Which came first? The craft beer or the sense of community that anchors the Colorado Brewery Running Series?

The magic begins as the heavy-duty black pickup truck and nondescript white trailer pull into a Denver-area brewery long before the normal opening time.

Read more Rocky Mountain Youth Corps debuts construction trades program for Routt County high schoolers

A handful of cheerful workers, mostly volunteers, materialize and soon the area around the brewery is transformed into a 5K or, occasionally, a half-marathon venue. About six or so hours later, a reverse choreography squeezes everything back in the trailer to await the next event.

But that trailer brings more than a pop-up of tents, T-shirts, boxes of running bibs and freebies. 

It brings community.

And in a world that has a 5K run for every imaginable cause, that makes the nearly 40 events of the Colorado Brewery Running Series a bit different. It’s not about a singular cause that temporarily binds participants so much as a celebration of getting out regularly to enjoy community and craft beer.

“You meet different people, you get outside and you get to visit different breweries,” said Lisa Fulton, who’s in her fifth year of participating and rarely misses an event. “It’s like family.”

Fulton initially walked with her lab mix, Luna, then invited her daughter Logan and Logan’s husky, Jax, to join. Luna can no longer make the 3.1-mile routes, but the now-one-eyed Jax shows up regularly with his humans.

A couple years after they started Fulton’s nephew Chris joined them and does about half the runs each year.

And so the Colorado Brewery Running Series has grown, with family bringing family, who invite friends, who invite neighbors. Babies born to runners who once ran solo are pushed in strollers. A series 5K date led to a recent wedding. Older walkers found a haven where they weren’t “swept up” or forgotten on the trail for going too slow; adaptive devices are welcomed.

“We want it to feel available to everyone,” said Lindsay Buchanan, who runs the series with her husband Brady Archer. “We are inclusive  —  come out and have a good time and get some exercise.”

In eight years, the businesswoman and the engineer have built the Colorado Brewery Running Series into the most successful partners of the national Brewery Running Series that began in 2012 in Minneapolis, Archer said.

Nationally, the Brewery Running Series boasts of more than 300 events a year across 20 states. Cumulatively, runners have logged nearly 1.4 million miles and raised more than $740,000 for charity while downing 411,443 craft beers (or ciders or wine).

In Colorado, runners have contributed nearly 400,000 of those miles, raised more than $230,000 for local charities and “cheersed” the finish line with 127,876 craft beers.

In the beginning there was oil field work

Archer wasn’t even old enough for school when he began playing hockey. He skied. He golfed. He didn’t run until after college, when he was working as a mechanical engineer in far-flung oil fields and joined some friends training for a Tough Mudder event in California.

That changed everything.

“It certainly was not a traditional jump,” he said. “It was clear to me oil was not something I wanted to do the rest of my life. It owned my time, my life. Most of the time I was in oil fields. 

“It was lots of money, but it was an easy choice to quit and come back. I decided to pivot completely and see where this leads me.”

It led to Brooklyn, New York, where he designed courses for Tough Mudder, and where he met Buchanan, who was working on the business side of the company.

“Engineering served me well in course design and obstacle design,” Archer said. “I schemed up some crazy obstacles.”

But the couple wanted out of Brooklyn.

“We wanted roots in a place that spoke to our outdoor lifestyle,” Buchanan said, and Archer’s home state of Colorado seemed the perfect fit. They moved west in 2017, Archer taking a job running events at the University of Denver and Buchanan working in global travel.

They spotted an opportunity with the Brewery Running Series, which was looking for someone to take over the Colorado runs. Archer stepped in but kept his DU job for about a year.

The Colorado Brewery Running Series was ramping up when the pandemic hit, and Buchanan was still working in global travel. Another pivot: After canceling all events (although they were able later to bring back 20 runs with social distancing), they started a virtual running program, complete with shirts and swag. They signed up 400 people in the first monthly challenge, building a new community that quickly blossomed to 1,000.

“It ended up being a lifeline for people,” she said of what they thought at the time was a lifeline for the business. “They’ve written us that it kept them going when the gyms shut down.”

It’s still going by popular demand, this year as 2-month challenges celebrating Colorado’s 150th birthday.

“It’s six years later and people keep coming,” Archer said, noting that about 25% are people who also run the 5Ks.

Looking forward to an 18.76K to celebrate Colorado’s 150th

As in-person events returned, the couple looked for ways to innovate and expand. They added half marathons at a few events and a signature 50K event with several Denver Brewing Company taphouses. It can be run solo or as a relay. Not surprisingly, it drew a lot of runners who don’t participate in 5Ks.

“The 50K is our big new challenge,” Archer said. “We skipped right over a marathon and went to 50K.”

His favorite event is the Snowmass Challenge, which takes him back to his Tough Mudder days when he created a course there. The Colorado Brewery Running Series event is three runs over two days  —  or all in one day for the hardy.

This year it will be 18.76K to celebrate Colorado’s 150^th birthday. It includes a 5K and 3.76K on Friday evening or Saturday morning and a 10K on Saturday only.

The themed events draw the crowds, and Archer loves them too, especially if it involves a costume. He designs a few special T-shirts each year, along with logos that appear on glasses, finisher medals and other items.

“Halloween was always my favorite holiday,” he said. “My mom built elaborate costumes so we could go around and win costume contests. My mom instilled this sense of fun and creativity in me. The themed runs are for fun  —  and also for me.” 

There’s a Pi Day Run that features pizza as much as equations, a May the 4^th Be With You Run and a Five-Alarm Chili Cook-Off to benefit retired Denver firefighters, a group that includes Archer’s dad. The biggest run is the annual Ugly Sweater 5K in December at Left Hand Brewing in Longmont. Last year it drew 700 people to a 5K. The next run is the WeldWerks Brewing 5K & 10K on Saturday in Greeley.

There’s usually a double-header on Archer’s favorite holiday weekend  —  this year the Boos and Brews on Oct. 31 and the Dia de los Muertos run on Nov. 1.

The handful of double-header run weekends can “cannibalize from each other, but they also can appeal to different groups,” Buchanan said. 

They don’t want to miss out on a chance to encourage costumes, but really, you can show up in a tutu or flowing glitter robe at any run and fit right in.

Archer  —  part auctioneer, part running coach and part cheerleader  —  plots the courses through neighborhoods, nearby green spaces and light industrial areas that are deserted on weekends and he emcees the events. 

Read more Pro Movers and Storage: Your Trusted Partner for a Smooth Relocation

The breweries open a bit early for bathroom access and as runners return they pour a lot of beer, the first of which is free to participants..

“Absolutely. We had a great time,” said Dave Lotierzo, co-owner of Danico Brewing in Denver when asked after their first Colorado Brewery Running Series event in April if they’d host another run. “It was a really fun day. The Colorado Brewery Running Series is well-staffed, well-organized. Our obligations were pretty minimal.”

The breweries usually provide the free beer that comes with a run ticket, although Colorado Brewery Running Series occasionally offsets the cost for smaller breweries. And it tips the bartenders based on the number of free beers they pour.

Because the after-run parties go on for a bit and runners often are joined by friends and family — there’s entertainment and prize drawings (even for dogs) — the breweries quickly make up the free beers with sales.

Lotierzo said the run day was probably Danico’s biggest-ever day, and the food truck did well, too. 

While tending a busy bar at Wibby Brewing in Longmont for the Pi Day Run, a bartender said simply: “We love it. People have fun and we get to do what we do best — pour beer.”

When they took over the Colorado Brewery Running Series in 2017, Archer and Buchanan lived in an apartment and everything for the runs fit in a Honda Pilot. They moved to a small house in 2018 and a larger house in 2021. They bought a truck and trailer.

“We’ve had steady growth with the number of participants, the events and the style,” Buchanan said. “We have room to grow but we want a work/life balance.”

They partnered with GoodR Sunglasses and sell them at every event. They usually give away a pair or two in drawings.

The staff of about a dozen people on contract help with registration, sales, photography and marketing. Most of them started as runners, then volunteers.

For the often-troublesome work of managing volunteers, they created a system of ambassadors — volunteers who work six races and get to run six for free. This year, there are 60 ambassadors.

Runs spur first dates and even a wedding

The story often is the same: someone moved to Denver from another state and was looking for community. They saw a 5K that ended with a free beer, entertainment — a party. They signed up, they went, they kept going.

That’s what happened with Rachel Herren, who moved to Denver in the midst of the pandemic and found the virtual run online. In early 2021 she applied to be an ambassador. Now she’s behind — or in front of — the registration table at every event, welcoming people she knows by name and those she doesn’t with equal enthusiasm.

She shows new ambassadors how to quickly affix wrist bands to those over 21, directs people to the cart where they’re prompted to write something witty or catchy on their bib and enter a drawing. She knows where the bathrooms and the starting line are.

During the week, she works in a high-stress IT job, so this is her time to let loose.

“Even though I work a full-time job I make time for this,” she said. “There’s something about the atmosphere and the people and the joy that everyone is having the whole time that keeps you wanting to come back.”

When Eric Dipietro and his wife moved to Colorado from Chicago in 2021, his wife found the CBRS.

“I’d been running for years and I like craft beer,” he said with a shrug. He became an ambassador and because photography was a hobby and he “had a good camera” he became the backup photographer. 

Now he’s one of two staff photographers who, within a couple days of each race, post free, downloadable photos of pretty much everyone who ran on the CBRS Facebook page.

Likewise for Victoria Wolcott, who also went from ambassador to contract staff, and “if there’s a spreadsheet involved, I do that.”

Wolcott, a revenue manager in the hospitality industry, went to culinary school and is a self-described wine girl, but here she is at events where people run for beer. She moved from Alaska to Flagstaff, Arizona, to Denver, where she started running.

“I’ve met all my community through this,” she said of the CBRS. “The biggest thing is the community. I get paid to drink beer, pet dogs and meet people.”

People like Lois Brown Vera, who did her first CBRS 5K as part of a team-building exercise with co-workers.

“It was fun,” she said. “So I just kept doing it. You get to go to all these breweries.”

She invited her son and girlfriend (now daughter-in-law), Ben and Julie Vera, and soon they were Brew Crew pass holders (unlimited 5Ks for one price). Although the runs aren’t timed, Ben Vera often was the first to run back through the inflatable Start/Finish arch.

Julie Vera, the owner of Rooted Consulting in Littleton, became an ambassador and is now the social media manager for CBRS. And now Phoebe, 3, and Ollie, almost a year old, have joined the runs in a double stroller. Dad still sometimes wins while pushing the stroller.

“They were born into it,” Ben Vera said with a laugh. “They don’t have a choice.

“We bring friends sometimes. It’s a great fun activity that we get to do as a family.”

Laura Newman and Alex Engel met in 2018 — not at a run, though a CBRS 5K was one of their first dates. 

They were married on May 30 and about 20 people they met at CBRS events attended the wedding. Entertainment was provided by a group they heard at a 5K, and Dipietro took their pictures.

“It was our first wedding,” Archer said, quickly adding, “That we know of.”

Sometimes even those nursing an injury show up at a 5K to meet friends and get their free beer.

“We get a lot of people who are visiting family and they struggle with the altitude,” Herren said. “I tell people all the time: ‘cool, you can walk through the starting arch and spin around and come back and get your beer;’ We are not like the big races where they are very judgy.”

That attitude attracts people who’ve never done a 5K and older people. “We get a lot of people in their 60s and 70s, and they come back consistently,” she said.

And they let the younger, faster runners fly right past them. Run, or walk, for beer. Or for joy.

Read more Heat, wind expected to intensify Colorado wildfires as Aspen Acres nears 100,000 acres