From H.C. Berger to Red Truck Beer: The story of Fort Collins Brewery

Jacob Laxen | The Coloradoan

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Inside the vacant main restaurant at Fort Collins Brewery, Jim Dodds proudly points out the features planned for the incoming Red Truck Beer Co. brewpub.

There will be an indoor music stage, remodeled patio and a truck stop-style diner, among other changes coming to the 1020 E. Lincoln Ave. building that’s expected to reopen in 2018.

The vision is to duplicate the 50-employee Red Truck brewpub that operates in Vancouver and uses the same exact brewing equipment already installed at Fort Collins Brewery.

“We want to bring another aspect to the brewing scene here,” said Dodds, Red Truck’s general manager.

“We’ve had good success where we are at. Now we would like to do it in the U.S.”

Red Truck will take possession of the building and equipment on Aug. 1. The transition starts a new chapter in the lengthy history of Fort Collins Brewery — which emerged from the state-seized H.C. Berger Brewery. Over the years, there have been multiple owners and beer styles, and varying degrees of success.

Fort Collins Brewery is finishing its days in business cooped up in a smaller taproom in the northeast corner of the 29,000 square-foot building. The brewery closed the restaurant at the start of the year. The 14-year-old brand will phase out in July.

The Fort Collins Brewery staff is left looking for new employment.

“Unfortunately the industry is growing faster than the customer base is right now,” said Tina Peters, whose family has owned Fort Collins Brewery since 2004.

“It’s been an emotional, sad time for us.”

Peters said Fort Collins Brewery initially looked for investors to retool the business, a process that began about eight months ago. The family ultimately decided to sell after discussions with numerous local and national breweries.

Red Truck will join about 20 other Fort Collins breweries, including physical neighbors Odell Brewing and Snowbank Brewing.

“We obviously looked at other (cities),” Dodds said. “But we wanted to be part of what’s going on here.

“The lifestyle here fits our brand. It feels like home.”

H.C. Berger Brewing is born

The start of what would become Fort Collins Brewery dates back to the 1980s — that’s when Sandy Jones joined a Fort Collins homebrew club that also included the eventual founders of Odell Brewing and New Belgium Brewing.

Shortly after Odell and New Belgium launched, Jones opened H.C. Berger Brewing in 1992 — named after his grandfather. The 1900 E. Lincoln Ave. brewery houses Funkwerks today.

“I was going through a little bit of a mid-life crisis at the time,” Jones said. “Here was a chance to take my hobby and turn it into a business. It seemed more fun than putting a suit on and going to work every day in an office.”

Jones' plan was to produce bottled six-packs, since at the time Odell focused on producing keg beers and New Belgium just produced 22-ounce bottles.

H.C. Berger found success with Chocolate Stout and Red Banshee — beers that would later be revived by Fort Collins Brewery.

The brewery approached 10,000 barrels produced by 1996. H.C. Berger began distributing to other states. The brewery expanded four times in its first three years in business.

“We were at a crossroads,” Jones said. “We had tanks upon tanks, and employees upon employees. We had to do something next.”

After exploring building a new brewery site, Jones instead sold the brewery in 1996 to brothers Peter and Robert Davidoff.

The brewery was later seized by the state from the Davidoffs in 2002 after racking up $78,000 in unpaid taxes.

The H.C. Berger Brewing equipment was auctioned to brewery and dairy owners for a total of $102,070 — an event Odell Brewing’s Corkie Odell said at the time felt “like a brewery funeral.”

Jones went to the auction, too. And it inspired him to take one more crack at the brewing industry.

Fort Collins Brewery emerges

In 2003, Jones returned to an empty 1900 E. Lincoln Ave. brewery.

While the space was familiar, Jones had new German brewing equipment and a new name — Fort Collins Brewery was chosen to take advantage of the town’s budding beer reputation.

Fort Collins Brewery launched making exclusively lager-style beers. Doktor Lager, Edgar Lager and Z Lager were among the first beers produced.

“At the time everyone was starting to do IPAs,” Jones said. “I wanted to go in a different direction.”

Sales didn’t take off as expected. The brewery was sold in 2004 to Fort Collins entrepreneurs Tom and Jan Peters. Jones stayed on as a brewing consultant for a few years, while Fort Collins Brewery co-founders Dave and Jan Scott led the business.

“The appeal was having a product and getting it out to customers,” said Tina Peters, Tom and Jan’s daughter.

After the Peters' acquisition, Fort Collins Brewery added ales to its portfolio. The returning chocolate stout beer was the brewery's first ale release and will finish as the brewery’s all-time best seller.

Fort Collins Brewery debuted its current 1020 E. Lincoln Ave facility in 2010. The newly-built space tripled the operation’s brewing capacity and added a full-service restaurant.

“We saw a culture shift happening in tasting rooms at the time,” Tina Peters said. “Offering food or having food trucks really started to emerge. Brewpubs as we know it were really starting to develop.”

Fort Collins Brewery ran two different restaurant concepts in the space over time — Gravity 1020 and Modern Tavern, with the latter closing at the start of this year. Fort Collins Brewery had announced plans for a new fast casual burger joint before the sale.

Fort Collins Brewery also aggressively pursued national distribution. The brewery reached more than 20 states and even beat New Belgium and Odell to a few eastern markets.

At one time, about 70 percent of the beer made by Fort Collins Brewery was shipped out of Colorado.

“As people got their own local breweries in their own hometowns, (national distribution) started to be more of a hurdle for us,” Tina Peters said. “People thought of us as a much larger brewery than we actually were.”

Fort Collins Brewery pulled back from other markets in recent years. Last year, the brewery produced about 10,000 barrels — a fifth of its production capabilities.

Red Truck drives new direction

Red Truck Beer launched in 2005 and was named after founder Mark James’ 1946 red Dodge pickup.

The brewery has grown and in 2015 opened a 34,000 square-foot brewpub facility in Vancouver. The space hosts indoor and outdoor concerts, and is a popular biking destination — Fort Collins’ similar biking culture was a big draw to the brewery.

Red Truck currently produces about 20,000 barrels a year and distributes to British Columbia, Alberta and the state of Washington.

“The Canadian craft beer scene is still a few years behind America,” said Red Truck head brewer Justin Vickaryous. “But we are getting there.”

Red Truck specializes in lighter session beers. Red Truck Ale, Red Truck Lager and Red Truck IPA are the brewery’s flagship brands that will be made with the same recipes in Fort Collins.

The brewery also experiments with seasonal releases.

“When you finish our beer, we hope you are begging for another,” Dodds said. “We have very easy-drinking beers.”

Red Truck plans for gradual growth in the U.S. Beers will be both bottled and canned in Fort Collins.

“We want to start as local as possible, get the surrounding areas, then Denver and the rest of Colorado,” Dodds said. “If there’s a desire after that from distributors to work in other states, then we will definitely look at it.”

The Truck Stop restaurant serves burgers, poutine, chicken wings and all-day breakfast options. The same menu is planned for Fort Collins.

“Luckily truck stop diner food is the same in Canada as it is here,” said Dodds, who has frequented nearby Johnson’s Corner during visits to Northern Colorado.

Red Truck will look to book local and regional music acts in Fort Collins. It will also pursue hosting outdoor parking lot concerts like it does in Vancouver.

The brewery plans to hire local staff to run the day-to-day operations in Fort Collins.

“We really want to be part of the community here,” Dodds said. “This is where we want to be.”

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