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How Colorado's breweries managed during the pandemic

A Brewers Association survey at the beginning of the pandemic found 63.2% of craft breweries in our state feared they would not last more than three months.

DENVER — The beer industry in Colorado accounts for about 17,000 jobs in our state.

That’s thousands of people who had their lives turned upside down and their livelihoods threatened when COVID-19 brought operations to a standstill.

“I would say, in our 11 years, that was the hardest two months of running Denver Beer Company,” said Patrick Crawford, co-founder of Denver Beer Company.

Today, after a decade in business, Crawford and his company have a lot to celebrate.

“We’re still moving forward with opening a tap room in the Lowry neighborhood,” said Crawford. "We’re still pursuing new opportunities."

Opportunities that were nearly sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was terrifying for sure,” said Crawford. “The beginning of the pandemic, those were some stressful, sleepless nights. Honestly, there were moments when we were thinking that everything we had been working on for the last eight years was going to just evaporate.”

Denver Beer Company

Crawford wasn’t alone.

A Brewers Association survey at the beginning of the pandemic found 63.2% of craft breweries in our state feared they would not last more than three months.

“I think in 2020, brewers were afraid primarily just demand, where are people going to be able to buy their beer and could they buy their beer?” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association. “Amazingly, we saw remarkably few closures during the pandemic.”

RELATED: Great American Beer Festival founder reflects on its beginnings

Watson believes the fears for brewers now are more hold-overs business fears from the pandemic in the form of material shortages and supply chain issues.

“We couldn’t get cans,” said Crawford. “We've had to scramble. We've had to buy cans from Canada. We've had to buy a bunch of tractor trailers to store materials.”

Crawford says these challenges have increased their cost to do business and Denver Beer Company had to make some adjustments to compensate.

“We did a solid price increase at the beginning of this year,” he said. “That got us up to where we can do business now in this new environment.”

Credit: 9NEWS

Crawford says he feels lucky they’ve been able to maintain a healthy business and proud they maintained staff levels through the pandemic.

“We didn't lay anyone off due to lack of things to sell,” he said. “Our team was great. They shifted towards selling crowlers out of our tap rooms and six packs out of our tap rooms instead of draft beer.”

Now, as Colorado moves away from the pandemic, Crawford says he and the team at Denver Beer Company will keep moving forward.

“It's really fun to walk into this brewery every day and try to figure out the challenges,” he said.

Denver Beer Co will bring 10 beers for people to taste at this year’s GABF, which begins Thursday, Oct. 6 at the Colorado Convention Center.

RELATED: A look at GABF by the numbers

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