Burly Brewing Company opened in 2018 at 680 Atchison Way in Castle Rock. (Facebook)
A brewery in Castle Rock is closed and in the hands of a court-appointed caretaker as its owner, a convicted thief, faces a lawsuit accusing her of buying the business with stolen life insurance proceeds and refers to her detractors as “the Castle Rock mob and local terrorists.”
“I have been crucified in Castle Rock,” said Lisa Miles, 58. “It has been a horror show.”
“I literally closed Burly because of the threats,” she said. “It was just too much.”
Burly Brewing Company — “Where It’s All About the Beer’d” — was started in 2018 by an optometrist named George Goodman and later sold to Miles, the majority owner, and minority investors, including an ophthalmologist by the name of Dan Langley.
“The past several years, Langley has become concerned about the operations, finances, decision-making, assets and recordkeeping at Burly,” his lawyers wrote in May.
Early this year, there were plans for Miles to buy Langley’s shares in the brewery. When that didn’t happen, he demanded to see the company’s financials. When that didn’t happen, he sued Miles and the brewery, and asked a Castle Rock court to let a receiver run it.
In emails between Langley’s attorney and Miles on July 10, she claimed to have never been served the lawsuit and was annoyed she learned of the receiver request when a critic of hers sent a screenshot of the document. She questioned whether it had been stolen.
“While the Castle Rock Mob and local Terrorists are doing all they can to destroy me, it is highly unlikely they would take US Mail,” she emailed that day, according to a copy of the exchange obtained in a records request. “Then again, one cannot put anything beyond the boundaries of what homegrown Terrorists are likely to do to a Jewish woman in Castle Rock.”
Burly Brewing Company owner Lisa Miles on July 29, 2023, after the brewery was named the city’s Small Business of the Year. (Facebook)
Miles has not provided specifics, either in court or in conversations with BusinessDen, about the threats and supposed defamation she has endured, though Burly’s financial issues and Miles’ past have been discussed on Reddit and other social media sites in recent months.
“There are so many civil lawsuits that are going to come out of this bullying, the cyber-bullying, the harassment and defamation,” Miles vowed during a short phone interview.
District Court Judge Andrew Baum in Castle Rock initially denied the receiver request due to his own doubts that Miles had been served. But after additional attempts were made, he agreed a caretaker was needed because Burly “may be insolvent or its assets are at risk of waste and dissipation as a result of the current management by Defendant Lisa Miles.”
Miles has declined to discuss the receivership or her own legal matters in detail, citing the advice of her attorney, but said that she is “all for” Burly being run by a receiver.
“This is something that was completely agreed up, it’s not like it was snatched out of my hands or anything,” Miles says. “All of the players are friendly, communicative, et cetera.”
“The receiver called asking for information. I said, ‘Here you go.’ I’ve been fully cooperative, I’m not hiding anything. But we’re deciding right now whether to reopen,” she said.
The receiver, Chris Harff with Highline Financial Group in Lone Tree, will be paid $305 an hour to run the company. Harff declined to be interviewed about Burly Brewing, its future and his plans for stabilizing its finances, saying, “I am still gathering information.”
Court records that have been filed in Langley’s case suggest Burly is struggling mightily.
On July 9, the brewery’s landlord at 680 Atchison Way sent a letter threatening to evict it due to an “ongoing failure and refusal to pay rent.” Two days later, a man emailed Harff to say that Miles borrowed $50,000 from his wife and didn’t repay it. Four days after that, a Castle Rock police charity told Harff that Burly’s recent check to the charity had bounced.
As Harff gets to work running the company, Miles must still contend with Langley’s lawsuit, a July 23 lawsuit from Premier Members Credit Union that claims she and Burly have negative bank balances, and a third case that accuses her of stealing from a widow.
Devin Wade said that she leaned on Miles emotionally after Wade’s husband died unexpectedly in 2021. Miles then convinced Wade to give her control over Wade’s finances, which Miles used to steal $569,000 in life insurance payments and retirement savings, according to the lawsuit Wade filed March 7. Along with a townhouse, a luxury vehicle and a Harley, Miles allegedly spent the cash on “ownership interest in a local brewery” — Burly.
Miles denies all of that.
“If I have broken the law, then why am I walking around Walmart here in Castle Rock?” she asked BusinessDen by phone. “Why haven’t I been arrested? Think about that, OK.”
Wade also accuses Miles of creating a trust for her cat, Ashy McAsherson, and transferring the ill-gotten townhouse to that trust, to prevent Wade from winning it in a court judgment. Miles admits moving the home to the Ashy McAsherson Trust but said in a court filing that she “is without sufficient knowledge or information to admit or deny” McAsherson is a cat.
In the phone interview, Miles accused her unnamed critics of grossly exaggerating her criminal past, while acknowledging that there is such a past.
In 2005, Miles pleaded guilty to misuse of a Social Security number in a federal court in St. Louis and agreed to pay $50,000 in restitution. Three years later, she was arrested in Lakewood for an alleged larceny in Boulder County; she pleaded guilty in 2009 to theft.
Then, in 2013, she was charged with 10 felony counts of identity fraud and two counts of retaliating against a witness. She pleaded guilty to one fraud count and one retaliation count and was sentenced to one dozen years in prison, according to state court records. It’s not clear from those records how long Miles spent behind bars. She declined to discuss.
“I’m very transparent, I’m not ashamed of anything in my life,” Miles said. “People are saying, ‘Oh, here’s Lisa, she shouldn’t have a past’ when everybody else — all of their skeletons are tightly hidden in their closet. So, let’s crucify Lisa in the public. That’s just wrong.”
Burly Brewing Company opened in 2018 at 680 Atchison Way in Castle Rock. (Facebook)
A brewery in Castle Rock is closed and in the hands of a court-appointed caretaker as its owner, a convicted thief, faces a lawsuit accusing her of buying the business with stolen life insurance proceeds and refers to her detractors as “the Castle Rock mob and local terrorists.”
“I have been crucified in Castle Rock,” said Lisa Miles, 58. “It has been a horror show.”
“I literally closed Burly because of the threats,” she said. “It was just too much.”
Burly Brewing Company — “Where It’s All About the Beer’d” — was started in 2018 by an optometrist named George Goodman and later sold to Miles, the majority owner, and minority investors, including an ophthalmologist by the name of Dan Langley.
“The past several years, Langley has become concerned about the operations, finances, decision-making, assets and recordkeeping at Burly,” his lawyers wrote in May.
Early this year, there were plans for Miles to buy Langley’s shares in the brewery. When that didn’t happen, he demanded to see the company’s financials. When that didn’t happen, he sued Miles and the brewery, and asked a Castle Rock court to let a receiver run it.
In emails between Langley’s attorney and Miles on July 10, she claimed to have never been served the lawsuit and was annoyed she learned of the receiver request when a critic of hers sent a screenshot of the document. She questioned whether it had been stolen.
“While the Castle Rock Mob and local Terrorists are doing all they can to destroy me, it is highly unlikely they would take US Mail,” she emailed that day, according to a copy of the exchange obtained in a records request. “Then again, one cannot put anything beyond the boundaries of what homegrown Terrorists are likely to do to a Jewish woman in Castle Rock.”
Burly Brewing Company owner Lisa Miles on July 29, 2023, after the brewery was named the city’s Small Business of the Year. (Facebook)
Miles has not provided specifics, either in court or in conversations with BusinessDen, about the threats and supposed defamation she has endured, though Burly’s financial issues and Miles’ past have been discussed on Reddit and other social media sites in recent months.
“There are so many civil lawsuits that are going to come out of this bullying, the cyber-bullying, the harassment and defamation,” Miles vowed during a short phone interview.
District Court Judge Andrew Baum in Castle Rock initially denied the receiver request due to his own doubts that Miles had been served. But after additional attempts were made, he agreed a caretaker was needed because Burly “may be insolvent or its assets are at risk of waste and dissipation as a result of the current management by Defendant Lisa Miles.”
Miles has declined to discuss the receivership or her own legal matters in detail, citing the advice of her attorney, but said that she is “all for” Burly being run by a receiver.
“This is something that was completely agreed up, it’s not like it was snatched out of my hands or anything,” Miles says. “All of the players are friendly, communicative, et cetera.”
“The receiver called asking for information. I said, ‘Here you go.’ I’ve been fully cooperative, I’m not hiding anything. But we’re deciding right now whether to reopen,” she said.
The receiver, Chris Harff with Highline Financial Group in Lone Tree, will be paid $305 an hour to run the company. Harff declined to be interviewed about Burly Brewing, its future and his plans for stabilizing its finances, saying, “I am still gathering information.”
Court records that have been filed in Langley’s case suggest Burly is struggling mightily.
On July 9, the brewery’s landlord at 680 Atchison Way sent a letter threatening to evict it due to an “ongoing failure and refusal to pay rent.” Two days later, a man emailed Harff to say that Miles borrowed $50,000 from his wife and didn’t repay it. Four days after that, a Castle Rock police charity told Harff that Burly’s recent check to the charity had bounced.
As Harff gets to work running the company, Miles must still contend with Langley’s lawsuit, a July 23 lawsuit from Premier Members Credit Union that claims she and Burly have negative bank balances, and a third case that accuses her of stealing from a widow.
Devin Wade said that she leaned on Miles emotionally after Wade’s husband died unexpectedly in 2021. Miles then convinced Wade to give her control over Wade’s finances, which Miles used to steal $569,000 in life insurance payments and retirement savings, according to the lawsuit Wade filed March 7. Along with a townhouse, a luxury vehicle and a Harley, Miles allegedly spent the cash on “ownership interest in a local brewery” — Burly.
Miles denies all of that.
“If I have broken the law, then why am I walking around Walmart here in Castle Rock?” she asked BusinessDen by phone. “Why haven’t I been arrested? Think about that, OK.”
Wade also accuses Miles of creating a trust for her cat, Ashy McAsherson, and transferring the ill-gotten townhouse to that trust, to prevent Wade from winning it in a court judgment. Miles admits moving the home to the Ashy McAsherson Trust but said in a court filing that she “is without sufficient knowledge or information to admit or deny” McAsherson is a cat.
In the phone interview, Miles accused her unnamed critics of grossly exaggerating her criminal past, while acknowledging that there is such a past.
In 2005, Miles pleaded guilty to misuse of a Social Security number in a federal court in St. Louis and agreed to pay $50,000 in restitution. Three years later, she was arrested in Lakewood for an alleged larceny in Boulder County; she pleaded guilty in 2009 to theft.
Then, in 2013, she was charged with 10 felony counts of identity fraud and two counts of retaliating against a witness. She pleaded guilty to one fraud count and one retaliation count and was sentenced to one dozen years in prison, according to state court records. It’s not clear from those records how long Miles spent behind bars. She declined to discuss.
“I’m very transparent, I’m not ashamed of anything in my life,” Miles said. “People are saying, ‘Oh, here’s Lisa, she shouldn’t have a past’ when everybody else — all of their skeletons are tightly hidden in their closet. So, let’s crucify Lisa in the public. That’s just wrong.”
