…Which is of course not to say the media maven and messaging manager for Secretary of State Wayne Williams was drinking an IPA when she penned an enlightening blog post the other day about the number of beer references in Gov. John Hickenlooper’s State of the State speeches over the years. But it’s probably safe to assume the guv and the onetime, longtime political reporter share an affinity for the original carbonated beverage.

In any event, Bartels informs us the term-limited Hickenlooper, who delivered his eighth and last State of the State last week as the legislature opened has in fact “mentioned beer in at least six of his eight State of the State speeches.” Whether it’s because the petroleum geologist turned beer baron turned politician can’t resist playing pitch man, or because he simply loves a cold beer – or maybe the two considerations are one and the same? – Hick has been serving up brews in speech after speech.

This year, Bartels notes, it involved the governor extolling his fellow Coloradans’ love of their state:

‘It’s the growling of tractors in Brush’s Fourth  of July parade. It’s the smell of barbecue at the little league ball fields in Sterling on a summer night. If you’ve seen a sunrise over the plains, drank a cold beer after a day of hunting, or consider “Rocktober” a real month, you’ve experienced it.’

And later in the same speech, Bartels writes:

He also talked how in ancient Greece, discussions about hot topics took place over large dinners and lasted days.  There was no ‘cable TV debate or tweet storm,’ different viewpoints emerged and people ‘invested their time in each other, often fueled by wine.’

‘Here in Colorado, we’ll stick with beer,’ he said….

Last year, it was:

‘Lincoln once said, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts”- and beer.’

Political (and beer) junkies can read Bartels’s full blog post for every meticulously catalogued beer reference throughout his years of speechifying.  Here’s the link again.

Meanwhile, permit us to fine-tune the guv’s reference to the ancient Greeks. They did by all accounts love their wine, but according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, beer was the Greeks’ backup beverage:

From Egypt, beer traveled to Greece (as evidenced by the similarity of another of the Egyptian’s word for beer, zytum and the ancient Greek for the beverage, zythos). The Greeks, however, as the Romans after them, favored strong wine over beer and considered the grainy brew an inferior drink of barbarians.

Well, OK, but maybe today’s Colorado could have sated ancient Greek and Roman tastes with one of our marvelous merlots from the West Slope’s wine country. We’ve got it all.

No wonder everyone wants to move here.