GABF Week Day 1: Breckenridge Colorado Craft: Great Beer and Good Food

We promise we aren't going to rave and gush like slobbering children over every place we go to this week.

Really, we do. We will be honest.

Our last stop on Day #1 of our Great American Beer Festival adventure in Denver was the Breckenridge Brew Pub in the shadow of Coors Field on Blake Street in LoDo.

Atmosphere: Very typical brew pub. When we were there, the bar was crowded and that is indeed where we parked ourselves. The restaurant had a few folks there and there was a party in the back room. It was a surprisingly low-key sedate place.

The Food: Food was good, not great. Very typical bar fare. I had a pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries. They were nothing outstanding.

Chelle had Chicken Wings with Mango Habenero sauce on them. These were pretty good. Roasted, nice size wings and the sauce was tasty. Nice, subtle zing.

We also split some pretzel knots to start. They were doughy, but nothing to write home about. Though the mustard, made from their 471 IPA was really, really good.

Beer:

Phil--I had to start with the Nitro Vanilla Porter, it's always been one of my favorites. This was as good as I expected and very fresh.

I also had a Mango Mosiac Ale (limited release) which was really tasty. Tasted a bit like unsweetened Mango Tea, which I really like. Had a nice smoky finish.

Chelle: Loved her choices. Started with a Black Bottle Mexican Hipster. An IPA aged in tequila. Which if you know her, you know why she loved it.

She finished with a Lonetree Brewing Peach Pale Ale which tasted exactly like you think it would. A solid session beer with a nice, but not overpowering peach flavor attached.

Our Thoughts:

Come here for the beer. It's very good and was a great way to wrap up our first day here. Go to the bar and get a tasting flight or work your way down the list but stay local. There are some awesome limited run beers here that you may not find in other places nearby.

The food however, well, eat if you are hungry, if not there are better places out there. The food wasn't bad, just generic and with so many "Farm to Table" restaurants/pubs in the area, you can do better than eating here.

We could easily see this place packed before a Rockies game in the summertime. But when we were here, the Rocks were as usual, long since eliminated from the baseball season. Still having this view out your window from a bar seat ain't bad if you into your baseball.

Overall: Come thirsty, leave hungry.

Cheers!