Moving to Fort Collins

Best beer bar? Depends on what you are in the mood for. Massive # of taps, The Mayor: Awesome food, Choice City: Quiet back ally bar, The Forge: South East Fort Collins area, William Olivers.

Best Bottle shops are 287, SuperMarket, and Wilburs. Depends on what part of town you are in I guess.

Best Brewery: All of them. I imagine if you are going to be moving here, you will have enough time to eventually check them all out.

 

Best beer bar: Tap N Handle is my favorite, Mayor of Old Town is the most popular and biggest. Both are must visits. Both have a ridiculous amount of taps (tap n handle might have 50-70 - obviously not sure - while Mayor has 100). Mayor does a great job keeping their taplist updated online so you know what they got and do a great job carrying taps from all the local breweries (along with nice non-local stuff). Tap n Handle shares some of their taps online only once in a while. The atmosphere at Tap n Handle is much more my speed, laid back, a little dark, kind of a neighborhood bar type vibe, while Mayor is sterile and overly polished, IMO. Both places are must visits.

Black Bottle brewery is a brewery/bar/restaurant with decent taps (not really a fan of the spot, personally) and The Forge is a small, hard find spot with a small but nice taplist, but I won't go there to because they only take cash which pisses me off (perhaps they changed that since that initial visit, but I don't know). Cranknstein is a coffee bar that has maybe a dozen taps going too.

Best food and drink: Choice City as mentioned.

Best Bottle Shops: Wilburs is the big one, they get everything, have the best (albeit still not that good) make your own six pack secton, but busy so stock goes fast there. 287 has a nice selection and you can find some gems there, but be careful with grabbing many of the regular beers there (especially hoppy ones) because things can sit there. I bought a sixer of Hop Rod Rye there last Spring that was over a year old. Supermarket is great too, but inconvenient for me, so the place i visit least. But, honestly, probably the best of the bunch.

Best brewery: for me, I say Odell, Funkwerks, and Grimm Brothers (which is down in Loveland) are my three personal favorites. I think Equinox does regular stouts and porters (5-6% abv) better than just about any other brewery in Colorado, IMO, and have some really nice rotating gems (Spaceghost IPA, Knight Rhyder Munich Dunkel) but also release their share of duds. Verboten is relatively new and doing some good stuff, just tried a Imperial Red aged in Bushmill Barrels from them that I thought was fantastic

 

If your moving to Ft. Collins your in for a treat! Great place, we've lived here 7 years now. It's no Chicago, so you'll have plenty of time to discover the great places and decide what YOU like best. So many good places hard to have a regular hang out. I like to drink at Black Bottle (brewery too), Tap & Handle, Taps, Choice City and Old Chicago's. For breweries we have Odell, Equinox and Funkwerks. Coopersmith's has decent beer and really good food (brewpub). Loveland is a few miles away where you have Grimm Brothers, Verboten, Crow Hop and Loveland Aleworks. We are blessed with some great liquor stores, all have their pros and cons, I like Wilbur's, Supermarket, 287 and Pringles. Welcome to NoCo and you will love it here!! The people out here understand and get, great craft beer!

 

I like the cash only bars. It keeps me honest.

 

As someone who never carries cash on them, those cash-only spots force me to their ATMS and their ridiculous surcharges. I hate it, personally, and won't support such companies.

 

I came here to say exactly this.

 

I can see how that would piss people who don't carry cash. I always do, so for me, I like it.

 

Bring beer