Former Future is now Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales

Always thought it was weird that they operated as two independent companies that were under the same ownership and in the same building so this makes sense.

However, not to stoked if this means all Former Future beers are getting shown the door as well. I really like Former Future beers and it'd be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And will they be able to keep up supply for beers that all take months to make?

 

Not knowing anything about the $'s behind the scenes, it makes sense to me.
There are now about 100 breweries within an hour of Denver in any direction. Of those, all but just a few primarily focus on clean beer. Even some of the experimental places like TRVE and Trinity still have at least a 50/50 mix of clean to wild beers. That essentially means there are a lot of other places where you can get a "normal" beer. With a few exceptions, I don't think most of us are driving across town or to a totally different metro area for a porter or white IPA. Even if they're great, it's just something Denver'ites don't usually do anymore. We just don't have to. On the other hand, people have proven that they'll drive for wild beers.
BP allows them to do their thing without having to play that game. They're competing with maybe 10-12 places instead of 100. It can also break the shackles of being forced to brew a beer over and over, which doesn't always have any appeal. Several places have opened with the "no flagships" mantra and it's been tough to stick to. As time passed, it felt like FF was more of the flagship end of things while BP was their true passion
They seem to have been pretty successful with the BP bottles and it provides them a unique niche that they also seem to dig.
Granted, that's all just my observation...could be 100% wrong. I'm interested to see where things go right or wrong. It's a ballsy decision.

 

Honestly I just never got why they didn't keep the Black Project stuff under the Former Future umbrella. It was impossible to build one brand up without it being at the expense of the other. Obviously I also have no idea about the $'s and operations of FF, but it was the first time I could ever recall a brewery creating their top tier, award winning beer under a totally different company and thereby ensuring their existing brand gets none of the publicity/credit/public interest. It'd be like if Lips of Faith was a completely different company from New Belgium.

I love FF (and by proxy Black Project) and always try to go there when I'm in the area so I just hope it doesn't turn into a $20 bottle release store instead of a nice taproom I can visit.

 

Seems like the only thing that was restraining them from pulling the trigger earlier was space. Last week they signed a lease with the unit next door that will allow them space to add another 100 barrels. Sure, they'll have some projects that'll take months or even years to mature but they'll have a lot of quick turn around stuff like Hypersonic (their octupal? dry hopped IPA) that will all use spontaneously captured cultures.

Consider me a fan of the change, their kickoff party showcased a lot of fantastic and truly unique beers.