Nimbus beer to return to Tucson next spring 🍻

Back in the mid-2000s, Nimbus Brewing Co.’s Dirty Güera Blonde Ale was one of the Tucson brewery’s top sellers.

By next spring, fans could find it on store shelves once again courtesy of a Scottsdale-based brewing company.

Arizona Brewing Company acquired Nimbus in July and plans to eventually bring back a half-dozen Nimbus beers, starting with the blonde ale. The plan also calls for releasing Old Monkeyshine English Ale, Enlightened Soul Pale Ale, the Uncommonly Rich Nut Brown Ale and Hell’s Furnace Red Ale.

“I’m really excited to get it back into Tucson,” said Arizona Brewing managing director John L. Rivers. “I’m excited to finally move forward and get it back.”

Tucson native and master brewer Zach Schroeder of Sonoran Brew Co., which is known for its Sonoran Wht Chclt and Salted Caramel Wht Chclt Ale, will lead the Nimbus brewing team.

“We’ll end up contract brewing it, but we’ll control the whole process with all our exact ingredients and everything else,” Rivers said, adding that he has the recipes from the former owner, James Counts, “so we’ll stay true to everything that Jim was doing.”

“I’m sure Zach will tweak some things to even make it better so that’s the exciting part,” he added.

Nimbus’s designs featuring its mascot monkey were updated but remain true in spirit.

The brand relaunch in Tucson comes seven years after a court-appointed receiver forced Nimbus to close in May 2018. The receiver determined the business, drowning in debt, didn’t have the money to continue operating.

The brewery had become the legal tug-of-war between Counts and his ex-wife, Patricia, after Counts defied a court order to split the brewery with his ex. According to the couple’s 2014 divorce settlement, Counts was ordered to buy his wife out or sell the business and split the proceeds.

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Counts, who died in 2020, did neither.

The receiver, Christopher G. Linscott, put the business up for auction in June 2018.

Arizona Brewing’s parent company, Aspen Beverage Investments LLC, was the highest bidder and had the prerequisite lease agreement with the landlord and a purchase agreement, according to Rivers. But the receiver, Rivers said, ignored the high bid and awarded the sale to Two Brothers Brewing Co. of Chicago, which led to a seven-year legal battle between Aspen and Two Brothers.

Two Brothers brewed Nimbus beers for several years without the original labels, which were part of the legal wrangling, which was resolved in July, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Rivers the legal rights to Nimbus Brewing Company.

Nimbus joins Arizona Brewing’s growing roster that includes War Bonds IPA, Saltwater Cowboy Hazey IPA and the iconic A-1, which at one point was the state’s most popular beer.

A-1 was the flagship beer of Arizona Brewing Company, which Aspen Beverage Investments, a company that invests in wine, beer and spirits companies around the world, acquired in 2016. The brewery was founded in Prescott in 1903 and relaunched post-prohibition in downtown Phoenix in 1933.

It introduced A-1 Pilsner in 1942, and the beer became a huge success, launching Arizona Brewing beyond the state borders into California, Nevada, West Texas, New Mexico and Southern California.

The beer’s run ended in 1985 when the company was sold. It was briefly resurrected in 2010 when Counts started brewing A-1 Pilsner from his Nimbus sprawling brewery in an industrial park on East 44th Street.

Counts brewed A-1 for two years until he stopped production in 2012, when he filed for bankruptcy.

When Rivers bought Arizona Brewing in 2016, he did a complete relaunch of the brewery and the original A-1 Pilsner, recreating the original labeling and using the recipe from 1942, including Pilsen and Vienna malts and Czech Saaz hops. He even searched for water that matched the water they would have used in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Arizona Brewing released A-1 in kegs around the state, including at Arizona Beer House on South Kolb Road, which had the beer earlier this year.

“It’s not about selling beer for me,” said Rivers, a self-professed history buff who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, “it’s about preserving the history and heritage and people of Arizona. That’s my main goal.”