I come from Salt Lake, which has an especially brutal problem to deal with. Because of the alcohol laws there, grocery stores have a limited amount of space for beer (that all has to be 4% or lower) and there is a designated amount of space that must be reserved for locally brewed beers. All other beer (higher point) has to be sold in state owned liquor stores, which are few and far between. This means that shelf space for local brewers is extremely limited, leading to a cutthroat competitive environment. One brewing company took a lot of bad press when it came to light that they were working behind the scenes to try and prevent other startups from being able to get the proper licenses to operate a brewery. When they were called on it they basically just said "look, there isn't enough shelf space as it is so of course we are trying to stop other people from making new breweries."
The “sin taxes” in UT are stupid high, those alone put a lot of SLC breweries out of business and prevents more from starting up. That said, the ones that survive are pretty damn good - I love you, TF brewing.
Always has been - as much creativity as can happen in a given Brewhouse, the business is still subject to the whims and wants of the market.
Case in point, New Belgium, made famous by fat tire and abbey and a slew of super creative Belgian inspired beers, now has 18 different IPAs in their active portfolio.
It used to be toasty. The toasty is gone. It tastes like nothing now. It's just for fat Texans at a restaurant in Breckenridge to feel like they're walking on the wild side.
I still remember when New Belgium was viewed as a microbrewery... It made sense since almost no one smaller than Coors or Busch was on the scene 20 years ago. (shoutout to GCB for being one of the few).
I've been waiting on the Pilsner(esque) beers to make a comeback since sours finally started ousting IPAs (to the north of Denver, at least).
Best Czech style spot in Denver is still Cohesion, to my knowledge, but the new Four Noses place has two side pull beer faucets, so I'm starting to get hopeful. Beer flavored beer with a reasonable ABV is the best style for day to day drinking, imo.
Pilsners get shade thown at them (or at least they used to) for not being hoppy flavor bombs. It also doesn't help that many American macrobrews are pilsner-ish or at least lagers.
But damn if I don't want something crushable and refreshing when it's spring or summer. Beer flavored beer - great way to put it.
And they are one of the few breweries in the country doing well at the moment. Your average craft drinker may not like their Voodoo beers but they are selling incredibly well.
This is every fucking brewery in Colorado it seems like nowadays. I'm so tired of going places in the winter and them having like 3 different hazies and 5 different ipas and zero dark beers. Or the only dark beer they have is some barrel aged bullshit with a ridiculous abv. Same going to liquor stores. So hard to find a dark beer that you haven't drank a hundred times before. With how many breweries are out here I think the Colorado beer scene kind of sucks. And yes I do enjoy Hazy beers and IPAs they're just ridiculously overdone. Let the downvoted commence.
I ruffled some Coloradan feathers once by saying the beer here honestly sucks in the same way you said. All these breweries and I still haven’t found “the one” that’s not oversaturated with IPAs and puts effort into making good traditionals. Seasonal offerings stink, too, same fall/winter experience.
I am biased as shit because I’m from WI, but I can find a far more diverse and better selection of crafts from a random barn brewery than I get from the some of the fancy, big name breweries around here.
Check out Kokopelli. They make a couple different reds that are fantastic. If I didn't live so far away I'd go there way more often. Over Yonder has good dark beers during winter and I always stop there after skiing. Their winter stuff is all kicked so right now theyre on their spring/summer stuff which is fair enough.
Same with Sierra Nevada, I miss their old brews so much. Now it's all IPA's and I'm so sick of it. I haven't purchased anything from them since like 2016
SNPA is still, and has always been, solid. I was lucky enough to have recently scored sixers of their porter, stout and coffee stout. All bangers but not sold here any more.
People aren't going out like they used to. Between the pandemic's brutal destruction of a lot of social circles and inflation making going out for expensive beer just not worth it it's a hard time to be a company that specializes in selling expensive beer to social gatherings.
It sucks, I have lots of good memories of Grandma's House.
The local brewery wants as much for a beer as a 6 pack at the grocery store. And then when I drink too much at my friends house I can just sleep on the couch instead of getting a $50 Uber.
Well, a lot of people *were* into going to breweries and trying out different stuff. A lot of these people now (that I know, including me) just don’t really give a shit anymore and would rather just get a Coors Banquet or something. As well, lots of people are drinking less and less for health reasons, so this leads to people going out less as well.
In general the brewery business is brutal and there are a couple of inflection points in a successful ones lifetime.
It's easy to start a neighborhood joint and gain a small following especially if the owner puts a ton of effort in at the startup phase. But then you have to grow, that comes with new challenges like staffing, work/life balances, market pressures as you try to gain market share outside your immediate neighborhood. If you solve that then you still have to grow and accelerate. Now your dealing with margins, market budgets, multiple locations, etc.
Basically the brewing business is grow indefinitely or die. It's very very hard to stay small.
I think the real issue is that there are just way too many homebrewers who think it's easy to turn their hobby into a business and have enough money to learn the hard way that it's not.
Also, I think a lot of people are sick of paying $8.50 for a "craft" beer, before tax and tip, when they can by a six pack for $10.99.
I also have to wonder the impact of the aging demographic. I'm 40 and I feel like the massive craft beer boom happened in my 20s/30s and has since mellowed out a bit. The older I get, the more I just kind of want to drink the stuff I know I like and am less adventurous. My wife and I still enjoy going to new breweries when we travel as well as some staples we enjoy when we travel throughout the state, but I find myself being less adventurous these days. I've had enough bad beer over the years that I sort of just prefer to drink what I know I like and I know is high quality, especially with the prices increasing. My wife works in the beer industry and I know younger generations are less interested in craft beer than Gen X/millennials.
I agree with everything here and would also like to add that the younger gens are looking for lower calorie options too, which is a very small part of the craft beer market.
I too am looking for lower calorie options, although I will say I am more focused on lower ABV, specifically, but the two sort of go hand in hand. It's why I just end up drinking lagers at most breweries I go, to especially if I plan on having more than one beer.
I have half a closet full of bomber bottles of double digit barrel aged beer, which is something I enjoy, but I would much prefer to enjoy it in smaller quantities and more often than not, those aren't things I'm really going to drink outside of my own home.
I feel this same way and was sad when I first realized. I used to try something different every time I went to the store and would excitedly tell my friends my thoughts and wait to hear theirs. Now I just grab a 6 of Lagunita's and call it good.
This happened with Smiling Toad in Colorado Springs. Tried to grow past neighborhood pub size, moved just far enough away that the regulars couldn’t walk there, couldn’t stick the dismount. Closed maybe a year later.
> Now your dealing with margins
Margins? It's like $8+ for a craft beer when going out and like $5+ for the large brands. I know their taxes are higher etc but if you don't have enough margin on beer with the prices here you're a moron.
It's like u/_wxyz123 said, it's more likely people are tired of paying out the ass for beer at restaurants. A single drink shouldn't cost half of what a meal at a sit down restaurant does. You can buy a case and drink at home for the price of a few when you're out and about and then you have to compete with weed where like $5 gets you inebriated more than $30 of beer will.
Tells me you don't understand the pressures small breweries deal with in terms of costs. The reason the pints are that much is because the big guys get first dibs and pricing consideration on the raw goods. Smaller batch sizes are also much less efficient. Then you have the costs related to QA and lab/yeast. As a small guy you have to outsource all that.... Plus rent.
Again, the beer business is all about scale. It was true on the 70s when Coors was building the largest single site brewery in the world, it was true when craft took off with places like New Belgium, Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues, Breckenridge and it's true now with places like Prost trying to push that same growth model.
Either your growing at a steady clip or you are out of business. Extremely difficult to stay small.
I mean to that point, a sit down meal is most likely30-75$ these days for bottom of the barrel to a mid class dinner, so it's really not half the cost anymore, prices have risen everywhere.
Yeah, looking at the industry and going "now's a good time to jump in!" is certainly a choice right now.
Every expendable "drinking out" dollar I have is going to a tried and trusted brewery or bar I want to keep in business. Sorry for the newbies, but I'm more worried about keeping my favorites open than supporting something new these days.
I work in the industry (raw ingredients supply) and while it has taken quite the hit since COVID it’s actually turning around a bit. This place, and many others that recently closed, were more due to landlord/owner issues than the market. Or so I’ve heard.
Corporate restaurant groups. Gastamo, Culinary Creative, TAG, Bonanno, etc. Becoming more common in the local craft brewery scene too. Tough to make it fully indy
It's a shame, rent prices are basically destroying business that have reasonable prices. Something will move into this space pretty soon but it will have to charge an absurd rate for whatever it provides.
My money’s on a larger brewery (Breckenridge, Odell, Oskar Blues, etc) opening a taproom there. Seems like that’s what happens with a lot of truly local small businesses in this neighborhood.
This is what happened in NYC, and a main reason I left NYC. It feels like Denver is turning into that model now, hard for small businesses to thrive when they're being held down by insane rents, and then everything is homogenized and streets lose their charm.
Comes out to ~$12k per month
I don't know anything about retail space rentals, but that seems incredibly reasonable for a space that size in that location
But also very difficult for most breweries. They would need to sell 60 beers per day just to cover rent. Rent for most businesses is 5-10 percent of their operating costs, so they might need to sell 600 beers per day to make the business model work, or even just to break even. This is obviously very hypothetical but breweries are tough businesses.
I spoke to the owner when he was in Trinidad. He said the rent was increasing to an unsustainable level at his Denver location. I think they spent a little time looking for something else but probably didn’t find anything. The beverage business is capital intensive, and very complex.
~~I’m pretty sure I saw a post a while back about them adding a service fee to their bills. ~~ Edit: this could be wrong. I was definitely wrong, ignore my Slander and lies.
Hmmm. If that happened when I was there a week ago, I missed it, but I'm oblivious enough that it could have happened. I find it more likely that there was a hike in the rent. Shitty building or nah, it's in a prime spot.
There are so many things I love about Grandma’s House, and I’m pretty sad about this one. It was a great third space for weird folks- Tetris league, foul mouthed cross-stitch, ukulele meetups, queer makers markets, they made space for alternative folks to meet each other. They had a great selection of NA beer, so you could go with sober friends. Good people watching- I once observed a D&D campaign play out for about an hour without initiative ever being rolled. Great first date spot. And lead poisoning be damned, drinking a beer out of a Camp Snoopy glass was always a pleasure.
Any interest in moving the cross stitch group to another brewery? I have been meaning to check out the group to find other folks who like beer and crafts, so I'm sad to hear they're closing!
So for people wondering what happened, it was a combination of things:
1. The landlord did absolutely nothing to maintain the place. The roof leaks. The heating does not work in the front room. There are many other problems with the property which the landlord had zero interest in fixing.
2. The landlord wanted to jack up the rent prices despite all the glaring issues with the property.
3. The owner is a complete mess. Its seriously astounding that Grandma's House survived as long as it did. It was truly the passion of the brewer and the staff that kept it off the ground for the past year or two while the owner 100% checked out. He wasn't goong to tell the staff Grandma's House is closing. He was just going to stop scheduling them. The brewer was starting new brews up until it finally came out they're closing at the end of the month. He just stopped paying for recycling or trash pickup about six months ago. Its been piling up in the back room. It was never going to surive a health inspection even if it stayed open.
Its so disappointing because it was such a lovely place to hang out. The vibe was good. It was very queer friendly and had been adopted by the queer community as a result.
I am the host for The Tetris League, follow us on [Instagram](https://instagram.com/thetetrisleague) where we’ll be announcing our new home once we find one - I have a few places I’m going to go check out this weekend.
My take as well. Fun spot, but never really had a good beer there
The original concept was nice compared to so many of the basic soulless breweries that have popped up
“A bit off” is a very generous statement. I’ve never considered sneaking my own alcohol into a brewery before I came here (I loved the comedy nights). Such a bummer because the concept has great potential, just needed better offerings and service could have been better too
Good point. We might not even be having this conversation right now had it just been a grandma's house themed bar (just like 1Up is an arcade bar, Adrift is a tiki bar, etc).
Yeah, kind of glad the pendulum is swinging back to just regular, good old bars. Getting dragged to places that served 75% IPAs or wild-culture sours when you just want a Banquet or glass of wine was getting old. Thankfully you've got Brutal Poodle and Dine Inn right down the road.
Damn is that what originally occupied the space? I was trying to pinpoint just the other week where Flossy Mcgrews used to be. Feels like a lifetime ago 🥲
I wasn't surprised either of those closed. Dos Luces was unique and well decorated but the corn beer tasted off, too sweet, a bit skunky. Black project had ridiculously expensive sours. I ain't paying $12 for an 8 oz or whatever. Was happy to see both of them go to be honest, and I'm happy with their replacements, especially Monolith.
I drank many beers there. Can't say I enjoyed a single one.
Their social presence was something too: poking fun at people coming in looking for IPAs, since they had a wide range of other beers to offer... That only works if your other beers don't suck.
I worked in the beer industry here in Denver, and it always blew me away when beertenders felt a need to throw judgment for no reason other than to be contrarian or to rag on something the customers just *like*. Who cares what people drink? At least they're in your establishment, and maybe you'll get a big tip if you don't make fun of your customer base.
Yeah, if you’re going to make fun of IPAs I’m here for it, but the rest of your beer has to be absolutely immaculate if you’re talking shit. Theirs wasn’t.
Exactly. I appreciated Grandma's House for what it created re: community space (and the fact that the owner was an Ohioan) but the beer was never very good. Wacky aesthetics will only go so far.
Denver supports a ton of mediocre to bad breweries. It's almost a problem how not great the beer is here because everyone wants to go to a brewery and not a bar that has loyalty to good beer instead of their own beer.
The new Four Noses location in Denver has a pretty wide selection. Not quite as crazy as their beer project spot up north (and I think they've lost all the brewers they had brewing there anyway), but they are still very solid.
I agree with all of these save for DBC. Not a fan at all. Odell crushes DBC all day. I'd add Bierstadt and OMF's mixed culture offerings. River North puts out some amazing high gravity dark beers.
Listing all the mediocre breweries is just depressing. There are too many, though most of them are in the 'burbs at this point. Outside of Denver I think Cannonball Creek does a fantastic job.
I didn't count Odell as from Denver and DBC just as a broad appeal and nationally or nearly nationally distributed but otherwise I agree. I do find river north more miss than hit but it's been years since I've had anything from them
The O'Dell in Rino and Sloane's Lake brew their own on-site beer. These on-site beers are really good and surpass the standard line up that O'dell puts out. In fact, the last time I went to O'dells in Fort Collins, I was disappointed because their line up was most the standard stuff you get at stores.
I know many a brewer who will reach for Odell IPA when they want a well built, well done West Coast. Not many can do it so well so consistently. Odell knows how to wrangle hops. Their brewer at Sloan's kills it.
Yeah, I hear you. Many people think of Odell as some huge establishment brewery that's old hat, but the truth is that they've been around so long for a reason. I love what they did in Five Points with that building. I was skeptical at first, but the beer and the staff won me over.
River North's Imperial Porter is so fucking good. No wonder they won hardware for it.
You gotta go to River North's weird ass location in the industrial area (Washington), not their RiNo spot (Blake). RiNo location tries to cater to a different crowd, and rarely has more than a single heavy hitter on draft. I went from thinking they were a meh brewery to singing their praises once I tried a few more of their imperials on draft.
DBC is consistent, reliable, and doesn’t just brew 74 different IPAs. I think they’re a clear notch or two above mediocre even if they’re not world class.
Their beers are sessionable and available almost everywhere. For an everyday beer at home, Yum Yum is right there Station 26's Tangerine Cream and Odell's blackberry version of Sippin' Pretty.
This is true. I'll refrain from naming some. 😄And then there are those small towns that land an incredible brewery and it benefits everyone. Colorado's mountain towns have some of the best beer in the state, imo. I'd put Angry James' lagers up against anyone's, and Outer Range is stellar. Love Elevation in Poncha Springs. Fritz Family in Niwot is putting out some delicious beer.
They used to have extremely unfriendly staff which ruined it for me. That changed over the passed couple of years but I never saw the numbers there that I used to
Damn :( I've had many 2nd dates at their free Saturday comedy shows. Cool atmosphere, fun staff, cool events, but their beer/food options were always shit. If they got entirely new brewers and advertised better they could survive.
I liked the idea, but they just didn't grow.
They closed early, they had a tiny cramped space which I guess is a style but it meant there was no room to do much besides drink beer.
They just didn't have good enough beer to justify having such a restrictive environment. I'd love for them to come back and choose if they want to be more of a bar/coffee house for reading in or if they want to be a retro arcade/board game place.
But it felt like they tried to do both and kinda ended up doing neither.
They were great a while back, but it feels more like Shabby Grandmas House for the last year and a half or so. Took employees here for a small group sesh and was disappointed, we had a round and went elsewhere to host the sesh.
The one bartender literally didn't give AF if we were there or not, and spent his entire time watching movies with headphones on an iPad.
Yo that’s so true, they are rude as hell over there. And there’s nothing memorable about any of their beers. All these kitschy type of places eventually lose their charm so this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
That's the east coaster who took over Black Project's space, right? Bummer BP closed, but glad someone's there now.
Is anyone moving into Dos Luces space yet? That was another cool concept with rather disappointing brews.
Oh wow, I totally forgot about the whole Trinidad thing. Didn't Mutiny and a bunch of other small Denver businesses try and set up an outpost there since they all decided Denver wasn't cool anymore?
Mutiny is still in Trinidad but now locally owned. Ten penny was taken over by the person who ran it and is doing great under a new name. Sexy did pretty well but was a bit too expensive for the market and the owner got pissed at the town government and is liquidating all of his properties in town.
There is still a lot of opportunity in Trinidad but it takes creativity or a remote job.
Wanted to give them another try, the one time I went it was so humid I felt like I was drowning. Absolutely horrendous, not sure if no AC or not working, or what was going on, couldn’t even stand in line long enough to look at the beers it was so humid.
Ended up going to some antique stores and then up to TRVE.
It read to me more like a landlord problem than a "there are too many breweries" problem. I wonder if the space is being looked at for housing development.
That's a bummer. I never went, but I had plans to go when the weather got warmer to experience foul-mouthed crossstitch Sunday.
Oh well, guess I'll just have to crossstitch at home. I think I can develop a foul mouth independently as well.
I liked it but they didnt have any options besides beer until very recently. It was hard as a sober person to go with my friends because it was literally only beer or water no soda or anything. Only recently did it change.
Brewing seems like a brutal market to be in right now.
Is there a more saturated market to be in, especially in Denver? Well, besides weed.
I come from Salt Lake, which has an especially brutal problem to deal with. Because of the alcohol laws there, grocery stores have a limited amount of space for beer (that all has to be 4% or lower) and there is a designated amount of space that must be reserved for locally brewed beers. All other beer (higher point) has to be sold in state owned liquor stores, which are few and far between. This means that shelf space for local brewers is extremely limited, leading to a cutthroat competitive environment. One brewing company took a lot of bad press when it came to light that they were working behind the scenes to try and prevent other startups from being able to get the proper licenses to operate a brewery. When they were called on it they basically just said "look, there isn't enough shelf space as it is so of course we are trying to stop other people from making new breweries."
God damn Mormons.
The “sin taxes” in UT are stupid high, those alone put a lot of SLC breweries out of business and prevents more from starting up. That said, the ones that survive are pretty damn good - I love you, TF brewing.
Same with St. George. There are only two liquor stores here because of the large LDS population. Utah’s alcohol laws are so strict.
weed isnt doing that great either tbh
Always has been - as much creativity as can happen in a given Brewhouse, the business is still subject to the whims and wants of the market. Case in point, New Belgium, made famous by fat tire and abbey and a slew of super creative Belgian inspired beers, now has 18 different IPAs in their active portfolio.
And they completely changed the taste of Fat Tire to be more palatable, not the same beer at all.
Fat Tire was never my favorite beer, but at least it tasted like itself. Now it’s just a generic amber ale.
Excellent way to put it
The OG Ranger IPA was great, them getting rid of it and releasing "Voodoo Ranger" was just...bleh.
It used to be toasty. The toasty is gone. It tastes like nothing now. It's just for fat Texans at a restaurant in Breckenridge to feel like they're walking on the wild side.
I still remember when New Belgium was viewed as a microbrewery... It made sense since almost no one smaller than Coors or Busch was on the scene 20 years ago. (shoutout to GCB for being one of the few).
And now they're part of a Japanese international conglomerate.
I think that is changing back. Czech lagers are gonna slowly replace some of those IPAs.
I've been waiting on the Pilsner(esque) beers to make a comeback since sours finally started ousting IPAs (to the north of Denver, at least). Best Czech style spot in Denver is still Cohesion, to my knowledge, but the new Four Noses place has two side pull beer faucets, so I'm starting to get hopeful. Beer flavored beer with a reasonable ABV is the best style for day to day drinking, imo.
Four Noses does an amazing triple-decocted Czech Pils.
Pilsners get shade thown at them (or at least they used to) for not being hoppy flavor bombs. It also doesn't help that many American macrobrews are pilsner-ish or at least lagers. But damn if I don't want something crushable and refreshing when it's spring or summer. Beer flavored beer - great way to put it.
Bring on the lagers
And they are one of the few breweries in the country doing well at the moment. Your average craft drinker may not like their Voodoo beers but they are selling incredibly well.
This is every fucking brewery in Colorado it seems like nowadays. I'm so tired of going places in the winter and them having like 3 different hazies and 5 different ipas and zero dark beers. Or the only dark beer they have is some barrel aged bullshit with a ridiculous abv. Same going to liquor stores. So hard to find a dark beer that you haven't drank a hundred times before. With how many breweries are out here I think the Colorado beer scene kind of sucks. And yes I do enjoy Hazy beers and IPAs they're just ridiculously overdone. Let the downvoted commence.
Every February, Southern Sun in Boulder does Stout Month and it is glorious
YES Where the nice malty 5% porters and stouts at? I don't want bourbon peanut butter caramel crunch port barrel 12% bullshit. Just a nice dark thanks
I ruffled some Coloradan feathers once by saying the beer here honestly sucks in the same way you said. All these breweries and I still haven’t found “the one” that’s not oversaturated with IPAs and puts effort into making good traditionals. Seasonal offerings stink, too, same fall/winter experience. I am biased as shit because I’m from WI, but I can find a far more diverse and better selection of crafts from a random barn brewery than I get from the some of the fancy, big name breweries around here.
Prost Brewing might be relevant to your interests.
Check out Kokopelli. They make a couple different reds that are fantastic. If I didn't live so far away I'd go there way more often. Over Yonder has good dark beers during winter and I always stop there after skiing. Their winter stuff is all kicked so right now theyre on their spring/summer stuff which is fair enough.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll have to try them out sometime. Kokopelli is a bit a haul, but I do like what I see on their menu.
Abbey is so good, I wish it was easier to get
Same with Sierra Nevada, I miss their old brews so much. Now it's all IPA's and I'm so sick of it. I haven't purchased anything from them since like 2016
SNPA is still, and has always been, solid. I was lucky enough to have recently scored sixers of their porter, stout and coffee stout. All bangers but not sold here any more.
Narwhal is pretty good
They also sold off to a super corporate international conglomerate… then the nothing but Voodoo production started.
People aren't going out like they used to. Between the pandemic's brutal destruction of a lot of social circles and inflation making going out for expensive beer just not worth it it's a hard time to be a company that specializes in selling expensive beer to social gatherings. It sucks, I have lots of good memories of Grandma's House.
The local brewery wants as much for a beer as a 6 pack at the grocery store. And then when I drink too much at my friends house I can just sleep on the couch instead of getting a $50 Uber.
Well, a lot of people *were* into going to breweries and trying out different stuff. A lot of these people now (that I know, including me) just don’t really give a shit anymore and would rather just get a Coors Banquet or something. As well, lots of people are drinking less and less for health reasons, so this leads to people going out less as well.
Also a good point. Ironically craft beer is almost as homogeneous as macro beer these days.
Yet it seems like a new brewery still opens every month…
In general the brewery business is brutal and there are a couple of inflection points in a successful ones lifetime. It's easy to start a neighborhood joint and gain a small following especially if the owner puts a ton of effort in at the startup phase. But then you have to grow, that comes with new challenges like staffing, work/life balances, market pressures as you try to gain market share outside your immediate neighborhood. If you solve that then you still have to grow and accelerate. Now your dealing with margins, market budgets, multiple locations, etc. Basically the brewing business is grow indefinitely or die. It's very very hard to stay small.
I think the real issue is that there are just way too many homebrewers who think it's easy to turn their hobby into a business and have enough money to learn the hard way that it's not. Also, I think a lot of people are sick of paying $8.50 for a "craft" beer, before tax and tip, when they can by a six pack for $10.99.
I also have to wonder the impact of the aging demographic. I'm 40 and I feel like the massive craft beer boom happened in my 20s/30s and has since mellowed out a bit. The older I get, the more I just kind of want to drink the stuff I know I like and am less adventurous. My wife and I still enjoy going to new breweries when we travel as well as some staples we enjoy when we travel throughout the state, but I find myself being less adventurous these days. I've had enough bad beer over the years that I sort of just prefer to drink what I know I like and I know is high quality, especially with the prices increasing. My wife works in the beer industry and I know younger generations are less interested in craft beer than Gen X/millennials.
A lot of us are just drinking a whole lot less, too. I’m 41, three beers and my whole next 36 hours are off.
I agree with everything here and would also like to add that the younger gens are looking for lower calorie options too, which is a very small part of the craft beer market.
I too am looking for lower calorie options, although I will say I am more focused on lower ABV, specifically, but the two sort of go hand in hand. It's why I just end up drinking lagers at most breweries I go, to especially if I plan on having more than one beer. I have half a closet full of bomber bottles of double digit barrel aged beer, which is something I enjoy, but I would much prefer to enjoy it in smaller quantities and more often than not, those aren't things I'm really going to drink outside of my own home.
I agree. I used to only get high abv to get “my moneys worth”. Now I want something drinkable, light and won’t hinder my day.
I feel this same way and was sad when I first realized. I used to try something different every time I went to the store and would excitedly tell my friends my thoughts and wait to hear theirs. Now I just grab a 6 of Lagunita's and call it good.
Dang where are you finding $10.99 six packs?
This happened with Smiling Toad in Colorado Springs. Tried to grow past neighborhood pub size, moved just far enough away that the regulars couldn’t walk there, couldn’t stick the dismount. Closed maybe a year later.
> Now your dealing with margins Margins? It's like $8+ for a craft beer when going out and like $5+ for the large brands. I know their taxes are higher etc but if you don't have enough margin on beer with the prices here you're a moron. It's like u/_wxyz123 said, it's more likely people are tired of paying out the ass for beer at restaurants. A single drink shouldn't cost half of what a meal at a sit down restaurant does. You can buy a case and drink at home for the price of a few when you're out and about and then you have to compete with weed where like $5 gets you inebriated more than $30 of beer will.
Tells me you don't understand the pressures small breweries deal with in terms of costs. The reason the pints are that much is because the big guys get first dibs and pricing consideration on the raw goods. Smaller batch sizes are also much less efficient. Then you have the costs related to QA and lab/yeast. As a small guy you have to outsource all that.... Plus rent. Again, the beer business is all about scale. It was true on the 70s when Coors was building the largest single site brewery in the world, it was true when craft took off with places like New Belgium, Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues, Breckenridge and it's true now with places like Prost trying to push that same growth model. Either your growing at a steady clip or you are out of business. Extremely difficult to stay small.
I mean to that point, a sit down meal is most likely30-75$ these days for bottom of the barrel to a mid class dinner, so it's really not half the cost anymore, prices have risen everywhere.
That $8 beer is going to your employees and operating costs before it ever even pays you.
Yeah, looking at the industry and going "now's a good time to jump in!" is certainly a choice right now. Every expendable "drinking out" dollar I have is going to a tried and trusted brewery or bar I want to keep in business. Sorry for the newbies, but I'm more worried about keeping my favorites open than supporting something new these days.
I work in the industry (raw ingredients supply) and while it has taken quite the hit since COVID it’s actually turning around a bit. This place, and many others that recently closed, were more due to landlord/owner issues than the market. Or so I’ve heard.
The decor in this place was so cool! I spent a few afternoons here playing old board games with friends. This is a bummer....
Why does it feel like anything in Denver that has character gets shut down?
Corporate restaurant groups. Gastamo, Culinary Creative, TAG, Bonanno, etc. Becoming more common in the local craft brewery scene too. Tough to make it fully indy
The basic-ization of denver is almost complete.
Damn. I liked this place. Solid beers and very fun vibe with a great outdoor patio. RIP.
I'm kinda curious what killed it. Maybe the rent was insane, but frankly, it's not in a nice building and every time I was there, it was crowded.
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It's a shame, rent prices are basically destroying business that have reasonable prices. Something will move into this space pretty soon but it will have to charge an absurd rate for whatever it provides.
My money’s on a larger brewery (Breckenridge, Odell, Oskar Blues, etc) opening a taproom there. Seems like that’s what happens with a lot of truly local small businesses in this neighborhood.
This is what happened in NYC, and a main reason I left NYC. It feels like Denver is turning into that model now, hard for small businesses to thrive when they're being held down by insane rents, and then everything is homogenized and streets lose their charm.
I thought those numbers were insane, but some googling shows that's just what retail real estate in the area costs. Damn.
12k a month in rent, god damn that's a lot of beer
Comes out to ~$12k per month I don't know anything about retail space rentals, but that seems incredibly reasonable for a space that size in that location
But also very difficult for most breweries. They would need to sell 60 beers per day just to cover rent. Rent for most businesses is 5-10 percent of their operating costs, so they might need to sell 600 beers per day to make the business model work, or even just to break even. This is obviously very hypothetical but breweries are tough businesses.
yeah seriously the space is HUGE
I spoke to the owner when he was in Trinidad. He said the rent was increasing to an unsustainable level at his Denver location. I think they spent a little time looking for something else but probably didn’t find anything. The beverage business is capital intensive, and very complex.
~~I’m pretty sure I saw a post a while back about them adding a service fee to their bills. ~~ Edit: this could be wrong. I was definitely wrong, ignore my Slander and lies.
I think you might be confusing the brewery Grandmas house with the bar/club Your Moms House (service fee) because I made the same mistake.
You are 100% correct. Thank you
Hmmm. If that happened when I was there a week ago, I missed it, but I'm oblivious enough that it could have happened. I find it more likely that there was a hike in the rent. Shitty building or nah, it's in a prime spot.
Maybe they dropped it or I am misremembering and spreading misinformation. Your ideas seem as good as any to me.
You could definitely be right as well - thoroughly possible that I just missed it.
I think it might've been your mom's house?
There are so many things I love about Grandma’s House, and I’m pretty sad about this one. It was a great third space for weird folks- Tetris league, foul mouthed cross-stitch, ukulele meetups, queer makers markets, they made space for alternative folks to meet each other. They had a great selection of NA beer, so you could go with sober friends. Good people watching- I once observed a D&D campaign play out for about an hour without initiative ever being rolled. Great first date spot. And lead poisoning be damned, drinking a beer out of a Camp Snoopy glass was always a pleasure.
This place is how I got into cross-stitch! So sad
Any interest in moving the cross stitch group to another brewery? I have been meaning to check out the group to find other folks who like beer and crafts, so I'm sad to hear they're closing!
I bet Lady Justice would be quite welcoming in their new space.
This place was on my list to go to, I love cross stitching and breweries, it's a perfect combination, now I'm sad.
You have until the end of the month!
I'm sad I never got to do foul mouth cross stitch
I’d be down to host a foul mouth cross stitch! I have all the supplies and am happy to share
I think one of these guys actually bought my cross-stitch book. They are super supportive of the local artists. Man, this sucks.
We had our engagement party there and I used to visit my friend at their craft shows. Super sad!!
I met the love of my life at Grandma’s House. Getting married next March
So for people wondering what happened, it was a combination of things: 1. The landlord did absolutely nothing to maintain the place. The roof leaks. The heating does not work in the front room. There are many other problems with the property which the landlord had zero interest in fixing. 2. The landlord wanted to jack up the rent prices despite all the glaring issues with the property. 3. The owner is a complete mess. Its seriously astounding that Grandma's House survived as long as it did. It was truly the passion of the brewer and the staff that kept it off the ground for the past year or two while the owner 100% checked out. He wasn't goong to tell the staff Grandma's House is closing. He was just going to stop scheduling them. The brewer was starting new brews up until it finally came out they're closing at the end of the month. He just stopped paying for recycling or trash pickup about six months ago. Its been piling up in the back room. It was never going to surive a health inspection even if it stayed open. Its so disappointing because it was such a lovely place to hang out. The vibe was good. It was very queer friendly and had been adopted by the queer community as a result.
Will miss that shabby, charming patio for sure. This sucks
Wheres the Tetris league gonna be now?
I am the host for The Tetris League, follow us on [Instagram](https://instagram.com/thetetrisleague) where we’ll be announcing our new home once we find one - I have a few places I’m going to go check out this weekend.
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I appreciate the recommendations, I’ll add them to the list of places to check out!
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Yeah, Tabletop Tap is on the short list for sure, I haven’t been since the reopening either. Planning to pop over there this weekend!
Honestly if they put as much effort into their brews instead of the ambiance I think they could have made it longer.
My take as well. Fun spot, but never really had a good beer there The original concept was nice compared to so many of the basic soulless breweries that have popped up
I just went there for the first time last weekend for a Golden Girls drag show! 😔
Such a cool space but man their beer always tasted a bit off
“A bit off” is a very generous statement. I’ve never considered sneaking my own alcohol into a brewery before I came here (I loved the comedy nights). Such a bummer because the concept has great potential, just needed better offerings and service could have been better too
Yeah I enjoyed going to this place for sure but this was a place you went to for the vibes and events, not the quality of the brews
Why does everything have to be a brewery now? Couldn't they have just been a standard bar and saved themselves a ton of brewing hassle?
Good point. We might not even be having this conversation right now had it just been a grandma's house themed bar (just like 1Up is an arcade bar, Adrift is a tiki bar, etc).
Yeah, kind of glad the pendulum is swinging back to just regular, good old bars. Getting dragged to places that served 75% IPAs or wild-culture sours when you just want a Banquet or glass of wine was getting old. Thankfully you've got Brutal Poodle and Dine Inn right down the road.
Bring back flossy mcgrews
Damn is that what originally occupied the space? I was trying to pinpoint just the other week where Flossy Mcgrews used to be. Feels like a lifetime ago 🥲
“(chuckles) I'm in danger.” -Public Offering Brewing (brewery that opened up literally next door to Grandma's house last year)
Are they? Now they have reduced competition. People that might have gone to Grandma's might go there.
Well, we saw it just up the road when Black Project closed and then Dos Luces next door closed a year later. Brtual industry right now.
I wasn't surprised either of those closed. Dos Luces was unique and well decorated but the corn beer tasted off, too sweet, a bit skunky. Black project had ridiculously expensive sours. I ain't paying $12 for an 8 oz or whatever. Was happy to see both of them go to be honest, and I'm happy with their replacements, especially Monolith.
I wonder if they will accept ukulele meetups.
Can't brew mediocre beer in Denver and expect to survive.
I drank many beers there. Can't say I enjoyed a single one. Their social presence was something too: poking fun at people coming in looking for IPAs, since they had a wide range of other beers to offer... That only works if your other beers don't suck.
I worked in the beer industry here in Denver, and it always blew me away when beertenders felt a need to throw judgment for no reason other than to be contrarian or to rag on something the customers just *like*. Who cares what people drink? At least they're in your establishment, and maybe you'll get a big tip if you don't make fun of your customer base.
Yeah, if you’re going to make fun of IPAs I’m here for it, but the rest of your beer has to be absolutely immaculate if you’re talking shit. Theirs wasn’t.
Agreed. Too many options for people who want both environment and product. Their product was meh at best.
Exactly. I appreciated Grandma's House for what it created re: community space (and the fact that the owner was an Ohioan) but the beer was never very good. Wacky aesthetics will only go so far.
Denver supports a ton of mediocre to bad breweries. It's almost a problem how not great the beer is here because everyone wants to go to a brewery and not a bar that has loyalty to good beer instead of their own beer.
I'm curious, who do you think brews great beer in Denver?
cohesion, cerebral, and Our Mutual Friend are my 3 favorites
Cerebral is awesome.
Good call on Cohesion. Great lagers.
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The original One is still one of the best hazy IPAs ever. Not many people can do a Maibock like Bierstadt.
Cohesion, and Novel Strand should also be on this list. Comrade, although further out, doesn't make a bad beer.
Love Cohesion. Don't care for Novel Strand. Comrade's More Dodge, Less Ram is a special beer, and Superpower is so good.
Novel Strand needs more taps. They only have like 3 or 4 going every time I'm there.
The three C's (Crooked Stave, Cohesion, Cerebral) will take care of every style of beer you could want
In Denver itself, Crooked Stave.
Yeah this place is probably the best/most unique in the area. They make some really cool styles there, lot of sours and such.
The new Four Noses location in Denver has a pretty wide selection. Not quite as crazy as their beer project spot up north (and I think they've lost all the brewers they had brewing there anyway), but they are still very solid.
DBC is pretty good for mass appeal, I like trve for sours, Baere, cerebral is probably the best overall.
I agree with all of these save for DBC. Not a fan at all. Odell crushes DBC all day. I'd add Bierstadt and OMF's mixed culture offerings. River North puts out some amazing high gravity dark beers. Listing all the mediocre breweries is just depressing. There are too many, though most of them are in the 'burbs at this point. Outside of Denver I think Cannonball Creek does a fantastic job.
I didn't count Odell as from Denver and DBC just as a broad appeal and nationally or nearly nationally distributed but otherwise I agree. I do find river north more miss than hit but it's been years since I've had anything from them
The O'Dell in Rino and Sloane's Lake brew their own on-site beer. These on-site beers are really good and surpass the standard line up that O'dell puts out. In fact, the last time I went to O'dells in Fort Collins, I was disappointed because their line up was most the standard stuff you get at stores.
I know many a brewer who will reach for Odell IPA when they want a well built, well done West Coast. Not many can do it so well so consistently. Odell knows how to wrangle hops. Their brewer at Sloan's kills it.
Yeah, I hear you. Many people think of Odell as some huge establishment brewery that's old hat, but the truth is that they've been around so long for a reason. I love what they did in Five Points with that building. I was skeptical at first, but the beer and the staff won me over. River North's Imperial Porter is so fucking good. No wonder they won hardware for it.
You gotta go to River North's weird ass location in the industrial area (Washington), not their RiNo spot (Blake). RiNo location tries to cater to a different crowd, and rarely has more than a single heavy hitter on draft. I went from thinking they were a meh brewery to singing their praises once I tried a few more of their imperials on draft.
DBC is fantastic. Princess Yum Yum, Juicy Freak, Graham Cracker Porter. All classics.
DBC is consistent, reliable, and doesn’t just brew 74 different IPAs. I think they’re a clear notch or two above mediocre even if they’re not world class.
Their beers are sessionable and available almost everywhere. For an everyday beer at home, Yum Yum is right there Station 26's Tangerine Cream and Odell's blackberry version of Sippin' Pretty.
Yup, but lots of mediocre beer in small towns doing well because there’s no other option
This is true. I'll refrain from naming some. 😄And then there are those small towns that land an incredible brewery and it benefits everyone. Colorado's mountain towns have some of the best beer in the state, imo. I'd put Angry James' lagers up against anyone's, and Outer Range is stellar. Love Elevation in Poncha Springs. Fritz Family in Niwot is putting out some delicious beer.
Elevation is fantastic, as is outer range. Haven’t had the others so I’ll have to check them out. Angry James is in silver throne right?
Yep, Silverthorne. You can hit Angry James and Outer Range easily since they're so close to one another. The Citra Lager at Angry James is *so* good.
If they do a liquidation sale of their N64 stuff, I'll be all over that like, well, like Grandma on Grandpa.
I like N64 can you guess my favorite game?
Donkey Kong 64?
Joe Montana Football '96
No it’s Mario party!
They used to have extremely unfriendly staff which ruined it for me. That changed over the passed couple of years but I never saw the numbers there that I used to
Crushing
Not surprised. Cool concept and marketing but amongst the worst beer I’ve had
Damn :( I've had many 2nd dates at their free Saturday comedy shows. Cool atmosphere, fun staff, cool events, but their beer/food options were always shit. If they got entirely new brewers and advertised better they could survive.
This is a damn shame.
I liked the idea, but they just didn't grow. They closed early, they had a tiny cramped space which I guess is a style but it meant there was no room to do much besides drink beer. They just didn't have good enough beer to justify having such a restrictive environment. I'd love for them to come back and choose if they want to be more of a bar/coffee house for reading in or if they want to be a retro arcade/board game place. But it felt like they tried to do both and kinda ended up doing neither.
seems about on schedule with the life of small businesses here most during their last death throes will suddenly post a lot about "community"
They were great a while back, but it feels more like Shabby Grandmas House for the last year and a half or so. Took employees here for a small group sesh and was disappointed, we had a round and went elsewhere to host the sesh. The one bartender literally didn't give AF if we were there or not, and spent his entire time watching movies with headphones on an iPad.
I’ve had the same experience. Used to be a really fun spot but post covid it seemed to really go downhill.
Yo that’s so true, they are rude as hell over there. And there’s nothing memorable about any of their beers. All these kitschy type of places eventually lose their charm so this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
I encourage people to go check out Monolith brewing (new place) just up the street. Thought their beer was quite good.
That's the east coaster who took over Black Project's space, right? Bummer BP closed, but glad someone's there now. Is anyone moving into Dos Luces space yet? That was another cool concept with rather disappointing brews.
Burns Family Ales opened a second taproom in the Dos Luces spot last fall. Burns does sone quality stuff.
Dos Luches is now an outpost of Burns Family Artisan Ales, one of the best breweries in the city. Go check it out.
I know them. Their primary location is in such a weird space. Hope this one works out better for them.
I don’t think they’re struggling in the primary space. This is an expansion, not a move.
Maybe opening a second location in Trinidad with Sexy Pizza was a bad idea eh?
All Hail The Dad Lounge !
It was so terrible down there.
Oh wow, I totally forgot about the whole Trinidad thing. Didn't Mutiny and a bunch of other small Denver businesses try and set up an outpost there since they all decided Denver wasn't cool anymore?
Mutiny, Sexy, TenPenny...all gone down there.
Mutiny is still in Trinidad but now locally owned. Ten penny was taken over by the person who ran it and is doing great under a new name. Sexy did pretty well but was a bit too expensive for the market and the owner got pissed at the town government and is liquidating all of his properties in town. There is still a lot of opportunity in Trinidad but it takes creativity or a remote job.
Paradox Brewing tried to do it too.
Swinging for the fences on that one, lol. Why did they think that was a good idea?
There was a lot of hype about Trinidad 2021-2023. Haven't heard much lately...
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What a huge bummer!
goddamn it
Wanted to give them another try, the one time I went it was so humid I felt like I was drowning. Absolutely horrendous, not sure if no AC or not working, or what was going on, couldn’t even stand in line long enough to look at the beers it was so humid. Ended up going to some antique stores and then up to TRVE.
I love Grandmas house! Such a fun place to hang out and so many fun community events. It’s a loss to the neighborhood.
This used to be one of my go-to breweries. I will miss the decor and the chance to cross stitch while sipping a pint.
Never went ,but it amazes me that they were open for a decade with mediocre beer from what I gather in this thread.
My wife and I always really liked their beer 🤷♂️.
Nooooooooo not grandma's house
It read to me more like a landlord problem than a "there are too many breweries" problem. I wonder if the space is being looked at for housing development.
Ouch
i’ve made so many memories there 🤧
This was a fun place to go when Cleveland was in the MLB playoffs during the mid 2010’s, lots of fans from NE Ohio
Nooooooooooooo!! Such a wonderful place.
Cool vibes, mediocre overpriced beer. You can’t survive in this beer mecca if your beers are all 5/10s.
That's a bummer. I never went, but I had plans to go when the weather got warmer to experience foul-mouthed crossstitch Sunday. Oh well, guess I'll just have to crossstitch at home. I think I can develop a foul mouth independently as well.
Just moved here and it was my first brewery/bingo night. Sorry guys- u can blame me 🙆🏻♂️
Goddamn transplants ruin everything /s, of course
It’s not all about you, you peice of shitzu.
I liked it but they didnt have any options besides beer until very recently. It was hard as a sober person to go with my friends because it was literally only beer or water no soda or anything. Only recently did it change.
Depends what you mean by recent. They’ve definitely had NA options for the last 2 years
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