Launch Pad Brewery Hosts Rare Beer Auction for Veterans on Sunday

Several years ago, Mark Wethington ran into a rare find during a trip to an estate sale: a collection of vintage beer bottles from England that were in a local man's basement. Wethington was a regular attendee of estate sales, a member of the Aurora City Brew Club and a fan of vintage beer. The owner had tucked away the set of beers for his daughter's retirement, but that didn't pan out, so he didn't know what he was going to do with it.

Wethington eventually came up with the idea to auction off the beer to raise funds to benefit the Veterans Community Project, a charity that provides transitional support for veterans, specifically through temporary housing. The owner of the bottles went along with the idea, but then COVID hit. The beers were stored away, and the idea was put on hold.

After things settled down, the club got together and made these vintage beers the centerpiece of a charity auction that will take place on Sunday, September 17, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Launch Pad Brewing (884 South Buckley Road in Aurora). Proceeds from the auction, $1 from every beer sale, and a "donate" button at checkout will all benefit the Veterans Community Project.

"It was a no-brainer," says Launch Pad founder David Levesque of getting involved. Levesque is a retired Air Force veteran of almost ten years and was injured overseas. "They had to put me back together," he recalls.

Levesque has been working with the Aurora City Brew Club for years; he says it shares some of the same values as his business: "We started Launch Pad Brewery because we wanted to create that camaraderie, that sense of family, where we can all come together over a single interest and bond."

Launch Pad co-founder Henry Rusch is also an Air Force veteran. He's currently enlisted in the reserves at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora. The brewery has a close relationship with the Aurora City Beer Club, with many members of that club also being veterans.
Among those is group spokesman Stephen Stanley. "We'd like to get into the thousands of dollars," he says when asked about the auction's fundraising goal. "We'd like to raise enough to help build one of these houses that the VCP builds. Quite frankly, the way we treat veterans after they've been to war is abysmal. We give them no support, [we] give them nothing other than a warm boot out the door and whatever the VA can provide them."

While the flagship item for the auction is the set of twelve bottles of Thomas Hardy's ale — 1986-1997, an English-style barleywine famous for its ability to age for decades — there will be plenty of other items up for auction to help raise funds. Levesque is putting up a vintage bottle collection from Launch Pad, as well. "This is a package of stuff we've done since 2015. It'll be a huge package," he says.

Among the other items is a Grainfather G70 V1, a $1,500+ item donated by Brewers Supply Group. A five-year vertical (2011-14, 2016) of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine is in the mix, along with donations from breweries like A Bit Twisted Brewpub, Avery Brewing, BJ's Brewhouse, Burns Family Artisan Ales, Comrade Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Crystal Springs Brewing, Grimm Brothers Brewhouse, Grossen Bart Brewery, Left Hand Brewing, Second Dawn Brewing and Upslope Brewing.

Additional donated items will come from Breckenridge Distillery, Branch & Barrel Distillery, Bookcliff Vineyards and Chambers Wine and Liquor, which contributed a bottle of Blanton's original single-barrel bourbon.

The Aurora City Brew Club was established in 2014 with the sole purpose of home-brewing education. "In other words, making better brewers out of club members," says Stanley. The club has done just that, he notes, having had some success against other top home-brewing clubs in Colorado, like Foam on the Range and the Rock Hoppers.

Editor's note: This event went on to raise over $15,000 for the Veterans Community Project.