One of Colorado’s best brewery patios is barreling back onto the scene, but itap doing so under a new name and with a new focus.
A new beer maker called will soon open in the space formerly home to Sanitas Brewing Co., at 3550 Frontier Ave. in Boulder, which closed in December. When it does not much will have changed about the physical space and its epic outdoor patio, save for some minor cosmetic construction. But co-founder Dean Eberhardt says whatap on the menu will have been overhauled significantly.
Locals can get a first taste starting Friday, when Pattern Break makes its debut. Throughout the weekend, there will be live music and food from the house-operated food truck onsite.
Eberhardt, who is also the founder of hop tea, hopes Pattern Break will help set the tone for a new era in craft beer — one that meets consumers’ evolving tastes without giving up on beer entirely. The brewery will offer a robust selection of low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beers, Eberhardt said, as well as cocktail-inspired styles and other beverages that are unabashedly experimental.
“What we’re trying to do is critically ask, what has caused the stagnation in the industry and how can we disrupt the thinking of that to show what is possible going forward?” said Eberhardt, who is partnering with former Sanitas CEO Mike Memsic on the new project. Pattern Break is “a test brewery for that in our minds.”
Part of what makes Eberhardt so confident is that he has spent the last eight years honing a new kind of dry-hopping technology with Hoplark, and a secondary company called , that he plans to bring to Pattern Break. Essentially, Eberhardt figured out a way to create a concentrate that he calls “hop juice,” which allows for dry-hopping beers without losing beer yield. When using dry hops to flavor a beer, a portion of the beer gets absorbed by the plant, he said, which can lead to a reduction in the amount of liquid for the finished product.
“I think of Hoplark as kind of the original Pattern Break, where we were breaking this expectation that the only way you can get hops is through beer or the only way you can get a beer experience in a non-alcoholic sense is through an actual non-alcoholic beer,” he said. “We were able to make something that had zero calories and our customers fell in love with.”
Eberhardt declined to detail exactly how the technology works, but said it allows the company to extract double the amount of flavor out of hops and replace 100% of dry hops in a brew. (It is different that the flavor-boosting hop widgets appearing in some local beers.) That can be a cost-saver and will also enable Pattern Break to create flavorful IPAs with a lower calorie count, he said.
“You’ve seen a big transition in the direction of lower-carb, lower-alcohol, lower-calorie beverages. There’s been a shift toward spirits, there’s been a shift toward seltzer, and away from some of the really bulky beers,” Eberhardt said. “The technology we have allows us to play a lot differently than other breweries do, so we can make lower-calorie things that taste like they’re regular things.”
The opening menu, for example, is expected to include a pilsner, hazy IPA and West Coast-style IPA, each coming in at 3.5% alcohol-by-volume. Eberhardt also teased “an unfinished IPA” that bartenders will flavor with the hop concentrate to-order at the bar.
Beyond hoppy styles, Eberhardt said there will be a so-called “mischief menu” for which brewers are encouraged to break the unspoken rules of traditional brewing. Thatap where drinkers will find recipes like a Mai Tai Mexican lager, a Negroni cocktail-inspired IPA and other spirit-forward flavors. There will also be non-alcoholic options like an NA spicy margarita, an NA spruce-flavored cocktail, hop waters, and hop teas — all of which Eberhardt expects will pair aptly with bites from the onsite food truck, such as smashburgers, Asian chicken sandwiches and breakfast sandwiches that will be available all day.
Though the craft beer industry has fallen on hard times post-pandemic, Eberhardt sees now as the perfect time to find new and inventive ways to excite drinkers.
“We’re going to try to make some things that not only disrupt customers’ expectations, but light them up in a way that hasn’t happened in a while in craft beer,” he said. “So I think itap the perfect moment for it.”
