These 4 startups are probably drinking better beer than you

by Anthony Sodd
June 25, 2015

It’s no secret that Coloradans love their beer. And in a state that seems to have more breweries than grocery stores, there’s an almost endless diversity of flavors. We caught up with four different startup offices – two co-working spaces and two individual offices – to see what they had on tap. To be honest, they ended up being far more serious beer aficionados than we had anticipated. I mean, SolidFire has an on-staff brewmaster, and ReadyTalk is currently brewing 4 batches of homebrew in their offices. It's enough to make your Coors Lite swilling look downright silly. Here’s what they had to say: 

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ReadyTalk

What type of beer do you have on tap right now? Currently on tap is a pair of Breckenridge Brewing beers. The 7th floor has Vanilla Porter on Nitrogen, and 6th floor is pouring Avalanche. 

Do you always pour Colorado beers? We try to support CO breweries as much as possible, but we do occasionally branch out, like when we had a keg of Young's Double Chocolate Stout on nitrogen imported from England. That lasted less than a week. We'll usually kick the two kegs in a little over two weeks. I've noticed a trend in our palettes, too. The regular drinkers on 6th floor prefer IPAs, whereas 7th floor prefers darker beers along with a strong lean towards IPAs. 

Is there any truth to the rumors that your employees are excellent home brewers? There are several avid home brewers here of all levels. We have our own homemade 4-tap keezer (kegerator in a freezer) for sharing homebrews that's separate from the other two kegerators. There are currently four homebrews fermenting: A Belgian golden strong ale, an English bitter, a grolsch bier, and an oatmeal stout. 

Are you guys hiring? Yes!!! You can find our open jobs here

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SolidFire

What type of beer do you currently have on tap? We have Hoffmeister Pilsner from West Flanders on tap. West Flanders' brewmaster Brian Lutz is also our own on-staff brewmaster - his role at SolidFire is National Partner Manager. His skills have been recently put to good use as we brewed our own beer called "Scale-Out Saison," for our Analyst Day event. 

Wow, that sounds good. What is the Scale-Out Saison going to be like? Saisons are a type of beer that have been brewed in Belgium for centuries. Traditionally, Saisons were made once a year, at the end of the harvest, and flavored with interesting ingredients that grew abundantly in the garden that year. They were aged all winter and then served in the spring. So keeping with tradition, we added honey balm and lavender harvested from Brian's garden, in addition to sweet orange peel and coriander, which is a typical Saison spice blend. The yeast strain is native to Belgium and lends a complex nutty, citrus like aroma and leaves the beer very dry, which is thirst-quenching.

And are you, by any chance, hiring? We are hiring! We currently have 34 positions open across our engineering, marketing, operations and sales departments. 

 

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Thrive Workplaces

What sort of beer do you have on tap at Thrive right now? Thrive Workplaces actually is a co-working space with two locations in Ballpark and Cherry Creek. In the past we have featured Breckenridge- Ophelia, South Ridge Amber, Naughty Marilyn, 13 IPA, and Crystal Springs Summertime Ale. Currently on tap we have Ratio’s “Dear You” French Saison, Avery’s IPA, Denver Beer Co Sundrenched, and Denver Beer CO “Incredible Pedal IPA.” Also unique to Thrive, we feature Happy Leaf Kombucha on tap as well!

Kombucha, huh? How do you choose what to keep on tap? We love the varied flavors that come from the different brews and as a small business full of small businesses we like to support our local breweries. Our members also LOVE having Happy Leaf Kombucha on tap.  It is a little something extra that keeps everyone happy and healthy!

 

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Galvanize

What type of beer is on tap at Galvanize? Currently we have Wynkoop Railyard. We normally get beer from about two different breweries per week.

What do you think makes CO beer special? It's unique. Colorado is one of the only states that has a close-knit network of breweries – you can't find that anywhere else. We also love how breweries host local events for the community. For example, Denver Beer Company (right across the street from Galvanize's new Platte campus) hosts running meetups where people run together, then end at DBC for a beer to celebrate. We love seeing breweries engage with the community like that.

Are you hiring? YES! We have 13 openings for Denver.  

 

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