Music has always been at the bloody goat’s heart of TRVE Brewing Co. And music is what convinced the owners of the 11-year-old brewery that it was time for a second location.
At some point in 2024, TRVE will open a 3,500-square-foot taproom next to Denver’s Mission Ballroom, on the ground floor of the 11-story Mica RiNo apartment complex. The building is part of the larger North Wynkoop development at Brighton Boulevard and 43rd Street.
“I had been keeping my ear to the ground and looking at prospective locations. This was the first one that made a lot of sense,” Nunns said, talking about the proximity to the music venue. The taproom “will be about beer and heavy metal. The same things we have always been about.”
Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post
Denver, CO – JUNE 10 : Dining space of TRVE Brewing Co. is photographed in Denver, Colorado on Friday, June 10, 2022. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
TRVE will join Left Hand Brewing, a 30-year-old Longmont-based operation, which opened its own 7,400-square-foot foot taproom in the Mission Ballroom complex in 2022.
Unlike TRVE’s existing location at 227 Broadway, the new place will feature a large patio and have a capacity of around 200 people. But brewery founder Nick Nunns said he plans to carry over some of the “design aesthetic” from TRVE’s deep, dark space on Broadway. For the uninitiated, that aesthetic features a pentagram altar, goat skull, candles and black walls.
TRVE’s heavy metal soundtrack – or more specifically, the Scandinavian-influenced Black Metal sub-genre – will also make the journey to RiNo.
But TRVE will also put on its “adult pants,” Nunns said. “Now that we are planning in a bigger way on this project, it gave us an opportunity to decide what things are important in our spaces … the patio was a big checklist item, a big bucket list item for us.” The brewery’s existing space doesn’t have an outdoor area – aside from a neighboring parking lot that it borrows on occasion, and which it has dubbed “the dumpster garden.”
Founded in 2012, TRVE made a name for itself with its sour and wild ales, along with a wide variety of IPAs, lagers and Belgian-style beers. But it also differentiated itself because of its atmosphere – something that Nunns has preached about since the beginning. In addition to the Black Metal theme, the interior of the brewery is long, dark and deep and features a 30-foot-long Viking-style wooden table that temporarily halted traffic on Broadway when it was installed.
Originally, there was a small, three-barrel brewing system in the back, but TRVE moved its production to an offsite location in 2015 and later brought in Music City Hot Chicken, a Fort Collins restaurant that runs a walk-up window inside the taproom.
Despite the seemingly intimidating atmosphere, however, TRVE has almost always depended on a friendly staff and has developed a wide base of customers. “We get more non-metalheads than metalheads, especially now with the kitchen, which is great to see,” Nunns said.
TRVE hopes to open the taproom at some point in the second or third quarter of 2024.