Great Divide’s RiNo brewery. (BusinessDen file photo)
In a frenzied few weeks of consolidation, two local brewers merged and then this week announced the purchase of a craft brewing mainstay of 30 years.
The merger of Denver Beer Co. and Stem Ciders would be a big week. Then they just bought Great Divide.
We didn’t need to sell,” said Great Divide founder Brian Dunn, who opened the brewery in 1994. “But these guys are the right guys to do it and take it on.”
Wilding Brands, the parent company of local beverage brands Denver Beer Co. and Stem Ciders, has acquired the company’s wholesale business and rights to future Great Divide locations.
The price was not disclosed.
“Brian Dunn is really one of the pioneers in Colorado of craft beer. We’ve been standing on his shoulders for years. He’s a legend,” said Charlie Berger, Wilding’s chief development officer who founded Denver Beer Co. in 2011. He got his start in the brewing industry working on the bottle line at Great Divide 20 years ago.
Dunn will still run Great Divide’s original taproom at 2201 Arapahoe St. in Ballpark and its Barrel Bar at 1812 35th St. in RiNo through a licensing agreement.
Dunn owns the real estate at 2201 Arapahoe, which records show he bought for $538,000 in 2001. Great Divide sold the RiNo land to McWhinney, with one parcel going for $20 million in 2019 and another in 2021 for an undetermined amount.
Its four other outposts, in Castle Rock, Lone Tree, Lakewood and the Denver International Airport, will continue to be run by third-party operators, which license the name.
Brian Dunn
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m definitely going to be around,” Dunn said. “It’s a transition that’s gonna take a lot of effort to do correctly. We want to do what’s right for the brand and what’s right for the beer.”
The biggest change will be on the production side, which will move from the Ballpark location to Denver Beer Co.’s 35,000-square-foot brewery in Sunnyside. Dunn said it will take several months to shift brewing operations.
After that, he plans to shed the brewing equipment.
“The plan is to have an auction unless something changes between now and then,” he said. “And then for the taprooms, we’ll buy the beer from Wilding.”
Berger said that beer lovers can expect the same offerings they usually find at Great Divide, noting a four-pack, seasonal release series of the Yeti Imperial Stout as something to look forward to.
Great Divide brewed just over 29,000 barrels in 2019, roughly 25,000 in 2021 and about 18,500 in 2023, according to figures from the Boulder-based Brewers Association.
Denver Beer Co. brewed around 22,000 barrels over the last few years in the facility. Berger expects to brew about 40,000 with Great Divide in the fold. That number also includes Wilding’s other brands, like the Fort Collins-based Funkwerks.
“Short term, we’re really focused on the same things,” Berger said.
Both Dunn and Berger expect to integrate many of Great Divide’s 43 employees. Katie Guiffre, who was the Western U.S. sales manager for Great Divide, will be its brand manager under Wilding.
“The only staff that we’ll retain is bar staff, but everybody else will hopefully find work at Wilding,” Dunn said. “That’s up to Wilding, but preliminarily it looks like they’ll be hiring a lot.”
From left: Eric Foster, Charlie Berger, Brad Lincoln. (Submitted photo)
Wild Consolidation
Wilding was founded in 2024 by Eric Foster, who founded Stem Ciders in 2013. Stem started buying other brands in 2022 with the acquisition of Howdy Beer.
“Eric created the vehicle Wilding Brands in 2024, but it was really just Stem at that point,” Berger said. Foster is chief executive officer of the company, and Brad Lincoln, who founded Funkwerks in 2010, is the chief financial officer.
Denver Beer Co. and Funkwerks joined at the beginning of the year.
Wilding also owns Easyliving Sparkling Hop Water, a nonalcoholic beer that Denver Beer Co. started making in 2023, Cerveceria Colorado, a DBC venture to serve Mexican lagers that opened in 2018, along with Stem Cider’s Acreage and Ghost Box Pizza restaurants in Lafayette.
Stem Ciders sold the Lafayette property last month for $12 million and will rent it from the new landlord.
