Pliny the Younger, which has become one of the most sought-after beers in the world, makes its annual return to Colorado this month when California’s Russian River Brewing trucks a precious few kegs of the cult beer over the Continental Divide. Russian River has been sending the extremely-limited, draft-only triple…
Tivoli Brewing turned Denver’s beer history on its head last summer when the reincarnation of one of the Mile High City’s first breweries opened inside the original Tivoli brewery building on the Auraria campus. Since then, Tivoli has been making re-imagined versions of some of Denver’s original German-style lagers from the…
Restaurants on Market between 14th and 15th Streets have always had the challenge of creating an identity to stand out above the evening chaos on the loudest, busiest block in the city — sexy, infuriating, dangerous. Some, like Dorchester Social Eatery, combined dining and dancing in one space and offered…
The 23rd annual Stout Month kicked off this week at the Vine Street Pub & Brewery in Denver and at the rest of the Mountain Sun Pubs group’s breweries and restaurants in Boulder and Longmont. The yearly tradition has continued to grow over the years and there are now a…
Arandano Frizzante at Bittersweet When Nicholas Wermaling was putting together his new winter drink menu at Bittersweet, he found that it was lacking one thing: tequila. “There seems to be a lack of tequila-based winter drinks,” he says, “so I wanted to get that in there. I like to have…
“All I remember was hearing ‘Firestone Walker,’ and then everyone around us suddenly start screaming in our faces.” That’s what Brandon Proff, co-owner of Our Mutual Friend Brewing, wrote in a blog about the moment when his brewery won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival last September…
Is Denver’s brewery boom slowing down? It’s hard to tell: While there certainly aren’t as many small independent breweries on the horizon as there were at this time last year, there is still plenty of action on the new-brewery front. The list of anticipated openings in 2016 include three breweries…
Denver Broncos pride runs deep in the Mile High City’s craft-brewing scene, where the sunsets are always orange and blue and beer is free-flowing and delicious. To make sure that the world knows how they feel, two local breweries have made recent wagers on the team. In early January, the…
A Hurricane cocktail carries a lot of cultural baggage. There’s that unfortunate name, of course, when associated with the recent history of its birthplace, New Orleans. There’s the popular conception of the Hurricane as a Bourbon Street party drink, festooned with crazy straws and neon garnishes in a flimsy plastic…
Dry Dock Brewing is taking an unusual tack with its new twelve-pack release, called Hopricot: The award-winning Aurora brewery is including six cans of its Apricot Blonde Ale and six cans of its Hop Abomination IPA, and encouraging people to blend them together to make their own beer cocktail. Dry Dock has…
The local restaurant holding company that sold Breckenridge Brewery to Anheuser Busch InBev in December will continue to use the Breckenridge name on two of its restaurants. Breckenridge-Wynkoop Holdlings has licensed the names Breckenridge Brewery Colorado Craft, located in LoDo, and Breckenridge Ale House, located in Grand Junction, says BW Holding’s…
The rapid-fire opening of small brewery taprooms may have slowed down in Denver, but don’t tell that to Will Curtin and Chris Kirk, who have leased a tiny, former auto-body shop on Broadway where they will open a brewery dedicated to barrel-aged beers. Located just a block from Baere Brewing…
The Fiffitini at the Palm “I’ve been doing this drink for about eight years now,” says Chad Skrbina of a drink that isn’t even on a menu at The Palm. Nearly a decade ago, a group of people wandered into his bar and requested that he make a drink just…
For the bartenders who worked everyone else’s holiday party, it’s time to celebrate the season. On Monday, the Colorado Bartenders’ Guild hosts its fourth annual Holiday Hangover, a yearly fundraiser and membership drive — and a chance to mingle and de-stress after a busy holiday season. “It’s a great opportunity…
The stars came out to shine, as they do every year, at the Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival, which took place earlier this month at the Cascade Resort in Vail. Some were established super giants like Lost Abbey, Avery Brewing and Great Divide. Others were rising stars, like Casey…
With the acrylic barely dry from its 2015 opening, the Art Hotel has a bit of swagger in 2016, managing to offer the kind of moneyed, cosmopolitan experience that you’d expect from a hotel in one of America’s urban centers. It’s a kind of feeling rarely attempted and a potential…
Longmont’s Oskar Blues Brewery, which was partially purchased by an East Coast private equity firm last year, revealed this week that it has experienced yet another year of double-digit sales growth, surpassing 30 percent over the previous year. Part of that growth came about as a result of the fact…
Before he became the governor of Colorado, before he became the mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper was a publican and a craft brewer. So it came as no surprise when the Colorado Governor’s Mansion became the first gubernatorial residence in the nation to boast a draft-beer system, back in March 1994. Since…
Winter in Trinidad at Finn’s Manor “A lot of people don’t associate Denver as a rum market,” says Robert Sickler, “but I am damn determined to make it one.” As co-owner of Finn’s Manor, Sickler has embedded his love of rum deep into his cocktail menu. Apparently, it’s catching on…
I love double-decker restaurants. Along with the pubs and bistros of London, often nested below street level (not to mention the cantinas of Cloud City, peacefully hovering above the gas giant Bespin), two-level joints add a unique dimension to the urban dining experience. And if 1515 Restaurant’s moniker had a…
When it comes to the public’s perception of beer branding and tasting, hops is usually the big star, while malt often takes on more of a supporting role. And yeast – well, yeast is often relegated to doing the dirty work behind the scenes. But yeast has the most important job…
Crazy Mountain Brewing said this week that it plans to open its own importation company in the United Kingdom so that it can better manage and control how it sends beer to Europe. “Establishing an importing company headquartered in the UK will allow the brewery to increase their global presence…
