La Cumbre Brewing shakes off the shock of the pandemic and charges forward

The doom and gloom lies thick in the air these days of unending pandemic woe. For our annual Look Back/Look Ahead Series, certainly the effects of COVID-19 on our craft brewing scene is the dominant theme. However, in this stretch of darkness, we asked the breweries to help us find the light, some hope for today and tomorrow, and to show everyone that even under the most difficult of circumstances that they continue to move forward.

Keeping with the times, I sat down over Zoom with La Cumbre owner/master brewer Jeff Erway to discuss how one of the biggest and most successful breweries in our state has weathered the relentless challenges of 2020, and what glimmer of hope he sees on the horizon for 2021.

“As a company we were very lucky for a lot of reasons,” Erway said. “Specifically as far as the pandemic goes, we were able to open up about 150 Wal-Marts in thr

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