From the outside, Crazy Mountain Brewing’s path over the past few years has seemed, well, a little crazy. Founded in 2010 in Vail Valley, it expanded rapidly by packaging and distributing beer to other states and overseas, using the recognition it had earned from tourists who’d visited. Then in 2015,…
There’s no bigger power couple in craft brewing than Kim Jordan and Dick Cantwell. Jordan co-founded New Belgium Brewing, the nation’s fourth largest craft brewery, and is now the executive chairwoman. Cantwell helped start Elysian Brewing in Seattle in 1995 before selling it to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2015; he left…
Beer has always been one of Canada’s best-known exports, thanks in part to Molson, Moosehead, Labatt and the movie Strange Brew. But over the next two years, Canada will export an entire brewery — to Colorado. In May, Vancouver’s Red Truck Beer Company revealed that it had purchased Fort Collins…
I just learned today from Google that the neighborhood surrounding Regis University in Northwest Denver is actually called Regis. I always thought it was somehow part of nearby Berkeley, but I stand corrected. In this stretch of residential blocks, with a few small businesses here and there along the swath…
Earlier this summer, the Brewers Association unveiled a new seal that it hopes independent craft breweries will add to the labels on their bottles and cans in order to distinguish themselves from large corporate-owned breweries, or small breweries that have been purchased by mega-brewers. The seal, which depicts an upside-down…
The store has been on Larimer for three decades.
Mention of the Colorado Wine Governor’s Cup Competition would once have drawn blank stares: What? Wine in Colorado? That’s beer country. But times have changed. On August 3, the 2017 Governor’s Cup Competition drew hundreds of wine enthusiasts to the History Colorado Center, where they tried past winners as well…
It’s a big world out there, full of giant trees, open spaces and potent beers. Jordan Fink and Chad Moore have seen a chunk of it, and now they’re planning to bring some of it indoors at Woods Boss Brewing. The new brewery, at 2210 California Street, is centered around…
Blocks away from the hustle and bustle of the Art District on Santa Fe — and the Sixth Avenue on-ramp to I-25 — lies an unassuming little bar called the Lincoln Park Lounge. After a recent revitalization of the former — and rather sketchy — Westside Bar, which lay vacant…
Paste Magazine, which must have ten refrigerators in its office, has released yet another ranked list of craft beers, this time focusing on wild and sour ales — a difficult task that it describes as “venturing into a quagmire of conflicting styles and sub-styles — you’re just hoping to find…
IPA Day is Thursday, August 3, this year. It’s one of the those silly food-and-beverage holidays without much of a background or a purpose. In Colorado, though, it’s easy to celebrate because, as most square-staters know, every day is IPA Day in Colorado. And Saison Day. And Stout Day. And…
“It’s interesting trying to stay true to yourself, but to also stay relevant,” says Black Shirt Brewing co-owner Branden Miller. “You find yourself doing stuff that you never thought you would do.” In this case, that means entering beer contests like the Great American Beer Festival, which takes place October…
Great Divide Brewing has made a wardrobe change. The female farmhand on the label of its Colette Farmhouse Ale has traded in her short skirt and stiletto heels for some work-appropriate pants a pair of sturdy boots. It was a subtle change, but one that may resonate in the craft-beer…
The Brown Palace Hotel has been holding down its pie-shaped piece of Denver for 125 years. But when it came time to brew a beer to commemorate that anniversary, the historic hotel only gave itself, and Strange Craft Beer Company, five months to prepare. Time has a funny way of…
Tooey’s Off Colfax has it’s own thing going on. From punk rockers hanging out before or after a show at the Ogden Theater, to the industry crowd grabbing happy hour on their day off, to a healthy group of soul fans dancing on “Soul Night” on the fourth Saturday of…
As pressure builds on craft breweries across the country, some are taking unusual steps to keep themselves competitive and avoid selling out to large beverage companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Heineken. On Tuesday, July 25, the Brooklyn Brewery, the nation’s eleventh largest independent beer maker, announced that it had taken…
After months of research, and a few delays, Left Hand Brewing in Longmont is finally releasing Nitro Milk Stout in a can — and is calling it “the first ever U.S. production run of a U.S. made nitro widget can.” Several breweries in the United Kingdom, like Guinness, have been…
Walking through the continuous construction zone that is downtown Denver, it’s not easy to find much of the wild-west romance that has charmed visitors to the Mile High City for decades. Rail tracks have been torn up and old brick buildings have been torn down. Even the confluence of Cherry…
The Great American Beer Festival, which takes place from October 5-7 this year, just keeps getting bigger. As of last week, the Boulder-based Brewers Association, which hosts the extravaganza, had registered a staggering 2,259 breweries into the competition, up from last year’s record-setting 1,752 breweries. All told, there are 8,218 beers…
In 2012, Rick Abitbol was an out-of-work, opinionated brewer who’d been fired from his last two jobs. So, with a $50,000 loan from his dad, a couple of credit cards and some crossed fingers, he decided to open Brewery Rickoli in Wheat Ridge, specializing in gluten-reduced beers. The last piece…
Flying Dog Brewery has a long history of fighting censorship — in Colorado, where the brewery was born, in Maryland, where it moved to in 2008, and in Michigan, where it has fought a long battle with the state over the right to sell its flagship beer, Raging Bitch Belgian…
It’s not easy to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the recent phenomenon that is hazy, New England-style IPAs. Although many local brewers and breweries tried to forswear them over the past eighteen months since they took Colorado by storm, a good number of those ended…
