Gluten-free Denver: Papou's Pizza and New Planet Beer

I went to visit some family in Denver this weekend and was pleased to find many more gluten-free options than I had the last time I visited.  I even had a few surprises: some really good gluten-free pizza, and a gluten-free beer I'd never even heard of before!  Here I thought I was up on all the cutting-edge news for gluten-free beer, and I found a new one thanks to my mom's iPhone app, which led us to Papou's Pizza.

From the outside, it just looks like a run-of-the-mill pizza joint in an average Denver strip mall.  However, Papou's serves some really good gluten-free pizza.  It's New England-style Pizza with a Greek influence - meaning lots of good roasted vegetable toppings.  I got the Mediterranean, which was roasted eggplant, fresh tomatoes, and feta.  The normal pizza crust looked good, too, and the place was a real crowd-pleaser.  We didn't all get gluten-free, but everyone from my 5-year-old niece to my grandmother liked the place, which is as it should be for pizza.

The gluten-free beer was something different.  The one that I tried is called Tread Lightly Beer.  It's made with sorghum and corn, which is a combination I'd never seen before in a beer.  It is very light, and it doesn't have as much of the metallic aftertaste that most sorghum beers have.  The beer is brewed in Fort Collins and appears to be available in specialty beer stores and some Whole Foods.  Apparently the beer is only distributed in a few states right now, but according to the New Planet Beer website you can buy it online.  It looks like we can't get it in Portland yet, but hopefully that will change!