Meet Your Neighbor: Launch Pad Brewery

What was the inspiration behind Launch Pad Brewery?

So, I'm retired from the military. When I got out of the military, I went to work for Lockheed Martin. I missed the camaraderie of the military aspect, and nothing around Buckley tried to cater to that kind of beer environment. So I figured, let's start up a brewery and maybe try to build that camaraderie, that family aspect again with the base and with my fellow coworkers, and that's kind of how we started launching Launchpad Brewery

What do you love about operating in Aurora?

I love it out here. Aurora houses Buckley Space Force Base. That's our huge draw, being retired Air Force out of Buckley and working for Lockheed. It's just the whole feel, and Aurora is a great city to work with. Everybody down in the town has been nothing but helpful to us. If we have issues or concerns, everybody down there listens to the small businesses and loves supporting us. Aurora supports locals, and you don't see that as much as other cities. That's one of the best things about this city.

What are some of your offerings that you're particularly proud of and recipes that you find particularly unique?

We have a unique stance on what we have available here. We have 32 beers on tap, a seltzer, and a nonalcoholic hop water. So we have a lot of variety. We did 105 different beers last year, and of the 105, "Piggyback Rides" account for about 28% of our sales. That's our juicy IPA. So that's the one that stands out as a fan favorite and puts us on the map. Strawberry Moons, our strawberry Shortcake blond, is another one. It tastes like a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar in beer form when people have it. That one people gravitate to is more on the weird side of fruity blond, but we have so much freedom to be creative with our beer.

With 32 taps, we can have an Orange Blossom Pilsner on. We can have hefeweizen, but I can also have lemon lavender or strawberry beer or whatever we want to go with it. We've got some unique ones on right now. We're known for our big beers out here, our Double IPA, our imperial stouts, and barrel-aged stuff, so that's another route we can take. So we have a little bit of everything for everybody.

You have won lots of awards. Are there any that you're particularly proud of?

We're incredibly proud of the GABF (Great American Beer Festival) and the World Beer Cup. We have three World Beer Cups and three GABWe'reals. We're coming up on our ninth anniversary, so we're really excited about that, but every award matters to us. It just shows we're going in the right direction. We're doing the right thing. Our most awarded beer is a Cherry Wood Smoked Special Porter. "Everybody's like, Oh, that must help sales!" It doesn't help sales, but it's nice to get friendly to get recognized for it.

What are you most proud of as a business owner?

I'm coming up on nine years and being in business. We have a great staff. We're supporting ten individuals here as far as supporting their life and lifestyle and allowing them to come to a place and enjoy being in a place to work and then creating that environment, that family environment, people come in here, and it's kind of their Cheers. The base doesn't really have anything out there. So this is basically their bar on the weekends and stuff. So, just creating that comfortable environment for people to come in and drink beer, have a good time, and feel free. That's one.

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

If I had one, it would be to fly. Being able to go up in space whenever I wanted would be awesome!