Crazy Mountain Moves Into Former Breckenridge Brewery at 471 Kalamath

Crazy Mountain Brewery, which has grown extremely quickly since opening in the Vail Valley in 2010, has taken over Breckenridge Brewery's former headquarters at 471 Kalamath Street – a location that has been a brewery for nearly two decades. For the time being, owners Kevin and Marisa Selvy decline to discuss their exact plans for the facility — including whether or not it will include a taproom or restaurant — but Marissa says an announcement should be coming sometime this month.

In the meantime, Kevin released this statement: "This is the first time in the craft beer industry that a facility of this size and scope is being sold as turn-key. It's allowing us to start bottling our beer and distributing to more territories around the world much more quickly than if we had to build a new facility from the ground up. We couldn't be more thrilled to open our second brewery in Denver."

The expansion is a big one for Edwards-based Crazy Mountain, which will keep its facility in the mountain town, since the 42,000 square-foot Kalamath building has the capacity to brew about 60,000 barrels of beer per year and came complete with a brewhouse, numerous fermentation tanks and other infrastructure and equipment.

“It's such a unique opportunity to roll in, turn on the lights and make 60,000 barrels of beer,” Breckenridge head Todd Usry told Westword in February. Breckenridge used 471 Kalamath as its headquarters for eighteen years before moving into a $20 million, twelve-acre beer campus in Littleton in May. Breck's parent company, Breckenridge-Wynkoop LLC, sold the property some time ago to a developer who planned to lease it back to Crazy Mountain, Usry said.

The two breweries had been trying to negotiate a transaction since late 2012, when Breckenridge first announced that it was moving. “We are basically leaving everything behind: all 34 fermenters, ranging from fifty to 300 barrels in size, the brewhouse, the packaging line, the kegging line...all the fittings, clamps, hoses and pumps,” Usry said in February. “[Crazy Mountain] will be able to roll in here and make beer day one.”

Crazy Mountain has expanded quickly over the past five years and brews more than 15,000 barrels annually. It distributes to nineteen states and five other countries.