Holidaily is brewing up capital.
The gluten-free brewery in Golden has raised $1 million of its $4 million goal.
“We’ve grown over 1,500 percent since we started, and we want to continue growing,” founder Karen Hertz said.
The Colorado native started Holidaily Brewing Co. in 2016 after doctors told her she needed to cut out gluten for post-cancer treatment. But Hertz, a Coors employee, loved beer.
“I saw the need for it and I just felt sad for people who can’t have beer with friends and family,” Hertz said. “They always say fix the problem you have and there might be other people you fix it for.”
To be gluten-free, Holidaily brews with buckwheat and millet sourced from Grouse Malt House in Wellington instead of traditional wheat and barley.
Holidaily started as a 2,000-square-feet brewery and taproom at 801 Brickyard Circle in Golden. The space has a 10-barrel brewery in the back, where all Holidaily beers were made.
In 2019, the company moved production to a 10,000-square-foot facility across from the original taproom at 820 Brickyard Circle. Hertz said Holidaily isn’t using the entire space yet.
“We built our production facility with room to grow, so there is space and capability for us to add the tanks we need,” she said.
Two years later, Holidaily added a second taproom at 5370 Greenwood Plaza Blvd. in Greenwood Village. Hertz said both taprooms have small breweries in the back where Holidaily tests out experimental brews.
In addition to its own taprooms, Holidaily is in 75 Colorado bars and sold in seven states. The brand is in large retail stores like Total Wine & More, Safeway and Target.
The brewery pulled in $3.1 million in revenue last year and is on track to hit $3.6 million this year, according to Hertz. It’s producing 5,200 barrels this year, which is a 10 percent increase from last year.
“There’s some really not great gluten-free beer out there and we really strive for quality and making sure it’s craft beer regardless if you’re gluten-free or not,” Hertz said.
Hertz said the most popular beer is the Favorite Blonde – a light beer with hints of lemon and hops. But her favorite is the Fat Randy IPA, which she described as “approachable” and “well-balanced” with pine and citrus aromas.
She said the $4 million raise will go toward an extensive production expansion. Hertz said she wants to add more equipment, increase marketing, start buying ingredients by the “truckload” to cut costs and eventually move into more states.
“It’s really feeding the growth that we’ve had so far,” Hertz said.
Hertz is no stranger to capital raises; she said Holidaily has raised $4.2 million to date. In this round, the initial $1 million was raised from one angel investor. To bring in more, Hertz was one of 10 startups that pitched a group of Rockies Venture Club angel investors last week; the club will decide in the upcoming weeks if it’ll add Holidaily to its investing portfolio.
“I really do think we’re building a product that can spread worldwide, if not globally,” Hertz said. “My dream is just to get gluten-free beer out to people.”
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