In advance of Inauguration Day in 2017, two Denver brewers decided that they needed to take action in order to support the people (and places) who were most at risk of being persecuted under the new administration. So Bess Dougherty and Kelissa Hieber did what they do best: They brewed beer. They were joined by a host of like-minded breweries who all made beer that was sold in order to raise money for nonprofits and charities. The effort, called Makin Noise, raised more than $40,000 over the next few years.
Although Makin Noise is on hiatus now as a new administration comes to Washington, D.C., its spirit continues among the breweries that participated. One of those breweries was Lady Justice, which was founded with the goal of donating profits to groups that benefit Colorado women and girls. As a community-service brewery, Lady Justice sells annual memberships, with the proceeds going to a charity at the end of the year.
It sounds crazy, but for most of the last 85 years, it was illegal in Colorado for breweries to sell low-alcohol beers to bars, restaurants or liquor stores. Anything under 4.0 percent ABV (or 3.2 percent alcohol by weight) was reserved strictly for grocery and convenience stores.
From the end of Prohibition until just two years ago, 3.2 beer was the only kind of booze the big supermarket and convenience chains could sell in Colorado, so the law protected them against competition. In addition to the macro-brewer brands like Coors Light and Bud Light, a few craft breweries distributed 3.2 beer here as well. But the rules changed on January 1, 2019, when the state legislature finally acquiesced and allowed supermarkets and convenience stores to add full-strength ales and lagers to their shelves and 3.2 beers faded into the history books, along with Prohibition and pull-tops.
Dec 24, 2020, 6:00 am 4.9K Shares
These are the colorful cans of Bootstrap Brewery’s new non-alcoholic IPA beer called Strapless at Bootstrap Brewery on Dec. 7, 2020 in Longmont. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
On a sunny December morning in Longmont, Mike Kasian hooked up a keg of beer to a tall, shiny metal machine covered with sensors, tubes and dials.
As Bootstrap Brewing‘s canning machine whirred away in the background and staff members loaded six-packs of beer onto pallets, Kasian fiddled with a few of the machine’s valves and levers, then tapped on its touchscreen for a few seconds.
Wednesday, December 23
Dos Luces Brewery, 1236 South Broadway, is serving a takeout beer dinner in conjunction with Four Directions Cuisine on Wednesday, December 23. The entirely gluten-free grub can also be made vegan and includes three courses: a winter squash salad; quinoa bibimbop bowl of greens, quinoa, squash, heirloom corn and beans and a pickled egg with salsa verde; and thumbprint cookies. Each course comes with a bottle of chica, pulque and hard agua fresca for $40; you can add on a bottle of aged imperial chicha with pomegranate for an additional $20. Order on the Dos Luces website by Monday, December 21, and pick up your meal on December 23, between 4 and 6 p.m.