Meet Aaron Uhl | Founder, Owner, Head Brewer, Quality Control Manager, Lead Sales Rep, Delivery Guy

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aaron Uhl and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When I first started thinking about building my brand, I continuously wrote business model after business model. Each time more deterred then the next to even think about finding the investors to get a brewhouse together. The amount of money necessary was unfathomable to me, so I continued to think of other ways the brand could get going. I read a lot of articles about gypsy brewing, and gleaned some inspiration from He’Brew, Mikkeller and Evil Twin, as they were doing very well with the Gypsy Brewing at the time. But the breweries they were brewing at were massive. Sometimes in excess of 100bbl brew houses. They had all done a really good job at branding and marketing and had a distribution network so large, it could support their brands.  I knew I couldn’t start that big, but one day, one of my local liquor store guys told me he was leaving and would be starting his own business. He was going to work with a local contract brewery that he found. Nick Garrick started Acidulous Brewing Company and charged across the front range selling his craft.  He sort of led the way for me to follow a couple years later with a good blueprint to start my own brand. Unfortunately at the time that I started brewing at another brewery’s brew house, his brand was suffering due to family medical issues. We all know that owning a business means you have to make sacrifices in your personal life, but quality of living and good health forced them to get out and get a job with insurance and more money than they were making with the brand. Hearing all this as I started Uhl’s Brewing Co, was slightly discouraging to say the least, but I put my head down and kept going. You see after all my years in the retail industry, I was finally able to see a viable way to get Uhl’s beer into the hands of the beer drinkers up and down the front range. I bought a 30bbl tank and plopped it in line at the host brewery and brewed my first batch, The Wayward Hop, in September of 2018, I delivered my first beer from the Uhl’s portfolio on October 4th, 2018. I kept plugging away brewing one and done recipes of mainly hazy IPA’s and DIPA’s and finally added two beers to our core; Hop Down – a Hazy IPA w/Citra, Amarillo & El Dorado and Coffee Roasters – an Imperial Milk Stout aged on Coffee Beans from a local Roaster. Both sku’s stuck and the public really enjoyed them as sell through on the shelves was increasing. I still had know Idea how and where I would eventually get my own brewhouse as there were many restrictions I had to adhere to whilst at my host brewery. I had some friends that were very interested in the brand and reached out to me in the late summer of 2019 with some potential spots to open a tasting room. The temperature went cold a couple weeks later, until one morning in the middle of October. I received an email from a random ColoradoBrewery@gmail.com address stating that they were selling their 2 and 7 barrel brewhouse. One call to my friends and they were excited and in. Fast forward through the struggles of finding more investors and dealing with lawyers, operation agreements, subscription agreements and what not, to February 1, 2020. Each investor involved bought into the brand, not only because of the quality of the beer, but also the fact that I had a steady wholesale business and a wide distribution footprint with over 50 accounts. We had planned for the 80% tasting room 20% wholesale business like many other breweries before us, but with COVID in the air, that changed everything. In 2020 and 2021 we have seen a complete reversal of the sales model with 80% wholesale and 20% retail. Without that distribution footprint, Uhl’s Brewing Co would not be here today. Like so many other businesses these last two years, I would say the plan is to spin on dime whenever needed to make it happen. Right now we are fighting tooth and nail to get our name out there and get more of Uhl’s Brewing Co into the thirsty mouths of beer drinkers across Colorado.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I like to think I create in a can. Brewing is definitely an artform that encompases grain, hops, yeast and water, adjuncts and shall we say…other ingredients.  Each has its own unique role in making beer and each has its own nuances that help to make world class beer. Understanding and learning how to use each ingredient to its greatest potential doesn’t just come naturally. It comes with repetition and analyzing each and every batch of beer. Did this change anything? Did this make the beer taste better? Did we get a higher yield? Did we get a better mouthfeel? These are just some of the questions our staff and I go through with every batch we brew. Our art allows us to learn and be better every time.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well after flying in from Denver, I would take them straight to Bierstadt for some lager and adult sized cornhole and finish up the night at Finn’s Manor. From there we’d hit the ski resorts and hit some breweries along the way. Roll further west stopping at Casey Blending and Brewing along the way with a dip in the Iron Mountain Hot Springs. Hit the Palisade Plunge mountain bike trail that was just opened up on the western slope. Stopping in Fruita for Moore Fun and pizza at the Hot Tomato.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I moved to Colorado like most others because of my love for the outdoors. I was an avid skier and raced mountain bikes semi-professionally throughout the late 90’s and early across the Mid-Atlantic region. Too many trips in a two year time span out to Boulder and I fell in love with what Colorado had to offer. Little did I know when I moved out here, I was in one of the hotbeds of American craft beer. I fell in love with Avery Brewing Co. almost right from the get go. Their brewery in the alley was a gem. I had never seen a brewery that was able to nail every style they put out. I saw the tasting room and brewery develop from a kegerator to them taking over the whole warehouse complex around the brewery. Hanging around their brewhouse only led to me making many friends with the employees at the time. There was Ross, their warehouse manager. He was a clerk at my local bottle shop that, when hired by Avery, encouraged Avery to go down the sour road. Matthew and Phil who ran the tasting room. They also moved over from the same local bottle shop that Ross came from. Breeze, Truck, Joe, Fred and even Adam, as well as the rest of the crew who were into road bikes, would go on weekly road rides. One of Adam’s friends, Orli, was able to hook the Avery team up with a sweet deal for a new bike with the bikeline he sold. So I would go out with the guys from the brewery and rip their legs off and then they’d drink me under the table afterwards. Avery helped expose me to what beer can be and that the sky was the limit when it came to ingredients. Fast forward to 2012, the start of my homebrewing career. By the end of that year I had successfully brewed fifty batches of different ales and filled a five gallon whiskey barrel with 13.5% Imperial Stout to age in my basement. I started home brewing because in 2010 Bourbon County Rare Stout came out and turned the trading market upside down. No longer was it about trading oz for oz or dollar for dollar, it was about winning. I refused the pay to trade game and whined about it enough until my girlfriend at the time gifted me “The Joy To Homebrewing” by Charlie Papazian. Yup that book, the one everyone buys and starts to brew with. Thanks for the nudge Charlie! My homebrewing career spanned 6 years with awards like Best of Show for Mead in 2015, a Pro-Am pick with Fate Brewing in 2016, two gold medals in the regional AHA competition in 2017 for Spice & Vegetable Beer and DIPA, a Best of Show for Beer at the Dred Hop Homebrew Competition in 2018, as well as many others awards along the way. It was clearly evident that I could brew, but I didn’t know how to build a brand yet. One day I was introduced to Matt Cutter of the Upslope Brewing Company the night of the yearly Whiskey & Bacon Party at University Bicycles. I would bring homebrews to Matt at Upslope and he would have me pour them for his entire Sensory Team. Not only to assess the beer for flaws, but to expose the staff to new styles and thoughts from the homebrewing side of the beer world. Matt even let me design and brew a 10bbl batch of Experimental IPA for his tasting rooms, which sold out quickly. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Doug Emerson, the owner of University Bicycles, pushing me out the door on purpose in 2017, telling me to go open a brewery, I don’t think I would be talking about this today. He said, ‘All you do is talk about beer, go open a brewery.’ He set me up with a great severance package, allowed me to run the unemployment insurance out and then hit me with two big SEP IRA payments. This allowed me time to build a business model, find a brewery to brew at, order a 30bbl tank and install it. Sometimes, you have to be pushed outside of your comfort zone, to really be inspired to make something of your dreams.

Website: www.uhlsbrewing.com

Instagram: uhlsbrewingco

Facebook: uhl’s brewing co

Yelp: uhls brerwing co

Image Credits
None needed all taken in house by staff.