Photos of the new Colorado Mountain Brewery

 

Last Friday was opening night for the new Colorado Mountain Brewery in Old Colorado City. The brewery has received a lot of attention for being the final business in the old Roundhouse building, which was originally built in 1888. There's a great article about this historic building in Fresh Ink. We headed over to the opening, but we showed up after 9pm so we could miss the larger crowds. Please enjoy the photos and our recap!

There is certainly a feeling of freshness and newness at the brewery, everything is crisp and clean. The atmosphere is open, the ceilings are tall, and the overall aesthetic is one of minimalism combined with a quiet extravagance. It's a bit nicer than the one up north and while it also carries the feeling a little of suburbia, this is balanced out with the historical feel of the place. The place feels good for meetings and for quieter date nights, and less so for louder and higher energy nights. I could be wrong about that though, the bar has multiple television screens above the bartenders and could be a good place to gather to watch games, the atmosphere is less homey than other traditional sports bars.

On opening night we sat outside as it was a really beautiful night with a slight chill but the giant fireplace took care of that. We ran into a couple friends that we bump into at places like FRBBQ and City Rock so we hung out with them for a while.

A view from the fireplace looking indoors at the bar

We ordered a few house beers. There were currently four on tap, but I think that number will increase in the near future. The beers were fine and tasted like the ones from up north at the original location. I liked the Hefeweizen the most. I assume they're using the same recipes, and I'm not sure if this location will offer different styles or how that will work out. Darren Baze is the brewer here, he used to brew for Trinity, and brought some pretty cool beers to the table up there. In an interview with the CS Indy, Andy, the head brewer in the north CMB location said, "From Tony [Tony Ragu will be assistant brewer] we're inheriting this nothing-off-limits type of attitude. Darren's bringing in some new, exciting brews". The CS Indy reports that apparently they plant to start a barrel program as well, where the beers will ferment in barrels from Breckenridge Distillery bourbon barrels.

There were also about 15 guest beers on tap, with room for about 10-15 more. They'll probably have the rest of those tap handles filled in the coming weeks, so the selection here could be pretty awesome. I ordered a Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA because it's a pretty amazing beer and it's hard for me to turn it down. I also saw tap handles for Dogfish Head, Tommyknocker and many other familiar breweries. This is certainly a nice addition, Trinity does a similar thing and I think it really helps introduce more and more people to great craft beer.

An old photo of the Roundhouse Building in full operation

It will be interesting to see how the 2 CMBs will begin to differentiate themselves across town now. It's nice to have another place in that part of town with a good beer selection. I certainly think that with Darren on board as the brewer, and with a little bit of time to get settled in, we'll see some pretty exciting beers. Head on over there and tell us what you think.

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