Although I’m not normally a fan of national chains, I’d been waiting with bated breath for Houston’s to open in Cherry Creek, because I have fond memories of long, delicious lunches at its siblings in Arizona and California. But those lunches were a long time ago, and either I’ve changed…
Baseball season is on tap, and so is the seasonal reappearance of Denver’s oddest brewpub, Blue Moon Brewing Co. @ the Sandlot, inside Coors Field. Why is it odd? Although the brewery itself – owned by a division of Coors — cranks out Blue Moon and some of the other…
A Westword informant recently reported that Watson’s Liquor and Grocery, the recent Best of Denver winner right around the corner from our office, wraps your booze in a donut bag. “So the bums outside don’t bother you for beer,” the guy behind the counter told him. Makes sense. Unless, of…
For Colorado bartenders, taxes aren’t the only thing due on April 15. That’s also the deadline for submitting recipes to the first cocktail competition of the year organized by the Colorado Bartenders Guild (COBG). And I’ll be helping to judge the results at 6 p.m. April 26 at Trios Enoteca,…
Across Eighth Avenue and just down the block, the neon-bright liquor store and a bodega are humming with activity — parked cars with their doors ajar, engines idling, low-end bass rumbling the parking-lot pebbles like un-popped kernels of corn; loiterers and potential customers huddling in circles, laughing loudly, talking shit…
The eighteenth annual Colorado Mountain Winefest doesn’t start until September 17, but the Colorado Association for Viticulture and Enology just uncorked the winner of its WineFest art contest. “Labor of Love,” by Grand Junction artist Mary Ellen Andrews, will be featured on all promotional materials for the four-day Winefest, and…
Rock me, Amadeus. I’ve been going to the Mozart Lounge for years. It’s just down the street from my friend Hayley’s house, and we’d made a habit of celebrating her birthday by getting a big group of friends together at “the Mo,” where we always drank too many exceptionally strong,…
This from a guest bar blogger: Hey all, we’re having a great time here in Denver!!! We’re discussing social networking and demographics, the future of journalism, and politics. Woo!!! We have found out that the 18-25 age demographic isn’t as brain-dead as previous thought. They may actually have some positive impact on this planet, but it’s too early to tell. Thoughts?
The Wynkoop Brewing Co. was the first modern-era brewpub to open its doors in Denver, and this summer, it plans to become the first city brewery to sell its beer in cans. “We’re pushing for June,” says new Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown, who got the project off the ground…
A warning, via whiteboard, from the staff at the Viking (4888 West Colfax Avenue): YOU NEED TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE WHEN: • You run your big fucking mouth because the bar is out of something • You call the bartender dirty names in another language, unaware she…
New Belgium Brewing, which began canning its signature Fat Tire amber ale last summer, will release a second aluminum-clad brew, Sunshine Wheat, in April or May. The move gives more credence to the growing popularity of canned craft beers – a trend that began in 2002 when the Oskar Blues…
It’s not easy to belly up to the bar at the Hangar Bar (8001 East Colfax Avenue). The bolted-down stools are positioned so close to the wooden elbow rest/ledge that extends from the chipped, Formica-surfaced bar that you leave with bruises on your sternum and knees if you settle in…
Things can get downright neighborly in the LoDo neighborhood, but never more so than on Super Bowl Sunday, when restaurant workers at Dixons, Wazee Lounge and Supper Club and McCormick’s Fish House made some big bets. The loser? AJ Oscarson, a waiter at Dixons, who had to make good on…
It’s good to be the judge, and I should know since I spent Saturday afternoon dressed in a black robe and a wig, drinking beer and making history — beer-drinking history. The event was the thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, and I’d been…
I never thought that my mother, of all people, would be at the epicenter of the area’s newest hot spot, but since she moved into the Landmark development, I’ve been much more willing to jump on I-25 and head outside of my usual north of Hampden/south of I-70 drinking territory…
M&M’s (2621½ Welton Street) ain’t the sort of place you just wander into for a drink. Not that it’s hidden from street view or entirely without signage — a small, circular Budweiser emblem juts out above the door. But these days, almost nobody wanders along Welton Street in Five Points…
Oskar Blues will open its new tasting room, the Tasty Weasel, at 11 a.m. this Friday, February 13, inside its brewing and canning plant in Longmont. At 4 p.m., the Weasel will tap a firkin (roughly a quarter of a barrel) of something to celebrate the grand opening. In fact,…
Way back – way, way back — before there was a microbrewery in every city, before the terms IPA and ESB entered the common lingo, before big, bold craft beers muscled their way onto liquor store shelves (before color photography, even), the pioneers of the microbrewery industry got their shaggy-looking…
Think Highland is changing? You’ve got another think comin’. The owners of what had been Swimclub 32 are sure that their new concept for the space, El Camino, is exactly what the neighborhood wants — and needs. El Camino’s kick-back sports-bar feel seems a million miles and many dollars away…
Colorado, which hosts the annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, could finally boast a home-state winner. Cody Christman, a Denver software engineer, is one of three finalists in the thirteenth installment of this prestigious contest. He is also the first Wynkoop regular to make it…
For 130 years, the town of Golden has been drinking at 1216 Washington Avenue. For the past 60, they’ve been calling it the Ace-Hi Tavern. For bartendress Wanda, regulars Ed and Mikey, and a cast of characters large enough to spoof a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band poster eight…
“Here. Try this.” I handed over the small, green Jagermeister bottle and grinned. Because he’s a good sport (and, like me, completely susceptible to even the weakest sort of peer pressure), my comrade-in-arms Jonathan Shikes screwed off the top without question and made a move to drink the mystery fluid…
