Lancet Jades
02-23-2004, 07:43 AM
Man taps beer wisdom, wit to win LoDo contest
By Joey Bunch
Denver Post Staff Writer (jbunch@denverpost.com)
http://media.mnginteractive.com/media/paper36/0222beers.jpg (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1971437,00.html#) Post / John EppersonBeerdrinker of the Year finalist Tom Ciccateri, right, of Kansas City, Mo., expounds Saturday on the beauty of beer as rival John Marioni of Bothell, Wash., waits his turn. Marioni eventually won the title at Wynkoop Brewing Co. in Lower Downtown.
John Marioni, a 40-year-old, 155-pound sales manager from Bothell, Wash., became America's king of suds Saturday using his thinking, not his drinking. The 2004 Beerdrinker of the Year fended off a battery of brew-related questions from 11 celebrity judges, audience members and other contestants at Wynkoop Brewing Co. in Denver's Lower Downtown.
Judge Bobby Bush, the 1998 winner, said the split decision came down to which of the three finalists the jurists would most enjoy sitting down for a brewski with.
Marioni had played all the hits in the two-hour Q-and-A at the LoDo brewpub.
He compared beer to religion, leading a glass-raised prayer asking that suds "lead us not into incarceration, but deliver us from light beer."
He confessed about his first "over- beering."
"I was 15. It was Michelob. I tossed it in a movie theater."
The movie?
"Pink Panther."
He confided:
"I got married because of beer. Both of my children were conceived because of a whole lot of beer."
He quoted:
"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he'll sit around drinking beer all day."
Marioni won a cool T-shirt and a lifetime of free drinking privileges at the Wynkoop, as well as a $100 tab at his home pub, McMenamins in Mill Creek, Wash.
To do it, he turned back some heavily qualified beer drinkers.
None looked like your stereotypical beer guzzlers, but these were men who brew their own and know yeast strains and hops the way other people know directions around their towns.
None had a beer belly. All three looked like country club golf buddies.
Tom Ciccateri, 47, a 179-pound Honeywell International project manager from Kansas City, Mo., lost for the third time.
He reported this year that he had sworn off drinking and driving by building a home next door to the bar.
He promised to be an envoy for beer if the judges let him win this year. This year he brought a cheering section, the rowdy, sign-waving "Drunks for Ciccateri."
After Ciccateri's closing remarks, drinking buddy Derek Maes leapt to his feet, lifted his old black T-shirt and shook out his hairy round belly over the rim of his jeans as he danced and waved a sign, "Tom Doesn't Win We're Coming Back Next Year."
The third finalist, recording producer Richard Pedretti-Allen, a 45-year- old 191-pounder from McKinney, Texas, said his three greatest beer-drinking treasures were the years "1985, '86 and '87."
The Wynkoop brewery is the Mecca for America's beer drinkers, he said. Near the end of the contest the bar's owner, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, showed up.
Before a jury of judges in black robes and faux powdered wigs, the mayor said he had come to make sure parliamentary law was strictly enforced.
"We collected bribes," barked one of the judges.
"That's what I wanted to make sure of," answered the mayor.
Ray McCoy of Clemmons, N.C., said he didn't get much of a mandate after he walked off with the title last year. He improvised from the beginning to the end of his reign.
"I've been drinking for 365 days," he muttered.
By Joey Bunch
Denver Post Staff Writer (jbunch@denverpost.com)
http://media.mnginteractive.com/media/paper36/0222beers.jpg (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1971437,00.html#) Post / John EppersonBeerdrinker of the Year finalist Tom Ciccateri, right, of Kansas City, Mo., expounds Saturday on the beauty of beer as rival John Marioni of Bothell, Wash., waits his turn. Marioni eventually won the title at Wynkoop Brewing Co. in Lower Downtown.
John Marioni, a 40-year-old, 155-pound sales manager from Bothell, Wash., became America's king of suds Saturday using his thinking, not his drinking. The 2004 Beerdrinker of the Year fended off a battery of brew-related questions from 11 celebrity judges, audience members and other contestants at Wynkoop Brewing Co. in Denver's Lower Downtown.
Judge Bobby Bush, the 1998 winner, said the split decision came down to which of the three finalists the jurists would most enjoy sitting down for a brewski with.
Marioni had played all the hits in the two-hour Q-and-A at the LoDo brewpub.
He compared beer to religion, leading a glass-raised prayer asking that suds "lead us not into incarceration, but deliver us from light beer."
He confessed about his first "over- beering."
"I was 15. It was Michelob. I tossed it in a movie theater."
The movie?
"Pink Panther."
He confided:
"I got married because of beer. Both of my children were conceived because of a whole lot of beer."
He quoted:
"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he'll sit around drinking beer all day."
Marioni won a cool T-shirt and a lifetime of free drinking privileges at the Wynkoop, as well as a $100 tab at his home pub, McMenamins in Mill Creek, Wash.
To do it, he turned back some heavily qualified beer drinkers.
None looked like your stereotypical beer guzzlers, but these were men who brew their own and know yeast strains and hops the way other people know directions around their towns.
None had a beer belly. All three looked like country club golf buddies.
Tom Ciccateri, 47, a 179-pound Honeywell International project manager from Kansas City, Mo., lost for the third time.
He reported this year that he had sworn off drinking and driving by building a home next door to the bar.
He promised to be an envoy for beer if the judges let him win this year. This year he brought a cheering section, the rowdy, sign-waving "Drunks for Ciccateri."
After Ciccateri's closing remarks, drinking buddy Derek Maes leapt to his feet, lifted his old black T-shirt and shook out his hairy round belly over the rim of his jeans as he danced and waved a sign, "Tom Doesn't Win We're Coming Back Next Year."
The third finalist, recording producer Richard Pedretti-Allen, a 45-year- old 191-pounder from McKinney, Texas, said his three greatest beer-drinking treasures were the years "1985, '86 and '87."
The Wynkoop brewery is the Mecca for America's beer drinkers, he said. Near the end of the contest the bar's owner, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, showed up.
Before a jury of judges in black robes and faux powdered wigs, the mayor said he had come to make sure parliamentary law was strictly enforced.
"We collected bribes," barked one of the judges.
"That's what I wanted to make sure of," answered the mayor.
Ray McCoy of Clemmons, N.C., said he didn't get much of a mandate after he walked off with the title last year. He improvised from the beginning to the end of his reign.
"I've been drinking for 365 days," he muttered.