Service-industry friends Kevin Lind and Weston Scott have teamed up to take over Baere Brewing Company at 320 Broadway St. in Denver’s Central Baker neighborhood (as first reported in Westword). The pair are joining with four more investors to bring food and fun to the locale that’s operated since founders Kevin Greer and Ryan Skeels opened Baere in a strip mall in 2014.
The added stakeholders in the new 3,100 square-foot operation include the owners of the Walnut Room at 3131 Walnut St. in the LoDo district. The “Golf. Pizza. Beer.” establishment is, not coincidentally, where Lind first bought into an eatery, operating the Back 9 golf simulator in the sports bar. Here, patrons can tee off at any of 219 renowned golf courses from two Trackman simulators and two “Simulator Bays” at the game room. Since its installation, Back 9 has been a hit, which allowed for another synchronicity for Lind. Baere will be his first investment in a craft brewery. Baere was also the first brewery that he visited upon moving to Denver.
“I thought, ‘Hm, a brewery in a strip mall. That’s interesting,’” Lind told What Now Denver. “I stopped by one day after work, and they had excellent beer. After that, my wife and I would go to their weekly bluegrass sessions, which always had great musicians. The place has a great vibe.”
That vibe will now come with pizza pies. Lind said that they hope to add an oven in the adjoining property by the end of the year. Previously leased to Liberty Tax, the six to 700 square-foot space will be a “smaller, more focused version” of the Walnut Room’s bar eats, highlighted by the aformentioned pizza, wings, cheesy sticks, salads, and more. To drink, Lind and Scott will retain not only Baere’s brews, but its head brewer, Matt Schenk. Schenk has overseen several mainstay suds — Baere-liner Weiss, C3(i)PA, and OG Toasty Stout, for example — take home Great American Beer Festival medals. Eventually, owners plan to also incorporate additions and collaborations with other area craft brewers, possibly even with Scott’s Ephemeral Taproom (per Westword).
