About Our Lakewood Brewery
brewery & Production System Information
WestFax Brewing System
We brew on a 7 barrel brew house, built by Bennett Forgeworks in Ridgway, CO. Three of our tanks are 7BBL Fermenters and one 7BBL brite from Stout Tanks based out of Oregon. In addition, we have three 15BBL fermenters one purchased used, from River North Brewing Company, one from Alpha Brew Ops in Lincoln, NE, and our last 15BBL Fermenter and 15BBL brite purchased from Rocky Mountain Vessels here in Colorado. Lastly we have our 2BBL small batch tank we call mini me from SS Brewtech. We’ve named each of our tanks because if you can’t have a good time while brewing beer, when can you? We went for a “yeast” theme for our Fermentors; the names of each are as follows: Yeastmaster, Yeastiality, Yeaster Bunny, and the big boys – Clint Yeastwood, Yeast Likely To Succeed, and Yeast Mode. Our bright tank (where all of the beers are carbonated) is named CARBOTRON 3000 and CARBOTRON 6000 (please read in a Monster Truck show commercial voice). Our pumps and heat exchanger are from CPE Systems. We Package in 16oz cans on a one head Wild Goose Gosling canning line with an inline labeler, call her Phylis the filler.
Brew Volumes
In our first year (well 10 months to be exact!), we brewed 250 barrels worth of WestFax beer. In 2017, we grew to 352 barrels. Moving right along to 2018 we continued to grow to a whopping 454 barrels for your enjoyment. 2019 saw even more growth to 564 barrels. In the tumultuous year of 2020 we grew again to 582 bbls. We’ve continued to grow in almost every of our existence.
2016: (10 Months): 250 Barrels
2017: 352 Barrels
2018: 454 Barrels
2019: 560 Barrels
2020: 582 Barrels
2021: 700.8 Barrels
2022: 750 Barrels
2023: 750 Barrels
2024: 800 - 1000 Barrels (projected)
BARREL AGING & SOURING
We currently have 12 barrels (53gal each), 11 of which are Bourbon Barrels from various local and national distilleries and one Chardonnay barrel. We use all of these barrels to age specific beers for months and years at a time to help us garner flavors we think you’d enjoy. Our goal is to keep at least one sour ale on tap at all times at our brewery. We use an expedited souring technique in our kettle, which allows us to produce quality sours at a faster rate. When souring, a similar base and sour fermentation is used whenever we are creating a new sour ale. We then concentrate on infusing new fruits to blend-in and create deliciously balanced sours, such as our Peaches Be Crazy and Fruit Shakes.
Facility & Taproom Information
Our first taproom and production facility are both within the same building at 6733 W. Colfax Ave. on the border of West Denver and Lakewood, CO. Our total brewery square footage is approximately 3,610 square feet. The building is nearly a 50/50 split between the taproom and the brewery production area. Our taproom occupancy is 102 indoors and 50 on our outdoor patio.
Our second taproom will be located in Colorado Springs at 3043 W. Pikes Peak Ave. and is slated to open in Late spring 2024.
Additional Brewery System FAQs
Do you offer tours of the brewery?
We sure can, its a smaller facility which can create a shorter tour, but we are happy to set something up for your group or special occasion.
Do you use CO2?
We carbonate most of our brew products, however occasionally we will Nitrogenate a batch or a special release brew. We serve carbonated beers in our taproom with a blend of 60/40 CO2/N2 and Nitrogenated beers with a 25/75 blend.
Do you use Brettanomyces?
We occasionally experiment with Brettanomyces or “Brett” for some small pilot brews. Please check the Our Beers page for information on upcoming or current Brett beers.
Do you use Lactobacillus?
Yes, our sour ales go through a Lactobacillus fermentation prior to the yeast fermentation.
Do you use whole fruit or puree?
We purchase fruit as an aseptic puree. The fruit is ground down and free of contaminants that could affect flavors. We do not use extracts in our brews only true flavors from actual ingredients.
Where do you get your grain from?
We use grains from lots of different regions and countries, depending on the flavors we want in our beers. Some are harvested here locally in Colorado, but it really depends on the needs of the beer we are creating as to which grain we order from which region.
Where do you get your hops from?
Mainly from the Pacific Northwest for American Hops, we have been known to order in hops from England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, others. Again, it depends greatly on the needs of the brew and the hop variety needed (and inventory available) to create the flavors we like, however we try and stay local as much as we can.
Where do you get your yeast from?
We use a local company called Propagate labs
What types of beer does Westfax Focus on?
There are two main types of beer; ales and lagers. We brew both! We focus on hop forward ales to include Hazy(East Coast) and West Coast style IPAs as well as tradiional and moddern lager styles. Ales take about 2-3 weeks for fermentation. Lagers however, take almost twice as much time. The fermentation for a lager on average takes 5-8 whole weeks.