Beer and Jobs

Nov 25, 2009

From NPR - two great tastes that taste great together:

At Dry Dock Brewery, a craft beer maker tucked away in a strip mall in the Denver suburb of Aurora, business is booming.Owner Kevin DeLange beams as he stands next to the shiny, silver, 15-foot-high tank, explaining how he makes his extra special bitter ale...And DeLange is making more room. This summer, he expanded into a bigger space. Then he took advantage of a provision in the federal stimulus bill, which waived the closing costs of a Small Business Administration loan. All he had to do was promise to reinvest the money in his business. The $20,000 he saved happened to be the cost of a new fermenter.

The fermenter has had a ripple effect on his business. Because he's making more beer, he had to hire a half-time brewer.  "And then more customers come in, [and] we need more bartenders. We’ve gotten so busy that now I need a full-time bar manager to handle that," DeLange says, adding that he may also hire a bookkeeper so he can focus on strategy and marketing.

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