Weekend Wanderings

One of my favorite parts of living in Denver is how accessible the outdoors are. We are fortunate to have an outdoor playground right at our doorsteps. On a weekend, it’s easy to get up at a reasonable hour, enjoy a nice breakfast, get in a hike in the foothills and then meet up with friends downtown in the afternoon. Another thing I love about Denver and Colorado is the beer scene.

“More than 10 percent of the nation’s craft breweries can be found in Colorado, which is quite an impressive statistic given that the state is home to less than 2 percent of the country’s population.” – Colorado Come to Life

A foothills activity, whether it is hiking, biking or climbing followed by a beer at a brewery is a common weekend outing for me and my friends. One of my new favorite combos is North Table Mesa and New Terrain Brewing Co in Golden. My husband, a friend and I did this a few weeks back. New Terrain is conveniently located next to the Golden Bike Park at the base of North Table Mesa in Golden.

 Their location is perfectly set up to access the trails. There is a connecting trail out the back right corner of the parking lot that wraps around the dog park and the Golden High Country Archers range. It crosses the street and drops you at the Lithic Trail. From there, there are numerous options ranging in distance from 3.5 to 10 miles.  For our hike, we did about 4 miles. We hiked up the Lithic trail and took a left onto North Table Loop. At the intersection of North Table Loop and Cottonwood Canyon Trail, we took a right onto Cottonwood Canyon Trail.  As we came out of the canyon and onto the mesa, we were greeted by a herd of deer in the distance and a fox.  When we came to Mesa Top Trail, we took a right to head back toward the beer waiting for us at the bottom.  After the hike, we headed into the brewery.

New Terrain has a fabulous quote that greets you on the wall when you walk in.

“Alive is the pursuit of adventures unknown & territories unseen with an insatiable curiosity to explore hops, barley, water and yeast. The unbound journey exists to those who wander.”

My husband and his run club had been to New Terrain a few times but it was my first time, so we decided to try everything.

My favorites were the Suntrip, Abound and Hoppatropica. That being said, there wasn’t a bad beer in the bunch. 

Happy Wanderings!