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Meet Michelle Reding of Dry Dock Brewing Co in Aurora

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Reding.

Michelle, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 2005, Dry Dock Brewing Company was the first brewery to open in Aurora, Colorado. Co-owners Kevin DeLange and Michelle Reding expanded their homebrew shop, The Brew Hut, by cutting a hole in the wall into the recently vacated space. They added a seven BBL brewhouse and tasting room in the space for their homebrew customers to enjoy. By word of mouth, the 900-square-foot brewery established itself early on as a community gathering place and Aurora’s microbrewery. Within the first six months of being open, Dry Dock’s Amber Ale won a Gold at the World Beer Cup in 2006. Dry Dock quickly became known as an awarding winning brewery across Colorado.

In 2013, Dry Dock nearly quadrupled its production numbers, jumping from 3,200 barrels to 12,000 barrels in one year. With the increase came the purchase of a 30,000-square-foot production facility, known as North Dock. This allowed Dry Dock to expand and brew more than 20,000 barrels a year and distribute across the entire state of Colorado. The Canoe Room opened to the public in the fall of 2014. It is a twelve tap tasting room inside of North Dock. Additionally, there is an 18 hole disc golf course on the property for customers to enjoy. 

Dry Dock and The Brew Hut have also expanded their original location, known as South Dock, to have the Barrel Room for private events and a classroom to teach customers to homebrew and make cheese and wine. Since Kevin and Michelle started this adventure, Dry Dock Brewing Co. has brought home several local and international awards for a variety of beer that has been on tap. To date, they have 25 GABF medals and 8 World Beer Cup awards. Dry Dock’s most popular beer to date is their Apricot Blonde. Other flagship beers include Amber Ale, Hop Abomination, Vanilla Porter, and Sour Apricot.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are always going to be struggles in running a business. I think some of our biggest struggles have come through competition. When the change in legislation happened in early 2019 allowing chain stores to have full-strength beer, we saw independent stores begin to struggle. There is only a limited amount of shelf space at the larger chains, so working through that was a challenge we had to overcome. Also, when we first started out, there were only a handful of breweries in Colorado, and we were the only one in Aurora. Now, there are so many breweries and only a limited number of taps to compete for, the increasing competition in not only craft but big beer too, has been a challenge.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Since starting in 2005, we are most known for our Apricot Blonde. It first won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Fest in 2012 and has been a Colorado favorite ever since. As a company, though, The thing that makes Dry Dock so great is the people. We have a fabulous team from top to bottom, and we couldn’t do it without all of them. Working with such a great group of people make coming into work a joy. And not just our team, but our customers, too. Seeing old and new faces in the tasting rooms every day is so rewarding.

What were you like growing up?
I was such a math nerd! I love numbers, and that has translated into one of my roles here at Dry Dock. I grew up on a farm in Iowa as the oldest of five kids, and I played Volleyball in high school.

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