Locust Ciders to open Old Town FoCo taproom

FORT COLLINS – A cidery based in western Washington will open a taproom and brewery soon in Old Town Fort Collins.

Locust Ciders, which opened its first Colorado location in August 2019 at 5446 Conestoga Court in Boulder, will occupy a space at 200 Walnut St., Suite A, which has been vacant since La Luz Mexican Grill closed in September 2018.

Since opening in Boulder, the Woodinville, Washington-based company has been on a growth spurt, opening three taprooms in downtown Seattle, one in that city’s Alki Beach area, and one each in the Washington cities of Spokane, Walla Walla and Vancouver. A location in the Seattle suburb of Redmond is to open this week, and before the end of the month Locust Ciders will open in the state capital, Olympia, as well as a third Colorado location in the Belmar area of Lakewood. It also runs a production facility and taproom in Fort Worth, Texas, and taprooms in Tacoma, Washington, and in the Ballard section of Seattle.

The Fort Collins taproom will offer 16 taps featuring the company’s hard-cider varieties including Original Dry, Dark Cherry, Honey Pear and Vanilla Bean, seasonals including Mojito and Watermelon, and limited small-batch specials such as Pineapple Smoked Pepper.

Although Locust Ciders will continue to source most of its apples from Washington, the company said in a news release, it will leverage Colorado for local ingredients, “creating special blends that are only for our Colorado market. In addition to cider, we will offer an expanded food menu created exclusively for us by our neighbors The Welsh Rabbit that complements our cider flavors. The menu will include small shareables such as a cheesemongers choice cheese plate, brie with fruit, jam and crackers, salads incorporating our cider (smoked vegetable salad with Dark Cherry dressing) as well as hot plates like street tacos and gouda fries, all to be enjoyed inside our taproom or on our large outdoor patio. There will also be a kid’s corner for the wee ones and retro video games for all ages when restrictions are lifted.”

All COVID-19 restrictions will apply, the release said, and the cidery will accept online orders for pickup or delivery.

Owners Jason and Rebecca Spears are graduates of the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Colorado Denver’s business school, respectively.

“On a very high level, we are opening new cideries and taprooms so we can get as close to our customers as possible,” said Jason Spears in the news release. “It is fine to throw some cans on the grocery store shelves and hope people buy them. But what does a customer learn about us? What do we learn about the customer?

That can of cider doesn’t tell them about the people who worked so hard to make their cider, about how we source apples from all over the Pacific Northwest, that we work with some of the world’s biggest growers and orchards as small as 2 acres, about our cause or about the story behind the name. Opening new taprooms is our focus because of all of these reasons.” 

The cause is hydrocephalus, an incurable brain condition that afflicts the Spears’ daughter, Lucy, 5. A portion of proceeds from the sale of cans and bottles as well as the cidery’s club, The Swarm, goes to the Hydrocephalus Association.

The name has a special meaning for Jason Spears, based on a traumatic experience he had in his native Fort Worth.

“When I was a teenager, 14 years old, I was attacked pretty brutally,” he told BizWest last year. “I thought I was going to die. But while I was waiting for an ambulance, I was listening to the sounds of the locusts in the summer heat. That sound gave me a calming moment — and it started me thinking about how life is short and I’m gonna make the most out of everything I do, take everything to 100%, not accept half of anything anymore.”

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