TO MEET · 07/27/2013
Outdoor drinking with Denver Beer Co.
“We’re trying to build a community. You can’t leave one of the German beer garden style tables without saying something to the people next to you,” Patrick of Denver Beer Company explained to us.
Patrick and his co-founder Charlie are self-proclaimed “beer guys.” Patrick’s background is in engineering, with home brewing on the side, while Charlie was professionally brewing beer for about 8 years prior to launching their company.
After convincing friends and family to give them a leg up to get business off the ground, they moved into the open-air industrial space. “We’re at batch number 283 now,” Patrick told us, “We’ve brewed over 200 different types of beer.”
Each batch is 250 gallons—the most popular they’ve created, a Belgian Wit, was gone in just four days. Before launching, they had a seemingly never-ending list of beers they wanted to try and make, inspired by flavors discovered in restaurant dishes and by spice shops. The best example of this is their wheat beer with lime. The beer has an uncommon citrus-y tang, originally derived from a spice they discovered in a market in Thailand.
In an effort to further involve the community, the brewery holds an annual “Hop Swap.” They hand out a few hundred American Cascade hop plants with instructions for growing—if you’re interested in trying it yourself, the hops plants are treated just like tomato plants.
Once they’ve muttered in the fall, the local hops growers harvest the cones—then the brewing is left to Charlie, Patrick and their team. The result? A neighborhood pale ale for all to enjoy out on the garden tables (sometimes accompanied by a soft pretzel and mustard).
Charlie is wearing the Preston in Whiskey Tortoise and Patrick is wearing the Crane in Mallard Green.
Photos by Collin Hughes