Who owns ASPEN BREWING?

Not to be confused with Aspen Edge

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Aspen Brewing Company was founded in Aspen, Colorado in 2008 by Duncan Clauss. Clauss had recently graduated from Colorado University, Boulder, and saw the potential of brewing craft beer in Colorado, when there were only 20 breweries in the state. It began brewing next door to the Roaring Fork River, before moving to a more central location in 2010. It made a final move in 2017 to its current taproom location.

In 2019, Aspen Brewing was purchased by Legacy Brewers, a nascent brewery group created by Don Bryant. Clauss left the industry to pursue a career as a real estate agent. Bryant was the former CEO of Yakima Chief Hops, and wanted to use his expertise in the industry to built a new brewery group. He claimed that before purchasing Aspen, the group had had meetings with over 130 breweries around the country, but that only about six had met the group’s criteria. Legacy Brewers was funded by a family office called Blue Ocean, as well as EPR Properties, a Kansas City, Missouri based entertainment company that owns six Six Flags theme parks, 16 ski resorts, and 32 TopGolf complexes, and 158 Megaplex theatres. Aspen’s purchase was preceded by the purchase of Ninkasi Brewing earlier that year. However, Ninkasi later pulled away from the group, with the original owners purchasing their company back.

By 2023, the group, by then known as High Country Brewing LLC, had started to fall apart, and Aspen, along with fellow Aspen based brewery Capitol-Creek (which had been purchased in 2021), were sold to fellow Colorado brewery Westbound & Down. The company plans to begin the partnership with featuring Westbound & Down beers on tap at the Aspen taproom.

Popular Beers by this Brand

• Independence Pass Ale
• This Seasons Blonde American Blonde Ale
• Cloud 9 Saison
• Silver City Ale

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