E-Malt.com News article: USA, CO: Upslope Brewing Co. ramping up production

Seven months into brewing beer at its new Flatiron business park location, Upslope Brewing Co. of Boulder, CO. is ramping up production even more. Founder Matt Cutter only wishes the company had made the move sooner, Business Reporter communicated on September 10.

Upslope had two 120-barrel fermenters and a 120-barrel bright tank installed on September 9. The new tanks should be worked into Upslope’s rotation by next week and give the company an extra 400 barrels of capacity per year. Upslope has a 30-barrel brewhouse and already had five 120-barrel fermenters at its east Boulder location. That’s in addition to the seven-barrel brewhouse still in use at the company’s original location in north Boulder.

“This is how we scale up,” Cutter said. “We’ll just brew more often.”

The new tanks cost about $100,000 and were needed after Upslope had to cut short the production of its limited-release Belgian Pale Ale this year to keep up with demand for its year-round offerings.

“I wish I had these tanks about three months ago,” Cutter said.

Upslope, founded in 2008, added the 20,000-square-foot Flatiron business park location in February, opening a taproom there in April.

Upslope landed at No. 5 earlier this year on the Boulder County Business Report’s Mercury 100 list of the fastest-growing companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties for companies reporting more than $2 million in annual revenue. Upslope grew 187 percent from 2010 to 2012, going from $729,157 in revenue to $2.1 million.

Cutter said the company brewed about 5,600 barrels of beer last year, all at the Lee Hill location. He’s projecting to roughly double that this year to 10,000 or 11,000 barrels.

In addition to the new tanks, Upslope poured concrete for a new patio at the Flatiron taproom.

“That’s it for now,” Cutter said of the expansions.


17 September, 2013