Colorado’s 232 craft brewers employed 5,014 people and drove an economic engine worth $826 million last year, according to a study released Tuesday by the Colorado Brewers Guild. That’s up from 179 breweries, 4,493 jobs and $704 million the year before. In fact, the industry is growing so fast that…
Colorado’s largest craft brewer, New Belgium, and one of its smallest, Black Shirt, both broke new ground in January when they began canning a pair of unusual beers. New Belgium’s offering was the tart Snapshot, one of the first canned beers using lactobacillius as a souring agent. Black Shirt rolled…
The craft-brewing industry has been around long enough now that some of the older beer makers — the ones that can remember being called “microbreweries” — have started celebrating their histories by digging up old favorites that they no longer make. The latest to do this is Great Divide Brewing,…
The second annual DSTILL conference is bringing distillers, bartenders and garden-variety boozehounds to Denver to celebrate the burgeoning art of Colorado craft distilling. Before the big players of alcohol start pourin’ at tonight’s big Showcase event at the McNichols Building, DSTILL invited participants to tour a handful of Boulder distilleries,…
Jake’s Brew Bar in downtown Littleton is expanding into the building next door, doubling its indoor capacity and adding a 1,500-square-foot beer garden in back. See also: Loveland’s Grimm Brothers Brewhouse will start canning beer…
Opening day is less than a month away, and sports fans are licking their lips over the promise of a new season. And some margs from Rio on the Rocks, a ballpark branch of Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant, the homegrown chain that got its start in Fort Collins 27 years…
Governor John Hickenlooper, co-founder of the Wynkoop Brewing Company, signed legislation this week that will continue to fund the Rural Economic Development Initiative, a program that “encourages local governments and businesses to join forces to develop community infrastructure and private facility projects and job training grants,” according to the state…
Just because great brewers come together to collaborate on a beer doesn’t mean that the beer will be twice as tasty. And just because dozens of breweries from Colorado, from out of state and even from a foreign country are coming together for a Collaboration Fest doesn’t mean the beer…
The brand new Former Future Brewing, which had to close for two weeks in order to restock its beer supply, reopened today — and will stay open all weekend. Located on South Broadway’s Antique Row, the brewery, which has a four-barrel system, ran out of beer after just a few…
Grimm Brothers Brewing, which has been bottling its German-style ales and lagers beers since opening in Loveland in 2010, will begin canning its flagship Little Red Cap next month. The copper-colored altbier has won two medals at the Great American Beer Festival. “We have been looking at doing a more…
Two Denver breweries recently announced changes to their beer-making staffs. Denver Beer Company hired Austin Wiley, who had been with Great Divide since 2007, to take over as the lead brewer, heading up recipe development at the Platte Street taproom, managing the operation and overseeing the barrel-aging program. Nick Bruno,…
Grand Lake Brewing, which closed its taproom last October amidst declining business in the mountain town and after dispute with several employees, announced on its Facebook recently that it will reopen in Olde Town Arvada, just a block from the Arvada Brewing Company. The new location is at 5610 Yukon…
Clay Carlton is on a roll. The Denver native who opened his first barbershop in Winter Park 38 years ago today is a master cigar-roller and proprietor not just of Palma Cigars but of Bar Las Palmas Wine Bar, the most unique shop in the Ballpark neighborhood, offering cigars, wine,…
It was a tale of two cities (towns, really) — and of two breweries. In Lyons, Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis canned his first beer, Dale’s Pale Ale, in 2002. At around the same time, Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs began canning Ornery Amber. But while Oskar Blues went on…
The Rackhouse Pub, which opened inside the Stranahan’s whiskey distillery in October 2009 as one of Denver’s first craft-beverage themed restaurants, will close on April 4 and reopen in its own space across the street, possibly as soon as this fall. “We wanted to continue here, but for us to…
With Mardi Gras coming next week, people of all kinds and creeds are searching for a way to celebrate without slipping into bejeweled, beaded hell. Fat chance. You’re one of those souls whose skin takes on a ghostly pallor when you’re dressed in purple, gold and green? You habitually cower…
Odell Brewing takes pride moving slow, and in expanding at a reasonable, measured pace — which is why the Fort Collins beer makers was so deliberate last week in announcing that it would enter the Texas market — the company’s first new state in two years. To help out, Odell…
Former Future Brewing, which just opened on February 1, has run out of beer. Yep. The brewery, which has a four-barrel system, simply hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand for its suds — a testament, perhaps, to Denver’s love of craft brews. “Well, we thought this might…
Six months ago, in September, Lance Hanson was mingling with crowds and enjoying a cocktail made with CapRock organic gin — his gin — at the Source; it was the first night that CapRock Farm Bar was pouring cocktails, and Hanson, the founder of Peak Spirits, the Hotchkiss-based distillery under…
From the beginning, brothers Branden and Chad Miller and Chad’s wife, Carissa, wanted to pair their beers at Black Shirt Brewing with food. A server for four years at Duo, Branden made sure to include plans for a kitchen inside the final design of the brewery they opened at 3719…
Two22 Brew wasn’t supposed to open on 2/22: “It was kind of funny. When we started building, people were telling us that we could open on February 22, and I said, ‘No way! We’ll be open way before that, probably in early January,” says Paige Schuster, who owns the new…
Get ready for more Rumpkin, more Uncle Jacob’s and, yes, Tweak. Beginning this year, Avery Brewing will dramatically increase the size and scope of its acclaimed barrel-aging program so that it can share its rarest beers with more people — not just in Colorado, but in some of the 27…
