Spice Trade Brewery & Kitchen Brings Big Flavors to Greenwood Village

The Denver Tech Center’s newest brewery wants to amp up your next happy hour with sumac, chai, and hibiscus brews. The creative beers come from Spice Trade Brewery & Kitchen, and they’re flavored with ingredients sourced from around the world.

You may know Spice Trade as Yak & Yeti Brewpub, the Nepalese/Indian restaurant and brewery in Olde Town Arvada. In 2017, because its brews were so in-demand, Yak & Yeti rebranded the beer side of its business as Spice Trade Brewery, staying true to the restaurant’s South Asian roots. “People like us for our flavors and our sense of adventure, so we set out to focus our brand on that,” says co-owner and head brewer Jeff Tyler.

The beers were such a hit that Tyler and partner Dol Bhattarai found themselves in need of more space than the 156-year-old residence in Arvada that houses Yak & Yeti could provide. They found their flagship in a new Denver Tech Center space, which allows them to increase beer production from 500 to 3,000 barrels, and also inspired them to pair the suds with a menu of globally-inspired street food.

But first, the beer. Tyler’s favorites include the single origin Cured Sumac Saison, a tart, lemony escape from reality made with sumac sourced from Turkish farms. “With single origin, you can really taste the spices of a region, so we want to showcase that,” Tyler says. Other favorites on the 15-deep list include the Hibiscus Key Lime Sour fermented with wild yeast cultured from a Denver Botanic Gardens hibiscus flower, and the sweet Chai Milk Stout, which uses its own unique, hand-mixed chai spice blend.

Tyler, a fan of Amy Crowfoot and Jason Bray’s J Street and Hunje food trucks, asked chef Bray to bring his culinary flair to Spice Trade Kitchen. “He wanted to do global street food, and that’s our tagline,” Crowfoot says. “They use culinary ingredients to brew their beer, so it was a natural partnership.”

Like the beer, the food menu is divided into domestic and import sections, with the more exciting stuff happening on the latter side. Indian makhani curry meets Italian risotto balls in the buttered chicken arancini ($10); coconut milk, lime, and curry seasoning coat the flash-fried Thai wings ($11); and hoisin-glazed pork belly, pickled jalapeños, jicama, and cucumbers pile onto the pork belly banh mi ($15).

The DTC brewery is colorful and relaxed, with enormous, raised garage doors that make you feel like you’re outside even when you’re indoors; a riot of rainbow-hued chairs; and flower-pattered tabletops. The City of Greenwood Village has already approved Spice Trade to extend its patio into the parking lot, so there will be even more socially distant-friendly seating soon.

Spice Trade Brewery & Kitchen is now open for takeout and dine-in (or dine-out on the patio) Wednesday and Thursday, 4–9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 12–10 p.m.; and Sunday, 12–9 p.m.

8775 E. Orchard Rd., Ste 811, Greenwood Village