Great Divide Brewing Company

FrankenBeerStein

Colorado

4.03/5  rDev -3.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 3.5 | selection: 4 | $$

A very small tap room located in downtown, it has a pretty good feel to it. Their beers are all pretty good, and we had to stop in to check out the place. The tap room is pretty small, and was packed (doubt it cold hold more than 25 people at once). The crowd does tend to overwhelm the bartender a bit, so the service tended to be slower than average, though that's more a result of sheer numbers rather than staff competency. The prices are about standard for your average tap room. I had the oak aged yeti, and my friend had a samurai, both excellent. There is something to be said about getting a good craft beer straight from the source. We were there in winter, so the patio wasn't really an option, but there is a small one with a few more seats for better weather. Overall, I would go back, recommend hitting the place up, and even bring other people to check out the place, but for my personal tastes, the smallness of the taproom and the packed-house kind of crowd is more of a "let's hit it up quick, and have one, and move on" kind of place. I would be more likely to try and find a bar in the area that serves a healthy selection of Great Divide beers.

05-29-2011 22:53:59 | More by FrankenBeerStein

AWolfAtTheDoor

California

4.03/5  rDev -3.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 3 | selection: 4.5 | $$

Had to check this place out while spending a few days in Denver. My party of 3 (only 2 drinkers) got there at about 3PM and somehow found 3 bar stools in the midst of a lot of people waiting for the brewery tour. Once that start about half of the people cleared out, and it was relatively calm until the end of the tour and more people showing up (it was a Friday after all). No food served, but a guy in a truck pulling a mobile wood oven pulls up outside and makes reasonably priced pizzas. Didn't try the food, but it looked yummy. Happy Hour pricing late in the afternoon means $1 off normal prices.

The 4 free tasters are more like 4 free small splashes of beer. Thought that was kind of cheesy, but what are you going to do? Service was slow despite 1 and a 1/2 dedicated pourers, and 1 guy that just seemed to do nothing but bussing. Seemed overkill for a small tap room that doesn't serve food. How hard can it be to bus empty glass ware? The other thing is the single-use bathroom. Lines can get pretty bad as it's just 1 person at a time in the bathroom.

Now to some positive aspects. Beer selection was great and despite their poor services, bar tenders were at least knowledgeable. 3 types of Yeti (Yeti, Oak Aged, Chocolate Oak Aged) along with pretty much everything else you could think of. Grand Cru was on tap and I didn't even know they had a Grand Cru! I just had a sample, but it seemed like it would be a good beer. A bit on the sweet side for my tastes.

Overall worth a visit. They don't take American Express, and don't expect much service unless you're hanging wads of cash out of your zipper.

05-16-2011 20:04:13 | More by AWolfAtTheDoor

Hibernator

Massachusetts

4.4/5  rDev +5.8%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $$

This was my first stop on Saturday for a mini beer bar tour in Denver. Great Divide Tap Room was about a six block walk from the 16th Street Mall and was pretty easy to locate.

The actual Tap Room itself was smaller than I imagined and things were pretty busy when I got there. They have a small patio area out front, which was pretty nice to sit down in the sun with a breeze and appreciate a Yeti Stout directly from the source. I also noticed they had some good music playing like Led Zeppelin & The Doors, while I was there which added greatly to the overall vibe.

They offered about 8 or so taps when I was there. Options included Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Stout (delicious!), Grand Cru, Colette, Wild Raspberry Ale, Titan Ale, Samurai Ale, Hercules Double IPA and Claymore Scotch Ale.

I had a good time while I was there and all of the beers here were extremely fresh. Gotta love Great Divide, they make some killer beers.

03-28-2011 22:45:23 | More by Hibernator

StaveHooks

Oklahoma

3.45/5  rDev -17.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 2.5 | selection: 3.5 | $$

Went to Great Divide on my birthday for a tour and some tasting. It was very crowded. It was hard to order a beer. There was one guy operating the bar and there 30 people ordering. It's cozy and eclectic. Cool building in downtown Denver. I think they had 5 beers on tap. They had $1 1/2 oz tastings which I thought was kind of steep.The tours seemed very unorganized and rushed. It was a task to get a beer and find a spot to properly review it. Not as big as I thought it would be. It was pretty cool to see a mountain of left-over hops around the dumpster. It would be nice if they had another building for tasting. It was just too hectic and crowded.

03-17-2011 02:37:35 | More by StaveHooks

yaegerje

Minnesota

4.44/5  rDev +6.7%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

They had a nice selection of tap and bottled poured beer available, really nice prices too, 3 or 4 dollars for most of the beers during happy hour, beer at its freshest for that price is great.

We showed up at 230 for the 3PM tour, got on just fine, tour was fine, nothing exceptional, I would have expected some samples or something, pretty standard for the industry but that's ok. Showed us all the fermenting towers, grain room, mash and lauter tun, and bottling facility, the hostess/tour guide was very knowledgeable and was open to questions during the tour. My suggestion is grab a beer or two before the tour and carry them around with you, the tour lasted approx. 1/2 hour.

The bartender was also very helpful and attentive, it's a pretty small tap-room, it could probably only fit about 20 people comfortably but that's ok, really cool industrial type setting fits the style of the brewery and the people working their, I really enjoyed my time spent at the brewery. If I wasn't taking a flight back home I would have bought a bunch of GD beer to take home.

03-11-2011 16:11:33 | More by yaegerje

ObeerwanCO

Colorado

4.6/5  rDev +10.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 4 | $

This is my favorite hometown brewery. Great Divide brews some outstanding beers and this is a great place to drink them. My favorite is the Hercules Double IPA, followed closely by the Yeti Stout. They offer three or four free samples to start and these are substantial. It's about the equivalent of a free beer. Then its $4 for a pint.

It is a simple no-frills tap room, which is part of the appeal for me. Not too much hanging on the walls other than the brewery's medals from GABF. The service here is awesome. It gets busy and the bartenders seem to take it in stride and, more importantly, keep the beers flowing.

My batchelor party started off here on a Friday afternoon and after drinking a large volume of Yeti Stout we decided to take a tour. Apparently, they knew one of my friends and instead of having us wait for a guided tour, they just opened the door and let us wander around the brewery on our own for awhile. Sweet. Its a pretty small place and is hard to believe they can produce the variety they offer.

Great Divide doesn't normally serve food, so plan accordingly. However, on the weekends they often team up with local restaurants and set up food trucks, which can have some really good stuff.

02-25-2011 05:49:38 | More by ObeerwanCO

northyorksammy

Ontario (Canada)

3.8/5  rDev -8.7%
vibe: 3.5 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 3.5 | $$

A nice tap room, smallish place that closes early in the downtown area. Crowded even on a frigid night. Sort of friendly, 30s-40s crowd. A couple of interesting beers on tap, otherwis their regular selection, plus a vintage on tap. Prices were a tad higher than other breweries or brewpubs I had been too, but still a bargain compared to the bigger Eastern cities. Nothing wowed me, and not as exciting as Avery. A stop in on the way to the outstanding Fallen Rock to spend the rest of the night. Most people are here just to have a good GD beer.

02-11-2011 01:40:35 | More by northyorksammy

northaustin

Texas

4.15/5  rDev -0.2%
vibe: 5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 3 | food: 3 | $

Atmosphere: lovely. right downtown, bustling with the energy of the city. great beer moving at an unparalleled speed. completely packed full of people with positive energy. the serving area is small and cluttered with an open view of a sprawling storage area (mystical magic candy land).

quality: great divide. need i say more?

service: faster than i could handle, with an excellent attitude and an obvious love of pouring beer from each employee. Having a house completely packed didnt even seem to matter to them.

selection: smaller than expected but enough to keep me satisfied for sure.

01-18-2011 01:39:32 | More by northaustin

csiewert

Oregon

3.75/5  rDev -9.9%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 3.5 | selection: 3.5 | food: 4 | $

Had to stop here while I was in Denver for business, glad I did. We went for a brewery tour, which was neat, albeit fairly short given the size of the brewery. They offer multiple free tours daily, but are limited to about 10 people, and afterward you get 3 free samples. Yes please! The beer selection is decent, but fairly small since they only serve Great Divide beers and the rotation isn't very often it seems. The service was good, but the place, which is very small, gets a little overcrowded and it can be hard to get your beer sometimes. While the place itself doesn't serve food, there is usually a small unique food stand set up outside. When we went there was handmade brick oven pizza's for 10 bucks... they were great. We stayed there so long that we showed up late to our dinner meeting that night. Worth a visit.

01-14-2011 17:08:46 | More by csiewert

bditty187

Nebraska

4.46/5  rDev +7.2%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | $

Recently I had my second visit to Great Divide. We stopped in on a Monday afternoon about 2:30. There was 10 people around the bar area... many drinking pints/goblets while some had samplers. Most, as it turned out, were waiting for the 3pm tour (which we had no interest in taking as I've been on many brewery tours including GD).

Service was great. The bartender was busy and she kept up with everybody. She was cool and knew enough about their beer. I couldn't say she was a beer geek but she got the job done. Over the course of the hour we were there I had a Hercules and Espresso Yeti... my fiancée had a Hades (via bottle) and a Claymore (tap). Unlike our last visit (during a GABF weekend) there was nothing overly unique or funky (aka, no brewery-only stuff) which was to be expected but a bummer nevertheless.

The vibe is chill, cool... but still a brewery with a taproom. No TV. No food besides chips. I like GD but it isn't much more than a place to grab a fresh GD beer or two and move on. The place, as mentioned, is awfully small.

Prices are very good... if you factor in the free samples it is quite the bargain.

The lady that gave the 3pm tour, once completed, came back and had a DPA straight from the bottle which I thought was really odd. Not that drinking from the bottle is a crime but is it really the image a brewery wants of its beer?

All in all, I wouldn't consider Great Divide a must stop but if you have the time it is worth it.

01-12-2011 17:14:28 | More by bditty187