Changing the craft beer industry one microbrew at a time.

• Author: Sichel, Pamela
• Position: STATE of the STATE

The American craft and microbrew industry is growing at the astonishing rate of 18 percent a year, according to the Brewer's Association. Until a few years ago, microbreweries were limited to regional product distribution, due to the prohibitive cost of shipping bottled beer. Cans were the answer, but small-scale canning technology was slow and expensive.

Then, Boulder engineer Jeff Aldred and his partner, Alexis Foreman, inadvertently changed the microbrew game in 2007. Aldred and Foreman had recently opened Wild Goose Engineering, a 1,000-sguare-foot, four-man machine shop dedicated to prototype fabrication for local manufacturers.

The partners befriended their neighbor, the fledgling Upslope Brewery. Hindered by its canning system, Upsiope asked Aldred and Foreman to evaluate its eguipment. "The system we were using was too slow," says Upslope founder Dany Pages. "Speed is everything in the brewing business."

"They were having endless problems with their system, and were not happy with the customer service they were receiving," Foreman says. The partners re-engineered Upslope's system to produce 20 cans per minute vs. the previous five, allowing Upslope to can a brew batch in 10 hours rattier than the 24 it formerly took - a game-changer in microbrew production. Pages urged Aldred and Foreman to take their system to market.

Following the equipment redesign, Aldred developed patent-pending technology for an affordable, modular canning system that met the needs of microbreweries ranging from mom-and-pop operations to large-scale producers. Because of the fraternal, non-competitive nature of the industry, word spread and Wild Goose was soon backlogged with orders.

With virtually no marketing effort, Wild Goose has grown from four employees to 44. After seven moves, the manufacturing facility now occupies 21,000 square feet, but is outgrowing its current site.

The technology evolved, and Wild Goose's fastest system now produces up to 100 cans per minute. Faster canning equals more revenue. With a Wild Goose system, small, regional brewers can springboard into the national artisan, craft brew market.

"Mobile canning has given small craft breweries an opportunity they didn't have in the past. I don't think Wild Goose and other manufacturers anticipated the industry impact they would have," says Andy Sparhawk, Craft Beer/Brewer's Association program coordinator.

Wild Goose equipment is in use in the U.S. and Canada, the U.K. and Argentina, with...