Jess Fierro had long dreamt of opening a brewery, and in 2017 she won a high-profile homebrew competition on Vice TV’s Beerland. In 2018, she and husband Rich jumped at a turnkey opportunity to make their community-focused vision into reality. Later came the unimaginable: On the night of November 19, 2022, they were celebrating a birthday with friends and family at Club Q in Colorado Springs when a shooter killed five people and injured many more; Rich, an Army veteran, tackled and subdued the shooter. That led to an outpouring of attention to their small business, even as they continue to come to terms with trauma and personal loss.
CBB // Why don’t we start with some of your own beer histories? How did you connect with craft beer? And what then got you excited about brewing beer?
JF // Through our military travels, we landed in Heidelberg, Germany; we were there for just shy of six years. I was never a fan of beer. I was a big wine person—tequila girl. So we go to Germany, and you know, you got your liters of beer out there, and you’re in the mecca of it all, right? I mean, if you know beer, that’s where you want to be. And it took Rich probably the better half of a year to convince me to even start drinking beer.