Ring in the New Year with Bell Brothers Brewing

Originally slated for a Fall opening, Bell Brothers Brewing will still open in 2021—just barely. Thanks to other local breweries Pikes Peak and Peaks N Pines, the Bells were able to have “their” beers on tap for opening, along with a slew of other local favorites.

Bell Brothers isn’t yet brewing in-house yet, but their system is ready to go and ingredients were just delivered, so they plan on brewing on their system starting this weekend. Look for that beer (barring any issues) to be released here in a month or so. All of their initial offerings are solid beers, but we’ll hold off on any real critiques until we taste what they’ll be making themselves.

Bell Brothers is in part of the old Zeezo’s building.

Speaking of brewing, downstairs (accessible from the back of the main floor) is their 1200 square foot basement, which houses their brewhouse.

Their brewhouse came completely from a supplier in China, including everything from a keg-washer to grain mill to any fitting they’d need. The Bells told us that getting an equivalent made in the USA would have been 2-3x the price, and so far they’re happy with the quality of the system.

The Bells had to cut a hole in the floor to get all their equipment in, which could make for tough upgrades down the line. It’s not easily seen from the tap room at all, which we’re not the biggest fans of—the brewhouse has windows for patrons of the next door Tiki-bar to see what’s happening, but not Bell Brothers patrons. Maybe they can put a glass window in the floor at some point, so the two spaces feel more connected.

Aesthetic-wise, the public space of Bell Brothers features sky-high ceilings which help make the space feel much bigger than the current footprint of 1400 square feet. The main feature in their space is their massive bar and back-bar area, featuring a multitude of Colorado-made liquor. As a brew-pub, Bell Brothers has the ability to serve you a wine or a cocktail if beer isn’t your thing, so that may help draw a wider crowd. Also, for those of you who are fans of $5 pints, all of the house-beers at Bell Brothers will only set you back five hundred pennies.

The main bar has some amazing epoxy and hardwood inlays and features burned-in stats about engineering greats like Nikolai Tesla, but our biggest gripe was that their beer menu can’t be easily read from the far side of the bar, with half of the options blocked by shelves. While they do have paper menus with a QR code to go to their site, sometimes we don’t want to be nose-down in our phone just to figure out what’s on tap. Having another spot where the beer list is shown (even just the in-house options) would be super helpful.

Food-wise, the menu is fairly basic (sandwiches and salads), and with many other restaurants in the area, I don’t see Bell Brothers being a go-to eating spot just yet. With all of the attention to detail in the engineering theme and their buildout, the menu does feel like somewhat of an afterthought—honestly gives us Triple S-vibes— as it appears to be curated by Sysco, their food supplier.

For us, the jury’s out on whether the advantages of being a brewpub outweigh the added stress of running a restaurant especially in a heavily restaurant-saturated market like Downtown. Yes, you can have wine and liquor, but instead of competing with just the other breweries, you’re now directly competing with restaurants too. What do you think?

With that said, we’re excited for what Bell Brothers will bring to the local scene. It’ll be good to try their beers when they’re brewed on their own system, as the guest-brewed beers lend flavors of each of those breweries (in our opinion).

They’re in a prime downtown spot, and once they get their own-brewed beers on tap, we’ll follow up with a critique of those. We do hope the food menu evolves going forward, but that won’t stop us from popping in for a pint or two.

For those of you looking for New Years Eve plans, Bell Brothers will be open tonight until 1am, but they also open the doors at 2pm if you’d like to avoid the crowds.

The Deets:

Bell Brothers Brewing Grand Opening
December 31st | 2pm-1am
114 N Tejon Suite 100