While many Denver breweries are shutting down, nine-year-old Bruz Beers is going strong, readying to open a third taproom on the west side of town. It’s a longevity that co-founder Ryan Evans (EMBA 2011) attributes to the brewery’s singular focus on Belgian-style beers like dubbels, tripels and saisons.
“It’s funny—when I started the brewery, we were laser-focused on only Belgian styles, and everyone said, ‘You can’t do that. You’ve got to brew everything for everyone, or you’re never going to survive,’” Evans said. “It’s ironic that nine years later, the strongest breweries seem to be the ones that are focused on a certain style. I think that helped us. We’re an expert in Belgian styles; we do educational classes around it, and we even take people to Belgium every year for a guided Belgian beer tour.”
Evans’ passion for the beers of the Western European country began when he was backpacking through Europe during one of his college summers and ended up in Brussels for a train change. With two hours to kill before continuing to Amsterdam, he stopped in a pub for a beer that would change his life.
“It was a tripel karmeliet, and it was unbelievable,” he said. “It came in this karmeliet glass, and it was this foamy, frothy beer with a blonde color. It was about 9% alcohol, and it was just incredible. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that changed me.”
Evans began spreading the gospel of Belgian beer to his friends and fellow travelers, and a few years later, when he was back in Denver working for his family’s commercial security company, he had another life-changing moment when he attended a seminar led by local Belgian beer expert Charlie Gottenkieny.
“He brought Belgian-style beers, but he also brought some that he brewed at home,” Evans said. “And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I tasted over there. This is spot on. This is the experience that I’ve been wanting to share with everyone.’ I approached him after the class and said, ‘I don’t know anything about starting a brewery, but I think this is what we should do.’”
Then, in the midst of the Executive MBA (EMBA) program at the Daniels College of Business, Evans started working on a business plan, exploring the potential of the brewery idea through some of his classwork. Once he completed the program, he was ready to hit the ground running, with Gottenkieny as his head brewer.
“You come out of the EMBA, and you’re so fired up and dialed in and efficient with your time and energy and thoughts,” he said. “The program lets you get your hands in everything from finance and advertising to accounting, so you can speak the language better across the board. It was easy to transfer those skills into the brewery.”
As valuable as gaining those skills were, for Evans, the biggest benefit of the EMBA program was the bond he developed with the other members of his cohort.
“I’m still in touch with most of my cohort, and we all meet at the brewery quite often,” he said. “It’s been nice to be able to bounce ideas back and forth and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this going on’, or ‘I have this issue.’ We’re all a pretty good springboard for each other. One of the main reasons I signed up for the Daniels EMBA program was that I knew most of the people in that program were going to end up as local leaders.”
Evans has also expanded his Daniels network to faculty members, other alumni and current students, hosting networking events at Bruz taprooms.
“I have a great relationship with past and present leaders of the School,” he said. “I think it’s important to enable gatherings of our alumni base to support each other and the program further. One of the benefits of graduating from DU is the powerful alumni presence, and anything we can do to continue fostering that movement is valuable to the community. Not only that, but it is a fun and inspiring group to be around.”
Evans brings that same spirit of connection to Bruz’s physical locations, which he is proud to say have become gathering places for their respective neighborhoods.
“A successful brewery is a community center, and I think that fills my batteries more than anything,” he said. “People have had weddings here, they’ve met their spouses here — there are kids coming in with their parents who are 9 years old now, and they weren’t even born when we started.
“We’ve got an art wall at the main brewery where a different artist hangs on it every month, and there are no fees, no charges, no commission,” he added. “We’ve got a team of people who have chosen to be in this industry, and they enjoy being here. We just have a lot of fun, and I feel like we make a difference.”