Denver Beer Co poured its first pint at 1695 Platte Street in August 2011, and the LoHi taproom is still the flagship. This is a brewery beer garden in the truest sense, a big patio, a rotating tap list and house lagers and ales made a few feet from the glass. The beer is the whole point.
Founders Patrick Crawford and Charlie Berger met at Colgate, and Crawford is an actual rocket scientist, per BusinessDen, which is a better bar fact than most. The company has since grown into one of Colorado's largest independent craft breweries, but Platte Street is where it all started.
The taproom is industrial and unfussy, with garage doors that roll up onto a large patio when the weather holds. There is no full kitchen, so food trucks park outside most days and you order beer inside, then carry it out to the garden. Bring a group and claim a patio table early.
The flagship pours are the Graham Cracker Porter and the Incredible Pedal IPA, both on tap year-round, alongside a rotating list of seasonals and small one-off batches. The porter is the one regulars send newcomers to first. Order a flight if you cannot choose, and let the bartender steer you to whatever just kegged.
Pints here run at brewery prices, which is to say fair, and the patio costs nothing to enjoy. For a LoHi address, that is honest value. A flight and a taco from whichever truck is parked out front makes a cheap, good afternoon.
The crowd is a wide Denver mix: cyclists off the Platte River trail, after-work groups, families with dogs on the patio, and beer tourists working a LoHi crawl. It runs relaxed rather than rowdy, and the patio does the heavy lifting on a sunny day.
Sports are not the draw here, so this is not the room for a big screen and a Broncos Sunday. It is a daytime and early-evening beer garden at heart, better suited to a slow afternoon than a late night. Plan around that and it rarely disappoints.
Regulars on Yelp and the Colorado Brewery List point newcomers to the same trio: the Graham Cracker Porter, a sunny patio seat and whatever food truck is parked out front. The porter is the beer people drive across town for, and the garden is the reason they linger. The main gripe is the lack of a kitchen, so plan to eat from the truck or before you arrive, and expect flights to move fast on a busy Saturday.
Who it suits is straightforward. It is an afternoon beer-garden crowd, a dog-and-bike Denver weekend, and a relaxed first stop on a LoHi crawl. Skip it for a late night or a cocktail, because this is a brewery taproom that does its best work in daylight.
Best time is a weekend afternoon when the garage doors are up and a food truck is parked out front. Weeknights stay quieter and easier for a flight at the bar, which suits anyone who wants to actually talk to the brewers.
Getting there is straightforward. It sits on Platte Street in LoHi, a short walk over the Highland pedestrian bridge from Union Station and the downtown core. Walk or bike if you can, because parking gets tight on a busy day.
This is the bar for a relaxed afternoon over Colorado beer, not a late cocktail night. For more, see our guide to the best craft beer in Denver, the full Denver city guide, and our roundup of the best bars in Denver.
Sources: Denver Beer Co official site · BusinessDen · Yelp (708 reviews) · Colorado Brewery List
