Great Divide started as owner Brian Dunn's grad-school hobby. While everyone else at the University of Denver's program for environmental policy was pitching in for six-packs of Coors, Dunn was home-brewing pale ales and wheat beers in five-gallon pots on his kitchen stove.

In 1994 he borrowed $260,000 and opened a brewery in an old brick dairy. In 1996 his one-man business produced 400 barrels of two beers and was just barely scraping by. (A barrel holds 31 gallons.) Ten years later Great Divide's 13 employees are producing 7,000 barrels of 11 beers that ship to 14 states and bring in $1.8 million.