Cerberus Brewing breaks ground

Last year, we helped introduce you to Cerberus Brewing, and you voted them as the number one anticipated brewery to open in Colorado Springs.  After months of jumping through hoops with the City Liquor board and Regional Building, the team at Cerberus started renovating the old Colorado Veterinary Clinic to suit their brewpub needs.Colorado Springs, April 12, 2016—The most anticipated new brewery of 2016 in the Pikes Peak region, according to readers of the Focus on the Beer Blog, is set to open in late spring on the near Westside of Colorado Springs. Cerberus Brewing Company has received their building permit to renovate the former Colorado Avenue Veterinarian Hospital and big changes are underway for the nearly half-acre site situated at the northwest corner of 7th Street and W. Colorado Avenue. Partners Tom Halfast, Josh Adamski, Cindy Geiser, and Jerry Morris have been working on the project since March of last year. The sale of the building was completed in May and approvals for changes of use and zoning were finalized in September.A seven barrel brewhouse will be installed in the kennel and storage area at the north end of the former vet hospital. With the architectural design done by Echo Architecture and the interior by Senger Design Group, the new operation is sure to be a great addition to the burgeoning food and entertainment scene that’s happening on West Colorado Avenue. CBC joins 503W, Brother Luck and the European Café, with Southside Johnny opening a Westside taproom sometime in the next few weeks. In addition to the brewhouse, the ground floor of the 4,600 sq. ft. operation will also house the kitchen, a barrel aging room, offices and storage. The front of the house will be on the top floor with an intimate dining room for up to thirty patrons adjacent to the bar/lounge. Oriented toward the unobstructed views of Pikes Peak, the bar features a large fireplace bookended by two garage doors that offer access to a large deck. As the deck is on the south and west side of the property, it will soak up the Colorado sunshine all afternoon and should be usable throughout most of three seasons. The deck overlooks a 2,500 sq. ft. dog-friendly beer garden featuring gardens, a firepit, bocce ball courts, and cornhole boards. Twenty-two off street parking spaces in addition to space for twenty spots adjacent to the site will provide substantial parking. The site is situated three blocks from the Midland Trail ensuring that CBC will be a popular destination among bikers. Plenty of bike racks will be provided.Eco consciousness has been a critical component of the intent, design, and implementation of the project since its inception. Woven through every step of the process has been a conscientious effort to reuse much of the detritus of the remodel, ie: the ceiling joists that have been removed from the upper level will be the studs in the new walls surrounding the brewery; the chain link from the kennels has been utilized throughout construction for site fencing and will reappear in the interior design of the bar. Rocks saved from excavation around the site will be used with more of that chain link to become gabion walls (A gabion wall is a retaining wall made of stacked stone-filled wire boxes tied together with wire.) in the garden; the surgical operating light will be rebuilt and repurposed as a lighting fixture in the new barrel aging room. The pickets from the privacy fence that stood along Colorado Avenue were used to form the concrete walls that replaced it. The majority of the food items used in the kitchen will be sourced from within Colorado with the most being from within one hundred miles. Fresh herbs used will be grown on-site; the spent grains used in the brewery will be donated to a farmer to feed livestock; the oil used in the fryer will find new life as a fuel source in a car belonging to one of the owners; organic kitchen waste will be composted; and electric hand dryers rather than paper towels will be provided in the restrooms.The management team of Cerberus will be comprised of the owners with an important addition being that of the chef. Manning the helm of the kitchen will be Executive Chef Mark LeFebvre. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, LeFebvre is a fifteen year veteran in the industry coming to us from the Broadmoor where he was most recently a Chef de Cuisine. LeFebvre brings his farm to table experience to Colorado Springs after honing his skills as the chef of all outlets for the Inn on Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and as the Chef of the Wisconsin Room at the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin. He will collaborate with local farmers and ranchers to source the majority of his ingredients, and his seasonally inspired, constantly evolving menu will be beer-centric incorporating the beer into as many of the recipes as possible with many of the dishes being built around specific brews.Josh Adamski has been home brewing since 2003. He studied biology at Pikes Peak Community College and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He also studied Advanced Brewing Theory with the Siebel Institute in Chicago, IL, and recently completed a 4 month internship at Red Leg Brewing Co. in Colorado Springs. He has spent the last four years managing Brewer’s Republic taproom downtown. Josh will have twenty taps with which to show off the beer he has brewed for Cerberus Brewing Company. Typical styles will range from Belgian Style Ales to many types of IPAs and everything in between. A barrel aging program is set to begin next year. While there will be several main line beers there will also be room for one-off styles, seasonal brews and experimental offerings. Cerberus will also have guest taps from some of the best breweries around the world, a diverse selection of wines and a full offering of spirits.Cindy Geiser brings forty-five years of management experience in the telecom and tech industries and real estate to Colorado Springs as our bookkeeper and brewery Mom.Tom Halfast and Jerry Morris are excited to be returning a business to the Westside. Morris’ first job was at the Raintree Inn located at I-25 and Bijou. He worked there for eight years starting when he was fourteen. Together Halfast and Morris operated First Choice Printing for ten years and Century 21 Home Team for twelve years in the 1000 block of West Colorado Avenue. They have owned property on the Westside since 1991 and are happy to be back in the ‘hood full time. After selling the print shop and the real estate office they bought the Underground downtown which they owned/managed for ten years. They recently sold the Underground and Brewer’s Republic to concentrate their energies on CBC. Halfast will demonstrate his prowess as a gardener and bookkeeper and Morris will strive to ensure the service at Cerberus Brewing Company is on par with the food and the beer.We here at Focus on the Beer are super excited for Cerberus Brewing to open up, and despite the timing setbacks, they're well on their way to a 2016 opening! We'll keep you updated with anything we find out about their progress. As always, you should connect with them on Facebook for more immediate news!