They say that when one door closes, another opens. But in this case, it’s the same door.
Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery, which closed last month after 11 years in downtown Denver, has sold its brewing equipment and other assets to two longtime local beer makers who plan to reopen the space next February as Full Frame Beer. One of the new owners, Alyssa Hoberer, also happens to be Jagged Mountain’s former head brewer.
“It’s exciting and it’s stressful. But we are ready,” Hoberer said. “It’s nice to step into an ownership role and to do something that could make it better and to help it make more money.”
Hoberer and co-founder Jacob Kemple, who is a lead brewer at Our Mutual Friend Brewing in the River North Art District, plan to take the next few months – while they wait for their liquor license to transfer – to paint and update the space, at 1139 20th St.
“It has that old-man vibe – that mountain brewery feels that everyone did 10 years ago,” Kemple said about Jagged Mountain’s interior. “That kind of fell out of fashion.” In keeping with the Full Frame name, they plan to add a photo booth and some old cameras and other decorations.
Hoberer said they also want to add to and improve their signage. “There are people who have lived around here for years who had no idea Jagged Mountain was there.”
Once they have their license, the pair will begin brewing their own recipes – IPAs and lagers in particular, Kemple said. “Beers we know and are good at.”
Eventually, they hope to get a brewpub license so that they can serve food, along with cocktails, wine, cider and mead – “which is necessary to have in beer right now, something for everyone,” Kemple said. They’ll also restore the in-house coffee shop that Jagged Mountain had run.
To make it all work, Hoberer and Kemple are hoping to raise $500,000 by way of a crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder. They have already raised $70,300 of that while trying to land a lease at 1308 E. 17th Ave., in the space that Alpine Dog Brewing, until it closed in March, and the Denver Bicycle Cafe before that. That location didn’t work out.
Small breweries in Colorado have been struggling since the pandemic, and several have closed recently, including 14er Brewing, which ends its eight-year run in RiNo on Saturday. Hoberer and Kemple are highly aware of that, but they feel they can avoid some of the pitfalls by fully ingraining themselves in the industry by collaborating with other breweries, improving their marketing and merchandising and with the addition of other beverages down the road.
“When people are at one brewery and they ask where they should go next, I want one of the answers to be us,” Kemple said. “There are lots of ways to become part of the community, to get your name out there, and we see a lot of other breweries failing at that.”
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