Sheridan's Black Tooth Brewery wins bronze at Denver festival - KOTA Territory News

Sheridan's Black Tooth Brewery wins bronze at Denver festival

We've told you before about a KOTA Territory brewery that's winning favor with locals.

Now the company is getting national recognition -- and it's not even a year old.

"We did our first batch of beer November 4th of 2010," said Black Tooth Brewing Company co-owner Tim Barnes.

But, Barnes added, they're already pushing way past their expectations.

"We built our business model around trying to do 500 barrels of beer the first year," he said, "and we're on pace to do close to twice that."

"A barrel is 31 gallons, and we're on target to do 1,000 barrels in the first year," said brewer Travis Zeilstra.

That's 31,000 gallons of Zeilstra's personal recipes.

"We had to reinvest already on month four to ... stay on top of things," Zeilstra said.

The reinvestment doubled their capacity.

"If we continue to produce the kind of beer that we're producing today, I think the sky's the limit," Barnes said.

Others seem to think so, too.

The brewery walked away from Denver's Great American Beer Festival last week one award richer.

The beer that won is called the Wagon Box Wheat, and it brought home a bronze medal in the American-style Wheat category.

But don't expect to find Black Tooth beers in liquor stores any time soon.

The only packaging they do is in growlers -- 64-ounce refillable jugs -- and kegs.

"Certainly many breweries have made the mistake of growing up too fast and exceeding what their production is capable of," Barnes said of the brewing company's future. "That's a mistake we won't make."

"We're looking at getting into cans by 2016," added Zeilstra.

Right now, Black Tooth beer is available in restaurants in just five Wyoming counties: Sheridan, Johnson, Campbell, Crook, and Weston. 

Zeilstra predicted they would probably have to expand another 100 percent to move into other parts of Wyoming and South Dakota.