans say they use.
My question to you is, and it’s serious given the political season we’re walking into, how trustworthy do you consider the source where you receive daily or hourly information about politics, foreign policy (for instance Ukraine, Gaza), homelessness? There is growing distrust of news media in America and how little the American people trust the news media.
So, ask yourself, ask your spouse, ask your partner, or people you work with, where do you get your news and who do you trust? And I think you’ll be amazed to see the truth.
In the one-year period that covered the Brent Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination fight, and the end of the Russian collusion affair, news media trust fell from 46% to 39%, according to the Washington Examiner. Certainly, food for thought.
One of the things I’ve heard since the Biden-Trump debate — if it was a fight they would have stopped it — as a formidable percentage of us had no idea the physical and mental shape that President Joe Biden, who has been governing this country, is in. And that my friends should scare us all.
— Peter Boyles
