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August 15, 11:13 AMColorado Springs Craft Beer ExaminerEli Shayotovich

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               Come on in... the beer is fine!

Brew news you can use on this rainy August Friday!

As the craft beer industry continues to expand, breweries and brewpubs are springing up all across thiis great land.  Particularly here in Beer State, USA -- Colorado!  In the last 6 months or so a few new breweries have opened...

• Revolution Brewing in Paonia
• Aspen Brewing Company in Aspen
• Rocky Mountain Brewery in Colorado Springs

This proliferation of pubs doesn't seem to slow down beer entrepreneurs from opening more -- at least three others (that I know of, two of which I found out about just yesterday from my pal Chipper Dave) are slated to open very soon.

• Trinity Brewing Company here in Colorado Springs is set to open by the end of August.
• Falcon Brewing Company in Parker is slated to fling open their doors in September.
• "Colorado Boy Pub & Brewery" is supposedly in the works, but I don't have the when or the where at the moment. So stay tuned for more info as I get it, and if you know anything about it... let me know!

I do plan on attending the openings for both Trinity and Falcon the day they start pouring their wonderful elixir of the gods, so look for in-depth write ups on these two brewpubs in the near future.

So what does all these new breweries mean?  Well, there is a concerted effort to harken back to a day when there was a local brewery in nearly every town. Or at least within 10 minutes of where you lived.  It really did used to be that way.  Did you know that in 1867 there were 3,700 breweries in operation in America producing about 6 million barrels of beer. That number grew to an astounding 9 million barrels of beer from 4,131 breweries by 1873.  IRS records indicate that 2,830 breweries were in operation in 1880, but by 1910 that number had dropped to about 1,500 (dates and stats obtained from BeerHistory.com). According to the Brewers Association there are 1,420 (of 1,463) independent craft brewers in the U.S. today... and people want more!  Sale of craft beer increased 11% during the first half of 2008 compared to this same period in 2007.