Reader: "Award-Winning Homebrewer" Are Scary Words for a New Craft Brewery

Over the past year, the Boulder-based Brewers Association has repeatedly urged all breweries to get on board with quality control, saying that inexperienced brewers making poor quality beer could jeopardize the industry's success. The owners of Cerebral Brewing, which will open next year off Colfax Avenue, are keeping that in mind. "A microscope was one of the first pieces of equipment we bought," says Sean Buchan, an award-winning homebrewer with a background in biology.

"It's important to meet some kind of quality standard," adds Chris Washenberger, a molecular biologist who also founded the Denver Homebrew Club in 2010. "All of the big guys do it, and we've learned from the broader brewing industry that taking these steps is critical." See also: Cerebral Brewing Will Go Back to the Lab When It Opens on Colfax Next Year

But some readers still have their doubts. Says Manfrenjensen:

The scariest words in any description of a new craft brewery: "award-winning homebrewer"... They're not all terrible, but there are quite a few that won't survive. Someday they'll refer to this as the Great Colorado Brew Rush, when every homebrewer and his brother-in-law thought they could make it big. There will be a lot of prime real estate and low-mileage brewing equipment available in the next 18-24 months.

Are we heading for a bust in the Great Colorado Brew Rush? Which spots deserve to survive?

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