Visiting Denver

Probably depends on how you define "best" but just as some local examples -- Medianoche variants never make it to bars here. Neither do the vast majority of BA releases from Cerebral. Limited IPA kegs sometimes make it out to bars (even when they do, even the best beer bars typically only have one beer from Outer Range, Weldwerks, etc on at any given time) but the safest bet is always going to be at the source.

 

Lol Chicago.


No mention of Odell in rino.. they’re still relevant and largely better than anything in Chicagobland. Definitely great food there though, unlike the front range.

Sidebar question: is there anywhere in the world with a greater disparity between food and beer quality? You literally can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a world class beer here, but good luck finding a great meal as readily.

 

I think the access to unique/special releases is market dependent. In Colorado, especially the beer bars in Fort Collins, they always had that stuff. Down here in Albuquerque, that is almost non-existent, you really do need to go to the breweries.

 

That's definitely true. People here will fight to the death swearing that our pizza and BBQ are good, our Mexican food is great, and that our green chili is better than New Mexico's. All are laughable. Colorado IS great if you like bar food and steakhouses. I dunno about anything else. There are obviously plenty of individual exceptions, but one example in the state does not make our scene good.

 

Yeah its really weird that people feel this way... especially since most come from places with way better food.

 

Maybe it’s people who have lived here awhile. I’ve been here 25 years and while the restaurant quality has increased dramatically, especially in the past 5 years, we’re still not anywhere close to being on par with the other major cities in the country. Domingo mentioned pizza and bbq and I think those two foods and east coast sandwiches are the biggest food voids in CO.

 

I am pretty much on board with what @Dtapeski stated.

Maybe I am a little more positive in general because I will go as far as saying that I like the food in Denver,which I think has seen a nice spike in improvement ((which I would extend to) over the past 10 years, IMO. Agreed that pizza and BBQ are nothing to seek out, but I really enjoy the Mexicali restaurants Colorado has going (Sweet Pork Burritos are like crack to me). I would never travel to Denver with a focus on the food, but I always eat well when I am and was there. Not sure I see this huge disparity between beer and food, personally, but, yeah, that also isn't to say you shouldn't.

 

@Palos BEAR DOWN!! I’ve got 20 friends and family flying in from Chicago this Thursday for the game. I’ve been living in Cap Hill for 4 years since moving from Chicago. As others have stated, the food out here, while not terrible, leaves a lot to be desired. There’s plenty of good breweries and beer bars to check out though. Based on the details you’ve provided (where you’re staying, not having a car, watching college football Saturday, Bears game Sunday and Rockies game Monday) I would recommend the following...

Saturday: (South Broadway/Baker area). Walk from your Airbnb to Stoneys on Lincoln for your college football viewing pleasure. Nothing crazy special on tap but definitely a great sports bar with tons of tv’s, skeeball, other games and an outdoor patio with bag sets (aka cornhole). From there, I would walk a few blocks south on Lincoln and make a stop into Lowdown Brewery. Nothing mind blowing but worth a stop for at least a beer since you’ll be right there anyway. They have a cool spot with some TVs showing sports, outdoor patio with bag sets and tons of board games. From there, walk one block west to Broadway and head south. You’ll hit Banded Oak first. I’m not the biggest fan of their beer but once again, it’s on your route and worth stopping in for at least a beer (good patio too)... Baere is a couple blocks south and definitely worth a stop. They do a wide range of beers and do them all pretty well (they’ve won medals at GABF and other beer fests for some of their brews). The taproom itself isn’t anything special but it’s worth stopping in for the beer alone...Trve is 1 block south and is one of my favorites mainly because it’s a metal themed brewery. They’ve been brewing a wide range of beers the last couple years and do them very well. They specialize in mixed culture/wild/sour beers but also brew some really good clean beers as well (IPA’s, pales, lagers etc). Bad ass artwork on the walls too...If you’re still alive and doing well head down to Black Project for sours. Long walk or a short and cheap Uber/Lyft ride especially with 4 people...Grandma’s House is a short walk south from Black Project and worth checking out for the atmosphere alone. Average beers but super fun and unique taproom. If you make it that far and want more I’d start by hitting hit up The Dive Inn for cheap drinks and awesome chicken tenders/wings (soak up some of the booze)...After that, go from there based on your groups level of drunkenness. You can walk just about that entire trip. However, the further south you go you will have to take a Lyft/Uber to get back to your Airbnb. That’s just Saturday my friend (that was fucking exhausting typing that out). I’ll give you my Sunday/Game Day suggestions tomorrow. Cheers

 

Just gonna put it out there, but coming from someone who grew up in KC and had never had good bbq in Denver/Colorado before OwlBear is legit and right by OMF which is finally putting out some really delicious stuff (thank goodness).

 

I’ve been hitting up OwlBear since I moved here and it’s legit as fuck as is AJ’s Pit BBQ in the Overland/Platt Park/Rosedale neighborhoods. Seriously good Q from both of those places.

 

The owner had started with a now defunct BBQ place in Chicago and is probably better known for his Budlong Chicken restaurants there. He opened one up in Zeppelin Station in Denver (though maybe that is a short term pop-up).

 

We have a couple good examples of nearly anything...but that's still kinda weak with a city this size full of transplants. Owlbear (Texas beef) and Rolling Smoke (SE pork) are both putting out good stuff. On the pizza front we now have a place putting out tavern pizza inside the Source as well. Patxi's makes more or less okay Chicago lasagna-cake. We can't seem to sustain any NY pizza places for more than a few years at a time. We have 3 pizza restaurants for every man woman and child in Denver and yet most are just cranking out King Soopers deli clones.

I'm completely puzzled by our near total lack of New Mexican food and why we only have one real tapas place, though.

 

Entry #27 on RegionalCuisineAdvocate.com:

The original point mentioned the disparity here between food and beer quality in Denver, but I've actually seen the reverse problem plenty of times as well. I lived in both San Francisco and down in the Silicon Valley for many years, and these places have always been Top 5 in the country for food, yet the local brewery element is sadly lacking. Several good beer bars and taprooms exist in SF (and finally a few above average breweries have moved in over the last couple of years), but imagine living in Silicon Valley/South Bay with twice the population of metro Denver and the 3rd highest per capita GDP in the world, and having not one single "average" quality brewery. I pretty much lived off of distro beers brewed 50-200 miles away when I lived there. Houston, TX (where I grew up) was in a similar situation as recently as 5-10 years ago - fantastic food city and yet St. Arnold was the only craft beer game in town and most people had no local beer within 30-40 miles of them. New Orleans is arguably the greatest example of this - World Class food but nobody gave a damn about beer beyond Abita/Dixie or crushing some Bud Lights until maybe 2-3 years ago.

Just based on my 4 years in Denver I do think there is some real improvement in the dining scene at least in the more high-end ($$) level. There are still many challenges in the all important "moderately priced but awesome" categories and still a limited range of ethnic food and regional US cuisine. Quite frankly, Aurora is a much more interesting and satisfying food town for my tastes most of the time than Denver.

 

There isn't one reliable way to do it here, unfortunately. Some places use untappd, but there is quite a bit of variation on how good they are at keeping up with it. At least a couple places (freshcraft and cerebral, for example) use taphunter.

 

I'm sure this has been covered in multiple other threads, but is there a good place to find Casey bottles in Denver? I messaged Mr. B's and they said they are currently out. Thanks!

 

Are you currently in town? I would think Casey will be sending a sizable amount of their beer for GABF. If not, if you are heading West on I 70, Basecamp Liquors, in Frisco, generally has a very nice selection of Casey’s beers.

 

Stores (Grapevine and Mile High) are posting about big Casey drops hitting shelves right now. Cherry & Plum Fruited Funky Blender, Peach CFP, etc.
The stuff coming out of Glenwood Springs right now is just plain phenomenal.

 

Just curious. Nobody mentioned Great Divide.
I think their Yeti Imperial Stout is the best non-BA, non-adjunct imperial stout anywhere.
Don't you CO folk appreciate it???