Mile High Momentum

With 300 days of sunshine per year, one of the largest concentrations of craft breweries in the United States, and the granddaddy of craft-beer festivals, has a long history as a beer travel destination. But brewers in the Mile High City refuse to rest on their laurels, and a new generation is pushing creativity and diversity to even higher highs. THE FIRST THING YOU notice about Denver is the oxygen, or lack thereof. At a mile above sea level, you can lose your breath walking up a flight of stairs, and that beer you drink might hit you a little sooner and a little harder than it would at lower elevations. But that’s a small price to pay for the variety and quality of brewers who call Denver home.

“The craft-beer scene in Denver is becoming more diverse all the time,” says the Colorado Brewers Guild’s Steve Kurowski. “We’re seeing small breweries with tasting rooms open up all over the city, serving some amazing small-batch beer to their neighborhoods, as well as brew pubs with thoughtful food pairing and menus to complement house-made beers.”

This explosion of “local” means there’s hardly a neighborhood left in Denver without its own brewery, but the pressure is on new brewers to produce high-quality beer because the bar has been set so high for so long. Whether you’re into woodaged sour beer, bright and hoppy IPAS, traditional English styles, Belgian-style ales, or even heavy metal, there’s a brewery, beer bar, and package store for you.

Downtown and Lodo

The venerable Falling Rock Taphouse is not only a must-visit while in Denver, it’s a cultural touchstone—a shared experience that instantly bonds you to legions of craftbeer fanatics who have passed through the same doors, experienced the same surly bartenders, and marveled at the phenomenal tap exclusives Falling Rock get as a result of cultivating three decades of friendships in the craft-beer world. If it’s on tap, try the New Belgium Rock Star Blend, a special sour blended from the foeders of New Belgium just for Falling Rock and its Lodo neighbor, Star Bar.

Star Bar, a hipster “dive,” always has a killer list of taps and bottles, a comfortable patio, skeeball and foosball, and karaoke a couple of nights a week. One block away is the retail institution Mr. B’s—it pulls out all the stops for GABF with special bottle releases all week making it a necessary stop for rare beer hunters.

Great Divide Brewing is only a few blocks away. Step up to the bar in the clean and modern taproom, order tasters of Yeti imperial stout variations, grab some food from one of the food trucks perpetually sta-