Crow Hop to close Loveland taproom this weekend

LOVELAND – Crow Hop Brewery will close its taproom this weekend after 10 years in downtown Loveland, although it plans to continue to produce its beers and participate in area festivals.

The brewery had announced in April that its taproom at 214 E. Fourth St. would close this summer.

“We are hopeful that this constriction will allow us to reopen another taproom in the future,” the brewery stated on its website. “We will continue to operate production and distribution to area accounts, as well as participate in festivals and other events while we refocus our efforts on growing our brewery in new and exciting directions. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you all around town and continuing to support our fellow brewers and local businesses with a pint or two.”

The taproom’s final days will be Saturday and Sunday, the brewery said.

It had originally opened on Third Street in 2013 but moved to its Fourth Street location five years later. The restrictions that came with the COVID-19 pandemic ended up being too much to overcome.

“We had very high hopes for our Fourth Street location when we moved here in 2018 after construction on Third Street limited access to our former taproom and promised to cause significant disruptions for an extended time,” the brewery stated on its website. “The Fourth Street taproom and our brewery developed at a steady pace after that move, with it looking like we’d hit our next big milestone in the summer of 2020. However, circumstances didn’t work out that year, and despite pouring our available time and money into the taproom and brewery since everything opened back up, we have not been able to return to our pre-COVID momentum or sales.

“We do not make this decision lightly, but it has become clear that the taproom’s sales just can’t sustain its operations, and we’ve run out of reasonable options to continue to support it,” the statement said. “Throughout the past few years, we took all the measures we could, including applying and receiving various grants, loans, and any other available funds. However, the [Small Business Administration] continually rejected our efforts to obtain an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, even suggesting that if we requested updates that they would move our application to the bottom of the pile. Sure enough, the funds allocated to that program ran dry over a year after we submitted our initial application, which remained in limbo that entire time.

“Perhaps we would have been able to stay open and recover if the SBA had processed our application, perhaps not, but regardless, we no longer have the resources to keep the taproom going on our own.”

In an interview with the Loveland Reporter-Herald in April, when the impending closure was first announced, owner Dustin Kennard said “It is horrible” and added that “We love downtown. You try to build something that was a dream, and we just can’t afford to keep doing it how we are doing it right now.

The statement on the website expressed gratitude “to the community and our employees, who also gave so much to this endeavor. We have no regrets, and cannot state enough how much we value and appreciate the incredible times we’ve had with everyone who passed through our doors.”