The Evolution of Après

The Long, Glorious, Slightly Scandalous History of Après-Ski

Quaffing a frosty beer at the end of the ski day is one of skiing’s oldest and most sacred traditions. While the number of runs required to merit a drink may vary by the person (our count is exactly one), the ritual has remained the same for hundreds of years. So pull up a barstool and pour yourself a pint as we delve into the weird and wild history of après. 

Après, evidenced by the French name for “after,” obviously started with the Europeans. At the turn of the 20th century, skiing was just becoming a thing for wealthy European tourists in the Alps. After a day navigating steep terrain in wool knickers and leather boots, these early skiers did what came naturally: gathered around hearths in taverns, drank something alcoholic, and told stories about their runs that became increasingly embellished with each round.

Sabering is fun because it doesn't always work out. Photo by Melissa Plantz

Austria’s Tyrolean villages embraced this idea and ran with it, bringing to their stone-walled taverns lively folk music, shots of schnapps, and dancing that may have started dignified and ended decidedly otherwise. (Pop in for a beer at the Krazy Kangaruh in St. Anton today and you’ll see that not much has changed.)

Then came skiing’s first golden age, from the 1920s to the 1950s, and après-ski meant fur-trimmed everything, cocktails, and multi-course dinners. European resorts like St. Moritz, Chamonix, and Davos and American hotspots like Sun Valley and Aspen became playgrounds for aristocrats, film stars, and socialites, whose effortless elegance you can still see in black-and-white photos hanging on their walls today.

Then came the postwar boom, and skiing became more accessible to the middle class. Better roads, chairlifts, and package holidays brought millions of new people to the mountains, and with them came a new kind of après energy—looser, louder, and considerably less interested in wearing a dinner jacket.

By the 1960s and ’70s, a new archetype had emerged: the ski bum. Young, seasonally employed, chronically stoked, and utterly committed to the mountain life, ski bums mixed freely with jet-setters, and the après scene absorbed them both. The result was something more democratic and more fun—outdoor decks where you could dance in your ski boots every day of the week.

Photo by Melissa Plantz

While Europe leaned into folk tradition and outdoor spectacle, American resorts went wide-open Western. Iconic resorts like Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, Squaw Valley, and Jackson Hole each built a scene around live music, craft beer, hot tubs, and a particularly American brand of casual confidence. Modern après-ski encompasses pretty much all of the above, with options from a massive DJ dance party to a glass of Burgundy by a fireplace to mountain spa treatments that cost more than your lift ticket. The through line across all of it, of course, is that you skied, it was cold and beautiful, and now you’re warming up among people who get it.

Here are our picks for the most legendary après parties in the world:

Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro

Aspen Highlands 

The top-selling champagne account in the U.S., Cloud Nine is packed every afternoon with ageless skiers in Bogner onesies spraying hundreds of bottles of Veuve Clicquot into the crowd. Skiers get so drunk that the ski patrol had to start running a mandatory snowcat.

Krazy Kanguruh and MooserWirt

St. Anton, Austria

St. Anton is the hotbed of après—known as one of the planet’s best party scenes. Even if dancing on tables in ski boots and doing shots until 2 a.m. isn’t your thing, it’s worth checking out the scene just once in your life.

La Folie Douce

Val Thorens, France

The phrase “la folie douce” means “gentle madness” in French, and it has come to be synonymous with wild après parties there. But the original La Folie Douce is the name of an iconic spot for open-air clubbing in Val Thorens with live music and DJs that bring out the who’s who.

Mangy Moose

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

A purely Western take on après, the Moose is renowned for its rustic atmosphere, complete with a moose head on the wall, of course. Expect a pretty chill vibe until the band starts, at which point it becomes a madhouse worthy of this list.

Ischgl, Austria

Widely considered the “Après-Ski Capital” of the Austrian Alps, Ishgl goes off every afternoon at on-hill venues like Kuhstall, Trofana Alm, and the Schatzi Bar before migrating into the town center.

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Article by Kimberly Beekman 

Kimberly Beekman is the former editor-in-chief of the late, great Skiing Magazine (RIP), and a longtime editor of SKI Magazine before that. She currently uses the title of “freelancer” as a beard to ski powder all over the world. She lives in Steamboat, Colorado, with her wonderful daughter and terrible cat.