Bryan Leavelle sat back in a chair in the yet-to-open Our Mutual Friend brewery on Denver’s Larimer Street, guitar in hand and the fragrant smells of roasting barley filling up his workspace.

Leavelle’s maltstery, brewery and taproom await a permit that will allow it to join a rush of new breweries chasing the Denver craft-beer population boom.

Leavelle and his partners — all younger than 30 — represent a trend: Increasingly younger entrepreneurs and hobbyists are joining the brewing craze.

The Boulder-based American Homebrewers Association reports that the majority of beginner home-brewing kits are being sold to people younger than 30. Beer brewing has become a hip hobby among college students, and several new Denver breweries are helmed by brewers under age 30.

“We are seeing a generational shift,” said Gary Glass, president of the American Homebrewers Association, the sister organization of the Brewers Association, organizer of the 31st annual Great American Beer Festival. The GABF, celebrating everything beer- and brewing-related, runs through Saturday at the Colorado Convention Center.

“The first of the millennials started turning 21 around 2005,” Glass said. “That happens to coincide (with) the uptick in people getting into the hobby. That generation seems to be fueling this growth.”

Glass said the millennials are into self-expression, and everything is personalized — such as Facebook pages and iTunes lists — so they even want that same power over the beer they drink.

“Millennials seem to be more inclined to take hold of trends like doing things local and supporting local businesses,” Glass said. “It doesn’t get more local than home-brewing.”

The Pew Research Center characterizes millennials — people born after 1980 — as being “confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.”

They also have come of age in the depths of the Great Recession. The employment rate among people ages 18 to 24 is at an all-time low: 54 percent. And many of those graduating from college are saddled with high student-loan debt.

But they are finding success in suds.

Ryan Marks, a Denver middle-school science teacher, started a home-brewing club with friends about three years ago and has continued to develop interesting new concoctions. One of the members is developing plans to start his own brewery.

“We started brewing … just to be creative and try different things,” Marks said. “We haven’t brewed the same thing twice.”

Marks said his group brews about once a month, makes labels for the bottles and uses spent grains to make bread.

“There is definitely a do-it-yourself ethic,” he said.

Matt Hess, 29, also began home-brewing about three years ago, discovering a passion that combined his love of beer with his love of science.

Hess was an engineer at Lockheed Martin but began to get disillusioned with his job as he continued to get shuffled in and out of assignments as budgets changed. He found himself at the bottom of the ladder, worried that the career path he had envisioned would never materialize.

He turned to beer.

“Certainly with the way the economy went south, people were looking for something they could have more control over, rather than waiting for the economy to improve,” Hess said.

In February, Hess took his obsession with home-brewing and turned pro. He opened River North Brewery, which focuses on Belgian-style ales and American-style ales with a Belgian twist. His brewery is wowing critics with its clean styles.

Within three years, Hess has gone from home-brewer to brewmeister. He learned how to remodel the space, set up a business and brew critically acclaimed beer.

He said he knows his youth played a role in being able to get this done.

“It has to do with being early in your career,” he said. “You are not going to wait around for it. You are not risking that much, because it’s early in your career.”

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367, jpmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jpmeyerdpost