For many brewers, the keg-tapping bullish vibes that characterized much of the sector’s past couple of decades of growth have begun over the past few years to morph into the bearish drag of picking up empties and nursing the hangover that is industry contraction.
Recent closures include Sanitas Brewing Co., which closed its Boulder brewery and taprooms in Lafayette and Englewood Dec. 20, and Loveland’s Big Beaver Brewing Co., which closed in November.
“While full 2025 production numbers will not be finalized until the Beer Industry Production Survey in Q1 2026, scan data for Q3 2025 suggests a continued weakening in the back half of 2025,” according to the Year in Beer report. “As such, we may expect contraction slightly beyond that midyear figure for the full year of 2025.”
“What made the delta bigger between opening rate and closing rate was the significant decline in the rate of brewery openings,” said Matt Gacioch, staff economist for the Brewers Association. “They’re just there just aren’t nearly as many breweries that are kind of rising to fill you know that space in the market” created by the closures, which are occurring only slightly more frequently than in past years.
So has this equation become so out of whack? ”Like any business problem it’s a complex series of factors,” Gacioch said.
Beyond shifts in the broader financial atmosphere, the folks who control the purse strings could be more hesitant to fund new brewing ventures, Gacioch said, because “we might have reached the level of saturation in the market right now where lenders are just less likely to take at face value that a craft beer business is going to be automatically successful.”
“When we’re talking about tap rooms and brew pubs in particular, saturation can really come down to very localized geography and the demographics and the demand of a particular neighborhood,” he said. “Are there parts of the Front Range that have reached market saturation in terms of what consumers are willing to pay for? I think, ‘absolutely.’ Are there no opportunities to find a niche within the Front Range? I don’t think that’s the case, either.”
Part of the challenge brewers face in attracting new demand is the fact that younger consumers tend to go out less, and when they do, they’re often not drinking craft beer.
Jeffrey Green, co-owner of Very Nice Brewing Co., which lost its Nederland brewery to a fire on Oct. 8 but still has one in Gilpin County, built upon that theme during the roundtable discussion.
That shift has been very real for Davin Helden, owner of Liquid Mechanics Brewing Co. in Lafayette.
But trends tend to be cyclical.
The craft-beer industry, which BA estimates supports 443,000 jobs nationwide and contributes $72.5 billion to the United State’s economy, isn’t just shrinking in terms of volume and number of breweries in operation, it’s consolidating through mergers and acquisitions. Local players have been active in the M&A game.
“The kind of strategic consolidation that’s happening in Colorado is another example of sort of a new version of innovation within the craft space,” Gacioch said. “Craft brewers have always been innovators. A lot of times that’s meant evolving from a stout to an imperial stout to a peanut butter stout to a s’mores stout — innovations on the product side. What you’re seeing now — not just in Colorado, but this is particularly prevalent here — are innovations trying to make new business models work.”
Formed last year in a merger between Stem Ciders, Denver Beer Co. and Funkwerks, Wilding Brands is led by Colorado craft-beverage veterans Eric Foster, Brad Lincoln and Charlie Berger, who began his career on the bottling line at Great Divide Brewing Co. before founding Denver Beer Co.
With the Upslope acquisition, Wilding says it now expects to brew 80,000 barrels across its portfolio, which the company claims will make it Colorado’s second-largest independent craft producer.
Eric Wallace, Left Hand’s co-founder and CEO, told BizWest in April that Left Hand parent company Indian Peaks Brewing Co. will continue to seek out new partnerships in the form of both contract-brewing deals and acquisitions.
Left Hand Brewing Co. is located along Boston Avenue in Longmont. The Longmont-based craft brewer acquired Dry Dock Brewing Co. in 2025. (Courtesy Left Hand Brewing Co.)“By combining production facilities for Dry Dock and Left Hand, you can maximize capacity and some of those fixed costs you’re not paying for twice at two different facilities,” Gacioch said. “At Wilding, you also have those production efficiencies, but they’re also really focused on having the office and administrative work consolidated.”
Craft brewers are likely not alone among adult beverage-makers in feeling a bit uneasy heading into the new year.
So what could 2026 have in store for the craft scene?
However “there may be reason for cautious optimism in some areas. With interest rates expected to continue declining, the opportunity for measured expansion will become more viable,” the report said. “The Supreme Court may issue guidance shortly on the legality of certain tariffs, potentially reducing some of the ambiguity in procurement planning. Some consumer research also indicates that consumers are expecting to socialize more in the year ahead — always a good sign for craft beer.”
“Maybe it’s just the optimist in me, but beer is a beverage that has been around since the dawn of civilization,” he said. “ I feel like beer will find a way forward through this. It’ll always be some kind of a roller coaster, but it’s the business owners who get creative about finding ways to succeed in today’s environment that’ll be around into the future.”
This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2025 BizWest Media LLC.
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