A three-year-old Aurora brewery known for its collaborative and sometimes boundary-pushing beers is planning to open a second taproom in Denver sometime this summer.
Incantation Brewing — which changed its name from Jade Mountain Brewery and Teahouse in February — is taking a space at 415 S. Cherokee St. that was formerly occupied by Field & Forest pub, an offshoot of Grist Brewing, which closed all of its locations at the end of 2023.
At this new location, Incantation will serve its “heavy metal-inspired” lagers, IPAs and fruited sours, alongside house-made gluten-free hard tea and hard lemonade, according to owner Sean Guerrero.The taproom will also be an all-day coffee shop with specialty coffee and tea.
“One of the biggest questions we’ve heard from patrons is when we were going to expand closer into town. And that they wish we weren’t so far away in southeast Aurora,” he said via email. Incantation’s original location is at 4233 South Buckley Road.
Guerrero, who lived in China for three years, founded Jade Mountain after returning to his home state. The brewery was acutely focused on Asian culture, ingredients and themes. It changed abruptly, however, in February, becoming the heavy-metal-themed Incantation Brewing.
“We’re about three months into our rebrand and we’ve seen a big change in our customer base, the amount of beers people drink per visit and overall positive reception from our regulars and new drinkers as well,” Guerrero said. “As for the choice of metal vs. Chinese, it wasn’t much of a stretch … I’ve always been a metalhead, and a lot of our Jade packaging drifted towards the dark side. I see Incantation and Jade as two sides of one coin. But both very much me.”
The biggest reason for the change was “to be a little less niche, and more focused on the beer itself rather than the unique ingredients,” he added. “The cost of exotic fruits and spices are crazy as well, coupled with the closing of our main fruit supplier, made it difficult to continue as Jade.”
“We also had a fair amount of rejection from people ignorant to our story and background.”
The move puts all three of Denver’s heavy metal breweries — Incantation; TRVE Brewing, 227 Broadway; and Black Sky Brewery, 490 Santa Fe Drive — within blocks of each other.
Some of Incantation’s beers now include Ritual Mexican Lager, Tarot Blonde Ale with jasmine green tea, Conjurer Hazy Pale Ale, and Witchfinder Gose, with strawberry and vanilla.
Guerrero has been a frequent collaborator with other Colorado beer makers.
He hopes to be open by late June or early July.
