Brewery Closing Denver and Aurora Locations After Recent Rebrand

Incantation Brewing at 4233 South Buckley Road in Aurora and Incantation Beer and Coffee at 415 South Cherokee Street in the Baker neighborhood announced that it will close its doors this weekend.

Saturday, January 25, will be the final day of coffee and beer service at its Denver taproom. The Aurora location is already marked on Google as permanently closed.

Sean Guerrero originally opened the Aurora taproom as Jade Mountain Brewery & Tea House in 2021, nabbing our Best of Denver pick for Best New Collaborative Brewery the following year. But in February 2024, Guerrero rebranded as Incantation, adding a heavy metal edge to the concept. He debuted the Baker location in the former Field and Forest space last August.

In a lengthy post on the brewery's website, Guerrero says the decision is the result of years of struggles at both Incantation and Jade Mountain.

In his statement, Guerrero notes that the seeds of the brewery were planted ten years ago while in China and that he opened “with the goal of creating something truly unique. I wanted to create something that no one had ever seen or tasted before.”
The first iteration of Jade Mountain was forged in a teahouse in China. "I moved to a foreign country, just because it was so difficult to get into the beer industry here in Colorado," he writes. "I taught English during the day and made and sold beer in the evenings. The beer I made was terrible, I had no teacher, no one to show me what to do ... I made beer every day, figured out what worked and what didn't."

As he mastered the language and built a community around beer made with a wide variety of local ingredients, he says he wanted to showcase what he had learned in China back home in Aurora. On May 1, 2021, he opened Jade Mountain Brewery & Teahouse to share the culture and flavors that held such a special place for him, but it was not embraced as planned.

"Was it exactly how I hoped it would go? Not exactly. We struggled from the day we opened our doors. Despite creating something truly unique in the Colorado beer scene, we just never gained the following that we had hoped for," Guerrero writes. "Maybe our branding was confusing, our beer names and styles. Perhaps what I created was too different, too niche, or, more likely, it was because we opened in the middle of COVID in an uncertain political and economic climate."

He eventually concluded that the theme was too obscure, and at the same time, he saw the cost of exotic ingredients skyrocket. "Something drastic had to change," he notes.
That led to the rebrand as Incantation and a focus on styles such as Mexican lager, IPA and mixed-culture sour ales. "Less squid ink and durian, more cinnamon and chocolate," he writes. "Was it the right decision? Maybe, maybe not. But, I couldn't just sit around and wait to run out of money and the doors to close."

Guerrero adds that the need to make a change was obvious, and the heavy metal theme was a natural fit for him personally: "I could have been more neutral and named the brewery 'Smoky Hill Brewing' or something basic, but I still wanted to have a part of my personality in this brand, so I could get behind the beers, the styles and be more authentic to myself."

He saw an improvement — more people drinking more beer — and felt reinvigorated as a brewer. However, he writes that he underestimated the response he would see from a sudden rebrand:

"I've always done things over the top. Just changing beer styles at Jade wasn't the solution. We had to shake things up, make a splash and create some attention so people could hear what we had to say. However, I never expected the backlash I received from the change. All the negativity that poured in was crazy. I knew there would be some surprise from the way I announced the change, I just didn't expect how angry people would be."

With more people not drinking alcohol these days, he decided to add a full-scale coffee shop when he opened the second location near West Alameda and Broadway. The space wasn't great, he admits, "but it's all we could afford, and barely." He acknowledges that six months wasn't enough time to let the new location prove itself, but time had simply run out for the business.

"I know it's not just us struggling. Every brewery, restaurant, bar and small business is struggling. There will be more closures, unfortunately. If you love your local business, support them. ...I tried my best to keep things going. We're just too far in the hole to dig ourselves out."

It may not be the last that Denver sees of a Sean Guerrero brewery, though.

"Is this the end? I always have ideas and plans for the future. Perhaps you'll see me make beer again, either as Jade Mountain, Incantation or something completely different. This is not goodbye forever. Just goodbye for now."