Black Project, a high-flying maker of spontaneously fermented beers, has closed

Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales, which shook up the Denver beer scene when it opened in 2016, has closed its doors, according to an Instagram post from owner James Howat.

The brewery, at 1290 S. Broadway, was born out of Former Future Brewing, which Howat and then-spouse Sarah Howat had begun two years earlier. The two wanted to shift their priorities from a taproom serving a more conventional lineup of beers to one that only brewed beers fermented with wild yeast and bacteria found in Denver’s air, rather than commercial yeast.

Black Project was an immediate success, garnering acclaim not just in Colorado, where beer geeks would line up outside the brewery for every new release, but also around the country and overseas. It also won awards and built a huge following among rabid fans. Other breweries in the city began experimenting with spontaneously fermented beers as well.

Howat couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Here is the rest of Howat’s post:

“It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that I’ve decided to close and bring Black Project to an end as gracefully as possible. A lot of different things have come together over the last year that have made this project no longer viable,” Howat wrote on Instagram.

“A combination of business decisions that were made prior to and not expecting a pandemic, followed by decreased foot traffic, rising rent and raw material prices, and a changing beer market, among other things — have made it so that it isn’t possible for me to go on making the kinds of beers I want to make,” he continued. “It wasn’t an easy decision but I’m happy with what Black Project has achieved and now I feel like it is time that I have to move on to other things. Our taproom will be closed effective immediately.