The modern version of the brewery, which has occupied a high-profile space in the Auraria campus’ student union for a decade, and the organization that runs the facilities shared by three onsite colleges weren’t able to come to a lease agreement after months of negotiations, according to Devra Ashby, Auraria’s marketing and communications director.

“Since 2015, [Tivoli] has been an integral part of the Auraria Campus, contributing to the campus community and collaborating on educational initiatives until 2021,” Ashby said in a statement. “While brewing operations on campus ceased in fall 2023, the Tivoli Tap House served as a gathering space for students, faculty, staff, and the broader Denver community. We appreciate Tivoli’s contributions over the years and extend our best wishes for their future endeavors.”

Auraria is currently “in discussions” with a potential replacement, she added.

Although the taproom is closed, the brewery will continue to operate a production facility in the southeastern Colorado town of La Junta, where it primarily makes a lager called Outlaw Light. The Tivoli name is also still attached to the taproom at Denver International Airport, but the company is no longer connected to the space, which is run by an airport concessionaire called SSP America.

The original Tivoli brewery was founded in 1900 in the same building as the new one, at 1900 Auraria Parkway. The company and its owners had brewing roots on that site dating back to 1859, however, a year after Denver’s founding. Tivoli was one of just a handful of Colorado breweries to survive prohibition and later became one of the largest beer makers in the West. It went out of business, though, in 1969, for several reasons, including a strike and a flood.

In 2012, Corey Marshall, a former Coors executive who had been a bouncer at a bar that was located in the student union building in the 1990s, began researching and collecting old Denver beer trademarks and brands from the 1800s and early 1900s. His goal — as the craft beer industry began to boom — was to update some of the beers and sell them to thirsty Denver residents.

In 2015, Marshall struck a deal with AHEC to reopen in the Tivoli building, adding modern brewing equipment, but keeping some of the historic kettles that remained as decoration. But by 2018, Marshall had left and been replaced by a new ownership group. During the COVID-19 pandemic, conditions got even worse as the campus was shut down.

In recent years, CEO Ari Opsahl has steered the company away from its historic beers and toward Outlaw Light, which has been selling well, according to the company.

Last year, Opsahl told The Denver Post that he hoped to find “a mutually amicable path forward.

“The taphouse is a cornerstone for the campus,” Opsahl said then, pointing out that the brewery and the building share a name. “We love it, but operating there is a challenge, as it is pretty dead all summer (when classes aren’t in session). We can’t even break even.

“We want to be there,” he added. “But have to find a way to make it work for both parties.”

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Beer is supposed to be fun. Yes, brewing is full of history and tradition and skill, but the reason for its existence in modern society is as a social lubricant, a communal endeavor. And fun.

And you won’t find a more pure expression of that notion than at Collaboration Fest, an annual beer gathering that brings together 180 breweries, primarily from Colorado, and 140 beers — all made specifically for this event.

The brewers can make anything they want, as long as they do it with someone else: another brewery, several other breweries, another business or organization. The beers they make can be serious attempts at experimentation, one-off larks, ironic statements or simply an excuse for people to spend a day or two together during a work week.

This year’s fest, which takes place Saturday, April 19, from 2 to 6 p.m. at The Westin Westminster, 10600 Westminster Blvd., is no different. If you go (tickets are $20-$95 and available at collaborationfest.com), you’ll find something to shock, soothe or satisfy any palate.

Here are some of the most interesting, unusual and fun beer collabs on the taplist.

• Woods Boss Brewing and Oregon’s Silver Moon Brewing reconvened to make Stihl Crazy (After All These Years), a beer they last made six years ago. To do it, the brewers ran hot wort from the kettle down the channel of a split 12-foot section of a pine tree. The goal is to impart the character of the tree into the resulting beer, a Norwegian farmhouse-style saison.
• You wouldn’t blink an eye at a Southeast Asian restaurant if the menu listed a spicy peanut sauce made with sriracha sauce. In a beer, though? No matter. Verboten Brewing in Loveland and Gravity Brewing in Louisville will be serving Peanut Butter Sriracha Imperial Porter. The goal, according to the breweries, is to “make something weird but not too weird.”
• The brewers at Mountain Toad Brewing in Golden and Evergreen Brewery decided to make a beer with fonio, an ancient West African grain that is drought-resistant and sustainably grown, according to the collaboration notes. It’s also relatively new to the brewing world. “Brewing with fonio and pilsner malt created a unique beer with aromas and flavors of white wine, lychee, and citrus with a soft, rounded finish.” The beer is called Friend of Fonio.
• Pouring beer is an art form in the Czech Republic, so much so that even foam gets a style designation all its own, called mliko. In fact, in some bars, you can drink just the foam, which, when meted out with specially screened, side-pouring faucet taps, has a rich and creamy feel that is fun to drink (and to make a foam mustache out of). A handful of local breweries offer mliko pours, including Wild Provisions Beer Project in Boulder, which has partnered with Denver’s Great Divide Brewing on TmavYeti, a Czech-style dark lager, tmave, that was aged in whiskey barrels and will be blended with more lager and poured as mliko.
• For its unusual collaboration, Aurora’s Cheluna Brewing teamed up with Oaxaca Brewing in Mexico to make Red Tepache Sour. Made with fermented pineapple rinds and colored with cochineal, a traditional natural dye, the beer harkens back to pre-Columbian times, when tepache originated. This version also includes cinnamon and clove.

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Some of them have been waiting years for construction timelines to gradually unfold.

Related: Four more local restaurants land at Denver International Airport

The Bagel Deli

Family-owned for three generations, the Bagel Deli — which operates its five-decade-old diner on East Hampden Avenue — is now open in the Concourse A Marketplace, serving “fresh bagels, stacked sandwiches, and authentic deli fare — perfect for a quick, satisfying meal before your flight or to take on the plane,” restaurant reps said.

The Bindery

Originally slated to open in early 2023, The Bindery will be serving its popular dishes — soups, salads, fish and more — near gates 24 and 26 in Concourse A. A spokesperson for the airport said it is now on track to open in May. (Its liquor license permit is currently pending with Denver’s excise and license department, which is a good sign.)

Cholon Modern Bistro

This popular Asian fusion concept from chef Lon Symensma opened in mid-December in Concourse C near Gate 62. The menu features “signature dishes inspired by Southeast Asia and Western Europe … from savory dim sum offerings to wok-fried creations,” DIA representatives said.

D Bar

Keegan Gerhard was one of Denver’s first star chefs, and although his cafe in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood has closed, he still runs a location in Central Park, specializing in desserts and other sweet treats. This weekend, D Bar’s newest location is scheduled to open near Gate A38 at DIA.

Finch on the Fly

An offshoot of longtime Denver cafe, Olive & Finch, this grab-and-go kiosk opened for business on Jan. 29 in Concourse A, serving “high-quality, healthy and affordable fare” from chef Mary Nguyen. Olive & Finch is in the midst of a big expansion that includes two new locations downtown.

Marczyk Fine Foods

This specialty neighborhood market with two locations in Denver has now expanded into DIA, where it sells a section of grab-and-go items; a curated menu of fresh-made, locally sourced sandwiches; salads and snacks. There is also a full wine and beer bar. Located near Gate C62.

Maria Empanada

Lorena Cantarovici opened her newest Denver restaurant earlier this year on E. Colfax Avenue, and she’ll add an airport version of Maria Empanada in May, according to a DIA. Located in Concourse A, near Gate 24, it will serve several versions of the South American specialty.

Osteria Marco

When it opens, possibly as soon as June, Osteria Marco will be the second airport restaurant operation for Denver chef and restaurateur Frank Bonanno. The other is Salt & Grinder, which no longer has a storefront in the city — Bonanno recently replaced it with a new concept called Dumplin’ — but lives on at DIA. Osteria Marco is known for fresh pasta and pizza and will be on the upstairs mezzanine on the B Concourse, near the escalator to the trains.

Teatulia Tea & Coffee Bar

Located in the River North Art District, Teatulia sources its organic teas directly from its garden in Bangladesh. At the airport, “Teatulia will feature its signature tea and coffee lattes, iced teas and wellness blends,” the company said. Look for it near Gate 62 in the C Concourse.

Tocabe

Tocabe, one of the only restaurants in Denver specializing in Native American cuisine, opened for business in DIA’s Terminal A on April 7.

Uncle

Uncle helped put Denver ramen on the map, and now that map will extend into DIA’s flight path as Tommy Lee’s restaurant is slated to begin slinging noodle bowls, beginning in May, near Gate A24.

Williams & Graham

Even if you’re not flying first class, you’ll be able to order some first-class cocktails at  Williams & Graham, which is expected to open on April 21, near Gate A38. Bartender Sean Kenyon’s award-winning Denver bar mixes up 60 classic cocktails, some of which will make their way to DIA.

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Left Hand Brewing, which was founded in Longmont in 1993, will absorb Aurora’s Dry Dock Brewing in a move that was funded in part by Left Hand’s recent share offerings through both a Wefunder campaign and a Regulation D sale. It has so far raised more than $2 million.

Related: 31-year-old Great Divide Brewing has sold to a new — and local — owner

As a result, Dry Dock, known for beers like Apricot Blonde and Hopricot IPA, will move all of its production from Denver, where it had been making beer at Great Divide Brewing, to Longmont. The Dry Dock Aurora taproom, at 15120 E. Hampden Ave., will remain open.

“They’re taking our baby and helping us grow,” said Kevin DeLange, who started Dry Dock with Michelle Reding in 2005, in an interview with The Denver Post. “We are excited to have a brewery like Left Hand to entrust our brand to. It feels like the best fit for us.”

DeLange and Reding will acquire equity in Left Hand’s parent company, Indian Peaks Brewing, which is now the parent company of Dry Dock as well. They will also continue to oversee the Aurora taproom, and DeLange will remain in sales and as an ambassador for the combined entity, which will be able to offer beers from both brands in 45 states.

Left Hand was the third-largest independent brewery in Colorado at the start of 2024 (the last time numbers were available), while Dry Dock was ninth, according to the Boulder-based Brewers Association.

Like other small breweries across the country, both have faced inflation, competition from other alcoholic beverages, and a challenging market overall. Sales and volume for breweries were down 2% between mid-2023 and mid-2024, the Brewers Association reported, adding: “In addition to a crowded marketplace, brewers continue to navigate a changing economy.”

“Things are changing. The whole culture around beer has shifted, and things need to shake out and settle,” Left Hand co-founder and CEO Eric Wallace told The Denver Post. “We’re telling people with this that we do see a future in joining together with other breweries. … Those of us who band together have a much likelier chance of survival than those who don’t.”

The eventual goal, he continued, is to bring more independent craft breweries together under Left Hand’s platform. “This partnership with Dry Dock is the first real step in bringing that to life.”

The move comes just a day after Great Divide Brewing, another of Colorado’s legacy companies, was acquired by the newly formed Lafayette-based parent company of both Denver Beer Co., Funkwerks, Howdy Beer, Cerveceria Colorado and Stem Ciders. Stem had merged with Denver Beer Co. and Funkwerks in February to create Wilding Brands, which now controls more than a dozen taprooms and restaurants across the Front Range. Great Divide founder Brian Dunn told The Denver Post on Tuesday that economies of scale have become much more important for breweries these days.

Other Colorado craft breweries have been teaming up with one another as well, including Denver’s TRVE Brewing, which moved its production to New Image Brewing in Wheat Ridge, while Tilray, a cannabis company, has rolled up several breweries, including Breckenridge.

Before the merger with Left Hand, Dry Dock itself announced in 2023 that it would shutter its 30,000-square-foot production brewery on Tower Road in Aurora and move the majority of its beermaking and packaging to Great Divide.

Founded in 2005 as an offshoot of DeLange’s and Reding’s homebrewing store, Dry Dock was the first brewery in Colorado to operate strictly as a taproom, meaning it didn’t package its beer or sell food — the model that every other brewery was using. It grew quickly in the following years, with some of its beers achieving cult-like status, and many more winning medals.

In 2013, Dry Dock expanded into a production warehouse with a taproom, a move helped along by the in-state success of its flagship beer, Apricot Blonde. It expanded quickly after that, becoming known more and more for its fruit-forward beers.

Left Hand was born — along “the banks of the mighty St. Vrain,” as the company used to boast — at the beginning of Colorado’s first craft-beer boom in the early 1990s. It grew from a tiny operation, selling growlers and bottles of English-style ales and German lagers, into one of the 50 largest craft breweries in the country, adding a taproom in Denver in 2022.

Along the way, it pioneered an innovative way to package its dark stouts with nitrogen gas so that they would pour as if they were on draft in a bar. Eventually, Left Hand became known primarily for its stouts, remaining independent even as several of Colorado’s other large craft breweries — like New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Avery and Breckenridge — were purchased by much larger, multinational corporations. It became employee-owned in 2015.

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Brewery Bar II, at 150 Kalamath St. in Denver, is a long-time and award-winning purveyor of green chile and has garnered plenty of attention for the dish during its 69-year history.

Los Dos Potrillos, which has five metro Denver locations and another on the way, is a family-owned Mexican restaurant with plenty of fans in the southern suburbs.

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Sadly, however, it appears that someone or someones went a little overboard, creating online bots that submitted tens of thousands of votes for both Brewery Bar II and Los Dos Potrillos in our Green Chile Bracket this week — far more than we typically get in our voting.

In order to ramp the heat down from fiery to medium to mild, we are going to hold the vote again, and this time, we’ll require people to include their name and email, and to answer a question that proves they are human. We hope this will discourage the bot traffic and give us a true result.

Here are the two competitors. Vote here:

Brewery Bar II, at 150 Kalamath St. in Denver, is a long-time and award-winning purveyor of green chile and has garnered plenty of attention for the dish during its 69-year history.

Los Dos Potrillos, which has five metro Denver locations and another on the way, is a family-owned Mexican restaurant with plenty of fans in the southern suburbs.

Subscribe to our new food newsletter, Stuffed, to get Denver food and drink news sent straight to your inbox.

Related: Breweries teaming up with popular food concepts to elevate their bar bites

“I liked the production aspect of making dough. I thought it was cool that it was alive and that it changed every day,” said Grillaert, who owns Outside Pizza, a Denver food trailer, with husband Ryan. It was that same fascination with yeast and fermentation that led Grillaert to a job with Washington’s 10 Barrel Brewing Company in 2015, where she stayed for five years.

“It’s like all that I think about,” she said about pizza dough.

When she and Ryan both lost their jobs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, though, they decided to try something new, so the pair moved to Denver and began tweaking their sourdough crust recipe using different flours, and hosting pizza parties for friends and family.

Once they had it down, they outfitted a vintage, 1958 Shasta trailer with pizza ovens and began popping up at breweries and farmers markets around the city.

“I always knew I would find my way back to pizza,” she said.

But pizza — like brewing, cheffing, baking and “food in general” — is “very much a male-dominated scene,” Grillaert said, which is why she’s participating in Women’s Pizza Month, a nonprofit that highlights women in the industry during Women’s History Month (March).

Founded by New York sourdough baker, pizzaiola and consultant Christy Alia, of Real Clever Food, Women’s Pizza Month has gained traction in Colorado with some of Grillaert’s fellow pizza chefs, including Audrey Kelly of Audrey Jane’s Pizza Garage in Boulder, Melinda Carbajal of the Simply Pizza food truck, and Melina Feliz, co-owner of the Pizza Bandit, a Littleton truck that just opened a location inside Avanti Food & Beverages in Denver.

“Men, specifically in the food industry, are usually loud and outspoken in the best ways. But that can overshadow women who feel like maybe they can’t be as loud,” Grillaert said. “So, this allows women pizzaiolas to show that they can be loud, too, and that they are here.”

For Grillaert, one of the ways to be loud is to post videos on social media of her spinning pizza, a stretching technique that is as cool as it is necessary, she said. “I learned how to do it as a teenager working at Zeeks — one of the owners taught me how.”

Grillaert is quick to point out that she doesn’t do tricks — real pizza dough wouldn’t hold up to that much spinning. And although spinning adds a bit of “flair,” gravity and wind resistance are the real keys to what makes high-flying dough work in the oven.

Customers seem to think so, too. Outside is typically slammed on weekends when it shows up at Cerebral Brewing, Ephemeral Taphouse and Novel Strand Brewing, all in Denver.

In April, Cerebral will open its third taproom at 3257 Lowell Blvd., with space for Outside Pizza to set up a permanent location inside a month or two later.

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For the past five weeks, readers of The Denver Post have been voting by the thousands in our annual food bracket challenge. It began with 32 restaurants vying for the top spot. The businesses were selected by readers and editorial staffers. Now we are near the end.

This week, Brewery Bar II, at 150 Kalamath St. in Denver, knocked off the Original Chubby’s on West 38th Avenue, a spot that has become synonymous with green chile in Denver over the decades. Brewery Bar II is no slouch, though, having received plenty of its own awards and attention for the dish during its 69-year history.

Los Dos Potrillos, meanwhile, which has five metro Denver locations and another on the way, took Santiago’s out of the running. The longtime family-owned Mexican restaurant has plenty of fans in the southern suburbs while Santiago’s — also family-owned — has at least 30 Colorado locations and is known for its spicy and inexpensive breakfast burritos.

Now Brewery Bar II and Los Dos Potrillos will face off in the high-stakes finale. Vote below.

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The same could be said for opening a restaurant in post-pandemic Denver, where things don’t always go as planned, said Terry Walsh, a restaurateur who owns Rolling Smoke BBQ and its four metro Denver locations (as well as one at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on concert nights).

“This is six years in the making,” he said about his latest venture. “We make barbecue, so we are used to that.”

Walsh’s new restaurant, though, won’t sell grilled meat. When it opens, probably in April, the Chubby Unicorn Cantina will instead offer tacos, nachos and other Mexican-American specialties just steps away from Mission Ballroom in the River North Art District.

“The city (government) doesn’t really like outdoor smokers, so it was tough to place one there in the neighborhood,” Walsh explained. “We love the area down there, and we know the long-term plans, so it was either not open anything or pivot to something new.”

The Chubby Unicorn, at 4180 Wynkoop St., will be in the plaza across from the entrance to the Mission Ballroom so that patrons walking out of the music venue will find Left Hand Brewing’s taproom on the left and Chubby Unicorn on the right. The restaurant will have close to 90 seats inside and another 40 on the patio, and the goal is to serve a slimmed-down menu on concert evenings and a slightly expanded menu on other nights.

“We want to be the go-to for the neighborhood on non-show nights,” Walsh explained.

To help get the concept started, Walsh recruited Mike Carlin from the now-closed Mikes 2 Cantina, who used to roll with Rolling Smoke when it started out as a food truck. He’ll also have help from some former employees who are bringing recipes from Mexico.

Business by the Mission Ballroom has been choppy over the past six years as development started, stopped and started again through the pandemic, resulting in some changing plans, Walsh said. But the process is moving again, and he is comfortable waiting.

“That is the beauty of having four other restaurants that are doing well … this one doesn’t have to be [at first],” he continued. “2024 was tough, but our ‘tough’ was better than what a lot of people are facing. Our locations inside food halls are really helping us.”

Rolling Smoke’s four permanent stores are at 7100 W. 38th Ave. in Wheat Ridge; 7470 S. University Blvd. in Centennial; 2501 Dallas St., inside Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace; and 1012 Ford St., inside the Golden Mill food hall in Golden.

But for a concert venue, business will be different, relying almost entirely on shows – and that’s another reason Mexican food may work better than barbecue, Walsh said. “We want to be fast and light. Eating a plate of barbecue before going into a concert isn’t the most appealing thing.”

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“Six years ago, three friends took a major leap and opened FlyteCo Brewing off Tennyson Street in a dusty old electric plant building,” the brewery’s owners wrote on social media.

“Since then, we’ve hosted countless family gatherings, baby showers, trivia and open mic nights, yoga and craft workshops, and more that entrenched us in the neighborhood. You all have always made it feel like home,” they continued about the spot at 4499 W. 38th Ave.

The aviation theme is a result of two of the owners being pilots, and it extended into the first location with a fuselage structure where drinkers could sit and other plane-related ideas and decor. The brewery is also known for harvesting fresh hops on the Western Slope and then flying them to Denver so they can be used in an annual beer within hours of being picked.

But on April 5, the company will have a final party before closing that night, and refocusing on FlyteCo Tower, a sprawling, 17,000-square-foot complex — opened in 2022 at 3120 Uinta St. It includes a small bowling alley, arcade games, a coffee shop — and even tours to the top of the 164-foot historic tower.

“It’s bittersweet, but the right move for the future of FlyteCo,” the owners wrote.

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