ARVADA, COLORADO

Just outside Denver to the northwest and matching Arvada’s historic Olde Time gold mining ambience, CHESHIRE CAT occupied a quaint Brit-styled colonial-era Victorian until closing brewing operations, 2009.

Exquisite dining spaces set behind marble-topped hearth-sidled oak bar area had lace curtains and tapestry valances. Balcony led to converted upstairs dinner section. Irish folk and classical music played as English dishes such as fish & chips, sausage & mash, and cottage pie were served, August ’07.

Inside Cheshire’s analogous Alice In Wonderland-styled room, I quaffed three feline-christened brews: tartly-honeyed yellow-fruited wheat-dried silken-laced Pussycat Wheat; cask conditioned walnut-dried macadamia-sweetened vegetable-spelled Alley Cat Brown; and hop-charred coffee burnt black licorice-eked Black Cat Stout. Cask-y cologne-wafted honeyed tea-centered dried-fruited cherry-dabbed Arrogant Brit also sufficed. Nearly as good were easygoing corn-based perfume-hopped barnyard-dried grapefruit-embittered Pilsner, oaken cherry-dried orange-soured tobacco-appeased Black Currant Ale, and caramelized candi-sugared orange-grapefruit-apple-fruited cracked wheat-backed Lambic. Impeccably triumphant India Pale Ale brought creamy Grand Marnier and spiced rum whir to tantalizingly floral cherry-tangerine-nectar sweetening.