Great Divide Brewing Company Plans Large Production Facility and Tap Room in RiNo

Brighton Boulevard is getting a new major attraction and tenant: Great Divide Brewing Company, the nineteen year old locally-owned brewery currently located in the Ballpark neighborhood.

To keep up with demand and allow the business to expand, owner Brian Dunn is planning a large brewing facility that will also include a tap room and some form of food service in the RiNo neighborhood. The Ballpark location will continue to operate and, the word is, will feature smaller and more special batches of the suds produced by Great Divide.

The timeline for this new construction is winter of 2015 and Great Divide is pursuing some city financing to make the project happen. A request for a $1 million is pending with the City of Denver for the purchase of the four lots on which the brewery would go. Those lots are currently occupied by light industrial and automotive uses.

The documents submitted by Great Divide to the City of Denver indicated that the facility planned for Brighton Boulevard would create new jobs and bring Great Divide's brewing capacity from 60,000 barrels of beer per year to 100,000 barrels right away with up to 250,000 barrels over fifteen years.

RiNo is not at all lacking in breweries, already being home to beer-making businesses and tap rooms like Black Shirt Brewing, River North Brewery, and Our Mutual Friend, but Great Divide would certainly be a welcome addition. Breweries aside, the neighborhood is home to acclaimed restaurants like the Populist, named among 8 Best New Restaurants by 5280 Magazine this year, and Fuel Cafe, a restaurant that has been on the 5280 Magazine Best Restaurant list for several years. In the next year, Brighton Boulevard is likely to get three additional restaurants in the Industry Denver project located at 29th street. No word on what those restaurants will be quite yet.
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