Bright sunlight blasts through the garage door window on an early Thursday morning at Peculier Ales in Windsor. The brew tank whirs to life as head brewer KC Lyons starts heating it up. It鈥檚 time to start making some beer, and today, Lyons and the other brewers are getting help from some newbies.
鈥淐ome on up, Isayah!鈥� Lyons shouts. 鈥淟et鈥檚 get you in here.鈥�
Colorado State University senior Isayah Lang steps up to the tank platform to make a new, signature beer. He starts by pouring the big buckets of grain one by one into the tank 鈥� in total, more than 460 pounds.
鈥淣ot so bad,鈥� Lang said, smiling.
The 26-year-old is studying . Lang鈥檚 there for a class assignment called the Iron Brew. It鈥檚 a year-end competition that challenges small groups to make a beer from scratch using a secret ingredient grown in Larimer County.
Lang鈥檚 group is brewing a Hefeweizen called 鈥淗ive Mind鈥� that combines wheat and some rye, along with pear and their secret ingredient 鈥� seasonal honey.
鈥淚t should be a very nice, like, patio sipper,鈥� Lang said. 鈥淲e're hoping for a little bit sweeter of a profile with the yeast character from the Hefeweizen, little bit of rye to add a bit of spiciness, pairing well with the pear flavor and then the honey just kind of sweetening it all up.鈥�
Lang loves working with his hands, and this assignment is just that.
Jeff Biegert teaches brewing science classes through a sponsored position from his employer, New Belgium Brewing Company. He created the Iron Brew competition three years ago. His goal is to make learning interactive.
鈥淗ands on really brings the book science into reality,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 find so many students really start to get everything when they start handling the grain, milling the grain鈥nd all that.鈥�
Biegert said his favorite part of the class is watching students make something they鈥檙e proud of and do something they have never done before.
鈥淚 love to see the look on their faces when they make their first batches of beer, and they think it's gonna suck, but then they try it and they're like, 鈥楬oly cow, this is, like, a really good beer,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淚'm like, 鈥榊eah, this beer that you just made could stand up with any other beer in town.鈥欌��
Lang used to work in the automotive industry, but he said the job was boring and monotonous. He wanted to do something different, but he didn鈥檛 know what.
Then Lang visited Annex Ales brewery while on vacation in Canada in 2019. He tried an oatmeal stout for the first time that he called, 鈥渁wesome.鈥� As Lang savored the stout, he could see the beerhouse through a gigantic glass window. He had a new dream.
鈥淚鈥檓 like, 鈥楾hat looks cool! How do I do that?鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淚 could do that for the rest of my life and be happy to show up every day. It's physical, it's creative, and it makes you think about things too.鈥�
Lang wanted to learn more about the engineering side of brewing, like how to fix efficiency and taste issues. So he decided to make a career change and go back to school at CSU. It鈥檚 a great place to learn, as Fort Collins . There鈥檚 practically .
鈥淓veryone loves the environment of Fort Collins and the jobs here, and they just don't want to leave,鈥� he said.
Lang鈥檚 passionate about the industry, but said finding a job was hard for him in this climate. The Brewers Association last year, there were more brewery closures than openings. Besides the pandemic, this hasn鈥檛 happened for decades 鈥� since 2005.
鈥淎s someone who's trying to enter the workforce, (it) kind of sucks,鈥� Lang said.
For the jobs that do exist, Brewers Association experts say they鈥檙e competitive and hard to come by. It鈥檚 even harder to find them in rural areas. They鈥檙e mostly on the hospitality side, not production.
Biegert is more optimistic about job prospects for students, saying they are going out with 鈥渢ons of opportunities.鈥� He states that 95% of students in the Fermentation and Food Science program are placed in a job out of college, but did not say what percentage of those jobs were brewery-focused. He also declined to comment on the current state of the industry or what he tells his students about it.
The industry isn't what it once was
Jobs are not the only industry issue recent graduates are facing. Nationwide, craft beer production last year dropped roughly 4% from . That鈥檚 300,000 fewer barrels of craft beer.
This has caused many local favorites to , like and in Boulder.
Others are trying to get creative. Left Hand Brewing Company that it鈥檚 merging with Dry Dock Brewing Company to collaborate and share resources. Great Divide Brewing Company was last month, which is already a conglomerate that includes companies like Denver Beer Co. and Stem Ciders.
鈥淭hese are signs of a maturing industry,鈥� said Matt Gacioch, staff economist at the Brewers Association. 鈥淗aving a leveling out is what we would expect. No industry can grow at that rate forever.鈥�
Supply caught up with demand after the 2010 boom years, he said. Then the pandemic hit, and the cost of labor, ingredients and packaging have only gone up since. Additionally, people will only pay so much for a beer.
鈥淚f prices of the finished product haven't been able to increase, then that just means that business owners are squeezed with increasing costs of doing business,鈥� Gacioch said.
Additionally, consumer habits have changed. For example, Gen Z is than previous generations. They say the flavor of beer isn鈥檛 for them, it鈥檚 something their parents would drink. So breweries are trying to reinvent themselves with seltzers and non-alcoholic beers. But now, there鈥檚 too much choice.
鈥淭his is a totally different beverage alcohol landscape than where we were even five years ago, but certainly 10 or 15 years ago,鈥� Gacioch said. 鈥淭hat comes with its challenges for the brewing community to try to make their products stand out on a busy retail shelf, or competing for getting folks in the door to have their products at their taproom or brew pub.鈥�
Gacioch said breweries need to find a niche in the market to entice new drinkers, as they will drive the success in the industry.
Brewing up the industry's future
Industry innovation is something Steven Johnson has been thinking about a lot. He鈥檚 also CSU鈥檚 Fermentation and Food Science program. Johnson had worked in several hard labor jobs, from manufacturing to working in the oil fields. But he wanted a change, and got hooked on making beer after doing some home brewing with his wife鈥檚 friends in the .
鈥�(I first made) a churro stout, and it was no good. We ended up dumping it,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it didn't matter, like, just doing it was fun.鈥�
Johnson鈥檚 team is working with New Belgium Brewing Company on a beer called 鈥淭he Blushing Duchess.鈥� It鈥檚 a strawberry vanilla cream beer that uses Noosa Yoghurt as the secret ingredient.
"(That is) the first time I ever saw real live yogurt thrown into the mash mixer," Biegert, the CSU program professor, said. "Disgusting and inspiring."
His dream is to one day open an event venue for weddings and parties that has a brewery connected to it. But he doesn鈥檛 think Fort Collins is the place for it.
鈥淚t's really hard for startups, for sure, it's (a) really hard market to break into, very saturated,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 might find a brewery here and I'm like, 鈥業'm gonna go there every day,鈥� and then six months later, (it) closes.鈥�
Johnson thinks there鈥檚 more potential in North Texas, where he鈥檚 from. Right now, he said, people there will go to a bar after work, drink a few and then go home. He wants to share Colorado鈥檚 culture of hanging out at the patio, playing cornhole and meeting up with friends for hours. He鈥檚 still unsure what all the details will look like. But he鈥檚 not worried 鈥� only passionate.
鈥淚t sucks that the industry is on a downturn. There's a million different factors. It's always changing,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here's nothing really you can do about that, just as long as you go out there and you enjoy what you do and you make something that people love.鈥�
A few weeks after brewing, hundreds of people gathered at CSU to taste the students鈥� creations.
Kaden Arrastia, a senior at CSU, took a liking to the Hive Mind beer Lang's team made.
"You can definitely taste the honey, it's definitely on the sweeter side," he said. "I really like that one, though, I like rye beers. So that's definitely solid for me."
Anthea Gower, a fifth-year student at the university, doesn't drink beer much, but she really liked New Belgium's beer made by Johnson's team.
"That one's currently one of my favorites, The Blushing Duchess was delicious," she said. "They really went hard with that one."
Johnson鈥檚 team took home the gold, while Lang鈥檚 team was able to score an honorable mention.
This is good prep for Lang鈥檚 future. He recently accepted a job with Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis this summer. It鈥檚 a six-month position in their research pilot brewery. He鈥檚 nervous about what comes after that, but for now, he鈥檚 excited to take the challenges of the struggling industry head-on.
鈥淚 think that's what's great about the degree, too, is it's like, 鈥楬ey, how do we reverse this?鈥欌�� he said. 鈥溾�楬ow do we make this better?鈥� Or 鈥楬ow do we improve upon it?鈥� And that's the fun part.鈥�
The students鈥� signature beers will be sold on CSU鈥檚 campus along with several local breweries while supplies last.
This story is part of a collaboration with Rocky Mountain PBS.
