brewpub · $$ · since 1988
Wynkoop Brewing Company
The 1988 brewpub that started LoDo, with a pool hall upstairs.
Wynkoop — Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wynkoop opened in 1988 in the 1899 J.S. Brown Mercantile building, when this end of downtown was mostly empty warehouses. One of the founders was John Hickenlooper, later mayor and governor, and the brewpub is fairly credited with kicking off LoDo's revival. Today it is a big, wood-floored room across from Union Station: house beers like Rail Yard Ale and the Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout (yes, made with bull testicles), burgers and green chile, and a second floor of billiards tables that is one of the better places downtown to kill two hours before a Rockies game.
Why go. It is the origin story of the neighborhood, and it still works as a pre-game bar.
On Rockies home dates the ground floor fills two hours before first pitch; go straight upstairs to the pool hall, which has its own bar and shorter lines.
A short walk from Wynkoop Brewing Company
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