It’s every traveler’s dilemma: you have to check out of your hotel by 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 if you’re one of those platinum members big-shots – but your flight doesn’t take off until that evening. In Denver, with an airport two dozen miles away from the city center, it’s especially tricky. Now, you’re stuck trying to figure out what to do for the afternoon, roller bags in tow. Well, presuming you don’t actually have to fly the plane, beer gurus David Lotierzo and Nikki Harwood have an answer for you in the newly-constructed Danico Brewing at 66th Avenue and Tower Road.
“People need to post up somewhere while they wait,” Lotierzo told The Denver Post. “There are thousands of hotel rooms out here, with business travelers, especially, during the week. We think we’ll get them here.”
Lotierzo and Harwood, opened the 6,400-square-foot Danico (DAvid and NIkki’s COmpany, get it?) brewery on December 10th, bringing a wealth of experience with them. Harwood was a master brewer at Anheuser-Busch in California, and Lotierzo was the global director of warehouse and safety for A-B, as well. The duo started their project in 2020. and while the pandemic delayed the opening, and changed their plans somewhat – replacing, longer, European-style community tables with individual ones, for example – the final design is essentially what they’ve envisioned for years.
The brewery is ready for prime-time, with Harwood telling The Post they’ll initially sell a pilsner, a porter, a dunkel and two different kinds of IPAs, along with a kettle sour, with an apricot wheat forthcoming in a collaboration with artist Kelsey Montague, who pointed the bespoke mural that adorns the exterior wall of the brewery. “It’s been quite a journey for us,” Harwood said.
