Read about our visit to Laramie here!

ALTITUDE CHOPHOUSE AND BREWERY

Altitude is a big, open steakhouse that happens to brew and serve their own beer. As the picture shows, it doesn’t have a traditional brewery / bar feel and it wasn’t particularly our scene. Kudos to them for tapping 12 of their own beers at a time – and for their focus on local (and seemingly humanely raised) food, but we didn’t have the greatest experience. They had just reopened after an extensive renovation and we found the service lacking and the food just sort of mediocre, although we couldn’t complain about the prices, for what it was.

The beer was pretty good, just not good enough for us to overcome the scene.

Altitude only distributes within their downtown Laramie restaurant.

COAL CREEK TAP

Coal Creek Tap opened in March of 2004, connected by a cool sliding wooden door to their sister establishment Coal Creek Coffee in downtown, historic Laramie. While they have a small food menu, Coal Creek comes across as a true brewery (as opposed to a pub) that puts the beer first, the only such establishment in the city (there are two other brew pubs).

The atmosphere was a plus. It’s small, with perhaps overflow room into the coffee house, with an 8-seat bar and a number of tables. They aren’t currently canning or bottling and vary the beers that they brew quite a bit. They had 13 beers on tap while we were there; despite a strong Belgian and English focus, they had three American-style IPAs (one a double) although oddly no pilsner/lager type beers for Lauren. Still, we both really liked the IPAs. This place is off to a great start.