Prime ribs: Q BBQ Fest takes over University of Colorado’s Folsom Field

Scroll to the bottom of this story to read about some of BizWest reporter Lucas High’s favorite bites of the festival.

BOULDER — Deion Sanders’ University of Colorado Buffaloes had a bye week on Saturday, Oct. 21, but Folsom Field was still fired up on that sunny, unseasonably warm afternoon.

The Boulder football stadium played host for the first time to Q BBQ Fest, a weekend-long tribute to all things smoked and sauced. Other stops on the Q BBQ Fest summer and fall tour — described by founder Brian Wahby as a “traveling carnival of carnivores” — included Denver, Dallas and Kansas City.

“We couldn’t be more excited to bring one of America’s best BBQ festivals to one of America’s best venues,” Ryan Gottlieb, senior associate athletic director for CU Boulder Athletics, said in a prepared statement. “This is a unique and special opportunity for our community to gather at Folsom Field and enjoy the great food, cold drinks and fun activities that make Q BBQ Fest one of our country’s best BBQ festivals.”

Boulder is certainly a foodie town — several local restaurants were recently featured in  Michelin Guide’s inaugural Colorado survey — but it’s not necessarily a city that’s often associated with barbecue. But perhaps that’s changing. 

“I don’t know what a barbecue town is, but I can tell that most people who like food and the process of cooking like barbecue,” Wahby told BizWest. “In my experience, people in Boulder and in Colorado love their barbecue.”

The event featured food and cooking demonstrations from area pitmasters representing Sugar Fire Smokehouse in Westminster, along with Denver’s GQue BBQ, SmŌk Barbecue, Adobo and H3sh3r BBQ Co. Participants from around the country included Not Just Q from Dallas; Arthur Bryant’s BBQ from Kansas City, Missouri; Blues Hog BBQ from Washington, Missouri and Texas Original BBQ from Seguin, Texas.

For some, such as H3sh3r pitmaster Jeff Gebott, who went to college at CU, the Boulder festival was a celebratory homecoming. “It’s pretty fun to be back,” he said. 

Others were new to smoking meat in the shadow of the Flatirons. “This is my first time cooking here,” Weber Inc. grillmaster Dustin Green said. “I love Boulder — if I wasn’t stuck in Chicago, I’d move in a second.”

While the festival was a stone’s throw from CU’s aerospace engineering classrooms, “barbecue is not rocket science,” Blues Hog LLC national sales manager Mark Bayless said. “You just have to stack the flavors up and cook it properly.”

The barbecue community shares Boulder’s independent, do-it-yourself spirit. As long as you’re having fun and the meat tastes good, there are no rules. 

“Everyone’s been taught ‘low and slow’ for their entire lives, we turned that upside down about 10 years ago,” Bayless said. Blues Hog revolutionized the barbecue-competition circuit with the invention of its drum smoker, which it now sells to professionals and weekend warriors alike. “We cook hot and fast. … It’s all about taking care of what you’re cooking, giving it a little extra tender love and care.”

The Boulder event represents not only Q BBQ Fest’s first time in Boulder, but the festival’s first time on a college campus. 

“This festival is pretty awesome — good food, cold beer, what more could you want?” CU senior Matt Sims said. 

The on-campus setting gave the Boulder festival a unique flavor as compared with the Denver event this summer, as throngs of students made the pilgrimage to the Balch Fieldhouse at Folsom Field to sample meats and listen to their classmates’ bands perform on stage. 

“With students and younger populations, it’s cool to get them started (barbecuing) now,” Wahby said. “Getting them to understand how fun outdoor cooking is really exciting. And this is Boulder; this is a city built around the outdoors.”

The success of the Boulder event could result in Q BBQ Fest expanding to campuses around the country. “I’m talking about other colleges right now,” Wahby said.

BizWest’s Bites of the Night:

Ribeye from Texas Original BBQ of Seguin, Texas

When you think of barbecue staples, ribs, brisket and pulled pork are often top of mind. The highlight of the festival was something you don’t often see on the menu at traditional smokehouses: a good, old-fashioned steak. 

Texas Original pitmasters smoked whole ribeye roasts, sliced them into steaks, seared on the grill, and then diced the meat into squares of juicy, buttery nirvana. The ribeye was with a bright and herbaceous chimichurri, pickled onions and crispy, fried garlic.

Pulled pork nachos from Blues Hog of Washington, Missouri

In recent years, pitmasters have begun to embrace fusion concepts, marrying traditional barbecue techniques with flavors from around the world.

With this dish, Blues Hog, which is Q BBQ Fest’s main barbecue sauce partner, embraces the Tex-Mex spirit as it piles its smoked pulled pork not atop a sandwich bun, but atop a pile of tortilla chips. 

“The layer is this: chips, then queso, then meat, then our raspberry chipotle sauce, then our fajita seasoning, then some green onion on top for color,” Bayless said.

The barbecue sauce is a tad sweet, but serves to brighten up the rich queso and fork-tender pork. 

Blues Hog served the nachos with a side of pineapple coleslaw. 

Short ribs from H3sh3r BBQ Co. of Denver

Fans of Korean barbecue, a staple in some neighborhoods along the Front Range, would have been very familiar with this offering from the H3sh3r team, led by CU grad Gebott. 

The short ribs were cut flanken style — with “three little individual bones as opposed to one giant bone,” Gebott said — then marinated in Asian flavors, and, finally “cooked more like a steak” on a hot Santa Maria grill rather than slow-smoked. 

The result was craveable, one- or two-bite masterpieces of beefy with the perfect amount of chew. 

H3sh3r’s short ribs were served with slightly sweet sticky rice mixed with unctuous kimchi, which cut nicely through the richness of the marinated beef.

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