Ali Benetka, who became one of the first female head brewers in Colorado when she took over operations at Renegade Brewing in 2013, has returned to Colorado from Alaska, where she head a seasonal job, to take a brewing position at Ratio Beerworks in RiNo. A Denver-area native, Benetka earned…
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has made a point recently of checking in on kombucha producers to make sure they’re keeping their brews to less than .5 percent alcohol by volume, the legal limit above which beverages are subject to the bureau’s regulations. At alcohol levels that…
Snooze Fashioned at Snooze It’s not just Mimosas anymore. If you’re putting down some pancakes with friends at brunch these days in Denver, there are a lot more day-drinking options than just the usual orange juice mixed with sparkling wine. At Snooze, the barons of brunch have created a slew…
It starts with sweet tea, the saccharine lubricant to any good Southern meal. Prepare it wrong, and you’ll be revealed as a damn Yankee packing Celestial Seasonings. Do it right, and Southern hospitality is just a few sips away. Jezebel’s Southern Bistro & Bar is an oft-overlooked juke joint on…
When massive floods hit the Front Range two years ago, Boulder County, including the towns of Lyons and Longmont, was particularly hard hit. In response, Oskar Blues Brewery founder Dale Katechis founded CAN’d Aid to provide assistance to those struggling to rebuild after the waters receded. CAN’d Aid lived on after…
Crown Manhattan at the Crown Social If you were going to make a cocktail using only spirits made in Colorado, what would you make? A vodka and soda might be easy, but what about a more complex cocktail such as, say, a Manhattan? Well, that’s a question that bartender Chelsea…
Linger, Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box, Root Down and Root Down DIA are all operated under the umbrella of Justin Cucci’s Edible Beats family of restaurants devoted to fun, sustainable food — and great happy hours. It’s a supper syndicate, a culinary consortium, which sounds a little suspicious to me — a single…
Colorado has always led the way when it comes to canning innovations in the brewing industry, whether the latest brainstorm came from Coors, Ball Packaging, Oskar Blues, Wild Goose Canning or Mobile Canning Systems. But small craft breweries have pushed things forward as well, and one of those, Big Choice Brewing…
You’ve had beer ice cream (and if you haven’t, you should try it), but now it’s time for ice cream beer. New Belgium Brewing, in conjunction with Ben & Jerry’s, will release Salted Caramel Brownie Ale this month — and mouths are likely watering. The brown ale was brewed for…
There’s no shortage of craft beer at Denver International Airport. Passengers flying in and out can find outposts of New Belgium Brewing and Boulder Beer in the terminal, and a variety of local selections at bars and restaurants throughout the concourses; there’s also a kiosk in the B Concourse selling…
Crazy Mountain Brewery, which took over the Breckenridge Brewery’s former headquarters at 471 Kalamath Street in August, plans to open a barbecue joint and tap room in cooperation with Beaver Creek’s Group970 Restaurants sometime this fall. Group970 runs Blue Moose Pizza locations in Vail and Beaver Creek, along with two…
Pop Skull at Syntax Physic Opera At Syntax Physic Opera, everything is entertainment. The South Broadway bar and restaurant is also a venue, drawing crowds for stand-up comedy, opera, live local music and burlesque. A stage sits front and center in the dining room, where live performance is woven into the…
You just want to grab a good slab of ribs for dinner tonight. Well hold yer horses, Jethro: barbecue in Denver is a battleground, where endless skirmishes are waged over where to get the good stuff — and some don’t bother to fight at all. Given barbecue’s history as the…
Growler USA CEO Dan White says two of the best things to happen for beer drinkers in America are the surge in beer entrepreneurship — which has seen the total number of craft breweries top 4,000 this year — and the launch of his national chain of tap rooms. That’s…
Although it was founded in Lyons and operates its largest brewery in Longmont, Oskar Blues has always felt right at home in Denver. And early next year, the company will plant some actual roots here when it opens its first property in Denver, a CHUBurger at 35th and Larimer streets,…
Just because New Belgium Brewing is paying a lot of attention to its massive new production facility in Asheville, North Carolina, (slated for completion in early 2016) doesn’t mean that the Fort Collins brewery is ignoring its home base. This fall, the company will break ground on an expansion project…
The annual Great American Beer Festival swept through Denver last weekend, and this year’s version may have been the best I’ve been to in a while. The reasons for that are clear: The organizers at the Boulder-based Brewers Association made some simple but significant changes that really helped change the…
400 Rabbits at MezcalLast May, Mezcal went dark, but the closing of the venerated East Colfax restaurant wasn’t a permanent one. After a three-month remodel, a new incarnation of Mezcal re-opened with a few tweaks to the decor, a few splashes of fresh paint and a revamped menu. When the…
The Great American Beer Festival highlights chefs as well as brewers with its Paired pavilion, which matches food and beer from around the country. The pairings are coordinated by Brewers Association executive chef Adam Dulye. This year, six Colorado breweries and twelve Colorado chefs were part of the mix. Each…
I’ve been lucky enough to attend the Great American Beer Festival for the past nine years in a row. Over that time, I’ve watched it grow bigger and I’ve watched the beers get better. I’ve also watched the traditional opening notes from the bagpipe-and-drum corps during most of those years,…
Colorado is one of the leading craft-beer states. It was also the first state to allow recreational marijuana. So it would only seem natural that the two industries would cross paths at one of the 300-plus breweries here. But so far, we haven’t seen any commercial pot-infused beers — and…
There’s nothing like a first-date dinner. You probably picked a place with dim lighting, something that looked good on Yelp, with food that leans toward the sensual but doesn’t belie any unsavory intentions. You might choose a place like Vesta Dipping Grill, which not coincidentally has been a regular Best…
