Colorado

Colorado straddles the Rocky Mountains, with Denver, its capital, on the high plains at their eastern foot. The guide covers two festivals there. The Great American Beer Festival is run in Denver each autumn by the Brewers Association, the trade group of American craft brewers. In the San Juan Mountains of the south-west, the Telluride Mushroom Festival, run by the Telluride Institute, a non-profit, was held from 12 to 16 August in 2026.

Getting around

Denver International Airport is north-east of the city, linked to Union Station, downtown, by the A Line commuter train. Montrose Regional Airport, to the north of Telluride, is its usual gateway.

Colorado's craft beer in numbers

The Brewers Association, which runs the Great American Beer Festival, publishes state statistics. For Colorado it counts 423 craft breweries, fifth in the country, and 9.4 breweries per 100,000 adults of drinking age, sixth. The state's breweries produced 854,707 barrels of craft beer in a year, eighth nationally, and the association puts their 2025 economic impact at 2,526 million dollars.

How the festival judges its beers

The festival is also a competition. Breweries enter beers and ciders that a panel of professional judges tastes blind, in small groups, within a defined style category, and the panel's task is to find the three entries that best represent each style. Judges never assess their own products. Gold, silver and bronze medals follow, which the association says are recognised around the world and quoted by winners in their advertising.

Mushrooms in the mountains

The Telluride Mushroom Festival is held every third weekend of August in the box canyon of Telluride, with expert-guided forays into the San Juan mountains, lectures by mycologists, a free mushroom identification tent, a vendor village and a parade through town. The Telluride Institute names its founders as Manny Salzman, Gary Lincoff, Andy Weil and Paul Stamets, and says the festival draws thousands of visitors from across the world each year.