Crooked Stave will triple in size in 2013, sell sour beers out of state

He also plans to buy 190 more regularly-sized oak barrels (a few from Leopold Brothers Distillery) by April, which will bring his total to about 320.

In August, Yakobson plans to open his own brewery and taproom -- with a twenty-barrel system, seventy seats, two new foeders, more barrels and some other tricks - in the Source, an artisan food and beverage-themed marketplace in RiNo. At that point, he will shut his current barrel cellar to the public and use it just for production.

But in the meantime, he is running out of room -- which is why Yakobson is hoping to lease 2,000 square feet of space next door to the barrel cellar where he will be able to store unused equipment, bottles and his bottling line when it isn't being used.

But that won't be often. Yakobson began the year by making one-off beers in what he called his Wild Wild Brett series and bottling in 750 ml bottles; the series will come to an end next month, however. His new plan is to bottle every-changing varieties of four standard sours, Saison, Surette, Hop Savant and St. Bretta, in 375 ml bottles.

"The citrus will always be changing, probably every quarter. One time, it might be Mineola tangelos and the next it could be blood orange or Meyer lemon. You will have to look at the back of the bottle or the web site to know," he says. "We want people to recognize our beers, but we want those beers to evolve as well."

And they may evolve out of state. Yakobson now has six fulltime employees, including a sales director, and he plans to start distributing some of his beer outside of Colorado this year to states where his wild and sour ales are already known and appreciated.

"We want to fulfill our home market, but we make eccentric, boutique beer and we want to showcase it in other states, like Oregon, California and New York," he says. Yakobson doesn't have a specific time frame for when that will happen, but it should be soon.

"Every beer here is a reflection of me, of my palate and the flavors that I appreciate. That is an intimate way to brew, and I want to be able to share that," he says.

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