Rule105 Brewing - Hand-Crafted Ales and Lagers
Made With Exceptional Quality!
At Rule105 Brewing, beer isn’t just a beverage—it’s a blend of science, passion, and community. Co-founder and brewer Mike Mosher brings a unique background as a chemistry professor and beer educator to every batch, applying a scientific mindset to the art of brewing. Alongside his wife Kristie, a molecular biologist with a knack for both lab work and leadership, Mike has helped build a brewery that’s as welcoming as it is innovative. With a lineup of gluten-reduced beers spanning ales, lagers, stouts, and sours, plus scratch-made food and regular events like trivia and live music, Rule105 is quickly becoming a local favorite—earning recognition from Restaurantji and rave reviews from guests. In this interview with Delivery Rank, Mike shares how Rule105 came to be, why quality matters most, and why he’s convinced that, yes—beer really is the answer.
Rule105’s tagline is “beer is the answer.” What was the original question that inspired you to start this brewery?
When we were searching for a name for the brewery, we were having the hardest time. In fact, if anyone asks you what the hardest part is to open a brewery, it's likely they're referring to finding the perfect name. We were almost ready to give up looking for a great name until we typed "beer" into google and started at the bottom of the search. One of the entries referred us to the urban dictionary, where "Rule 105" is listed as "Beer is the answer" - as in, "should I have a beer or a wine? Never violate Rule 105, always have the beer." We fell in love with the name 'cause it reflects a lot of our brewery mission.
Your beers are gluten-reduced, which isn’t something every brewery offers—what inspired that decision, and how do you balance it with maintaining bold flavors?
Just to make sure everyone understands, Rule105 makes gluten-reduced beers, not gluten-free beers. The difference is that gluten-free beers are made with ingredients that don't contain gluten at all - so they should have 0ppm gluten in them when they are done. Gluten-reduced beers are made with normal ingredients like barley and wheat that do have gluten, but the gluten is then removed from the beer - or reduced below 20ppm. We were skeptical at first about doing gluten-reducing for all of our beer brands. But, after some experiments, we found out that our fears were completely misplaced. Reducing the gluten in a beer does not mean you have to adjust your 'normal' recipes. We still have the same recipes, so we still have amazing flavor and body in our Perfect Oatmeal Stout. Hop bitterness and head on the beer also is not affected, so our MR IPA and M2K2 English Pale come out perfect. Reducing the level of gluten significantly in a beer only requires that you add a specialized enzyme that is very common in the brewing industry. Our decision to make everything gluten-reduced is not only good practice, but its customer-based. We are proud to be gluten-reduced because our customers who have celiac disease can still enjoy a beer. We've also added gluten-free options in our kitchen, so everyone can enjoy a pizza or wings with that beer. We're actually surprised that every brewery doesn't do this.
Can you walk us through a recent brew you developed from concept to tap—what inspired it, and what were the challenges in brewing it?
Our most recent brew was developed as a collaboration between Vicious Cycle Brewing (Fraser, CO) and ourselves. The thought was to incorporate a less used starch source during the mash. So, we settled on the Russet Potato. And because summer is rapidly approaching, we thought that pairing the potato with a pilsner-style lager would be an excellent light-flavored beer. The challenges arose during the mash stage of brewing as we sat around peeling and slicing 80 pounds of potatoes. But the results really paid off - a light-flavored beer with a slightly sweet finish. Its really an amazing beer!
Rule105 seems to be more than just a brewery—it’s a community hub. How intentional was the choice to host trivia nights, live music, and events, and how do you think that’s shaped your customer base?
We were very much interested in building our base beyond just those that live in the neighborhood. So putting together a cribbage tournament on Wednesday night, a challenging trivia night that alternates weeks with cribbage, music bingo every Thursday night, and live bands on Friday nights was definitely something we thought could bring people to our doors from across northern Colorado. We also host Pub Church every Thursday evening, the local homebrew club on Tuesday evenings, and on Sunday afternoons we host a group of board game enthusiasts. Whether a group of folks wants to enjoy their time on our patio with their dogs or to watch a live band, or come inside and catch the latest game on the TV, we've got them covered. Doing so has evolved us into a place where customers feel welcome, have a chance to get together with friends, and make new friends because of a shared interest. And that's what we've been trying to do since we opened - a place for everyone to enjoy. (PS - we also have a geocache and we're a Pokemon site).
Where do you see Rule105 Brewing in five years—and is there a beer you’re dreaming of making that hasn’t happened yet?
We see Rule105 as the place that will continue to serve as a hub for our community - not just the local neighborhood. So, if there's a beer that we dream of making or is suggested to us by one of our customers, we plan it out and do it. We love branching out and trying new things and when it is an awesome beer, we keep making it. For example, we're one of the only places in northern Colorado that makes a kristallweizen - we had a vision that we could pull it off because it requires some more technical aspects of brewing. We're happy to report that it was such a great spring/summer beer, we have kept it on tap ever since. Our desire to be that meeting place for folks to get together, our variety of gluten-reduced beer brands, our amazing kitchen that scratch-makes everything from pizzas to wings, and our events from music to games make us who we are. We don't see that changing any time soon.
To read more about Rule105 Brewing, please visit https://rule105brewing.com/