Trip to Golden Recommendations

Sounds about the same as here in Minnesota...thanks...

 

Thanks again for the help everyone. I’ve got it boiled down to this plan with room for modifications as we good. We’re in town for five nights so we should be able to maybe even split up some Day 1 or two into a third Day. I think from looking at the map these are all within reasonable range for each night?

Denver Day Option 1- Bierstadt, Hogsbreath, Seedstock

Denver Day Option 2=Dry Dock, Comrade, Bull & Bush (AYVE Fish Fry Friday Night)

Golden Top Priorities=Cannonball, (Look for Barmen Pils on tap)

Other Golden Possibilities: Golden Mill, maybe Barrels and Botttles, Woody’s Pizza, Teller’s Taproom (Colorada Native Amber, Tivoli Helles) Sherpa House (Himalayan),Bobs Atomic Burgers, Columbine Café (music Thursdays)

Bike Trails: Mathews/Winters Trail to start and see how we feel about expanding to others like Green Mountain

Hiking: Beaver Brook Trail (start at Windy Saddle), Staunton State Park, North Table Mountain, Mt. Galbraith, Centennial Cone

Cans to look for to bring to hotel=Wild Provisions, TRVE, Prost, Living the Dream, Colorado Native series.

Other: Mount Evans 14er

 

Great to hear. My wife never has more than a couple samples each each place usually but good to know about the Uber/Lyft situation as well.

 

Thanks. I am adding those off sale options to my list. I had Green Mountain on my final list and I might not have looked at where it was located right because I thought it was out of the way so I scratched it......if it's reasonably close to Golden we'll hit it for sure. Appreciate the thoughts...

 

Just found out we are arriving around 10 am at the Denver Airport. I'm assuming we can't check in at our hotel until mid afternoon. Anything along the way from the airport to Golden that I don't have listed (or have listed) that would make sense for a stop for lunch and a couple beers?

 

Some great suggestions by a few people here so thanks to everyone...but yeah this might be the best call. Would be worth two visits it would seem.

 

Hi all. Just got back from a fantastic trip. I will be posting a detailed recap soon but we had a great time and drank a lot of great beer. Thanks for all the tips and like I said look for a recap soon. I just need to get caught up with some things at work first and I want to do a nice job on the recap and not rush it.

 

(Sorry for the length but I wanted to give a detailed recap since everyone was so nice with their recommendations).

Thanks again everyone for all the tips and advice for our trip to Golden. You are truly blessed with some great breweries and scenery there. I’m going to do my best to recap the trip but I’m sure I’ll forget some things.

We arrived on Wednesday and David the owner and founder of Comrade Brewing invited us to his place for a tour so we went that direction immediately. We had a little time until we were to meet with David so we took a stab at lunch at a nearby place called Skippy’s Sports Bar. I was skeptical it would be the basic sports bar frozen patty burger but it was walking distance to Comrade and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Very good burger. I just they make all their burgers fresh and hand pattied and it was very good.

We then hit Comrade and met up with David who is super nice guy who has a great thing going there at Comrade. Started off with a rock solid Maibock, then also enjoyed Superpower IPA which amazingly has won Silver and Gold at the last two Great American Beer Festivals and I can see why, also enjoyed a great DIPA and another one off IPA that might have been my favorite. Top quality beers and we really enjoyed our tour and time talking with David.

From there it was off to our hotel, Origins at RedRocks near Golden. Hit up the hotel bar and got a chance to try Trivoli Helles (great), Trivoli Dunkel (in a can…solid) and Native Pils in can which was very nice.

Ate dinner at Woody’s Pizza which was very good with what seemed like a lightly brushed garlicy crust. Had a Col. Native Amber which was ok but a leaned a bit heavy on the hops for the style for me.

Thursday we hiked the Apex trail for three hours. Not an easy climb with a bad MCL and worn out tennis shoes but made it safely through it and worked up a nice thirst.

Picked up some Trivoli Hefe cans and Prost Kolsch cans for the hotel while I iced my knee. The hefe was a bit grimy and a bit heavy on the overripe banana. I’ve experienced hefe’s like this before and I’m not sure what brings this on but it’s not the type of flavor I like from Hefe’s but it was ok. The Kolsch was quite tasty with a nice little sweet maltiness and some light fruity esters…Later found Living the Dream Vanilla something (Golden ale?) and bought that. It was the only Living the Dream one they had. It was ok…for one….luckily the wife liked it. Nothing wrong with it….just not my thing…

Made a quick stop at Barrels and Bottles and trued their Maibock which was ok…honey malt leaning sweet with a touch of unwanted toffee flavor.

Then another highlight of the trip. Our stop at Cannonball. Had a flight of everything on the board and everything was excellent. Was particularly impressed with how well done a delicate beer like their Mexican Lager turned out. Loved their porter. The Golden Ale was great. As were the IPA’s with some leaning a bit on the catty side. Ate dinner back at the hotel that night.

Friday we rented bikes and road to Denver and back. What a phenomenal trail that is for the most part particularly along the Clear Creek in the Wheatridge area. Found our way to the Union Station area and after looking at a few spots to eat made our first mistake. Not for the food that was fine but I took a shot of a place I knew had been around for awhile and figured they’d be decent. Wynkoop Brewery. Hefe was not very good. I sampled my wifes beer which I forget what she got and that was not very good either. Food was fine.

After getting back to Golden drove back into Denver with our car this time and Friday night was another highlight. We first hit Dry Dock and was very impressed with everything there. An elite maibock. Spot on hefe that leaned nicely on the clove esters. Very good Helles, and an excellent amber too. Didn’t get a chance to try their IPA’s as my wife was ready for supper so we were off to Barrel and Bush. If we had more time I would have liked to have stayed at Dry Dock some more. My wife loved their Apricot Blonde and I thought that was one of the better fruit beers I’ve had.

Barrel and Bush was a cool place. I got the AYCE fish fry and having grown up in Wisconsin I know my way around an AYCE fish fry and this was a very good to excellent one. Place was packed but they were right on it for refills of fish and the fish was really good. Beers were good but not great. Solid Maibock and good Vienna.

Saturday we hiked up lookout mountain and then a trail across from that one. A little less challenging hike and a more enjoyable one for me. Checked out the mansion at the top of Lookout although there was a wedding going on. I think the might be surprised to see ZAP in the background of some of their photos as we walked around it. Some cool history there.

Went into Golden for lunch and just took a stab at Miner’s Saloon and had a gourmet Hot Dog and a Coors Banquet. The Banquet was so damn good. A guy could do just fine drinking that fresh the entire time while in town. Hotdog was good on a poppyseed bun.

That night we hit Bierstadt which was as elite as everyone said with outstanding Pils, Helles, and Dunkel. Then Hogshead Brewing where I had their ESB, a taste of my wifes Mild and the Bilsner which was excellent as well. Awesome place. I’d hit both Bierstadt and Hogshead a lot if I lived in that area.

We wrapped up the night at Seedstock which was ok and just ordered a bar pizza for supper. Seedstock was good enough but I think next time I’ll just make it a Bierstadt/Hogshead combo.

Sunday we picked up lunch at Old Capitol in Golden. Had a solid burger and the Barman Pils which is also elite. Also had a quick one at Golden City as we stumbled on it. Can’t remember exactly what I had. Amber I think. It was fine.

Just hung around the hotel drinking some of my off sale and a few at the hotel bar until the Big Head Todd concert at Red Rocks. Concert and venue were incredible. Had one mainstream IPA there I can’t remember. New Belgium maybe.

Monday my wife was ready to drag my ass out hiking again and we hit the North Table trails. Easiest trails by far and would have been a good one for our mountain biking level but we had no way to get the bikes over there from the hotel where they offered them to use. We ended up not doing any mountain biking. Got a nice sub at D’Deli.

Monday night we went out to Idaho Springs and I’m glad we did. Great drive although we were leery of driving up the mountain. Westbound and Down had some excellent beers. Best hefeweizen of the trip. Did a flight of some others and all were excellent with Single Barrel Double Absence flat out incredible. 15.3% and not sharp or boozy at all. Loaded with flavor as you’d expect. This place is doing some great stuff.

Tommyknocker was fine. Maple Nut Brown was ok. A few others on the flight were decent enough and a cask fruit beer I can’t remember was quite good and I don’t usually like those too much but this was very good.

We ate a great BBQ joint we were told about that I would highly recommend. Smokin Yard’s BBQ. Just a regular old BBQ joint but a great area out back on the Clear Creek to eat. They had an Helles lager and an IPA from a couple different places I wasn’t familiar with but enjoyed from other parts of the state that I can’t remember and didn’t take the time to write down. Highly recommend this place.

Tuesday we flew back and got to the airport plenty early so I had some more beers that I didn’t take notes on. An ok dunkel from the Chop House. Also a Wibby Helles that might not have been a perfect style fit but was a great tasting beer to me. Loved that one. They also had the dunkel in cans and almost tried to squeeze in that one but our flight was boarding soon so I figured enough was enough but Wibby is place I’d like to revisit.

Overall the trip was great. I appreciate all the recommendations. We missed a bunch of places, trails and beers but you only have so much time. Really impressed with the area and the beer scene. Thanks to all again!