Bon Vin Summer Chef Series; July 10, 17, 24, 31

Bon Vin, a West Highland bottle shop that recently took over from the Toast neighborhood liquor store at 3828 W. 23rd Ave., has been hosting weekly Friday wine pairings with bites from some of Denver’s best chefs. The series, which began in May, will continue through Sept. 25; it runs every Friday beginning at 4:30 p.m. July 10 brings in Geoff Cox of Cimera, who is doing Peruvian anticuchos skewers; and July 17 is a Japanese-Italian yakitori collaboration between Porchetta House and Taeko-san Takeout. Monarch Pizza will stop by on July 24, followed by Farang Thai Kitchen on July 31.

Chaatwala pop-up; July 11

Chef Pradyut Bansal, the co-owner of Chaatwala, has done a variety of pop-ups featuring his Indian cuisine. The latest will be a collaboration with Tushar Mishra of The Wolf’s Tailor, who will provide Indian-inspired cocktails. The goal, he says, is to “recreate a night out in India. They’ll be at Hudson Hill, 619 E. 13th Ave., in Denver, from 6 p.m. to sellout.

Up NXT at Bear Leek — Magnolion; July 12

Magnolion, a crossover between Southern cooking and Asian cuisine, is next up at Up NXT Denver, a rotating culinary incubator and chef pop-up series that has been running since May on Sundays at Bear Leek, 2611 Walnut St. It allows restaurateurs, chefs and cooks to try out new concepts and ideas in a multi-course setting at a real restaurant space. Magnolion, led by chef Cody Peeler of The Wolf’s Tailor and chef Tiffany Leong, features an eight-course tasting menu

Cottage Bakery Sundays/King Arthur Baking pop-up; July 12, 19, 26

King Arthur Baking, which is operating a pop-up location at 2800 Walnut St., Suite 110, has started a new series called  Cottage Bakery Sundays; it highlights local cottage bakers. Running from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. each Sunday in July, the series includes a lineup of local cottage bakers selling their baked goods. July 12 is sourdough breads and muffins from Plum Tree Bakery; July 19 is organic sourdough breads and rolls from Mathildes Pantry; and July 26 is oatmeal cream pies from Mile High Cream Pies.

A pair of Michelin award-winning chefs pop up at the Clayton Hotel in Cherry Creek — all summer

The first pop-up comes from chef Johnny Curiel, who is introducing Tequilería Alteño, a Mexican cantina and tequila bar, at the Clayton Hotel & Members Club, 233 Clayton St. It will operate inside Curiel’s Mar Bella Wine Bar Tuesdays through Saturdays, starting at 4 p.m.; it begins July 7 and runs through the summer. The menu consists of shareable small plates that celebrate the depth, versatility, and heritage of masa. Dishes include: Flautas with roasted chicken, salsa verde and crema de rancho; and prime NY Strip with guacamole and salsa negra de ceniza. There will also be more than 80 agave-based Mexican spirits to choose from. Curiel has won one Michelin star at two of his other restaurants, Alma Fonda Fina and Mezcaleria Alma. .

The second pop-up is Sheep, which will take over the sixth-floor rooftop space of the Clayton Hotel from July 8 through Oct. 4. Brought to you by chefs Kelly Whitaker, Taylor Stark and the rest of the team behind The Wolf’s Tailor — Colorado’s only two Michelin-star spot — the pop-up will focus on open-fire cooking. The four-course menu includes dishes like smoked heirloom tomato jelly with tomato water and frozen wasabi; and mackerel with a tom kha cream. This is the first time the Clayton Hotel has opened its 54-seat rooftop restaurant to the public. Dinner starts at $95 per person, but goes up from there with add-ons and beverages. .

The Big Eat; July 23

The Big Eat, a festival and fundraiser featuring food and beverages from more than 80 independent chefs, restaurants and drink purveyors, returns to the open-air Galleria at the Denver Performing Arts Complex on Thursday, July 23. Hosted by EatDenver, the event is a chance for people to try bites and dishes from restaurants all over the metro area. Participating restaurants and food vendors include: Ace Eat Serve, American Elm, BearLeek, Berliner Haus, Bistro Vendôme, Blackbelly Market, Boombots, Chopstix Fusion, Convivio Café, The Grandview Tavern, Kawa Ni, Konjo Ethiopian Food, La Diabla and Malinche Audiobar, Leven Deli, Mukja, Olive & Finch, Pig and Tiger, Pizzeria Leopold, Restaurant Olivia, Riot BBQ, Rōmyō, Saigon Noodle Club, Somebody People, Tavernetta, Ultreia, Monarch Pizza and many more. Tickets are $105 and all guests must be 21 or older. Get tickets and information at .

Flame Fest: Colorado’s Grilling Championship; July 25

If you like smoke, then Flame Fest at Denargo Market, 2525 Wewatta Way, in Denver, is the event for you. Organizers describe it as “a full-on celebration of live-fire cooking, where top local chefs, pitmasters, and restaurants go head-to-head serving up their best grilled creations. From perfectly smoked meats to flame-kissed veggies and creative bites you won’t find anywhere else, you’ll get unlimited samples and a front-row seat to the action.” There will also be craft beer, cocktails and other summer drinks; a live DJ and entertainment all night long; and people’s choice voting. Flame Fest runs from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Get more information and tickets, $88, at .

The couple opened the self-pour franchise Tapster on June 26 at 3200 Tejon St. in Denver, inviting patrons to pick from any of the 54 taps.

Three-quarters are filled with local brews, according to Zac Crow. There are also seltzers, taps with ciders, cocktails and hard liquor, plus three with nonalcoholic drinks.

“One of our most popular ones is WeldWerks Juicy Bits IPA,” Zac Crow said. “But one of the things that obviously is not local is Guinness. That����ap been our most popular in the four days we’ve been open.”

To get the juices flowing, customers open a tab when they walk in and receive a Tapster-branded card that will charge back to the original tab on file. Then, they can tap the card above each spout and start pouring. Prices are by the ounce and run as low as 40 cents to well over a dollar for liquor.

Tapster doesn’t serve food outside of light snacks, but Zac Crow said customers are encouraged to bring in takeout from other spots. He’s also talking with restaurants on the block to set up a delivery or pickup system through which Tapster patrons can get bites.

The spot also has a private room available for rent, he said.

“We’ll have a very heavy rotation (of drinks) because we’re using just small kegs,” he said. “And that will keep our tap wall fresh and keep our guests coming back and trying something different even week to week.”

The Crows signed a 10-year lease for the 2,800 square feet in October before running into delays with the construction and permitting process, which cost them $500,000 total.

Both are Colorado natives and Colorado State University alums, so they wanted to bring a local flavor to the franchise. Aspen wood that they picked up from Cañon City covers the tap wall, and a local artist painted murals of mountains and pine trees around the space.

The Crows also have plenty of gold and green around to honor their alma mater — “but we don’t want to piss off CU fans,” Zac Crow said. Part of the reason they chose to open a Tapster, he added, is because of its customization.

“It����ap not your cookie-cutter franchise,” he said. “In most franchises, they’re going to look exactly the same. But every Tapster is different and customized to local regions.”

The couple met while working together at Austin’s American Grill out of college. Meghan Crow became a dental hygienist, and Zac Crow later went into accounting, where he ended up at a firm that focused solely on franchises.

Through that, he learned about Tapster and decided he wanted to open one in his home state. The spot����ap first location opened in Chicago in 2017 and grew to six locations in Seattle, Washington; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; and Lexington, Kentucky; before the Crows added Denver.

“We wanted something where people can come and socialize and just hang out,” Zac Crow said. “And from the business perspective, it made a lot of sense to have a place that isn’t super labor intensive. And just the system itself uses tech that reduces waste and theft.”

It����ap not the first time a self-serve tap company has made a run of it in Denver. First Draft, which operated for 10 years in RiNo, had some 40 taps before it closed last summer, attributing a downtick in business to a different crowd in the neighborhood post-COVID.

Read more from our partner, .

Before the brewery opened in 2018, founder/co-owner Jess Fierro made a name for herself on VICE’s homebrewing competition show “Beerland.” Fierro won the judges over with a tamarind-infused Bière de Garde and subsequently had the opportunity to turn her recipe , which was brewed and distributed by Golden Road Brewing out of California.

Atrevida was billed as Colorado’s first Latina-owned brewery and leaned into its Mexican heritage through its beer styles and ingredients. The word atrevida means a daring or bold woman in Spanish, and the company’s slogan has long been “diversity, it����ap on tap.”

Fast forward to 2022 and Atrevida Beer Co. became a nationally recognized name after a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ club in its hometown. Jess, her husband Rich Fierro and their daughter Kassy were watching a drag show at the club the night of Nov. 19 when a gunman opened fire and fatally shot five people. Rich, a U.S. Army veteran, disarmed and hit the gunman, saving innumerable lives, police said at the time.

In the wake of that tragedy, Atrevida Beer Co. received an outpouring of support from allies far and wide. Local supporters drained the kegs at the small brewery, and those more distant bought merchandise in shows of solidarity.

The Fierro family was overwhelmed with gratitude and also with grief. As they sought to adapt to their newfound popularity, Jess, Rich and Kassy put their own recovery from the traumatic event on the back burner. The brewery’s closing will finally afford them the chance to recuperate, Jess said in an interview this month.

“Following Club Q, we never really got time to figure ourselves out and work on our mental health. We kind of just got in robot mode and kept going,” she said. “So I think this is time we need to take for ourselves and focus on our family and go from there.”

Other factors related to the aftermath of the Club Q shooting played a role in the decision to close, Jess added. In an effort to serve the locals thirsty to support Atrevida, she sought to upgrade from a manual, 10-barrel brewing system to a larger, digital one. But the new brew house didn’t fit the building and it also appeared inoperable, Jess said. After failed attempts to get the proper permitting to install the system, Atrevida Beer Co. had to sell the equipment earlier this year.

The influx of merchandise purchases also led to unexpected problems, Jess and Rich said, including years-long delays in fulfillments and a lawsuit that they had to settle with their supplier.

“I’m still, to this day, mailing out T-shirts to folks that have waited,” Rich said. “Been a tough road, even though the intent was great and we appreciate it.”

All of this played out against the backdrop of waning consumer demand for beer, both locally and nationally. Craft beer production and sales have been steadily declining since the pandemic, with only in 2025, according to trade group the Brewers Association.

As the Club Q shooting faded from the news cycle, fewer people traveled to Atrevida’s taproom for drinks.

“The problem is that we just don’t have customer flow coming in locally,” Jess said.

All of those separate, but compounding factors led the Fierros to decide it was time to close the brewery. Its last day of operation is this Sunday, June 28. But Jess said this likely won’t be the family’s final act.

“I don’t think it����ap the end-all to everything, but I do think it����ap a well-deserved rest,” she said.

Located on the first floor of what was once the Prudential financial services building. Rock Bottom was founded in 1991 by Boulder restaurateur Frank Day, who had opened the Walnut Brewery in his hometown a few years earlier. He named it Rock Bottom as a cheeky reference to Prudential’s famous tagline, “Get a piece of the rock.”

On Monday, a sign on the door read: “Unfortunately, we have permanently closed. Thank you for allowing us to serve the Downtown Denver community.”

An email to the company’s ownership group wasn’t immediately returned.

Rock Bottom grew to become a formidable institution in itself, catering to office workers and nighttime crowds who could watch their beers being made while they dined – a novel concept at the time, when only a few other breweries dotted Denver.

Over the years, Day — who died last year at the age of 93 — expanded, opening Rock Bottom locations throughout Colorado and the rest of the country. In 2010, alongside the equally famous Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom chain (which he’d also founded), as well as other restaurants, to a Tennessee private equity firm called Centerbridge Capital Partners.

The company was sold two more times over the next dozen years and is now owned by another private equity group called Kelly Operations. Rock Bottom , and now has just five locations, , three in Colorado, one in Illinois, and one in Boston.

Although it became part of a chain, losing some of its individuality in the process, Rock Bottom began as a feisty competitor to Wynkoop Brewing, which Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper and his business partners had opened in 1988. It was the recipient of dozens of medals and awards, both at its downtown brewery, 1001 Sixteenth St., and at many of its other locations, and a pioneer in an industry that now includes more than 9,000 breweries nationwide — more than 400 of those in Colorado.

When Day died last year, Hickenlooper told The Denver Post: “[Day] took every one of our ideas and made them so much better. At Rock Bottom, the hot food was hotter and the cold food was colder. When Frank opened Rock Bottom, it changed the face of brewpubs everywhere.”

It����ap difficult to imagine a more perfect fish and chips than the shatteringly crisp platter sold at in Broomfield.

I’ll entertain an argument for a newsprint-wrapped bundle eaten while overlooking the River Thames, but for hungry Anglophiles who want to avoid a 9-hour flight from Denver to London, the cozy pub near Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport sells a fish and chips that����ap the best I’ve had this side of the Atlantic.

There’s the stunning visual: a filet of Icelandic cod bigger than your head, battered and fried to deep golden brown perfection, served piping-hot over a bed of hand-cut chips (also known as French fries, for the uninitiated).

And then there’s the sensory experience: the beer batter coating is like biting into a kettle-fried potato chip, crunchy and light at the same time, substantial without being overly thick or dense. The cod is flaky and succulent, falling apart at the lightest touch. Crispy, thick-cut chips and tangy tartar sauce play a beautiful supporting role.

Fish-and-chips is common enough in restaurants across metro Denver, but it����ap also a meal that����ap often so-so. At Burns, it����ap not just standard pub fare, shuffled in alongside plates of fried appetizers and happy hour pints. Rather, it’s the star of the show.

And as proven over my own repeat visits – and through customer raves on review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor and a feature on – the fish-and-chips is not a solo act.

Burns’ salty-savory-tender corned beef, brined in-house, challenges diners to choose between the corned beef poutine or the Reuben sandwich. (I vote for both.) The menu features a rotating savory pie of the day along with perennial favorite shepherd’s pie, which I have labeled in my mental restaurant rolodex as “ultimate comfort food.”

That����ap not even touching the desserts (sticky toffee pudding that I will not admit to getting misty-eyed over), occasional special features like beef Wellington, the staggering 500 whiskeys on deck or the Celtic music jams every Sunday night.

There’s not a lot I can do when the travel bug strikes and a trip across the pond isn’t in the books. But just a few miles down the road, Burns promises a balm of British comfort food, no passport required.

The Burns Pub & Restaurant is located next to The Hilltop Inn at 9009 Metro Airport Ave. in Broomfield and is open Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. and Sunday from 4-8 p.m. More information at or by calling 303-469-3900.

, at 204 Mt. View Lane, “made the incredibly difficult decision to close our brewery,” the company this week. The last day of operations will be June 28.

The social media post did not specify why the brewery is closing, noting only that “this decision doesn’t come lightly.” Co-owner Jess Fierro was not immediately reachable to elaborate on the circumstances.

Atrevida Beer Co. is unique among Colorado’s beer scene for many reasons, including that it is proudly owned and operated by a Latina. Fierro, who is also the head brewer, opened the spot in 2018 after competing on — and winning — the first season of Vice TV’s homebrew competition, “Beerland.” That scored her a deal with California’s Golden Road Brewing, which brewed, canned and distributed the winning beer, a tamarind-infused Bière de Garde called Doña Neta.

For eight years, Atrevida Beer Co. had leaned into its Latin heritage by prominently showcasing Mexican ingredients like lime and the Oaxacan delicacy chapulines, or crickets. The word atrevida means a daring or bold woman in Spanish, and the brewery’s slogan has always been “diversity, it’s on tap.”

Atrevida Beer Co. became a nationally-known name in 2022, however, after tragedy struck its hometown. In November of that year, a gunman walked into the LGBTQ+ hotspot Club Q during a drag show and fatally shot five people while injuring more than a dozen others. The Fierros and their daughter Kassy were in attendance that night, and Rich tackled, disarmed and beat the gunman in a heroic act that police said saved many lives.

The brewery swiftly received an outpouring of support. Local drinkers drained several months worth of beer in just a few days, while letters of gratitude flooded the brewery’s mailbox. The Fierros were thankful and also struggling. Raymond Green Vance, Kassy’s then-boyfriend, was killed in the shooting and the family was mourning. They had been in and out of the hospital with Kassy, who sustained a knee injury during the incident.

“Mentally and emotionally, you know, it����ap a process,” Jess told The Denver Post at the time. “We’re minute-by-minute, second-by-second at this point. We never know what����ap going to trigger one or the other.”

In this week’s announcement, Atrevida Beer Co. thanked its community for its support over the years.

“We are so grateful for those who chose to spend their time with us, to the regulars who became like family, and to our dedicated team who poured their hearts into every pint for the past 8 years. You’ve shown up for Team Atrevida in times of crisis and triumphs and we couldn’t be more thankful for that,” the post read in part.

The brewery plans to host an Atrevida Adios Party on June 20 from 3 to 9 p.m. featuring mariachi music, food and, of course, beer.

The biggest changes are the result of a new venue, southwest Denver’s outdoor Levitt Pavilion, rather than the indoor Colorado Convention Center downtown. Located in the Ruby Hill neighborhood, Levitt is a city-owned, grassy swath of land with a stage that sees upward of 60 concerts per year — the vast majority of them free.

But that����ap far from the only difference.

The 2026 festival will also be cheaper to attend, shorter and will have more of a music festival vibe. It will take place during the day rather than in the evening. And then there’s the unknown variable of Denver weather during the fest’s Oct. 10-11 dates.

In addition, many attendees – and there will be far fewer of them than in the past – will have to take pre-booked shuttles (at a cost of around $20), ride-sharing car services or public transportation to get to Levitt, located 5 miles from downtown.

“The different and creative use of the venue is something we are really excited about,” said Levitt executive director Meghan McNamara in an interview with The Denver Post earlier this year. The venue has been working with the Boulder-based Brewers Association — the industry trade group that runs GABF — on logistics.

“We have had cultural festivals on the lawn and other events. GABF will be new. It will look different than anything we have done,” she added. “One of the beautiful things about Levitt is you can choose your own experience. Dance, sit, stretch out under a tree.”

Shawnee Adelson, executive director of the Colorado Brewers Guild, which hosts several of its own major festivals, said some of the state’s breweries have expressed some “hesitation” about the venue.

“Mostly, they have questions. Breweries want to know how it is going to look, how it will go,” she explained. Others are concerned about the possibility of cold weather or snowfall. “You are always risking it with the weather in Colorado. We could get a snowstorm, or it could be 80 degrees.”

But Adelson also pointed out that there are beer festivals all over the Midwest, the East Coast and the Pacific Northwest that take place in cold weather, snow and rain without any problems. “I don’t envy the Brewers Association because switching locations is challenging. It is hard to have change. People like their consistency. But change can also reinvigorate something.”

Beyond the location, there could be other significant changes to the number of breweries in attendance and how their booths are staffed. For instance, in the past, hundreds of volunteers have handled the majority of the pouring duties, but a note on GABF’s website this year reads, “Participating breweries are expected to staff their booth at all times. Volunteer pourers will not be provided.”

The BA, through its outside public relations firm, declined to comment on volunteers.

In addition, Levitt can hold a maximum of 6,500 people per event, which means that the total number of attendees could only be 13,000 at most over the two days. The Brewers Association said the total is 15,000, including those working at the fest.

At one time, the GABF annually drew upward of 60,000 people to the Convention Center over three days each fall, with dozens and dozens of local bars, breweries and restaurants hosting their own events, beer tappings and mini-festivals.

But interest and ticket sales began to decline in 2022 after GABF returned following a two-year COVID-19-related absence, and because of a softening in beer sales nationwide and a waning interest in craft beer as a novelty. That necessitated a move to a small venue.

“If you have been to GABF the last couple of years, you recognized that the Convention Center wasn’t the right venue anymore. I think that is something people understand,” Adelson said.

So far, the majority of the feedback that Levitt has heard has been positive, McNamara said. “They are excited about a new format and festival.”

Tickets for GABF go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. on June 25. The festival takes place Oct. 10-11 from noon to 4 p.m. on both days. Tickets are $60 plus $6.53 in fees. The paired food-and-beer event will also return; tickets for that are $170.38. Get information about tickets, times and shuttles at .

A new beer maker called will soon open in the space formerly home to Sanitas Brewing Co., at 3550 Frontier Ave. in Boulder, which closed in December. When it does not much will have changed about the physical space and its epic outdoor patio, save for some minor cosmetic construction. But co-founder Dean Eberhardt says what����ap on the menu will have been overhauled significantly.

Locals can get a first taste starting Friday, when Pattern Break makes its debut. Throughout the weekend, there will be live music and food from the house-operated food truck onsite.

Eberhardt, who is also the founder of hop tea, hopes Pattern Break will help set the tone for a new era in craft beer — one that meets consumers’ evolving tastes without giving up on beer entirely. The brewery will offer a robust selection of low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beers, Eberhardt said, as well as cocktail-inspired styles and other beverages that are unabashedly experimental.

“What we’re trying to do is critically ask, what has caused the stagnation in the industry and how can we disrupt the thinking of that to show what is possible going forward?” said Eberhardt, who is partnering with former Sanitas CEO Mike Memsic on the new project. Pattern Break is “a test brewery for that in our minds.”

Part of what makes Eberhardt so confident is that he has spent the last eight years honing a new kind of dry-hopping technology with Hoplark, and a secondary company called , that he plans to bring to Pattern Break. Essentially, Eberhardt figured out a way to create a concentrate that he calls “hop juice,” which allows for dry-hopping beers without losing beer yield. When using dry hops to flavor a beer, a portion of the beer gets absorbed by the plant, he said, which can lead to a reduction in the amount of liquid for the finished product.

“I think of Hoplark as kind of the original Pattern Break, where we were breaking this expectation that the only way you can get hops is through beer or the only way you can get a beer experience in a non-alcoholic sense is through an actual non-alcoholic beer,” he said. “We were able to make something that had zero calories and our customers fell in love with.”

Eberhardt declined to detail exactly how the technology works, but said it allows the company to extract double the amount of flavor out of hops and replace 100% of dry hops in a brew. (It is different that the flavor-boosting hop widgets appearing in some local beers.) That can be a cost-saver and will also enable Pattern Break to create flavorful IPAs with a lower calorie count, he said.

“You’ve seen a big transition in the direction of lower-carb, lower-alcohol, lower-calorie beverages. There’s been a shift toward spirits, there’s been a shift toward seltzer, and away from some of the really bulky beers,” Eberhardt said. “The technology we have allows us to play a lot differently than other breweries do, so we can make lower-calorie things that taste like they’re regular things.”

The opening menu, for example, is expected to include a pilsner, hazy IPA and West Coast-style IPA, each coming in at 3.5% alcohol-by-volume. Eberhardt also teased “an unfinished IPA” that bartenders will flavor with the hop concentrate to-order at the bar.

Beyond hoppy styles, Eberhardt said there will be a so-called “mischief menu” for which brewers are encouraged to break the unspoken rules of traditional brewing. That����ap where drinkers will find recipes like a Mai Tai Mexican lager, a Negroni cocktail-inspired IPA and other spirit-forward flavors. There will also be non-alcoholic options like an NA spicy margarita, an NA spruce-flavored cocktail, hop waters, and hop teas — all of which Eberhardt expects will pair aptly with bites from the onsite food truck, such as smashburgers, Asian chicken sandwiches and breakfast sandwiches that will be available all day.

Though the craft beer industry has fallen on hard times post-pandemic, Eberhardt sees now as the perfect time to find new and inventive ways to excite drinkers.

“We’re going to try to make some things that not only disrupt customers’ expectations, but light them up in a way that hasn’t happened in a while in craft beer,” he said. “So I think it����ap the perfect moment for it.”

Of all of the -y bars in the world, to me, is the “Cheers”-iest.

Nestled between the west Aurora and east Denver borders just off Parker Road, the craft brewery that opened its doors in 2011 is special — not just for the beers, but for the people. It’s a welcoming community that’s come together and grown over the last 15 years.

My wife and I have been fans of their brews for some time, but after the pandemic, it became our stomping grounds. The space inside expanded, our visits increased and we got to know the regulars and the staff. Friendships were forged over sudsy beverages — often, for us, in the form of a Mexican Chocolate Stout or the Citrus Paradisi IPA. We were welcomed into a brewery community unlike any I had ever experienced. It became our go-to spot to grab a drink and talk the night away.

So when Copper Kettle said in March that it would close its doors on June 27 because of rising rent costs, it was a gut punch — another heartbreaking loss in the ever-growing list of breweries and restaurants that have shuttered in recent years. That night, many patrons — both regulars and those who hadn’t been by in a while — stopped by to commiserate.

“This is such a social community that they don’t have (at other places),” said Stephen Covieo, the brewery’s first mug club member. “This is a whole family vibe … and that’s the part that’s going to be lost.”

Fellow mug club member Gilbert Pineda added: “What really made me stay and come back is the people I would come and see here. I would walk in anytime … any day … and I would see somebody I know, and I would be greeted with a handshake or a hug and a big smile. And this place made me feel at home.”

Owner Jeremy Gobien, who opened the brewery with his wife Kristen Kozik, teared up as he reminisced: “We’ve had weddings, we’ve had wakes. We’ve had friendships. All the things. … We’ve grown old with people.”

One of those wakes was for one of Copper Kettle’s original mug-club members, Alex Teves. He was among those killed on July 20, 2012, in the Aurora theater shootings.

“They announced they were having a fundraiser. After that, this place was just jammed with people,” fellow original mug club member Larry Turner said. “I thought this was one of the first places that helped with the healing. … Kristen and Jeremy really went all out for that.”

Teves’ mug still sits in the display case to this day with his picture in the No. 28 spot.

The community grew and evolved over the years. It’s one that several patrons have shared with me as “special” and “unique.”

“Everything’s community-based for me,” mug club member Tim Hermann said. “… I could have moved out, way out, to Golden, and I probably would have found my way to make it out here on a regular basis.”

As Gobien said, “This was like a basement bar where you invited all your friends” that he’s turned into a business.

What happens with this community remains to be seen. As the clock ticks, the laughter and the fun energy is still there at the Copper Kettle. But that lingering thought in the back of that this will come to an end makes it all bittersweet.

“Where are you going to go?” has been a question that’s permeated among the brewery faithful since the announcement. I don’t know what’s next. There are many good breweries out there, but this one is truly special to me.

“CK is a building. The community is us,” newly inducted mug club member David Miller said. “The people. I can’t lose that. I don’t want to.”

I will remember many things about Copper Kettle. The rambunctious anniversary parties. The chaotic Christmas beer exchanges. The random jam sessions outside on warm summer nights. The boisterous crowds during the sumo watch parties.

Watching the regulars break out in song around the bar top on a laid-back Saturday night. The friendliest brewery dogs you’ll ever meet. And just sitting off in a corner and having long conversations about life over a tasty brew.

This is a community. This is a family. And these memories I have made here over the years, I will cherish for a lifetime.

Copper Kettle’s 15th anniversary party

Dates: June 5-7

Time: 2-10 p.m. June 5, noon-10 p.m. June 6, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. June 7

Where: Copper Kettle Brewing Company, 1338 S. Valentia St. #100, Denver

More info:

But you won’t be able to tell today. That’s because it’s Colorado Pint Day, an annual tradition that serves as a rallying cry for the 215-plus in-state breweries participating this year. They are still chugging — and chugging along.

People really like Pint Day,” said Shawnee Adelson, the director of the nonprofit Colorado Brewers Guild. “Some breweries say it is one of their busiest Wednesdays of the year, or even one of their busiest days altogether during the year.”

That’s because on Colorado Pint Day, participating Guild members sell limited-edition collectible pint glasses, with $1 from every glass going to CBG’s “mission of promoting, protecting, and propelling its members through advocacy, education, and public awareness,” according to the organization. And they have become highly sought-after by beer fans.

This year’s glass features artwork by Joe Palec, whose doodle-style drawing commemorates Colorado’s 150th birthday and the United States’ 250th birthday, both being celebrated in 2026.

And while it might seem like the number of participants would shrink each year due to brewery closings (Sanitas Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Luki Brew and Pug Ryan’s are just four of those that have recently announced their closings), the number of CBG members and Colorado Pint Day participants has stayed consistent, or even increased, the Guild said.

“A lot of breweries are opening up 2nd, 3rd and 4th locations, and that adds a location for Pint Day,” Adelson said. “People are still excited about getting out to their brewery.” Thirty-nine locations are participating this year that didn’t in 2025.

All told, the CBG has about 275 members, or nearly 70% of the total number of breweries in Colorado, which is around 400.

So the industry is still strong, it is still vibrant and there is a lot of positivity, Adelson said. The Guild’s most recent event, Collaboration Fest, attracted nearly 1,600 people and was financially successful.

All of which is to say that Colorado Pint Day this year is a cause for celebration, she added. To find the list of participating breweries, . Get there early because most breweries sell out very quickly.