Bier Here

WHERE THE PILSENERS ROAM

Since opening its first brewery in Denver in 2012, Prost has been singularly focused on crafting lager, kolsch, helles, dunkel, weizen, altbier and other German beer styles. Prost Pils brought home a silver medal at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

“We pride ourselves on creating very approachable beer styles for people that otherwise might not gravitate towards beer. Our beers are very light on the palate. The flavors don’t come over the top,” O’Connor says.

These German beers are also generally lower in alcohol content.

“You want people to be able to enjoy more than one beer and not feel like they’re in trouble.” Prost’s Northglenn destination was intentionally designed to open the curtain to the brewing process for hop-loving nerds as well as everyday beer drinkers.

“We wanted a very interactive experience, to bring the consumer into our brewing process. Most breweries like keeping things hidden and tucked behind doors. They think there’s a secret sauce to it,” O’Connor says.

“I think the thing that creates really high quality beer is the people. That’s why the beer is as good as it is, not the equipment.” The facility now supplies all the beer served at four locations as well as for retail packages.

A second-floor walkway offers a self-guided tour that walks visitors through Prost’s brewing process from grain and water to canning.

O’Connor points with pride to unique, state-of-the-art open fermentation vessels, and talks about the volatilization of sulfur compounds. The advantage is simple, he says.

“All of it is designed to create a smoother, easier drinking finished product.” The brewery’s focus on sustainability covers the whole pro- cess with new equipment that uses less energy or recycles CO2 and water. Spent brewing grain feeds pigs on a local farm. Beyond using recyclable aluminum cans and cardboard cartons, Prost buys its ingredients from German farms that use regenerative practices, O’Con- nor says.

“It’s the right thing to do and the only way we can survive as an industry.”

Prost’s environmental efforts do not include using American ingredients in most of its brews. “The owners want to make beer as authentic as humanly possible and that means using the same German hops and malts,” O’Connor says.

TRADITIONAL, BUT NOT STUCK IN THE PAST

You won’t see a lot of lederhosen or dirndl dresses at Prost; it is not a brewing amusement park.

“We’re trying to be New World German, not recreating history. We have other offerings from seltzer to wine and cider because not everybody likes beer,” O’Connor admits.

Don’t visit the other three Prost Brewing company biergartens expecting a carbon copy of the new Northglenn location. “The Highlands Ranch location fits that community perfectly. It’s very family friendly with a lot of room for kids to run around. The LoHi brewery is a little bit more industrial with a slightly younger crowd. In Fort Collins, it’s a little bit more cozy. Northglenn is a nice kind of combination of all those things,” O’Connor says.

Oktoberfest will likely be a major event this fall in Northglenn. The huge parking lot Prost shares with the Italian mega buffet, Cinzzetti’s, will have plenty of room for a beer tent.

“For Oktoberfest, some of our German partners are coming over for a pretty large gathering,” he says. Expect more autumn festivities for brew nerds during the Great American Beer Festival. Next up for Prost Brewing Company may be a German-style zero-alcohol brew. “We are actively pursuing non-alcoholic beer production, but it is a long-term project. It needs to taste like our beer. If you’re going to do it, do it right,” O’Connor says.

DONER, BRATWURST AND SCHNITZEL: A BIERGARTEN FEAST

Prost’s Northglenn Biergarten does a stellar job with the greatest hits of German cuisine and some modern Colorado pub favorites.

Don’t miss the chewy, salt-speckled pretzel dipped in fontina fondue and German mustard. Naturally, sausages are the stars, including beer-cooked bratwurst, puffy knackwurst and classic currywurst. The German sausage board with sauces and sides makes deciding easier.

In fact, we’d be happy to just order a round of Prost’s spot-on sides: beer bread, mushroom gravy, potato salad, red cabbage and sauerkraut.

Scoring 10 on the comfort food scale are the crispy pork jaegerschnitzel and spaetzle “Mac N Cheese,” pan-fried dumpling strips with cheese and ham.

Other beer-friendly menu choices include pork and beef sliders, and chicken doner flatbread sandwiches.

 

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