MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY

We had a full day layover in Denver before flying out to Belgium. Thankfully, we have awesome friends that live in downtown Denver that were available to get together for the day. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we took the train downtown. Our friends met us at the station and guided us through the city. Denver is a really beautiful city with old brick buildings and clean streets. Though, it seemed most of the restaurants in the heart of downtown were chains, which we had no interest in. Our friend had been given the recommendation of a couple cideries just a bit out of the touristy center of downtown. We grabbed his car and headed to a place called C squared. It was a huge warehouse building with an industrial theme and a bar upstairs. Downstairs was the cidery and some giant yard games. Their menu looked great and we were starving so we ordered some delicious craft ciders, freshly fried chicharrons, poutine, and a giant burger with German cheese shmear.

We stayed there for a couple drinks, catching up, and they mentioned a great Chinese place back downtown. As we just ate, we needed to kill some time before hitting that, so we headed to another cidery a couple blocks away. The streets along the way were lined with old, abandoned, industrial warehouses with amazing street art on the walls.

This cidery, The Stem, was located in a warehouse directly across from the RiNo Co-Op furniture refurbishing store. We had to check it out. If we lived here, this is where we would buy our furniture. Super unique pieces, refurbished and touched up, at completely reasonable prices. It was a ton of fun to explore.

We grabbed a seat in the cidery and started with flights since so many ciders sounded amazing.  I have never had such unique cider that didn’t rely on only sweetness for flavor. We played card games and drank until we were hungry again.