Bierstadt Lagerhaus — Restaurant in Denver

I'm a huge fan of clean tasting lagers, and I love all the beers here.

They're doing take and bake food right now. I picked up a sausage plate and a mac and cheese. I assumed there would be cooking instructions in the bag, so I didn't ask, but when I got home I didn't see any, and I couldn't find anything on the website. So here's what I did in case it helps:

The sausage plate came with 3 sausages, bell peppers, cucumber salad, sweety drop peppers (delicious tiny red peppers soaked in vinegar), a pretzel, and spicy (horseradish) mustard. I seared the sausages on both sides on a cast iron pan until golden brown, and then threw them in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes to make sure they were hot all the way through. The sausages seem to come fully cooked, but it never hurts to make sure they are nice and hot. The pretzel was refrigerated, and it came with a tiny container of pretzel salt. I ran it under some water (to make the salt stick) and then sprinkled it with the salt. I baked it at the same time as the sausages, but that turned out not to be enough because the inside was a little doughy. It didn't change much with longer baking, so maybe that's just the way it is.

The mac and cheese was a little more of a mystery. It came with pre cooked mac and cheese (already covered with sauce and everything), a small container of milk (?), and a container with a mix of parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. I really didn't know what to do with the milk. I ended up heating the mac and cheese in a cast iron skillet until it was hot and bubbly, at which point I added about half the milk to thin out the sauce. That resulted in a perfect consistency, then I topped it with the breadcrumb mixture and put it in the oven at 425 for 10 minutes. Using the broiler might work even better. It turned out great!

Obviously the exact contents of each meal is subject to change if they run out of stuff. Overall the food was great, and it was fun to try a variety of foods and flavors I wouldn't usually make for...

Beer is really good, but atmosphere could improve. The tone set by employees is not welcoming, highlighted by their insistence on qr code based service. Staff was standoff-ish when ordering directly at the bar when attempting to order from them directly instead of the QR code. My phone was dead so I couldn’t scan the QR code. I elected to grab beer to go, and the bar tender who checked my id, who had already asked if I had been there before, made sure to police me and made doubley that I wasn’t allowed to drink to go in the brewery (I get beer to go twice a month and was standing at the register, beer unopened). On top of that Auto 10% service charge for to go beer. I asked if I was able to tip more bc as a bar tender with a decade in the industry, I always tip over 20% even if the service is poor, even for togos. Their point of sale doesn’t allow you to tip on take outs, just the auto 10%. These service charges are dispersed among the entire staff directly onto paychecks. Why this is a huge issue in the industry is a different topic, but it’s not transparent and doesn’t incentivize great customer service. If you know you’re not walking home with cash tips, if you know your automatically getting gratuity in these scenarios, why try? Call me old fashioned, (I’m 29) but I prefer establishments who take pride in customer service, allow me to tip who is serving me directly, and not to be discouraged from ordering from an actual person in favor...

Imagine being herded like livestock into the upper level of a beer hall, forbidden to roam downstairs where all the actual fun is happening. That’s exactly what happened here. Apparently, if there’s a corporate party, you get to feel like the unwanted stepchild of the establishment. No games for you, no mingling in the main area—just stay upstairs and enjoy the privilege of feeling excluded.

Speaking of “enjoyment,” let’s talk about the cocktails. Oh, wait, there’s not much to talk about because they’re pre-made. That’s right, these overpriced drinks are poured straight from a batch, with no fresh mixing, no bartender flair, and zero justification for their ridiculous price tag. If I wanted a drink that’s basically a glorified juice box, I’d bring my own flask and save a ton of money.

And don’t even get me started on the food. A pretzel should not cost an arm and a leg, especially when it’s nothing extraordinary. At these prices, I was half-expecting it to be hand-delivered by a beekeeper who harvested the honey mustard himself. Spoiler: it wasn’t.

This place has some serious audacity charging what they do while corralling paying customers like kids at a Chuck E. Cheese. We came for the beer and games, but all we got was overpriced disappointment and the distinct sense that we were...