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Breckenridge Brewing

Breckenridge Brewing                                                                      by: Chris Wise

Richard Squire spent his days in the 1980’s skiing the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah, and nights making delicious home brews for himself and friends in his basement. Squire and staff turned his hobby in the basement into the 41st largest craft brewery in America, Breckenridge Brewery. Through the years since its humble beginnings to its present day success, Breckenridge Brewery has consistently produced delicious, interesting brews while keeping an eye on their role in their community and environment.

After encouragement from friends and family, Squire opened the doors to Breckenridge Brewery in February of 1990. Located on the historic Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado, the brewery enjoyed success immediately, as the locals and visitors responded enthusiastically to the chance to taste Squire’s brews, paired with delicious, homemade food. Success came so quickly to Breckenridge Brewery that in 1992 they were forced to expand their operations, and opened another location in Denver.

Success again followed Breckenridge Brewery to their new location in Denver, across the street from where the Colorado Rockies baseball field would be built in 1995. The new location allowed the brewery to reach a much larger market than before, and the brewery grew to meet the demand. Breckenridge Brewery became the first brewery in Colorado to package craft beer in 6-packs and 12-packs. In 1996, Breckenridge Brewery moved its brewery operations once again to their current location at 471 Kalamath Street in Denver, which allows them to produce 66,000 barrels of craft brews every year, compared with their 1,500 barrel limit at their original location.

But the Brewery hasn’t turned its back on the original brewpub that launched their success story; a small Breckenridge Brewery brewpub is operating at the original location, a favorite of Breckenridge Brewing fanatics. In total, Breckenridge Brewery operates five brewpubs and ale houses in Colorado, and invites everyone to come down to sample to some of their amazing brews. Free tours of their Denver production facility are given every Saturday at their 417 Kalamath Street location. Breckenridge Brewery invites its customers to “come in, hear the whole story, enjoy a free pint on us, and see where all of that beer gets brewed, bottled, and sent to find its way into the hands (and bellies) of lovely folks like yourself.”

For some companies, such rapid growth could lead them to lose sight of their original goal, but Breckenridge Brewery stresses after all these years “our mission remains the same: create balanced, approachable and interesting hand-crafted beers.” In addition to Richard Squire, Edward Cerkovnik and J. Todd Usry have been instrumental in shaping the direction of Breckenridge Brewery since the start in the early 90’s, and are still with the company today. Breckenridge Brewery has grown rapidly in the last few years, coming in at 20% growth three years in a row including 30% growth in 2012, they are being forced to relocate again. This time, J. Todd Usry, Brewery Director, and his team have gone all out in designing their new brewery in hopes of greatly increasing the ceiling on their production.

Moving just south of Denver along the South Platt River to Littleton, Colorado, Breckenridge Brewery plans to build a 12-acre world-class brewery. Located along the Platte River Trail, the brewery is easily located by bikers and hikers alike. Breckenridge Brewery has tried to make the brewery as eco-friendly as possible, including: an energy recovery system to reduce emissions, condense steam, and store energy to heat water for the brewing process. They’ll installed solar tubes for natural lighting in the brewery and warehouse, with many windows for additional natural lighting; and systems to recycle/reclaim as much water as possible throughout the brewery. In addition to being friendly to the environment, the brewery will help the community, by added new jobs bringing in approximately 60-75 new jobs to the town. The new facility will instantly up their production capacity to 125,000 barrels annually from 66,000 currently, and eventually 300,000 barrels annually.

Cementing their presence in Colorado was important to Breckenridge Brewing in planning their new brewery. “Our brewery was born and raised in Colorado,” explains Todd Usry, Brewmaster and Brewery Director. “We have our Colorado mountain home [in Breckenridge], and soon, a Colorado country spread along the river. Our Denver brewing operations opened in 1992, so it’s tough to leave Denver, but we’ll still have our two thriving restaurants there.” Country spread is right: the 12-acre complex will have a hops field, beer garden, concert venue, tasting farmhouse with indoor and outdoor seating and general store where you can buy growlers-to-go. Breckenridge Brewery wants their customers to feel welcome to come take a tour and enjoy their day checking out the operation.

Breckenridge Brewery recognizes the enormous amount of success they have been rewarded with over the years, and have a great deal of love and respect for their Colorado community. They give to charitable organizations such as the Conscious Alliance, which has provided 1.6 million meals across the U.S. and assists at-risk youths. They also chipped in during the Fall to help victims of the floods in Colorado.

Community is important to Breckenridge Brewery, not just their Colorado community, but the community united by the love of their brews, and they love to hear back from their customers. A whole section of their website, www.breckbrew.com, is dedicated to their customer community, with pages for customers to post stories, photos, videos, recipes about their Breckenridge Brewing experiences. The following are a few of Breckenridge Brewery’s exciting recipes, but visit the website to get a full listing of their brews, which include a great rotation of mainline brews, seasonal releases, small batches, and barrel-aged brews, find a place to buy Breckenridge Brewing beer, or post a story after you sample one of their beers for yourself. Cheers.

Breckenridge Beers

Avalanche Ale

Richard Squire’s original Amber Ale, first brewed in 1988, is the cornerstone of Breckenridge Brewery’s lineup. Blending pale and caramel malts, with a touch of bittering hops, Squire created a refreshing-but-flavorful, anytime beer that he has built his company around. Aromas of pale grains, a semi-sweet middle and a clean-as-Colorado-snow finish make this their best-selling beer. Head over to the Breck Brew website to find a Spiced Avalanche Jelly recipe, or enjoy this classic on its own.

ABV: 4.4%

Lucky U IPA

An American India Pale Ale, the Lucky U IPA is a well-balanced, hoppy ale that goes down clean and refreshing. This IPA has a nice mixture of seven hops: Amarillo, Magnum, Perle, Cascade, Apollo, Fuggle, and Goldings hops. This mixture of hops produces a golden color, with a strong hop bitterness and an underlying malt character. True to IPA heritage, yet still highly drinkable. Lucky U.

ABV: 6.2%

Oatmeal Stout

This bold, smooth-bodied concoction oozes dark-roasted coffee aromas and flavors of espresso and semi-sweet chocolate. They round out these heady pleasures with a dose of flaked oatmeal for a creamy body and a semi-dry finish. Dark in character, not in spirit. Check out the website for a tasty Oatmeal Stout Beer-B-Q Sauce recipe.

ABV: 4.95%

Nitro Vanilla Porter

An update on their wildly popular mainstay Vanilla Porter, Breckenridge Brewery has updated this remarkably complex ale with Nitrogen pressurizing to produce a rich, creamy beer with a tight head unachievable with kegs using carbon dioxide pressure system. The nitrogen pressure system allows the vanilla, caramel, coffee and chocolate flavors to reach their maximum complexity, to create a beer with unmatched creamy finish.

ABV: 4.7%

471 Small Batch

471 is a small batch, limited edition ale that was created by Breckenridge Brewery’s Brewmaster to separate the weak from the strong. An aggressively strong double IPA, 417 combines Pale, Munich, Caramel-30, Carapils and Torrified Wheat malts, with Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe and Fuggles hops. It has a big sweet mouthfeel, followed by more hoppiness than you’ve ever had at one time.

ABV: 9.2%

Ophelia Wheat Ale

A hoppy, wheat ale which balances soft, tropical fruit flavors with aggressive hoppiness, Ophelia is set to replace Pandora’s Bock as Breckenridge Brewery’s spring selection. The new recipe will both freshen up the Brewery’s lineup and allow the Brewery more time to focus on expanding, as Ophelia takes a third of the time to make as Pandora’s Bock. But don’t worry, Pandora’s Bock will still be available as a small batch release; in the meantime, try this complex yet well-balanced session ale.

ABV: 5.3%

Breckenridge Beers are proudly distributed locally by Frank Fuhrer Wholesale.