Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lens, Gina Gandi, Good morning.
It's Celiac Awareness Month and one of the few certified
gluten free breweries in the US is right here in
Colorado and Betriette.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's brewed with Colorado Green to make it taste even better.
It's Holidaily Brewing founder and head brewista.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Which I love that title. By the way, it's Karen Hurts.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
She's joining us now in the Koa Common Spirit Health
Studio to talk a little bit about her brewery and
her story.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Karen, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm happy to be here this morning, so give us
the pitch first.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
What is Holidaily Brewing? What makes it so special?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Yeah, Holidaily Brewing is an all gluten free brewery. Were
the first and only in Colorado right now. I started
Holidaily really as a background. I worked at quors here
in Colorado, have an MBA in entrepreneurship from c Denver,
and then ran into my own health issues. I'm a
two time cancer survivor, first melanoma, second thyroid cancer, and
(00:55):
an auto immune thyroid disease and was also diagnosed with
a gluten intolerance and worked at careers and loved beer.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And grew up here in Colorado.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
It's such a big part of our social life here,
and there were no great gluten free beers out there.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So this comes out of necessity because of some health
issues you have, and if you enjoy beer, you thought,
why not marry the two? Was that hard to do?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, it's real hard to do to figure out really
how to make it entirely safe for people with Celiac
disease and make it taste good. But that's the real trick,
and so lots of research into ingredients and how to make.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
A great quality, world class beer that was also gluten free.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Because I assume you can't just certify yourself as a
gluten free brewery. There's a whole process of what you
need to do in qualifications in order to get it.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Yeah, so there is an organization out there that certifies
you as a gluten free product, and it's auditing, it's testing,
and training for all of our employees. So there's a
lot that we have to do in order to get
that certification. That's on all of our packaging.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What is the gluten part that is in normal traditional
beer that you remove?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, so really are made with water, grain, yeast, and
hops and waters gluten free. Hops are gluten free yeast,
we can get gluten free, but grain is the trick.
So barley and wheat both have gluten in them, and
rather than utilizing those grains, I was looking for gluten
free grains we could use to replace that. So all
of our beers are actually made with millet and buckwheat,
(02:20):
which are still grains, they're just gluten free.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I just learned that today.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I didn't really know there's such thing as gluten free
grains to begin with.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I thought you were eliminating it in some way and
replacing it.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So yeah, so there's actually no gluten that ever enters
the process in making our beer.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So dumb question. So gluten actually exists in nature. It's
not something that we can cock because we talk about
this all the time, what additives and chemicals we add
to our food systems? Right?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
No, yeah, so it actually exists in these grains. So wheat, barley,
and rye are the three really guilty grains.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
That have gluten in them.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
So anything made with those particular ingredients has gluten in it.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So, Karen, let's broaden this out a little bit. What
is it like being the owner of Holidaily Brewing Company?
What is it like being a brewery owner in today's
economy and just the ever changing world of what we
see in the brewing industry of Colorado.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, being a brewery owner is pretty fun. I won't lie.
But the beer industry is struggling right now.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
It's a lot of people are being careful of what
they intake, you know, taking better care of themselves and
paying attention to what they're eating. But a part of
that is a lot of people are going gluten free.
So about thirty percent of the population is reducing gluten
from their diets and Hollidaily.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Is doing great. So we're growing quite a bit this year.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
We have our one tap room in Golden and then
we distribute to eleven states throughout the Western United States.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Right now, you are in a couple of unique niches
or arenas gluten free beer, but also your women owned brewery. Yeah,
and I don't know how many women owned breweries or
businesses in the beverage space there are, but that's another
unique carb out for you too, there is.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Yeah, so there's about three percent of women owned breweries
in the US, but we're actually the only certified woman
known bewery in the country.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Wow, is that a qualifocation that you need to Yeah?
So what you have?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Essentially we go an extra mile to prove that over
fifty one percent of our ownership is female.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So you take the gluten out, how do you preserve
the taste?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So rather not?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You don't even put it in?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Should?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So, really, it's about the ingredients that we use and
the quality of ingredients. So we source all of our
grains here locally from a company called Grouse Milk House
up near Fort Collins, and it starts with that process.
She melts it and roast it so that we can
make really awesome beers that happen to be gluten free.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Is cost ever difficult for you when it's assume that
the reason why a lot of people use gluten in
these certain grains is also cheaper.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, so it is.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It is the ingredients are more expensive for us to utilize,
and so our prices on the shelf are more a
little bit more premium than a traditional craft beer.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
And I would assume because we touched on this a
little bit as well and conflating brands, but I always
see that you know they have if you want to
say healthy beers michelobol for those things. Is this a
more healthy option too for people that like beer.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You can't really use the word healthy and beer. Yeah, yeah,
but we do say better for you. That's just less
inflammatory really for anybody.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So anybody that.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Consumes any gluten, it causes inflammation in your body. Celiac
obviously is a whole other level, but this will reduce
that when you're consuming our beer.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Karon, tell us about the pretty package that you brought
in here with some of the beers.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That you guys. A.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, so our biggest seller is Holidaily's favorite blonde ale
and then we just recently you.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Don't want all those I get one too.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Party may have stolen all okay at six fifty in
the morning, no one was judging, But we did a
variety packets, our first ever, and we took our fruited blond,
which is our biggest seller, and then blended it with
natural fruit flavors. So there's a melon blonde, a passion
fruit blond, and a tangerine blonde in this pack and
it's delicious.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I know we touched on us a little bit, but again,
to broaden this out. As Gina said as well, the
business and you touched on this somewhat. Is it the
zone if you will flood it now in Colorado and
you have the NBA piece, you know, the business piece
of it. It's just a tough business to get into
pro product or not. But having the right business infrastructure
around you to survive as a brewery, yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I think you know what, for a long time, beer
was exploding and there were a lot of breweries that
opened up here and it may have gotten oversaturated. I
think COVID impacted breweries a lot, and so that was.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
A struggle as well.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
You couldn't have consumers in your tap rooms, and so
beries got creative and a lot more beeries packaged their
beer at that point.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Well, now you're kind.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Of back to this model where so many packaged beers
were on the shelf. It was too much, and so
now a lot are going back to just a tap
room model. And so there's a lot of strategy that
has to happen around survival and being profitable. And for us,
we have luckily little competition in the gluten free space,
and so we have a lot of room to grow
(07:12):
and we're really doing strategy, strategy and moves to fill
that gap.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And a fruited blonde is certainly creative for sure. As
soon as I heard that, I kind of perked up
because I was like, that's up my alley.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes, okay, Karen, give us all the details of where
people can find Holidaily Brewing coming.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
So our tap room is located in Golden but we
distribute throughout all of Colorado. You can find us in
Course Field, you can find us in Wholesome Field.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You can find us in Dick Sporting a Park.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
But whole Foods, King Supers, Sprouts, any big liquor store. Really,
Holidaily is out there and hoping to continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I'm going to buy some Holidaily. Holidaily founder. It's Karen Hurts. Karen,
thanks for coming in.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Six fifty seven, Colorado's Morning News
It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lens, Gina Gandi, Good morning.
It's Celiac Awareness Month and one of the few certified
gluten free breweries in the US is right here in
Colorado and Betriette.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's brewed with Colorado Green to make it taste even better.
It's Holidaily Brewing founder and head brewista.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Which I love that title. By the way, it's Karen Hurts.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
She's joining us now in the Koa Common Spirit Health
Studio to talk a little bit about her brewery and
her story.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Karen, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm happy to be here this morning, so give us
the pitch first.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
What is Holidaily Brewing? What makes it so special?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Yeah, Holidaily Brewing is an all gluten free brewery. Were
the first and only in Colorado right now. I started
Holidaily really as a background. I worked at quors here
in Colorado, have an MBA in entrepreneurship from c Denver,
and then ran into my own health issues. I'm a
two time cancer survivor, first melanoma, second thyroid cancer, and
(00:55):
an auto immune thyroid disease and was also diagnosed with
a gluten intolerance and worked at careers and loved beer.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And grew up here in Colorado.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
It's such a big part of our social life here,
and there were no great gluten free beers out there.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So this comes out of necessity because of some health
issues you have, and if you enjoy beer, you thought,
why not marry the two? Was that hard to do?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, it's real hard to do to figure out really
how to make it entirely safe for people with Celiac
disease and make it taste good. But that's the real trick,
and so lots of research into ingredients and how to make.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
A great quality, world class beer that was also gluten free.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Because I assume you can't just certify yourself as a
gluten free brewery. There's a whole process of what you
need to do in qualifications in order to get it.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Yeah, so there is an organization out there that certifies
you as a gluten free product, and it's auditing, it's testing,
and training for all of our employees. So there's a
lot that we have to do in order to get
that certification. That's on all of our packaging.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What is the gluten part that is in normal traditional
beer that you remove?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, so really are made with water, grain, yeast, and
hops and waters gluten free. Hops are gluten free yeast,
we can get gluten free, but grain is the trick.
So barley and wheat both have gluten in them, and
rather than utilizing those grains, I was looking for gluten
free grains we could use to replace that. So all
of our beers are actually made with millet and buckwheat,
(02:20):
which are still grains, they're just gluten free.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I just learned that today.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I didn't really know there's such thing as gluten free
grains to begin with.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I thought you were eliminating it in some way and
replacing it.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So yeah, so there's actually no gluten that ever enters
the process in making our beer.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So dumb question. So gluten actually exists in nature. It's
not something that we can cock because we talk about
this all the time, what additives and chemicals we add
to our food systems? Right?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
No, yeah, so it actually exists in these grains. So wheat, barley,
and rye are the three really guilty grains.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
That have gluten in them.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
So anything made with those particular ingredients has gluten in it.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
So, Karen, let's broaden this out a little bit. What
is it like being the owner of Holidaily Brewing Company?
What is it like being a brewery owner in today's
economy and just the ever changing world of what we
see in the brewing industry of Colorado.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, being a brewery owner is pretty fun. I won't lie.
But the beer industry is struggling right now.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
It's a lot of people are being careful of what
they intake, you know, taking better care of themselves and
paying attention to what they're eating. But a part of
that is a lot of people are going gluten free.
So about thirty percent of the population is reducing gluten
from their diets and Hollidaily.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Is doing great. So we're growing quite a bit this year.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
We have our one tap room in Golden and then
we distribute to eleven states throughout the Western United States.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Right now, you are in a couple of unique niches
or arenas gluten free beer, but also your women owned brewery. Yeah,
and I don't know how many women owned breweries or
businesses in the beverage space there are, but that's another
unique carb out for you too, there is.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Yeah, so there's about three percent of women owned breweries
in the US, but we're actually the only certified woman
known bewery in the country.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Wow, is that a qualifocation that you need to Yeah?
So what you have?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Essentially we go an extra mile to prove that over
fifty one percent of our ownership is female.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So you take the gluten out, how do you preserve
the taste?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So rather not?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You don't even put it in?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Should?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So, really, it's about the ingredients that we use and
the quality of ingredients. So we source all of our
grains here locally from a company called Grouse Milk House
up near Fort Collins, and it starts with that process.
She melts it and roast it so that we can
make really awesome beers that happen to be gluten free.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Is cost ever difficult for you when it's assume that
the reason why a lot of people use gluten in
these certain grains is also cheaper.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, so it is.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It is the ingredients are more expensive for us to utilize,
and so our prices on the shelf are more a
little bit more premium than a traditional craft beer.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
And I would assume because we touched on this a
little bit as well and conflating brands, but I always
see that you know they have if you want to
say healthy beers michelobol for those things. Is this a
more healthy option too for people that like beer.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You can't really use the word healthy and beer. Yeah, yeah,
but we do say better for you. That's just less
inflammatory really for anybody.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So anybody that.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Consumes any gluten, it causes inflammation in your body. Celiac
obviously is a whole other level, but this will reduce
that when you're consuming our beer.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Karon, tell us about the pretty package that you brought
in here with some of the beers.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That you guys. A.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, so our biggest seller is Holidaily's favorite blonde ale
and then we just recently you.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Don't want all those I get one too.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Party may have stolen all okay at six fifty in
the morning, no one was judging, But we did a
variety packets, our first ever, and we took our fruited blond,
which is our biggest seller, and then blended it with
natural fruit flavors. So there's a melon blonde, a passion
fruit blond, and a tangerine blonde in this pack and
it's delicious.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I know we touched on us a little bit, but again,
to broaden this out. As Gina said as well, the
business and you touched on this somewhat. Is it the
zone if you will flood it now in Colorado and
you have the NBA piece, you know, the business piece
of it. It's just a tough business to get into
pro product or not. But having the right business infrastructure
around you to survive as a brewery, yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I think you know what, for a long time, beer
was exploding and there were a lot of breweries that
opened up here and it may have gotten oversaturated. I
think COVID impacted breweries a lot, and so that was.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
A struggle as well.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
You couldn't have consumers in your tap rooms, and so
beries got creative and a lot more beeries packaged their
beer at that point.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Well, now you're kind.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Of back to this model where so many packaged beers
were on the shelf. It was too much, and so
now a lot are going back to just a tap
room model. And so there's a lot of strategy that
has to happen around survival and being profitable. And for us,
we have luckily little competition in the gluten free space,
and so we have a lot of room to grow
(07:12):
and we're really doing strategy, strategy and moves to fill
that gap.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And a fruited blonde is certainly creative for sure. As
soon as I heard that, I kind of perked up
because I was like, that's up my alley.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes, okay, Karen, give us all the details of where
people can find Holidaily Brewing coming.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
So our tap room is located in Golden but we
distribute throughout all of Colorado. You can find us in
Course Field, you can find us in Wholesome Field.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You can find us in Dick Sporting a Park.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
But whole Foods, King Supers, Sprouts, any big liquor store. Really,
Holidaily is out there and hoping to continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I'm going to buy some Holidaily. Holidaily founder. It's Karen Hurts. Karen,
thanks for coming in.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Six fifty seven, Colorado's Morning News
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