Colorado’s craft beer culture comes from lenient laws and creative collaboration, shaping the industry – and the state’s culture – for nearly fifty years
By Rebecca Toy
In 1979, two professors at the University of Colorado started Boulder Brewing Company, Colorado’s first craft brewery. The landscape of beer was already changing.
Breweries were floundering, dropping that year to less than 100 in operation nationwide. Yet when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill legalizing home brewing in October of 1978, basement and garage brewers emerged. In less than five years, other home hobbyists were coming together to launch breweries, and beer drinkers started to eschew commercial brands in favor of experimentation. A niche market was about to go national.
Almost fifty years later, this once specialty industry is everywhere in Colorado. Yet, Coloradans didn’t just embrace a national drinking trend—they sparked the movement. The Front Range’s passionate home brew community took advantage of state laws that made direct distribution possible, experimented with styles, unleashed innovation and never stopped pushing for a place in your pint.
“Craft brewing is in our DNA,” explains Shawnee Adelson, executive director of the Colorado Brewers Guild. “It’s our history, a part of the culture of Colorado.”
Homebrewers Start a Movement
The movement’s start in Colorado was serendipitous: experimenters came together in an inspiring landscape at a pivotal time. The state was changing, with the Rocky Mountains drawing those looking to reset their lives in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. Sam Bock, author and public communication director of History Colorado, describes the great migration to the state: “This was the start of the ‘New West,‘ the transition from an extractive economy to an amenities economy. Americans decided they didn’t have to live where their job was but could first live where they wanted and then find a job. The outdoor lifestyle lured people here.”
Charlie Papazian followed the westward call. According to Jonathan Shikes’s book, “Denver Beer: A History of Mile High Brewing,” the charismatic nuclear engineering-graduate-turned-kindergarten-teacher developed a homebrewing following with his “almost evangelical enthusiasm.” These dreamers and experimenters took to the foothills for Beer and Steer camping parties. The event’s vibe was casual, with 300 homebrewing friends and students sharing ideas, music and brews. Papazian’s students would spread out over the next decade, starting breweries and training others. Beer and Steer became today’s Great American Beer Festival (GABF).
Papazian wrote “The Joy of Homebrewing” manual and created the American Homebrewers Association, the Brewers Association and the Institute for Brewing Studies. By the end of the 1970s, Colorado hobby brewmakers were thriving.
From Hobby to Brewery
What do astrophysicists at the University of Colorado do in their spare time? Start a brewery in a buddy’s goat shed. Or at least that’s what David Hummer and Rudolph Ware did in Boulder in 1979. It was unheard of then; the total number of breweries in the U.S. had fallen from more than 800 in 1941 to less than 100 in 1979. Many believed the number would drop into the single digits. Despite these odds, they opened Boulder Brewing Company, joining only two other small business brewers in the country.
The word was out. As amateur brewers refined the craft and shared tips at the annual GABF, the idea of turning pro was within reach. John Hickenlooper and partners opened Wynkoop Brewing (Denver) in 1988, and more than a dozen other breweries started within three years, including Odell Brewing Company (Fort Collins) and New Belgium Brewing Company (Fort Collins). Other modern leaders—Left Hand Brewing (Longmont) and Great Divide Brewing (Denver)—followed soon after.
Colorado lent legal strength to the new brewers. A three-tier system legally separated producers, distributors and retailers, allowing brewers more autonomy in their sales as distributors. But Colorado’s was unique: wholesalers, distributors and bars couldn’t own each other or have more than one liquor store. Independent liquor stores meant faster sales for small business brewers. “Laws can truly hinder craft beer,” says Adelson. One of the goals of the Colorado Brewers Guild is advocacy with lawmakers, and in her role, she sees many other states flounder. “The laws Colorado has in place allowed craft beer to flourish.”
Yet, every market has a limit. Growth stalled in 1997, and the number of businesses leveled off for another decade. “It’s one thing to brew really good batches at home,” says historian Bock, a self-described giant beer nerd. “But it’s another to scale up and make it consistent batch after batch. Master that, and you still have to run a business.” One casualty, Boulder Beer Company, closed its pub in 2020. Its Buffalo Gold ale is still brewed and served at Boulder Social.
Canning the Craft
Colorado is the birthplace of canned craft beer. Until the turn of the 21st century, canned beer symbolized light and cheap lagers, the domain of the commercial breweries that the new producers were largely spurning. Even though aluminum is more affordable to produce, lighter to ship, protects the beer from light and is fully recyclable, bottles reigned.
In 2002, Oskar Blues Brewery (Longmont) made a great leap and took a Canadian salesman up on canning. The company started with hand-cranking Dale’s Pale Ale with their manual canning process. Two years later, Cask Global Canning Solutions designed an automated system for the company. Then, in 2005, Oskar Blues caused a stir when “The New York Times” crowned its pale ale—the only can in competition—the best of the year in a blind taste test.
“The Oskar Blues team was ready for a risk, a force of personality in the industry,” explains Jonathan Shikes, author and food and entertainment editor at the Denver Post. “Coloradans are camping, skiing, hiking and biking, and canning made craft beer far more mobile.”
Known as the Canned Beer Apocalypse, the move shook the standards. Ska Brewing Company (Durango) joined Oskar Blues as an early canning adapter, and both have reaped the rewards by becoming some of the largest independent breweries in Colorado. By 2012, more than 150 breweries nationwide had followed suit. Today, canning remains a key method of diversification.
Community Taprooms
Kevin DeLange’s story of creating a taproom exemplifies the phrase, “It never hurts to ask.” The co-founder of Dry Dock Brewing (Aurora) and Brew Hut shop owner chuckles as he explains how he found a loophole that changed the field. “A buddy told me I could get a manufacturing license and just sell beer by the glass. It always stuck with me, so I called Laura Harris, the head of Colorado’s Liquor Enforcement Division.”
Until this call, Colorado’s craft brewers operated under one of two models: manufacturers who gave out free samples and brewers who operated a restaurant. As DeLange learned, Colorado law allowed a tasting room if a brewer had both a manufacturing license and the wholesaler license that had allowed commercial brewers to sell pints in their gift shops. Before Dry Dock could start pouring, the state had to convince the city it was legal, and DeLange had to problem-solve zoning regulations. Yet by 2005, Dry Dock set up six high-back chairs and sold beer directly to customers without a restaurant.
The shift was seismic, opening up a new business model for brewers. “Nobody had it set up to go in and just buy a pint,” emphasizes Shikes, who’s followed the trade for decades. “Now you could make a living just brewing your beer, pouring it and selling it.”
DeLange is careful to add that another brewery in the country might have already made the same discovery. A call from California signified that, if so, he was still one of the first. Ballast Point reached out to confirm the taproom news and ask how Dry Dock pulled it off. “Ballast Point did it, and business exploded,” says DeLange. A decade after the switch, Ballast Point reportedly sold for $1 billion.
While DeLange fielded calls from around the country, helping other brewers in the spirit of his home brew shop start, Dry Dock also sharpened the focus for the model that ultimately thrives today: the community hub.
“It lets people come in and see the brewery, meet the people who make the beer, and build a sense of community,” says DeLange.
Colorado Continues to Innovate
Today, the industry has slowed down both nationally and in the state. Many Colorado breweries that distributed nationally have scaled back. Overall beer sales have slowed, with craft beer slightly declining for the second year.
According to watchful fans like Bock at History Colorado, there is no need to panic. “What I see is actually encouraging. The sectors that I see thriving are the local, community breweries.”
Noting the Guild’s research, Adelson agrees. “It’s a mature industry now, so while we’re seeing more closures, we’re also seeing new ones coming in, akin to restaurants. The average life of a brewery is longer than most small businesses.”
The industry is still hustling with new ideas, quick trends and long-term adaptations. Shikes points out that, in addition to canned products, most Colorado brewers are now offering gluten-free and non-alcoholic beer options and seltzers. “They got into the beer business, but they’re beverage makers now.”
Craft breweries also join the Colorado ethos of sustainability. Upslope Brewing’s (Boulder) comprehensive environmental plan backs its Certified B Corp status. Denver Beer Company runs entirely on solar power. Supporting Colorado agriculture, New Image Brewery (Arvada) opened the aptly named Table, an elevated farm-to-table restaurant.
Many early titans are still going strong but in slightly different iterations. Brian Dunn of Great Divide and DeLange of Dry Dock turned heads in 2024 with a unique partnership. Both maintain independence and individual tasting rooms, but Dry Dock’s production moved to Great Divide. DeLange, with the same adventurous optimism he brought to the tasting room revolution, notes the collaboration is just as he hoped. As his team plans 2025 products with Great Divide, it feels like any growing pains are over. “It’s exciting now, with almost a year under our belts.”
The GABF also lives on from its 1974 Beer and Steer roots, but today, it’s an international event that includes hundreds of brewers and nearly 40,000 beer enthusiasts. As a nod to the open house feel of the early events, the Colorado Brewers Guild hosts Collaboration Fest, a springtime celebration of Colorado breweries that partner to share a wild, one-off brew. More than 40 percent of people in the room are in the business, so while a glittery blue concoction that numbs the tongue may not be the next big thing, there is inspirational synergy.
Ultimately, craft brewing has always had a counter-culture element—pushing the norms and attracting those who like to try ideas that don’t always make sense. So, even when brewers have a plan, sometimes the previously unthinkable path, like a goat shed brewery, canning craft beer or a foodless taproom, becomes a national breakthrough.
“Every time craft brewing changes, it always surprises me,” says Shikes, ready to report on the next evolutions. “The brewers are extremely nimble. They have to be.”
