DENVER — At a tiny brewery inside Coors Field, you can grab a beer with a slice of history.
As the downtown Denver ballpark turns 30 this year, so does the Sandlot Brewery – the first of its kind inside a Major League Baseball stadium and the first craft spot opened by Coors Brewing.
Brewmaster Mike Miller told Denver7 ahead of the Rockies’ home opener that the idea to put a brewery inside a ballpark was the brainchild of Pete Coors, the brewing company executive and politician.
The Sandlot, which operates in an old warehouse that became the right field corner of the Coors Field exterior near 22nd and Blake Street, is the birthplace of what is now Blue Moon. It was originally brewed as the Belly Slide Belgian White.
- Hear how Sandlot changed the game for MLB stadiums, and for Denver's beer scene, in the video player below:
The beers that have followed have earned the small brewery more than 50 awards at beer festivals, but its legacy may well be in its history as one of downtown’s first craft breweries. It opened in 1995, the same year the Colorado Brewers Guild was founded to promote the craft industry and, according to the guild's timeline, only 56 breweries were operating in the entire state (a number that is now in the hundreds).
“It really is the precipice of starting as a craft brewery and introducing that culture into Colorado,” brewer Abby Lundien told Denver7. “I do think that the idea of a small scale brewery and a craft beer that is different than light lagers really started in this location, and we've been able to be a part of that culture and continue to grow.”
The Sandlot brews beer year-round, but is only open to visitors during Rockies home games, making a stop there a uniquely Colorado experience.
“It’s such a wonderful part of the Denver and Colorado culture – Opening Day, and the fact that you can come to this ballpark and have a craft lager fresh from the taps is a very special thing,” Lundien said.
The brewery is celebrating 30 years with four new beers in 2025: a grapefruit lemonade shandy called the Sandlot Shandy, a cherry limeade brew named the Sandlot Slam, a 30th anniversary lager and a cashmere single-hopped American IPA called the Wicked Hop.
Aramark, the Coors Field concessions provider that operates the food program at Sandlot, also introduced a brined, smoked and flash-fried chicken wing for this season.
Colorado Rockies