Golden is mostly known for the Coors brewery tour, which is fine, but it’s also a big factory tour and not really an afternoon hangout. A few minutes away, and over in neighboring Lakewood, there’s a smaller-scale brewery scene that’s a lot easier to just show up to, sit outside, and not have anywhere else to be.
If you want the view, New Terrain
New Terrain Brewing Company sits right against Golden’s open space, with a beer garden that looks out toward North Table Mountain. It’s the kind of patio where you end up staying longer than you planned. The brewery is dog-friendly and family-friendly, and their Suntrip Belgian Wit has picked up a medal at the Great American Beer Festival, so it’s not just the view carrying the place.
Golden’s older, smaller option
Golden City Brewery has been around since 1993, started by two geologists in what used to be a machine shop. It’s a smaller setup than New Terrain, with both indoor and outdoor seating, and the patio is dog-friendly too. There’s something about a brewery that’s been doing the same thing for three decades that gives it a different feel than the newer places, less polished, more lived-in.
Lakewood’s neighborhood spot
Green Mountain Beer Company is the closest thing Lakewood has to a brewery everyone in the area already knows about. The patio is family and dog-friendly, food trucks show up several nights a week, and there’s live music often enough that it’s worth checking what’s on before you go. It’s less of a destination brewery and more of a place locals end up at on a random Tuesday.
Getting between the two
Golden and Lakewood are close, usually a 10 to 15 minute drive depending on traffic on 6th Avenue or Colfax. That makes it realistic to start at one and end at the other without the day feeling like a road trip. Nobody’s going to finish all three of these in one sitting, so pick two and leave the third for next time.