Finding Balance With Ratio Beerworks In Denver, Colorado

Finding balance in brewing isn’t easy. First there’s the lifestyle, which requires long hours in uncomfortable conditions, and oftentimes crazy travel and self-promotion. Then there’s the product itself, part science, part art, with a hundred variables that form the basis for a thousand flavors, each small tweak causing a noticeable result on the final product.

Jason zumBrunnen, co-founder of Ratio Beerworks in Denver, Colorado, knows this better than most. Originally a Chemical Engineering major at CU Boulder, he transitioned to a career in the DIY punk rock scene before finding his place in brewing. In other words, he swung from science to art before finding his place in between. His beers also reflect this balance: on Friday, August 30th, Ratio will release King of Carrot Flowers, the big brother of the brewery’s incredible popular and well-balanced Dear You French Saison. Made with 100 percent fresh-pressed carrot juice and “dry-hopped” with elderflower, King of Carrot Flowers is a bright orange beer balanced by subtle, floral flavors.

KG: I know that before you were involved in beer, you played music. Can you tell me how that happened?

Jason zumBrunnen: I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, and went into Chemical Engineering at CU Boulder. I basically had no electives. That felt really unbalanced, so I got into music. Music was this outlet and a different side of the brain and emotion. 

KG: You got into it? Like that?

JzB: I’d actually started playing in high school, just practicing in the basement. We were doing cover songs of bands we knew. This was early days of The Descendants and Green Day and I was into punk rock. When I went to college, I met people in the dorms and found a mutual love of music. 

KG: And you started a band?

JzB: It was called The Fairlanes. I played guitar and I sang. There were four of us, which was a pretty classic lineup. Two guitars, base, drums. We played a lot of pop-punk, kind of melodic punk. Eventually, we got big enough to tour. At least in the summertime between classes, and then later on when we went full time for three years. When we graduated college, my bandmates and I all got starter career jobs. But we were still playing. I was living in Texas and I’d fly back and do shows. We got the opportunity to do a European tour, and I said, “It’s now or never.” We went all over the US, into Europe, and even into Japan a few times. 

KG: But you stopped.

JzB: It was a good run. Nothing crazy happened that made us break up. I mean, we weren’t losing huge money but we weren’t really making money either. So we pretty naturally drifted toward the question of, “What do we want to do now?” At the time, I was living in California, and two amazing things happened. First of all, the San Diego beer scene started to grow. There was Stone and Ballast Point. But even more exciting, the breweries in Colorado started booming. I remember being out when Oskar Blues launched Dale’s Pale Ale. I remember getting a can. I was thinking, “Whoa, what is going on in Colorado?” That made me think, “Maybe I could get into this professionally, with the goal of starting a brewery.”

KG: Did you have any beer experience at that point?

JzB: Well, in Boulder, you had Boulder Beer and Walnut Brewery. Even if they don’t get credit now, they were super ahead of the rest of the nation. So even as a college kid, I had access to great product, and I started homebrewing. 

KG: When did you take the leap?

JzB: Between San Diego and Colorado, I knew there were people who knew how to make beer. This wasn’t the first wave. If you wanted to do it, you had to be good at it. The big inspiration was finally thinking, I need to go back to school. I thought, if I want to go into it, I want to be at the top level. I started researching and signed up for a course at Siebel in Chicago. And through that program, I got the opportunity to study at Doemens in Munich. 

KG: And then you moved back to Denver?

JzB: My first job was at Wynkoop, Denver’s first brewpub. I couldn’t have found a better place to learn on the job. It was before they bought a new brewhouse and redid their system, so it was old and dated and very manual. There was lots of duct tape fixing, but very talented brewers. And you get really good when things aren’t perfect. It’s hard for consistency, but I learned real, on the job brewing skills. But as a brewpub, they didn’t have the budget for a lot of testing or lab equipment. So I took a job at AC Golden, which is a brewery inside Coors. You may have heard of Colorado Native — that was their big product. And I got to use all their lab equipment. That place was amazing — you’d sit down at lunch and you’d talk to one of the world’s foremost hop experts. At the time, Troy Casey was also a brewer there. You probably know him as the founder of Casey Brewing and Blending. But Golden was part of him experimenting with barrels. He created a hidden barrel series while he was there, and that was the impetus for him to launch off and start Casey. 

KG: How’d you come to start your own brewery?

JzB: The whole time I was back in Colorado, I was reconnecting with old friends. I talked to a guy named Scott Kaplan, who I actually knew from college. He was a little younger than me, but he’d worked for the small, independent record label that we were on. There were actually times when he was out in the van with us, just helping with our mini-tours. We’d stayed in touch, but we really reconnected when I moved back to Denver in 2010. Mostly over music, barbecues, and beer. We realized we both had a love of beer, as well as the industry in general. And what was nice was, he went into the business and accounting side after he got done with music. When forming a business, it’s important to have humility and realize, “What don’t I know?” Teaming up with him felt like a good balance between the business and finance side, as well as the brewing side. We knew that in a competitive market, we had to have everything dialed. He became my partner in Ratio Beerworks.

KG: When did you open?

JzB: Ratio opened its doors on Valentine’s Day in 2015. It took us about a year to build out. 

KG: What are some of the hallmarks of Ratio beers?

JzB: With our brewery, we wanted to connect to the community. But we also wanted to brew great beer. We said, brewing great beer better be our basis to entry, and then we can build on that. So I knew I wanted to brew a variety of styles at a variety of alcohol levels. That might sound obvious, but in 2014 when we launched, there were a lot of IPAs and massive alcohol levels. It seemed to be a Colorado trend that things were big and bold. Avery, Great Divide, Oskar Blues… everyone was making big beers. We had the idea to make sessionsable beers that were in the high fours, low fives.

KG: And that’s where you got the idea to make a sessionable saison?

JzB: The punk rock we were in was very DIY. Its was the classic ground up, build out with connections you make. We had a Dear You French saison, a drier beer with a French yeast strain. On its own, it took off for us, and became one of our flagships in the taproom. From that core, we experimented and created new beers. We tend to not do sweet beers but I love to experiment. Something like King of Carrot Flowers is a challenge for me. But the elderflower and pear essence you get is the perfect match to the carrot earthiness. It’s a perfect balance. Finding the right ratios, the right balance. That’s what it’s about.

-Interview edited for clarity and brevity.