When Denver International Airport announced in 2015 that it was looking for a local company to build and operate a brewery inside the attached Westin hotel, it was big news. Not only would an onsite brewery highlight Colorado’s exploding craft beer scene, but it would also give DIA some cachet as one of the first and only airports to have a brewery physically located on its property.
“It’s a chance to be unique and do something that someone else hasn’t done,” DIA’s then-senior vice president for concessions Neil Maxfield told Westword at the time, adding that the winning brewery would be required to make a signature IPA that would be served only at the airport.
But that was one of the last times airport officials had anything frothy to say about the brewery, which has proven to be anything but a party. While the restaurant portion of the taproom remains open, just off the plaza on the south side of the Jeppesen Terminal, the beer-making equipment — including tanks and a small, 3.5-barrel brewing system — has been mothballed since the pandemic began in March 2020. And it may stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Last month, DIA’s brewery began a new chapter when the concessionaire that ran it, Midfield Concession Enterprises (MCE), sold its contract to another concessionaire, SSP America, according to SSP vice president of brand strategy, Lana Cramer. SSP’s parent company operates nearly 3,000 restaurants and stores at 600 travel locations around the world.
“As the new owners right now, we are meeting with the brand and trying to get our arms around the operation in order to conduct an analysis. Ultimately our efforts will be focused on determining what is best for all parties in order to ultimately offer a world-class experience,” Cramer said.
That “brand” is Tivoli Brewing, which opened its first location in the Tivoli Student Union building on Denver’s Auraria Higher Education Center campus in 2015. In a conversation with The Denver Post, brewery CEO Ari Opsahl was up-front about its future at DIA.
“Everybody sees the value in having a taphouse in some way, shape or form. But brewing out at the airport isn’t the most logistics-friendly environment on the planet,” he said. Would it be cool to make beer at the airport again? Absolutely. Does it make logistical or financial sense? Not at all.
Not only is it difficult to take delivery of raw materials and get rid of the spent barley that is used to make beer, but the facility doesn’t merit having a full-time brewer on hand because it is so small.
“We want to revamp the look the feel out there. It’s everybody’s intention to do exciting things. But we’re trying to work out what that would look like, and we don’t know yet,” Opsahl said.
DIA itself had little to say about the brewery, deferring to SSP America. “We remain open to exploring opportunities that enhance the overall experience at our airport, including an operational brewery,” spokeswoman Ashley Forest wrote in an email. “We are excited about what the future may hold for the new owners of” the Tivoli Brewing taproom space.
Its past, however, is a different story.
In 2016, DIA awarded a 10-year contract to MCE, a Michigan-based concessionaire that had food and beverage operations at seven major U.S. airports. MCE would build the 7,200-square-foot brewpub inside the new Westin hotel attached to the airport, along with two restaurants and a coffee shop elsewhere in the airport. Those two restaurants would be outlets of Smashburger, the hamburger chain founded in Denver by Tom Ryan, who also created Tom’s Urban and Tom’s Watch Bar (now at McGregor Square in downtown Denver).
The restaurant and bar would be branded as Tom’s Urban Kitchen and Brewery but the brewing equipment would be run by Tivoli, which got involved because the Tom’s/Smashburger parent firm (at the time) was running food operations for Tivoli’s other location.
The contract award came as a surprise to the other bidders — including longtime local breweries like Oskar Blues, Great Divide and Wynkoop Brewing — some of whom felt that Tivoli didn’t meet the requirements laid out by DIA. Wynkoop, in particular, raised questions about the bidding process, a perceived lack of transparency and the qualifications of the winning bidder.
Those questions eventually morphed into bid-rigging lawsuits filed by Wynkoop against Midfield, some of its former executives and DIA officials. After six years of legal machinations, the case was settled just last October. Details of the settlement weren’t publicly disclosed.
In the meantime, Tivoli founder Corey Marshall got to work in 2016 trying to figure out how to build a brewery on the fifth floor of an airport hotel, and it wasn’t easy. But Marshall had been through tough build-outs before. A longtime executive at Coors and a Denver history buff, Marshall had been buying or claiming the trademarks to several defunct but historic breweries and beers in Denver with the goal of starting his own craft brewery and reviving some of the past.
One of those was the original Tivoli brewery, which had roots in what is now the Auraria campus dating back to 1859, a year after Denver’s founding. Tivoli had been one of just a handful of breweries to survive prohibition and eventually became one of the largest beer makers west of the Mississippi, operating out of the castle-like building that is now Auraria’s student union. It eventually went out of business, however, in 1969, a result of both labor union action and the South Platte River flood of 1965, which devastated many parts of Denver.
Not only did Marshall buy the trademarks, though, he also researched the history and found people and memories from the original brewery to help him remake versions of some of the beers. In 2014, he signed a deal with Auraria to put a new Tivoli taproom back into the original Tivoli building. After a difficult renovation process in the historic structure, it opened in 2015.
But building a brewery at an airport was equally as tricky. Not only do brewing facilities require raw materials, they also need significant water and drainage. Since the brewery was located on the fifth floor of the hotel, it also had to overcome the presence of hotel guests and limited access.
By the time Tivoli brewed its first beer there, called Jet IPA, on Nov. 5, 2018, more than two years had gone by, and Marshall had been replaced as CEO by a new ownership group.
Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, forcing the closure of restaurants, bars and breweries nationwide. The DIA taproom — now called simply Tivoli Tap House — eventually reopened when social distancing requirements were lifted. But the brewery remained idle.
Opsahl, who became CEO in 2021 — the brewery’s fourth chief executive in two years — had his hands full with other matters. Tivoli had suffered mightily during the pandemic, laying off at least half its staff. Opsahl set about trying to save the company with a new strategy and a focus on a new brand, Outlaw light lager, which isn’t based on one of Denver’s historic breweries.
Late last year, Opsahl also discontinued brewery operations on the Auraria campus and shifted beer production to a facility that Tivoli leased in the town of La Junta. The company still operates its Auraria taproom, serving food and beer, but Opsahl said he hopes to sit down with campus officials this summer to talk about “finding a mutually amicable path forward.”
In other words, he wants to renegotiate the lease for the taproom portion of the on-campus operation, which expires on Dec. 31, 2024.
“The taphouse is a cornerstone for the campus,” Opsahl said, pointing out that the brewery and the building share a name. “We love it, but operating there is a challenge, as it is pretty dead all summer (when classes aren’t in session). We can’t even break even.
“We want to be there,” he added. “But have to find a way to make it work for both parties.”
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