Meet the Uhl’s Brewing Team
Introducing the Uhl’s Brewing family! Here’s a little story about each of our dedicated staff to help you get to know them a little better!
Aaron Uhl, Founder
Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina. Aaron has been across the country and back a few times, but he’s a homebody at heart. His college career in Northern Virginia ended with an Associates Degree in Art History and Design in 1994. He moved to Nantucket for two years and then moved back to Virginia to get his legs under him and see where he wanted his life to go. Unable to focus on a single career, he was waiting tables at night, managing a bike shop during the day and racing mountain bikes in between.
It wasn’t until after several plane flights out to Colorado that he decided he wanted to start a life out west and he moved out in the summer of 1998. Beer didn’t start dictating his life until later on. It wasn’t until sometime around 2001-200 that he took his first sip of Avery Brewing’s Maharaja and started to fall in love with craft beer not just as a pastime, but as an industry. Shortly after, Aaron received a copy of the infamous book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, and a decade’s long obsession with brewing was born.
In the beginning, Aaron focused on Belgian beers. Dubbel, Triple and Quads were some of his first brewing experiments. After that, he shifted to hop forward and big beer flavors, with the mindset that if he was going to take the time to brew, he was going to brew what he wanted to drink. That meant bitter but balanced DIPA’s and deep dark Stouts that were either aged on spices or spent some time slumbering in a barrel. At the end of his first year of home brewing, he had successfully racked a 13.5% ABV Imperial Stout into a five-gallon bourbon barrel for aging.
For someone with no previous brewing experience, Aaron caught on quickly. He was initially taught the basic process by a friend with a three kettle gravity fed system. It seemed simple enough to him, and after that first brew, he was on his own. The numbers were what drove him to get better, and get better he did.
In 2016, Aaron took home a first place medal in the Mead/Cider category at the Chili Pepper Extravaganza. That led to a 2016 Pro-Am collab with Jeff over at Fate Brewing, then two regional American Homebrewers Association Gold medals in DIPA and Imperial Stout in 2017. The self-described culmination of his entire career, two days before he signed his first contract to brew, was a Best of Show in Beer win at the Dred Hop competition. The winning beer? A coolship SMaSH IPA, of all things.
Eventually, he began to seriously consider opening a brewery of his own, and he started reaching out to professional brewers that he knew through the community. Aaron’s last full time job outside of the industry was at Boulder’s University Bicycles. At that point his love of homebrew had become a true obsession, and the shop gave him a severance package that allowed him to buy his very first fermentation tank. So began his true brewing career and in 2020, he got a call asking if he wanted to buy the former Wild Woods Brewery in Boulder’s East end. His first thought? “This is it.” Aaron was thrilled that the world would finally get to sit down and try what he could bring to the table. The rest is history.
When he’s not at the brewhouse, Aaron is on a mountain bike or a street cruiser. He is an avid fisherman, and he loves to backpack the Rockies. When the snow falls, Aaron shifts to snowshoeing in the backcountry and alpine skiing to boot. Goes without saying, but he loves researching new brewing products and geeking out on recipe development too.
Morgan
Morgan’s craft beer love affair began in Portland, Oregon. Working at a bar, she tried Russian River’s Supplication, and was hooked.
Fast forward to September of 2021, and Morgan joins the Uhl’s team in her home state of Colorado. Mainly a fixture behind the bar leading guests through Uhl’s selection of beers, Morgan also assists with production on canning and bottling days. When it comes to Uhl’s selection of craft, Morgan prefers Watermelon Blackberry Red Dragonfruit Compote, a sour fruited beer, and Barreled Coconut Treat, a barrel aged imperial stout. Right now, they’re warming up on colder days with Uhl’s Barleywhiner.
When not behind the bar, Morgan is checking out the local Boulder beer and food scene, or cultivating her own culinary experience at home. Morgan is an avid sci-fi and fantasy fan, loves listening to podcasts, and treks into the mountains to watch and photograph Boulder’s native birds.
Angel
Born and raised in the Rockies, Angel has been at Uhl’s since the very start. She’s a brewer and a bartender, working closely with Aaron on brewing recipes and barrel wrangling for Uhl’s barrel aged beer program. A Certified Cicerone server, Angel has loved digging into the basics of the industry and learning all about unusual beer styles. From her first craft love, Odell Brewing 90 Shilling, she’s expanded her palette and her knowledge of craft.
Angel spends her time away from the brewery out on Boulder’s bike trails, on the soccer pitch, and at Uhl’s for a pint of Barreled Coconut Treat to cool off.
Samantha
Hailing from California, Samantha caught the craft brew bug after trying Stone Brewing’s Stone IPA, and has been a part of the craft world since. A member of the Uhl’s family for nearly a year, Samantha is a self described “beer slinger”, and is responsible for serving customer’s Uhl’s delicious brews, with plenty of facts peppered in from her Cicerone Beer Server certification.
When she isn’t expanding guests’ beer vocabulary behind the bar, Samantha is curled up with a book, or binging the latest true crime podcast with a can of Uhl’s decadent Double Strawberry Smiggles in hand.
David
David has called Colorado home for over a decade, and Uhl’s home since March of 2021. His craft experience began with a sip of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and hasn’t slowed since. Not only a Cicerone Beer Server certified beertender bringing a depth of tap list knowledge to guests, David is Uhl’s unofficial photographer. He primarily shoots photos of new releases, which often involves running to the grocery store for ingredients and building intricate “fruit sculptures” to best showcase individual beers.
Besides crafting immaculate beer backdrops, David puts his focus into cooking, vegetable fermentation, and hot sauce taste-testing. A knack for (and love of) juggling helps him balance his culinary interests with enjoying Colorado’s endless outdoor opportunities, whether perched on a slackline or a climbing wall. He does find a little time to relax and speed run video games with a glass of Uhl’s Deep Dark Depths by his side.
