BOULDER and ENGLEWOOD — Sanitas Brewing Co. is planning to open a second location with a taproom in Englewood. It will be located at 200 W. Belleview Ave.

Sanitas, which was founded in 2013, is known for beers such as its IPA 3.0, Saison and Everyday Mountain Lager.

Michael Memsic, Sanitas co-founder and chief executive, said the brewing company has been planning to open a second location for about five years. It nearly closed on a space in Denver’s Santa Fe arts district, but Memsic said the company decided to hold off partly because that market was saturated with breweries and taprooms. 

Opening a second location by the end of 2020 then became the goal, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted those plans, Memsic said. Then the Englewood location came into focus.

“We felt there was so much activity in Denver,” Memsic said. “We wanted to find a niche pocket along the Front Range. That is Englewood.”

Memsic said Englewood is “a little bit of a brewery desert” compared with other areas of the Front Range, with only one other brewery open in the city now. 

“We saw there was a pocket there in that community that doesn’t really have as many breweries populated as densely as Boulder or Denver,” Memsic said. “It continued to align with what we believe in.”

While Sanitas’ main production facility will remain at its Boulder location, the 4,600-square-foot taproom in Englewood will feature three brewing barrels that will be used for research and development and experimental brewing. Memsic said one of Sanitas’ brewers will take over the Englewood location.

“We want him to develop his own flavor for that space,” Memsic said. “That’s one of the things we want to establish. Let’s get weird. Let’s get funky.”

Memsic said Sanitas plans to open more taprooms beyond the Englewood one. In fact, taprooms are central to Sanitas’ growth strategy because they allow their customers to connect with Sanitas beer more so than if they just drank it out of a can. 

“I believe we can drop these locations and use them as anchors to have distribution footprints around,” Memsic said. “I think that intimate component and that personal experience, that whole synergy, is much better for us. What’s big for us is it really is about driving community.”