Denver's tapped resources

The city is home to about 30 brewpubs. Happily, a beer-based tour often can be accomplished on foot.

By Joyzelle Davis, Special to The Times
12:00 AM PDT, September 04, 2005

BEER is to Denver what cream soda is to New York, vodka is to Moscow and wheat grass is to West Hollywood: an unofficial civic beverage that leans toward undesirable stereotype.

Men's Health magazine, for instance, named Denver the most "sloshed" big city in America last year, cheerily citing data that included alcohol-related deaths, arrests and accidents. Beyond police reports, anecdotal evidence abounds. The mayor earned his fortune through an empire of brewpubs. This is where Modern Drunkard magazine is published. The major league baseball park is named for a beer company.

"It's kind of a vacation mentality here," said Cindy Jones, marketing director for the Brewers Assn., based in nearby Boulder. "Anywhere you are, it's always time to crack open a beer."

Never more so than the last weekend of September. That's when the Great American Beer Festival is in town, luring 28,000 ale aficionados. About 1,600 varieties of beer are ready for tasting in 1-ounce servings.

But visitors can drink their way across Denver any time of year. There are about 30 brewpubs in the city and its immediate suburbs. Many in downtown are within walking distance of one another and major hotels.

The Wynkoop Brewing Co. is the city's oldest microbrewery. John Hickenlooper, now the mayor, founded it in 1988, helping initiate the revitalization of the Lower Downtown district. These days, it's not unusual to see politicos in ties in one booth and snowboarders in tie-dye in the next.

Despite the restaurant's size — it's in an immense restored warehouse with billiards on the second floor and a comedy club in the basement — there's often a wait for a table. The menu has items such as gorgonzola ale soup and grilled elk medallions.

Among beers on tap are the lightly carbonated Sagebrush Stout and Patty's Chile Beer, which gets assertive but not overpowering heat from Anaheim chiles. The flagship draft is Railyard Ale (a nod to the pub's proximity to Union Station), which is an Oktoberfest-style deep amber. For kids and teetotalers, the honey-accented Tiger Root Beer is on tap.

The largest brewery in Denver is Flying Dog, whose bottles are easily recognized on market shelves by their unruly labels illustrated by gonzo artist Ralph Steadman. But the whole litter of canine-themed brews — including In Heat Wheat Hefeweizen and Horn Dog Barley Wine — can be had from the tap, breathtakingly fresh, at the adjacent Blake Street Tavern. Windows from the bar look right into Flying Dog's 50-barrel brew house.

Its latest brew, Gonzo Imperial Porter, is a special release to commemorate the passing of writer Hunter S. Thompson, who lived outside Aspen. (Given the inspiration, this Steadman label seems tame: a skeleton with hat and cigarette, saying, "OK! Let's party!" The brewery previously tussled with the Colorado Liquor Enforcement Division over the slogan "Good Beer, No [expletive]" on its Road Dog Scottish Ale label, though the brewer prevailed.)

Breckenridge Brewery, maker of Avalanche Ale and coffee-scented Oatmeal Stout, started out in Breckenridge in 1990 and later added two outposts in Denver. The livelier one is across the street from Coors Field, making it a crowded destination during and after Rockies games.

The other, Breckenridge Brewery & BBQ, is in a less-hopping industrial area south of downtown. The kitchen closes at 9 p.m. on Friday nights, and most of the customers have cleared out long before then. But in the earlier hours, it offers a generous pulled pork sandwich and other barbecue staples, as well as a tasting room in the microbrewery where its wares are bottled and put in kegs for off-site sales.

Rocky State symbol

ROCK Bottom Brewery, based in Louisville, Colo., is one of the few brewpubs that has expanded nationwide, including restaurants in Long Beach and San Diego. In Denver, Rock Bottom attracts a boisterous after-work crowd on the bustling 16th Street Mall. Successfully jockey for space on the patio and you can sip a Hefeweizen and watch the shoppers and office workers pass by. Rock Bottom also operates the more upscale, 1940s-themed Chop House & Brewery on 19th at Wynkoop Street — a purported favorite hangout of Denver's pro athletes.

The Bull & Bush Pub & Brewery is more of a neighborhood hangout. It's modeled after the bar of the same name in London's Hampstead Heath — right down to the warped copper bar and British knickknacks. It's dark like a London pub too; even the fireplace fails to bring in any light. The food, however, leans more toward chicken wings than shepherd's pie.

Single page | 1 2 3 >>