Road-Trip Restaurant: Leadville’s Periodic Brewing

It’s no wonder Periodic Brewing’s taproom has been luring craft-beer geeks since it opened in 2015: Not only does the Leadville brewhouse churns out memorable IPAs, imperial stouts, and Scotch ales from its kicked-back bar, but at 10,156 feet, Periodic is the highest-elevation brewery in North America and the second highest brewery in the world.

The Labbe family (Chris Labbe; his wife, Pam; his brother, Evan; and Evan’s wife, Beth), all Leadville locals since the late 1980s, chose a beautifully renovated historic-district Victorian home for their high-altitude brewery. The family’s beer business quickly garnered a hardcore high-country following, becoming so popular, in fact, that the Labbe’s recently opened an ancillary brewery and taproom in Northglenn to expand production and snag a slice of the Front Range fermentation scene.

My husband, toddler, and I stumbled on the Leadville location after a mid-winter backcountry ski near Mayflower Gulch, just 17 miles from the brewery. Hungry and exhausted, we sidled up to the half-moon wood bar and scanned the day’s brews on the flat-screen. We settled on a four-pack flight served in science class beakers. The substantial 4.5-ounce pours—including the heavily hopped and malted Hope Pass IPA and the dark-as-night Tourmaline Black Ale—were named for big mountain endurance races and quarried minerals.

The real kicker was the tiny kitchen’s unassuming snack menu. The seriously elaborate meat and cheese board ($10) featured pistachio-dusted goat cheese curds sourced from Buena Vista’s Jumpin Good Goat Dairy, house-made smoked ham, balsamic-onion marmalade, a spicy beer mustard, and a smattering of pistachios, pickles, jalapeño slices, and cherry peppers that added heat and crunch to the experience. Served with an overflowing basket of flatbread crackers, it was a filling appetizer that paired perfectly with the cool brews.