Contract brewery stays busy making others look good

By Jay McKinney

Every brewery has its own flagship beer that becomes the face of the brand and keeps customers coming back. But in the case of Sleeping Giant Brewing Company, the brewer has no signature beer - or any beer it can call its own. Tucked away in a west Denver industrial neighborhood, the contract brewery has nearly 20 craft brewery clients paying them to brew their recipes when there’s not enough resources to do so in-house. While it may sound like a factory dedicated to the mass-production of beer, Sleeping Giant is made up of a talented team of individuals who take pride in the beer they brew.

Sleeping Giant Founder and President Matthew Osterman was inspired to launch a dedicated contract brewery after seeing a geographic business opportunity and with years of experience on the customer side of contract brewing. While working with a beer company in Boulder, Osterman became familiar with the business of contract brewing, which was done through other breweries who had the capacity to help out. Of course, most of the breweries who took on the extra brewing had to prioritize their own house brands.

After struggling with this situation, Osterman’s company began looking for dedicated contract breweries and always ran into problems. The contractors were too far away from Colorado, they were too big in terms of batch sizes, the quality was poor and the customer service was shoddy.

Osterman saw the void and filled it with Sleeping Giant in January 2015. Being the only dedicated contract brewery west of the Mississippi, Sleeping Giant has multiple out-of-state clients, along with Colorado craft breweries that utilize their services.

“We actually do more volume out of state than in state but just in terms of raw numbers we have more clients in state,” Osterman says.

Some of the craft breweries in Colorado that have utilized Sleeping Giant’s service include Station 26 Brewing Co., Black Shirt Brewing Co. and Boulder Beer Company, which has entrusted Sleeping Giant with its entire production line after permanently closing its Boulder facility.

Despite having no taproom or consumer contact, Sleeping Giant follows the same sales curve of other craft breweries, meaning the spring and summer months are generally busier than the fall and winter. However, having clients from different regions and states helps ensure that business stays relatively steady.

Since Sleeping Giant is tasked with creating other brewery’s recipes and making sure they match the right flavor profile, testing is paramount. “We have a pretty big lab, definitely one of the nicer ones in the state with respect to the equipment we have,” Osterman says. “We have a super advanced lab program and a really talented lab team of quality folks.”

The lab technicians’ are key, but it takes every one of the 29 employees at Sleeping Giant to make the operation run smoothly. “We have a pretty solid mix, a lot of our employees have brewery experience and I’d say that’s mostly craft brewery experience,” Osterman says. “Our team is pretty next level. Our team is the thing that I’m most proud of and I’d say our quality is number two shortly after.”

Osterman says the typical employee has 3-5 years of regional-size brewery experience, but there are also some staff members who have worked in larger breweries. Others have been intentionally hired from outside of the industry to provide a different perspective on things.

While the actual brewing of beer is the crux of Sleeping Giant’s work, the ability to package the beer onsite is an overlooked task that is very difficult but essential to the company’s success. “It’s critical, we wouldn’t really exist without it,” Osterman says. “The packaging side is like the hardest part of brewing. You know, brewing beer is not easy but getting it in a package is tough and the average consumer never thinks about that. Once the beer is over to packaging, the only thing that they can do is make it worse so it’s a lot of pressure to get it done properly so that you preserve the integrity of the beer as much as possible.”

Sleeping Giant is also able to offer its clients a wide variety of packaging options with its in-house bottling, canning and kegging lines. From glass bottle 6-packs to fiber-board wrapped 18-packs of cans, the facility can meet the packaging needs of all clients.

The dedication and commitment that Sleeping Giant has provided to the craft beer community is undeniable. While the brewery may not have its own beer to promote, the talented team at Sleeping Giant is always willing to step up for its partners to produce consistent, high-quality suds.

Jay McKinney is a Colorado native who recently graduated from Metro State University of Denver with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He loves spending time outdoors, playing golf and hiking.