Wynkoop Brewing Company

About Us

Colorado’s first brewpub, Wynkoop Brewing Company was founded in 1988 by a group of young entrepreneurs and urban pioneers led by current Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Our brewpub’s hallmarks — highly acclaimed small-batch beers, high quality food & service, the city’s best pool hall and our glorious 1888 building — helped make us a major catalyst for the revival of Lower Downtown Denver.
Today Wynkoop Brewing Company is a beer-blessed Denver institution, a must-visit Colorado landmark and one of the nation’s most revered craft breweries.
We’re also one of the city’s best places for private and corporate events. We’ve hosted everything from Democratic National Convention parties to beer festivals, weddings and company conferences. (All with great beer and food.)
Today we’re expanding our downtown brewing efforts to deliver more of our ambitious, artisan-style craft beer to Denver’s best beer outlets. Look for cans of our Rail Yard Ale in local stores and kegs of all of our beers at the area’s top bars and restaurants.
Cheers!

Our History

Our pioneering brewpub (Colorado’s first) is housed in the glorious J. S. Brown Mercantile Building, built in 1899. The Mercantile Company was a cornerstone of the young Denver economy and one of the city’s most impressive early buildings. Its hardwood floors, thick timber pillars and pressed-tin ceilings are still in place today. Miners, ranchers and city folks walked this building looking for goods to furnish their Western adventures and frontier homes.
In 1899 our main floor served as the Mercantile’s original showroom. Today it’s home to our main bar, restaurant, brewery and kitchen. On the south side of our main floor is our Mercantile Room, now a renovated banquet room replete with high ceilings and expansive arched windows. The giant metal door you see by the main bar? It was once the door to the building’s main vault. Today it holds a different sort of valuables: our brewers and their office. The second floor is the home of Wynkoop Billiards, arguably the city’s most elegant pool hall. We have 22 pool tables, two private pool rooms, dart lanes and a bar serving most of the same acclaimed beers you find downstairs.
This floor also houses some of our most popular banquet rooms, and the entire floor and pool hall are available for private functions. The backbar on this floor was rescued from the original tasting room of the old Tivoli Brewery, a famed Denver brewery located at what is now the Auraria college campus. In our basement you’ll find the serving tanks for all of our beers, and we now hand can our beers down there, too. The Impulse Theater is also on our basement level and welcomes grinning crowds to its hugely popular improv-comedy shows.
From our start in 1988, we’ve worked to be good environmental stewards in our community. We began recycling glass and cardboard almost from the start, today those measures are joined by extensive composting, recycling, and water and energy conservation efforts.
Our biodegradable waste is composted, our spent brewing grains feed local livestock, and our used cooking oils are recycled into biodiesel. We use a range of biodegradable paper and carry-out supplies, and continue to seek new ways to operate as an environmentally friendly enterprise.
Our menu features a wealth of Colorado-produced meats and vegetables, Redbird Farms chicken, and wild salmon certified by the Marine Stewardship Counsel as a renewable resource. We use premium malts and hops in our beer and trans fat-free oil in our fryers, and we source a large number of staples and condiments from local producers.
Our goal with these collective measures? To reduce our environmental impact and increase our support of local entrepreneurs. While giving you the best food and beer your dollars can buy. If you have suggestions for other steps we can take toward that goal, please let us know about them.