In a city that has an industry of craft beer that is competitive owned by Latinos, the Raices Brewing Company was able to quickly create an impression.
The company’s brewing operation was established in the year 2016, and it began opening a taproom near Mile High Stadium in September of the year 2019. It quickly became popular with the locals, and won the readers’ choice award to be the “Best New Brewery Taproom” in the Westword’s Best of 2020 issue.
“We wanted to have a Latino brewery that a person that is a Latino identifies with,” said Tamil Maldonado Vega, co-founder and Vice President of Development at the brewery. For those who aren’t Latino Maldonado-Vega hopes that Raices”roots,” which means “roots” in Spanish, is an opportunity to discover more about the different cultures and experiences of many immigrants’ families.
“Every beer that we create at Raices, it has a history,” she declared.
Also, the brewery had the aim to eliminate the thing that Maldonado Vega describes as “the barrier of language,” therefore the beers that are available on tap, like can be found in English as well as Spanish. They sought to create a place that Latinos can feel comfortable and where they can “breathe…and be themselves.”
In less than six months of the opening of their new taproom Raices’ team Raices were forced to shut the bar down because of COVID-19 warnings. They were shut down for two and one-half months. They opened again during the spring of 2020 but they had to shut down later in the year this time due to COVID-19.
In the month of January, Raices was allowed to operate at a 25% capacity. Maldonado Vega notes that even though the limit of 25% was superior to having no personal service however it wasn’t “not necessarily enough to cover [their] expenses,” that included safety measures like masks, sanitizers and thermometers as well as an anti-bacterial fog which they sprayed around within the taproom’s interior.
The spring as well as the beginning of the summer months, Raices led and was involved in several initiatives to immunize more Coloradans in order so that they could return to the full capacity. Raices also hosted a number of vaccination clinics, and is now open.
Raices is also proven as a reliable location that other businesses run by Latinos like food trucks can open shops.
“Raices are always a good spot to help small and local companies. Particularly in the current time with coronavirus” explained Monica Josephson the co-founder and founder of Duendes Tejidos, a company which sells knits made by hand and jewelry.
One of the company’s goals, as per its website will be to “provide a pipeline of underrepresented groups into the craft beer industry making it more accessible through our internship programs, and diversifying the demographics of the industry.”
Maldonado Vega is happy to see more customers in person due to the events and programming offered at Raices. For instance, their Suave Fest, which highlights the breweries owned by Latinos in Colorado. It is an important part of their outreach to the community.
