Last spring I got to interview Denver’s poet laureate, Chris Ransick. Having never met a poet laureate, I thought he would be a person who wore nice pants and sat in front of fireplaces.

But when he suggested we meet for Cajun food and the we each ordered lunch beers, I knew we were more alike than I’d thought. When he told me his passion for home brewing, I knew that journalists and poet laureates get along just fine.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, Ransick started a brilliant collaboration between beer and poetry called Liquid Poetry.

This year’s event is Saturday at 7 p.m. at Wynkoop Brewing Company (1634 18th St.) in the Mercantile Room, and it features readings by Ransick and other Colorado poets.

Liquid Poetry also debuts a new beer from Wynkoop, an Irish Red that Ransick helped brew. It’s free to attend, and for $5 you can try the Irish Red, served in a special pint glass (that you get to keep), which features a beer poem from Ransick titled “Red Blessing.”

Here are the first five lines of the poem:

may you find now your lost hilarity

in the molecules of amber balm

gripped in your fist, a red flood of

true food for the husk of a soul you

misplaced but must ever recover

True liquid poetry. Wynkoop will be serving the Irish Red ale through the month of April to celebrate Denver Poetry Month.