Start 14-Day Trial Subscription
*No credit card required
Todd Usry of Breckenridge Brewery
Breckenridge Brewery’s founder and CEO Todd Usry has seen his fair share of change and growth in the craft beer industry. With his brewery now a part of AB InBev’s High End line, Breckenridge can be found in more and more locations throughout the country with impressive variation in its portfolio.
With a striking new brewery in Littleton, Colorado, Breckenridge has a beautiful new space where the brewers can experiment with all sorts of interesting styles and barrel-aged creations, including the canned Nitro series, the 471 IPA barrel series and the limited-release Brewery Lane series, featuring interesting style experiments, such as the recent Imperial White IPA.
We sat down with Todd to discuss the present and future of Breckenridge, as well as the ever-shifting Coloradan craft beer scene. We focus on the brewery’s recent new releases, including its exciting collaboration with Ireland’s Boundary Brewing – the most recent Nitro Series release.
How's life on Brewery Lane?
Couldn’t be better. We’ve got some excellent new recipes we’re releasing this summer and fall. We’re gearing up for our Hootenanny and other summer concerts here in Littleton. We just installed a new hopback in the brewhouse, added some equipment to our lab, and we’re currently expanding our warehouse space. Our Farm House beer garden is about to open for the summer, and our pub up in Breckenridge is getting ready for the summer tourist season too.
"We at Breckenridge just installed a new hopback in the brewhouse, added some equipment to our lab, and we’re currently expanding our warehouse space."
Colorado has always been a haven for craft beer. With more widespread acceptance of quality craft beer, has Colorado's role changed?
Colorado continues to be a pillar of the industry in terms of innovation and new brewery growth. I believe we’re approaching 400 breweries in the state, and now more than ever, quality is key to survival. Colorado brewers have been at this for a long time, and I think they will continue to raise the bar on innovation and excellence.
How has the Brewery Lane series been received by craft beer fans?
Extremely well. We’re pleased with the amount of response, especially considering its limited distribution – people understand how special these beers are. With the Brewery Lane Series, I just cut the cellar guys loose to create and experiment. It’s allowing them to grow as individuals and brewing professionals, and the products are amazing.
Breckenridge was one of the pioneers of canned Nitro beers. What Nitro beers that you've released have been the most popular?
Nitro Vanilla Porter is our leading Nitro Series beer, but we’ve also received numerous accolades on our nitro seasonals, like Pumpkin Spice Latte, Chocolate Orange Stout and Dry Irish Stout. We’ve had a good time coming up with these new recipes in the seasonals line.
Tell us the story behind the Nitro Dry Irish Stout.
When we started planning the spring Nitro seasonal, we honed in on this style of beer because it’s appropriate for the time of year, and it has a history of being served from a nitro tap. We knew our nitro cans could help make that Irish pub experience more accessible.
"We honed in on the Dry Irish Stout style of beer because it’s appropriate for the time of year, and it has a history of being served from a nitro tap."
Authenticity of style was really important to us, so we partnered with Boundary Brewing Cooperative of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It’s a young brewery that’s winning all kinds of awards, and they make great stouts. We collaborated on the recipe long distance, and their brewer, Matthew Dick, ordered the Irish ingredients. He then flew over here to brew the beer with us. All in all, we’re extremely proud of the outcome. The beer is truly delicious, and our brewers learned a lot in the collaboration process.
By extension, how did you meet up with Boundary Brewing?
Our Director of Sales and Marketing, George O’Neill, is from Northern Ireland, and he knows Matt through a family connection. They’d actually talked about doing a collaboration beer for quite a while, and the pieces just fell into place with this release.
What other new releases are on the Breckenridge horizon?
We’re working on several new IPA recipes. In addition, we have two new summer seasonals that we’re about to release, and our 471 IPA Barrel Series and Brewery Lane Series have more 2017 variations to come. Our brewpub up in Breck continues to experiment with ingredients and techniques, so there’s always something new and different on tap there, and we bring some of those kegs down here to share in our Farm House in Littleton.
With Todd at the helm, Breckenridge has experienced considerable growth with an impressive range of new releases over the years – including helping to introduce the nitrogenation movement into modern craft beer with its flagship Nitro Vanilla Porter. The porter, as well as Nitro Lucky U IPA, have been consistently popular and help to showcase Breckenridge’s – and Usry’s – devotion to experimentation and consistency.
Breckenridge is set to experience even more growth in 2017 as the brewery adds more beers of all kinds – including seasonals, Nitro beers and the Brewery Lane series – and Usry couldn’t be prouder to be at the forefront of the Colorado craft beer scene.
