Omaha’s Bearded Brewer Artisan Ales expanding with Longmont taproom

LONGMONT — Longmont’s competitive beer scene is about to get a new player: Bearded Brewer Artisan Ales LLC, founded in 2021 in Omaha, Nebraska.

The taproom, set to celebrate a grand opening Saturday at 1425 S. Airport Road in west Longmont, is the focal point of Bearded Brewer, the brewery’s owner and titular beard-wearer Kirk Hearon told BizWest. “What’s worked for us in Omaha is having a really small format that’s focused 100% around the taproom. No distribution, we’re all about the experience at the taproom. It’s a model we want to continue in Longmont.”

Unlike many of his brewer peers, Hearon said his goal isn’t to bottle beers for sale in liquor stores and supermarkets. “If it’s going to become that way, it means something’s not going right in my current model.”

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Hearon and his wife, Alyssa Hearon, launched the company with the support of their business partners, husband-and-wife duo Brandon Knudsen and Camrin Knudsen, who own the Longmont-born Ziggi’s Coffee chain. 

Brandon Knudsen and Kirk Hearon were high school classmates in California who reconnected later in life when both were living in Colorado. 

Hearon explored opening a tap room in Longmont about eight years ago, “but that fell through, and it fell through for good reason,” he said. “… I’m glad we started in Omaha, but we always wanted to get a Colorado location.”

At the South Airport Road operation, “we’ll have really good capacity” for beer making in the roughly 1,200-square-foot brewery, Hearon said, which is attached to the 18-tap, 70-seat tap room with a heated 40-seat patio area.

The taproom does not have a kitchen, but food trucks will often be on site to serve drinkers, Hearon said.

Bearded Brewer Artisan Ales doesn’t limit its output to ale-style beers. “We focus on being really creative and stretching the limits of flavor,” Hearon said, and that creativity could manifest itself in anything from porters to sours to seltzers.