Wilding Brands, the company behind Denver Beer Co., is shutting down its 35,000-square-foot brewing facility at 4455 Jason St. in Denver's Sunnyside neighborhood. Instead of running its own production site, the company plans to hire a contract brewer to make its beer going forward.
Wilding Brands Chief Development Officer Charlie Berger confirmed the closure to BusinessDen, telling the outlet that shifting to contract brewing marks a real change in how the company operates. “I'm not 100% sure it's cheaper in the short term, but it's just a different business model,” Berger said. The company's broader portfolio also includes Great Divide and Upslope Brewing, according to the same report.
Not everything under the Wilding umbrella is affected. Stem Ciders will continue to be made at its own production facility and taproom in Lafayette, BusinessDen reports, meaning the Sunnyside closure is specific to the beer side of the business rather than the company's entire operation.
A Facility With Roots Going Back Over a Decade
The Sunnyside site has a longer history than Wilding Brands itself. Known as the Canworks facility, it started out as a Denver Beer Co. brewery in 2014, according to The Denver Post. More recently, it had served as the production hub for Great Divide, Station 26 and Upslope under the Wilding banner, with beer production for all three breweries taking place there, per the same report.
Exactly when Wilding Brands came together is a point of disagreement between outlets. New School Beer + Cider has reported that Wilding Brands was formed in 2024 through a merger of Stem Ciders, Denver Beer Co. and Fort Collins' Funkwerks Brewing. The Denver Post, however, has reported that the three founders combined their operations under the Wilding Brands name in January 2025. BusinessDen's own account places the merger of Denver Beer Co. and Stem Ciders at roughly two years before its report.
Wilding's Rapid Growth Through Acquisitions
Whatever the exact founding date, Wilding Brands has expanded aggressively in the past year and a half. The company acquired Great Divide Brewing in April 2025, with plans at the time to move that brand's production brewing to the Sunnyside Canworks facility, according to New School Beer + Cider. By November 2025, Wilding had also acquired Boulder-based Upslope Brewing Co., though financial terms of that deal were not disclosed, The Denver Post reported.
Upslope's beverage production likewise moved to the Canworks facility, while its two Boulder locations were set to remain open and were not part of the acquisition, per The Denver Post's reporting. After folding in Upslope, Wilding expected to produce more than 80,000 barrels of beer and other beverages per year, the newspaper noted. As of its December 2025 report, The Denver Post described Wilding's full portfolio as five breweries, one cidery, three packaged beverages, two restaurants and one special-events space.
A Shrinking Industry Backdrop
The Sunnyside closure lands amid a rough stretch for Colorado's craft beer industry. At least 31 Colorado breweries had shuttered in 2025 alone, according to the Colorado Brewers Guild, as cited by The Denver Post. Nationally, 2024 marked the first year in nearly two decades that more craft breweries closed than opened, per the same report.
The numbers tell a similar story at the state level. Colorado's craft brewery count slipped from 468 in 2023 to 456 in 2024, while national craft beer production volume fell 4% that year, according to ColoradoBiz. More than 150 Colorado breweries have closed since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the outlet reported. Yet a 2026 Westword report found that consolidation like the kind reshaping Wilding Brands has actually been nearly absent from the scene this year, even as closures continue to outpace openings and most new locations amount to expansions of existing breweries rather than new entrants.
Wilding's shift to contract brewing has precedent elsewhere in Colorado's beer scene. Broomfield's 4 Noses Brewing Co. was contract-brewing for Odd13 before buying the company outright in 2021, The Denver Post noted. Other Colorado brands have taken the opposite path toward consolidation: Left Hand Brewing Co. in Longmont and Dry Dock Brewing Co. in Aurora merged in April 2025 to pool resources, with Dry Dock's brewing operations transitioning to Left Hand's Longmont facility while its Aurora taproom remained open, according to Westword.
