Prost Brewing opening taproom in Old Town Fort Collins

FORT COLLINS – The search took awhile, but the owners of Denver-based Prost Brewing believe they’ve finally found a prime spot to open up a Fort Collins taproom.

Co-owner Troy Johnston said Wednesday that he and his partners are aiming to open by the end of March at 321 Firehouse Alley. The 3,500-square-foot space on the back side of the Illegal Pete’s restaurant at 320 Walnut St. is just steps away from where Bohemian Cos., Sage Hospitality and McWhinney are teaming up to build a 162-room boutique hotel in the city’s Old Town district.

Prost’s owners had filed a concept plan with the city of Fort Collins about a year ago, exploring their options for opening a taproom at 404 Linden St.

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“This was the third (spot explored),” Johnston said of the Firehouse Alley location, “and I think it turned out to be the right spot. … Some patience pays off. We like this spot a lot.”

Breaking into the Fort Collins market has been on the minds of Prost’s owners for some time. Three of the five partners — a group that includes Johnston, Kevin Sheesley, Barry VanEveren and Steve and Ken DeLine — live in Northern Colorado. Sheesley and Steve DeLine both played football for Colorado State University in the 1980s, meanwhile.

The group is going through the development review process with city planners now.

Johnson said the new taproom would employ 15 to 20 people and have capacity for up to 250 patrons when a 1,500-square-foot outdoor beer garden is included. He said live music is likely to factor into the new spot.

Founded in 2012, Prost won’t brew at the Fort Collins site. Johnston said Prost just added new tanks at its Denver brewery, 2540 19th St., that will increase capacity there significantly. After brewing about 6,500 barrels of beer in 2015, Prost is aiming to brew “right around 10,000” this year.

“This will be our home spot regardless of what happens down the road,” Johnston said.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Prost has ruled out adding a production facility at some point in Fort Collins, where the owners have such strong ties to the community.

“If everything aligned well, we definitely have talked about it,” Johnston said. “There’s a lot of work to be done before we can cross that bridge.”