Lakewood (Belmar), Colorado:
Crazy Mountain Tap Room

Visited on: Sunday 10th June 2018

Bob Thompson

We were staying at a friend’s apartment in Lakewood which was about a half mile south of Lakewood Commons. This is where the local government facilities, city hall, main library, police station of the City of Lakewood are to be found.

Lakewood is a large city close to western border of Denver and is an extension of its urban sprawl. Yet, the westbound border of Lakewood is in the foothills of the Rockies, so it is transitional.

Having established that Lakewood Commons is the administrative centre of the city it can be added that it is also the retail epicentre also. The city’s largest shopping mall is called Belmar and rather than Lakewood Commons, it is this has given the district its name.

Crazy Mountain Brewery was established in Edwards, CO in 2010 by Kevin Selvy. In 2015 he took over the former Breckenridge Brewery’s location in Denver. This eventually led to the closure of the Edwards plant in 2018. Towards the end of 2017 they franchised their name to two new tap rooms at Cherry Creek, Glendale and at Lakewood. These were previously part of the World of Beer chain.

This was an impromptu visit towards the end of the evening. We had to change buses at Lakewood Commons and decided to call in to the Crazy Mountain Tap Room. Apparently it hasn’t changed a lot since its World of Beer days.

It has a patio outside and inside it is basically one large room with the bar counter at the rear. The majority of the furniture are large high tables with varnished tops made from slices of some huge tree trunks.

There are twenty draught beer taps divided between Crazy Mountain beer and other local producers. I regret I didn’t take details of the full list available, it was the end of a long day! However we tried five and this is what we thought of them. We began with a Renegade beer: Free to Roam Pale Ale (5.4%) was quite innocuous and was not very bitter at all.

Then we went to the Crazy Mountain beers: Bit o’ Crazy Session IPA (3.5%) was very malty with no bitterness at all, not liked. Shane McConkey IPA (7.0%) was bitter yet very peppery. It had a slight off taste and was a bit stale. Mountain Livin’ Pale Ale (5.7%) was actually a well balanced bitter and was well liked. Horseshoes and Handgrenades ESB (6.0%) was extra malty with a complete absence of bitterness, we thought it was horrible.

Well, a bit of a mixed bag, but I’m sure the beers will be better on a future visit.

Important Information:

Crazy Mountain Tap Room-Belmar, 7260 West Alaska Drive, Lakewood, CO 80226. Tel: 303 934 2304.
Web: crazymountainbrewery.com

Hours: Monday-Wednesday 14.00-24.00; Thursday-Friday 14.00-02.00;
Saturday 12.00-02.00; Sunday 12.00-24.00

Several bus routes run through or terminate at Lakewood Commons. These are the 1, 3, 11, 14 and 76.