Last visit: April 28, 2023
Denver is a great city. But it’s a bit of an odd place for baseball. The altitude plays havoc on the flight of the ball which originally led to crazy lacrosse scores being the norm. And despite getting 40 more sunny days than the average American city, the weather is as unpredictable as it gets for long-range ballpark trip planning.
These challenges notwithstanding, baseball has worked in the area since the Colorado Rockies came online in the early 1990’s. And Coors Field is central to that success story.
It was the third “retro” park finished after Camden Yards and Jacob’s Field. Like Camden, it too used a red brick motif that fit perfectly into the surrounding neighborhood. It was also the first ballpark to feature an in-house brewery, and is the birthplace of the Blue Moon brand of beer, one of the top selling “craft-style” beers in America.
No other ballpark did a better job revitalizing a downtrodden neighborhood. Denver’s Lower Downtown (LoDo), the city’s oldest neighborhood, had been neglected over the years and turned into a bid of a skid row filled with red brick warehouses and absence of anything to draw people other than the now-closed El Chapultepec jazz club. Today, it’s a thriving neighborhood with galleries, brewpubs and restaurants making it one of the best pre and post-game scenes in all of sport.
Denver is not a place you get to accidentally. It and Seattle are the most isolated cities on the MLB landscape, so if you’re touring ballparks, this is one that you’ve come to by air or by a fairly long drive. So stay a few days. Enjoy the mountain air and one of the nation’s best beer scenes. And catch a game or two at a fine park.
STADIUM 38/50
Exterior aesthetics 10/10; Interior & Concourse Aesthetics 8/10; Sightlines 4/5; Seating 4/5; Traffic flow 5/5; Scoreboard 8/10; Amenities & entertainment 4/5; Bars & Restaurants 5/5; Celebrating history 2/5; Grand entrance 5/5; Sense of place 13/25; WOW Factor 8/10. Total 76 points divided by 2 for 38
Now the third oldest ballpark in the National League, amazing as that is, Coors Field has aged well. Its timeless design has endured even as amenities continue to be added and adjusted. Too bad most seats offer a milquetoast view.
THE GOOD:
- The exterior architecture fits nicely into its surrounding, maybe as nice as any exterior in baseball. The attractive main entrance rotunda with the analog clock provides that signature photo-op and the little design touches give it an Old West feel befitting of its city. And it gives the impression of a fairly intimate park despite being a 50,000-seat stadium.
- The lower bowl concourses are truly open with very little blocked. You can stroll entirely around the park with unencumbered views of the field.
- The social area in rightfield is a great example of how to properly convert unsold seats into a destination. Dubbed The Rooftop, there are two full-service bars, a burger joint, cornhole, couches, and drink rails (for those who might want to, you know, watch the game). It was built to look like it was there all along unlike, say, the shipping containers in right at Progressive Field.
- The row of purple seats indicating the exact “Mile High” elevation is a nice touch
- The Rocky Mountain forest in centerfield is visually quite nice even if it feels a little out of place
- The scoreboard, which used to be a negative, now rocks (pun intended). It’s a nice-sized mountain-shaped board that Rockies game-day staff use quite well.
- The Sandlot Brewery as well as the Rocky Mountain Bar and Grille provide two opportunities for a sit-down meal before or during the game
- The baseball-themed games in the centerfield concourse can entertain younger ball fans, especially the virtual hitting experience
THE BAD:
- The panorama view from the seats, frankly, is nothing much. It’s a relatively closed ballpark thanks to the Rockpile seats in deep centerfield, and it isn’t oriented toward the city. They did it this way in order to get a view of the mountains. But you can really only see them from the upper deck along the first base side. On a non-cloudy day. When it’s not hazy. Preferably at dusk. For everybody else, including the entire lower deck, the view looking out to the outfield is, well, boring. I’m not sure they made the right call in park orientation: a view of the distant Rockies is majestic if everything lines up perfectly, but a view of the city would be there for everyone.
- The concession areas, while nice and wide, lack the same design look as the gorgeous exterior, instead going for concrete and painted walls
- The cheap Rockpile seats in deep center feel like the last-minute add-on that they were
- Based on the park size, some of those upper deck seats feel quite far from the field
It’s a little nicer than many of the other red brick stadiums, but it’s a stadium where the superior outside doesn’t fully carry into the park.
FOOD 6/10
The food that gets all the national attention is the Rocky Mountain Oysters or deep fried bulls’ testicles. I mustered up the courage to try them once and found them to be decidedly underwhelming; the consistency of the meat was a little spongey and reminded me of the atrocity I was committing.
Generally speaking, the food is ballpark solid but lacks anything that really makes me go Wow. Nor is it loaded with many examples of regional cuisine or stuff from local eateries other than maybe the green chili sausage from Hatch.
National chain Famous Dave’s offers quality BBQ in leftfield. Smash Burger now does the burgers up in the Rooftop. There’s a good wood-fired pizza joint in the Wazee Market. There’s always a line up at Helton’s Burger Shack. The Denver Cheesesteak, and the Blake Street Burrito are both satisfying. And the Sandlot Brewery serves up good smoked meats.
My personal fave is Elk Jalapeño sausage from local legend Biker Jim’s, one of the few Denver institutions with a presence in the park. Served with cream cheese and caramelized onions, it’s among the best encased meats in baseball.
BEER 7/10
Colorado is a craft beer mecca with so much good stuff. Obviously, a place named Coors Field is going to feature MillerCoors products first and foremost. But you can get some good stuff and even the beer vendors sometimes pack a few Dale’s Pale Ales.
The larger stadium bars are your best bets. But inside the park you can find stuff from Colorado brewers New Belgium, Great Divide, Odell, Oskar Blues, Avery, and Left Hand Brewing. The Sandlot also offers some interesting smaller batch selections, and the Rooftop has a good selection on tap. And MillerCoors-owned Hop Valley and Colorado Native (with its good West Coast IPA) are fairly easy to find.
NEIGHBORHOOD 10/10
The LoDo scene is great. There are full-serve restaurants, brewpubs, beer bars, sports bars, club-like bars, and cool rooftops. Older crowd pre-game, younger crowd post-game. If you can’t have a good time in and around this area, you’re either in recovery or just a boring person.
While the area keeps getting younger and hipper, the ball fan need not feel out of place. The revitalized Union Station has several places worthy of you spending some money. There are several rooftop patios where you can whittle away hours on a nice day. You can go on a legitimate craft brewery pub crawl and never be more than a half mile from the ballpark; a dozen or so are walkable from the park. It’s a drinker’s paradise and a top 4 scene in baseball.
COST 4/5
A game at Coors Field should run slightly cheaper than league average thanks to well-priced lower bowl tickets. Concessions and even parking (if you’re willing to hunt a little) are fairly priced. And a shout out for offering $3 Coors, Miller Lite, and Coors Light at the Rooftop before first pitch, which is the cheapest you can get a beer inside any MLB stadium.
ACCESIBILITY 4/5
With the new light rail line that runs from the Denver Airport (which is so far out the city, it feels like it’s in Nebraska) to nearby Union Station, combined with easy freeway access and plenty of parking, getting here isn’t a problem.
WEATHER 2/5
The unpredictability of Rocky Mountain weather is what causes this score. The past few years, I’ve always done Denver fairly early in the baseball season, often making it my last stop on an April or May West Coast swing before coming back to Chicago. I’ve had a snow out, two 85-degree scorchers, a day that started in the 70’s and ended up in the 20’s, a couple of perfect 65-degree sunny days, and a mid-May game in which a snow squall came in and provided white out conditions for an early inning before the skies cleared. From Memorial Day until the end of the season there’s less variability, but that’s true everywhere.
VIBE 16/25
When the Rockies debuted, the fan support was so overwhelming at old Mile High Stadium, they had to adjust the size of the new ballpark they were building. Coors Field is the second largest stadium by capacity. It can suffer a little from “good crowd in too big a stadium” syndrome. The Rockies draw well, from a wide area, and they’re good fans. But the place still feels a little empty when there’s 30,000 in the place because there’s room for 20,000 more.
Staff is friendly, as are the fans. But the game doesn’t necessarily “feel important” until much later in the season; it’s a pretty chill vibe for many games.
I also blame the huge ballpark dimensions for creating high-scoring long games that seem to stretch on too long and drain some of the energy from the building. The deep outfield fences were necessary due to the thin mountain air which would threaten to make the place nothing but a home run derby. But now that game balls are stored in a humidor, the long-ball issue has been somewhat allayed; however, the massive outfield (fences are 350 down the line, 375-390 in the power alleys and 415 to center) means that there is a lot more gaps into which balls can fall. In an era where rallies are rare because the game has become one in which home runs account for most of the offense, this place creates TOO many baserunners. Granted, the pitch clock has helped this problem, but it’s still hard to get excited about a run when you know you’ll likely see another 12 of them.
The pre-game team hype video has always been pretty good and just rocks now on the new scoreboard. This is somewhat offset by the choice of DJ Otzi’s “Hey Baby” as the sing-along that follows “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the 7th inning; there’s no Colorado connection here, and the tune is neither kitschy nor good.
It’s a place that does a lot of things well, but nothing that really stands out, thus creating a vibe that’s pleasant and fun, but less memorable than other parks.
GALLERY
OTHER THINGS TO DO
Three fun Denver eateries:
- The Buckhorn Exchange (Lincoln Park. Venerable Denver institution with many animals on the wall and on the menu. Not cheap, but really good.)
- Illegal Pete’s (LoDo. One of several Denver places to get a killer burrito.)
- Rheinhaus Denver (LoDo. A place for good German fare and some indoor bocce.)
Three places to imbibe before the game:
- Bierstad Lagerhaus (RiNo. About a mile NE from the stadium is a place with amazing bar games including giant beer pong and some decent home brews)
- Tap Fourteen (LoDo. Great rooftop serving “Alpine American” food with 70 Colorado beer on tap.)
- Jackson’s and Tom’s Watch Bar (Ballpark. Jackson’s was one of the area’s first sports bars and features a great rooftop, good food and a great location. Tom’s is a sports bar on steroids and features a ton of screens and even Topgolf swing suites with simulated sports games that your party can rent by the hour.)
- And a quick RIP Falling Rock Tap House. This amazing, amazing beer bar was just a fly ball from home plate, but didn’t survive the pandemic and closed in mid 2021. This was one of my Top 5 bars in the nation. While there are many of other great beer bars in town, this was a true loss.
One bar in the area worth hitting:
RiNo Beer Garden. An extensive beer selection in place with an Octoberfest-sized patio.
Three craft breweries in the area worthy of your time:
There is an embarrassment of riches here. At one point, there was only the Wynkoop Brewery, Denver’s first brew pub opened by former mayor John Hickenlooper. And that’s still a worthy stop. But there’s a ton of choice.
If you have a driver and are beer touring, there are world-class options around town including: Danico (by the airport) 2022 new brewer of the year; Crooked Stave, renown for its sours, in the Sunnyside neighborhood (2.5 miles north of the ballpark); Cerebral Brewing, home to incredible hop-forward stuff in Congress Park (3.5 miles ESE of the park); and TRVE brewing, a place with a heavy metal vibe in the Baker neighborhood (2.5 miles south of the park). I also need to shout out Station 26 for their incredibly tasty Tangerine Cream Ale.
But among the dozen or so craft breweries within a one mile walk of the park, my three favorites are:
- Odell Brewing (RiNo. Denver outpost of acclaimed Fort Collins brewery that has a host of only-available-in-the-brewery options.)
- Great Divide Brewery (CBD. Operating since 1994, this popular brewpub often has food trucks around.)
- Prost Brewing Co. (Lower Highland. A biergarten with German fare and bier brewed in the traditional German style. Great option on a hot day.)
Three fun tourist attractions in the area:
- Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Beautiful outdoor theater worth seeing even if there isn’t a performance)
- Coors Brewery Tour (Golden. 30-minute tour followed by free samples)
- Clear Creek Rafting (Well-run whitewater rafting tours for all ages and all skill levels on Clear Creek, just half an hour from the ballpark)
SUMMARY
Coors Field is a nice venue inhabited by nice fans in a great city. One of the best exteriors in baseball is muted by a rather ordinary interior unless you have seat with a (rare) perfect view of the majestic mountains. The scene outside the park is among the best in baseball so you’ll likely have a fun time. It’s not a place you end up by accident, so plan a summer 3-day weekend around the ball schedule and enjoy.
