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Best Vegan Pizza

Hops & Pie

Hops & Pie

Hops & Pie is known for two staples: pizza and beer. Ditching cheese and meat sounds like it could mean the end of a good pizza, but that's not that case with the vegan pizza here. Start by choosing the crust — either a traditional, slightly thicker pan pie, or the square, deep-dish Detroit style. Vegan meat alternatives include a spicy Sicilian sausage made in-house or house-smoked tofu, and veggie options range from the standard — mushroom, onion, pepper, olives and spinach — to more unique options such as sun-dried tomatoes, banana peppers, roasted garlic cloves, caramelized onions, jalapeños, broccoli and pineapple.

Best Vegan Bakery

Beet Box

All of the beautiful pastries at Beet Box are made without eggs and dairy, and some are gluten-free, too. While offerings change with the seasons, you can expect classic sweets such as turtle brownies, almond croissants, cinnamon rolls, chocolate doughnuts, lemon-poppyseed muffins, and chocolate-chunk scones. Savory baked goods include country loaf bread, a tomato-pesto tart, a spinach-mushroom croissant and a mushroom-green onion tart. Freshly made breads are the basis of vegan sandwiches, which range from a tofu banh mi to tuna salad made with chickpeas instead of fish and an avocado melt with cashew cream cheese.

Best Vegan Food Truck

Wong Way Veg

Wong Way Veg, a bright-orange food truck, circulates around Denver serving inventive scratch-made vegan food that takes its inspiration from around the world. One of the most popular options is the Boulder Philly, a twist on a Philly cheesesteak with marinated portabellos and housemade cashew cream. But you'll also find surprises on Wong Way's rotating menu, like the thinly sliced seitan gyro topped with tzatziki sauce in a warm pita, or the barbecued-jackfruit burrito stuffed with mac and cheese. Don't miss the brunch special, which could be banana bread pancakes or a tofu scramble with maple sweet potatoes.

wongwayveg.com

Best Vegetarian Green Chile

Urban Egg

Molly Martin

The Urban Egg restaurant chain is a Colorado original founded in Colorado Springs, with seven sunny spots in Denver, Fort Collins and other Front Range towns. Breakfast is the name of the game here, so start your day off early with something smothered in the house green chile, always made without meat. The tangy chile is packed with peppers, making an eye-opening addition to breakfast burritos, blue-corn huevos rancheros (ask for yours "Christmas" style so you can taste the Egg's red chile, too) or even the Southwest eggs Benedict. You won't even need coffee: This green chile is potent enough to kick-start your morning.

Readers' Choice: Adelitas Cocina y Cantina

Best Vegetarian Restaurant

Leaf Vegetarian

Danielle Lirette

Boulder is one of the best cities in the country for vegetarians, and Leaf Vegetarian is a major factor in that equation. The restaurant boasts a cozy atmosphere along with its meat-free menu; a majority of the dishes can easily be made vegan. A sophisticated avocado tartare, spicy buffalo tacos and calamari-style oyster mushrooms kick off the lineup. The vegan crab cake sandwich, mushroom burger and beet hummus with grilled flatbread make excellent lunch choices. For dinner, mushroom Bolognese, Jamaican jerk tempeh, and udon noodles with crispy tofu are just a few of the eclectic options. On the weekend, Leaf packs in diners for brunch, with offerings like huevos rancheros, vegan French toast, and biscuits and gravy.

Readers' Choice: City, O' City

Best Veggie Burger

City, O' City

Hunter Stevens

In this era of meat-impersonating burgers, the City, O' City team opted to stick with a traditional veggie burger made of actual vegetables. The City, O' Burger gets an extra protein-packed boost from walnuts and sunflower seeds, and is served on a kaiser bun with melted dairy-free cheese and a special sauce alongside onion rings, fries, mixed greens or another side. The kitchen does a variation on the basic burger, such as the Chophouse topped with grilled onions, crispy shallots and housemade steak sauce. The popular restaurant also offers other meat-free comfort foods, including seitan pastrami, a crispy to'fish sandwich, and "chicken" and waffles.

Readers' Choice: Bad Daddy's Burger Bar

Best Brewery Taproom

Our Mutual Friend Brewing

Brandon Marshall

Between the new grocery-store rule, which attracted top breweries from around the country, and a pair of festivals that imported some of the best beer in the world, Denver got a lot of outside attention in 2018. What locals sometimes forget, though, is that this city holds its liquor on every level. Our Mutual Friend Brewing is a perfect, if very quiet, example. A mod RiNo hotspot with a killer patio, it's turning out beers in multiple styles that deserve to be served and paired with creative dishes at the city's top restaurants — or just enjoyed on their own. From straightforward styles like a table saison and a hazy pale ale to some of the most experimental liquids you'll see anywhere in the world, like a foeder-fermented Brett saison and a brightly colored, nearly transparent peach sour, OMF has dialed in a vibe and a tap list that stand as high as the Rocky Mountains.

Readers' Choice: Great Divide Barrel Bar

Best New Brewery Taproom

Odell Brewing Co.

Jonathan Shikes

It's almost not fair when the class president shows up late to the party with a six-pack of beer for everyone. How do you even compete? But that's what happened when the thirty-year-old Odell Brewing opened its new taproom and pilot brewhouse on upper Larimer. Built in a two-story restored brick building next to Shake Shack and boasting a second-floor patio, vibrant murals inside and out, and a lineup of its own modern, experimental beers (alongside Odell's classics), the Fort Collins brewery knew exactly what it was doing, and it did it right. At least this class president is pretty cool.

Readers' Choice: Dos Luces Brewery

Best New Brewery Concept

Cerveceria Colorado

Cerveceria Colorado

Chins were scratched and eyebrows raised last May when Denver Beer Co. closed the barrel room next door to its always-packed LoHi location and replaced it with a separately run taphouse pouring only beers with Mexican-inspired ingredients and collaborations with Mexican breweries. Even more curious was the overt political message that Cerveceria Colorado brought with it: Build bridges, not walls. But the spot has worked well on both levels. Not only is it doing its best to foster inclusion, bilingualism and multiculturalism with special events and charity nights, but DBC is supplying the brightly colored beer hall with some refreshingly different and delicious cervezas, including an horchata blonde, a cactus wheat and a churro stout. What's next? Look for more bridges — and canned beers coming soon.

Best New Brewery With Old-School Traditions

Dos Luces Brewery

When it comes to corn, the past year has been the best of times and the worst of times for beer. The worst came with Bud Light's disastrous Super Bowl commercial blasting corn syrup in its competitors' brands...and the #corntroversey that followed. The best came with the elevation of chicha — a pre-Columbian blue-corn-based fermented beverage — into the national spotlight, thanks in part to Dos Luces Brewery and the corny focus of owner Judd Belstock. The brewery itself — and, yes, it is a brewery, because chicha and its cousin, the maguey sap-based pulque, are indeed beers — is one of the most beautiful and interesting spaces in Denver. And the liquid? Let's just say you need to try it to understand it, and once you do, it's hard not to be a fan. The chicha varieties are light and fruity, as they are brewed with everything from passion fruit, strawberry, lime and pumpkin to chile, cacao nibs, cloves and cinnamon.

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