Popination Salutation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: IC Brewhouse.

This is a pretty choppily written essay, dear readers, and I’m keeping it that way, for the simple (and very apropos) reason that I wrote it from scratch whilst sitting at the bustling bar, being warmly and companionably interrupted by my bar mates there. From word one to one thousand two hundred and sixty eight. So this piece of writing sounds like that situation, and I think you’ll find that it’s correct. I have recycled and updated a couple clips from the last time I wrote about this place, too. Enjoy!

So I’m breaking a self-set Popinations rule today: initially, I made a set of rules surrounding this series. Actually, it’s only 3 rules:

1. no research

2. Only pics I take myself (no press thingies or marketing pics or the like)

3. No pubs I’ve already covered in the original Popinations posts: 1 & 2

But! I’m making an exception to Rule 3 for this beloved place of popination today, both because it’s such an important center of cultural and community life for me, and also because, this past Saturday was its third birthday! So here we go: my tangential rundown of I.C. Brewhouse. (Long may it reign)…

Welcome to the Inner Circle

It’s not just anyone that can be a member of the Inner Circle. First of all, it’s not necessary but implied that you need to live in one of the aligned residences. Or, at least, in the case of ‘my’ branch of IC (the Centennial one), live close enough that you can amble over on foot anytime. This is what makes it a real Third Place. And if this is true for you, you can become a regular (what IC Friend Mark calls the Cheers factor) and therefore one of the Inner Circle.

A welcoming placard in the midst of office park-y urbanish suburbia. My apartment is literally across the street just to the right.

I’ve not been coming here for very long (I spent a good amount of my time at slightly less nearby Slattery’s for literati time before I began frequenting here), but I have been a regular at IC for long enough now that I’ve been finding friends here, real third-place friends—the kind I don’t really know or see outside the pub. This is the mark of a real third place: you go there unscheduled, by foot, and you don’t know exactly who’ll be there but you know you’ll find companionship. It’s also a diverse population: some of these people you call friends at a third place you wouldn’t necessarily ever even meet, let alone make friends with in any other scenario. It’s only a well functioning third place that can do this.

These guys. I, like, only yesterday finally remembered each of these people’s names, as often as I see them and hang out at IC’s bar with them. That archway picture from the patio below, that says ‘Good people, great times’? That’s them. This is only some of them. There are a few more. 

Me & IC

I’ve written about IC before, but the rundown is basically the following: I.C. Brewhouse is literally across the street from my current residence, literally 150 medium sized steps away from my door. I started coming here when I learned I could get good whiskey (I’ll talk about this in a minute) and not have to drink the tap selections they offer. Nothing wrong with these beers, they’re a series of quite popular local brews of a few different types. They’re just not my style or palate, for the most part. I come here often, mainly because I write a *lot* a lot and need to get out of the house and have a mellowly bustling environment to be able to do so well. This comes from my history with literati time, in that I always used to bring journals, homework, and projects with me to coffee shops and pubs throughout my writing life, from high school through all higher ed including grad school, and of course into today (actually literally today). It’s a scene that helps the process, and I find it helps the personal essay process in particular to flow best. 

This is the first of two IC Brewhouses, which aren’t brewhouses at all, as they don’t brew on premises. I’d call them taphouses, but that’s my own obsession with language, especially pub language. Each IC was built to align with an attached apartment complex, though my home one in Centennial isn’t owned by them anymore. The idea is that I.C. = Inner Circle, like: you’re one of the special ones that live here and so you come to this bar. I don’t technically live in the adjacent apartments, but across the street is close enough and my partner and I (and often, his kids) come here for their birria tacos and their chicken-and-pancakes and their onion chips and Fireside whiskey and their Wine Down Wednesdays (just the adults do the latter two, natch).

Speaking of:

Happy birthday!

On the 3rd birthday of my 3rd place, I found myself chatting with the Fireside guy. 

You remember Fireside: it’s the beautiful bourbon I talked about in the original Popinations post where I mentioned IC—I found Fireside’s delicious spirits through Mile High Distillery (where Fireside is made) and was delighted to find it here at my third place. I wanted to pop over on IC’s birthday party day and see what was happening, so I came by and found one of the only empty seats at the bar, right next to Adam, the Fireside Guy.

Yum. 

He proceeded to tipsily tout the wonderful aspects of their very aged, 100-proof, version of the easy-drinking bourbon I love and often imbibe as I write, a much older and stronger version I’d not tasted before. It was remarkably sippable. I liked hearing his pitch, and have long loved the spirit, and the place was pretty mellow for all its full bar, and it was a nice vibe, and most of the regulars were here (am I Norm, or Cliff? I’ve been wondering) and I felt fine, fine.

This is an interesting echo to an earlier post. Taken by Harry Feathers, the stage name of the partner of my friend and fellow Blue Dime Piece, Bella Fire. He’s a talented filmmaker and you can see that in this image.

I fell into a burning ring of fire

The last time I saw a solar eclipse in my neck of the woods was in 2018, and I actually wrote about it, in a very similar personal essay that took place in a different brewhouse. Which is kind of amazing. Why? I dunno. Maybe it’s because when weird astronomical things happen, it affects us wee humans, and we have to think about it and process it with words. Maybe it’s because it’s so dangerous and we can only look at it through shadows, making us understand how small we really are in this strange world. Maybe it’s because this whole week up until the end of the month this year has been and will be filled with all kinds of spooky cosmic nonsense like Friday the 13th, a full blood moon, and this ring-of-fire eclipse from today. Stuff that makes us humans a little bit lunatic. Plus, Halloween. The thinning of the veil. Things we humans are always trying to write about.

Actually, I should do a whole thing on Halloween closer to that actual day. But all of these Musings are aligned, even to the 3rd birthday of my 3rd place, beyond the fact that 3 is my lucky number. I’ll stop rambling and process all this in a future post. Maybe I can find a connected vocab word for Friday. But.

Anyway. More later. For now? Happy birthday to the Inner Circle! 

Cheers.