Colorado microbreweries become macro.
Some of Colorado's microbreweries are so successful they may be outgrowing the smallness their name implies.Two breweries and the Old Chicago restaurant chain, grouped as Rock Bottom Restaurants, Inc. of Boulder, are going public to finance extensive expansion over the next two years.
Another is expanding to the East Coast and a group of others is joining to bottle their brews.
Rock Bottom has registered to raise up to $20 million through an offering of 2 million shares of stock on the NASDAQ National Market.
Registration documents set an expected price of $8 to $10 a share.
Denver area restaurant operator Frank Day and his wife Gina, owner of another Boulder microbrewery, are listed as principal owners of Rock Bottom, with 1.5 million shares, or 31 percent of stock.
The documents say the estimated $16 million to $18 million from the stock sale will be used in part to finance two more Rock Bottom brewery pubs and five more Old Chicago restaurants this year and a dozen more restaurants next year.
Boulder city councilman Bob Greenlee and his wife Diane, a partner of Gina Day in Rockies Brewing, are listed as owning another 12 percent of Rock Bottom.
Rock Bottom reported net income of $1.4 million last year on sales of $24.8 million.
Breckenridge brewery, meanwhile, is expanding geographically.
Founder Richard Squire said the company purchased a microbrewery in New Jersey that will market in a region extending from Massachusetts to Maryland.
The acquisition will double Breckenridge's capacity of 20,000 barrels a year.
Squire said the company may open a third minibrewery in the Phoenix area.
Denver's Wynkoop Brewing Co. and Flying Dog Brewpub of Aspen have joined forces to open Broadway Brewing in the old Silver State Laundry Co. building on Broadway in Denver.
Manager Richard McIntyre said Wynkoop and Flying Dog wanted to bottle their brews but didn't want to take the step alone.
The plant also will brew and bottle Crested Butte Brewery's Red Lady Ale.
The Broadway Brewing operation is investing $2 million in building renovation and bottling equipment.
Its initial capacity will be 11,000 barrels a year with the potential to expand to 54,000 barrels a year, McIntyre said.
Broadway Brewing obtained rights to 250,000 gallons a day from the aquifer that supplies Deep Rock Water Co. and the Brown Palace Hotel and hopes to put in a new well on the building site, he said.
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| Publication: | Modern Brewery Age |
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| Date: | Jun 20, 1994 |
| Words: | 409 |
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