36 Hours in Denver

The plan for a trip to Denver came up quick. It started over beers in the garage, and morphed into going to see Umphrey’s McGee at Red Rocks and seeing how many breweries we could pack into such a short window. The only catch was we had to be back around lunch on Sunday for Father’s Day. Here is how the trip went:

Flight departed at 9:30 EST and arrived at Denver airport around noon MDT. Getting a rental car in Denver is a catch 22, it’s best to have to get around, but you’ll likely be getting around to locations to drink, so probably shouldn’t be driving in the first place. Our vote: go with 2-3 people, enough for one Uber and utilize the hell out of the Lime/Lyft scooters that are piled around town. We stayed downtown, there were around 25 breweries within a short walk of our hotel. The highest concentration of breweries was in the River North Art District.

Best beer: Cerebral for IPAs and stouts, Black Project for sours

Cerebral Brewing

Best atmosphere: TRVE Brewing Company, death metal music with a Burial type concept, notable mention to Woods Boss, who hosted us during a massive downpour for about two hours.

Where we missed: Knotted Root, WeldWerks, Wild Provisions, Mile High Wine and Spirits

Other items for consideration: we made it to Red Rocks on Friday night and hoped to make it to Boulder on Saturday. The Uber to Red Rocks (17 miles) was $40, but the return trip was around $80. Boulder is around 30 miles from Denver, Fort Collins is 65 miles from Denver, if you plan on hitting either of these, be smart about Ubering or have a designated driver.

Breweries we visited in order: Cerebral, Great Divide, Our Mutual Friend, Epic, Odell, Spanglang, 10 barrel, Woods Boss, TRVE, Baere, Black Project