Golden gluten-free brewery was Colorado’s only honoree this year

Thirst Staff Reports

Holidaily Brewing Company won a Rising Stars award at the annual Brewbound Live Awards, hosted by Brewbound, a brewing industry trade magazine. The awards are presented to eight industry-leading breweries across the country each year. This year, only one Colorado brewery made the cut.

Holidaily Founder Karen Hertz said the brewery’s gluten-free niche helped lead to significant growth in the past year.

“With our unique niche of brewing quality, gluten-free beers, we were one of the few breweries that saw exponential revenue growth in both our taproom and distribution outlets during the pandemic,” she said. “Our distribution revenue increased by 31 percent and our taproom revenue increased by 13 percent in 2020.”

Holidaily opened in Golden in 2016, after Hertz faced a battle with cancer and was advised to remove gluten from her diet. She couldn’t find tasty 100-percent gluten-free beer so she opened a dedicated gluten-free brewery. It is now the largest dedicated gluten-free brewery in the U.S., and Holidaily beer is distributed nationally.

The Brewbound awards also named New Belgium CEO Steve Fechheimer its “person of the year.”