I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, a South Denver suburb with a lot of shopping malls and elementary schools. It’s a place fondly referred to as Littlefun. Now that Breckenridge Brewery is building an 85,000-square-foot, $35 million brewery and farm-to-table restaurant on twelve of Littleton’s acres, though, my hometown might need a new nickname.
Breckenridge Brewery, which started as a small pub in Breckenridge, Colorado, in 1990, has expanded to Denver and created a 35-state distribution footprint. The current Breckenridge Brewery in Denver brewery on Kalamath Street has hit maximum capacity, operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet demand.
I toured the new digs in September, when I watched the thirteenth of sixteen 400-barrel fermentation tanks get dropped into the facility. Here are more numbers on the new digs.
The Brewery
The new Breckenridge brewhouse is a 100-barrel Steineker brewhouse. It will be put to use by May 2015, and all of Breckenridge’s brewing operations will move to the Littleton site by June 2015.
The initial capacity of the new brewhouse is 150,000 barrels per year, and that will be expandable to about 300,000 barrels per year before any additional structures need to be built.
Breckenridge 02The brewery includes sixteen 400-barrel fermentation tanks and four 400-barrel brite tanks. “The currently visible steel beams that lay the map for what this new brewery will look like, will soon be covered with rustic barn-style walls and roofing,” said a Breckenridge press release.
Included in the brewery plan is a small, pilot brewery. It’s size is yet to be determined. “We have a 10-barrel brewhouse for experimental beers right now, and we want to gradually tweak the recipes to move to the 100-barrel brewhouse,” says Breckenridge Brewery representative Todd Thibault.
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Also included in the brewery plan is a 2,000 square-foot barrel cellar room that will pave the way for an expanded barrel-aged program.
Two acres of the 12-acre plot of land will be a dedicated hop field that will be irrigated with reclaimed water from the brewery. Bring on the fresh-hopped beers!
Breckenridge is paving a bike trail through the open space on its property to the nearby Platte River Trail, which sees more than 2 million bikers every year.
The Restaurant
The Farmhouse Restaurant is named as a nod to the history of the new Breckenridge property (formerly Silver Sage Tree Nursery) and the farming heritage in Littleton.
The 9,000 square-foot restaurant and beer garden will seat 300 people and feature eighteen beer taps. The Farmhouse is slated to open in April 2015.
Next year, Breckenridge Brewery will celebrate its silver anniversary, and plans are already in place for its annual birthday Hootenanny. Save the date for Breck’s 25th Birthday at the Farmhouse Brewery on Saturday, July 11 2015.