E-Malt.com News article: USA, CO: Verboten Brewing opens in Loveland

Two brewing partners are launching their own effort to help make Northern Colorado a craft beer drinker's destination, reporterherald.com reported on January, 10.

On January, 11, their nanobrewery, Verboten Brewing, will open in east-central Loveland.

Fort Collins residents Josh Grenz and Joe Akers have been home-brewing together for three years. They and their wives, Angie Grenz and Keri Akers, decided a little over a year ago to take the plunge and turn the hobby into a business.

"We wanted to start out small just to keep it simple," said Josh Grenz.

With their three-barrel-size kettle, each batch must be mashed and boiled in two parts to fill a six-barrel fermentation tank. A barrel equals two kegs, and each keg holds 151/2 gallons of beer.

Such a small setup allows the men to experiment with different beers, they said. "It helps us rotate our beers more often," Akers said.

They plan to keep rotating their beers, rather than keeping any standard "house beers" on tap. They will open with a Caramel Porter, an American India Pale Ale, a Lemongrass Wit, an Orange Blossom Honey Wheat and a Rum Barrel-aged Stout.

They developed all the recipes while still home-brewing. "We have 20 to 25 different recipes in our repertoire," Grenz said, and some of the creations won medals in home-brew competitions.

"These are the kinds of beers we enjoy the most," Akers said.

When discussing the process of opening a brewery, Akers and Grenz mentioned the assistance they received from half a dozen other craft breweries in Loveland, Berthoud and Fort Collins.

"All the breweries help out," Grenz said. "It's just a real cool community."

Rather than fearing the competition, the other Northern Colorado brewers take a "more the merrier" approach. "It's a hotspot, the place to go," Grenz said.

"We're doing different beers," Grenz added. "You don't need to compete with each other and sell the same stuff. You can find your own niche."

Verboten's niche is specialty beers with fruit and spice flavors, higher-alcohol brews and beer aged in liquor barrels, including oak barrels from Dancing Pines Distillery across the street. Eventually, the partners want to make some "real ales."


11 January, 2013