WeldWerks Brewing Co. pulls the plug on Colorado Springs taproom

Two and a half years after WeldWerks Brewing Co. broke ground on a second taproom in Colorado Springs, the brewery is pulling the plug on the project.

Neil Fisher, WeldWerks’ co-founder and co-owner, said the decision to discontinue construction came after years of challenges compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and a reevaluation of the company’s priorities.

“We know how many people are going to be disappointed,” Fisher said. “As upset as everyone else is, no one’s more disappointed than we are. At the end of the day, we felt like we did everything we possibly could, even to the point where we probably did too much. We probably should have made this decision sooner, but for the sake of trying to do what we set out to and also to make sure we could accommodate a really awesome community, we just kept pushing forward to the point now where this would put other things at risk.”

WeldWerks purchased the property that was formerly home to The Dive diner in Colorado Springs in 2019 in hopes of doing a complete renovation. But the pandemic disrupted its timeline and the subsequent supply chain delays made completing the rebuild unfeasible, Fisher said. The brewery is planning to sell the property.

“Even as recently as a month or so ago, we were trying to figure out some options to sit on it for a little while longer and see if the climate changed, as far as economic drivers and construction costs and supply chain issues,” Fisher said. “The last month has proven that, if anything, things are probably going to continue to get worse, at least in the near future.”