G is for Great Frontier Brewing

You may remember that as I was composing the list of Denver breweries that I had not visited, it struck me that most of the letters of the alphabet were covered by the beginning letters of the brewery names.

I started with A ... A is for Alpine Dog Brewing Company

Next up was B ... B is for Baere Brewing Company

After B comes C ... C is for Comrade Brewing Company

Are you recognizing a pattern here? ... D is for Draw, Boggy (I took a little artistic licence to change Boggy Draw into Draw, Boggy)

And then, of course, E ... E is for Epic Brewing Company

After E, I predictably went to F ... F is for Factotum Brewhouse

And for G? What did I pick for G? G is for ...

Great Frontier Brewing Company

Mike Plungis, Great Frontier’s Founder and Head Brewer, started out as a homebrewer. This is pretty standard for how the typical small brewery is born.


Mike, however, has a bit of a unique story in that when his wife was diagnosed with with Celiac disease, he was inspired to pursue brewing Gluten Free beers. He even teamed up with a local professional brewery and won a gold medal in the 2011 GABF competition. Impressive.

The first letters in Great Frontier are GF intentionally, to recognize the Gluten Free beers Mike specializes in producing.

So, Mike has Gluten Free beers on tap. These use Sorghum, so I don't really like them, but many people do.

He also brews "Gluten Reduced" beers using White Lab's Clarity Ferm (aka Brewers Clarex), the "Gluten Killer" I have mentioned several times on this blog. To my pallet, these are much better.

And then, he brews "Traditional Beers" as well.

He is a well-rounded brewer.

I have a personal dislike of Sorghum, but some of the people I talked to in the tasting room, even some who don't have any kind of gluten intolerance, say they liked the Gluten Free beers. I'm not sure I believe them, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

All the Gluten Reduced and Traditional beers I had are wonderful. (I did have at least a sample of every beer he had on tap)

It is a cool little tap room. The staff is friendly and Mike is completely willing to talk home-brewing with you. He even gave me a little tour of the brewing area.

Best of all, the brewery is a short (less than) 5 mile bike ride from my house.

The brewery is located at
2010 South Oak Street
Lakewood, CO 80227
(303) 257-5959

The hours are:
Thursday: 5pm - 9pm
Friday: 5pm - 10pm
Saturday: 2pm - 10pm
Sunday: 2pm - 7pm

He doesn't serve food, but food trucks are often on site.

Stop by. Try some beers. Bring home a growler for any loved ones with any type of gluten intolerance.