E-Malt.com News article: USA, CO: The Jessup Farm Barrel House planned to launch by May

By May, a new brewery will open in the 3,000-square-foot and 130-year-old barn located at Jessup Farm Artisan Village near Timberline and Drake roads, The Coloradoan reported on January 30.

The Jessup Farm Barrel House is a pet project of developer Gino Campana and family along with Brad Lincoln and Gordon Schuck of Funkwerks brewery.

It is the first announcement of a handful of businesses planned to open this spring at the 13-acre Jessup Farm, which is part of the 160-acre housing development Bucking Horse.

Other retail spaces will include a farm-to-table restaurant, a bakery, a coffee roaster and shop and a photographer's studio, all housed within the century-old farmhouse, barn and stables.

The new brewery won't be an extension of Funkwerks, Lincoln said. Instead, it will focus on beer blending and barrel aging, utilizing around 100 wine, bourbon and specialty barrels to give character to various base beer styles.

An example could be an IPA that's aged in both tequila and wine barrels.

The team is bringing in an industry veteran to lead the new brewery, Lincoln said, though he declined to release the new brewer's name at this point.

Lincoln said the business will focus on in-house sales at the barrel house tap room and will likely only distribute to a few bars in Fort Collins.

He hopes to dispel the misconception that barrel-aged beers have to be "huge, 10 percent powerhouses." Pints, flights and growlers sold in the tap room will prove drinkers otherwise, he said, by comprising a range of "palatable" blends that are also sold at "lighter beer prices."

Barrel aging programs are growing in larger breweries around the country, including New Belgium and Odell in Fort Collins. Some smaller breweries are entirely dedicated to the technique, though none yet in Northern Colorado.

"Fort Collins is a natural place to try this," Lincoln said.

He and Schuck opened Funkwerks in 2011 with a focus on the saison beer style. In 2012, Funkwerks was awarded "small brewing company of the year" at the Great American Beer Festival.

At the new barrel house, the first floor of the converted barn will be used for brewing and barrel storage. A second-floor tap room will hold around 100 patrons at long communal tables. And an outdoor patio and beer garden will offer additional seating as well as horseshoes and the bean bag tossing game cornhole.

For now, little work has been done on the barn's interior; Campana is working to preserve the landmark designated structure and said that existing wood beams, floors and glassed-in hay doors will add to the overall feel of the barreling process.

Once open, the brewery's owners hope it will serve the Bucking Horse neighborhood and the wider Fort Collins community, and provide another draw for beer tourists.


04 February, 2015