In 1919, congress ratified the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol. Fourteen long, dry years later, congress repealed that amendment on December 5th, 1933, by passing the 21st Amendment, effectively making it legal to drink again. That day, now known as Repeal Day, is being…
Even though the endlessly acclaimed Linger does beaucoup dinner business, Executive Chef Justin Cucci says happy hour is vital to his culinary mission. “I think it’s the gateway drug for restaurants. People come and “smoke” a little happy hour so they can go on to the harder dinner drugs,” he…
A lot has happened since early 2013, when three Colorado friends — Brian Wood, Rich Wisniewski and Tyler Shuey — decided to open a brewery in River North. The neighborhood has grown quickly and now includes eight breweries within walking distance — while their project, Zephyr Brewing, has suffered through…
True sophistication can be in short supply at happy hour. We usually go for early evening snacks and drinks for a taste of what a restaurant has to offer, not for an all-consuming experience. La Cour Bistro & Art Bar, a French restaurant with a distinct lack of pretension, offers…
When Denver Beer Co opened its Canworks production brewery and packaging facility last August, it also cranked up a contest in which participants could buy the newly canned beers, grab printed GPS coordinates off of the cans, figure out the 24 different secret locations and then visit them and take…
When Trinity Brewing owner Jason Yester first envisioned a series of beers designed to highlight the differences between various wild yeasts and souring bacteria, the goal was to educate consumers, brewers, beer writers, and even beer judges about flavor profiles. “There is a lot of confusion,” he said then, about…
The challenge for Oskar Blues was to make a hoppy, low-alcohol “session” beer that wasn’t a “watered down Dale’s Pale Ale,” says Oskar Blues spokesman Chad Melis. And the result, Pinner Throwback IPA, will hit liquor store shelves in six-packs of twelve-ounce cans later this month in Colorado and North…
Behind the bar at Vesta Dipping Grill, tucked away with several other books on mixology, sits a well-worn book titled Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Bar manager Scott Ericson often thumbs through the (now) ragged book, searching for a bit of inspiration, which is exactly how he came up with…
Maybe you were done buying discount TVs before 6 a.m. or maybe you’ve just got better things to do today than join the masses at the mall. Whatever the case, there are some special beer tappings going on at a few local breweries in honor of the retail world’s big…
On Monday night, RiNo Yacht Club hosted David Kaplan, owner of legendary craft cocktail bar Death & Co., who made Denver a stop on a 15-city tour to promote his new mixology how-to book. Kaplan’s book, named after his bar in Manhattan’s East Village, was published in October and, at…
Renegade Brewing, which has spent the past five months renovating a 15,000-square-foot production facility in a development called the Yard near First Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, announced last week that it will begin distributing outside of Colorado for the first time next month. Kansas is the first state that…
The Corner Office shouldn’t work. It’s over-active, over-designed, over-achieving. Its menu covers dozens of different cuisines, from Greek htipiti dip to fish tacos. There are disco balls in the bathrooms. But rather than being a vile yuppie wonderland, the Corner Office is interesting and satisfying. Its happy hour, running from…
Every year at about this time, my email and text message in-boxes blow up with pleas for my picks on what to pour at Thanksgiving dinner. And every year, I struggle with how to respond. You see, trying to answer this question “correctly” is about as easy as finding a…
The Kitchen 1530 16th Street 303-623-3127 “I’ve always been a huge fan of Manhattans. That was kind of the base for it.” That’s Dustin Lawlor, head bartender at the Kitchen in downtown Denver, talking about Lux & Ivy, his latest whiskey cocktail. He’s also a huge fan of punk rock…
When Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project opened its showplace tap room inside the urban-chic Source market a year ago, owner Chad Yakobson planned to start brewing there right away. But for month after month, his shiny new equipment sat empty as he and Zeppelin Development, which owns the building, tried…
The 2014 baseball season didn’t work out so well for the Colorado Rockies, but it was a grand slam for Oskar Blues, which sold nearly 50,000 burgers at the CHUburger restaurant on the new rooftop deck at Coors Field. The location also poured 43,000 beers, although that total was split…
To a restaurant, happy hour is many things: a way to fill up the slow early afternoon hours, an effort to build a loyal following in the neighborhood, and a means of offloading cheap food and liquor stock. But how do places with a holistic approach to cooking and dining…
Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown, who is credited with updating the beer recipes at Colorado’s oldest brewpub to fit the modern craft-beer market, said this week that he is leaving the job after six and a half years. Mike Hall, the head brewer at Phantom Canyon Brewing in Colorado Springs,…
Fate Brewing in Boulder announced this week that it has acquired an extra 2,500 square feet of space next door to its current facility, where it will begin renovations next month, adding a barrel-aging room and new bottling and canning equipment. In addition, Fate will double its fermentation capacity to…
Lower48 Kitchen 303-942-0262 Last week’s Arctic blast of snow and sub-zero temperatures got us all thinking that winter is finally here. At Lower48 Kitchen, bar manager Brandon Brough was a step ahead of the blast, crafting a winter cocktail menu that’s ready for you when you step in the front…
The owners of Ratio Beerworks had stopped looking for space in River North — a district that already boasts seven breweries with at least three more on the way — when they heard about the 5,500-square-foot warehouse that Mile High Spirits was leaving behind after finding newer digs downtown. “It…
Keeping it local. That’s the goal of Andy Nelson and Jason Reinhardt, who will open Locavore Beer Works on Saturday, November 15 in Littleton. “We use the concentric ring model and only go outside of that if certain goods or services aren’t available,” says Nelson, adding that the brewery is…
