Tuesday, March 20, 2018
A Brewery Closing That Should Worry Craft Beer Lovers
For years now beer aficionados have watched 45 to 60 breweries a year open in Colorado and said goodbye to a half-dozen to a dozen per year. But rarely has a closing been as worrisome as that of the soon-to-disappear Beryl's Beer in Denver.
Among the breweries that shuttered in recent years, many were, to be blunt, not good. And if they were impressive, then you could generally divide their departures into two categories - unsupportive, profit-mongering investors (Del Norte Brewing) or breweries in hot areas whose landlords literally sold their building out from under them (Pateros Creek Brewing).
But Beryl's, the barrel-aging specialists tucked into an unassuming space in the RiNo neighborhood, did not fall into either of those categories. This was a brewery that churned out increasingly impressive complex beers, particularly in regard to its sour offerings, and had a landlord that backed it. It went after its own niche and succeeded. And yet, there wasn't enough business to keep it going.
That landlord noted in a Friday article by the always-on-the-ball Jonathan Shikes of Westword that competition was rising and that constant road work and nearby construction kept traffic away. The second factor is particularly understandable as a reason for business failing to meet expectations, but there are other breweries in RiNo that continue to operate under these less-than-optimal conditions.
What's toughest about the fate that will befall Beryl's by the end of next month is what it says about the possibility we are hitting the saturation point for breweries in some parts of the metro area - a point that has seemed for a long time to be many years down the road. Maybe this isn't the absolute sign that we're there, but if the Denver craft-beer community can't support a place like Beryl's, it sure as hell seems to be close to it.
Opened in 2014, the brewery had a knack for producing a lot of beers that made you shake your head in agreement, and a few that blew your taste buds. Trent's Plums, a mesmerizing sour brown ale aged two years in red wine barrels with Italian plums, expertly straddled the line between being tart and too tart, challenging you as it satisfied you. The Mila Petite Rouge elevated the art of fruit infusing its taste even in a sour body. And beer like its Logan's Barrel Reserve Baltic porter and its Vila Wald dampfbier demonstrated how much the right barrel can add to an already well-crafted base beer.
Yet a brewery like this couldn't find enough support to keep going in Denver. That says something.
Maybe we are spreading ourselves too thin, at too many festivals, too many beer bars, too many taprooms. It's a good problem to have, given the lack of options the Mile High City had just eight years ago. And it's not that any of these watering holes or events should go away, as the variety of spots to drink great beer is part of what makes Denver such an intriguing place.
But when we start losing good breweries - the kind you could take an out-of-town beer geek friend to and wow them, as I once did at Beryl's - the warning flags should go up. Maybe we have more room to grow, thinning out just the places that haven't made an impact on the local scene. But maybe, just maybe, we've gotten to the point where even the breweries that make up parts of the fabric of this city's scene aren't safe unless they find the right marketing and distribution mojo to match their beer-making abilities.
Among the breweries that shuttered in recent years, many were, to be blunt, not good. And if they were impressive, then you could generally divide their departures into two categories - unsupportive, profit-mongering investors (Del Norte Brewing) or breweries in hot areas whose landlords literally sold their building out from under them (Pateros Creek Brewing).
But Beryl's, the barrel-aging specialists tucked into an unassuming space in the RiNo neighborhood, did not fall into either of those categories. This was a brewery that churned out increasingly impressive complex beers, particularly in regard to its sour offerings, and had a landlord that backed it. It went after its own niche and succeeded. And yet, there wasn't enough business to keep it going.
That landlord noted in a Friday article by the always-on-the-ball Jonathan Shikes of Westword that competition was rising and that constant road work and nearby construction kept traffic away. The second factor is particularly understandable as a reason for business failing to meet expectations, but there are other breweries in RiNo that continue to operate under these less-than-optimal conditions.
What's toughest about the fate that will befall Beryl's by the end of next month is what it says about the possibility we are hitting the saturation point for breweries in some parts of the metro area - a point that has seemed for a long time to be many years down the road. Maybe this isn't the absolute sign that we're there, but if the Denver craft-beer community can't support a place like Beryl's, it sure as hell seems to be close to it.
Opened in 2014, the brewery had a knack for producing a lot of beers that made you shake your head in agreement, and a few that blew your taste buds. Trent's Plums, a mesmerizing sour brown ale aged two years in red wine barrels with Italian plums, expertly straddled the line between being tart and too tart, challenging you as it satisfied you. The Mila Petite Rouge elevated the art of fruit infusing its taste even in a sour body. And beer like its Logan's Barrel Reserve Baltic porter and its Vila Wald dampfbier demonstrated how much the right barrel can add to an already well-crafted base beer.
Yet a brewery like this couldn't find enough support to keep going in Denver. That says something.
Maybe we are spreading ourselves too thin, at too many festivals, too many beer bars, too many taprooms. It's a good problem to have, given the lack of options the Mile High City had just eight years ago. And it's not that any of these watering holes or events should go away, as the variety of spots to drink great beer is part of what makes Denver such an intriguing place.
But when we start losing good breweries - the kind you could take an out-of-town beer geek friend to and wow them, as I once did at Beryl's - the warning flags should go up. Maybe we have more room to grow, thinning out just the places that haven't made an impact on the local scene. But maybe, just maybe, we've gotten to the point where even the breweries that make up parts of the fabric of this city's scene aren't safe unless they find the right marketing and distribution mojo to match their beer-making abilities.
Labels: Beryl's Beer, brewery closings, RiNo, Westword
