Iron Monk Brewing Sold; Founders Exit, Inselman Stays

Iron Monk Brewing Company, one of Oklahoma's most recognized craft breweries and the Official Craft Beer of Oklahoma State Athletics, has been sold to Oklahoma entrepreneur Brady Sidwell and his company, Sidwell Enterprises, according to a statement released by the brewery. Sidwell also owns Enid Brewing Company.

Co-founders Dave Monks and Jerod Millirons, who started Iron Monk in Stillwater in 2015, are exiting the company as part of the sale. Trenton Inselman, who led Iron Monk as CEO under Monks and Millirons, is staying on and now serves as vice president and chief operating officer of a newly formed brewing and hospitality division within Sidwell Enterprises.

The ownership change arrives alongside a deepened relationship with Oklahoma State University. Iron Monk recently renewed its agreement as the official craft beer of OSU athletics through 2031 — and as part of that renewal, the brewery is now an official Oklahoma State University Athletic Watch Party, Inselman said, a designation that has not yet been formally announced.

"As a part of that renewal, we are now the official Oklahoma State University Athletic Watch Party for all OSU athletics," Inselman said. "So we're going to do an entire wall of TVs and improve the sound and improve the seating."

The taproom will add two 85-inch televisions and a 65-inch television to its main seating area, with plans for a beer garden at both the ROTC building and the OSU alumni center on game days, plus a stand inside the stadium.

"We're doubling down on local and Stillwater and OSU," Inselman said.

From left, Trenton Inselman, Brady Sidwell, Dave Monks and Jerod Millirons hold beer glasses inside Iron Monk Brewing Company's taproom. — From left, Trenton Inselman, Brady Sidwell, and Iron Monk founders Dave Monks and Jerod Millirons inside Iron Monk Brewing Company's taproom. – Photo provided

"We are proud of what we built as Stillwater's first craft brewery," Monks and Millirons said in a statement released by Iron Monk. "From our first batch of beer, to becoming the Official Craft Brewery of Oklahoma State University, to our last batch as owners we have loved what we have provided to the Stillwater community. Selling this company to an OSU alum with the same passion and desire to grow Iron Monk has always been what we've wanted. Brady Sidwell is that guy, and we wish him nothing but success as he grows what we built."

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What's not changing

Both men said the same things that made Iron Monk what it is are staying in place. Customers should not expect the core lineup — including 1890 Original, Stilly Wheat — to taste any different.

"We do plan to keep our customers drinking the same beer they've been drinking," Inselman said. "If there's anything that will change, it's just a higher quality. Because if the beer is not good, then we don't have anything."

The wall of beer cans built up over Iron Monk's decade in business will survive the remodel, too. "The can wall is staying put," Trenton said. "That was part of the negotiation."

Trenton Inselman, left, talks with Brady Sidwell inside Iron Monk Brewing Company's taproom, in front of the wall of beer cans and a TV. — Trenton Inselman, left, talks with Brady Sidwell, owner of Sidwell Enterprises, inside Iron Monk Brewing Company's taproom. – Photo by Chris Peters

The Iron Monk name isn't changing, and neither is the founders' place in the company's story, both men said.

"They are the founders," Sidwell said. "Their legacy — they've done a great job, and we're just going to build on it."

What's changing

The sale comes amid a broader remodel of Iron Monk's taproom. Workers installed a new garage door on the building's south side earlier this year, and have now removed tin panels that had covered the original brick, revealing cinder block where the old windows used to be.

Iron Monk plans a series of exterior murals, each panel telling a piece of the story of Stillwater, OSU and the state's agriculture and oil industries, along with a new patio seating area, event space carved out of underused office space behind the beer can wall and eventually a shade structure for the outdoor seating.

Left: Workers remove tin siding to reveal the original brick of Iron Monk Brewing building during an ongoing renovation. Center: Iron Monk's brewery and taproom at 519 S. Husband St. in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Right: Brady Sidwell, left, and Trenton Inselman sit on the patio in front of the recently installed garage door. – Photos Provided/Chris Peters

"Patio and art are the first few steps," Inselman said. "Then, once we get inside, it's more art, maybe some functional seating in some places."

The remodel echoes work underway across the street, where developers are converting the former Stillwater Public Library into the Bookend Hotel, a boutique hotel with its own bar and event space. Iron Monk submitted a letter of support for that project's TIF request, and Inselman said he sees the two as complementary investments in the same stretch of downtown.

Inselman said Iron Monk's brewing team — he and Head Brewer Zak Fleshman, who now holds that role at both Iron Monk and Enid Brewing — will begin traveling to Enid in the coming weeks to start brewing Enid Brewing's beers on Iron Monk's larger, 40-barrel production system, while gaining access to Enid's smaller five-barrel system for limited, seasonal releases in Stillwater.

"This is really two teams coming together," Sidwell said.

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Sidwell said the combined operation will also lean on Sidwell Distribution, a company he started several years ago that moves Oklahoma-grown flour, beef, pork and poultry to schools and restaurants statewide, including a regular route between Enid, the Oklahoma City Food Hub and Woodward. Stillwater, he said, will now be part of that route.

"We're crisscrossing the state already," Sidwell said. "Now Stillwater will probably be the most traveled route, because we're going to be bringing kegs and things back and forth between the two places."

Bags of Chisholm Trail Milling flour, including Gallagher and Butler's Gold wheat varieties, sit on a shelf next to a cooler of Iron Monk beer cans in the taproom. — Bags of Chisholm Trail Milling flour — including the Gallagher and Butler's Gold wheat varieties developed at Oklahoma State — sit on a display shelf next to a cooler of Iron Monk beer cans inside the taproom. – Photo by Chris Peters

The expanded beer and drink selection that comes with combining the two breweries' systems is still weeks away. Iron Monk's next release, a pickle sour ale called Pickle Patriot, missed its Fourth of July target by four to six weeks over can availability but is still on the way, Inselman said.

Enid Brewing beers are expected on tap in Stillwater within a couple of months, after Iron Monk works through existing inventory. Sidwell said the goal is to have the combined lineup ready by the time OSU football season begins.

"We'll be ready for kind of the back-to-school timeframe," Sidwell said.

How the deal came together

Sidwell has known Monks and Millirons for years, dating back to when Enid Brewing and Iron Monk both pitched Oklahoma State Athletics for the same official-beer contract.

"Obviously, Jerod and Dave, people love them, and I love them," Sidwell said. "They've done so much to charter the craft beer industry."

"My proposal in that meeting to OSU Athletics was we were going to try to use local grain and OSU varieties and tie the ag part of campus to the hospitality and sports side of campus," Sidwell said. "I remember seeing Jerod and Dave walking out of that meeting, and we were walking in."

Inselman said Iron Monk's roots as a Stillwater brewery and taproom was the deciding factor in OSU's choice. "The Stillwater piece was a big factor," Inselman said. Sidwell agreed Enid Brewing's later entry into the local craft beer scene worked against it at the time. "We were a little late to the game," he said.

Inselman said the deal itself came together after he and Sidwell reconnected at a panel discussion at Oklahoma State's Spears School of Business, where the two had appeared together the previous fall.

"It really was like a symbiotic, all-at-once kind of moment," Inselman said.

Trenton Inselman, left, adjusts his cap while holding a can of Cowboy Blonde, and Brady Sidwell laughs while holding a can of Original 1890, in front of a wall of beer cans. — Trenton Inselman, left, vice president and chief operating officer of Iron Monk's new brewing and hospitality division, holds a can of Enid Brewing's Cowboy Blonde, and Brady Sidwell, owner of Sidwell Enterprises, holds a can of Iron Monk's Original 1890, in front of the taproom's wall of beer cans. – Photo by Chris Peters

Sidwell's ties to OSU run through his family. He said the Sidwells hold seven degrees from the university, and his mother, Brenda [Krittenbrink] Sidwell, was named Miss OSU in 1969. She now owns Sidwell Insurance Agency in Goltry and was honored in 2021 as an OSU Agriculture Champion. Brady Sidwell's father, Dr. Raymond Sidwell, earned his doctorate in agronomy at OSU and spent 35 years at the Oklahoma State research station in Lahoma. After his death, Brenda Sidwell worked with the OSU Foundation to rename the station in his honor.

"I bleed orange," Brady Sidwell said.

Sidwell said he began sourcing Oklahoma-grown grain for beer in 2017, years before opening Enid Brewing, and that Iron Monk was the first Oklahoma brewery to experiment with local grain.

"I started brewing essentially because I was trying to use local grains," Sidwell said, "and thought, well, if I can't get others to use it, I'll build a brand around it."

For Inselman and Sidwell, the partnership carries a personal note as well. The two discovered their families were connected long before the deal — Inselman's uncle was Sidwell's fraternity brother at OSU, and some of Sidwell's fraternity brothers were among the first people to hold Inselman as a newborn.

"Brady and I go further back than we even both knew," Inselman said. "We go back 32 years."

Both men come from small-town Oklahoma — Sidwell from Goltry, and Inselman from Morrison, just outside Stillwater, where he and Fleshman grew up together.

"We're super local, super small-town kids that just had a passion for what we were trying to accomplish," Inselman said of himself and Fleshman. "We love getting to do this in Stillwater because we're so close to home, but we're right there between Enid and Stillwater, too. So it's a really cool story for both of us to have grown up together, to get to continue this story together."