Once you start beer exploring in the Denver-Boulder area it is easy to just keep going -- over to Idaho Springs, up to Longmont and even Fort Collins, into smaller towns like Nederland and Lyons ...
But if you are short on time, here are our five top choices (keeping it to Denver and Boulder):
About the beer: 69 taps serve the widest selection of beer available in Colorado, both local products and excellent beer from afar. Why else to go: Owner Chris Black is dedicated to offering a great beer experience. Also full menu of upscale spirits. The place is jammed every night after the doors close on the Great American Beer Festival. Frequent special beer events.
Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery
1535 Pearl St., Boulder, 303-546-0866
About the beer: Nice lineup of beers brewed here plus excellent guest beers on tap. Why else to go: Boulder has many excellent brewpubs, but Mountain Sun is set apart by it laid-back feel. It will remind you of a McMenamins pubs in Oregon, complete with with a sun painted and food that's a value.
My Brother's Bar
2376 15th St., Denver, 303-455-9991
About the beer: 13 on tap, imports and craft beers. Why else to go: This place has been around with one name or another for 100-plus years. Brick walls, a tin ceiling, theater posters on the walls and classical music in the background mix well with unpretentious food. Sweet civilization.
Pint's Pub
221 W. 13th Ave., Denver, 303-534-7543
Bull & Bush Pub & Brewery
4700 Cherry Creek Drive S., Denver, 303-759-0333
About the beer: Both of these places were British pubs serving British beer and then became brewpubs. Pint's offers a wider variety of guest beers. Why else to go: OK, we are actually listing six spots to try by lumping these two British pubs together, but both are delightful and we suggest stopping in the one most convenient (Pint's is downtown, the Bull & bush in Cherry Creek). Pint's has more than 100 single-malt whiskies.
About the beer: Excellent seletion of beer brewed on premise. Why else to go: The first brewpub in the Rockies, in a nifty old mercantile building. Good food, good service, friendly setting, pool upstairs.
