No need for an
inferiority complex A brief history of Longmont brewing
H
ome to 11 operating breweries — including one with roots in Lyons, and another stretching down to Niwot — and a dozen-plus dedicated tap houses, Longmont is beer country. And yet, it’s Fort Collins, 30 miles north, that English beer scribe Michael Jackson dubbed, “the Napa Valley of beer.” And it’s Boulder, 22 miles southwest, that boasts the headquarters of the Brewers Association, the American Homebrewers Association and Brewers Publication; the birth of the Great American Beer Festival; and the first post-Prohibition craft brewery in the state. Sort of: That brewery, the Boulder Brewing Company, may have been conceived by a couple of CU-Boulder engineers, but when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms issued the permit, the address read: 15555 N. 83rd St., Longmont, Colo. 80501. That’s right, the beginning of Colorado’s craft beer revolution began in Longmont. Boulder Brewing moved south to its namesake in 1984. It would be another decade before Longmont started producing beer again, but one brewery would give way to many. And, by 2011, two of those would be among the most influential in the entire craft beer movement.
‘NOW IS THE TIME.’
Like most brewing communities, Longmont’s beer scene was initially conceived overseas before taking root in American soil. Eric Wallace and Dick Doore were the first to plant in the town of 51,000. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Wallace was the son of an Air Force officer and grew up all over the world, notably going to high school in Germany before returning to the States, “confused and flabbergasted that the wealthiest country on Earth had such a monochromatic view of the beer world.” Following in his father’s footsteps, Wallace joined the Air Force Academy, then tech school, and spent
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COURTESY LEFT HAND BREWING CO.
by Michael J. Casey the remainder of the 1980s overseas. It was at the Academy, in ‘82, that he crossed paths with Doore: born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, raised in a rural New Hampshire farm town. Life overseas — in Germany, Italy, Turkey and England — contributed significantly to their sense of beer-drinking culture. When the two returned to the States in the early ‘90s, they settled in Niwot and decided to partner. Wallace was invigorated by a recent cross-country trip of every major craft brewery at that time — “All the way to Homer, Alaska, and back.” — and Doore had been homebrewing since his brother gave him a homebrew kit in ‘90. Enthusiasm collided with experience. “Dude, what are we going to do?” Wallace recounts. “This beer thing is going to happen. Now is the time. It is the time.” According to Doore, the first beer they brewed together was a stout. “We brewed it once. And started drinking that first batch,” Doore told Theresa McCulla, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution. “I think by the end of that evening, we had decided to start a brewery.”
INSIDER ’20
They began visiting every brewery they could drive to, talk to any brewer who would give them time, and broke down any beer they could drink for inspiration. They also needed a place to brew, and a 5,300-square-foot former meatpacking plant on Boston Avenue proved to be ideal — even if the previous owner lost his right arm in a sausage grinder. Oddly enough, that’s not where Left Hand got its name. Wallace and Doore originally wanted to call their brewery Indian Peak Brewing Company, but there was a naming conflict. Instead, they looked to their home of Niwot — the Southern Arapaho word for “left hand” — and drew inspiration there. Wallace and Doore incorporated Left Hand in September 1993, started building out the brewery in October, and brewed their first batch of beer, Sawtooth Amber Ale, on Jan. 2, 1994. That same year, Sawtooth netted the two a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival. • • • • Wallace and Doore were far from the only ones who thought opening a brewery in the ‘90s was a good idea. At a nearby aerospace company, Craig Taylor was trying to recruit Dennis Coombs to do the same thing. Like most professional brewers, Taylor was a homebrewer tipsy on his tipple and saw a future in it. Coombs was game, as was Dave D’Epagnier, who overheard Taylor and Coombs talking shop. He, too, was a homebrewer and wanted in. Soon Tom Charles was on board, and the foursome had momentum. “We just jumped into it,” Taylor told author Dan Rabin. Located on the northeast corner of Main Street and Sixth Avenue, Pumphouse Brewery resides in the “William Lugg Building,” named after a prominent Longmont businessman from the early 1900s. The building had been host to a wide array of businesses — from wood and coal storage to a roller rink — but never a fire station. That didn’t matter to Taylor and company; you need a theme to stand out, and a firehouse theme was as good as any. The four had the passion and a location; they just needed direction. Enter Ross Hagen, who brought brewpub experience. The quintet was set, and May 1,
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BOULDER WEEKLY
