First Look: Kline's Beer Hall Serves Beers and Bratwurst in Olde Town Arvada

Kline's Beer Hall, the latest project from bar pros Lenka Juchelkova and Mike Huggins, opened last Thursday night in Olde Town Arvada. This is the second bar in the neighborhood from the team, which also runs the Arvada Tavern just a block away. While the Arvada Tavern specializes in cocktails, Kline's main draw is the beer bar, which features 48 tap handles of American, German, Czech and Belgian brews. The spacious hall is named after Adrian Kline, the original owner of the Arvada Tavern, which was awarded Arvada's first liquor license (for 3.2 percent beer only) in 1933.

Things have changed a little over the decades, but Kline's — which was once a Ford dealership and was most recently a pizza joint and beloved live music/pizza joint called the D Note — feels like a throwback to a quieter time. Exposed brick and ceiling rafters, along with rough-hewn community tables and wood floors, add rustic charm, aided by large garage doors that appear to be original but were actually added by contractors during the renovation. More modern is the steel-clad keg fridge that feeds a 48-tap beer tower behind the bar, stocked with a wide range of craft and premium brews from Europe and the U.S., including a fair share of Colorado-made suds.

Bar manager Andrew Dahler explains that the beer menu is divided into several distinct sections to give guests the opportunity to try a rotating selection curated by general manager Ryan Lapp. There's the "Standards" section, which will highlight better examples of certain styles on a six-month rotation. The "Featured Friends" section will keep the same group of breweries but will rotate among those brewers' regular and seasonal offerings. "Second Fermentation" beers will include sour ales and other styles that undergo secondary fermentation. And the "Rotation" list will offer sixteen rarer beers shuffled on a one-in, one-out basis.

"It's all about knowledge here," Dahler notes, adding that employees are required to earn level-one cicerone certification to better answer customers' beer-related questions. Sampling is also encouraged to allow guests to find beers to their liking. But for those not interested in lagers and ales, Kline's also stocks three ciders, wine from Infinite Monkey Theorem, W.L. Weller single-barrel bourbon, and sodas from Colorado's own Zuberfizz.
In the kitchen, chef Timothy Hefty (who's also executive chef over at the Arvada Tavern) is focusing on housemade sausage, rotisserie chicken and all things pickled and preserved. Hefty grew up on a communal farm in northern Michigan, where preserving wasn't just a hobby, but rather a means to get through harsh Great Lakes winters. He studied fermentation and charcuterie there and has brought his skills to Kline's with sausage, sauerkraut, mustards and other time-intensive preparations.

The first half of the menu is filled with six sausages, three of which are made in-house, with the rest coming from Continental Sausage Company. Hefty's creations include a buffalo chicken banger, a traditional bratwurst and a Southern-style boudin. For the first, chicken thigh meat and buffalo sauce are stuffed in casings and rested for two to three days before being beer-poached and finished on the grill. 

Pretzels, rolls and biscuits are all made in-house by a dedicated baker, and soups, latkes and bar bites round out the menu. Rotisserie chickens come in Cajun or garlic-rosemary versions, with more options planned down the line.

Co-owner Juchelkova hails from the Czech Republic, so the beer hall, latkes and a handful of Czech beers are a tribute to her home country. She and Huggins also run pre-Prohibition cocktail bar Union Lodge No. 1 in downtown Denver. Kline's Beer Hall is open daily from 3 to 11 p.m. Keep reading for more photos.