Beer Tasting in Denver: Great Divide, Crooked Stave, First Draft

Today for Travel Tuesday I take you back to my September trip to Denver, Colorado when I was there for for GABF – the Great American Beer Festival. We were there for several days, but only attended one session/day of GABF (I recapped that here). On other days, we explored the rest of the beer scene in Denver. This post will focus on my favorite beer stops within the Denver city limits itself – I will cover our day trip to Boulder and Longmont in another, separate post. These 3 in this post are all within 1 mile of each other.

Denver Brewery: Great Divide

Great Divide Brewing has two locations. We visited both. Their original location is the Ballpark: Brewery & Tap Room with 16 taps of seasonal and year-round brews.
Great Divide, downtown location Great Divide, downtown location

Though the Ballpark taproom is small, the downtown location near Coors Field can’t be beat and it’s small size makes it more intimate and cozy. Right by the bar you can see through the doors to the original beer production area.
Great Divide Tap Room sign outside the location downtown by the baseball field Great Divide Tap Room sign outside the location downtown by the baseball field

I highly recommend getting samplers of everything. Their menu offers some suggestions for flights of beer to create.
Great Divide Tasting Room, their year round beers and suggested sample flights

In addition to the smaller sample size allowing you to taste all their beers, 100% of the proceeds from sample pours are donated to local nonprofits. During our visit, the nonprofits benefiting included the Denver Public Library and Urban Peak (servicing homeless youth).
Sample beer at Great Divide Tasting Room Sample beer at Great Divide Tasting Room

Their new location also open is the RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland located in the River North aka RiNo neighborhood of Denver and includes the year-round as well as seasonal, Barrel Aged, and limited release offerings. They also offer Crowlers here.
Great Divide Crowlers at the RiNo location

This location is easier to fit groups and has a more hip vibe to it than the more casual ballpark tasting room.
Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland

You are apt to a bit more “Yeti sighting” here in RiNo than the Ballpark location.
Great Divide Brewing tasting room in RiNo Great Divide Brewing tasting room in RiNo

Both locations offer brewery tours.
Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland Great Divide RiNo: Barrel Bar & Packaging Wonderland

Both locations do not offer food, but food trucks can usually be found outside to get a little nourishment. The food truck will vary based on the day. During my visit my friends and I shared a pizza from Basic Kneads Pizza at the Ballpark location, offering wood-fired pizza from their food truck. You can see the flames and them hand tossing the dough to order.
Basic Kneads Pizza, offering wood-fired pizza from their food truck Basic Kneads Pizza, offering wood-fired pizza from their food truck

The 16″ Wise Guy Pizza with Olive Oil, Mozzarella, Sausage, Roasted Onions, and Fresh Rosemary pizza was incredibly delicious and really went well with the beer. At the RiNo location, during our visit a food truck called Amazeballs specializing in baked ball items (chicken balls, beef and ricotta balls, eggplant feta balls, etc) was outside.
Basic Kneads pizza, the 16
Great Divide Brewing Co. Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato Great Divide Brewing Co. Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Denver Brewery: Crooked Stave

First off, I’ll tell you upfront now that Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project is a brewery that specializes in beers aged in brett and sour beers. Located in a building called The Source, the tasting room is one of multiple food and drink artisan businesses including cheese, wine, and located in the shared market space inside this renovated brick warehouse in Denver’s River North District. The Source is located only a block down the street from Great Divide’s RiNo tasting room.
Denver's RiNo The Source building Denver's RiNo The Source building Denver's RiNo The Source building
This taproom offers 20 some taps of their beers that are bravely experimental and unapologetic in their funkyness and tartness (not all are sour, a few can be subtle Belgian styles as well).
Crooked Stave tasting room, located in Denver's RiNo in The Source building Crooked Stave tasting room, located in Denver's RiNo in The Source building Crooked Stave tasting room, located in Denver's RiNo in The Source building

For instance, we tried a special one off collaboration with Hawkshead Brewery in the UK, a Key Lime Tau (2π) which is mixed fermentation ale aged in oak with lactose, fresh lime peel and fresh lemongrass, which I loved. Another beer was Colorado Wild Sage, an artisanal saison with sage.
Crooked

Another beer were various versions of Sin Frontera, including bourbon barrel, cerveza aged in sherry barrels, aged in whiskey barrels with cherries – it was fun tasting the flight and trying to detect/recall which one is which one.
Sin Frontera from Crooked Stave Brewing

Again, I recommend getting sample pours so you can try many. The Crooked Stave tasting room doesn’t serve food, but you can easily wander a few yards outside to its neighbors within The Source building for a bite.
Samplers of Crooked Stave Brett and sour beers Samplers of Crooked Stave Brett and sour beers
Crooked Stave Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Denver Pour Your Own Adventure: First Draft

Located only a mile away from RiNo and Crooked Stave’s tasting room, First Draft is a unique beer bar. You see, here you can pour your own beer – and you only have to pay by the ounce.
First Draft in Denver, Colorado First Draft in Denver, Colorado

When you first enter, you are asked to show ID and also a credit card to hold your charges. This then nets you a special wristband.
First Draft in Denver, Colorado you put down a credit card and get a wristband in order to track your pours at this pour your own and pay only by the ounce beer bar First Draft in Denver, Colorado you put down a credit card and get a wristband in order to track your pours at this pour your own and pay only by the ounce beer bar

You pick the kind of glass you would like to use.
First Draft in Denver, Colorado - select your own glassware as you see fit

You can then walk up to any of the 40 some taps (mostly beer, but also some are ciders or wine) and tap your wristband to the screen of any tap activate the green light that means you can now pour.
"At First Draft in Denver, Colorado

Then you pour however much you desire- be it a full glass, half a glass, even just a few ounces of sample. I poured just a few ounces of several beers that were more on the expensive side, like The Bruery Smoking Wood (usually found only in bottles, and is a delicious Imperial Smoked Porter at 10% ABV) at $1 per ounce as well as normal priced side like Bell’s Brewery Coffee Moustache at $0.60 per ounce.
Pour however little or much beer you'd like for yourself at First Draft in Denver, Colorado Pour however little or much beer you'd like for yourself at First Draft in Denver, Colorado

After you finish your pour, you are given a readout of how much you poured and your current total. Before you pour, you can also touch the screen to get more details on the beer before you select it beyond the initial brewery name, name of beer, type of beer style, ABV, IBU, and cost that is displayed by default on the screen for each tap.
First Draft in Denver, Colorado First Draft in Denver, Colorado

The high ceilings of the main room, a patio outside, as well as a balcony area seating overlooking the tap stations make the beer bar seem airy and never too packed even though there may be quite a gathering of people reading the taps depending on when groups enter.

They do serve a few snacks of food including cheese plates, charcuterie plates, and snacky things such as grilled shishitos, pretzels, fries, fritters, as well as more substantial sandwiches such as burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, brisket grilled cheese, or churros. One of the best ideas they have is you can get a little ice cream in a glass that you can then pour your beer over for your own craft beer float!
Pour however little or much beer you'd like for yourself at First Draft in Denver, Colorado Pour however little or much beer you'd like for yourself at First Draft in Denver, Colorado

So for a unique experience in beer travel and beer drinking, and the chance to try a lot of beers for a super affordable price as long as you carefully control your pours, I definitely recommend First Draft!
Pour however little or much beer you'd like for yourself at First Draft in Denver, Colorado

First Draft Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Have you been beer tasting in Denver and visited any of these beer locations? What beer tasting rooms in Denver have you visited? Have you been to the RiNo area of Denver? What do you think of First Draft’s concept (it wouldn’t fly in Oregon because of OLCC regulations sadly)?

I’ll still pick Portland as the winningest beercation city in the US though. 🙂

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Visiting Denver for Beer Vacation / Beercation and GABF in September 2015

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