The owners of the Cheeky Monk Belgian Café are racing to open their new Denver brewery before the Great American Beer Festival starts on October 10. But even if they are delayed, Lost Highway Brewing will be pouring two beers at GABF. “We’ve had our brewing permits for almost two…
Lance Hanson is a self-described “classics nerd.” And he parlayed that interest into a job teaching Latin to high school kids, eventually giving up academia to pursue a career in the software business, which made him, well, rich — rich enough, at least, to “dive off the deep end and…
Left Hand Brewing, which for years has proudly touted its beer as being “brewed on the banks of the mighty St. Vrain,” has been cursing the river over the past few days. The St. Vrain, which has destroyed homes, roads and bridges all over Longmont, also flooded parts of the…
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…
Despite the weather, Chris Holston, general manager of Bacaro Venetian Taverna in Boulder, has decided to brave the elements and continue serving the specialty Bloody Marys introduced last weekend for a new rooftop brunch. See also: Best Bloody Mary Bar 2013 — the Corner Office…
Fun fact: before microbreweries took over Colorado, Golden was home to the state’s first — and so far, only — sake brewery. The Hakushika Sake U.S.A. brewery opened in 1992 and produced sake for America and the ravenous European market until the Japanese recession tanked the business six years later…
UPDATE: We have a winner of our Denver Beerathon contest, in which we asked Cafe Society readers to answer this question: How many glasses of Empire Brewing pumpkin ale were poured during the 2012 New York Beerathon? Congratulations to Leah McCracken, who guessed 715; the actual answer is 727. Leah,…
Nick Nunns doesn’t worry much about convention. He likes heavy-metal music, black-and-white photos, Norse letters and unusual beer styles. In fact, when Nunns opened TRVE Brewing in the summer of 2011, one his first creations was Prehistoric Dog, a salted American wheat that almost nobody makes. See also: TRVE Brewing…
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…
Pumpkin beers. Love ’em or hate ’em, they are becoming more prevalent every year — and hitting liquor store shelves earlier and earlier. In fact, there were several varieties available in mid-July despite the fact that people were still lighting up leftover fireworks. Now that it’s September and the cool…
It’s harvest season, and pumpkins and peaches aren’t the only things making their way into beers. Breweries are putting together and releasing their annual fresh hop — or wet hop — beers using hops from both Colorado and Washington. The point of these beers is to capture the flavor of…
Benjamin Dallas has been an artist for most of his life — working in what he calls the “dirty modern impressionistic” vein, to be exact. He loves the gratification he gets from using heavy paint knifes to produce landscapes — and from watching people take in his work. One Western-themed…
Former Future Brewing, which will open its doors on South Broadway this fall, is the latest small Denver brewery to offer paid memberships as a way to raise money and build support from locals who are willing to pay to be part of an exclusive beer club. But the brewery,…
Longmont is already one of Colorado’s craft beer meccas. The town is home to two of the state’s biggest breweries, Left Hand and Oskar Blues, as well as the Pumphouse brewpub and two suds-centered restaurants operated by Oskar Blues. But over the next few months, the Boulder County burg will…
The Great American Beer Festival is the biggest and best sudstravaganza in the world. This year, the sold-out fiesta will take place October 10-12 and feature 626 breweries pouring an astounding 3,159 beers. But GABF is just the start. Beginning on Monday, and continuing all week, breweries, bars, restaurants and…
Two well-known out-of-state brewers are invading Colorado this month. Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, a sixteen-year-old brewery from San Francisco started pouring at a few bars around town this week and should follow up with bottles of some of its flagship beers, like Big Daddy IPA and Prohibition Ale, sometime soon…
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…
Epic Brewing, which started making beer at its huge new Denver facility in July, has even more good news for fans of its brainless and off-kilter beers. The Salt Lake City-based brewery will use three 60-hectoliter wooden barrels — called foeders — that it just bought from New Belgium Brewing…
The British have invented many things that keep us cool: a Scotsman named William Cullen designed the first artificial refrigeration system; our friends across the pond continue to send us the bone-chilling English breeze; and a delightful, red-tinted drink called Pimm’s Cup has been a summer refresher since the 1800s…
So many breweries wanted to be a part of the Great American Beer Festival this year that all of the spots filled within two hours on July 9, a rapid sellout that stunned both organizers and the brewers, leaving 375 would-be attendees on a waiting list. But the Boulder-based Brewers…
New Belgium Brewing, which has been making beer in Fort Collins for 22 years, plans to update the look of its beer labels beginning in 2014. The new designs will take some of the “iconic and playful watercolor imagery” that the brewery has used and update it “through a modern…
Marty Jones, who has been one of Colorado’s foremost craft beer ambassador’s for more than a decade and the chief idea man for the Wynkoop Brewing Company since 2009, will leave the brewery this week to pursue a career as an independent consultant. “I had a lovely time at Wynkoop,…
