Whitetooth Brewing

Whitetooth celebrates Golden’s mountain culture.

It took a while to build this brewery — the first new commercial building in Golden in 25 years — but it was worth the wait because the location on the ski hill road on the rejuvenated north side of downtown is perfect. While they waited, local business partners Kent Donaldson and Mark Nagao worked closely with a professional brewer to perfect recipes on Donaldson’s custom-built homebrewing system in his garage. Since then, this popular brewery has developed a strong reputation for its beer lineup by winning several major awards.

Considering this is the first craft brewery in a relatively small community, the beer lineup is surprisingly challenging, but Donaldson says the Belgian beers he insisted on including “resonate with the locals” even more than he expected. Visitors seem to be equally impressed based on how busy the tasting room and patio are throughout the year.