This is a heady time for boutique beer producers all over the country. After an Internet-style rise and fall in the late 1990s, craft beers are on the climb again, with $4.3 billion in U.S. sales in 2005, a 13 percent lift from a year earlier. (By comparison, mass-market beer sales slipped 1.5 percent over the same period.)

FSB visited and profiled three boutique breweries in Colorado, a popular locale for microbrewers. Great Divide, Oskar Blues Brewery and Avery Brewing are all located near Denver.