Outer Range Plans a Mirror-Image Brewery in the French Alps

There’s a man living in the small French town of Sallanches who is very happy right now. A frequent traveler to Colorado ski country, he loves Outer Range Brewing's beers so much that he typically stocks up on cans when he is in Frisco and drags them them home in his suitcase. But soon he won't have to.

On Saturday, brewery founders Lee and Emily Cleghorn announced at their fifth anniversary party that they’ll be moving to Sallanches, a picturesque town that serves as a gateway to several ski resorts, this summer for at least a year (or more) to start up a second iteration of Outer Range in the French Alps.

“It's similar to Frisco — an authentic mountain town with epic outdoor things to do," Emily says.

The location will be a mirror image in many ways of the Frisco brewery, down to the same brewhouse (an incoming twenty-hectoliter system with the capability for automatic decoction mashing) and the same beer logos, brands and cans. The Cleghorns even plan to rotate staff from one location to the other, like a frothy foreign exchange program, so that everyone can benefit from sharing tips and techniques, as well as market lessons, Emily says. "We only know how to be Outer Range, so we are staying true to ourselves."
"There's a pretty health hazy market" in Europe, adds Lee. But Outer Range will also brew whatever styles that customers in France want to drink, including hop-forward pilsners. Either way, they'll be building on one of Outer Range's favorite slogans, which is "Après All Day," he jokes.

In addition to the brewery, the Cleghorns will fill the large space in Sallanches with a Nashville fried chicken restaurant and a coffee shop — in a similar fashion to what they have done in Frisco. But they will also add a floor-to-ceiling climbing wall with windows looking out over the Mount Blanc massif.

To build it, the Cleghorns are teaming up with friends — one of whom is French — from their days at Columbia Business School in New York. The two couples have talked for years about a joint effort.

Although it will be challenging to run two breweries on two continents (and they'll be flying back and forth), Lee and Emily said they're confident their Frisco team can handle their absence. In fact, they took a two-month trip to Europe last summer as a sort-of test run for how things might work.

Building another Outer Range "down the street" wouldn't have "perpetuated the aspirational lifestyle" that is the Cleghorns' mission. "Our motto is 'Leave the life below,'" Emily points out, adding that their goal is to help people escape the stress of daily life by spending time on the mountain. "So we asked ourselves if we wanted to play it safe...or whether we wanted to really own up to our values and do something big."

Construction starts this spring, and the Cleghorns hope to open for business by the end of 2022.