Far away from the wildfires that devastated parts of California’s wine country in recent weeks, Chad Yetka, co-founder of Bigsby’s Folly Winery & Restaurant at 3653 Wazee Street in RiNo, and I discussed the fire’s impact on the wine business. The grim subject seemed out of place in the sunlit…
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.” Those are the words of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Brewing beer in Colorado could be said to be much the same, especially these days, when creative…
Boulder entrepreneur Ira Leibtag wasn’t that surprised last year when he started getting cold calls from breweries around the country asking for the liquefied chocolate he sells under the name Cholaca: After all, “chocolate is the most popular flavor in the world,” he says. But he was taken aback at…
It’s getting close to Halloween, so for me, it’s a season all about ghost stories. One of my favorite reliable, and reliably haunted, neighborhood bars in town is the Stockyard Saloon. Although, I suppose the location, nestled among the warehouses and National Western Complex at 4710 National Western Drive in…
Oskar Blues has set a date in late November for the opening of its third new Colorado location — this one is the two-story former Croc’s space at 1630 Market Street in LoDo. The 10,636 square-foot Oskar Blues Grill & Brew will offer traditional restaurant and bar service upstairs, along with…
Two of the founding fathers of Denver’s current brewery taproom scene will join forces at the end of the year when Wit’s End Brewing closes its taproom and moves into Strange Craft Beer Company’s space at 1330 Zuni Street, where both companies will operate side by side. Tyler Bies, who…
Craig Rothgery, who founded tiny DeSteeg Brewing in 2013 in an alley off of North Tennyson Street, has sold the operation to a pair of Denverites who had always wanted to open a brewery. Longtime friends Ken Klispie and Tom Martinez bought DeSteeg on October 1. They plan to ramp…
If you’re considering grabbing a beer or margarita to wash down your tacos at the Torchy’s at 1085 Broadway, you’ll have to settle for a fountain drink — at least until after October 29. The Austin-based eatery had its liquor license suspended for two weeks on October 16, so the place…
The Thirsty Monk, an established brewery and bar chain in Asheville, North Carolina, will make the leap west to Denver next month; it’s buying Deep Draft Brewing, at 1604 East 17th Avenue. Opened in 2015 by Robert Lee and his family, Deep Draft had been for sale for several months…
If you’re one of the many people working downtown who uses Union Station as your transportation hub, good for you. Not only are you doing your part for the environment, but you’re also saving time and a wee bit of sanity. That’s…
I’ve learned a few bits and pieces of Denver Broncos lore in my time here, despite not being a big football fan and having grown up in the territory of the team’s secondary arch-nemesis, the Baltimore Ravens. One thing I’ve learned over the years has to do with Howard Cosell,…
The fifth annual Collaboration Fest may still be five months away, but that doesn’t mean the brewing hasn’t already begun. Among several collaborations that took place while out-of-town brewers were in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival two weeks ago was one by representatives of fourteen different state beer guilds…
My impression of the Rocker Spirits taproom, distilled into a few words: rugged yet classy, manly yet inviting to all. The distillery, located a few blocks off Littleton’s Main Street at 5587 South Hill Street, feels like an elegant makerspace for spirits and cocktails. Distinctive architectural salvage elements – dimpled steel…
Once a rare treat in Colorado, coconut beers caught on in 2016 and then rolled into 2017 like a warm tropical storm. Many of them are one-off or infrequent taproom specialties — including long-gone brews from Cerebral, Weldwerks, Copper Kettle and Horse & Dragon — while others are returning seasonals…
Perhaps you never put much thought into just how far you could get into the paleo lifestyle, the philosophy that involves eating the same (sort of) unprocessed, gluten- and grain-free foods that our caveman ancestors ate. But at Jennifer Peters’s Just Be Kitchen (2354 15th Street), the paleo ideal goes all…
Just thirty minutes into the opening session of the Great American Beer Festival last week, Neil Fisher knew he was in trouble. A line had formed at his booth in section U almost immediately — and it was getting longer. “We had a decent crowd last year, but nothing like…
When Sean Guerrero moved to the city of Huzhou, China, with his wife and their kids two years ago, he discovered one very depressing fact: “There was really no good beer,” he says. All he could find were mass-produced light lagers and “international pilsners” made by giant corporations. So Guerrero,…
A friend of mine recently moved to downtown Englewood — if that’s a thing (I’ve always referred to her new area as “You know, down near the Gothic”). So we decided to set out on a Saturday night tour of her new stomping grounds and check out…
Aspen Brewing will be forced to close its downtown Aspen taproom at the end of this month after the developer who owns the building made plans to lease it to another tenant. But the brewery, which actually produces its beer at a different facility in the Aspen Airport Business Center,…
We all know that craft beer is big in Colorado; in fact, the state’s beer industry contributed $3.07 billion to our economy in 2016 alone. But cider, wine and spirits are also developing a presence on the Front Range, in the Rocky Mountains and on the Western Slope. Here’s some fun…
It’s no secret that people in Colorado love to try and purchase locally made goods, be they wares, food or booze. Especially booze. Why else would the state have such a burgeoning beer, wine and spirits scene? Every year the number of craft breweries, distilleries and wineries grows, adding to…
Growing up in the 1980s, Brian O’Connell was bombarded of images of the Cold War, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, of the Soviet boycott of the Olympics and of the end of the U.S.S.R. Years later, when he founded Renegade Brewing, O’Connell decided to highlight the idea of independence…
