The new spot is slated to debut early this summer at 5126 East Colfax, a space that was home to Bellwether for five years before it became Horror Bar in 2021, then Slashers and, most recently, Heartbreak Kid. The tasting room, dubbed the Knotted Root Presents the Circular Lounge, will feature beers from Knotted Root and Circular Beer Co — both brands that Marchio owns and brews out of Nederland, albeit with different central concepts.
Circular focuses on two beers, a light Amerian lager dubbed Oh'Kee and an American lager called Home. Marchio says the new space will be more about enjoying those beers in a relaxed setting with good company than the beers themselves.
"Oftentimes, you go to a craft brewery, you do a tasting, and you sit there and you smell the beers and you talk about them. If you want to do that here, we're sure people are gonna do that and that's great," he explains. "But more important for us is to create an amazing environment — a fun, kind of dive-y, unique environment that is just a great place to hang out with your friends and grab a bite and drink beer, where the conversation is more about whatever random thing you're talking about, like what's on our custom, fifty-disc CD jukebox and some of the artwork and some of the celebrities who have visited our place. And talking more about that as opposed to the beer itself, where we want the beer to complement the experience."
Just as the Nederland tasting room was designed to reflect its existing physical building — a cozy, rustic, mountain space — the team is embracing the history and feel of the new space. Marchio describes the taproom as "a 70s dive bar with a craft beer lens."
"We wanted a place with character, and we wanted a place that really made people feel at home and that brought out a unique aesthetic," Marchio says. "And I love Park Hill. I like the idea that we're not in such a hyped, busy spot. This allows us to reach an entire new audience and still be a neighborhood establishment. As soon you're off Colfax, it's all neighborhoods right around here."
He says the space, about 2,500 square feet, has great flow that is inspiring the team to put in an arcade of '70s and '80s games, a pool hall and a patio, along with the main lounge area and what he hopes will be "one of the more unique jukeboxes in the city."
He adds, "It's not huge, but it's got a really nice flow to it. Back in the '70s, it was a hub for a lot of celebrities who would pass through. 
So we're gonna have a way to honor that, the celebrities who had visited the area and frequented this dive bar when they were in Denver."
Like the new tasting room, Circular's Home and Oh'Kee are all about good times and good company.
Courtesy Chris Marchio
The spot is situated next to Marczyk Fine Foods, where Knotted Root hopes to source fresh bread to complement the hot sandwich options it's exploring, possibly via a local provider with a commissary kitchen. That aspect might not be finalized by the planned early summer opening, but it's actively being developed.
Marchio hopes that visitors to the Denver space might be inspired to check out the original Knotted Root brewery and tasting room in Nederland.
He says the current plan is for the new location to be open from noon to midnight, hopefully bypassing the worst of the late-night drinking shenanigans. "Ideally, [guests] could hang out at the taproom and then finish at the other bars," he says.
Plus, he adds, "There
 may or may not be an interactive quality to the place, too. People will have to think about what's real and what isn't." Is he taking some inspiration from a certain local, interactive art installation? Should we expect the Meow Wolf-Knotted Root Dive Bar Experience? "You might have to come back a few times to to figure it out," Marchio teases.
