Built by a Beverage Operator Who Has Worked from First Formula to Production Floor

Derrick Morse

Where Beverage Science, Brewing, Brand Building, and Operations Meet

Derrick Morse has spent more than 20 years building beverage and consumer packaged goods brands from the liquid up. His experience spans craft beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, coffee, functional beverages, energy drinks, nonalcoholic products, and hemp-derived cannabinoid beverages where lawful.

Born and raised in Colorado, Derrick grew up around the outdoor culture and independent brewing scene of Denver and Boulder. He studied nutrition and food science at the University of Colorado Boulder, with a minor in kinesiology, before beginning his career in marketing and beverage sales. He later moved fully into brewing leadership roles in Colorado and Tennessee, where his work earned national recognition, including gold and bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival for Westbound Braggot.

Across more than two decades in beverage and CPG, Derrick has helped build brands, teams, facilities, and operating systems across brewing, beverage development, pilot production, co-manufacturing, quality systems, supply chain, and commercial scale-up. That experience taught him that a strong beverage business requires far more than a promising formula. It requires disciplined development, sound documentation, production reality, and commercial infrastructure that can support growth.

Through Liquid Labs, Derrick helps entrepreneurs and established brands move from an early concept through formulation, bench trials, sensory evaluation, consumer feedback, pilot production, validation, and scale-up planning. His work connects the science of formulation with the realities of manufacturing and the discipline required to build a commercially repeatable beverage system.

Derrick’s operating philosophy is straightforward: a beverage is not commercially finished simply because it tastes good. It must also be safe, compliant, stable, repeatable, scalable, and financially viable. Liquid Labs was built around that philosophy so brands can build the evidence before they build the inventory.

Outside the brewery and lab, Derrick is still a Colorado outdoorsman at heart. He enjoys skiing, mountain biking, and spending time with his two kids, who remain his greatest adventure and a major reason he stays focused on building something meaningful for the future.

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