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Best Denver Brewery 2026

By Readers' Choice On 7/15/26 at 12:00 PM EDT

Denver has earned its reputation as one of America's premier beer cities, fueled by creativity, experimentation and a strong brewing tradition.

Newsweek's Best Denver Brewery Readers' Choice Awards highlights the taprooms and breweries that stand out in a crowded and competitive landscape. From hop-forward IPAs to crisp lagers and innovative small-batch releases, the city's breweries reflect a dynamic craft beer culture.

This category celebrates the spaces where community and craftsmanship meet, giving voters the chance to recognize the breweries that define Denver's ever-evolving beer identity.

Newsweek is proud to recognize this year's 10 standout Denver breweries—selected by our editors and voted on by readers for their exceptional quality and distinctive excellence. Each has been officially recognized by Newsweek as one of the Best Denver breweries of 2026.

1. Fiction Beer Company 7101 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80220

Fiction Beer

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Fiction Beer Company is built on the idea that great beer and great storytelling belong together. Run by a team of self-described nerds with a passion for craft beer and well-told stories, the brewery creates recipes inspired by favorite works of fiction, with each beer expressing its own narrative through distinctive flavors, aromas, and textures. Some pours are rich with dark plot twists, while others capture the lighthearted spirit of an unexpected adventure. To help guide guests through the experience, Fiction organizes its beers into genres, turning every visit into a journey through a library of imaginative, carefully crafted brews.

2. Cohesion Brewing Company 3851 Steele St., Unit 1388, Denver, CO 80205

Cohesion Brewing

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Walk into Cohesion Brewing Company and you'll find a Denver taproom inspired by the brewing traditions of the Czech Republic, where craftsmanship extends from the brewhouse to the glass. Czech-style lagers take center stage, served using traditional pouring methods that elevate every pint into an experience. The focus here is refreshingly straightforward: well-made beer, thoughtfully brewed and expertly served. Cohesion embraces the time-honored techniques and hospitality of Czech beer culture, creating a place where authenticity, quality, and community come together one pour at a time.

3. Cerebral Brewing (Congress Park) 1477 Monroe St., Denver, CO 80206

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At Cerebral Brewing (Congress Park), the brewers approach beer the way NASA engineers approached moon rockets—with notebooks, precision and just a hint of beautiful obsession! The result? IPAs that crackle with hop intensity, silky stouts and lagers so clean they could pass a laboratory inspection. It's the rare place where geekery becomes delicious, proving that science and suds make remarkably compatible drinking companions.

4. Woods Boss Brewing Company 2210 California St., Denver, CO 80205

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Woods Boss Brewing Company in Denver occupies that rare civic space where the urban grid loosens its tie and pretends, for a moment, that it remembers forests, trailheads and the faint moral clarity of pine air. Inside, the rustic taproom hums with rugged ease as beers named like backcountry companions arrive without ceremony. It's craft brewing with boots on, shoulders squared and a quiet grin at the city outside.

5. Crooked Stave 1441 W. 46th Ave., Unit 19, Denver, CO 80211

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At Crooked Stave in Denver, fermentation is treated less like a process and more like a high-wire act performed by microbes with opinions. Wild ales, sour experiments and barrel-aged curiosities emerge from what feels like a laboratory that has wandered into an art gallery. This is beer for the curious, the slightly obsessive and the proudly unhurried, where every sip tastes like a controlled accident that somehow knew exactly what it was doing in place.

6. Odell Brewing Co. 2945 Larimer St., Denver, CO 80205

Odell Brewing

Photo courtesy of Odell Brewing Company. Photo courtesy of Odell Brewing Company.

Born in Fort Collins in 1989, when craft beer was more of a frontier movement, Odell Brewing Co. carries its age with quiet authority. Now in Denver near Coors Stadium as well as Fort Collins, Odell is a well-oiled Western outpost of craft beer confidence, arriving as a brewery that has survived trends by ignoring them. This is brewing with history in its bones and ease in its posture.

7. FlyteCo Tower 3120 Uinta St, Denver, CO 80238

FlyteCo

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Housed within Denver's historic former Stapleton International Airport air traffic control tower, FlyteCo Tower transforms aviation history into a family-friendly destination unlike any other. The iconic 164-foot tower stands as a landmark of the city's past, while inside, guests gather over house-brewed craft beers, bowling, golf simulators, arcade games, and guided tower tours. Blending nostalgia, entertainment, and brewery culture under one roof, FlyteCo Tower has become a uniquely Denver experience where history, fun, and community are always cleared for takeoff.

8. Bierstadt Lagerhaus 2875 Blake St., Denver, CO 80205

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The boys at Bierstadt Lagerhaus have committed a wonderfully unfashionable act: they've fallen head over heels for lager. It's not hazy. It's not juicy. It's not brewed with something harvested under a full moon. Just glorious, old-school pilsner, slow-poured with monk-like devotion until crowned with a cloud of foam. Add an "adult playground" of communal tables, games and German fare, and you've got Denver's happiest beer cathedral.

9. Comrade Brewing Company 7667 E Iliff Ave., Ste F, Denver, CO 80231

Comrade Brewing

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Comrade Brewing Company sits on a stretch of Iliff Avenue that could pass for ordinary suburbia, until you realize it's quietly one of Colorado's most decorated microbreweries, which changes the moral geometry of the place entirely. Founded in 2014, this family-friendly brewery just off the Cherry Creek Trail in southeast Denver has earned seven medals at the Great American Beer Festival® and two World Beer Cup® gold awards. Inside, it feels like a civic gathering disguised as a taproom, where IPA devotees and lager loyalists argue cheerfully in foam-scented air. Comrade turns beer into public ceremony, one pint at a time.

10. Denver Beer Company 1695 Platte St., Ste. 200, Denver, CO

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Denver Beer Company's Platte Street taproom (1 of 5 in Colorado) feels like a sunlit civic experiment in how much joy can be legally poured into a glass. It's part neighborhood gathering, part hop laboratory, part open-air celebration of the simple fact that beer still works on this patio that seems engineered for lingering. This is Colorado brewing at its most social, unpretentious, and serenely certain of its own carbonation and charm.

FINALISTS Hogshead Brewery, 4460 W 29th Ave., Denver, CO 80212 Novel Strand Brewing Company, 305 W First Ave., Denver, CO 80223 Our Mutual Friend Brewing Company, 2810 Larimer St., Denver, CO 80205 Prost Brewing Co., 2540 19th St., Denver, CO Ratio Beerworks, 2920 Larimer St., Denver, CO 80205 River North Brewery, 6021 Washington St., Denver CO 80216 Station 26 Brewing Co., 7045 E 38th Ave., Denver, CO 80207 Westbound & Down Brewing, 1801 Blake St., Denver, CO 80202 Wynkoop Brewing Company, 1634 18th St., Denver CO 80202 Zuni Street Brewing Company, 2355 W 29th Ave., Denver, CO 80211

About Newsweek Readers' Choice Awards

Nominees for Newsweek Readers' Choice Awards are selected through an editorial review process conducted by Newsweek editors. The editorial team identifies brands, destinations and services within each contest category based on editorial research and industry knowledge.

Winners are determined through a public voting process hosted on Newsweek.com, where readers may vote once per category per day during the contest period.

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