Two of Colorado’s craft beer pioneers join forces for expanded brewing and beer-minded restaurant efforts.
(Denver, Colorado) – Wynkoop Holdings, Inc. (parent company of Wynkoop Brewing Company and seven Colorado restaurants and brewpubs) and Breckenridge Holding Company (owner and operator of Breckenridge Brewery and four Colorado brewpubs and taphouses) have completed the details for a 50/50 joint venture between the two trailblazing companies.
The details officially unite two of Colorado’s pioneering and prominent craft brewers into one collective. The arrangement will allow the breweries to share talent, management, brewing facilities and purchasing power for expanding and developing each company’s business.
The joint venture creates a new brewing force with over four decades of craft beer experience, a production brewery with a current capacity of 45,000 barrels, three brewpubs, and combined brewing production of nearly 40,000 barrels of craft beer in 2010.
The tag team is already making its first collective moves. Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown has been working out on Breckenridge’s 50-barrel system, in preparation for brewing there later this month. The canned and kegged versions of Wynkoop’s Rail Yard Ale and Silverback Pale Ale will be brewed and canned at the Breckenridge facility in Denver.
Soon both Breckenridge and Wynkoop microcanned beers will be packaged on new equipment. The collective has made its first joint purchase, a prototype automatic canning machine that will quadruple the breweries’ canning speeds. It will allow both breweries to add new canned beers this summer, including Breckenridge’s SummerBright Ale.
The machine is being produced by Wild Goose Engineering, a Boulder, Colorado engineering and manufacturing firm that’s entering the expanding microcanning niche.
“Both of our outfits buy local as much as possible,” says Wynkoop’s Marty Jones. “This is a great way for us to ramp up that effort, right down to the gear we use to package our beer. And the move allows us to help a scrappy, local startup get started in a much better fashion.”
Wynkoop and Breckenridge staffers have also begun work on a collaborative beer that will reach the Denver area’s best beer establishments in May. The draft-only beer is a Belgian-style strong ale unlike any beer the two have made in the past.
“One of the key goals in this effort is to get more great beer into the glasses of devout beer lovers,” says Breckenridge head brewer Todd Usry. “This is the first in a series of collaborative beers that’ll do that.”
Breckenridge and Wynkoop’s combined establishments include high-profile restaurants, brewpubs and alehouses in Denver, Grand Junction and Breckenridge’s namesake town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
In April that list grows with the addition of Breckenridge’s new Ale House at Amato’s, a large, beer-focused restaurant featuring 40 largely Colorado beers in the Lower Highlands neighborhood of Denver.
Wynkoop Brewing Company was founded in 1988 by Denver mayor John Hickenlooper and a group of urban pioneers that included Mark Schiffler (current Wynkoop COO) and Ron Robinson, Wynkoop’s current GM.
Breckenridge Brewery was founded in 1990 in Breckenridge, Colorado and is the third-oldest craft brewery Colorado.
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Denver brewpub’s self distribution grows 500%, annual production rises 25%
(Denver, Colorado) – Wynkoop Brewing Company — Colorado’s first brewpub – experienced significant growth in 2010.
Wynkoop’s hand-canned and draft beers can now be found in over 150 bars and retailers in the Denver area. This number of retail outlets is up 500% from 30 accounts at the start of 2010.
The brewery produced 3502 barrels of beer in 2010. That’s a 25% increase from 2800 barrels in both 2009 and 2008. (A barrel of beer equals 31 gallons.)
In-house beer sales at the revered brewpub (founded by Colorado governor John Hickenlooper) are also up 6% over 2010.
This growth has been fueled by Wynkoop’s hand-canning and self-distribution effort and increased attendance from beer lovers at the brewpub.
Wynkoop’s two small-batch canned beers — Rail Yard Ale and Silverback Pale Ale — have quickly won Denver area fans and positive reviews from the Colorado and US beer press. The increase in retail outlets means more Denver beer lovers have access to those beers.
“Two of our goals for 2010,” says Marty Jones, Wynkoop’s Cheersleader & Idea Man, “were to get more of our liquid art into the hands of local retailers and beer fiends. We pulled it off and are mighty happy about it. Especially in light of today’s sluggish economy.”
“It’s our first growth in production in two years,” Jones adds. “It has allowed us to create a few new jobs in the brewery and recapture some of the momentum and mojo our place enjoyed in its earlier days.”
(To meet growing demand for its beer, Wynkoop doubled the size of its brewery staff from three to six fulltime staffers in 2010.)
Another 2010 goal for Wynkoop’s brewing arm was to attract new fans by expanding its brewing reach into new styles of beer.
An expanded Wynkoop beer list that includes higher strength, barrel aged, firkin and sour beers has helped meet that goal. It has led to increased sales and new Wynkoop customers and excitement at the brewpub.
“Along with our list of classic beer styles at our pub, we now have a list of new boundary-pushing beers,” says Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown. “Many of these beers are dramatically different from what we’ve been known for in the past. They’re helping us bring back old fans, draw new beer customers and elevate our status in Denver’s beer culture.”
In the next few weeks Wynkoop Brewing will complete the details of a planned joint venture with Denver’s Breckenridge Brewery. Among other things the venture will allow Wynkoop to brew and package its canned beers at Breckenridge’s Denver brewery.
Wynkoop is also launching an expanded effort to sell and promote its year-round and seasonal draft-only beers to area establishments.
Wynkoop beers are canned one can at a time on a tabletop machine from Canada’s Cask Systems.
Wynkoop Brewing Company was founded in 1988 by Colorado governor John Hickenlooper and a group of urban pioneers that included Mark Schiffler (current Wynkoop COO) and Ron Robinson, Wynkoop’s current GM.
[Disclaimer: Beernews.org is a leader in craft beer news and is the original source of this article. If you would like to check out more, please visit the original site. Thanks!]
Denver brewpub increases production nearly 20%, doubles staff, hits 100 accounts mark
(Denver, Colorado) – Wynkoop Brewing Company — Colorado’s first brewpub – is enjoying significant growth in the first half of 2010. The brewery produced 1602 barrels of beer in the first six months of 2010. That’s a 19.3 % increase from 1342 barrels for the first half of 2009. (A barrel of beer equals 31 gallons.)
This growth has been fueled by a successful hand-canning and self-distribution effort launched last fall. Wynkoop’s small-batch canned beers — Rail Yard Ale and the new Silverback Pale Ale — have quickly gained followers.
“Thanks to our cans,” says Wynkoop CEO Lee Driscoll, “our customers can enjoy our delicious beer when they aren’t fortunate enough to be in one of our restaurants. They get the Wynkoop beer experience at home, outdoors, in other establishments in the Denver area.” The brewery has also significantly grown its draft beer accounts in the Denver
area, adding 25 establishments to its list of five Wynkoop-owned restaurants. Wynkoop now services over 100 beer stores, bars and restaurants in the Denver metro area.
To meet growing demand for its beer, Wynkoop has doubled the size of its brewery staff from three to six fulltime staffers. Recent additions include assistant brewer Jason ZumBrunnen a 2010 Siebel Institute grad (and former frontman for touring act The Fairlanes) and Andrew Eaton, a Colorado beer sales veteran and former Wynkoop employee who is assisting with sales, production and promotional events.
Wynkoop Brewing Company expects to end the year with a production of approximately 3550 barrels of craft beer, up 25% from 2800 barrels in 2009.
Wynkoop beers are canned one can at a time on a tabletop machine from Canada’s Cask Systems.
Wynkoop Brewing Company was founded in 1988 by Denver mayor John Hickenlooper and a group of urban pioneers that included Mark Schiffler (current Wynkoop COO) and Ron Robinson, Wynkoop’s current GM.
[Disclaimer: Beernews.org is a leader in craft beer news and is the original source of this article. If you would like to check out more, please visit the original site. Thanks!]
