Beverages

Here's to American Craft Beer Week, and something wet in every cup

Here's to American Craft Beer Week (which began Monday), the annual salute to small independent brewers that the Boulder-based Brewers Association (with help from Congress!) created seven years ago to increase awareness of craft beer. Of course, in Colorado, as some people say, every week is craft b ... More >>

American Craft Beer Week, wine dinners and more on the calendar this week

American Craft Beer Week begins today and flows through Sunday, May 19. The celebration raises many glasses to the national craft-beer movement happening in this country. Visit the website for a full schedule of events, and continue reading for the rest of this week's menu. See also: - Colorado bee ... More >>

A handful of breweries? CNN's beer-city list misses the mark on Denver

If you like beer and have an Internet connection, you've probably seen CNN's list of the 8 Best Beer Towns in the USA that went up Monday. While the list was better than most recent beer-city lists produced by national magazines and websites, it certainly had its share of problems. But for my purpo ... More >>

Beer calendar: Renegades, superheroes and American Craft Beer Week

Did you know that Italy has a thriving craft-beer scene? Neither did I. But Brian Jansing and Paul Vismara, two longtime suds slingers at the Falling Rock Taphouse, did, and they've traveled all over Italy, researching the movement as it grew from fewer than twenty craft breweries in 1996 to nearly ... More >>

Colorado Plus opens Monday with 56 local beers on tap -- and a brewery next month

The Colorado Plus Brew Pub (originally known as Colorado Liquid Art Works) will open on Monday, May 13, at 6995 West 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge, with 56 Colorado craft beers on tap. Located in the former Valente's Italian Restaurant, which closed in 2008 after 44 years, Colorado Plus will also in ... More >>

Reader: Go ahead and slam daiquiris, but leave old-fashioneds alone

"There is a thin line between self-indulgence and being a dickhead, a line that any bartender could draw for you." That's how Jenn Wohletz started Friday's piece "five cocktails only a dickhead could love," and dozens of commenters -- bartenders included -- thought she definitely crossed that line w ... More >>

Who's a dickhead? Barman Sean Kenyon's response to Jenn Wohletz's cocktail grievances

On Friday, Jenn Wohletz served up "Five cocktails only a dickhead would order." Shaken, not stirred, Cafe Society contributor Sean Kenyon offers this response: Dear Jenn Wohletz: You don't know us You are not one of us You do not speak for us I woke up Friday morning and, as is my routine, I check ... More >>

Five cocktails only a dickhead would order

There is a thin line between self-indulgence and being a dickhead, a line that any bartender could draw for you. On especially busy nights at any watering hole, there is always at least one person who decides to order some outdated or ridiculous beverage that takes up valuable bartender time, makes ... More >>

Colorado's beer festivals are becoming victims of their own success

May brings Maibocks, spring tappings and the start of beer-fest season

Salt Lake City-based Epic Brewing, which announced in January that it will build a 20,000-square-foot brewery and taphouse in Denver, updated its followers on social media this week with a couple of pictures and some potential opening dates. The Facebook pictures (like the one above) show the brewer ... More >>

Chipotle is now pouring premium Patron margaritas

Drinking your lunch got easier at Chipotle yesterday, when the homegrown Colorado chain introduced premium Patrón margaritas in all 900 of its U.S. restaurants (out of 1,450 Chipotle locations total). Although margaritas were on the menu before this, they were made with a standard mix, and Mark Cru ... More >>

Photos: Sipping and sampling from Ace's 64 happy-hour cocktail combinations

The drink menu at Ace, this year's Best New Bar winner, features no shortage of cocktails -- 64 combinations, to be exact. Intrigued by the large number of options, we recently stopped by to sip and sample from Ace's new happy-hour menu, and bar manager Randy Layman was kind enough to serve up all 6 ... More >>

Breweries light up for 4/20, while Copper Kettle blows out two candles

Odell Brewing in Fort Collins recently began opening its taproom on Sundays, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., which means more beer (including taproom-only specials like Wee Willy Winkie, Easy Elephant and Monarch Saison) and more brewery tours. In fact, Odell now offers tours seven days a week at 1, 2, 3 an ... More >>

South Denver Beer Fest in Littleton will feature breweries-in-planning alongside the pros

Colorado breweries continue to open at a rapid pace in 2013 -- and they're typically swamped the minute they open by beer fans eager to sample their brews. But breweries-in-planning don't usually get a chance to put their products in front of customers (paying customers, anyway) ahead of time. That ... More >>

Two Rock Bottom brewers will open Lowdown Brewery and Pizzeria on Lincoln Street

Two brewmasters with the Colorado-based Rock Bottom chain will strike out on their own this fall by opening a full-scale brewpub and pizzeria in a high-profile spot between Capitol Hill and the Golden Triangle neighborhoods. Unlike most of the tap rooms that have opened recently around Denver, Lowd ... More >>

Photos: Raise a glass to the first Colorado Craft Beer Week

The Colorado Brewers Guild, which represents more than 100 of the state's 160-plus breweries, took over Colorado Beer Week this year, revitalizing it as Colorado Craft Beer Week. Brothers Scott and Jason Kerkmans started Colorado Beer Week as a for-profit production in 2011, but it needed more of a ... More >>

Crooked Stave, Wit's End, Our Mutual Friend tune in to Colorado Craft Beer Week

Colorado Craft Beer Week, which runs through March 24, is in full swing (and you can find some highlights in our calendar on the next page), but there's plenty of other beer news pouring out. On Monday, in advance of next weekend's annual Craft Brewers Conference, the Boulder-based Brewers Associati ... More >>

Colorado Craft Beer Week and more on the culinary calendar

The third annual Colorado Craft Beer Week begins today. The festival -- which is run by the nonprofit Colorado Brewers Guild -- features a series of beer dinners, tap takeovers, brewer meet-and-greets and other along the Front Range. Falling Rock Tap House, 1919 Blake Street, will kick the week of ... More >>

All-female brewer collaboration beer, dubbed Ellegance, will be tapped on Monday

The Wynkoop Brewing Company will kick off Colorado Craft Beer Week on Monday by tapping the first all-female collaboration brew in state history, a Belgian-style brown ale called "Ellegance." The project, which was coordinated by the Wynkoop's Bess Dougherty, involved eight woman who work for seven ... More >>

Cheers to Beer

Beer calendar: Belgian pales, barrel-aged beers and Colorado Craft Beer Week

The Mountain Sun group of pubs in Boulder and Denver have always been quirky (they don't take credit cards, for instance), but the clear, oversized mason jars they use instead of growlers have long frustrated fans who want to take their beer to go. Mountain Sun's delicious beer goes flat fast in the ... More >>

Drakes Haus -- home of the "merlot burger" -- will open in Boulder in mid-May

I don't know about you, but I've never had a "merlot burger" -- a burger that's been injected, literally, with the deep blue-hued wine grape. But come mid-May, all of us will have the opportunity to try one when Drakes Haus, a restaurant that, in fact, squirts merlot into its burgers, opens in Bould ... More >>

Left Hand Brewing's Week Sauce was designed specifically for craft beer weeks

Colorado Craft Beer Week, which was taken over this year by the nonprofit Colorado Brewers Guild, is just one of many similarly-themed festivals that go on in cities and states across the country. Some of the most famous ones take place in Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C., but there are do ... More >>

Dubbels, double IPAs and downward dog highlight our beer calendar

Can craft beer and yoga co-exist? "You bet your flexible-ass they can," says Adrienne Rinaldi, who runs BrewAsanas, a one-hour yoga class that rotates between different breweries in the metro area and is always followed by a beer. Billed as a an introduction to both Vinyasa yoga and good beer, Brew ... More >>

The brewers at Prost and the Sandlot will team up on a new German-style lager

Two breweries -- one locally owned and the other managed by a big corporation -- will test the definition of "craft beer" next week when they collaborate on a new brew. Tom Hail, who has worked at Blue Moon Brewing Company @ the Sandlot since it opened in 1995, and Bill Eye, who left Dry Dock in 20 ... More >>

A new and improved Colorado Craft Beer Week debuts in March

The Colorado Brewers Guild, which represents the interests of more than 100 of the state's 160-plus breweries, has acquired the rights to Colorado Beer Week and will revitalize the celebration as Colorado Craft Beer Week. The fest, which will incorporate events throughout the state, kicks off on Ma ... More >>

Photos: Gather mixes craft cocktails inspired by local start-ups

Not every work environment has cocktails on-site, but if your office is at Galvanize, that's one of the amenities. Galvanize, the startup-tech common workspace in the Golden Triangle, has Gather to thank for that. Gather, the on-site cafe overseen by ChoLon chef-owner Lon Symensma, is mixing up ... More >>

Beer calendar: Beerdrinker of the Year, Pliny the Younger and Denver Off the Wagon

The local booze blog Denver Off the Wagon will celebrate its second birthday this weekend with a three-day extravaganza that celebrates the drinking culture around town. The festivities kick off Thursday with a six-course booze-paring dinner (involving beer, wine and spirts) at Joney's Eatbar (ticke ... More >>

Third Shift lager, a new MillerCoors beer, got its medal-winning start at Denver's Sandlot

Tom Hail loves beer. He loves lagers especially, which is why he stays very late on a lot of nights to work on his passion projects. One of these is a traditional German-style marzen -- a recipe that he's been tinkering with on and off for eighteen years. It's a tasty beer -- so tasty that Hail, on ... More >>

Fate Brewing will open Monday without a brewery, but with lots of Boulder collaborations

Since Fate Brewing, which opens Monday, February 4, in Boulder, doesn't have any of its beer-brewing equipment up and running yet, the company has come up with an innovative way to serve its own creations without actually making any of them on site. Over the past two months, Fate head brewer Jeff G ... More >>

Eight craft beer trends to look for in Colorado in 2013

One of the best parts about Colorado's craft beer scene is that it changes constantly. From one week to the next, beer geeks can hit a new taproom, try an innovative new brew, head to a packed festival and generally make friends in other states jealous. The last year saw a lot of big news -- some ba ... More >>

A new bill would put craft beers in grocery stores

La Paulée des Neiges -- aka The Ballers' Burgundy Fest -- returns to The Little Nell this weekend

If you love pinot noir and chardonnay -- specifically, the particularly revered varieties which hail from the postage stamp-sized wine-producing region of Burgundy, France -- you may want to buy a lottery ticket today. See also: - The Boulder Burgundy Festival delivered the juice - Four top wine t ... More >>

Westword wine columnist Kendra Anderson tapped as the new wine director at PastaVino in Boulder

For the past three years, certified sommelier and chef Kendra Anderson has penned a weekly "Swirl Girl" wine column for Westword, giving readers -- novices and bona fide oenophiles alike -- crash courses that detail her love for the grape, and now she's taken her passion one step further. Anderson h ... More >>

Loveland's Verboten Brewing tells a craft-beer trademark story with a happy ending

Verboten Brewing, which will open its doors this weekend in Loveland, takes its name for the German word for "forbidden," and is a reference to German beer-purity laws, or Reinheitsgebot, which forbade brewers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from using anything but water, barley and hops in ... More >>

Four top wine trends for 2013

Welcome to 2013 and the next year of your wine-drinking life. Over the past twelve months we saw a slew of clever new wine concepts worth trying, and a whole lotta wine-related WTFs to studiously avoid. All the while we watched and waited, eyes peeled for signs of the wine-related developments that ... More >>

Ten biggest Colorado craft beer stories in 2012

Colorado craft breweries and their many fans enjoyed a spectacular year in 2012, as the options for consuming locally made beer continued to grow and fill our tastebuds with joy. If the state's 160-plus breweries weren't expanding, then they were adding new beers or welcoming friendly competitors. A ... More >>

Trends without end, round four: Bread, ice and more beer

What will be the big culinary trends in 2013? As we prepare for a new year in gastronomy, we posed that question to dozens of people in the local food business, everyone from chefs and pastry magicians to restaurant brokers and PR consultants, from brewers and grape gurus to realtors and pig farmers ... More >>

Reader: GABF should get rid of Ticketmaster instead of BudMillerCoors

Is that beer craft or "crafty"? Last week the Boulder-based Brewers Association -- which puts on the Great American Beer Festival -- blasted the nation's two largest beer makers for not labeling some of their smaller brands with the names "MillerCoors" or "Anheuser-Busch." But the big boys have take ... More >>

Coors, Miller, Bud will keep sponsoring GABF, despite craft vs. crafty controversy

When the Brewers Association blasted the nation's two largest beer makers last week for not labeling some of their smaller brands with the names "MillerCoors" or "Anheuser-Busch," the Boulder organization risked losing a lot of money. After all, the two companies kick in at least $20,000 annually to ... More >>

Ten of the best (and highly giftable) wines of 2012

Last week, we poured out a little guidance on what you might sneak under the tree (or Festivus Pole, or whatever) that would add a little splash of joy in the lives of any wine lover on your list. But we failed to include any actual wine in that grouping, because we believe it deserving of a special ... More >>

Is Colorado the center of the "crafty" beer universe?

Colorado -- home to the Great American Beer Festival, the Brewers Association and 161 breweries -- is the center of the universe when it comes to craft beer. But is it also the center of the "crafty" beer universe? On Thursday, the Brewers Association, which represents small brewers nationwide, fi ... More >>

The newest batch of young guns in Colorado's brewing industry wear pink boots

It's not easy to get a boot in the door of the craft-brewing industry. It's even more difficult for women since breweries, with a few notable exceptions, are boys' clubs. But despite the stereotypes, there are plenty of ladies who love suds just as much as guys do, and they've made some serious stri ... More >>

Parry's Pizzeria & Bar will open a fourth location in 2013 -- after celebrating the end of the world

David Parry might be throwing an end-of-the-world party at two of his restaurants, but he's not planning on the world ending just yet. After all, he hopes to open a Parry's Pizzeria and Bar at 5970 South Holly Street in Greenwood Village in February, and then add two more locations by the end of 201 ... More >>

Cooking with Pete and Barb Marczyk: savory and sweet beef brisket with merlot and prunes

Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market's choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast. When it comes to prunes, there ... More >>

Stranahan's will release its latest Snowflake series whiskey on Saturday

Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey will release the latest batch of its highly-prized, limited-edition Snowflake series at 9 a.m. on Saturday. This one was cask- conditioned for months in two hand-picked Malbec barrels from Denver's Spero Winery. The distillery puts out one or two Snowflake series batche ... More >>

Three unlikely online wine clubs eager to quench your thirst

It seems like everybody and their neighbor wants to be in the wine business. Last week, we spilled the juice on Denver-based Club W's first year in the monthly wine club business. While we found their edgy-cool offerings well worth the hype, as we did our research we couldn't help noticing that the ... More >>

The beer list at Wynkoop Brewing's Parade of Darks will light you up

The lineup for the Wynkoop's annual Parade of Darks this Saturday reads like a Colorado beer geek's wet dream -- notwithstanding the stout made with bull testicles. In fact, the beer list is so electric that attendees may not know where to begin. Billed as a fest dedicated to "beers in the amber-to ... More >>

Club W delivers tasty wines worth waiting for

Delicious bottles of wine. Hand-selected for you by industry pros, based on your personal palate's preferences. Shipped directly to your door, every month, for less than $40. Welcome to the club -- that is, Club W. See also - Four ways to give the gift of wine (and buy local) this holiday season - ... More >>

Plenty of beer and wine will be flowing this evening

The Rocky Mountain French American Chamber of Commerce will host the fourteenth annual Beaujolais and Beyond Food & Wine Festival at Infinity Park Event Center, 4400 East Kentucky Avenue, tonight from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. The fundraiser features more than twenty local restaurants, and participating che ... More >>