Pretty good beer - but had to endure a DRIVE BY SHOOTING (bullets in customer cars and front windows shot out)!! This incident, coupled with management's poor response to the situation, soured our experience at Copper Kettle, probably for good.
I've waited on this review for a few years now, because I felt bad for Copper Kettle. I didn't think it was fair to judge them based on what someone in their neighborhood decided to do. I also cut them slack because I'm not aware of socially expected behavior/etiquette during a shooting, so to each their own. Management's minds were probably elsewhere during this incident which is totally understandable. I've just had a sour taste about this place ever since - here's the story:
On a quiet Sunday night in October a few years back my wife and I were enjoying a few beers and had a few growlers waiting for us in the cooler. Then a spray of bullets rained upon the building, front window, customers' cars, you name it. It was terrifying. After what seemed like an eternity, but was really just a few minutes, the Aurora police showed up and questioned everyone. When they were finished we were told we had to wait in the building for the crime lab detective to show up, and he was based in Castle Rock and was in bed. That ended up being 2 hours between the time our interview with Aurora police and the time our detective interview occurred. We were scared, shaking, in a brewery w/ nothing to do on a Sunday night, and we really just wanted a beer. The owners refused. We asked for one of the growlers we had already purchased - they also refused that request (I do think there is a law against consuming growlers on premise, so fair enough on that one, but still...).
They made us just sit and wait in their brewery for hours. I understand not wanting us to be drunk and unable to give a proper statement to police, but not allowing even a half pint when we were on lockdown for several hours was a very frustrating experience, especially given our emotional state at the time. The owners had indicated it was ultimately a decision they were making - not something being requested of them by the police. After the final interviews were over, it was past 11pm on a worknight - the owners made sure to go back and find our full tab before we left, even the sample pours, which was over $60. We kinda thought they were just waiting for interviews to be over and then were going to throw us a beer or something. But you can tell it didn't even occur to these people to do anything for the customers who had their evenings ruined too. I feel bad for these people as business owners, but you also can't forget about the really bad night that everyone who almost got killed in their establishment was having too.
We were not thrilled to endure several hours of waiting without even the beer we had already purchased to consume. Making sure they rang up every last sample on the tab was insult to injury. The shooting was a very unfortunate incident, but the relative indifference shown for the customers was frustrating - perhaps the other customers from that evening would feel differently, as they all seemed to be regulars besides us, but just my 2 cents. read more