“WE NEED A STORY on the Denver Beer Trail. Please, will you go and drink beer for a weekend?”, asked the editor. Miracles do happen! After putting up a token fight to make it look like a really tough assignment, I agreed, trying as hard as possible to keep the large smirk from my face. But just how many breweries can someone visit in a short weekend, and remain sober enough to write about it afterwards? I was about to find out.
As well as being home to brewing giant Coors (you can visit the brewery in Golden, about 30 minutes outside Denver), Colorado has become an incubator for craft beer. Today, there is apparently a total of more than 100 craft breweries in the Denver area. I say ‘today’ and ‘apparently’ because the number is growing so fast that not even the Denver tourism staff can keep tabs.
What is certain is that Colorado in general and Denver in particular have become the craft brew capital of the USA, offering every imaginable kind of beer: dark, light, strong, weak, hoppy, bitter…. whatever your preference, you can find it here.
More than 25 of these craft breweries can be visited on the Denver Beer Trail, so I set out with a dedicated beer-drinking friend to investigate. Our first stop is Ratio Beerworks in Denver’s River North area, just north of downtown. It was a great day for sitting on the patio and sampling small pours of various brews. In the process, we discovered that the brewmasters are such perfectionists that they’ve been known to throw away a whole batch of beer that was not up to their standards! Admirable quality control, but it seemed an awful waste to me. In fact, I remember my father – with uncharacteristic wisdom – telling me many, many years ago that there is no such thing as bad beer; some beers are just better than others.
In the same Denver area, also known as RiNo, are Epic, a modern brewery, and Beryl’s, with a small and intimate serving area. If you’re there in the evening, you can further enjoy the area by visiting Nocturne, a lively restaurant and jazz bar.
From there, we headed downtown to bustling Rock Bottom, a large restaurant and brew house on the centrally-located 16th Street Pedestrian Mall. It offers a large selection of beers plus an outside patio that’s ideal for people-watching.
At our next stop nearby at Jagged Mountain we discovered friendly and helpful service with $2 tastes of very varied styles of beer. Interestingly, the weakest beer was under 4% alcohol, and the strongest over 18%! I focused on the bottom end of the scale and found Oktoberfest and the very dark and surprisingly-flavoursome Wolfpack to be my favourites.
A quick stop by the Great Divide, a small and intimate neighbourhood bar-cum-brewery, and then we, quite literally, stumbled upon the Mile High Spirits Distillery, which distils its own gin, rum and vodka in one of the world’s few glass stills in regular use. Just to prove that our drinking skills were not limited to beer, we sampled a tipple…or two…or three. Mile High also distils its own whiskies, some flavoured, and serves all manner of cocktails. In fact, Hutch, the charismatic bar tender and mixologist, not only gave us a warm welcome but promised a free special drink to any Essentially America reader who drops by. Late in the evening this place turns into a rocking nightclub with queues around the block, but this ageing hack was in bed much earlier so unable to report personally on such frivolity.
After all the boozing, it was time for a short cultural break, and that meant the large and renowned Tattered Cover Book Store, founded in 1971, displaying a massive array of books and hosting an average of 400 authors and speakers a year.
Just across the street, the old Union Station, renovated and reopened for its 100th anniversary in 2014 and now linked to the airport by rail, is on a lively plaza enhanced by the Crawford Hotel and numerous small, one-off restaurants, cafes and shops.
It’s hopping at Denver Beer Co
Our final brewery stop – the Denver Beer Co, just a short walk from downtown – proved to be the highlight of our tour. Although it was very busy, it featured a wide variety of craft beers, which were explained in detail by manager Ben and his welcoming and attentive staff. Plus, the serving tray came with the name of the beer, something we didn’t find anywhere else. There’s no restaurant but at lunch and dinner times there’s a wide selection of delicious cuisine from the food trucks outside
We discovered a great place to recuperate the morning after our dedicated beer tour – Sam’s #3 Diner, an old-fashioned establishment, serves HUGE portions of home-made comfort food. There is normally a wait for a table, but we found the queuing process fast and efficient, the service quick and friendly, and the food excellent. Just make sure you arrive hungry!
