Denver microbrews?

[Scherrman]

Well I got back from Denver last week. I was not able to make it to any breweries due to my schedule but I was able to drink some of their beer at the hotel's bar. My favorite was Great Divide's Douple IPA. Breckenridge's Avalanche was pretty good also. There was a wheat beer I had that was pretty good but I can't remember the name. Overall, Denver has some awesome beer.

 

[cerna348]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't make it to any of our breweries. Glad you had a good trip and were still able to enjoy some brews in the hotel. I was thinking about this discussion as I rode my bike into work today (my route is rather close to Strange Brewery which brought it to mind).

 

[Scherrman]

You live in Englewood, that's where DISH Network's headquarters are. That's why I was in Denver actually.

 

[GoHawks]

Well this thread is long dead and im sure your back from vacation but for others reading...

I spent a year in Denver, CO drinking brews, hiking mountains, and livin life. Here is my personal opinions of the CO breweries.

Wynkoop is not the best brewery in CO... the only decent beer there is rail yard ale. Even then mediocre.

I've never been a fan of Breckenridge either. Mediocre IMO. If you want to try it I recommend driving up TO Breckenridge to drink at the "real" brewery.

Now for the positives

Denver
1)Great Divide brewing. Excellent beer on tap and the people working there are really nice. Highly recommended.

If your willing to drive....
Ft. COllins 1) Odells makes many tasty beers. Their self titled IPA is amazing. 2) They are located next to New Belgium if your interested in going there too.

Boulder:
1)Avery makes a plethora of great beer. Highly recommended.
2)Boulder Brewing. About 1/2 of their beers are really good. The other 1/2 are so so in quality.
3) Upslope makes a tasty IPA and rumor has it their brown is good although I can not comment directly on the brown.

Longmont
1)Left hand brewing - pretty decent assortment of beers on tap. Also has a nice patio.

Golden
1) Golden city brewing - well known for their IPA. The IIPA is also excellent. Its a great atmosphere brewery. They are basically a shack with picnic tables outside and a canopy tarp. Go on a nice day and just enjoy the atmosphere. Its great.

Colorado Springs
1) Trinity brewing makes a few good ones.
2) Phantom Canyon was ok... but I didnt like the bartender, or the guy sitting next to me when I went there. Maybe thats why im remembering it as "ok". It might be really good.

Idaho Springs
1) Tommy Knocker is a great place to go post hiking/biking. The beer is decent and the buffalo burger is amazing.

edit: How could I forget?
Lyons
1) Oskar Blues. I'm personally not a huge fan of their staple "dales pale ale" but they have many many good beers on tap. The game room is sweet.


There are more good breweries in the CO area. From the above I reccomend Odell's, Golden City, Avery, and Great Divide as "must try" breweries.

 

[Hernando]

To add to a few more

Aurora: Dry Dock

Longmont: Oskar Blues has a tap room in Longmont.

Boulder: Twisted Pine

I personally agree with GoHawks on the must try and would add Twisted Pine & Dry Dock. I love their beers.

 

[coypoo]

Dry Dock is super good. They've just expanded and now (finally) have a good amount of seating as well as heaters for the patio outside so we can go out there in the winter......BrewHut is next door as well

 

[DD2000GT]

Just got back from a week long trip to Colorado - Denver to Colorado Springs, then back up to Estes Park. Downloaded a beer app that finds local breweries. Colorado is a microbrew center of the world! Never would have guessed there were so many. Here are the ones I visited:

Denver - Wynkoop - first ever microbrew I visited decades ago so I had to visit again. Decent beers, but not as great as I remembered - Chili pepper beer was good.

Castle Rock - Rockyard Brewing - all solid brews and nice building. Wildcat Wheat was my favorite.

Boulder - Twisted Pine - Small hole-in-the-wall brewery with AWESOME selection. Their sampler was 15 brews on tap! Chocolate Stout worth the trip alone IMO.

Longmont - Pumphouse Brewery - Nothing to see here, move on...
Left Hand Brewery - Nice bar atmosphere, solid brews. No food.

Lyons - Oscar Blues - Very good brews - surprisingly so. Old Chub was my favorite, but all good.

Estes Park - Estes Park Brewery - Worthless IMO. Warm beer, all low carbonation, not even very good. Very dissaponting.

Grand Lake - Grand Lake Brewing Co - Nice little storefront with offsite local brewing. Nice selection of brews, all had a "salty" feel to them I guess due to the water supply, but not enough to blow the beer. The Wooly Buger Brown was very tasty.

Colorado Springs - Bristol Brewing - Very small brewery - nothing special except their distributed Laughing Lab.

Woodland Park - BierWerks - Little storefront with decent outdoor patio. Nice brews all around but I liked the Weissbier the best.