Uhl's Brewing, which opened at 5460 Conestoga Court in Boulder on March 14, 2020 — just days before the pandemic shutdown — will close for good on August 6. "I just can't keep getting kicked in the dick," says owner and head brewer Aaron Uhl.
He adds that he has tried to do what he could to keep the business afloat, but a large, unexpected dip in taproom sales recently was the final straw, and he's no longer able to stay open.
Uhl says he'll throw one last farewell party — "one last hurrah," as he puts it. In the meantime, he has taken everything out of the cellar and plans to have the following available for sale in-house or to go:
Barrel Aged Fluffernutter
King Billy (all three barrels)
Peanut Butter Barrel’d Treat
Bramble Barrel’d Treat
Chocolate & Vanilla Barrel’d Treat
Coffee & Vanilla Barrel’d Treat
Coconut Barrel’d Treat
Barrel Aged Maple Harvest Vanilla & Cinnamon Barrel’d Treat
Deep Dark Depths 21, 22, 23 Deep
Dark Depths Antique
Deep Dark Depths Rye
Tahitian Vanilla Barrel’d Treat
CO Beverage Co. Barrel’d Stout
Old Elk Barrel’d Stout
Uhl isn't going to hold back the heat at upcoming festivals, either, like the Westy Brewfest on July 29. "We're gonna really bring it hard to Westy. We'll probably have three to five barrel-aged stouts on," he says. "We'll tap them from the very beginning. We're not going to mess around."
Uhl will be pouring some special beers for Hoopla-gers on July 22.
Courtesy Wibby Brewing
This might not be goodbye forever for Uhl's, though — at least not for the beer. Uhl is reaching out to collaborators and friends, arranging for breweries to buy some of the barrels from the brewery. This means that fans can likely find Uhl's beer at some point in the future, released at other breweries. Uhl says he has several interesting casks available, from Tawny Port-finished Old Elk barrels to a Tennessee Whiskey barrel that was dumped, rushed to Colorado, and immediately filled with a stout.
While the timing of opening Uhl's wasn't ideal, its owner says that the reasons for the brewery's struggles go a lot deeper than that. "I wasn't really worried [about the pandemic]," Uhl says. "We had 85 accounts that I was servicing with our specialty beer. It was pretty easy to do the selling during the pandemic, and our wholesale numbers were gigantic in 2020."
He also credits former taproom manager Chris Crowe with some of that early success. "Most of the sales work at the time was me running around," says Uhl. "I knew the bar was safe in Crowe's hands, so I could go out and sell and deliver beer and just be the everything guy."
Uhl says that Crowe's wife got a great job offer out of state, so he had to leave, and that's when things got tougher. Suddenly, the brewery wasn't getting the shelf space that he felt it deserved, and sales dipped to below 300 cases of beer per month.
After cutting ties with his distributor, Uhl hired a sales manager. "I thought that would be the answer," he says, but it ended up putting him in a tougher position. "[The salesperson] was selling, but I wasn't following up on his invoices," he admits. "He was selling all the way down in Colorado Springs, just all over the place." When the salesperson quit without any notice, Uhl was left to pick up the pieces. "I had to find all the accounts, make amends, buy back product that was old," he adds.
The final nail in the coffin was sudden for Uhl. He says the brewery was actually up 18 percent through June 1. Then came the rain. "It killed our business," he says. "I don't even know what the heck happened; it's like somebody hit a switch on the first day of June." Taproom sales on Thursday, Friday and Saturday plummeted by over 75 percent last month — an astounding figure over such a short period of time. "I'm like, why am I even open?" he recalls.
Uhl still isn't sure why there was such a sudden drop in traffic. He'd been focusing on taproom sales and decreasing wholesale. Labor costs and payroll were under control, too — he was even doing the can art himself. He hasn't spoken to his neighboring breweries in the area, but he hasn't noticed the same changes there. "Wild Provisions is doing absolutely amazing for being open in their third year," he points out.
Uhl was already planning on moving out of the building in less than a year and a half when the lease expired, as he didn't expect the lease to be renewed by the landlord. New York City's Hello Fresh has been expanding its Boulder location by leasing spaces in the building, and is the most likely tenant to move into Uhl's space when it closes.
It's been a rough few years for Uhl personally, as well. He had to leave his apartment as a result of the Marshall Fire, and he has lost several close family members. He also has some loans on the business that are personally guaranteed, which may result in bankruptcy.
For now, Uhl plans to take some time off. He previously worked in the cycling world, and says that it's likely he'll pick up a part-time job in that industry for a while. "I'm going to do a bunch of camping and backpacking the rest of the year," he adds.
He's also going to keep in touch with investors, potential investors and friends in the industry. "If something happens, I want to make sure that I'm a part of it," he says. "I'm still an entrepreneur. I'm always learning, even in this situation."
Despite the sudden closure and the emotional toll that goes with it, the beer industry may not have seen the last of Aaron Uhl. "I'm an artist by nature, a cyclist by heart, and I love to brew beer," he concludes.
