Denver BBQ Fest
There is nothing quite like the smell of smoke, brews, and a bit of sunscreen to remind you that summertime is here.
Empower Football Field in Denver Colorado has brought together 10 Coloradoan pit masters, live bands, and a whole lot of fun to bring us the Q BBQ Fest, where these masters of cue bring us their best smoky bite as well as a side for barbecue fanatics to devour.
As someone who grew up in Texas, I know a thing or two about great barbecue, so I was more than excited to attend this wonderfully smoky event and would like to share every bite the festival had to offer as well as who made them.
Disclaimer: I know this is not Italian food, but I was incredibly thrilled with the event as a whole and would love to share it.
Woodhill Small Batch BBQ
The first stand I went up to on my BBQ adventure was given to us by Woodhill, a local barbecue food truck that has been serving up a succulent cue for 15 years.
For meats, they served up their take on a true barbecue classic, brisket, which, as a former Texan, I do know a thing or two about. The paper tray might've contained a few cubes of meat, but that was all that I needed! The brisket was juicy, fall-apart tender, had that signature barbecue bark, and was so good that I didn’t even miss the sauce.
Right next to that succulent beef was another classic, macaroni salad. I believe that macaroni salad gets a bit of a bad reputation from pre-packaged salads that taste like old mayonnaise, and this was nothing like that.
A little bit sweet, and slightly tangy, not overly loaded with mayonnaise, some carrots in there for some crunch and color, and defines what a good macaroni salad can be!
It makes me want to track down Woodhill and try to get them to come up to Glenwood Springs, where I live!
Ubon’s BBQ
With 5 decades of history under its belt, Ubon’s BBQ is a family-owned barbecue restaurant that has been bottling up their signature sauce since the 80s and is now serving up some of the best barbecue in the state.
For the festival, Ubon’s took inspiration from further East with their Mississippi-style spare ribs and bloody Mary cucumber salad.
I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly sure what makes Mississippi ribs unique from all of the other barbecue that fills up the southern US, but what I do know is that the ribs that I had at the festival were quite tasty! Fall-off-the-bone tender, good smoke flavor, and an all-around finger-licker.
As for their cucumber salad, it had a slight spice to it from the Bloody Mary mix they used as their dressing base, a subtle tomato flavor, and was a very nice cooling agent to the rich, sticky barbecue, as that’s what any barbecue side dish should be.
A Bit Twisted Brewpub and BBQ
Located in Aurora, CO, A Bit Twisted is owned by a team of two Colorado dudes and two Texas dudes to bring us Coloradoans wonderful central-Texas-style barbecue that has been recommended for Restaurant Guru and Restaurant Ji’s list as top 10 pubs and bars in Aurora for 2022!
What they brought to the Q BBQ Festival was no short of delicious, shredded pork tacos with ranch sauce, pickled onion, and cotija cheese.
This is a taco that any barbecue fanatic such as myself would go nuts for. Incredibly tender pork, that ranch sauce to provide tang to lift up the rich pork, and that salty cheese that was more-than perfect to pick up in my tortilla.
On the side, a unique smoked potato salad which, as far as side dishes go, was one of my favorite bites of the day!
That light smoke on the potatoes really does shine through to add depth of flavor that takes a classic, humble potato salad to another level entirely!
Pig Beach BBQ
This next restaurant isn’t a Colorado local, but I was certainly glad that they came down, Pig Beach BBQ. With locations in New York, Kentucky, and Florida, Pig Beach BBQ put a unique worldly twist to barbecue classics that make it very unique.
The baby back ribs that they brought to the festival will be embedded in my mind for months to come, it had a wonderful brown sugar rub and were coated in a sweet, sticky honey glaze that was like porky candy.
I can safely say that they served the best ribs I’ve ever eaten! Hands down.
On the side was a refreshing jalapeno cucumber salad which, like the Bloody Mary salad, gave me a nice cooling sensation with a touch of spice that was quite pleasant.
Blues Hog
Created by legendary pit master, Bill Arnold, Blues Hog BBQ has been putting their spin on classic barbecue since the 80s, and are renowned nationwide for their signature dry rubs and sauces.
Their sampling item might look a bit messy, but the flavor that it contained was mind-blowing, it was a delicious pulled pork slider served with their signature raspberry-chipotle barbecue sauce and a pineapple slaw on the side.
To little surprise, the pork was incredibly tender and had a nice sweetness to the exterior that was pleasant to eat, backed up by the sauce provided a nice tart, fruity note with a slightly smoky spice from the chipotle.
As for the slaw, I often think of pineapple as a bit of a gimmick in savory dishes (like putting it on pizza, for example), but I did enjoy how it added extra fruitiness to the raspberry sauce as well as a crisp, cooling effect.
Sugarfire Smokehouse
The next dish for the barbecue festival came from Sugarfire Smokehouse, a chain of barbecue restaurants that has 14 different locations throughout the US, each of which creates St. Louis-style barbecue for thousands to enjoy.
Sugarfire was one of the few restaurants that did not do a side dish, but the flavorful bite that they provided made up for the fact by the tenfold, it was a Nashville hot turkey slider.
Nashville hot fried chicken is a Tennessee staple and is something that even some of the most experienced spice lovers get chills thinking about. Fortunately, the turkey slider that Sugarfire provided had a level of heat that was perfectly manageable for this spice wimp.
The turkey was beautifully tender and juicy, the hot sauce they used had a slight kick to it, but wasn’t nearly as hot as I wanted it to be, in a good way. The pickle slice provided some nice brightness and acidity, but what took that little sandwich over the edge for me was a little piece of fried pork skin that gave some crunch and a salty kick to tie the whole slider together.
I would honestly go all the way to Missouri to Sugarfire’s original location to taste that stunning sandwich again, it was incredible.
Adobo Food Truck
Up next, we have a local food truck that is putting a Filipino spin on classic barbecue, Adobo, which received the 2023 award for top 100 restaurants in Denver and Best Food Truck in Denver by Westworld Magazine in 2019.
For the festival’s delight, Adobo brought in some wonderful carnitas tacos with golden fig jam and cilantro. For those unaware, carnitas are where you take pork shoulder and slowly braise it in fat, a technique the French call confit, to make it incredibly tender and juicy.
There is not much to say about these tasty tacos, except that the fig jam gave a bit of sweetness, tartness, and a bit of flavor to that tender pork.
Barbados Smokehouse
The next bite of the festival comes to us internationally from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados Smokehouse, which puts in island spin on classic BBQ for Caribbean natives and tourists to devour, and what they brought was outstanding.
It was a smoked flash-fried chicken topped with a garlic aioli, which doesn’t have the same crackly, crispy shell that you would expect from southern fried chicken, but what it did have was a nice smokey flavor encasing juicy chicken and that creamy aioli to make it that much better!
Their side dish was simple but was quite refreshing and tasty, it was a slice of watermelon dusted with their signature sweet-heat JDQ spice rub which brought a level of sweetness and spice to that slice of melon.
So I guess if I ever find myself in the Trinidadian islands, I’ll know a great barbecue place to stop by.
GQue BBQ
Up next is another local barbecue joint that was featured in several food/cooking shows for their unique spin on classic cue, GQue. GQue is owned by smoke lover, Jason Ganahl, who honed his craft on St. Louis BBQ before taking that passion to the Mile High City.
On the menu was a dish that was worth revisiting again and again, even after my stomach was begging me to stop, smoked and fried chicken wings.
I did not even expect to see wings before going into the event, yet there they were, and I loved every bite of it! The skin of the wings was incredibly crispy, had a nice spice from GQue’s rub, and had a subtle smoky flavor that took them over the top. The wings were also so tender and juicy that they didn’t even need sauce or ranch, they were that good.
Right next to those succulent wings was a little cup filled with some wonderfully charred corn topped with queso fresco. It was simple, yet it had a lovely char flavor on top of the sweet corn and that nice salty cheese to round it all out!
Both dishes were some of my favorites of the day!
Pappy’s Smokehouse
Sitting right next to GQue was the St. Louis-recognized Pappy’s Smokehouse. Since 2008, Pappy’s has been taking the Missouri city by storm, and their love of BBQ festivals led them to travel across Kansas and stop by Denver for the event.
On their menu, two BBQ staples, baby back ribs and baked beans.
After the incredible ribs from Pig Beach, my expectations for these Memphis-style ribs were quite high, but I am glad to report that I was not disappointed. Pappy’s ribs had an excellent salty-sweet rub on top of juicy, fall-apart meat that was also very good.
As for the baked beans, you really can’t go wrong with baked beans for barbecue, and their beans hit all of the right notes. Sweet, spicy, smoky, and the beans were perfectly tender.
It’s the definition of classic barbecue done right.
Black’s BBQ
The second-to-last bite comes to us from central Texas to give us all of the smoky, meaty goodness that Texas barbecue has to offer, Black’s BBQ. With a 90-year legacy under their belts, Black’s BBQ spans across 4 cities across central Texas and makes it their passion to give the classic cue the respect it deserves.
On their menu, two more barbecue classics are done in all the right ways, Texas-style brisket and homemade sausage paired with their classic barbecue sauce.
What you have to understand is that a lot of Texas barbecue revolves around simple flavors and seasonings to allow the meat itself to shine as much as possible, and Black’s food did just that. The brisket was tender like a dream, the sausage was full of flavor and spice, and their sauce was a nice way to enhance the meat.
It was all of the classic flavors that I enjoyed while I was living in Austin.
Smok Barbecue
Last but certainly not least, we have a bite from another local Denver restaurant that puts a unique spin on the barbecue that we all love, Smok Barbecue.
Owned by Austin-raised chef, Bill Espiricueta, a chef who worked in fine dining in Dallas before moving to Colorado and opening up his own barbecue joint in 2018, Smok is relatively new to the barbecue world but is certainly welcomed.
For the final bite of the day (for myself, at least), Smok brought us some smoked pork belly burnt ends finished with an Asian-style glaze. I have a bit of an obsession with pork belly, so there was no way I wasn’t going to love this Asian pork belly. The pork was very tender, the glaze had a nice sweetness to it, and it was the perfect way to finish this perfect day.
The only thing I did not get to taste was the banana pudding that Smok offered as they were out of stock by the time I got there. Oh well, I guess that’s life sometimes.
The Q BBQ Festival in Denver was an incredible experience that I will be certain to check out next year, and is something that any BBQ fanatic would love.
