A map depicting a bird’s-eye view of Aspen circa 1893 is placed prominently behind the mayor’s chair in Aspen City Council chambers. Its purpose is to illustrate the principal businesses, buildings, mines and residences of the era. One of the businesses on the map is a brewery.
Indeed, breweries have a long history in Aspen. The one on the map, Chris Sanders’ Brewery, was located, coincidentally, close to where Mayor Mick Ireland’s home off of Lone Pine Road is today. When the last brewery here, the Flying Dog, left almost a decade ago, it took a piece of Aspen’s soul with it.
Fortunately, a pair of young entrepreneurs are bringing a new brewery to town. But the success of their venture hinges largely on whether they will be able to operate as most breweries do. The one-pint limit City Hall recently imposed on the Aspen Brewing Co., which is scheduled to launch next month, is the strictest consumption rule for any brewery in the state.
Aspen City Council has the opportunity to lift the one-pint consumption limit when it makes amendments to the Service Commercial Industrial (SCI) zone at a meeting coming up next month. The city’s land-use code is clear that retail sales at breweries, which are allowed in the SCI zone, must be secondary to the business of producing beer, but it makes no mention of how many suds can be consumed by any one person at the brewery, let alone any reference to 16 ounces.
Ironically, the SCI zone was established to help preserve Aspen’s character. What better place to incubate the latest incarnation of the community’s “messy vitality” than an upstart local brewery?
The proprietors of the Aspen Brewing Co. plan to offer as many as eight different styles of beers they hope to sell to local, state and national vendors. The brewery’s attorney, Chris Bryan, correctly argues that limiting the amount of beer that can be tasted on site could severely stifle the owners’ ability to market and sell their product to retailers and wholesalers buying in bulk.
While it is receiving a cost savings — since SCI zoning is designed to keep rents relatively lower — the Aspen Brewing Co. is not receiving an unfair advantage over its competition, because other businesses in town selling beer offer more products and services.
The brewery will be unique to Aspen in that it won’t offer wine, liquor, food, live music or entertainment. It will sell only its own beer. In fact, the brewery is purposely shying away from competing with local bars and restaurants, with the expectation that local establishments will want to carry a brew bearing the town name.
The brewery has already agreed to conservative hours of operation — a 9 p.m. closing Monday through Saturday and 6 p.m. on Sunday — and its tasting room is a mere 500 square feet. Given these facts, imposing an overly harsh consumption limit seems not just punitive, but puritanical.
This isn’t Aspen, Utah.
This town has a proud history of drinking beer, selling beer, and, yes, brewing beer. Let’s not let bureaucracy stand in its way by inventing consumption limits literally out of Aspen’s thin air.
During an appeal made by the brewery last Monday night, Aspen City Council effectively upheld the consumption limit by ruling that the city’s community development director, Chris Bendon, had not abused his discretion, exceeded his jurisdiction or denied due process.
We are in agreement that Bendon never abused his power. What he did was place unnecessarily stern limits on the brewery.
So, on March 24, when Aspen City Council has the opportunity to amend its rules for businesses like the Aspen Brewing Co., we implore them to drop any consumption limit and let the beer flow.
