A lot of craft beer drinkers love to chase what’s new — the latest styles or trends or the most recent offerings from favorite or famous breweries. But plenty of other beer fans are comfortable sticking with what they know, and that’s not a bad thing, especially when those beers are so tasty.
So here’s a list of beers you can rely on, all available in 12- or 16-ounce cans. These selections are also found widely up and down the Front Range and year-round or mostly year-round.
Ska Brewing Mexican Logger
Ska Brewing has been making this Mexican-style lager for more than 20 years, first as a seasonal release on tap, then as a canned offering throughout the state during the warmer months, and now as a year-round beer in its core lineup. The reason for its popularity isn’t surprising: It tastes a lot like the No. 1-selling beer in America, Modelo Especial, not to mention beers like Pacifico and Corona. Knowing it is made by a Durango company makes it taste just a little better, though, and feel just a little bit crisper. At 5% ABV, you can have a couple while you’re mowing the lawn, grilling out back or settling into the kiddie pool for a siesta.
Upslope Craft Lager
If cowboys and cowgirls drank craft beer, this is what they’d order in a saloon by saying, “Gimme a cold one.” And it would go down so smoothly, they’d be on their second pint before they’d even finished their first. A silver-medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival in 2019, Upslope Craft Lager is brewed in Boulder with Saaz hops and is 4.8% ABV.
Crooked Stave NZ Pils
Sitting alongside its friends, an East Coast-style IPA and a West Coast-style IPA, Crooked Stave’s NZ Pils, like many of its beers, takes a popular style and elevates it. The brewery started with a traditional German-style pilsner and then added Motueka hops from New Zealand in order to give the beer some tropical hoppy flavors and aromas, along with a mellow citrusy bite. Lighter in feel than an IPA, it is also lower in alcohol than many, coming in at 5.4%.
Westbound & Down Brewing Infinity Pils
It’s hard to go wrong when it comes to Westbound & Down Brewing, which primarily brews IPAs and lagers. But among its acclaimed beers, Infinity Pils stands out because it straddles the line between both of those styles. Part of a new wave of light pilsners that feature more or different varieties of hops than are typically used in them, this 5.4% ABV Great American Beer Festival gold-medal winner is brewed using Mosaic, Citra and HBC 586 hops to give it very tropical notes. But because this is a lager, those notes come in like an island breeze, rather than a gale.
Wibby Brewing Volksbier Vienna Amber Lager
Some of the best ales these days are lagers. Which is funny since the two are distinctly different kinds of beers with different histories and processes for brewing. My point, though, is that lagers have exploded in number in the past five years, and you can now find a dozen or more different styles or variations on styles on the shelves in Colorado at any time. One of those is the rich and malty Volksbier Vienna lager made by Wibby Brewing, which comes across almost like an amber or red ale, with its rounded sweetness and smooth-drinking feel.
Odell Brewing 90 Shilling Ale
One part nostalgia, one part relief from the overwhelming number of IPAs and lagers out there, 90 Shilling is an OG Colorado beer that both commands respect and fades into the background — a perfect combination when what you are doing is more important than what you are drinking. First brewed in 1989, this Scotch ale is one of the Fort Collins brewery’s oldest and most renowned offerings. Coming in at 5.3% ABV, it is amber in color, has a rich aroma and is bound to please.
Odell Brewing Sippin’ Pretty Fruited Sour
Loaded with flavors of guava, elderberry and acai and aromas of pineapple and mango, Odell’s Sippin’ Pretty is fruit punch in a can — and with its ruby red color, it looks the part, as well. Slightly tart and slightly sweet (and just 4.5% ABV), it’s a refreshing change from classic beer styles when you require something different.
Ratio Beerworks King of Carrot Flowers
The cantaloupe-colored Saison, brewed with elderflower and pressed carrot juice, is a Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner — as well as the beer that former Vice President Kamala Harris walked out the door with when she visited Ratio in March 2024. Smooth, and boasting a touch of sweet vanilla and a balanced profile, King of Carrot Flowers has gotten more and more popular over the years, to the point where Ratio now brews it year-round.
Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
Say what you will about Oskar Blues (and people have plenty to say) but it’s been making a Colorado classic for a long time. The company, which went from tiny brewpub to statewide superstar to a venture-capital-backed conglomerate — and now a division of the Monster energy drink company — was the first craft brewer to put beer in a can (and in a can it remains). Dale’s Pale Ale was that beer. Brewed with Cascade, Centennial and Comet hops, it’s a tribute to old-school IPAs, blasting out a much-loved piney profile, backed by aromatic maltiness. It’s recognizable anywhere.
Cerebral Brewing Rare Trait IPA
Rare Trait was one of the first beers that Cerebral made when it opened just off Colfax Avenue in 2015, and it is still the brewery’s flagship beer, so much so that Cerebral celebrates it with an entire week of variations each year. But Rare Trait was also one of the first hazy, or New England-style, IPAs to be made in Colorado, and it remains one of the best. Loaded with a heady mix of Mosaic, El Dorado and Mosaic hops (a combination that has come to define hazy IPAs), it is almost entirely without bitterness while being rich and full on the palate.
Outer Range Brewing In the Steep
Aromatic, charismatic and loaded with orange juice-like flavor, In The Steep is a straightforward beer in the sometimes complicated world of hazy IPAs. Brewed with the most popular hop variety used today, it’s a smoothly drinkable — almost pillowy soft — beer with a sweet undertone and no bitterness whatsoever. It’s one of the few beers from Frisco’s Outer Range that is widely available on a fairly consistent basis, and it’s worth buying whenever you see it.
Denver Beer Co. Graham Cracker Porter
It’s hot outside, so we’re not thinking about stouts right now. But we are thinking about camping, and it’s hard to beat Graham Cracker Porter as a campfire beer, especially since it actually does have strong notes of graham crackers in it. This was one of the first two beers that Denver Beer Co. brewed when it opened way back in 2011 and has been one of the company’s best beers ever since, winning multiple awards and becoming a standard for people all over the state. Coming in at 5.6% ABV, GCP tastes like graham cracker crust in a can.