Colorado Culinary School students should take note: On Monday, July 11, Boulder officially added one more craft brewery to its already burgeoning beer scene. Finkel & Garf, the new effort being put forth by co-founders Eric Garfinkel, Dan Garfinkel and brewer Mychal Johnson, is now located at 5455 Spine Road in Gunbarrel. The 5,500-square-foot brewery features a modern and bright taproom as well as a 15-barrel brewhouse. Perhaps the single most interesting physical trait of the space is the custom coat of arms that the co-founders had designed for the establishment.
The coat of arms, which appears in various places around the brewery as well as on its labels, features a Big Wheel, a robot, a wind-up car, a frisbee and a Jack in the Box. The five pieces mean, respectively: go places, stay curious, let it go, play often and surprise yourself. According to the three founders, the idea is that these images will reflect the ideology with which they approach both life and the craft brewing industry.
“We want this to be a fun, family-oriented place,” Eric Garfinkel told the Daily Camera.
The brewery opened a week ago with 11 beers on draft, but one more is expected to join that rotation shortly. The lager, which has a longer brewing cycle than the others, wasn’t ready for the grand opening.
Finkel & Garf, which plans to install a canning machine from Boulder’s Wild Goose Canning in the coming months in order to put custom labels on its cans, is opening at a high point in the craft brewery market, both in Boulder and nationwide. The U.S. Brewers Association recently announced that America’s total number of breweries has risen to over 3,000. Gunbarrel has had something of a beer renaissance of late as well, with several other breweries recently opening and Avery Brewing planning a 96,000-square-foot brewery and restaurant in the area.
