Latest / Hawaii Travel Podcast by Hawaii’s Best: Plan a Better Hawaii Vacation / Maui Brewing Company: From Startup to Success with CEO Garrett Marrero

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Maui Brewing Company: From Startup to Success with CEO Garrett Marrero · Hawaii Travel Podcast by Hawaii’s Best: Plan a Better Hawaii Vacation

• 0:00
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Coming up next on Hawaii's Best.
• 0:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Hawaii has adopted us and it's been really good.
• 0:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think the early years especially, you work so much you forget why you're here.
• 0:09
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know and start of anybody starting a business understands what that means.
• 0:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know you might have moved here because you love the water, you love this, you love that, but guess what?
• 0:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You don't get any of that when you're starting a business.
• 0:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: To the level that we did.
• 0:24
  Hawaii's Best: Aloha.
• 0:24
  Hawaii's Best: Welcome to Hawaii's Best.
• 0:26
  Hawaii's Best: Here you'll learn what to know before traveling, as we discover Hawaiian culture, local businesses and the experiences that make Hawaii one of the most incredible places in the world.
• 0:37
  Hawaii's Best: And now your host, brian Murphy.
• 0:42
  Bryan Murphy: Today we are taking it all the way back to January of 2020.
• 0:46
  Bryan Murphy: And, like I mentioned in last week's episode, I'm taking this month, july, off and working on some new episodes that I'm going to release for you and just taking some time with family and kind of just regrouping, trying to enjoy the summer.
• 1:01
  Bryan Murphy: So I wanted to reshare this episode with Garrett Marrero, the CEO and co-founder of the one and only Maui Brewing Company on the island of Maui.
• 1:12
  Bryan Murphy: Chances are, you probably have heard of Maui Brewing Company.
• 1:16
  Bryan Murphy: They are pretty well known, even off of the islands on the continental US.
• 1:21
  Bryan Murphy: So I thought it'd be cool to reshare this episode and as I was going back and listening to this conversation with Garrett, it just reminded me of what it was like visiting pre-COVID.
• 1:32
  Bryan Murphy: We visited my wife and I for anniversary in late 2019 when this interview happened, and it was cool.
• 1:41
  Bryan Murphy: I went to go see him at the corporate office in Kihei, a beautiful facility if you haven't been there Definitely would highly recommend it Great food, obviously, some great drinks.
• 1:53
  Bryan Murphy: I remember sitting in the waiting room waiting for Garrett and he took me up to his office, my wife and I, and really cool as we got going and talk story.
• 2:03
  Bryan Murphy: It was just great hearing more about how Maui Brewing started in his heart for connecting back to Hawaii and also being an advocate within the community.
• 2:16
  Bryan Murphy: Be sure to hit follow on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify so you'll get notified when the new episodes launch in August.
• 2:27
  Bryan Murphy: I hope you're having a great summer and I'm going to kick it back to myself a couple years ago as we learn more about Garrett and Maui Brewing Company.
• 2:37
  Bryan Murphy: Recently, on a trip over to Maui, we got to spend some time with Garrett in Kihei at their main facility, and it was an incredible experience and I can't wait for you to hear more about what is going on at Maui Brewing Company so much more than their great product.
• 2:54
  Bryan Murphy: They are actively involved in the state of Hawaii and we get to hear more about his story personally and how Maui Brewing Company all came about.
• 3:04
  Bryan Murphy: As I mentioned, garrett is the co-founder of Maui Brewing Company and you can simply find Maui Brewing Company by going to MauiBrewingCocom or on Instagram.
• 3:17
  Bryan Murphy: Follow them at Maui Brewing Co.
• 3:19
  Bryan Murphy: Throughout our conversation we talked a lot about some new products that Maui Brewing Company has coming out and, since the release of this episode, have come out with some of those things that we talked about in this interview.
• 3:31
  Bryan Murphy: So to find out what those products are or to find out what's happening next with Maui Brewing Company, just go to MauiBrewingCocom and you can find out everything there.
• 3:41
  Bryan Murphy: Garrett and I connected off air for some time as well when we were visiting with them, and it was just so evident and so cool to see the respect that his staff have for him.
• 3:53
  Bryan Murphy: As we're just walking around the facility, he's greeting everybody by first name, he knows who's having a baby, and it was just such a cool experience.
• 4:01
  Bryan Murphy: You got this family feel for a company that has grown so large so fast that Garrett's intentionality and his care for his staff and his care to not only grow and make a larger impact but to grow at a pace that is healthy and to grow at a pace that values their customer and as well as the staff on the same hand and that is an interesting balance to find and it's cool to see Garrett flourishing in that.
• 4:30
  Bryan Murphy: So I'm just excited for you to listen to our conversation.
• 4:34
  Bryan Murphy: So let's go ahead and head over and talk story with Garrett from Maui Brewing Company.
• 4:47
  Bryan Murphy: Garrett, thank you so much for coming on Hawaii's Best Today.
• 4:49
  Bryan Murphy: How are you doing and maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, I'm doing pretty well.
• 4:53
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: No shortage of things to do, of course, here at End of Summer beer drink and season.
• 4:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Still the CEO and co-founder of Maui Brewing Company.
• 5:01
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: 2005 is when we started and here we are almost be, 15 years in January later, still cranking it out.
• 5:09
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's amazing.
• 5:10
  Bryan Murphy: How did it all start back in 2005?
• 5:12
  Bryan Murphy: I'm sure there's a story before 2005.
• 5:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Sure, I was 26 when we started the company, but it really was just a vision, a dream of mine that I had back in probably 2002, maybe three.
• 5:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I'd been coming to Hawaii on vacation for several years and just fell in love with Maui and realized that there was no local beer that was actually being produced in Hawaii and most of it was being shipped over and called local.
• 5:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Me, coming from San Diego, saw that as a huge opportunity, because craft beer that term, craft beer was just starting to be used and I felt that it was about a sense of place, about integrity, and it really needed to be local if you were going to say it was local.
• 5:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So I saw that as a good opportunity.
• 5:54
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I was in finance, my girlfriend at the time was in finance, but on the analytical side and one day I told her, hey, we should move to Maui and start a brewery, and that was in 2004.
• 6:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It was early 2004.
• 6:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And by December of 2004, we had moved here and we co-founded Maui Brewing Company together.
• 6:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Wow.
• 6:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So opened the doors on January 28th 2005 and been going ever since.
• 6:20
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You had the idea in 04.
• 6:22
  Bryan Murphy: 03.
• 6:23
  Bryan Murphy: 03.
• 6:23
  Bryan Murphy: 03.
• 6:23
  Bryan Murphy: Yeah, and you opened two years later.
• 6:25
  Bryan Murphy: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 6:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, it was pretty quick.
• 6:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, I was in finance, like I said.
• 6:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I was an investment consultant and wanted to do something different.
• 6:33
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, I was at the time thinking to see 04, 03.
• 6:37
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I was 20.
• 6:38
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Five, just turned 25.
• 6:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think when I really started thinking about this, and maybe even 24, so long ago.
• 6:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But you know, like any young man at that age, you know you can do no wrong, you're invincible, you're infallible.
• 6:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Make no mistakes, of course, I'm sure you're probably a lot like that right, at least back then you're right.
• 6:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, and you know of course, I've downplayed that over the years and learned how much I didn't know is.
• 7:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think the next step in a Man's life is finding out everything you don't know, but you know, it was that, that youthful, maybe a bit of a grassy aggressiveness, but also that youthful confidence.
• 7:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think that helped to say you know, I can do that right, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I can do it.
• 7:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And we took a big risk and sold everything we owned, borrowed every penny we could and started up Maui Brewing Company from a essentially a bankrupt brew pub that was operating in just outside of bankruptcy after Coming out of receivership in Kahana, okay, and so that was something that we saw as an opportunity because it had a brew house, had a restaurant, and so there was already some traffic there.
• 7:39
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And if we cut out all those other partners and Trimmed the fat, rebranded because it was not Maui Brewing Company, simplify things and really focus on making killer, authentic, local Hawaiian beer, that maybe we had a chance.
• 7:52
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And At the time there were about 1200 breweries in the country and so you know, back then it was really very new.
• 7:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know there was, of course, you know, guys like Sierra Nevada, ken Grossman and family and Greg Cook and Steve Wagner over at Stone.
• 8:07
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know they'd been doing this for many years, even prior to Decade two, decades prior.
• 8:12
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We just wanted to do that here in Hawaii, okay, and it wasn't being done.
• 8:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I would say the way Micro beer, micro brewing, was being done in Hawaii was, I think, less With probably the least amount of integrity it could have been done because it was being Brewed in the mainland, shipped over and called local, label local.
• 8:31
  Bryan Murphy: Yeah, okay, label.
• 8:32
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, I'll just say it, liquid aloha, okay.
• 8:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And you know there hasn't been a bottle of Kona Brewing Company beer brewed here since God knows but before we started, you know, say 20 years now, mm-hmm.
• 8:43
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So for us, you know, we saw that as an opportunity to really lead with hey, we're local, we're authentic.
• 8:50
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, we weren't trying to appropriate the culture or appropriate the, the local name in terms in terms of like that, we're from here, but it was a place that we fell in love with and Wanted to give back to that community by making a craft beer.
• 9:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think beer brings people together.
• 9:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, all alcohol does that liquid courage in some ways.
• 9:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, I know Relationships start because, you know, people break down their barriers and are able to have a conversation when they've had a few drinks.
• 9:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, and like Frank Zappa said, you need, you know, to be a real country you need an airline, a sports team and a beer, and we wanted to give that to Hawaii was our contribution, if you will.
• 9:27
  Bryan Murphy: So when he came on Island during those vacation years, to Maui specifically, you saw the opportunity, you saw the problem.
• 9:34
  Bryan Murphy: You're like I can, but where did, where did this whole micro brewing passion?
• 9:39
  Bryan Murphy: Where did that stem from?
• 9:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: My grandpa actually okay, so my growing up as my stepdad's dad we call him Opa Bob.
• 9:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: He worked at Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego, oh yeah, and so he did purchasing for them, and so the captains of the boats that would come in and doing provisioning and stuff with him would always bring him beer from all Around the world, and so he'd bring this beer home.
• 10:01
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I'm thinking back to probably 13 ish maybe I had already.
• 10:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, we grew up in a very European family, so wine and beer and you know, responsibility was always trained to us, etc.
• 10:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But grandpa would bring these beers home and we try them and I remember drinking like Mgd, which was my uncle's beer, and thinking that I will never drink beer in my life.
• 10:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: This is the worst thing I've ever had.
• 10:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But then my grandpa gave me some beer and I was like, oh, this is good, I like this.
• 10:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know what is that?
• 10:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know?
• 10:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And over the years, as I grew up, got to try more and more beers, and you know, sierra Nevada is, of course, a core beer for me.
• 10:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, that's a beer that I just love so much is still perfect to this day Pete's wicked.
• 10:40
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Back in those days, pete's wicked winter beer was my mom's wedding beer at her second wedding.
• 10:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Okay, stone brewing company in San Diego.
• 10:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They opened up in 96, the year I graduated high school, and my grandpa bought a keg of their IPA.
• 10:53
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I was one of the first ones they sold out of the brewery to the public for my graduation party.
• 10:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So I had this love of good beer early on, so much so that I was definitely a beer snob when it wasn't, was being yeah, I couldn't drink the natty lights and booty chow we called it was Meister brow and all kinds of other stuff that was.
• 11:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, when you have to pool your money in for 60 bucks, you go get a half barrel.
• 11:15
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's not gonna be good beer.
• 11:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So I was always like I'm gonna go get a six or 12 pack of this or whatever and hide that and I'll drink that, you know.
• 11:24
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But yeah, fast forward.
• 11:25
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: When it was, I fell out of love with what I was doing in finance and I Loved how dynamic that was and I loved the pace.
• 11:31
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But I didn't love what I saw happening in the industry and I didn't love that.
• 11:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: No matter how hard I work, more and more of my cut essentially went to someone else and I wanted to really step out on my own and do something for my life, for me, and this was kind of that oh that thing where I could make it or lose it all, but at least it was on my shoulders, I think, starting out with the idea of just making local beer great, authentic, local Hawaiian beer.
• 12:00
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But then the sustainability initiative started to come into play and looking at the issues here in Hawaii from a cultural and workforce standpoint and the cost of operation here and the Hawaii brand and how that was being diminished by all of this squatting essentially on the brands because they weren't actually from Hawaii.
• 12:19
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It really didn't offer anything back to the community.
• 12:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we started just becoming more and more entrenched into not just being a brewery but also being a supporter of Hawaii and supporter of the community.
• 12:33
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We wanted to lead by example in manufacturing and create jobs and create tax revenue and, like I said, of course, authenticity.
• 12:40
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And then sustainability, like I said as well, being a leader in manufacturing and doing that with sustainable resources.
• 12:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So now, just a couple of weeks ago, we've become grid independent, where we produce 100% of our electricity on site through solar PV, as well as battery and then biodiesel generators.
• 12:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We are still grid connected.
• 12:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So if we need to import, we can, but we're a for profit business.
• 13:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We have to run, but at the same time, our goal at some point in the not too distant future would be even like an island mode where we don't even have a grid connection.
• 13:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So it's a dream, but you know we'll see.
• 13:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Grid independent, grid independence the term we use because we are technically still grid connected, although we don't really pull from the grid.
• 13:22
  Bryan Murphy: As I'm looking around your amazing facility.
• 13:25
  Bryan Murphy: When we talk about grid independent here, I think maybe if we can give someone who's listening to this right now just kind of a scope of this facility and what's going on here.
• 13:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, so because the the Kihei site for us is really unique.
• 13:39
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We kind of like the mothership here.
• 13:40
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So this is our third location on Maui.
• 13:44
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We started in Kahana, which we still operate.
• 13:46
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's a restaurant up there.
• 13:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We've been there for since the beginning January of 05.
• 13:49
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It has a seven barrel brew house over there that we don't brew in any longer.
• 13:53
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Then we moved to Lahaina for production brewing when we launched cans and that started in 2007.
• 13:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We then since sold that to Kohola, which is a startup brewery here on Island.
• 14:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They've been around for about three years now.
• 14:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Since three or four years when we were building Kihei, we exited our old location.
• 15:07
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we have two facilities on Maui, one being a restaurant and then the Kihei site.
• 15:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Kihei has the full production brewery distillery, a joint venture coffee company called Origin Coffee Maui, and we also have now we're doing we're going to be launching hardwater, which are hard seltzer, Maui hard seltzer, and we have Coupou spirits, like I said, through the distillery, which is our canned cocktails, as well as our gin and whiskey, all of our offices and admin and that kind of stuff.
• 15:31
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Here we are about 82,000 square feet in total.
• 15:34
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: 60 ish of that is production space and the rest is offices, restaurant.
• 15:39
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know other areas, but the main area, largest consumption of area, is the production of all of our liquid, if you will.
• 15:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We have become a craft beverage company, more so than just a craft brewery.
• 15:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's always going to be our core, but we do other things as well.
• 15:54
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We have about 1.2 megawatts of solar here, so I showed you the picture.
• 15:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's like the entire roof is covered with solar as well, as we have a bunch of awnings that we've built, whether they be solar carports or shade structures for operations outside, like loading docks and wastewater and other equipment storage.
• 16:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So those are all under solar awnings to create more roof space for us.
• 16:17
  Bryan Murphy: Anything you can throw a panel on.
• 16:19
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Pretty much.
• 16:20
  Hawaii's Best: Yeah, it's gotten to that point.
• 16:20
  Hawaii's Best: We're like what can?
• 16:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: we fit, more we look at the drone shots sometimes we're like can we get like nine more panels right there?
• 16:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, and it's just something that has been since the day the building was vertical here we've been in constant construction on solar because we had to break it up in phases to be able to afford it but also to maximize our tax credits, you know, to use that financial strategy behind what we do here as well.
• 16:44
  Bryan Murphy: I'm sure, probably from your perspective, always forward thinking, okay, what's next, what's next?
• 16:48
  Bryan Murphy: But it's incredible to think the last 15 years, how much you guys have made an impact, positive impact, in this area, but around the world, your brand and your product.
• 17:00
  Bryan Murphy: If we go back to those early days, the 05, maybe 05 to 10, how was that first relationship like here on Maui?
• 17:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know it was pretty difficult in the beginning.
• 17:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know the first two years not so much, because it was just like we were two ships passing the night just working like dogs at the restaurant.
• 17:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And it wasn't until we opened the production brewery where we could actually launch cans that we really had to have that kind of those, those harder conversations with people in the community.
• 17:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We love the beer when they came in, you know guests, whether they be residents and or visitors alike, you know, loved coming to visit us and try our beers.
• 17:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But when you go into the distribution mode and you're now selling direct to another restaurant or a bar or hotel, you're competing against all these other brands, including those fake local brands.
• 17:49
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Right, your costs are higher, so your beer is more expensive, but you have this huge education on why your beer is more expensive.
• 17:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, from a quality perspective, maybe from a from a local perspective, you're also having to overcome certain, maybe more closed minded people would think that why would I sell your beer because you're a competing restaurant?
• 18:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, as opposed to just realizing, that it's beer.
• 18:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we had a lot of that as well, and then we decided to lead with cans.
• 18:15
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, we were the 10th brewery in the country to put beer in cans, craft beer in cans.
• 18:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So here it was like only junk beer was in cans and like why would you put this beer in cans A, b, why is it more expensive?
• 18:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's in cans, right?
• 18:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know all of those things.
• 18:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we had to really educate the not only the consumer, the craft beer drinker, but the the account level buyers as well and say this is why it's in a can.
• 18:38
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Pour it in a glass, just like you wouldn't drink out of a bottle of wine.
• 18:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, pour it in the right glass.
• 18:43
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Here's why the cans better.
• 18:44
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's sheltered from light.
• 18:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know.
• 18:46
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It has lower oxygen content typically than bottles.
• 18:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Of course, packaging equipment dependent.
• 18:50
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They're made locally.
• 18:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Cans are made over on Oahu, so you're supporting local manufacturing there as well as a more sustainable resource versus glass, where cans are infinitely recyclable.
• 18:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you know, we had this huge education before we could even sell beer again, especially in cans, and took a long time to overcome that.
• 19:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But now you're sitting 8000 breweries in the country with at least 1000 of them canning very different than it was when we started Interesting.
• 19:16
  Bryan Murphy: So okay, it's a whole different world than it was five minutes ago.
• 19:19
  Bryan Murphy: So yeah, and from your perspective maybe more on a personal level coming from vacationing on Maui to starting a business on Maui and becoming part of the culture, Hawaii's best is all about someone who's coming to the islands for the first time, or maybe coming on vacation, and they come year after year.
• 19:38
  Bryan Murphy: But from your perspective, on this side of it, what are some things that you've learned about Hawaiian culture?
• 19:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know.
• 19:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think one of the things I fell in love with about Maui in particular was that you know You're treated how you treat others.
• 19:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, and and for what I realized too early on was that you know If you're struggling carrying your cooler at the beach, someone's gonna come help you and not expect anything in return and they could give it damn.
• 20:01
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Whatever you do for a living, it's you know.
• 20:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I was living in San Francisco prior and you know first question out of someone's mouth is what do you do?
• 20:09
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Where do you work?
• 20:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, and then it's very quickly You're you know in a, in a conversation about money, and you know what caries you drive and it was status driven type things were here was just who you are and you're going to be accepted and treated well if you treat others well and accept them.
• 20:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So I think if you come here as a transplant if you will, and you think you own the island and you're Behaving inappropriately or you're disrespectful, then you're going to be put in your place.
• 20:34
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And that's where I think some of these stories of people being not accepted or the local mentality, what I I think it's, it's people who don't respect the culture and respect that their guests here and that they're not bringing any positivity.
• 20:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's what's going to make it a bad experience for you.
• 20:49
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, I fell in love with it and it's not that I wanted to, like I said, appropriate it for myself and change it.
• 20:54
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I wanted to be a part of it and I wanted to support it and see that go forward.
• 20:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, especially coming from a city like San Francisco which I still love San Francisco but I love to visit, eat some great food and then, you know, get back to Maui or somewhere else.
• 21:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But it's fun, fun, people watching city.
• 21:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Hawaii has adopted us and it's been really good.
• 21:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think the early years especially, you work so much you forget why you're here.
• 21:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, and start of anybody starting a business understands what that means.
• 21:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, you, you might have moved here because you love the water, you love this, you love that, but guess what, you don't get any of that when you're starting a business of the to the level that we did.
• 21:31
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you know it took its toll.
• 21:34
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Definitely so, yeah, learning to find that again, though, you know, yeah, and that's where, like once, we had more team members and we had, you know, it wasn't just two of us trying to duke it out about, you know, eek out of living.
• 21:46
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, we we grew from, I think, 23 on our team, something like that, to now we're close to 800, with the four restaurants that we have to on a wahoo to here, plus the brewing operations, so, as we were able to be more successful and hire the quality people we needed, that's when it started becoming like, you know, we could go to the beach again and you can go diving again, and still, a lot of those things didn't happen For many years because business was the priority.
• 22:12
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But you know, that's that's that's being an entrepreneur.
• 22:15
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: If you're not willing to sacrifice everything, you might as well quit before you start, and that's the only way you're gonna be successful.
• 22:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: How do you currently unplug?
• 22:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Like literally right now?
• 22:25
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I'm flying a lot.
• 22:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's been a dream of mine to get my pilot's license.
• 22:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's amazing.
• 22:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, my dad was a.
• 22:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: He flew when he was young and he always talked about it very, you know, romantically, and he had stopped flying, I think, right around the time I was born.
• 22:39
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But I always heard the stories and so I, when I had the opportunity to learn to fly, you know I just fell in love with it, and so I'm finishing up my pilot's license now, and to me it's both a it's.
• 22:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's an interesting thing, because to fly you really have to manage risk right.
• 22:54
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You have to be thinking about you're traveling in three dimensions, you're dealing with a lot of expensive equipment and you know the fact that you're facing death by any moment.
• 23:03
  Hawaii's Best: It's very safe.
• 23:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah if you do it right, and one of the things that it requires is risk management, like I said.
• 23:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But that includes your mental state and you have to have a clear head.
• 23:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So, going up in the air and worrying about stuff and like getting on your phone and texting and all that, you don't have the time to do that.
• 23:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: No, do you want to do that?
• 23:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Because you're looking at this beautiful landscape, you're looking the ocean, you might be.
• 23:25
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, last last whale season I was flying over whale pods and doing my well-wishing from the air instead of by boat, and it's a whole different perspective.
• 23:34
  Bryan Murphy: So I clear my head by flying because, on so many levels, you have to be in the moment.
• 23:38
  Bryan Murphy: You got to be in the moment, yeah.
• 23:39
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean you can put it on autopilot and take a drink of water and sure you know, look at stuff whatever, but you had.
• 23:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, to be a good pilot, you need to be present, yeah, which means having a clear head focusing on what you're doing.
• 23:50
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: A lot of parallels there, huh.
• 23:52
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely and I'm finding that a lot more right now, and you know, the other part of it too is I lost my dad about six years ago, seven years ago, almost now, and it's kind of a connection to him as well, so that I get to.
• 24:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, when I'm up in the air I can think about that, but it's, it's happy, you know like he's living his dream through me.
• 24:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah exactly so one and you know I think beyond that I've been the last couple weeks, tried to be at the beach as often as possible.
• 24:20
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you know, not reconnecting with the water is probably the most important soothing aspect For me.
• 24:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I always used to say that on, in or near the water I was always happier, and I'd missed that for a while.
• 24:33
  Bryan Murphy: So trying to get back to that, those roots, yeah well, if someone's coming to Maui for the first time, what are some?
• 24:38
  Bryan Murphy: Obviously they need to come here, sure.
• 24:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: What are some other?
• 24:42
  Bryan Murphy: things you want to put on their list from your perspective.
• 24:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Honestly like I think, skip all the obvious stuff.
• 24:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, I think you know you could go on the you know hundred best things to do type sites and those are fun, but I think really just being present is the most important.
• 24:56
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I see a lot of people come on vacation here and then their last day they're just spent like they want to go home so they can get some rest, you know, and they plan too much.
• 25:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So I would say first plan to not have a plan, because most things here with the exception of like Lou, ours and and things that you really do need to have a reservation for, depending on time of year Just take a day by day and try not to cram it all in, just plan to come back and see something else.
• 25:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, I always recommend trying to stay like on the west side.
• 25:25
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: If you're only here for a week, stay three or four days west sides, but it's to pin the rest of the time south side.
• 25:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Do or don't do the road to Hanna.
• 25:32
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's beautiful but it takes an entire day and you're tired the next day.
• 25:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But honestly, grab a six-pack of bikini, blonde lager and a poke bowl from Timura's or food land.
• 25:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And yeah, go sit at the beach and just drink it all eat it all and get some sun.
• 25:45
  Bryan Murphy: That's probably the number one, yeah absolutely yeah, rental paddle or permission, yeah, just just let yourself decompress.
• 25:53
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's one thing that Hawaii has over everywhere else.
• 25:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You go to the beach and you, you feel the energy just kind of relaxing a little bit.
• 26:00
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I, you know, I go to the beach in San Diego when I'm home or whatever, and it's just a different feel, is the water's warm, you know you can sit out at Christmas and sit in 78 degree water, you know.
• 26:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And then in the summer, you know, like right now, that water is probably sitting somewhere on 80 degrees, maybe a little more.
• 26:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you get in that water.
• 26:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You don't need a wetsuit to go diving, it's just, it's the most amazing place in the world To me.
• 26:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, to each their own, they, you got to come, experience it.
• 26:26
  Bryan Murphy: So yeah, we're talking about being present and also thinking about what's next and vision.
• 26:31
  Bryan Murphy: You mentioned a little bit ago about some new products that now a brewing is, I don't know.
• 26:36
  Bryan Murphy: You guys are kind of testing out or where you guys at with that.
• 26:40
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, you know, we realized years ago that we needed to be doing other beverages, and the reason being is you look at the craft beer market, you like.
• 26:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I said we started there were less than 1200 breweries in the country.
• 26:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: There's now almost 8,000.
• 26:52
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I sit on the board of directors for the Brewers Association as well, so I'm pretty intimate with the knowledge.
• 26:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: There's about 2.2 new breweries opening every day and there are not one or two closing every day.
• 27:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you know, the pie is getting sliced infinitesimally smaller every day.
• 27:07
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And you know where we were seeing these rapid growth in other markets.
• 27:12
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We're still seeing growth at home because of this hyper local movement.
• 27:15
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And the reason I say hyper local is it used to be local if it was in the state, you know.
• 27:20
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And then I remember being in California and someone saying like there was in San Francisco actually, and they're like oh well, we don't serve any beer from Southern California.
• 27:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Because I asked if they had like Firestone Walker or whatever, and they're like oh no, that's too far south, we only serve beer like north of whatever and I'm like it's not local anymore.
• 27:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Now it's by the neighborhood, you know.
• 27:37
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Now it's literally hyper local is oh oh you, oh, your beer's brewed in Poway.
• 27:41
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Well, we're in Escondido, that's that's not local man you know it's that you know it could be across the street.
• 27:48
  Bryan Murphy: But it's a different neighborhood.
• 27:50
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's crazy how it's happened.
• 27:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So how much that's hurt us in the mainland.
• 27:53
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It was significant, but we've always sold very little in the mainland compared to what we sell in Hawaii.
• 27:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But it's helped us a ton here locally because of that hyper local movement.
• 28:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: People are asking us for local beer and we're the largest producer of local beer in the state of Hawaii.
• 28:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: At the same time, like I said, beer consumption is declining over.
• 28:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: If you look at the, the 21 and up, less people are drinking beer.
• 28:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Most 21 year olds are actually switching to spirits right out of the gate or premium wine, interestingly enough.
• 28:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So creating more opportunities to drink beer is important to us, but we realize that we can't make that change alone.
• 28:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we started looking at other beverages that are being consumed, namely anything being produced in the mainland, that is, that has traction here in Hawaii.
• 28:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So, like hard water, hard seltzer you know the distillery movement with the craft cocktails and craft distilling, ready to drink canned cocktails.
• 28:43
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: If those are going to be shipped into Hawaii, why don't we repeat what we did with beer and make an authentic local version of that for our guests?
• 28:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So Maui hard seltzer will be launching later this year.
• 28:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We have three different flavors of hard water 5% gluten-free, under a hundred calories, under one gram of carbs, no sugar added.
• 29:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Check in all the boxes that the what you call the better for you or BFY Category is looking for right now.
• 29:10
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And let's be clear alcohol is never going to, so that's why.
• 29:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I take Not offense, but I take pause.
• 29:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, the better, for you are getting beer is not bad for you, you know, just anything in balance.
• 29:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But then on the distillery side, you know we have our locally produced gin, using local flora and fauna to influence the style hibiscus, lemongrass, oranges from my house in Kula so Really makes a very unique gin.
• 29:35
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And then our whiskey as well, as made from our malts, various malts that we make our beer with.
• 29:40
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we figure, if those are going to get shipped in, we might as well be a local option.
• 29:44
  Bryan Murphy: That's a smart yeah, especially with your branding already behind it.
• 29:48
  Bryan Murphy: That's so.
• 29:48
  Bryan Murphy: Integra's yeah, I bring company.
• 29:51
  Bryan Murphy: When you brand of that, was this in mind or you kind of a pivot?
• 29:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: no, it wasn't in mind when we said Maui brewing company and we're gonna.
• 30:00
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Definitely fits.
• 30:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, maui made sense because we wanted to be very simple and be clear of where we were and what we were doing.
• 30:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And since we had that such a focus on local, we needed to have the, the geography, mentioned in our name right.
• 30:12
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So Maui brewing company just made sense.
• 30:15
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So now that we have, you know, we have, like Maui hard seltzer, maui H2O, which is our drinking water that we're gonna start canning to eliminate help eliminate plastic water bottles from the state.
• 30:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: The Maui brand is, from a marketing perspective, actually more recognizable than even the name Hawaii.
• 30:32
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So for us, you know, it makes sense to continue to build off that Maui brand.
• 30:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: The one deviation we had on that is the kupu spirits, because Maui brewing doesn't necessarily make sense for A distillery and we didn't want to have a mouthful that was Maui brewing and spirits.
• 30:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we decided to go with kupu, because the kupu essentially means New growth or offshoot from an existing base, and that existing base is Maui brewing company.
• 30:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's giving and nurturing the kupu the offshoot.
• 31:02
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Think of it like a fern Right.
• 31:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you have that base and that new offshoot from the middle.
• 31:06
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That youthful kupu is protected and nurtured by the base as it continues to develop into its own.
• 31:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: The kupu spirits logo is like an unfurling frond of a fern love.
• 31:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That it also has a touch point back to the Maui brewing logo.
• 31:20
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: In the center of the honu you see the swirl right.
• 31:23
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That swirl is called a koru, which is the Maui term for what kupu is.
• 31:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And so there's a touch point back to the Maui brewing logo.
• 31:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And then, of course, on all the kupu branding we say, you know, brought to you by Maui brewing company.
• 31:34
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, so it's a touch point, although it allows it to be its own entity, its own thing.
• 31:38
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But, you know, this is something that we started thinking about probably back in 2009, 2010.
• 31:44
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: First started thinking about canned cocktails because, we have the canning line.
• 31:47
  Hawaii's Best: We're already making sodas.
• 31:49
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We're like well, we could do this, but law didn't allow that to to do, it didn't allow us to do that here, so we had to change.
• 31:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Uh, yet again.
• 31:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I think I've written probably 10 or 12 bills in the state of Hawaii.
• 31:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But we created a new class of license called the small craft producer license, which allows us to make any type of alcohol as long as we have the federal license to do so, which sounds very simple.
• 32:11
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It sounds obvious that we should be should have that freedom to make things and pay more taxes, but the state didn't have that Initially because there was no one trying to do that.
• 32:20
  Bryan Murphy: Yeah.
• 32:21
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we were that champion for the license and and the ability to grow, and that's allowed us to now get into these other areas.
• 32:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We even make a cider as well.
• 32:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We do that under the Maui brewing brand.
• 32:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But uh, cider and beer Typically are, you know, made by breweries nowadays, but going into the hard sultry, the cocktails and then canned water etc.
• 32:37
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's those are.
• 32:38
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: There's a brand extensions, if you will right so you guys do a root beer.
• 32:43
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We do root beer, yeah, we actually award-winning root beer, yes.
• 32:46
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we have a Maui brewing company island sodas is what we call that and the island soda range is root beer we've been making since 2008, and the reason we started doing that, too, is we always wanted to be a family establishment and we were never a bar and we wanted to have families come in and I could see you know Mom, dad, kids sitting at the bar and you know Mom and dad might be drinking a cocktail of beers or whatever, and then the kids get their little pint of root beer and, you know, gets to sit there and have that beer with dad and I just I thought that would be really cool, plus my grandpa opa.
• 33:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, loved root beer when I run one of always remember him crushing dad's root beer at holidays, and so we made Island root beer and then we expanded that into island cola, ginger beer and Tonic as well.
• 33:31
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Okay, and those last three that we added were designed to be great sodas on their own so the non-alcoholic portion of what we do but they were also meant to really play well with spirits and mix well.
• 33:42
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Okay.
• 33:43
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So they stand up to the spirits and they bring flavor to it.
• 33:46
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: At the same time, they don't overpower those spirits either.
• 33:50
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So we really wanted to.
• 33:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We spent about two years making the ginger beer to be to you know and think about that.
• 33:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's crazy, especially since her batch of soda takes a day to make when beer takes three weeks.
• 33:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know it's a little bit different, but those are what's in the koo poo cocktails koo poo canned cocktail.
• 34:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So you get a gin and tonic that's our tonic from Maui brewing as well as the gin from koo poo, and same with the whiskey ginger whiskey, cola, gotcha, yeah anything else as far as like hey, this is what's coming next, this is what we're excited about.
• 34:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, I think the beyond beer program is probably the the thing that I spend most of my time on right now and things that I'm most excited about.
• 34:24
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I feel like I'm at the Like, right at the end, of getting some of these things launched.
• 34:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We launched koo poo in July.
• 34:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I'll have hard water launched by the end of October, cans by the end of the year for that, ideally Beginning of the year, I'd like to have the canned water rolling out to the schools as a pilot program, because I believe very strongly in minimizing the use of plastic in our environment especially.
• 34:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know the way it impacts the, the ocean and the environment, you know, and just the sea life and you know people come to Hawaii because the oceans are so amazing and they still are.
• 34:56
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But I think it's incumbent upon us to protect it as best we can.
• 34:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I absolutely hate plastic water bottles Like I hate a strong word, I know, and I try not to use that for people, but I have that for plastic and I think the fact that aluminum is infinitely recyclable and produced right here in Hawaii through the, the canned plant over a ball, the fact that we have an opportunity at Maui brewing company to Do something so good for the environment.
• 35:22
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's something that I'm really passionate about and that's what leads our sustainability initiatives.
• 35:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Just anecdotally, it's funny, I sent an email to ball last week asking us hey, there's all these stats like if you put a bottle water, water bottle and, and you could wrap the world like 50,000 times or whatever it is, it's how much is consumed in a year, or the, or the pile of Water bottles consumed in just one day.
• 35:44
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You can see from space all these different funny facts, right, but we wanted some that are more like different.
• 35:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I said, you know, and the example I gave was that there's enough water bottles consumed every year to fill the Grand Canyon, like to really give a perspective.
• 35:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I was like I don't know that's case and I said god, I hope it's not.
• 35:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And I got an email back being like you're probably not too far off, and that scared me, the fact that here is this can manufacturing like, yeah, actually you're probably not too far off.
• 36:07
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Think about how big the Grand Canyon is and imagine filling that, like a waste basket, with plastic water bottles.
• 36:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Goodness that's scary and you look at some of these footage of the ocean and the like far east.
• 36:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You see these waves of plastic in Thailand or Bali and all these beautiful places and the fact that we have even a small hand and trying to help combat that Is something that I'm really passionate about moving forward and it's all of our responsibilities.
• 36:29
  Bryan Murphy: If you enjoy coming to Hawaii, hawaii didn't become Hawaii just by neglect.
• 36:34
  Bryan Murphy: No, like it's all of our responsibilities.
• 36:36
  Bryan Murphy: Like, if we want our grandkids to enjoy these places, we need to leave it better than we found it.
• 36:41
  Bryan Murphy: Yeah and we need to figure that out.
• 36:42
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, yeah, just don't go to a big box store and buy four cases of water for your trip here.
• 36:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Sure, bring one Stainless, steel or other reusable water bottle and please use that on your trip.
• 36:54
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know you may be, I mean, you have the best of intentions and grab a bottle of water and, you know, sit it down next to you at the beach and it's empty and it blows into the ocean.
• 37:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Well, maybe you can't get it, okay, well, now that's in the ocean for forever, you know.
• 37:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So if you had that stainless steel water bottle sitting next to you, you just refill it constantly and it's not going to blow away.
• 37:14
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So little things like that make a huge difference.
• 37:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, it's just, I always travel with reusable water bottles.
• 37:20
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I mean, I think this is my beer grower and I've never it's never seen beer.
• 37:24
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I drink at least one of those a day of water Usually two, you know, and I try to always have more sustainable options.
• 37:31
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I have I have my travel water bottle that I take when I travel, because it fits, it's slim and it fits in my backpack.
• 37:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, you know, these are the types of very simple things that I wish more people would do and Finally we're starting to see the movement swell and get to that point of inflection where I think it will, will hopefully take over.
• 37:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But we definitely need to be making that difference.
• 37:51
  Bryan Murphy: So is that incredible that sometimes you need people to get the?
• 37:54
  Bryan Murphy: Oh, I get it now.
• 37:57
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, you do.
• 37:58
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, it's almost like those old commercials.
• 37:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I don't think they do them anymore.
• 38:00
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: The v8 ones.
• 38:01
  Hawaii's Best: You know you gotta slap the guy on the head.
• 38:03
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And that's kind of what needs to happen.
• 38:05
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And you know, you start seeing pictures of whales dead on the beach and rotting and All that's in them is plastic, or the outline of a bird with the skeleton.
• 38:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, see it on the beach and all it is is plastic.
• 38:16
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Been there that They've just been eating because they don't know any better, you know.
• 38:19
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So there's a lot of things that we'd like to do and continue to move in that direction, and that's part of our leadership in manufacturing in Hawaii.
• 38:25
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Okay, his first was this grid independence project.
• 38:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Actually, I'd argue that second.
• 38:29
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: First was saying that you know, if you're producing something, if you want to say it's local, it should be there and made there because it has a direct impact on the community.
• 38:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Second to that was then sustainability and Creating energy from renewable resources.
• 38:42
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You don't have to go as far as we did.
• 38:44
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You can buy renewable energy or you can do your part.
• 38:47
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's all we can ask.
• 38:48
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We've been successful and we've been able to Convince the bank to lend us the money to do that project because it does have a good ROI.
• 38:55
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know you could have put that money elsewhere and we chose to put it into energy.
• 38:59
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Uh, that also gives us an accurate projection of energy costs, moving forward in perpetuity.
• 39:04
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: So our team that relies on us to pay their paychecks.
• 39:08
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They have a more solid foundation because now we're in control of energy costs, as opposed to just Fuel and oil going up and down dictating what we pay for energy.
• 39:18
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We've seen prices for energy here Go 30 40 higher over the last you know 15 years that we've been here, and they go up, they go down.
• 39:26
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They go up, they go down.
• 39:27
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: They're all over the place and more often than not they're up than they are down.
• 39:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Those are the things that we try to combat and to give our make ourselves kind of lean and mean if you want huge win-win, yeah there.
• 39:36
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Yeah, and that's where some of the financial yeah mindset of both melanie and myself, you know, bringing to the company and applying that in a more Direct way to the beer industry was very unique, especially at the time when we opened.
• 39:49
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, in 2005 most breweries that were opening were Two guys who made killer home beer home brew back at home and they're like hey, I think we could do this for work.
• 39:57
  Bryan Murphy: I got this kid off amazon and you know and nothing wrong with that.
• 40:01
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Home brewing is where all of the ideas and the, the crazy stuff, the innovation really came from initially, and still does to some degree this to these days.
• 40:09
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: But we applied a business approach to something that you know especially I loved in beer and that's what I think helped us be successful as well.
• 40:17
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: You know, ran it like a business but definitely treated it more as a lifestyle, you know.
• 40:22
  Bryan Murphy: Okay, probably a serious question.
• 40:24
  Bryan Murphy: Okay, what's your current favorite drink?
• 40:28
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Oh, favorite drink.
• 40:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: That's hard.
• 40:30
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I'm not drinking right now more, just I was on a cleanse and I'm getting ready to go to korea, which is going to be pretty crazy.
• 40:37
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Normally, pilsner Powhan a Pilsner from us I just I love a Pilsner style and I think it's super clean, nice and dry.
• 40:45
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: Hoppy, if I'm not drinking that, I'm probably going to drink like a old-fashioned or Uh, something along those lines.
• 40:51
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: I love a good whiskey cocktail.
• 40:53
  Bryan Murphy: Okay, well, garrett, thank you so much for coming on.
• 40:55
  Bryan Murphy: Hawaii's best.
• 40:56
  Bryan Murphy: No, no worries.
• 40:57
  Bryan Murphy: How can people connect with now your brewing company?
• 40:59
  Bryan Murphy: You know no one uses the internet anymore.
• 41:01
  Bryan Murphy: So it's I would say instagram.
• 41:03
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: It's at Maui brewing co, so for at Maui brewing company, and then also same on instagram and facebook, twitter, and then, of course, if you do still use the web, it's Maui brewing calm.
• 41:13
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: And, of course, if you just search Maui and beer online, it's going to come up with our links first, uh, but we'd love to have you come visit and drink a beer, try a soda, get a cocktail.
• 41:24
  Garrett Marrero - Maui Brewing Company: We try to deliver an authentic local experience and, uh, certainly something you won't regret, appreciate it.
• 41:30
  Bryan Murphy: Thank you so much for your time.
• 41:31
  Bryan Murphy: Thank you.
• 41:32
  Bryan Murphy: All right, aloha, aloha.
• 41:32
  Bryan Murphy: I just want to thank Garrett again and Maui brewing company for their hospitality, for showing my wife, ali and I around, and we talked a little bit about their root beer.
• 41:43
  Bryan Murphy: Their root beer is Amazing.
• 41:45
  Bryan Murphy: So, yeah, you go to Maui brewing company.
• 41:48
  Bryan Murphy: Their food is great, their vibe is great, their products are amazing.
• 41:51
  Bryan Murphy: So I just want to encourage you next time you're on Maui, check them out at their main facility in Kihei.
• 41:57
  Bryan Murphy: You can find them all across the island as well.
• 41:59
  Bryan Murphy: Just simply go to Maui brewing co calm.
• 42:03
  Bryan Murphy: My key takeaway from the conversation with Garrett was learning about how their facility is grid independent.
• 42:12
  Bryan Murphy: Now, that's cool on an environmental side and that's, I think it's easy to see the winds with that being fully grid independent.
• 42:19
  Bryan Murphy: But what I really love, too, is that it's an incredible way to control cost.
• 42:24
  Bryan Murphy: So on a business side, I really appreciate that, and then on the environmental side, it's just cool to see a win-win for both business and environment.
• 42:34
  Bryan Murphy: I really hope that this interview gave you inside look at Maui brewing company and added some value to your day, and if it did, again hit that subscribe button, drop a rating review below and I look forward to hanging out again next time on Hawaii's best.
• 42:47
  Bryan Murphy: Until then, be well aloha.
• 42:52
  Hawaii's Best: Mahalo for listening to this episode of Hawaii's best.
• 42:55
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