When you land on Bruz Beers website, you know immediately what you’ve gotten yourself into.
Right there, in gold-colored text set against a black background, front-and-center on the homepage, Bruz lays it all on the line.
Badass Belgian Beers.
Bruz doesn’t mince words about what they do, and when it comes to what they do, Bruz goes all-out. No cutting corners, no ambiguity, no wishy-washy styles.
Bruz does beer. Belgian beer, specifically. And they do it with total and utter badassery.
At Root Shoot, we serve quite a number of breweries and distilleries, but few of these specialize quite so thoroughly, and perhaps none as deeply as Bruz does with its Belgian focus. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First…
Let’s meet the team! Just look at these guys! Who wouldn’t want to sit down and sip a Badass Belgian with this crew?? (Or, as the case may be - leap off a beer tour bus with these guys and then sit down and sip a badass Belgian.)
The Bruz Crew is among our favorite group of humans in the beer scene and it all began with…school.
Beer school, to be precise.
The Root Shoot family is chock full of stories of married partners who decide to open a brewery together. We also know a lot of buddies, friend groups, and brewing club partners who made the same leap. We even have single brewer/owner businesses (though that sounds overwhelming!) but Bruz might be the only brewery in our community that began with an instructor/student pairing.
Bruz co-founders Ryan Evans and Charlie Gottenkieny met at a class on Belgian beers that Charlie was teaching at Colorado Free University. Lessons were instructed, beers were sipped, and next thing you know a business plan was developed, and a partnership was born.
By all appearances, these two business partners seem to complement each other wonderfully. Charlie has a long and storied career in the Belgian beer world. He’s been brewing Belgian beers for over 27 years, won over 100 medals, including two AHA Homebrewer of the year awards. He’s brewed commercially, he’s brewed at home, he’s taught classes on brewing, he’s spoken at conferences on brewing, he’s a nationally recognized beer judge….
You get the idea.
Ryan, with a passion for both beer and business (and, quite conveniently, an MBA and extensive business experience) knows the ins and outs of what it takes to run a successful company, from business plan development to execution and growth.
The result?
Two gorgeous tasting rooms in two of Denver’s most happenin’ neighborhoods, killer beers, and really good people.
With the addition of Dave Olson to the team (he previously brewed for Ursula Brewing) the Bruz Crew has really hit their groove, and they are kicking out some amazing beer. But good beer doesn’t happen by accident, and Bruz has one of the most dedicated teams to producing high-quality, authentic Belgian beers. So dedicated, in fact, that every year the Bruz team travels to Belgium to do some “continuing education” there.
Doesn’t everyone wish that all continuing ed classes involved beer trips to Europe?
Bruz teaches about Belgian beer, too. Ever the instructor, Charlie maintains a blog on the Bruz website that will school even the most well-informed beer nerd on all things Belgian. (It also serves as a great planning resource if you happen to be planning a trip to Belgium anytime soon!)
They also host pairings and classes on Belgians at the brewery, including regular beer courses on the first Saturday of most months. Keep an eye on their event calendar to join one! Or head over to one of their two locations and let the beer speak for itself. Try a flight! There are usually 18 beers on tap and more in bottles, so it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find something you love.
Including, most definitely, the company.
