Must hit Denver breweries/bottle shops?

There's about a bazillion, take your pick, majority of them are top notch.

If you go to Fort Collins, my favs are Odells, Equinox, Funkwerks, New Belgium has probably the best tour though.
If you go to Longmont, Oskar Blues, Left Hand & Grimm Bros.
If you go to Boulder, Avery, Twisted Pine, Boulder Beer, Upslope
For downtown Denver, I'd recommend Renegade, Denver Beer Co., Wit's End, Strange, and River North as some great start-ups. (and of course, Great Divide) Wynkoop's alright place too if you want to eat and shoot pool.
If you can drive 25 minutes to the burbs, Dry Dock is probably right up there in terms of quality as Great Divide, won small brewery of the year award at GABF in 2009, it's down in Aurora.

Our best bottle shops downtown are Mondo Vino & Argonaut, just outside of downtown, I'd highly recommend Mile High Wine & Spirits in Belmar

 

Here's a basic map:

http://beermapping.com/a/121

Since you're already downtown you can hit beer bars: Falling Rock, Cheeky Monk, Freshcraft, even Star Bar for beer-cocktails. Breweries downtown: Wynkoop, Denver Beer Co., Breckenridge (although I don't think they brew there anymore), Sandlot--during bball games, North River, Pints Pub, maybe Prost if it opens by then.

A bit off of downtown:
Breweries: Bull and Bush, Copper Kettle, another Breckenridge, Strange, Renegade

Dry Dock is a must hit, it's SE Denver (Aurora).

Shops: Argonaut is downtown. Highlands Liquor is close. Mondo Vino is closer. Total Beverage in Westminster. Liquor Mart in Boulder.

I'd also suggest Golden City brewery (Golden) in June.

 

Avery and Oskars aren't quite in Denver. If your at Oskar blues you may as well hit Left Hand.
Never been to the brewery but Dry Dock has some great beers. Renegade has good beers also, But never been to the actual brewery

 

do you have a car? if so, you should drive up to fort collins and hit up odell/new belgium/funkwerks. it's a nice drive.

biggest regret of my last trip there was not going to dry dock. awesome beer...

 

New Belgium, Odells, and Funkwerks?

Yep, I used to do the NBB, Odell, and HC Berger in a day in college all the time! I would suggest a DD though.

 

I'm going to piggyback onto this thread if you don't mind. I"ll be in Denver next week and want to pick up some bottles of Twisted Pine & Crooked Stave (and funkwerks) if at all possible. Would Argonaut be my best bet for that, or some other place? Thanks in advance!

 

There are better stores than Argonaut, but they should have some bottles from both. The trick is, most of the really good stores aren't all that close to downtown. Do you know roughly where you'll be and/or do you have a car? South of town Lukas, Tipsy's, and Davidson's are good bets. West of town, Mile High W&S is excellent. North of town you have Total Beverage. Those are the 4-star shops, but places like Argo and Mr. B's downtown are still pretty good.

 

Argonaut has Twisted Pine and Crooked Stave, but 2-3 Funkwerks. If you want a bigger selection of Funkwerks, I've seen White, and Dark Prophet both at Mile High

 

Don't forget Joy W&S on Sixth Ave. Easy to get to and one of the stronger selections in Denver.

 

Argonaut and Mr. B's for bottle shops in Denver. Great Divide and Oskar blues are the only breweries I've been to but both were great and I'd definitely recommend them although OB is a bit out of Denver. There are plenty of great beer bars i'd take a look at too. Falling Rock, Fresh Kraft, Cheeky Monk, and Star Bar are a few good ones.

 

NB, Odell, Ft. Collins brewery, Funkwerks (with Crooked Stave) are all walking distance from each other. Well, a long walk from one end (FW) to the other (NB), but do-able. But while in Ft. Collins I'd suggest Mayor of Old Town (beer bar) as a must if you want variety of brewers. 3

Crooked Stave bottles might be hard to find right now. I think they're in mid-production of new releases. But if you can find some, grab 'em.

 

Lots of good suggestions here. I was in Argonaut on Monday and they still had some WWBY and WWBG.

You're going to want to book your New Belgium tour ASAP, especially if you're going on the weekend. They fill up very fast. And go to the Mayor when you're up there. It's a fantastic beer bar.

 

Total Beverage in Westminster had 2 remaining Fertile Soils (Crooked Stave). Last time I looked I didn't see any at Argonaut. But TB didn't have any other Crooked Staves.

Total Beverage has Tropic King, Saison, Helter Skelter, and White from Funkwerks. I saw an Aurora there the other week but on Sunday they looked to finally be out.

If you're in Denver and aren't eyeing a specific beer from a brewery, just a general selection from a brewery I'd personally just stick with the convenience of Argonaut. They have a lot. The only think holding them back, imo, is no build your own six pack system.

 

Update. No more Crooked Stave at Total Beverage, was just there and they sold the final 2 bottles. Was thinking of buying one but decision was out of my hands.

Wish was, honestly, a good thing for me. $14 for a bottle of beer is more than I can afford at this moment.

 

crooked stave is available at bubble in castle rock for sure. been thinking about trying some, but found firestone XV on the shelf instead.

also check out falling rock tap house,


and highland tap and burger...
http://highlandtapdenver.com/downloads/draft_and_bottles.pdf

 

I saw a couple CS and a whole lot of FW bottles at Lukas a few minutes ago. They had pretty much all of Twisted Pine's line-up, too.

 

Lukas has had 4 of the Eclipse varities the last few times I have been.

 

At $30/bottle they are hanging around, I've seen them a few different places.