The award-winning Melvin Brewing is looking expand into Denver sometime next year and has locked in on a property near downtown, a spokesman for the brewer said Wednesday.
Melvin is considering expanding to an empty warehouse on the 1200 block of Delaware Street, about 1,000 feet southwest of the Denver Art Museum. But the Jackson, Wyoming-based craft brewer is not sure the property will ultimately support the infrastructure needs of housing a brewery, the spokesman said.
The building at 1235 Delaware St. is owned by Jim and Janet Rivas and formerly housed their mold abatement company Mac-Bestos Inc. The Rivases could not immediately be reached Wednesday. Melvin is not currently under contract to buy or lease the property, the brewers' spokesman said.
Melvin held a party in the building Friday during the second night of the Great American Beer Festival complete with acrobatics, a hip-hop dance crew and a man walking on stilts. But the brewer didn't make any announcement about occupying the nearly 19,000-square-foot space. Instead, the company's spokesman Eric Henderson said the brewer's Denver project was "on hold."
Henderson said Melvin is looking into whether the warehouse will ultimately work and that no other locations are currently being considered.
Jeremy Tofte and Kirk McHale opened Melvin Brewing in Wyoming in the back of a Thai restaurant on a 20-gallon system in 2010. In 2015, Melvin was named "Small Brewpub of the Year" at the Great American Beer Festival. And today the company has two taprooms in Wyoming, as well as one in Washington and a 30-barrel system, according to its website.
In 2016, Melvin was the second-largest craft brewer in Wyoming behind Black Tooth Brewing Co., according to the Brewers Association.
"Given their growth rate, Melvin might be the largest Wyoming brewery by production in 2017, but we won’t know that until our annual survey is finished," said Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the association.
"For 2016 we have 7,896 reported barrels for Melvin," Herz said.
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Business & data reporter Adrian D. Garcia can be reached via email at [email protected] or twitter.com/adriandgarcia.
