We got another brewery.
"But we already have enough breweries," you're probably thinking, sitting at a brewery.
Well, this one is a little different.
Bruz Beers will serve Belgian brews in Twin Lakes, a small neighborhood that until now was without a brewery. The brewery just celebrated its soft open last weekend at 1675 W. 67th Ave., just off Pecos Street between I-76 and U.S. 36. (It's a Denver address but the area is technically unincorporated Adams County.)
At a private party preceding the soft open, co-owner and brewmaster Charlie Gottenkieny told Denverite that it took him and his business partner, Ryan Evans, three years to get to this point. In that time, the neighborhood has been rapidly growing around them so that the approximately 4,700-square-foot brewery is surrounded by homes.
"Brookfield Residential was the company that developed this. They did a lot of marketing research ... and they determined that this is the growth path north out of Denver," Gottenkieny said. "They did a lot of research before they decided to do this development and we tagged onto that."
Before they landed in Twin Lakes, Gottenkieny and Evans looked at the Denver Tech Center and RiNo, the latter of which had only a few available properties that were expensive both to lease and to reconfigured for their needs.
But Bruz Beers was in the making long before the duo signed a lease in 2013. Gottenkieny started home brewing while he was living in Dallas and continued to hone his craft when he moved to Colorado in 2009. When he met Evans, they found they shared a love for Belgian beer.
"He was a Belgian beer aficionado and I love Belgian beer," Gottenkieny said. "I was a sales training consultant by day, back in the day, and I was traveling to Belgium at least once a month and really love Belgian beer and spent a lot of time learning about it, you know, at the source. And we both had a passion for it and decided a Belgian brewery was the way to go."
On the Bruz menu right now are a Belgian-style witbier, tripel, IPA, amber, dubbel, saison and quadrupel. It's $2.50 for a 4-oz. taste, $5 for a glass and $10 for a flight of five.
At the 2016 Denver International Beer Competition on April 2-3, Bruz competed with breweries from 22 states and six countries to take home gold for the witbier and silver for the saison, a Belgian strong ale and a Belgian blonde ale.
"We're perfectionists," Gottenkieny said. "We really are quality focused. We spend more on ingredients than just about anybody around. We insist on the best. We do imported malts and hops, and it costs more. Our cost of goods for custom ingredients is quite high. It's not as profitable as some breweries get, but we feel it's important. You can taste the difference."
Bruz Beers will celebrate its grand opening July 8-10 with "festivities and activities," he said. For now, hours are 4-10 p.m. Friday, noon-10 p.m. Saturday and noon-8 p.m. Sunday.
