Many businesses felt the shock of COVID19, and more of these couldn’t survive. So what does it take for a business to survive and thrive past a pandemic setback? Stephen Jaye answers these questions and more as he talks to Aaron Uhl, founder and owner of Uhl’s Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado. Aaron walks us through how he got into brewing, what he learned, and how he helped pilot his business through the COVID19 crisis. Learn more about Aaron and his experiences by tuning in.
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Steering A Business Through A Pandemic Setback With Aaron Uhl
Colorado has been my home for years. For anyone who knows what it's like here, it is longer than most people. There are a lot more new entries and a lot of people are moving here. The area of Colorado, especially the Front Range, Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins, is known for the craft brewing scene. We have a pretty robust scene in that particular sense of one of 5 or 6 places where there is a lot of people doing a lot of experimenting with different types of beer and formulas. My guest is Aaron Uhl, who started his own brewery. He is the owner and head brewer along with 6 or 7 other roles. We talked a little bit about the idea of wearing many hats with Uhl’s Brewing, for anyone interested is located near the corner of Arapahoe and 55th on the East end of Boulder.--Aaron, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Tell me a little bit about Uhl's Brewing, your story, and what you are all about.

It all started with a passion for homebrewing, competitions, and loving craft beer, in general. When I first started brewing, it was simply because I couldn't get a certain beer from beer trading because beer trading was a big thing back in early 2010 and on. With that, I whined a little bit. My girlfriend bought me the book that everyone gets, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian. That nudged me along to do my first brew with a friend who had an all-grain system. He showed me the ropes on the first brew. After that, I was at home homebrewing.

There was a tile in the kitchen that was available on my side of the table. There was going to be a fermenter there. By the end of the first year, I had the beer that I couldn't trade for a mimic of it, an Imperial stout aging in a five-gallon bourbon barrel in my basement. That was in 2012 or so. Fast forward to 2018, I won a lot of awards at different competitions across the state and region. I ended up winning regional gold medals for an Imperial stout and Imperial IPA with AHA competition that gets run annually. That's the best of the show for me of all things, also a trip to the Great American Beer Festival with Jeff Griffith from FATE Brewing at the time, who is now at Twisted Pine.

The eventful night led me to sign a contract with another brewery to start the brand in 2018 of February at the Fresh Hop Competition. I ended up winning about 5 or 6 awards and then took best to show. The funny thing was people that I would assume to talk with dropped a tank into their system and started brewing. They showed up to the brewery where the competition was having its final rounds of judging and award ceremony. They were like, “What are you doing here? We are honestly not to ask you. You own a brewery.” They live in the area and wanted to check it out. I told them that I had about eight different beers in the competition and they should sit down at the pro-am table, hang out for the award ceremony, and try the brewery’s beers that they were at.

They sat down and their eyes were raising every single time I won an award because when I talked to them, that's what I wanted to start doing, brewing one and done recipes and easy IPAs. They are like, “Everyone thinks they can do that, but can you brew anything else other than that?” It landed in their head that, “If this guy is winning medals across broad spectrums from lager to British bitters to smash American sours,