Colorado’s Oldest Beer & Oldest Pub
Just this last week I decided to relive my glory days and go snowboarding once again after a 7 year hiatus. But instead of just taking the easy route and going to Afton Alps or Highland Hills, I ended up driving half way across the country to Colorado instead haha.
I went with my longtime friend from High School who I used to snowboard with, to stay at his cousins house in Dillon Colorado. His cousin is the true case of a ski bum that moved to Colorado in the 80’s and never returned to Minnesota. Since that time he has become pretty successful and is also coincidently a ski instructor too.
I ended up skiing for the first time in my life because my friends cousin was blown away that I had never skied before in my life. Lets just say it was a work out alright. After 3 hours of hardcore ski instruction, I went back to snowboarding and hit the biggest hills of my life.
Later that night we went out to eat and by total accident ended up having Colorado’s oldest beer in Colorado’s oldest restaurant.
The Mint, which was established in 1862 is currently located in Silverthorne, but was originally located in Kokomo…and then Frisco and then “old” Dillion…are you confused yet?
The building was last moved when the Denver Water Board decided to dam and divert the Blue River which was right where “old”Dillon was. Old Dillon became a lake…really!
Fast forward to today and the Mint is just as popular as it was back in the mining days. If you want steak, they have it but you have to cook it yourself…again, really!
You can order any style, then you gather around the grill with your new best friends and cook to hearts content.
It’s a cool place to check out if you are ever in town….oh and on a side note, at one point The Mint even had a Hamm’s beer sign out front!
Now onto the beer! I will admit I’ve never heard of Tivoli beer before and to my surprise it was established in 1859!
Sometimes I’m a little behind on things.
It all started with a German immigrant named John Good that came to Colorado and started selling beer to thirsty miners.
The brewery survived until 1965 when floods destroyed a good portion of Denver forcing the brewery to close.
But fear not because in 2012 Tivoli was brought back in the original brewery building and is brewing beers once again!
I ordered the Bohemian “Bo” Girl Pilsner which is a very easy drinking beer and comes in at 4.5% ABV - 30 IBU’s.
If you are ever in Denver I would suggest checking the historic brewery out.
Oh I almost forgot, I stopped in Golden on the way out to Dillon to check out the Coors Brewery but sadly tours were not happening due to covid and the fact they were rebuilding the bridge from the street to the front door haha, so I did some poses in the employee parking lot instead.
