24 Essential Colorado Breweries
There are nearly 10,000 registered breweries across the country and more than 400 in Colorado alone. From tightly curated taprooms to well-stocked bottle shops, discerning drinkers are spoiled for choice in the self-proclaimed "State of Craft Beer," home to such beloved institutions as Avery, Left Hand, Oskar Blues, Great Divide, New Belgium and Odell. It makes you wonder: How does a market flush with fantastic beer show no signs of slowing down? Steve Kurowski, former operations director for the Colorado Brewers Guild — essentially a lobbyist for independent brewers — has some thoughts.
"It's a mix of many things — a perfect storm," he explained in the lead-up to Colorado's annual Craft Beer Week. "For one thing, I don't think Coloradans respond very well to big business. We like knowing who makes our bagels, and we like knowing who brews our beer." He continued, "It's also part of our DNA. We've got a handful of breweries that are over 20 years old, so there's people in their 20s who don't know what it's like to have a life without craft beer."
If you're only in Colorado for a week and want to make sense of its massive craft beer scene, here's a start. We rounded up 24 can't-miss breweries in nearly every corner of Coors country.
4 Noses Brewing Co. (Broomfield)
When the Bibliowicz family toasted their paterfamilias' 50th birthday in Ireland nearly a decade ago, they didn't just down a few rounds of Guinness. Everyone buried their faces deep within their drafts like wine connoisseurs, leading a friend to say, "Look at those noses go!" This gave the tight-knit family of four an idea: Why not start a craft beer company called 4 Noses? Since it opened in 2014, the Broomfield breakout has been known for experimenting with everything from cereal milk stouts (including one that crammed two pounds of Cinnamon Toast Crunch into every keg) to fruited pale ales aged in Napa Valley barrels. 4nosesbrewing.com
Bierstadt Lagerhaus (Denver)
Rather than worry about inventing the next great IPA in a state that's full of them, Ashleigh Carter and Bill Eye launched Bierstadt Lagerhaus in 2016 with one simple goal — to get local bars to trade their Stella taps for the pair's pale Slow Pour Pils. The plan seems to be working. Much like the old Austin standby Live Oak Brewing Company, Bierstadt is a comforting reminder of what classic German beer tastes like when it favors tradition over trends. bierstadtlager.com
Broken Compass Brewing Company (Breckenridge)
After Breckenridge Brewery joined the craft division of Anheuser-Busch InBev — "selling out" in the eyes of some — it's easy to see why so many ski townies welcomed the arrival of Broken Compass with open arms in 2014. Having an award-winning, organic Coconut Porter on tap (one that rivals Oskar Blues' equally awesome Death by Coconut) certainly doesn't hurt, either. Especially when it's aged on Breckenridge Distillery rum barrels and blended with cherries, as was the case with a past limited She's My Cherry Pie release. brokencompassbrewing.com
Black Shirt Brewing Co. (Denver)
Director Thomas Kolicko centered his entire Crafting a Nation documentary around the opening of Chad and Branden Miller's River North taproom. After a few false starts, the brothers quickly carved out their own corner in Denver's increasingly crowded market, distinguishing themselves for any beer loosely defined as a red ale, from an Ocean of Noise gose brewed with yuzu, lemongrass, and Hawaiian red sea salt to a blood orange double IPA that took a year of research and five months of manual labor to complete. Now owned by Jimmy and Karen Dodson, Black Shirt's flagship Colorado Public Red is still on tap. blackshirtbrewingco.com
Cannonball Creek Brewing Company (Golden)
Coors was the only game in Golden until 1993, when Golden City Brewery staked its claim as the area's "Second Largest Brewery." Fast-forward another 20 years, and GC gained a far craftier competitor in the form of Cannonball Creek. Co-founder Brian Hutchinson was the former head brewer for Boulder's popular Mountain Sun pub. Now that he's able to focus on pushing more adventurous palates, Hutchinson and his two partners (Jason Stengl and Jonathan Lee) have earned a cult following for such immediate standouts as their Project Alpha series, which is "dedicated to the never-ending pursuit of the perfect IPA." God’s work, really. cannonballcreekbrewing.com
Cellar West Artisan Ales (Lafayette)
Now that barrel-aging has become an everyday occurrence in the craft beer universe, Zach Nichols decided to go even more niche with his devotion to a specific yeast strain: Brettanomyces. Why should you, the discerning-but-not-that-nerdy drinker, care? Well, since opening in 2016, Cellar West has rolled out revelatory 750-ml bottles of dry-hopped saisons, blonde/black ales, and a little-known Bière de Mars (translation: "Beer of March") variety that tastes like spring in a glass. cellarwest.com
Casey Brewing & Blending (Glenwood Springs)
One of the cultiest cult breweries in Colorado, Casey draws a regular weekend crowd from as far as four hours away. Visitors are never in a hurry to leave, either, thanks to a tasting room that feels more like a laidback winery. The specialty of the house is fruit-forward platforms for local produce that hold their own against just about any of the heavenly sours and wild ales that dominate the artisanal market these days. caseybrewing.com
Dry Dock Brewing Co. (Aurora)
While it's a little older than many of the others on this list, Dry Dock deserves a round of applause for jump-starting Colorado's taproom scene in 2005. Back then, the idea of delivering fresh beer directly to the consumer in draft form was more unproven than opening a food-oriented brewpub or shilling bottles at local supermarkets. A slick business model doesn't sell itself, however; killer beer does. And Dry Dock's got that, too. In fact, co-owners Michelle Reding and Kevin DeLange won three medals and the Small Brewing Company of the Year award at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival. In the years since, they've led the state in GABF nods, showing little signs of slowing down. drydockbrewing.com
Bootstrap Brewing Company (Longmont)
In 2016, Leslie and Steve Kaczeus became one of the smallest clients in Coors' portfolio, putting the couple on the same metaphorical plane as heavy-hitters like Heineken, Lagunitas, and Sapporo. They still own and operate Bootstrap without any outside investors, however, probably because their core duo of award-winning cans (Insane Rush IPA and Stick's Pale Ale) is as uniformly crushable as craft beer gets — bold without bashing you over the head. bootstrapbrewing.com
Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project (Denver)
When Crooked Stave owner Chad Yakobson and the folks behind The Source — Denver's most buzz-worthy F&B hall — couldn't find a way for him to brew on-site, Yakobson did the next best thing. He turned the small company's 2,900-square-foot space into one of the building's main draws, a veritable showroom for the state's leading sour beer specialists. Stop by for a flight of fancy barrel-aged beauties, featuring lip-puckering flavor profiles and fruit-forward finishes that bring out bursts of blueberries, apricots, blackcurrants, cherries, blood oranges, and pears. crookedstave.com
Elevation Beer Co. (Poncha Springs)
In keeping with its high-country locale, Carlin Walsh and Christian Koch started out breaking their beer down into categories that read like ski-slope rating systems: Green Circle, Blue Square, Black Diamond, and Double Black Diamond, which was where barrel-aged beasts like the company's acclaimed Oil Man imperial stout resided. To give you an idea of how well Elevation has been received: They decided to double their brewing capacity just four months after they opened in 2012. Not bad for a brewery that's surrounded by mountain ranges and located in a town of roughly 1,000 people. elevationbeerco.com
Mancos Brewing Company (Mancos)
Small-batch 22 oz. bombers are priced to move at Mancos Brewing Company, a welcome respite from the far-more-touristy nearby towns of Cortez and Durango. And guess what? It's even closer to Mesa Verde National Park — just a leisurely 10-minute drive. Better stock up on their Cliff Dweller red ale before you roll out for a day of hiking, then. mancosbrewingcompany.com
Odd13 (Lafayette)
When Eric Larkin became the head brewer at Odd13's 30-barrel operation in 2015, he was happy to hear about its reputation for robust IPAs, a style his previous gig (Portland, Maine's beloved Allagash Brewing Co.) skirted completely. What Odd13 — and the rest of Colorado, for that matter — hadn't tackled yet was a riff on the rise of New England-style IPAs. Known more for its murky appearance and tropical-juice taste than incredibly high IBUs, Odd13's hazy IPA series has quickly become its biggest smash hit, a trendsetter in a state that's never short on inspiration. odd13brewing.com
Parts & Labor Brewing Company (Sterling)
As saturated as Colorado is on a statewide level, the Eastern Plains didn't get its own brewery until the end of 2016. That's when Dylan and Kimberly Harford flipped an old Cadillac dealership into Parts & Labor Brewing Company. (The name is also a nod to the time Dylan spent as a Nissan technician.) While Sterling — a town of around 15,000 people — was still in the early days of digging craft beer, Dylan started using vast amounts of wheat from a nearby farm to prove just how fresh and clean his offerings were compared to the beer collecting dust on the area's grocery shelves. partsandlaborbrewing.com
Ratio Beerworks (Denver)
Maybe it's because the Colorado Brewers Guild is located just a few blocks away, but the one taproom Steve Kurowski couldn't seem to get enough of during his tenure there was Ratio Beerworks. Who could blame him? Largely inspired by their community-based punk background, Jason zumBrunnen, Zach Lowery, and Scott Kaplan have created a watering hole that's welcoming and full of musical winks, including a French saison named after a Jawbreaker album (Dear You) and an extra pale ale that references Fugazi (Repeater). ratiobeerworks.com
Ska Brewing (Durango)
If the checkered-skull branding and typography of Ska Brewing looks a little dated, it's because Bill Graham and Dave Thibodeau founded it in 1995, when Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt were racking up platinum records. And while most of us wouldn't be caught dead listening to horn-blasters like Reel Big Fish these days, Ska Brewing has aged quite well. In fact, it's one of Colorado’s biggest breweries. Check out their Modus Mandarina IPA if you're looking for a sip of spring, dry-hopped with heaps of Mandarina Bavaria and softened with sweet orange peels. skabrewing.com
Spangalang Brewery (Denver)
Austin Wiley spent seven years at Denver's own Great Divide, working his way up the ranks from the bottling line to lead brewer. He's joined by fellow GD vets Taylor Rees and Darren Boyd at Spangalang, a mellow Five Points find named after Kenny Clarke's signature jazz cymbal style. The trio's love of choice LPs carries over to their avant-garde brewing styles — you’ll find beers like their Nightwalker stout, doused with raspberries and aged on whiskey barrels, and a sour ale spiked with blackberries and sage. spangalangbrewery.com
Station 26 Brewing Co. (Denver)
Remember when IPAs were bitter hop bombs, not partly cloudy nods to New England? Station 26 sure does; their Juicy Banger IPA is a joy to behold, clocking in at more than 100 IBUs and throwing down hints of tropical fruit, citrus, and honey. If you're lucky, you might even find a small batch spiked with golden raisins, serrano peppers, or peaches at their taproom, too. That, or one of their highly sought-after single hop cans, which equal imperial-pale awesomeness every time. station26brewing.co
Telluride Brewing Co. (Telluride)
It took Chris Fish and Tommy Thacher less than a year to earn back-to-back gold medals at the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Fest for its Face Down brown ale, a harmonious-but-rarely-seen blend of American and English styles. They've expanded their production several times since then, and padded their trophy case with a couple Whacked Out Wheat mentions thanks to its holy trinity of hops (Cascade, Tettanger, and Saaz.) telluridebrewingco.com
Trve Brewing Co. (Denver)
Ever since the early days of Sabbath, Priest, and Maiden, heavy metal has gone hand-in-hand with beer. Not the good stuff, though; more like the Buds and Millers of the world. The classics. TRVE is on more of a death-metal tip — dizzying and dynamic, with wild ales like a golden sour brewed with ginger, pomelos, and black pepper (Suffering Soul), or a mixed-culture menace aged on Colorado sweet cherries (Black Celebration). trvebrewing.com
Ursula Brewing (Aurora)
Aside from the occasional dispute regarding overlapping beer names, Colorado has one of the country's most supportive drinking scenes. This is why the very public split of Coda Brewing's two co-founders (Luke Smith and Scott Procop) came as such a shock in 2016. While Smith kept the Coda name, Procop pressed his reset button with Ursula Brewing. Its initial tagline was a little trite — "rock 'n' roll with a twist" — but the beer here is not. Currently in the mix is a dandelion witbier with coriander and orange peel (Bloom), a fruited sour awash with blueberry puree, dehydrated cream cheese, and vanilla beans (Sympieosis: Blueberry Cream Pie), and a chocolate-peanut butter imperial stout (Colorado Buckeye). ursulabrewery.com
Verboten Brewing (Loveland)
"Beer for All" is the modus operandi of Verboten Brewing, a fair and fitting goal considering they're constantly rotating 16 atypical taps. Current offerings include Pure Imagination (their award-winning oatmeal stout), Killer Boots (an English-style porter infused with housemade caramel sauce), and Thinking of Something Orange (a crowd-pleasing American wheat clobbered with orange blossom honey and orange peels). verbotenbrewing.com
VisionQuest (Boulder)
When beer nerds talk about "nano breweries," they mean living room-like spaces where everybody knows your name. VisionQuest is the Cheers of Boulder's craft beer cognoscenti — partly because it's located right next to the city's leading homebrew shop and partly because its three founders (Adam Kandle, Greg Foley, and Greg Kallfa) excel at experimental fare you won't find at any local bottle shop. Morels, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, hibiscus: They're all fair game for VisionQuest's tightly curated fermentation tanks. visionquestbrewing.com
Weldwerks (Greeley)
Anyone still on the fence about the meteoric rise of New England-style IPAs needs to taste a big can of Juicy Bits at WeldWerks. Creamy and complex, it's like a fresh-squeezed carafe of OJ, if Tropicana started making the stuff with three kinds of hops and sweet, sweet alcohol. Juicy Bits isn’t the only draw at WeldWerks, either. Currently on tap are a host of IPAs in various styles, as well as a range of sours. weldwerksbrewing.com
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