Latest News – June 22

2nd Annual Leadville BBQ & Brew Festival on Fri, Sat

The 2nd Annual Leadville BBQ & Brew Festival will be held this Friday and Saturday. Photo: Leadville Today.

This Friday and Saturday, June 24 & 25, the 2nd Annual Leadville BBQ and Brew Festival will attract some of the country’s best pit masters to historic Harrison Avenue. The two-day event will feature barbeque competitions, live music, local and regional microbrews, a Kids Q cook-off and a family fun zone.

Hosted by the Leadville-Lake County Chamber of Commerce, the Leadville BBQ and Brew Festival is a Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event and a cup event for the Rocky Mountain BBQ Association. Pit masters will vie for a $10,152 prize purse.

According to organizers, there will be 36 competitors in this weekend’s BBQ extravaganza, but there was no confirmation that any local masters were putting their pits to the test. Leadville Today was able to confirm via the Leadville BBQ and Brew Fest Facebook Page that five BBQ vendors will be “competing and selling” at the fest:

• Wildwood Smokehouse & Grill
• Lost Weekend Grill
• Rocky Mountain Pit Posse
• Brooks Smokehouse BBQ & Cajun Cusine
• Here for the Beer BBQ Team

In addition to barbecue, the event celebrates beer with Colorado microbrews from the Big Choice Brewing, LLC , Eddyline Brewery, Periodic Brewing,Westminster Brewing Co, and Front Range Brewing Company.

According to the organization’s website, the festival opens this Friday, June 24 at 10 a.m. Parts of Harrison Avenue will be closed to traffic during the festival with standard detours in place for downtown through Saturday evening. The festival is also a dog-free event, no dogs allowed downtown during this event.

At 10:30 a.m. on June 24, the live music kicks off on the Climax Mine Music Stage, located at a different spot on the avenue from last time. This year, you can find your toes-a-tapping up towards Harrison and 8th Street, between Melanzana and The Mule Kick. SEE MAP.

There is Live Music planned throughout the day on Friday, wrapping up at 10 p.m. Then on Saturday, the tunes continue, kicking off again at 10:30 a.m. and highlighting Leadville’s latest house band – Lake County Rain, scheduled on the line-up at 1 p.m. The weekend will wrap up with the BBQ Awards ceremony at 4 p.m.

The Kids’ Q begins at 4 p.m. Friday. Children ages 5 to 15, accompanied by an adult, can compete by cooking a meat of their choosing on a small weber grill to be judged and scored for a chance at a trophy and cash.

It was an all-locals-on-the-dance-floor Friday night at last’s year’s Leadville BBQ and Brew Festival. This year groovers will find the music stage at the north end of historic Harrison Avenue. Photo: Leadville Today.