Over the Christmas holidays, we had a ton of family in town, and wanted to use that as an excuse to get out and about in the outskirts of Denver. We planned to head out to Golden and take a tour of the Coors brewery one morning, but didn’t do our research ahead of time! We arrived shortly after they opened, and found that the wait was almost 2 hours long, you have to wait outside in the cold, and that no purses or bags of any kind were allowed in. Since we’d ubered, all brought purses, and didn’t have heavy coats on, we decided to improvise and wander the city!
We started with Golden City Brewery. The inside space is small, but they also have a large outdoor patio, with a walk-up window to order from. They advertise themselves as the second largest brewery in Golden (second of course to Coors!). We opted to try multiple brews and do a flight, which consisted of 5 total pours.
They have these cute trays that grip the beer so you don’t spill, and the white space has erasable marker on it so that every beer is labeled. Given that I had just come home from my trip to Germany, I opted to include their Kolsh (from Cologne) and their Altbier (prevalent in Dusseldorf). I also tried their Cran-boozled milkshake IPA, their regular IPA, and Chaos, which was a coconut coffee stout.
Overall, the Chaos and the Cran-boozled ended up being my favorites, which are totally outside of my normal palate! We grabbed a few cans to go to bring back to our house.
Next we hit up Barrels & Bottles. This is a great spot if you have a group where not everyone is a huge beer fan, as they also have 24 wines on tap! They also have an extensive food menu, and tons of community tables with games. We saw quite a few large groups hanging out and having drinks over a competitive board game. They don’t technically offer flights, but you can purchase 5 oz pours of any beer, so we ordered 4 beers each and made our own version of a flight.
They have their own beers, while also showcasing a few guest taps. We primarily tried to stick to their beers for a more authentic flight. The big standouts on my end were the Orange Creamsicle Blonde, and “Walking with a Purpose” their German Weissbier.
Finally, we stopped at Mountain Toad Brewing. The menu was up on the wall in the form of a Periodic Table of Elements, and the vibe was very much an outdoorsy crowd, and many people even had their dogs inside with them. They also don’t offer flights, but have 5 oz pours, so we again ordered two at a time to try out some of their selection.
I’m an IPA girl at heart, so the Mt. Zion IPA was my first go to, along with the Golden Lotus IPA, a hazy style IPA. Surprisingly though, my absolute, standout favorite was the White Ranch Wit, and I’ll admit I may have had more than one of those!
Afterward three breweries we were pretty buzzed, and headed back to Denver to take a nap before dinner. The drive isn’t too far, and we opted to uber back and forth so we could enjoy ourselves throughout the day without worrying about driving. The uber ended up being about $25 each way on a weekend, so not too bad!
We’ll definitely make our way back out to Golden once it gets warmer here in CO, and we’re all allowed back outside again! Let us know in the comments if there are any favorites we missed, or things other than breweries to checkout!
