Beers in the goatshed


by Vince Darcangelo
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(buzz@boulderweekly.com)

“It’s always a good time for beer. There isn’t a bad time,” says Jeff Brown, president of Rockies Brewing Company, as a round of Hazed and Infused dry-hopped ale is poured and set in front of us. We gulp down our pints at a black wrought-iron patio table that seats four, including myself, Brown, brewmaster David Zuckerman and director of fun Tess Bodine. Behind us, a band is setting up on the stone patio, and hops are growing wild along a nearby trellis.
A wooden crate sits between us on the table. The crate is filled with memorabilia from the breweries 25-year history. Photos in the crate show that where we’re sitting used to be part of a field, back when the brewery was surrounded by nothing but wide open spaces and Boulder truly was a quiet mountain town. Both the city and the brewery have changed much since the ’70s. And on June 12, Rockies Brewing Company is blowing out the candles on a quarter century and throwing a party, the Goatshed Revival, to show how much its grown.
Twenty-five years ago, the brewery was at the center of the craft brewing Big Bang, and since then the Rockies Brewing universe has been constantly expanding. But at the Goatshed Revival Rockies Brewing is honoring its humble roots: a tiny goatshed that served as a brewery.
“The whole reference to the goatshed is the original brewhouse, out on a farm north of town,” says Bodine.
Not only has the brewery come a long way from its farm-fresh beginnings, it has even surpassed the expectations of its current facilities at 2880 Wilderness Pl., where the brewery moved to in the ’80s.
“In terms of when the facility was built, the vision at that time was a brewery that could, capacity-wise, maybe hit 6-7,000 barrels of beer. The vision wasn’t to see a small craft brewery grow to be a 30-40,000 barrel brewery,” says Brown. “We’ve certainly had our challenges from a physical plant standpoint.”
Rockies Brewing has responded to these challenges by expanding the facilities and moving from a manual to automated process that bottles 130 bottles a minute and 300 cases an hour. And as the city has grown around the brewery, Rockies Brewing has responded by creating a brewpub featuring food, music, merchandise, a television, good company and, of course, the thing that makes Rockies Brewing so successful: quality beer on tap.
“The pub that’s here now, the vision was just a small tasting room, a few seats at the bar. It was meant as come in, take a tour, have a few samples,” says Brown. “There was not a kitchen. Somewhere around ’86 or ’87 they put in a very small kitchen.”
Even still, Brown says the kitchen was used more for washing dishes as the bulk of the menu (burgers and brats) was cooked on a grill outside. The kitchen was upgraded in 1991 and is now a popular place to enjoy a meal and beer.
The growth of Rockies Brewing was aided by the ’90s craft-brewing boom. But as countless breweries that jumped on the bandwagon suffered a dot-com-style bust, Rockies Brewing has grown steadily for most of its 25 years.
“It has survived the ups and downs of the craft brewing industry,” says Zuckerman.
In fact, Rockies Brewing is the oldest continuous operating craft brewery in the United States. When the company was issued a brewing license in 1979, it was the 43rd license in our nation’s history. Now that number is measured in the thousands, with around 80 of those in Colorado and nearly a dozen in Boulder alone. So how is Boulder—a small town by city standards—able to sustain all this beer production?
“Boulder’s a fairly young town, and it’s a migratory town,” says Zuckerman. “People have come in from all over, so they’ve been exposed to a tremendous amount of different influences. I think that creates an open mind where people are willing to come in and try something they haven’t seen, something that’s local and hasn’t been marketed at them.”
Rockies Brewing has also succeeded by staying one step ahead of the industry, showing a willingness to take chances with its beers.
“Beer is continuously evolving, so as the craft industry comes in brewers are coming up with new ways to combine water, malt, hops and yeast so you’re getting categories that didn’t exist certainly not 20 years ago and in some cases not even 5 years ago,” he continues.
Case in point, Rockies Brewing’s popular Looking Glass series.
“The Looking Glass series is our series of beers that go beyond the consumer’s traditional concept of ales,” says Zuckerman.
These include Killer Penguin, Mojo IPA, the recently brewed Sweaty Betty blonde wheat, Never Summer ale, which won a gold medal at the World Beer Cup in the strong ale category, and, of course, the über-popular Hazed and Infused dry-hopped ale. But while the brewery has expanded to make exciting new brews, it hasn’t forgotten the traditional favorites that have made the brewery such a success, including Singletrack copper ale and Buffalo Gold. For the Goatshed Revival, the brewery is also cooking up five kegs of a special bock that will only be available at the party.
In addition to the gallons of special brews and traditional favorites, the Goatshed Revival will feature food vendors, live music from Rhythm Method, Jyemo and the Extended Family and Kutandara on a stage made of kegs and pallets, voter registration, charity groups and the unveiling of the Goatshed Lounge—a brewery museum that will consist of many of the items inside the old wooden crate on the table before us. Rockies Brewing will also be signing up riders for a bike race the brewery is sponsoring in the fall.
All in all, the Goatshed Revival will be a block party worthy of the brewery’s legacy—a celebration of the past and future of Rockies Brewing and a place for the community to come together.
“It will be consistent with a brewery being a cultural hub, which is what they’ve been throughout the centuries,” says Zuckerman. “That’s where ‘pub’ comes from, ‘public house.’ Just consider us to be an extension of your living room and your refrigerator.”
Box info: The Rockies Brewing Goatshed Revival starts at 1 p.m., Saturday, June 12, at Rockies Brewing Company, 2880 Wilderness Pl., Boulder, 303-444-8448.

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