Bars & Breweries

Drink, dine and enjoy Colorado weather on these ten great rooftop patios for food and booze.

Once upon a time (about four years ago), the owners of Colorado’s medium-sized and larger craft breweries faced a choice: use some of the cash they were earning from double-digit sales growth to take a major leap in size and keep up with the demand for their beers, or make…

Time’s rapid march toward Memorial Day means one of our favorite drinking deals is back for a fifth year. The Denver Passport just went on sale, offering two-for-one drinking deals at 68 different Mile High establishments. Hit them all between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day and you’ll save more…

For many Denverites, the name Fadó is synonymous with trips to Coors Field and the original party-atmosphere allure that made LoDo one of the hottest Denver destinations in the 1990s. But the Irish pub that opened some twenty years ago in a refurbished building that was once the Union Pacific Head…

Gordon McKennon doesn’t mind being judged. In fact, he welcomes it. Late last month, he and his wife, Joy, realized a longtime goal when they opened a small brewery inside of their three-year-old Aurora craft-beer bar, Peak to Peak Tap & Brew. With that change, Their customers can now do…

Peter Bouckaert, the renowned Belgian beer maker responsible for New Belgium Brewing’s groundbreaking sour-beer program and many of its other recipes, is leaving the nation’s fourth largest craft brewery after 21 years to launch a tiny — and mysterious — new project in Fort Collins called Purpose Brewing and Cellars…

Punch your round-the-world ticket tomorrow when Intrepid Sojourner Beer Project, Denver’s newest brewery, opens its doors for the first the time at 925 West Eighth Avenue in the Art District on Santa Fe. Founded by Ben Gettinger and former 105 West brewer Andrew Moore, the brewery will have thirteen of Moore’s beers…

Love them or hate them, New England-style IPAs are only growing in popularity, which means that the beers and their attendant qualities — and adjectives, like hazy, turbid, juicy and lush — are going to be around for a while. Over the past eighteen month, since Odd13 Brewing, Cerebral, Weldwerks…

The Vesper Lounge in Capitol Hill is about to celebrate five years in business, but the location has been a bar since at least the 1960s. Owned by local restaurant mogul Frank Bonanno, today’s Vesper Lounge is a pleasant, cozy spot that has been nicely redone while still paying tribute…

Named in honor of the legendary Manitou Incline, Pikes Peak Brewing’s latest limited release is just as big as the 2,700 steps themselves — and might also make your knees buckle. Incline Imperial IPA, at 10.5 percent ABV and 185 IBUs, is “a study in hopping,” says Chris Wright, founder and…

No thanks to the spread of overly sweet, industrial drinks distributed in the 2000s, craft cider makers have had a tough time educating consumers about the quality and complexity of the Rocky Mountain region’s finer products being made today. “We literally had to grab people and say, ‘This is craft…

When Denver Beer Co. opens its new Old Town Arvada brewery and tap room in mid-June, the third location for the company, there will be no need for a food truck outside. That’s because the truck — or, trailer, rather — will be parked inside the brewery. Denver Beer Co. owners Patrick…

Like a good mom, the RiNo Art District is rallying around Ratio Beerworks starting at noon on Mother’s Day to help the brewery while it faces what could be a three-week-long closure due to a licensing problem. The nonprofit organization is basically taking over the taproom during that time, buying…

Boulder Beer Company is Colorado’s oldest craft brewery — founded in 1979 — but it has never been the city’s most prominent. The brewery’s beautiful restaurant and taproom are hidden in an out-of-the-way east Boulder business park on Wilderness Place. That will change in July though, when Boulder Beer takes…

He came, he saw, he ate some chicken and brewed some GABF-award winning beers, and now he’s leaving. Bryan Selders, who became the founding brewmaster at The Post Brewing in Lafayette in 2013 after nine years as the head brewer and reality-TV star at Dogfish Head Brewing, is heading back…

Ratio Beerworks, which opened its doors in February 2014, has temporarily closed those doors while it sorts out a paperwork issue with both the city and the state licensing authorities. The intensely popular River North brewery didn’t say how long it intends to be closed or whether it will reopen…

Oskar Blues Brewery, which purchased Florida craft-beer darling Cigar City Brewing last year, will begin rolling out Cigar City’s beers in Colorado next week. Oskar Blues and its financial backer, Fireman Capital Partners, also own Michigan’s Perrin Brewing and the Squatters and Wasatch breweries, both in Utah. Colorado is the…

In the heart of Capitol Hill, Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill has been serving booze since the Prohibition era. Notable Denver characters, new and old, have made the bar their own over the years. The history of this classic bar starts with Judge Earnest Colburn, a mine owner who made…

Every week is craft-beer week in Colorado — but it wasn’t always like that, and some states are still fighting against laws that limit homebrewers, taprooms and other pillars of the independent beer company. Which is why it’s good to remember, even in taproom-loaded Denver, that American Craft Beer Week…

The palette of Denver’s palate deepens and broadens today when Goed Zuur opens in Five Points, serving not just a vast spectrum of complex sour and wild ales, but a sophisticated range of small plates and unusual dishes. Set inside a 120-year-old brick building with a carefully restored 1930s-era mural…

Gone are the days when drinking wine at a restaurant meant getting a workout just paging through a hefty wine menu and proving your knowledge to a snobbish server. These days great wine can be enjoyed in casual settings or in Denver-chic eateries that put together a good spread without…

The house margarita is a subtle masterpiece, at once crowd-pleasing and unique — after all, it must represent a Mexican restaurant to all of its tequila-loving customers. Here are the ten best house margaritas in Denver.