Ear to the ground:

"A goat is just a male sheep."

– Local Casanova wowing a recent date with his knowledge of farm animals.

Drunkel on dunkel

Look out California, Colorado is about to drink you under the table.

At last weekend's 2013 Great American Beer Festival, held in Denver, Colorado breweries suds-ed up, so to speak, bringing home a total of 46 medals. They were beat only by California, which won 52 medals overall.

Taking part in the glory were no fewer than three local breweries, including Ska, Steamworks and Carver Brewing Co., all of which took home the gold in their respective categories.

Going on since the dark ages (or at least when this reporter was in college when "Special Export" was considered exotic), the GABF now counts 84 categories, covering every imaginable form of fermented grain, barley and hops under the sun. Categories cover everything from the pedestrian (American Style Lager, ala Bud and Miller); to the refined (Fresh Hop and Barrel-Aged ales); to the esoteric ("Smoke beer" anyone?); to the downright bizarre (including an "Experimental" category as well as something called "Schwarzbier.") Yes, there was even a gluten-free and pumpkin category for the yoga pants and paleo crowd.

The Bodo-based Ska won a gold in the English-Style Summer Ale slot (Category 46) with its
perennial light warm-weather sipper, True Blonde Ale. Meanwhile on the European-Style Dunkel podium (Category 38) Carver's won gold for its Munich Dunkel, a dark, German lager.

Rounding out the Durango trifecta was Steamworks, which won gold for its Slam Dunkel in the German-Style Wheat Ale genre (Category 67.)

In a side note, Ska capped its busy week with an “Honorable Mention” in the Cortez Journal’s “Best of Montezuma Reader’s Choice Awards.”

“An honorable mention is very important to us. We’ve always tried to be honorable, and I guess it’s really paying off now," Ska President and Co-founder Dave Thibodeau said. "Karaoke is very important to us, too, although we didn’t realize that until last week.”

When pressed about the GABF Gold Medal, Thibodeau said, “True Blonde was the very first beer we brewed back in 1995. She’s been with us every step of the way, and it’s great to see one of our original beers win gold at the nation’s most important beer festival.”