Ice cold beer and community support are on tap at Very Nice Brewing’s new Nederland location. Credit: Tyler Hickman
At his taproom in Black Hawk, 10 miles down the road from the wreckage left behind by the Caribou Village Shopping Center Fire, Jeff Green was looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore.
“I still would be here needing something from the other place and thinking I have a place to go,” the owner of Very Nice Brewing says on a drizzly Peak to Peak afternoon.
He compares that sense of emptiness to losing a loved one; picking up the phone to call them only to realize they won’t answer.
“Your subconscious doesn't even really accept it yet that it's not there,” he says.
Last fall, the fire destroyed Very Nice’s Nederland location, along with 20 other storefronts, dozens of jobs and the heart of a community. Many businesses haven’t recovered.
But Very Nice got a second chance: 10 months later, they’re back in a brand new location at The Vault in Nederland. Survive and adapt has been the Greens’ mantra, a mindset that turns out to be essential for local brewers as the craft beer industry across the country continues to decline.
He didn’t always know it, but Jeff Green was meant to open a brewery. You could call it a divine quest.
The Ohio native first got hooked on home brewing at a transplant Thanksgiving in Gilpin, thanks to then-owner of Wolf Tongue Brewery, Cory O’Neel. But obsession struck at Green’s first Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in 2008 when he was introduced to the culture of making beer.
“It was very egalitarian,” he says. “Every booth looked the same, whether you were Russian River from out in California or you were Dogfish Head or Avery or Upslope.”
A few years later, he decided to go pro. After the Greens got hitched in 2012 to the church bells of Wisconsin’s Pabst Brewery, they opened a taproom at Caribou Village that same year. Green cooked up the business name with some bartending buddies from his college days.
“It was basically a call out to a line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” he says, where King Arthur and his posse of chain-mailed stooges come up on a castle of French knights, who claim to have their own Holy Grail that’s “very nice.”
Finding a great name came easier than brewing a great beer.
“I'll be the first to admit, when we first opened in 2012, our beer wasn't the best,” Green says. “It's like learning piano. Before you start riffing and getting into jazz, you have to learn the basics.”
Riffing on beer is an artistic process for Green. He claims he’s not “naturally talented” in the arts — he doesn’t play any instruments or write poetry. Instead, he brews. “What brewing has allowed me to do is actually have a creative outlet.”
That’s evident in the gluten-reduced pours at both their taprooms, from their seasonal Special Lady Friend — a cherry ginger saison made with Door County, Wisconsin cherries — to their paradoxically bittered stout Logical Fallacy, which comes with an optional shot of espresso.
“If it's brewed well and it's interesting, then I'm probably going to really dig it,” Green says.
After 14 years, the brewer would put his beer up against anyone else's. Still, he’s nostalgic for the collectivist optimism radiating like a sacred golden chalice at his first GABF.
“We were just ragtag bunches of gonzo brewers, not really having many rules. It was different then,” he says. “I'm not going to say it was better or worse. It was different.”
For better or worse, the craft beer industry is transitioning.
A maelstrom of obstacles — from changing drinking habits to slowing demand — have contributed to the closure of more than 430 breweries nationwide since last year, including Boulder’s Beyond the Mountain and Sanitas Brewing Co.
For microbreweries, beer makers producing fewer than 15,000 barrels per year and selling at least 75% offsite, the distribution-focused model is failing: They suffered the largest industry drop-off, with 3% fewer operating this year than last.
But Very Nice is avoiding the noise and sticking to the basics by pouring good beer in a cozy bar where you can meet your neighbor over a pint.
“Distribution is just not really part of our thing,” Green says. “Our thing is: local taproom, local beer community. To me that's where I fell in love with beer, so that's exactly where we want to be.”
Part of that is hosting local music, often giving a hand up to artists who are just starting out. It also looks like potlucks or fundraisers for animal shelters — all organized by Susan Green, who curates the community end of the business.
Last fall, it seemed like disaster had ripped that from the Green’s hands when the couple awoke to videos of the shopping center engulfed in flames on social media.
“I asked my wife, ‘Should we go see how our life has changed forever?’” Green says.
The original taproom is gone. But walk up the stairs at their new location and you can feel its spirit. A beam of sunshine illuminates the forest green walls, friendly faces pull their personalized “mug club” glasses off the wall, and chatter fills the room like a dinner party at your friend’s place.
Green has a new analogy for their journey, much different than mourning a death: “At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, where Groot gets hit, and there's just a little sprout.”
In the movie, he grows bigger and stronger — by the third installment, more powerful than he was before.
“That's what we're trying to do. It almost took us out, but we had that sprout.”
ON TAP: Very Nice Brewing Company. 26 S. Hwy 119, Unit 7, Nederland. 12-8 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Friday; 12-9 p.m. Saturday; 12-7 p.m. Sunday.
