Denver's beer bounty
He says he's often mistaken for Bill Gates, the man who revolutionized the computer industry. But John Hickenlooper is a pioneer of a different sort.
He's the man who brought brewpubs to Colorado.
In 1986, the collapse of Denver's energy industry cost Hickenlooper a job as a geologist. So he turned his attention to beer.
He lobbied the state legislature to change a law that prohibited brewing beer and serving food in the same place. And he kept busy raising money to renovate a warehouse in historic Lower Downtown.
The work paid off. The law was changed, and in 1988 the Wynkoop Brewing Company opened. It is now the largest brewpub in the United States.
Hickenlooper says that opening shop in LoDo was a natural.
"I have always believed in trying to find a way to revitalize urban areas," he explains, "so by going back to the historic way of making beer, putting it in a historic building seemed like it could be a good catalyst for downtown."
Peanuts, cracker jacks and beer
Beer has long been a part of Denver -- today's brewpubs evolved from turn-of-the-century saloons. But Prohibition nearly wiped out the American brewing industry.
Locally brewed beer started making a comeback in the late 1970s in the Northeast and the Northwest. But Colorado is where the practice has found the most success.
There are more than 700 brewpubs nationwide -- 50 of them in Colorado, more than any other state. Downtown Denver has 10, including The Sandlot, the nation's only brewpub inside a stadium.
The Sandlot's brewing equipment is in the corner of right field in Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies.
"At any one time, we have five or six beers," says the brewery's John Legnard. "It's a really nice feature here to have a full complement of 500 people every single game drinking my beer, saying this beer's good, this beer's great."
On any given day in Denver, there are at least 50 beers on tap that can't be found anywhere else. And as the suds have come of age in Colorado, so have the taste buds -- brewpub patrons have become on-the-spot ale experts.
"The questions that they are asking show just how much knowledge they've come into," says one brewpub bartender.
John Hickenlooper is one of those. Tasting a batch of his beer, he's not shy at all in complimenting it. And it's that kind of confidence that keeps Colorado's brewpubs tapped into prosperity.
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