BOULDER — Rising rents, higher prices for ingredients and minimum-wage increases have affected the region’s brewing industry just as they have many other businesses. But an overriding challenge among executives at Tuesday’s BizWest CEO Roundtable was much more basic: People aren’t going out as much as they used to.

“The general going-out culture has been set back,” said Jeffrey Green, co-owner of Very Nice Brewing Co., which lost its Nederland brewery to a fire on Oct. 8 but still has one in Gilpin County. “I know a lot of people say young people aren’t drinking, but I think it’s a bigger problem. People have stopped going out in general. My wife owns half the brewery, and she doesn’t drink either.”

Steve Conrad, head brewer at Busey Brews Smokehouse and Brewery in Nederland, noted that

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