As Colorado’s oldest craft brewery, Boulder Beer Company has had to reinvent itself a few times over the last 34 years, changing its look and its owners, updating its recipes, adding new tanks. Its latest move, however, caused a real stir. Or rather, a Shake. In October, Boulder Beer unveiled…
Cold? Yes, we noticed. But that’s one of the many reasons we have beer. Great Divide has been making one of the best cold-weather beers in Colorado for years, Yeti, and its various cousins. But there are plenty of brand new cold-weather beers out there for you to try as…
As Westword’s Ask the Bartender columnist, I’ve talked with many bartenders for Cafe Society’s “Behind the Bar” series, posing numerous questions to Denver’s top bartenders…and often receiving the same answers: “I love chartreuse,” or “I’m really into smoked cocktails/barrel aging/bottled cocktails.” See also: A bartender by any other name…is still…
Westminster’s fourteen-story city hall building and bell tower was designed in 1988 to resemble London’s famous Big Ben, located in the Palace of Westminster, and the owners of Westminster Brewing, which opened last weekend, liked the tie-in so much that they incorporated the tower into their logo — and specialize…
Copper Kettle Brewing bottled its first beer last June, the GABF-award-winning Mexican Chocolate Stout, but just because it hasn’t released another bottled beer since then doesn’t mean the three-year old brewery has been resting. Rather, Copper Kettle has been aging beers in barrels and plans to release the first two…
Zephyr Brewing isn’t the first would-be brewery in Colorado to try crowdfunding as a way to raise money for equipment, operating capital or aesthetic elements. But it is the first to go with CrowdBrewed, a relatively new crowdfunding site that was created just for the craft brewing industry. Zephyr, owned…
If you like craft beer and you live in Colorado, then Odell Brewing’s many beers have likely left their mark on you. Now you have a chance a leave your mark on Odell, by designing a tap handle for a limited-release beer. But first — some backstory. Odell is the…
When Strange Brewing opened in 2010, one of its first big hits was Cherry Kriek, a Belgian-style wheat beer with gobs of Wisconsin cherries added to it. Named for Denver’s signature waterway, the beer was sweet rather than tart, like other krieks. As the brewery grew, the demand for Cherry…
While whiskey and scotch receive endless applause, tequila gets rediscovered as a connoisseur’s sipper and distilleries race each other to make the most complex and odd gin, vodka is left behind. Sure, it’s still the world’s most popular mixer. Without it, you couldn’t have a true Screwdriver, Cape Cod or…
After more than a year of heated exchanges, Denver’s Strange Brewing Company has settled its contentious federal trademark battle with Strange Brew Beer & Wine Making, a Massachusetts homebrewing store. Neither company would disclose the details of the settlement until the paperwork has been signed. But the full terms will…
The Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group representing the craft-beer industry, announced last week that it is moving its headquarters from 736 Pearl Street in Boulder to a much larger location at 1327 Spruce Street. The organization says it “has been growing steadily — along with the booming craft beer…
Dave Chichura, who has been the head brewer at Oskar Blues for more than eight years, has left Longmont to take the top job at Eddyline, a tiny brewery in the mountain town of Buena Vista that plans to triple in size over the next few months. The move is…
According to Williams & Graham barman Sean Kenyon, who was also the emcee at last night’s Espolón Tequila Cocktail Fights, Bryan Dayton, bar manager at Acorn, is “pretty.” Very, very pretty. And, as Kenyon pointed out multiple times, Dayton was on the cover of GQ magazine. Kenyon was full of…
Great Divide Brewing, which made its name with enormous, potent beers like Yeti and Hercules, will continue a newer romance with lower-alcohol beers in January when it debuts Lasso, an IPA that will carry the lowest ABV in the brewery’s lineup. Brewed with three kinds of hops — Columbus, Centennial…
Breckenridge Brewery will release its first new seasonal packaged beer in eighteen months this January, when it unveils Ophelia, a 7.5 percent ABV hoppy wheat ale. Ophelia will replace Pandora’s Bock during the January-to-May timeframe; that beer will become part of Breckenridge’s small-batch occasional series, which it bottles in four…
Nearly 500 beer geeks and foodniks packed the EXDO Event Center last night for Chef & Brew, an annual bash that celebrates Colorado’s craft beer scene. Seventeen local chefs, paired with the same number of brewers, battled against one another for prizes and bragging rights, the awards of which were…
With nearly twenty breweries currently in the planning stages in Denver, it’s no surprise that some of them are going to experience bumps and bruises on the way toward opening. Factotum Brewhouse is the latest to suffer a setback. The sister-and-brother team of Laura and Chris Bruns had planned to…
Spirit Hound Distillery will finally reopen tomorrow, two months after it had to close when massive flooding hit Lyons, and much of northern Colorado. See also: A six-pack of dark new Colorado beers for your cold weather blues…
For the past five years, Troy Casey has worked for AC Golden, the MillerCoors-owned beer incubator in Golden that makes everything from Colorado Native lager to small-batch sour ales that use Colorado-grown peaches and apricots to the style-busting India Pale Lager that just won an award at the Great American…
Brrrr. It’s starting to get a little nippy out there, and the forecast calls for even colder temperatures this weekend. But the weatherman may not have mentioned that dropping digits means big beers in Colorado, where the breweries start cranking out their deep dark belly-warming concoctions for the dark days…
River North Brewery added two new thirty-barrel stainless steel fermentation tanks and one new brite tank last week, which will increase the brewery’s capacity by 44 percent — and allow River North to focus on canning its River North White, a Belgian-style wit beer that was just released, and on…
As Westword’s Ask the Bartender columnist, I’ve talked with many bartenders for Cafe Society’s “Behind the Bar” series, posing numerous questions to Denver’s top bartenders…and often receiving the same answers: “I love chartreuse,” or “I’m really into smoked cocktails/barrel aging/bottled cocktails.” See also: A bartender by any other name…is still…
