Latest / Brew Tox with Scott & Scott / MicroBrew-11: Interview with Fernie Brewing from the Fest of Ale

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MicroBrew-11: Interview with Fernie Brewing from the Fest of Ale · Brew Tox with Scott & Scott

• 0:04
  Oh. Welcome to another microbrew
• 0:08
  segment of our Botox podcast. On the.
• 0:11
  Thursdays. When we don't have.
• 0:12
  A full episode dropping. We like to share a shorter
• 0:15
  segment that focuses on a single beer and a single tuple.
• 0:20
  Of a short taster, if you will. Exactly.
• 0:23
  Here it is, welcome to this microbrew, which is the last
• 0:30
  episode of our Festivale series and this is our second interview
• 0:35
  that we did at the Festivale. Yeah, we were very fortunate to
• 0:39
  have Jamie Cockerill from. Fernie Brewing.
• 0:42
  They do a brand that they call Logo Logo and their Logo beer is
• 0:51
  of course their non alcoholic beer, which is why we were
• 0:53
  interested in speaking with Jamie and thankfully he agreed
• 0:57
  to do the interview on the. Spot with 0.
• 0:59
  Preparation didn't know that we were going to interview him
• 1:03
  until really about literally 5 minutes before we actually did
• 1:06
  the interview. So I'm really looking forward to
• 1:10
  sharing Jamie's thoughts with our listeners.
• 1:12
  And unfortunately our audio worked really well on this one.
• 1:16
  Yeah, fortunately. So here it is.
• 1:21
  They were here at the festival in Penticton.
• 1:24
  And we're interviewing. Jamie Cockrell, who's the BC
• 1:28
  sales Rep for Fernie Brewing. Anyway, welcome Jamie.
• 1:31
  Hello, thank you. So thanks for thanks for doing
• 1:33
  this with us on short notice. We didn't arrange this at all.
• 1:36
  So you know, Jamie, busy getting everything set up and he's
• 1:39
  willing to come over here and and talk with us for a little
• 1:42
  bit about your logo brand. Absolutely.
• 1:45
  Now how? How long have you has Logo been
• 1:47
  out? When did you guys start?
• 1:48
  2023. OK.
• 1:50
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, Spring, June the 2023.
• 1:53
  OK, it's rare. As you see at the here, there's
• 1:56
  not very many craft breweries really that have and not an.
• 1:59
  Out one. Yeah.
• 2:00
  Like what? What prompted you guys to do it?
• 2:02
  Like what? I think it stemmed from largely
• 2:04
  from our marketing manager at the time, Abby, who really kind
• 2:08
  of spearheaded it. She was unfortunate she's passed
• 2:11
  away, but she was in the long distance running and wanted that
• 2:15
  beer that could still fit well within that lifestyle.
• 2:18
  So the Ultramarathon type thing or the after bite beverage.
• 2:23
  And so that really I think was her thing that she got going and
• 2:26
  pushed for. And it's been, it's been an
• 2:29
  interesting ride since then and a lot of fun.
• 2:31
  Definitely different than selling regular beer, but yeah,
• 2:34
  it's good. It's interesting you talk about
• 2:36
  the ultra marathons because one of the things that in our
• 2:39
  research we found is that alcohol beer is often marketed
• 2:42
  as kind of a an alternative to things like Gatorade.
• 2:46
  It's kind of like for athletes we found really interesting
• 2:49
  because there never normally associate beer with athletes.
• 2:53
  Yeah. Can you tell us more about that
• 2:55
  in terms of how that came about? I don't know.
• 2:57
  We used to make a beer called Finish Line, which was basically
• 3:00
  that style. It was like a light beer that
• 3:03
  was kind of geared towards the, you know, finish line after the
• 3:07
  race type type product. So it didn't hang around long.
• 3:10
  It was a tough category to be in so.
• 3:12
  It's like, so that was like a, a Lowell.
• 3:15
  Yeah, yeah. OK.
• 3:15
  Percent, OK. And a half percent.
• 3:17
  Yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 3:21
  Well, yeah, because we've talked a lot about that, the whole
• 3:23
  lifestyle thing and the whole right that that prompts people
• 3:27
  to. Choose non alcoholic beer.
• 3:29
  Right. So, so why, why did you guys, I
• 3:31
  mean you brought your cans and I see you've got you don't have
• 3:34
  taps. Here, that's OK.
• 3:36
  Few years ago we started pouring cans.
• 3:38
  It's just I'm not at the brewery like so any half empty kegs just
• 3:42
  kind of go to waste. Or it's.
• 3:44
  Just easier to pour cans. It works every time.
• 3:47
  Talking boxes can be kind of finicky.
• 3:49
  So now did you know that they would have the alcohol free
• 3:53
  option out front there? OK.
• 3:55
  The plan for that, it's OK, OK. So one of the things I'm kind of
• 3:59
  curious about is it seems like what in our looking around, we
• 4:03
  see a lot of IPA's, a lot of reporters and bloggers and
• 4:08
  that's are there particular styles of beer that they're
• 4:11
  finding work best with, with alcohol free?
• 4:13
  I don't know, like I know for our launch we started with an
• 4:17
  IPA and Pilsner and we've continued with those two ever
• 4:21
  since. And we added a citrus, which is
• 4:23
  kind of a service to style lemon lime added to it kind of get
• 4:27
  that summer Corona vibe while it yeah, auto and that's done
• 4:31
  really well. It's our number one selling beer
• 4:32
  in the cooties. So yeah, it's been it's been
• 4:35
  good to see a nice addition to line up kind of unique in the
• 4:37
  category as well. So we haven't really
• 4:39
  experimented with too many other types.
• 4:41
  I think there's kind of find their path with, you know, what
• 4:44
  they want to make and and you know, Strange Fellows with their
• 4:46
  pale ale or Phillips with their hazy IPA from Iota.
• 4:50
  You know, you kind of find that guy segment that works well so.
• 4:54
  Is there a reason that Burn decided to separate out the
• 4:57
  branding of of their regular beer with the logo?
• 5:01
  Originally was to kind of create its own identity and not have
• 5:05
  enough people kind of comparing like the hazy IPA is going to be
• 5:10
  very different from. OK, Yeah.
• 5:11
  You know, what was a hazy IPA and I was just an IPA from our
• 5:15
  IPA's of our alcohol beer. So it's kind of create that own
• 5:18
  identity, draw on some of Bernie's brand equity, but
• 5:21
  really, you know, create its own, its own brand.
• 5:24
  I think you know, seeing where the market is now, we're going
• 5:28
  to look at at drawing that a little bit closer together down
• 5:31
  the road when we do some rebranding and really
• 5:34
  incorporating for new brain a little bit more into the package
• 5:37
  and leveraging some of that brand equity that we do have
• 5:39
  with our our regular beer into our.
• 5:42
  Non OK. But that makes sense because
• 5:44
  I've often wondered that because you guys aren't the only ones
• 5:46
  that do that have separated out, right.
• 5:49
  A lot of them do that. So it's like kind of that whole
• 5:51
  idea doesn't have to taste the same.
• 5:53
  This hazy IPA no now doesn't have to taste like your regular
• 5:56
  AIP etcetera. Right.
• 5:58
  So, you know, if we could go back and do it again, maybe we
• 6:00
  would, you know, lean into that a little bit more.
• 6:02
  But it's been it's been successful and it's already kind
• 6:05
  of got its own identity. So I think it it'll work well in
• 6:08
  the future if we can pull a little bit more Fernie brewing
• 6:11
  into it, but still keep it as it's this standalone brand.
• 6:19
  Well, that was a fascinating first part of the.
• 6:22
  Interview Yeah, I. Really liked that Jamie was
• 6:25
  talking about how Bernie's decision to start the logo brand
• 6:30
  really centred around wanting to make an alternative lifestyle
• 6:34
  choice available. For people.
• 6:36
  Which we've talked about quite a bit the the tie in between
• 6:39
  alcohol free beer and act of living.
• 6:43
  Well, exactly. And I mean, even when we get
• 6:46
  together with the guys and we're playing floor hockey and we've
• 6:50
  noticed that every now and again one of the other guys got just
• 6:54
  us will have an alcohol free beer when we're sitting at the
• 6:56
  restaurant. And yeah, that's kind of.
• 6:58
  Cool it. It is very cool and our and our
• 7:00
  kids as well have, you know, started to embrace that a little
• 7:04
  bit more so. Yeah, those people will find out
• 7:06
  next month with our family themes.
• 7:08
  That's right. The logical thing to do would be
• 7:11
  for us to try the logo, the logo beer that Jamie has talked
• 7:15
  about. Unfortunately, we couldn't find
• 7:18
  it anywhere. Like Bill, you were just up in
• 7:20
  Osoyoos and that was kind of part of your not the reason you
• 7:24
  went there. You didn't drive all the way to
• 7:26
  serious, just look for the spirit.
• 7:27
  But while you were there. Because we were struggling to
• 7:30
  find it on the Lower Mainland. Yeah.
• 7:31
  We wanted to see if maybe because the Okanagan is closer
• 7:35
  to the cookies where the Logo brand is brewed, that perhaps
• 7:39
  there would be some in the Okanogan, but not in the Soleus
• 7:43
  area. Anyway.
• 7:44
  I'm imagining in a larger town where they have some of the
• 7:47
  specialty stores that we've been in the past that we might have
• 7:52
  found Logo there, but you know, in the Soleus, we didn't find it
• 7:56
  anywhere. Well, we did review a local,
• 7:58
  another logo brand, local Pilsner that I, but I had bought
• 8:01
  that when I was up in Penticton in February.
• 8:04
  Right. That's where I got that one.
• 8:05
  Yeah. But then I, I don't recall
• 8:08
  seeing that other one the citrus survey said that Jamie talks
• 8:11
  about. So in place of that, we do want
• 8:14
  to have one beer here. This is an alcohol free beer
• 8:17
  podcast. And what would brew Tox be
• 8:20
  without you and I having an opportunity to sip on a beer?
• 8:25
  So while we were in Penticton we did go and to a liquor store
• 8:29
  when we because we didn't have enough alcohol free beer in our
• 8:34
  respective houses. Have you talked to my wife?
• 8:37
  Yeah, our wives would let you know on that one.
• 8:40
  We thought, well let's buy this one.
• 8:41
  We we came across this dozen and they had two of each one.
• 8:46
  So I was like, whoa, isn't that perfect?
• 8:48
  There we go. There we each get 6 different
• 8:50
  beers. So we've got this one.
• 8:53
  It's called the Stone Sofa Kolsh from One for the Road Brewing in
• 9:00
  Calgary. And you know, I love their
• 9:03
  tagline, if you will. They say do stupid stuff sober.
• 9:09
  It's just a great tagline. That's awesome.
• 9:12
  So we've got here. We've already poured it.
• 9:15
  OK, We don't normally do that, but we did this time.
• 9:18
  Again, Bill's got some nice cold glasses here to drink it from.
• 9:23
  So this is a cool. Do you know anything about a
• 9:26
  coal beer? Not a lot I've.
• 9:28
  Had a. Couple of alcohol versions of a
• 9:31
  Kolsch. It's interesting because just
• 9:34
  before this podcast I looked it up on the Internet and
• 9:38
  apparently you're only supposed to be able to brew a coal spear
• 9:42
  within 50 kilometers of Cologne, Germany, OHS, and Calgary is a
• 9:48
  little bit further than 50. Kilometers.
• 9:50
  Yeah, a little bit further. Kind of like champagne is only
• 9:53
  supposed to be. That's right.
• 9:54
  OK. Yeah, the same idea.
• 9:56
  And you know, so this is a Kolsch style alcohol free beer.
• 10:02
  So let's give it a. Taste.
• 10:03
  Give it a taste, OK? Hmm, doesn't taste like a German
• 10:12
  beer. No, we've had a few German
• 10:14
  beers. It's a very pale beer.
• 10:16
  Yeah, very pale. Really.
• 10:18
  Really pale, like when it came out of the can when I was
• 10:20
  pouring it, it looked like almost white, that's how pale.
• 10:24
  It was, yeah. There's not.
• 10:25
  Yeah, there's not much colour in it.
• 10:27
  Is there? No, it's about 45 calories in a
• 10:31
  12 ounce can. Well, the low end, I guess,
• 10:36
  Yeah, of ones it's a smaller can, yeah.
• 10:39
  So I guess pretty average 45 calories in a small.
• 10:42
  Can, yeah, normally about 50 thereabouts and they say a point
• 10:46
  less than .5. OK.
• 10:48
  Which is the normal kind of alcohol free beer size, right?
• 10:53
  OK, it's pretty good. I mean, one for the Road Brewery
• 10:59
  Brewing in Calgary is exclusively alcohol free beer.
• 11:03
  There's not many of them, no, here in the lower main line.
• 11:05
  I'm thinking Nanny is the only one that I know of where they
• 11:08
  only do alcohol free in Vancouver.
• 11:11
  So I'm not sure if this is the only one in Calgary or not, but
• 11:14
  so that's interesting. So the Kolsch.
• 11:16
  Yeah, it's OK. Yeah, it's definitely not on the
• 11:21
  top of my list at this point, No.
• 11:23
  It may be one of those beers that grows on me.
• 11:26
  Yeah, we'll see. It's not bad, it's just not.
• 11:29
  There's not a whole. Doesn't feel like there's a
• 11:31
  whole bunch to. It yeah it it's kind of a I'm
• 11:33
  not gonna throw it out, but there are other beer that I
• 11:36
  would go out and buy before I would buy this one I.
• 11:39
  Think so? That's sounding like a three.
• 11:41
  It is a three from. Yeah, yeah, same with me.
• 11:43
  I would say it's a three maybe it may be a bit higher and like
• 11:46
  built like you said, sometimes when we come back to a beer, we
• 11:49
  may be like in a second time. Anyway, let's go back to the
• 11:51
  second-half of the interview with Jamie and see what he says
• 11:55
  a little bit. I know he talks a little bit
• 11:58
  about the fact that it is trying to get local out there to to the
• 12:03
  public bit more. So you say you started, I was
• 12:10
  23. So now here we are, three years
• 12:12
  out as your process changed at all again.
• 12:15
  How you make. It yeah, I mean, I.
• 12:17
  Don't yet, but. Yeah, the guys, it's definitely
• 12:20
  been, it's been a wild ride in terms of like the production
• 12:23
  side of it, because it's kind of uncharted.
• 12:25
  We use ad localization method, OK.
• 12:28
  And the machine is originally used for creating seltzers in
• 12:33
  the States. So they want the alcohol out and
• 12:38
  to use the alcohol and we want the beer flavor.
• 12:40
  So it's we're kind of using it in reverse, but it's not a well
• 12:43
  established process. So it's been a lot of
• 12:47
  experimentation over the over the few years and like what what
• 12:51
  gets us the best end product and how many times you have to run
• 12:53
  it through the filtration system without losing some of that
• 12:56
  really integral beer flavor that we're looking for, right?
• 12:59
  What strength beer do we start with?
• 13:01
  What's the best recipe for that? Hop additions?
• 13:04
  Like it's a yeah, it's been a, it's been a process for the.
• 13:07
  Guys, so it's ad alcohol. Yeah, Lization.
• 13:12
  Process. Yeah.
• 13:14
  What's interesting to me about that is it tells me a little bit
• 13:18
  about why the price point can't come down for alcohol free beer,
• 13:22
  because you're doing a lot of prototyping.
• 13:25
  The market is smaller than the the alcohol, alcohol ice beers.
• 13:30
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we, we, so we brew our
• 13:32
  regular strength beer, you know, 3-4 percent depending on the
• 13:36
  style. And then it's about a full day
• 13:41
  to do a, a tank of delocalization.
• 13:43
  So it's very labour intensive and then all your other inputs
• 13:46
  are the same, right? The can cost is the same, the
• 13:48
  box is the same and travel and stuff.
• 13:51
  So it eats away at any savings you get from not having the
• 13:54
  alcohol tax pretty quickly. So yeah, it is.
• 13:57
  You know, it's in that same realm as a regular.
• 13:59
  Here, you know, I mean it's important for them to know that
• 14:02
  I mean an extra day in the process on top of the regular
• 14:05
  process, it's kind of a critical.
• 14:07
  Cost factor, absolutely. Yeah.
• 14:09
  Yeah, it all adds up and it's, you know, ingredient costs are
• 14:12
  relatively the same and so you factor that in, but I think in
• 14:16
  the end you get a much better product, so.
• 14:19
  Is it a is it profitable to do it or if you only did, If you
• 14:24
  only did then non alcoholic it wouldn't.
• 14:27
  It just depends. There's so many factors are
• 14:29
  going to it and I think, you know, we can leverage the fact
• 14:32
  that we have our canning line and our scale with our regular
• 14:35
  beer to decrease some of the input costs that we would see if
• 14:39
  you were a stand alone brand, you know, those things just get
• 14:41
  magnified as as a much smaller brand.
• 14:45
  So but we're happy with where we're at with it and I think you
• 14:49
  know, there's still room to grow.
• 14:51
  We're not in any of the major grocery chains yet.
• 14:53
  We're still figuring out what grocery looks like and and what
• 14:57
  we have capacity for. We're doing really well in in
• 15:01
  bars and restaurants. We're doing really well and you
• 15:04
  know, private liquor stores that have a good section of non L But
• 15:08
  yeah, grocery eventually is going to have to be the place
• 15:10
  because that's where it is really bought.
• 15:12
  And you're still experimenting it with as.
• 15:14
  With your citrus. One, yeah.
• 15:16
  That's great. Well, Jamie, we know you're
• 15:20
  gonna wanna get back and forth for all of the Thirsty Festival.
• 15:23
  Absolutely. So we've just got one more
• 15:25
  question for you. And yeah, it really as a sales
• 15:27
  Rep, I mean, you must have given some thought to what has drawn
• 15:31
  people to alcohol free beer and, and how you can get the message
• 15:35
  out to them. Can you tell us what your what
• 15:37
  your experience has been there? Yeah, I think it's just like
• 15:40
  providing that alternative to people and whether it's at
• 15:44
  events or in the hockey cooler, you know, with all the regular
• 15:48
  beer, it's just having that option and and the the decrease
• 15:53
  in stigma found that has really helped, right.
• 15:55
  So it's not the end of the world if people just grab a non elk,
• 15:59
  right? People don't judge people
• 16:01
  anymore. It's just part of it.
• 16:03
  And it might not be the only thing they drink, but maybe they
• 16:06
  they add a few in throughout the day or if they're worried about
• 16:09
  driving, they can have a few on the golf course and it doesn't
• 16:11
  impact that, right. So I think it's just creating
• 16:14
  those occasions for people. And if they want more
• 16:16
  information. On Alcohol Free.
• 16:17
  Beer. They could always listen to our
• 16:18
  podcasts. Absolutely.
• 16:20
  There you go. Jamie, really want to thank you
• 16:23
  for taking the time on a very busy day here at the festival.
• 16:26
  Appreciate you stepping up and doing this with us and.
• 16:30
  Last minute like this? Yeah, No worries.
• 16:32
  Thank you. Alright, thank you.
• 16:33
  Thank you. OK, Well that's second-half of
• 16:37
  the interview was interesting as well.
• 16:40
  And thanks again to Jamie for doing that interview with us.
• 16:44
  It was interesting how he confirmed the reason that costs
• 16:49
  aren't lower for alcohol free beer is just the fact that the
• 16:53
  production, the process is so similar and even more than it is
• 16:59
  for an alcohol beer. So that's why the price point
• 17:02
  hasn't been lower for alcohol free beer.
• 17:05
  And he also mentioned that the market just isn't as large
• 17:08
  either. And so that means that they're
• 17:10
  making smaller batches and we know the smaller batches cost
• 17:13
  more. Yeah, exactly.
• 17:16
  Anyway, it was great to have a month of talking about the
• 17:19
  festival and kind of reminiscing and over the course of these few
• 17:24
  episodes that we've done on Britax.
• 17:26
  So thanks a lot listeners for listening and.
• 17:29
  Until next time. Today's.
• 17:33
  Featured alcohol free beer was Stone sofa coached by One for
• 17:38
  the Road Brewing in Calgary AB Bruton's original theme music by
• 17:42
  Zach Wong. Britax Graphics by Shelby
• 17:45
  Smithson. Britax is produced and edited by
• 17:48
  Scott and Scott.