Startup brewery abandons plans to open in Colorado Springs

Reporter

Dauntless Brewing announced in early August that it’s abandoning plans to open a brewery at 1647 S. Tejon St. in Colorado Springs.

For as long as he could, Robert Beaird remained undaunted.

After negotiations to open his startup brewery in a vacant Bijou Street storefront broke down, and big visions of remaking an old used car dealership on South Nevada Avenue into a destination taproom went kaput, Dauntless Brewing soldiered on.

By fall 2022, things finally seemed to be on track: Dauntless had signed a lease and work had begun inside the former Distillery 291 space at 1647 S. Tejon St. After a series of delays, a mid-to-late summer 2023 grand opening was teased.

Until it wasn’t.

The financial realities of getting the business over final hurdles — and of being a new dad — forced the difficult decision to abandon the long-brewing project, Beaird said.

In the works since 2018, Dauntless, the brick-and-mortar brewery in the Ivywild neighborhood, and the brand, enters the annals of Colorado Springs brewery might-have-beens.

“I could have … put in more (time and money), but I have an infant at home, and that got kind of scary, just dumping everything into the business,” said Beaird, who announced the news on the brewery’s Facebook page in early August. “Having an 8-month-old … your priorities change. You get a little bit more afraid of things.”

The baby baby comes before the brewery baby. And after six years, the brewery baby had nursed its founders dry.

“We’ve been working on this for so long, all these little expenses added up over time and we ran out of money,” said Beaird, a Texas transplant who founded Dauntless with his good friend, Ross Miller. “It wasn’t worth increasing our funding by the amount that we needed to increase it by. And that’s pretty much it."

Despite a seeming dearth of parking and somewhat oddball location, on a wedge of properties between South Tejon Street and East Ramona Avenue owned by Springs restaurateur Joe Coleman and Mike Bristol, of Bristol Brewing, 1647 S. Tejon has birthed a number of successful craft operations.

Bristol was based there until 2013, when it became the anchor brewery at the re-envisioned, remodeled Ivywild School a few blocks away. The city’s first craft distiller, Distillery 291, operated out of the spot until 2021, when it moved to much larger digs on North Nevada Avenue.

“The reason they moved on wasn’t because they failed. It’s because they were successful,” Beaird said.

He’s hoping to find someone to pick up where Dauntless left off, take over the lease and buy the equipment.

“If somebody wants to buy the (Dauntless Brewing) name, we’d sell it for cheap,” Beaird added.

While it’s not a turn-key operation yet, much of the major work has been done, he said. The building’s owners have updated the electrical, plumbing and facade.

“I’d say the biggest thing, if you’re looking to put a brewery in there, is: You’ve got owners that are invested in the place,” Beaird said. “It’s got a lot of the bones required for a brewery to be in there, and honestly the investment is just kind of some polish and kind of making it your own.”

Beaird said he’s already met with a few prospective buyers.

“I really can’t say who, because nothing’s set in stone, but at least one of them is an existing brewery that’s looking to expand,” he said.

Reporter

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