Subject: Beverages

• Local barista champ Greg Lefcourt is pulling for a win at the US Barista Competition

  Caffeine fiends one and all should bow down to barista Greg Lefcourt. Longtime coffee jock and manager at OZO Coffee at 5340 Arapahoe Ave in Boulder, Lefcourt took home the gold at the Mountain Regional Barista Competition on January 18 in Thornton, leaving in his coffee dust barista competitors from distant locales like Montana, Utah and Idaho. That earned 29-year-old Lefcourt, profiled in a Westword story about the 2008 Mountain Regional Barista Competition, a top seat in the US Barista Comp

  January 27, 2009

• Microbrewing history gets its own photo book

  Way back - way, way back -- before there was a microbrewery in every city, before the terms IPA and ESB entered the common lingo, before big, bold craft beers muscled their way onto liquor store shelves (before color photography, even), the pioneers of the microbrewery industry got their shaggy-looking selves together in Boulder for a home-brewing conference. The year was 1981, and the conference had been organized by Charlie Papazian, one of the patriarchs of craft brewing and the founder of i

  February 10, 2009

• Common Grounds loses ground

  There's a sign in the window of the Common Grounds at 1601 17th Street, and it's not good news. The landlord has put this prime piece of real estate up for lease, and that means LoDo could lose a great local coffeehouse (and a barista who was once on Survivor). There's a latte to love about this place.Common Grounds is reportedly looking for a new LoDo home. And, of course, the original is firmly ensonced at 3484 West 32nd Avenue.

  February 13, 2009

• Beerdrinker of the Year: A judge's tale

  For more photos from the contest, go to www.westword.com\slideshow It's good to be the judge, and I should know since I spent Saturday afternoon dressed in a black robe and a wig, drinking beer and making history -- beer-drinking history. The event was the thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, and I'd been asked by Colorado beer writer and PR man Marty Jones to be one of seven people choosing would become the next Beerdrinker of the Year. A stout t

  February 23, 2009

• New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat gets canned

  New Belgium Brewing, which began canning its signature Fat Tire amber ale last summer, will release a second aluminum-clad brew, Sunshine Wheat, in April or May. The move gives more credence to the growing popularity of canned craft beers - a trend that began in 2002 when the Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons unveiled Dale's Pale Ale. Fort Collins-based New Belgium has been running a poll on its website asking fans which one of its beers they'd like to see in a can. Although the results were skewed

  March 4, 2009

• The Wynkoop's canny new strategy

  The Wynkoop Brewing Co. was the first modern-era brewpub to open its doors in Denver, and this summer, it plans to become the first city brewery to sell its beer in cans. "We're pushing for June," says new Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown, who got the project off the ground by persuading the owners of the Wynkoop's holding company that they needed to diversify. "The way I talked them into it was because I used to work for Oskar Blues, and I took them up there and showed them how much success they

  March 12, 2009

• Wine and cheese...and green chile?

  Danielle Cyrot, chief winemaker for St. Clement Winery in the Napa Valley, will host a wine-tasting at Strings, 1700 Humboldt Street tonight at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30, and a portion benefits the Women's Bean Project; for reservations, go to www.stringsrestaurant.com. From 7 to 8:30 p.m. on March 19, the wines will be kosher at a wine-tasting at the new Kitchen Table Cooking School, in the Landmark project in Greenwood Village; for more info, call 303-220-9769 or go to www.kitchentablegv.com.

  March 19, 2009

• Wine on First Friday

  Verso Cellars, a Colorado winery, will start selling its wine (by the glass, bottle or case) at Metropolis Coffee, 300 West 11th Avenue, starting today during the First Friday Art Walk, which runs from noon to 8 p.m. For more info, go to www.versocellars.com. At Golden's First Friday, Spirits in the Wind Gallery, 1211 Washington Avenue, will host a free wine-tasting featuring wine from the Turquoise Mesa Winery; for information, call 303-279-1192 or go to www.spiritsinthewindgallery.com.

  April 3, 2009

• Colorado Bartenders Guild hosts first cocktail competition

  For Colorado bartenders, taxes aren't the only thing due on April 15. That's also the deadline for submitting recipes to the first cocktail competition of the year organized by the Colorado Bartenders Guild (COBG). And I'll be helping to judge the results at 6 p.m. April 26 at Trios Enoteca, along with Bryan Dayton, Mike Henderson and Robert Leavey (thanks to Sean Kenyon of Steuben's for getting me in on the action). I'm in awe of great bartenders, who make mixing drinks an art, not just a job.

  April 6, 2009

• Hit the Sandlot on Opening Day

  Baseball season is on tap, and so is the seasonal reappearance of Denver's oddest brewpub, Blue Moon Brewing Co. @ the Sandlot, inside Coors Field. Why is it odd? Although the brewery itself - owned by a division of Coors -- cranks out Blue Moon and some of the other Coors-made Moons year-round (in addition to specialty beers like Barmen Pilsner and Second Hand Smoke, a smoked Rauchbier), the restaurant and bar are only open on game days April through September -- and into October, if the Color

  April 8, 2009

• Common Grounds left its liquor license behind in move

  Common Grounds, the popular LoDo coffeehouse that's a sibling of the original in northwest Denver, barely missed a beat when it moved last week from 1601 17th Street across the street to 1550 17th, in the old Sugarbeat Café space (the entrance is on Wazee Street). But somewhere along the way, Common Grounds lost its liquor license, so the coffeehouse will have a city hearing on Thursday, April 16, to see if it can serve wine and beer at this new spot.

  April 14, 2009

• Beer and Cheer

  January 22, 2009

• Buzz Off

  January 15, 2009

• Andrew Schutt takes his heavenly menu to new heights

  April 23, 2009

• Colorado's highest-altitude brewery closes

  www.rosiesbrewpub.comRosemary and Gary YonocskoColorado's highest-altitude brewery, Rosie's Brewpub in Leadville, has served its last pint as of May 30, according to its website. "Unfortunately with the economy, we here at Rosie's Brewpub must close our doors. This past winter has impacted us in the worst way possible. Thanks to the many that did patronize our brewpub," reads the post. A phone message advises creditors and collection agencies to call Rosie's attorney in Aurora.

  June 1, 2009

• Great Divide introduces three new beers -- and a patio

  I hate windows during the summer. I hate them because when I'm at work, I can see the sky and the sun and the birds and all the people who aren't at work strolling merrily by. Thankfully, I don't work near Coors Field anymore, because the smell of food and the thought of baseball and the promise of cold strong beer would make it almost impossible for me to do my job. Still, I'm angry at Great Divide Brewing Company, which not only makes some of the best beer in this state, but has now added a

  April 16, 2009

• New Belgium Rolls Out Sunshine Wheat in a Can

  As we reported in March, New Belgium Brewing has rolled out its second canned beer - Sunshine Wheat -- in Colorado only (the trucks hit the road on Friday on their way to liquor stores). But if sales are strong - as they were when the Fort Collins brewery introduced Fat Tire in a can last summer, then New Belgium could distribute Sunshine Wheat in more states as well. "People have been asking for a more portable Sunshine Wheat for a while," New Belgium spokesman Bryan Simpson said in an e-mail

  April 28, 2009

• An American Revolution

  May 7, 2009

• Wine dinners tonight at Frasca, Osteria Marco

  Tonight at Frasca, 1738 Pearl Street in Boulder, winemaker Etienne Hugel will present the wines of Hugel & Fils at a Monday Night Wine Dinner devoted to the flavors of Alsace. Dinner is $45 per person, with optional wine pairings extra; for reservations, call 303-442-6966. Osteria Marco, 1453 Larimer Street, will hold its monthly wine dinner tonight; four courses run $50 per person and include wine. For more info, call 303-534-5855.

  May 18, 2009

• Party down with Bob Schaffer's margarita

  Did you miss this weekend's Cinco de Mayo festivities in Civic Center Park? You can still get a taste of them by picking up a bottle of Coyote Gold Premium Margarita -- the margarita that former U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's wife, Maureen, is marketing along with her Fort Collins business partner, Randy Zwetzig, as "the microbrew of margaritas." Even Bob has been pouring it on -- and out -- to tout the product that's bottled in Michigan (at least it's not the Marianas Islands, where the

  May 11, 2009

• Colorado beer drinkers have a crush on cans

  It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that even the United States Congress felt should be set aside for one purpose and one purpose only: drinking micro brews. (To find out about tappings, food pairings and other events, click here or here.) But Colorado's beer culture is worth a deeper look since 100 craft breweries operated here in 2008, producing 75,000 barrels of delicious beer. Of particular note is the continued growth of canned micro brews, a trend that started in 2002 at Oscar Blu

  May 11, 2009

• A Crush on Cans: Ska Brewing

  It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that even the United States Congress felt should be set aside for drinking micro brews. But Colorado's beer culture is worth a deeper look, since 100 craft breweries operated here in 2008, producing 75,000 barrels of delicious beer. Of particular interest is the continued growth of canned micro brews, a trend that started in 2002 at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons and continues with at least seven other breweries that now can their beers and two that are

  May 12, 2009

• A Crush on Cans: Wynkoop vs. Breckenridge

  It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that even the United States Congress felt should be set aside for drinking micro brews. But Colorado's beer culture is worth a deeper look, since 100 craft breweries operated here in 2008, producing 75,000 barrels of delicious beer. Of particular interest is the continued growth of canned micro brews, a trend that started in 2002 at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons and continues with at least seven other breweries that now can their beers and two that are

  May 13, 2009

• A Crush on Cans: Steamworks, Upslope and more

  It's American Craft Beer Week - seven days that even the United States Congress felt should be set aside for drinking micro brews. But Colorado's beer culture is worth a deeper look, since 100 craft breweries operated here in 2008, producing 75,000 barrels of delicious beer. Of particular interest is the continued growth of canned micro brews, a trend that started in 2002 at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons and continues with at least seven other breweries that now can their beers and two that are

  May 15, 2009

• Rhubarb Martini at Olivea

  May 21, 2009

• Jax puts its fin into the wine game

  Jax Fish House, which is part of the Big Red F Restaurant Group, has introduced its own wine -- with the help of vintner Sineann, a small winemaker in Yamhill County, Oregon, run by Peter Rosback. That's after Big Red F head honcho Dave Query traveled up and down the West Coast looking something good enough to put Jax's name on. "Sineann produces some of the best pinot noir in the U.S.," explains Jax Denver GM Adam Reed. "Peter'swines are gems from the northwest and they display the Burgundian v

  May 21, 2009

• May showers bring Belgian beer flowers

  Spring is the saison for Belgian-style ales, in particular because the lighter, citrusy sweet flavors - which accompany many Belgian beer types -- go so well served cold after a warm, flower-fragranced day. A couple of Colorado breweries have just released their seasonal Belgians, while a couple more are on their way.

  May 28, 2009

• More news for what ales you

  Yesterday, we told you about a host of Belgian beer releases in Colorado, but the brew news just won't quit... Tonight, Boulder's newest brewery, Upslope Brewing Company, will hold a grand opening for its tap room, at 1501 Lee Hill Road in Boulder. Upslope, which cans its beers, will have $2 pint specials, $2 brats and live music from 4 to 8 p.m. The tap room's regular hours will be 4 to 8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday. Also tonight, Denver's Great Divide Brewing Company will release two ne

  May 29, 2009

• Great Divide celebrates its fifteenth anniversary

  www.greatdivide.comWhen Brian Dunn organized his business plan back in 1993, he was worried about being late to the game. A half dozen other microbreweries had already started here, selling small batches of craft brew to the hops- and malt-loving denizens of downtown Denver. But it turned out Dunn was right on time. While a number of these early breweries have come and gone, Dunn's Great Divide Brewing Company will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary on Saturday, June 6, in the same building --

  June 5, 2009

• Falling Rock Taphouse makes it a dozen

  Falling Rock Taphouse, Westword's Best Beer List winner three years in a row, celebrates its twelfth anniversary tonight with a party starting at 6 p.m. Enjoy free barbeque while it lasts, and try a couple pints of beer from Elysian Brewing, a Seattle-area brewery that is entering the Colorado market for the first time. Some of the Elysian beers available: Avatar Jasmine IPA, Loser Pale Ale (Sub Pop), Brew 2000-Imperial Avatar and The Immortal India Pale Ale. Falling Rock is located at 1919 Bl

  June 9, 2009

• Tequila twins take on California

  Twins Will and Dave Elger, who were born in Mexico but are very much Denverites, worked in the tequila business for a decade before creating their own five years ago: Muchote Tequila. Nancy Levine first caught up with it last September at Lime XS, where she discovered it made a good mango margarita. "Muchote is an artisan tequila, and making tequila is an art," says Will. But the bottle should not be part of that art, as it is with so-called super-premium tequilas that retail for $70 to $80,

  June 10, 2009

• Rosie's passes the high-altitude torch to Breckenridge Brewery

  I saw this bumper sticker affixed to a light pole outside a brewery in a little mountain town last week, but the brewery wasn't Rosie's Brewpub and the town wasn't Leadville. Instead, someone had decided to celebrate Rosie's, which closed May 30, just a few feet from the front door of Amicas in Salida. An unusual pairing of Neapolitan pizza joint and brewpub, Amicas was slammed with tourists, locals, river enthusiasts and motorcyclists all enjoying a few hours, a day or a week off, and a fun p

  July 8, 2009

• Tonight: Twenty bucks, twenty wines at the Table Mountain Inn

  Bottle up your favorite oenophiles today and head to the Table Mountain Inn in Golden (1321 Washington Avenue) for a "Wined Up Your World" wine-tasting event, where twenty wines -- reds, whites, blends and imports -- will be paired with the restaurant's Southwestern-focused foodstuffs. If you simply can't wait to find out what's being uncorked, here's an advance screening: Cellar No 8 cabernet sauvignon; Chateau St. Jean Sonoma merlot; Meridian merlot; Cellar No 8 zinfandel; Beringer FE zinfa

  July 16, 2009

• Candy Girls: Crackheads

  Liz KellermeyerWe must be looking a little tired around the office, because a co-worker recently bestowed this candy upon us. Hey, we don't look gift horses in the mouth, we just put them in our mouths. The gifts, that is. The candy.  Maybe we need a couple more of these...

  July 16, 2009

• Taste of the Nation mixologists shake, stir and pour for a good cause

  Lori MidsonHoney smoked peach cocktail from TAG's Jared Boller At last night's Taste of the Nation event at Mile High Station, nine Colorado mixologists muddled, shook, stirred, poured, begged, stole and offered bribes to the throngs of charitable party-goers who voted with dollar bills and tokens to determine which mixologist had whipped up the top cocktail. The contenders -- Amanda Olig (Vesta Dipping Grill); Bryan Dayton (Frasca Food & Wine); Anika Zappe (Root Down); Randy Layman (Avenue G

  July 20, 2009

• This weekend: Raise a pint to the Greater Boulder Beer Festival

  ​ It's not quite on the same tap as the Great American Beer Festival, which flows down on Denver on September 24 at the Colorado Convention Center, but the toddler-aged Greater Boulder Beer Festival, which turns two this year, isn't exactly a slacker when it comes to suds. Sure, it's small in stature, and true, you can't sample eight billion beers, but when the festival comes down this Sunday, August 2, at the Millennium Harvest House hotel in Boulder (1345 28th Street), several of Bould

  July 31, 2009

• The Capital Grille kicks off six-week wine tasting event

  ​Beginning today and continuing through August 23, The Capital Grille, the terrific steakhouse at 1450 Larimer Street, is uncorking a six-week Master Wine Tasting event, whereby 12 different South African and Napa Valley wines, all selected by George Milotes, the cow palace's corporate Master Sommelier, will be available for $10 per person at lunch and $25 at dinner. Curious about the wines? Here's what's being poured: Beringer sauvignon blanc; Beringer Private Reserve chardonnay; Berin

  August 3, 2009

• Behind the Bar: Ann Whitley of the Rio Grande

  Nancy Levine​ On Saturday, August 15, the Rio Grande will celebrate ten years of pouring on the fun -- and pouring out the booze -- in LoDo. This homegrown chain is a margarita powerhouse; with only six restaurants, the Rio Grande restaurant group claims to be the largest seller of Jose Cuervo in the world. And the margarita recipe that no doubt includes Jose Cuervo is a secret as tightly held as the formula for KFC. After ten years of extensive personal "research," I know that the Rio'

  August 13, 2009

• Craft breweries are on a roll

  ​With the Great American Beer Festival (September 24-26) and the first ever Denver Beer Fest (September 18-27) both around the corner, the craft beer industry's major trade group has released some mid-year statistics on what's been brewing nationwide. The Brewers Association reports that craft brewers sold 4.2 million barrels of brewski during the first six months of 2009, up from 4 million barrels during the same time period last year. Sales numbers grew by 9 percent over the first half

  August 18, 2009

• End of summer pinot party tonight at Lala's Wine Bar Pizzeria

  ​While it's still a few weeks before we bid a formal farewell to summer, the wine geeks at Lala's Wine Bar Pizzeria, 410 East Seventh Avenue, see no reason to wait, which, in part, explains why the restaurant and watering hole is hosting an end-of-summer pinot party tonight from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The other part, which is far more altruistic, is that tonight's wine tasting is a benefit for Homeaid Colorado, a local nonprofit that helps to temporarily house the homeless. Admission is $18 per p

  September 1, 2009

• Behind the Bar: Sean Kenyon of Steuben's

  Lori MidsonSteuben's bartender Sean Kenyon with his wife, Heather​It seems oxymoronic to call a guy covered in tattoos a geek, but when it comes to cocktails, Sean Kenyon is the biggest geek in town. He has taken his engineering coursework and applied it to the engineering of cocktails, with infusion experimentation and enhancements behind the bar a daily occurrence. When you mention a recent article about ice cubes from the New York Times, he's not only interested, but can tell you at lea

  September 1, 2009

• Tonight: Harvest week wine dinner with monkeys at Avenue Grill

  ​While close to forty members of the Denver Independent Network of restaurants are rolling out menus offering locally sourced products through Friday, September 18 -- the last day of Harvest Week -- a few restaurants are also celebrating the state's allegiance to the locavore movement with special dinners. At 6:30 p.m. tonight, Avenue Grill, Andrew Lubatty's place at 630 East 17th Avenue, will partner with Ben Parsons, winemaker and founder of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, a Denver urban wi

  September 17, 2009

• Denver's Ten Best Brewpubs

  A Flickr photo.​ The Great American Beer Festival begins just six days from now. If you want to be ready (and believe me, we are soooo ready), you'll need to check in here every afternoon for some lowdown, some insight and some tips on how to do it right. In the meantime, here's our list of the ten best brewpubs in the Denver area:

  September 18, 2009

• Nate Windham dishes dirt on the "dirty" martini

  September 24, 2009

• Free Starbucks coffee taste test starts today

  ​Starbucks, the giant java company with a storefront on a street corner near you, is joining the instant coffee market with a free taste test in every store beginning at 10 a.m. today and continuing through Monday, October 5. The national chain officially introduced VIA Ready Brew, its trio of instant coffees, on Wednesday. The four-day VIA taste test works like this: Hit up any Starbucks, saunter up to the counter and let your friendly coffeehouse barrista know that you're up for The Ch

  October 2, 2009

• Whole Foods celebrates Fair Trade Month today with lunch "happy" hour

  ​We all know that drinking a glass of red wine a day is good for our health, but did you know that some wines are also good for the environment? October is Fair Trade Month at Whole Foods, and to help celebrate, Bernard Fontannaz, founder and owner of Origin Wines and winemaker for Fairhills Bus Stop Fair Trade/ Whole Trade wines, has traveled from South Africa to help promote Whole Foods Whole Trade ™ program. The idea behind purchasing Fair Trade wines is that it'll directly benefi

  October 5, 2009

• Tonight: Daryl Groom winemaker dinner at Mel's Bar and Grill

  ​ Chad Clevenger, exec chef/owner of Mel's Bar and Grill, 5960 South Holly Street, is hosting a five-course winemaker dinner tonight with Daryl Groom, the former chief winemaker of Penfolds and Geyser Peak, who's now representing and making his signature private label, Groom. Groom focuses on three main varietals: sauvignon blanc, shiraz and zinfandel, all of which will be featured tonight, along with "The Proposition," a sparkling wine from Hesketh, a small-production winery from Austral

  November 3, 2009

• Staffing Up: More ideas for Mojitos

  ​ Both readers and restaurateurs had a lot of suggestions for what to do with the former home of Mojitos -- which isn't surprising, considering that this spot at 1120 East Sixth Avenue is a good location just begging for a good operator to go into it. And while I've already reported the news that Alex Gurevich from Limon and Bisque is taking over the space, and will be putting on the big white had to make pizzas and salumi for the neighbors, that didn't stop the guys from Dave Query's B

  November 12, 2009

• Sean Kenyon raises the B.A.R. at Domaine De Canton competition

  Nancy LevineSean Kenyon takes top spot at Domaine De Canton competition​ Last night Domaine de Canton and brand ambassador Bryan Dayton of Frasca hosted the semifinalist round of the Domaine de Canton bartender competition at TAG. Beyond bragging rights, the winner of the competition won a trip to St. Maartin to compete not only for top honors, but $10,000 in prize money. No, that's not a typo. Ten thousand dollars in prize money -- and a killer suntan. The eight competitors included ma

  November 16, 2009

• Going, going gone: Twelve tickets left for the James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour with Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson and Thanawat Bates

  Frasca Food & Wine executive chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson​The Celebrity Chef Tour benefiting the James Beard Foundation lands in Denver tonight, stopping at the Brown Palace, 321 17th Street. That's where Frasca Food & Wine executive chef (and 2008 James Beard award winner for Best Southwest Chef) Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson will join host chefs Thanawat Bates and William Dexter for a reception and six-course tasting menu paired with wines chosen from master sommeliers Bobby Stuckey, f

  November 19, 2009