Latest / No Dirt No Flowers Podcast / When Passion Becomes Craft / Ft. Scott Dorsch

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When Passion Becomes Craft / Ft. Scott Dorsch · No Dirt No Flowers Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to No Dirt No
• 0:02
  Flowers. Today we are joined with the amazing
• 0:05
  and legendary Scott Dorsch of Odell Brewing Company.
• 0:08
  We also have an episode packed full of surprises.
• 0:12
  This being harvest, some of our hosts had to
• 0:14
  jump out and take care of harvest duties. Drew
• 0:17
  takes off about half hour in, Mike's there for
• 0:19
  most of it, and then Les Roy pops in to finish
• 0:23
  off the podcast. Also, we have our very first
• 0:26
  call -in viewer. Granted, he did not know that
• 0:30
  he was calling in during the podcast recording,
• 0:32
  but it's still exciting and the very first nonetheless.
• 0:36
  Enjoy the episode. Throw these on. Okay. All
• 0:48
  right. We're here with the one and only Scott
• 0:52
  Dorsch. Good afternoon. So happy. Thanks for
• 0:57
  this opportunity. It's great to be here. Thank
• 0:58
  you for coming. I'm sure the majority of our
• 1:01
  listeners know who you are, but I don't know.
• 1:03
  Brief background. So I grew up on a small family
• 1:07
  farm in extreme northwest Kansas, about 20 miles
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  from Nebraska, 25 miles from Colorado. And I
• 1:14
  had always planned to stay on the farm. That
• 1:16
  was my goal in life. Before that, I wanted to
• 1:19
  go to Colorado State University because Colorado,
• 1:22
  we saw ourselves more as Colorado than as Kansans.
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  Just because Denver was the closest. So Denver's
• 1:30
  180 miles due west of the small community I grew
• 1:35
  up in. So I went to Kansas State University.
• 1:38
  What is that? That's John Siegel calling. We
• 1:45
  should totally answer. Should I answer? Put him
• 1:48
  on speaker, though, so everybody can hear. Okay.
• 1:50
  Hey, John. Scott, how are you? I'm good. Tell
• 1:54
  John he's on the podcast. Hey, John, you're on
• 1:56
  the podcast. I'm on the podcast? Yeah. I'm at
• 2:01
  Roy Farms with Mike and Drew. Hey, John. So anything
• 2:10
  you want to say, John? Talk up the single restaurant.
• 2:13
  Oh, yeah. I mean, good. Andy's going to have
• 2:19
  to put a few little beeps on there, but that's
• 2:21
  okay. That's just John. That's just me. It's
• 2:26
  got to be someone like me in the office. Anyway,
• 2:30
  I hope you guys are having a good harvest. Yeah,
• 2:32
  we are. Thank you. I hope you are, too. Hey,
• 2:34
  talk up Tangier while you're on the podcast.
• 2:36
  Hey, you know, everyone's hearing it right now.
• 2:40
  25 listeners out there. They heard it. Hey, 26,
• 2:45
  John. You know I love you guys. I know. I'll
• 2:48
  talk to you. All right, later. Thanks, John.
• 2:49
  Bye. Okay, that was funny. Hey, real quick, what
• 2:54
  did you guys farm? So we grew winter wheat, so
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  bread wheat, hard red winter wheat for bread.
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  And then we also had a cow -calf operation. And
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  so we would grow a lot of sorghum Sudan grass
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  to feed the cattle during the winter months.
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  So I grew up on this small family farm, and I
• 3:13
  think it was my sophomore year. I came back to
• 3:16
  the farm and was working. I had all these great
• 3:19
  ideas about what we could do. I was telling my
• 3:21
  dad, I said, yeah, we could implement all this
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  cool stuff that I'm learning, Dad, when I come
• 3:26
  back to the farm. And he was like, you're not
• 3:29
  coming back to the farm. I'm like, what? And
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  so that was kind of one of those uh -oh moments
• 3:36
  in my life. And so I was like, okay, I've got
• 3:39
  to rethink what I'm going to do now. And, I mean,
• 3:42
  that was the primary reason I was studying agronomy,
• 3:44
  crops and soils, was to, you know, to go back
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  to the family farm. So I made a pivot and I started
• 3:53
  working as a student employee. I started working
• 3:56
  for the wheat breeder, which I had no idea what
• 3:59
  that was about. But he's a great guy, Dr. Raleigh
• 4:04
  Sears. He brought me on because he liked to say,
• 4:08
  yeah, you Western Kansas kids, you guys know
• 4:10
  how to work hard. Because it's pretty tough out
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  there. I finished my bachelor's degree and I
• 4:18
  was working for... the wheat project for Dr.
• 4:20
  Sears. And about my junior year, he said, so
• 4:23
  what do you think you want to do after you graduate?
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  I was like, I don't know. He said, have you thought
• 4:28
  about grad school? I was like, okay. You know,
• 4:33
  generally it would take like two years to do
• 4:34
  your master's degree. And I thought, okay. And
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  I really liked working for Dr. Sears, and he
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  had some projects in mind that he thought I could
• 4:42
  possibly work on. And so I ended up staying,
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  and I did my master's degree. Not quite what
• 4:49
  I had anticipated, but the project was basically
• 4:52
  looking at the acidity levels of soils using
• 4:56
  heated nitrogen fertilizer going onto those soils,
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  and it drives the pH down. And the root systems
• 5:04
  of wheat seedlings are somewhat sensitive to
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  that. It was a basic genetic study looking at
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  tolerance to those acidic soils. Because in some
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  parts, especially eastern Kansas, where they
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  have... a lot more rain in the Wichita area.
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  A lot of that would be just continuous wheat
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  year after year after year. So over time, all
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  the nitrogen fertilizer was really driving down
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  the pH. So that was an interesting study. But
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  anyway, I did my master's. And at that time,
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  I was thinking about, well, maybe I should go
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  on and do my doctorate. In the department, in
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  the agronomy department, you could not do all
• 5:41
  three degrees at the same institution. So I had
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  to go somewhere. This was back in the late 80s,
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  1989, and when I finished my master's. And I
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  took the job in Colorado working for AgriPro
• 5:58
  Biosciences, working on wheat. And at that time,
• 6:02
  the big three brewers were Anheuser -Busch Companies,
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  Coors, and Miller Brewing. Those were known as
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  the big three. That was kind of the big point
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  where. The macro brewers, as we call them now,
• 6:18
  were really working on taking over the brewing
• 6:23
  industry. And you guys were selling a lot of
• 6:25
  hops to those three entities at that time. Bill
• 6:30
  Coors at Coors Brewing had a barley breeding
• 6:33
  program that was started in Golden, actually,
• 6:36
  Golden, Colorado. And they moved it to Burley,
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  Idaho, kind of in the center of where they sourced
• 6:43
  most of their barley. August Bush III at Anheuser
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  -Busch Companies was always like, well, Bill
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  Coors has a barley breeding program. I need to
• 6:52
  have a barley breeding program. So he purchased
• 6:54
  a feed barley program from the AgroPro Biosciences.
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  And that's where Mel Anderson, who eventually
• 7:02
  became the president of Bush Agricultural Resources,
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  that he was the barley breeder there. And so
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  he came with that purchase. At that time, they
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  were still building. their, I believe, 12th brewery
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  at the time in Fort Collins. And Mel Anderson
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  decided, well, this would be a good place. We'll
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  move from Berthoud, Colorado, where they were
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  located, build a brand -new facility in Fort
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  Collins next to the brewery, and that's where
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  the barley research would be. And so I knew those
• 7:37
  guys from all the years I had worked with them,
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  and they always kind of... Hey, you should come
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  work with us. Come work with us. I was like,
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  I don't know anything about beer. I know I like
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  to drink it, but I don't know how to make it.
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  I don't know anything about barley. I was a wheat
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  guy. And eventually there was a job opening.
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  That was at the time Anheuser -Busch Companies
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  was really starting to expand globally and really
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  pushing in a different area. Again, this is all
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  pre -InBev. The project I was working on. was
• 8:08
  as an international barley agronomist. The recipe
• 8:14
  for Budweiser at the time, much different than
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  it is now, but it was basically 35 % two -row
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  barley, 65 % six -row barley. So traditionally
• 8:27
  in brewing, you only use two -row. I'm guessing
• 8:32
  all the beers that we have on the table here
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  right now are 100 % two -row barley. But that
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  is something from quite a few years back when,
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  because of the growth of the brewing companies
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  during the Industrial Revolution, there was not
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  enough two -row barley to be had. And so they
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  started using other things as adjuncts, a lot
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  of rice, a lot of corn. And the six -row barley,
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  which was traditionally a feed -type barley,
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  was used because it had more enzymes that would
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  be... able to break down the starches in those
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  adjuncts for the brewing process. Oh, interesting.
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  Yeah. It's kind of interesting. If you think
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  about the big three, Coors actually was 100 %
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  two -row at that time. AB was 65 % six -row,
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  35 % two -row. And Miller Brewing was, I think,
• 9:31
  almost 100 % six -row malting barley at the time.
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  And a lot of that had to do with where they were
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  located in the upper Midwest because that's where
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  six -row barley was really best adapted. So the
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  barley breeding program for Bush Agricultural
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  Resources was focused on two -row and six -row
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  because Budweiser recipe used both of those.
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  And Budweiser has always had rice as the adjunct.
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  And so you needed that additional six -row, again,
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  to break down those starches in rice because
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  rice doesn't have the enzymes that barley does.
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  As AB was expanding globally, there was not six
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  -row available other than North America. And
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  so the job I was tasked with was taking North
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  American six -rows and seeing where else in the
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  world they might work. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that
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  was pretty interesting because it started in
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  Europe. all through Europe, actually, and then
• 10:32
  eventually ended up in South America and China.
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  So I did a lot of traveling during those early
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  days. Oh, man, I had no idea. Yeah, it was pretty
• 10:43
  cool because before I was 30 years old, I traveled
• 10:46
  on five different continents for the company.
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  Wow. Yeah, it was wild. But it was a lot of fun.
• 10:52
  Yeah. Yeah, my first trip was to New Zealand.
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  Yeah, because we were looking at New Zealand
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  as well. We knew our barley's work there because
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  we would use New Zealand as a counter -season
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  nursery just because you could grow two growing
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  seasons in one calendar year. And as you're moving
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  through small greens development, you have to
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  get the barley to a point where it's stable.
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  And so the way you do that is multiple generations
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  of self -pollination. So I started working there
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  in 1991, and I did that to about 2001. And at
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  that time, Gary Wickenstein, who had been – he
• 11:35
  was a St. Louis kid. Yeah, I know that name.
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  You know? Yeah. I've heard that name. Yeah. Yeah.
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  He worked in the procurement in St. Louis, and
• 11:46
  they brought him out to Elk Mountain Farms to
• 11:50
  manage Elk Mountain Farms in – probably about
• 11:54
  the mid -90s or so, they asked him to come to
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  manage both Elk Mountain Farms, the hop farm
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  in North Idaho, and manage barley research in
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  Fort Collins, Colorado. So he was kind of bouncing
• 12:06
  back and forth between. So this is where, Drew,
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  this is where your father -in -law comes into
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  play because your father -in -law was also a
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  St. Louis kid, basically. I think he grew up
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  in Illinois, right? Yeah, southern Illinois.
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  Cobden. Cobden, right. Like 500 people. I first
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  met him. He was working on barley. He was in
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  Idaho Falls working on the Western two -row program.
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  He was managing that program. But before that,
• 12:35
  he had been in corporate R &D in St. Louis. Did
• 12:40
  you know that? No. Yes. That's where he hired
• 12:44
  Brendan O 'Connell. I don't know if you've heard
• 12:48
  that. Oh, yeah. I haven't heard that name in
• 12:49
  a while. Oh, Brendan's still roaming around.
• 12:51
  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Brendan. I hope you're
• 12:54
  listening at some point in time. Anyway, yeah.
• 12:58
  John hired Brendan in corporate R &D. And at
• 13:02
  that time, AB had kind of diversified into a
• 13:05
  few things. I think they were working on the
• 13:07
  frozen bread thing at the time. They brought
• 13:11
  Brendan out to Fort Collins to manage the quality
• 13:14
  lab. And so he was one of the guys who encouraged
• 13:18
  me to leave wheat and come work on malting barley.
• 13:22
  In fact, I reported to him for a couple of years.
• 13:25
  Was he as big of a hoot back then as he is now?
• 13:29
  Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. So John Reeves, your
• 13:36
  father -in -law, he and Gary Wickenstein, again,
• 13:39
  Gary's managing Elk Mountain Farms and Fort Collins.
• 13:44
  And Gary and John Reeves, there was always a
• 13:48
  lot of competition between those two. Both cowboys,
• 13:51
  and there was always a lot of competition to
• 13:53
  see who had the biggest hat. So when John left
• 14:01
  AB to come work at Yakima Chief, Gary, you know,
• 14:06
  John was getting things set up with Yakima Chief,
• 14:10
  and he was talking about your brother -in -law.
• 14:13
  Jason Peral, who was learning how to breed hops
• 14:18
  from Chuck Zimmerman. Well, Gary Wickenstein
• 14:22
  up at Elk Mountain Farms is like, we're Anheuser
• 14:24
  -Busch, damn it. We need to have a hop breeder.
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  He has this pool of people with agronomy background
• 14:32
  in Fort Collins working on barley. And I kind
• 14:35
  of had a feeling something was going on because
• 14:37
  he'd pop into my office every once in a while
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  and he'd ask me these questions. what do you
• 14:42
  know about parthenogenesis? Things like that.
• 14:47
  I'm like, I really don't know anything about
• 14:49
  parthenogenesis, you know, because that's not
• 14:52
  something in small grains. Parthenogenesis is,
• 14:55
  seriously, because we had this conversation so
• 14:58
  many times. He was really trying to figure out,
• 15:01
  they would go through Elk Mountain Farms and
• 15:04
  they would rogue out all the males out of the
• 15:06
  hop yard, but they were still getting seed. He
• 15:09
  was like. where is this pollen coming from? He
• 15:13
  says, we have taken out all these males, but
• 15:16
  we're still getting pollen. He says, can those
• 15:18
  plants change? And so I did some digging and
• 15:21
  it is a possibility if in the absence of male
• 15:26
  pollen, plants can mimic. And that's where you
• 15:30
  get a lot of the, later I found out, that's where
• 15:33
  you get a lot of the intersect or the hermaphrodites
• 15:37
  that you see in some. And some cultivars, cascade
• 15:41
  being one. Yes. You'll see those male florets.
• 15:44
  You know, they may not be, there may not be pollen,
• 15:47
  but they're still the male floret. Back to Gary.
• 15:52
  I had a feeling he was like leading me down this
• 15:54
  path. And there was one time he was asking me
• 16:00
  another question about hops. And he said, have
• 16:03
  you ever thought about working in hops? And I
• 16:04
  said, no, not really. I'm a small greens guy.
• 16:09
  He said, I'd like to take you up to Elk Mountain
• 16:10
  Farms so you could see your first hop farm. I
• 16:14
  didn't have the heart to tell him that my first
• 16:16
  hop farm was actually in Argentina. Oh. So it
• 16:23
  was a joint venture between Haas and Kilmes Brewing.
• 16:28
  And it was called Patagonia Hops. And they were
• 16:30
  actually growing Cascade down there for many,
• 16:32
  many years. Oh, wow. Yeah. And at the time. A
• 16:36
  .B. was looking at purchasing Kilmace Brewing
• 16:39
  in Argentina. Since we were down there working
• 16:41
  on barley, they asked us to be part of the team
• 16:44
  to go out and look at it. So that was my first
• 16:46
  hop farm. It was interesting, but I was like,
• 16:49
  again, I didn't know anything about hops. Anyway,
• 16:52
  back to Gary. So he started bringing me out,
• 16:55
  and that's when I first met your brother -in
• 16:58
  -law, Jason Prahl. Yeah. And your sister -in
• 17:02
  -law at that time was working on that program
• 17:04
  as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was 2001, I would
• 17:10
  guess. Somewhere in there. Yeah, that would probably
• 17:12
  be 2000, 2001, yeah. Yeah, because it was over
• 17:17
  on the farm. I think they called it Yakima Chief
• 17:19
  Ranch. It was over by Granger. Yeah. And they
• 17:22
  had the small wolf picker there. Yeah. It would
• 17:25
  have been 2000 because I actually started working.
• 17:28
  That's my first job in the hop industry was like
• 17:30
  2003, I guess. But I know my wife, girlfriend.
• 17:35
  At the time, well, she wasn't my girlfriend yet,
• 17:37
  but her and Amanda worked that summer when they
• 17:40
  moved out. They moved out in 2000. Okay, yeah,
• 17:43
  that would be about right then. Maybe 2001, who
• 17:46
  knows? Gary Wickenstein thought he needed someone
• 17:49
  to, you know, John had Jason Perrault, and Gary
• 17:54
  thought he needed someone. And so that was the
• 17:56
  ultimately, I think, what the goal was. He wanted
• 17:59
  to create a breeding program in Bonners Ferry
• 18:02
  in North Idaho. There were times he'd say, you
• 18:07
  should bring your family up. And so I'd take
• 18:08
  my family up. I had two small boys at the time,
• 18:11
  and we'd go up and we looked at it. But there
• 18:15
  was competing interest there because Val Peacock,
• 18:19
  he was in the brewing division, which was called
• 18:22
  Anheuser -Busch Inc., ABI, a little different
• 18:25
  than the ABI of now. But Val was like, no, no,
• 18:30
  it needs to be in Yakima. You know, because that's
• 18:33
  where the majority of the hops are. So they were
• 18:35
  always pushing back and forth because Gary wanted
• 18:38
  an L -pound. He wanted it for the AB farm, which
• 18:43
  at the time I think was like producing only 7
• 18:45
  % of the hops for AB. It's a big farm, but it
• 18:49
  was still, that was the big days of Budweiser.
• 18:52
  You know, that was when Anheuser -Busch Companies
• 18:54
  was approaching 100 million barrels. And Budweiser
• 19:00
  was, roughly half of that volume. Wow. That's
• 19:05
  all the days when this valley was full of Willamette.
• 19:08
  Yep. You remember those days? Oh, yeah. I remember
• 19:12
  growing Willamette for sure. I think Roy Farms
• 19:15
  at the time was the largest direct contract Willamette
• 19:19
  grower for Anheuser -Busch companies. Yeah, I
• 19:22
  believe so. Yeah. And that's when I first met
• 19:24
  your father. Yeah. Yeah, because it was interesting.
• 19:28
  Gary gave me a list. He said, okay, if you're
• 19:30
  going to work on hops, you need to meet some
• 19:33
  of these people. And I'm not going to give all
• 19:34
  the lists, but your dad was one of the people
• 19:36
  on the list because you guys were doing a lot
• 19:40
  of innovative things at the time as well. Yeah.
• 19:43
  Still trying to do that. Still trying to do that,
• 19:46
  yeah. Yeah, how many growers have podcasts? Good
• 19:51
  point. Just the one. For now, right? For now.
• 19:57
  Oh, John Siegel's on it now. Next Johnny will
• 20:01
  have one. So anyway, that's how I got involved
• 20:05
  in hops, which was great. It was really a great
• 20:09
  opportunity for me to grow into that and learn
• 20:15
  another important, probably the most important
• 20:17
  raw material. The Barley guys will argue. They
• 20:20
  will, but... we'll agree it takes two to tango
• 20:24
  that's exactly right you gotta have them both
• 20:26
  so yeah it was it was a great opportunity to
• 20:29
  to kind of stretch my wings so that was that's
• 20:32
  how i got into the the hop world so then how
• 20:36
  many years were you in that i guess bigger macro
• 20:41
  beer space before i don't know you started transitioning
• 20:46
  into or Before craft beer took off. Yeah. Well,
• 20:51
  at that time, you know, there was craft beer
• 20:54
  in Colorado and Fort Collins was kind of a hotbed
• 20:57
  for craft beer. Doug O'Dell had started O'Dell
• 21:00
  Brewing in 1989. He and his wife were living
• 21:05
  in the Seattle area back in the late 80s. And
• 21:08
  even at that time, they thought there were too
• 21:11
  many craft breweries or microbreweries, as they
• 21:14
  called them then, in the Seattle area. And so
• 21:17
  they looked for somewhere else. Doug's sister
• 21:20
  was living in Fort Collins, Colorado. And she
• 21:23
  said, well, why don't you look at Colorado? Yeah.
• 21:26
  Okay, this is kind of a funny story because they
• 21:29
  came to Fort Collins and they were looking for
• 21:31
  property. And I mentioned earlier that Anheuser
• 21:34
  -Busch Companies was building their 12th brewery
• 21:36
  in Fort Collins. And Doug was working with a
• 21:40
  realtor to find some space to lease. And the
• 21:44
  realtor was like. So what are you looking to
• 21:47
  do? He says, oh, I'm going to open a brewery.
• 21:49
  The realtor says, well, we already have a brewery.
• 21:56
  You know, at the time, I think that was a six
• 21:59
  million barrel brewery. It's now like 12 million
• 22:02
  barrel brewery now. But that's just, you know,
• 22:07
  no one was thinking about craft brewing. Our
• 22:10
  Colorado Senator Hickenlooper had opened a brewery.
• 22:15
  in downtown Denver, Wind Coop Brewing. He was
• 22:19
  part of the one that started that. And there
• 22:23
  was also a brew pub opening in Fort Collins.
• 22:26
  It's called Cooper Smith's. The owner of that,
• 22:29
  Scott Smith and Doug O'Dell, were racing to be
• 22:32
  the first one to open. And I think Cooper Smith's
• 22:35
  opened like two weeks, two or three weeks before
• 22:38
  O'Dell did. But yeah, they were just down the
• 22:40
  street from each other. But had a different...
• 22:43
  Business plan as far as that was a brew pub concept
• 22:47
  like Wynkoop Brewing. Doug wanted it to be just
• 22:51
  a brewery. And at that time, there was no packaging.
• 22:54
  You'd come into the brewery and get a growler
• 22:56
  fill. Oh, wow. Yeah. Where would you get a brew
• 22:59
  house back then? That's a good question. I would
• 23:03
  guess Germany. Yeah. Because they have smaller
• 23:05
  breweries over there. Yeah. No, I can't remember
• 23:08
  who the manufacturer of his first brew house
• 23:10
  was. It was a 10 -barrel system, and that was
• 23:14
  in the lease space. So that was from 1989 to
• 23:18
  1994. 1994, we moved to our current location,
• 23:22
  and he sold the 10 -barrel system and put in
• 23:27
  a 50 -barrel system. Yeah, in 1994. And then
• 23:31
  it was two years after that, 1996, is when they
• 23:35
  decided to start bottling beer. 1989. to 1996
• 23:40
  it was all draft beer you know going out to different
• 23:44
  accounts and then you come in and fill your growler
• 23:47
  so it was truly craft beer at the time that's
• 23:50
  really cool yeah so yeah it's it's kind of funny
• 23:53
  to look back over the last almost 36 years now
• 23:56
  yeah yeah it'll be 36 years we'll start a third
• 23:59
  37th year in november of this year so when did
• 24:04
  you transition to odell okay so yeah Okay, that's
• 24:09
  a sad story. That's a sad story. People may not
• 24:14
  be aware, but in 2008, there was a lot of consolidation
• 24:19
  going on. It was Ambev in South America and Interbrow
• 24:24
  in Belgium. They combined forces to create Ambev.
• 24:29
  And again, in the proverbial large hat contest.
• 24:36
  There was this competition between the world's
• 24:39
  biggest brewery at the time, Anheuser -Busch
• 24:40
  Companies, and this, or InBev, to, you know,
• 24:46
  well, who's going to buy who? Well, we know how
• 24:49
  that worked out. So that was, yeah, the deal
• 24:52
  happened in September of 2008. So Anheuser -Busch
• 24:57
  Companies was acquired by InBev, and that's when
• 25:02
  Anheuser -Busch InBev was created. Was Carlos
• 25:06
  Brito the first CEO? Carlos Brito was the man
• 25:09
  in charge. He was the one that led the whole
• 25:12
  takeover. Yeah. At the time, August Bush III
• 25:16
  was chairman of the board, but August Bush IV
• 25:19
  was chief executive officer. So it was really
• 25:23
  Carlos Brito versus August Bush IV. Not as fair
• 25:28
  of a fight if you would have had the third in
• 25:30
  there. Yeah, it's interesting, you know. I don't
• 25:34
  want to go too much into that because I could
• 25:36
  get myself in some trouble here. But there are
• 25:39
  books written about it, and I've read quite a
• 25:41
  few of the books. And it was basically August
• 25:45
  Bush III was seeing how much money he could make.
• 25:49
  At that time, sales of light American lagers
• 25:55
  like Budweiser, Miller, Coors, they were already
• 25:58
  starting to trail off because the craft industry
• 26:00
  was starting. to really take off in the late
• 26:03
  2008, 2009, about that same time. That was when
• 26:08
  things were really starting to ramp up. So I
• 26:11
  think they could see the writing on the wall.
• 26:13
  The trends were not looking good. People were
• 26:16
  not clamoring for Budweiser like they had been.
• 26:20
  So I think it was just an opportunity to, well,
• 26:23
  we've built this into something good. Let's cash
• 26:26
  out. Interesting. Yeah. You know, I think there
• 26:30
  was this perception, especially from employees,
• 26:34
  even though we were a publicly traded company,
• 26:36
  there was always this feeling that the Bush family
• 26:38
  really controlled a lot of the stock. It turns
• 26:44
  out that Warren Buffett was actually the largest
• 26:46
  stockholder at the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I read
• 26:49
  that book, Dethroning the King. Yes. And Warren
• 26:52
  Buffett was part and parcel to the takeover.
• 26:54
  Totally, totally. What percent was he? The Bush
• 26:59
  family was tiny. They were like 5 % or something.
• 27:02
  In comparison, yeah. I think it was, I don't
• 27:05
  really want to say, but I think if I remember
• 27:08
  correctly, on the day the whole thing happened,
• 27:11
  it was for Warren Buffett. It was like a billion
• 27:15
  dollar transaction. I don't know. I don't think
• 27:18
  that was net. That may have been the gross, you
• 27:20
  know, just based on the number of shares he had.
• 27:24
  And I think, you know. August Bush the third
• 27:27
  knew that he was not going to be able to fight
• 27:29
  that off. Yeah. I think the share price was like,
• 27:31
  don't quote me on this, but it was like running
• 27:33
  at 14 or something. And the offer was 17 or something.
• 27:37
  And so it was 65, I think is yeah. $65 a share.
• 27:42
  Oh, 65. But it was like, it was like a 10 % spread
• 27:45
  or something that they were. Yeah. And eventually
• 27:47
  I think if I, if my memory's correct, I think
• 27:50
  it, they were offering 65 per share and it ended
• 27:54
  up being 71. Oh, my gosh. Speaking of August
• 28:01
  the 3rd, August the 3rd would have been the one
• 28:03
  that would have been kind of involved in the
• 28:05
  hop industry here, right? Yes. Man, I went to
• 28:09
  a meeting once, and that guy, I've never seen
• 28:14
  anyone kind of control a room like that guy.
• 28:17
  It was crazy. Intense. Intense. Intense. Just
• 28:21
  this. self -confidence and power that he my father
• 28:27
  -in -law still refers to him as mr bush oh yeah
• 28:29
  oh yeah i'm like john he's not in the room anymore
• 28:31
  your father -in -law has some really good stories
• 28:36
  about august wish the third oh yeah he is that
• 28:41
  can i tell one yeah okay because there was this
• 28:45
  is when john was working on western two row in
• 28:48
  idaho falls Being a publicly traded company,
• 28:51
  whenever that happened, I don't remember what
• 28:53
  year, but they hired a lot of MBAs to come in.
• 28:57
  In fact, Pat Stokes, who would eventually, he
• 29:00
  became CEO in between August Bush III and August
• 29:04
  Bush IV. He was one of these East Coast MBAs
• 29:10
  that came in. Anyway, there was quite a few of
• 29:12
  them. And they would travel with Mr. Bush on
• 29:15
  the company jet. They'd always wear their nice
• 29:20
  NBA -type clothing. You know, they were in suits
• 29:24
  and really nice shoes. And August Bush III had
• 29:28
  a lot of fun making sure that they would get
• 29:31
  out and walk in the barley fields and in the
• 29:34
  hot fields. That's awesome. To get their shoes
• 29:37
  dirty. Mr. Bush. Oh, and then sometimes they'd
• 29:44
  be out there at harvest, and he'd tell one of
• 29:47
  these guys, he said, you need to get up in that
• 29:49
  combine and ride in that combine. And they'd
• 29:51
  get up in the combine with their suit, and John
• 29:54
  would just, he said, it was the funniest thing
• 29:56
  you ever saw. And Mr. Bush, after they were in
• 29:59
  there, Mr. Bush would say, I love doing that.
• 30:02
  He did tell me about the combine one. Yeah, yeah,
• 30:05
  exactly. That was, it was, and that's that control
• 30:08
  and intensity that the guy. I imagine he still
• 30:12
  commands that. I would imagine, yeah. I don't
• 30:15
  think that just goes away. No, no. I think that's
• 30:17
  – well, you don't build a company like he did.
• 30:22
  When he took over from August Bush Jr., Gussie,
• 30:25
  that was really that huge growth phase. So the
• 30:31
  buyout happened. Yes. And you're still working
• 30:34
  there at the time. I'm still working there. I
• 30:36
  worked for six months. And then, yeah, so in
• 30:38
  February 2009. It's called into the office and
• 30:42
  there was HR from the brewery there. And it was
• 30:44
  like, okay, Scott, this is it. So that was, yeah,
• 30:49
  I was laid off at that point. And I kind of had
• 30:51
  a feeling it was coming because one of the things
• 30:55
  that was going on was AB and as I wish companies
• 30:59
  was, would keep a lot of inventory. And if you
• 31:03
  think about it, it wasn't that many years before.
• 31:06
  Just inventory in general? Inventory and storage.
• 31:10
  Yeah. There was a lot of inventory in the Acoma
• 31:13
  Valley just because there was concern of running
• 31:18
  out of hops. Yep. I remember that. Yeah. They
• 31:21
  would keep a lot. Like a year's supply? More
• 31:24
  like two, two and a half. That's right, yeah.
• 31:26
  Sometimes maybe even three. So not very different
• 31:30
  than the current market we're in. Well, no. But
• 31:35
  it was intentional. Well, and I think that plays
• 31:39
  an important part in the growth of the craft
• 31:41
  industry because there was all this inventory
• 31:44
  and storage, and a lot of it was Willamette because
• 31:47
  that was the hop that was used primarily in Budweiser.
• 31:53
  There were other things. Obviously, they were
• 31:55
  still importing German hops. So then you immediately
• 31:59
  went to Odell? No. So I had some severance, so
• 32:03
  I was trying to figure out exactly what to do.
• 32:06
  And this was a tough time. This was, you know,
• 32:08
  the Bear Stearn and all that had gone on. You
• 32:13
  know, the whole stock market was out of whack,
• 32:15
  and unemployment really went through the roof.
• 32:19
  And there weren't a lot of jobs out there. I
• 32:22
  was online looking for every job, and I was supplying
• 32:24
  for every job at New Belgium. and odell that
• 32:28
  was coming up just uh most of them i felt i probably
• 32:32
  wasn't qualified for because i wasn't i was a
• 32:34
  home brewer but i wasn't really a brewer per
• 32:37
  se but i thought well i mean so you did you home
• 32:41
  brew kind of like after you got involved in brewing
• 32:46
  or even before even before even before yeah because
• 32:49
  that was the great thing we had access to all
• 32:52
  this nice malt because we would make malt at
• 32:55
  the Barley Research Center, we would malt all
• 32:58
  this and we'd have extra malt. And so we'd use
• 33:00
  that for homebrewing. We'd have to buy hops.
• 33:03
  Yeah, yeah. But we had all the malt we wanted,
• 33:06
  which was pretty cool. So, yeah, so I was homebrewing
• 33:09
  then. And then, like I said, I applied for all
• 33:12
  these jobs at New Belgium. And Peter Buchart,
• 33:15
  the brewer at New Belgium, he lived in my neighborhood
• 33:18
  at the time. And my kids got on the bus right
• 33:20
  in front of Peter's house. And I was like, I
• 33:23
  wasn't getting any. any callbacks or anything.
• 33:26
  I was like, okay, what do I need to do? And so
• 33:28
  I, I dropped a letter in his mailbox and I said,
• 33:32
  Hey Peter. And he, he, he emailed me and he brought
• 33:35
  me in and, uh, he said, bring your resume. So
• 33:39
  I brought my resume and we sit down and he's
• 33:41
  looking at my resume and my resume, I had written
• 33:44
  it very much like I just updated my AB resume
• 33:47
  from Bushag. And he looked at it and he said,
• 33:52
  You know, Peter's from Belgium, obviously. And
• 33:55
  he says, oh, your resume is very boring. I was
• 34:00
  like, okay. And at that time, that was when New
• 34:06
  Belgium was just growing leaps and bounds. And,
• 34:09
  you know, everybody wanted to work for them.
• 34:10
  And there were people writing resumes on six
• 34:13
  -pack holders and different things, you know,
• 34:15
  just to get a foot in the door. And so that was
• 34:17
  kind of the way it was at New Belgium at the
• 34:19
  time. You really had to. stand out to get noticed
• 34:23
  and get a call back. But eventually I, I got
• 34:27
  a interview with Odell for a packaging position.
• 34:32
  Oh, so yeah. And part of the reason, you know,
• 34:37
  at that time I thought, well, this will be just
• 34:40
  kind of a temporary job, you know, until we can
• 34:42
  figure something else out because. We were not
• 34:45
  really interested in moving at the time because
• 34:48
  my oldest son was going into his sophomore year
• 34:51
  of high school and my youngest son was going
• 34:52
  into middle school. So it wasn't really a good
• 34:55
  time to be uprooting the family and relocating.
• 34:58
  So I thought, well, I can package beer for a
• 35:02
  while. So I learned how to keg beer and keg beer
• 35:06
  on the keg line that's at Bell Breaker right
• 35:09
  now. Oh, nice. That's the old Odell keg line.
• 35:13
  Oh, cool. Yeah. And learned how to bottle beer.
• 35:16
  And I did that for a while. So now here's where
• 35:19
  Joe Moorfield comes into play. So at this time,
• 35:23
  Joe Moorfield was the head brewer at Odell Brewing.
• 35:26
  And one day he walked back to the packaging.
• 35:29
  There had been a change in personnel on the brew
• 35:32
  deck. And he said, have you ever thought about
• 35:34
  being a shift brewer? I was like, no, not really.
• 35:39
  And so Joe Moorfield said. He said, would you
• 35:43
  be interested in learning? And I was like, yeah.
• 35:45
  It was good because it was a pay raise. Yeah.
• 35:49
  Quite a nice pay raise at the time. So that's
• 35:53
  when I started brewing. They taught me how to
• 35:56
  brew on the 50 -barrel system at that time, which
• 35:59
  was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. But that
• 36:01
  was that time of big growth for Odell Brewing,
• 36:04
  just like everybody else. Which, okay, so now
• 36:06
  back to all that inventory on hops. InBev comes
• 36:10
  in. There's all these hops in storage. And I
• 36:14
  think that's at the time when Anheuser -Busch
• 36:18
  InBev was coming back to you growers, to the
• 36:21
  growers and saying, we don't need your Willamets.
• 36:23
  We've got all these Willamets. Yes, I remember
• 36:26
  that conversation. Okay. Because they were paying
• 36:29
  you not to grow hops, I believe. I think there
• 36:34
  was some of that. I also remember just, yeah,
• 36:37
  I mean, just that they were wanting out and they
• 36:39
  were going to be. out of the market for a period
• 36:42
  of time right so we're like what do we do yeah
• 36:45
  yeah exactly and so and that really depressed
• 36:48
  the price of hops at the time yeah so i think
• 36:53
  to me this is kind of that perfect storm there's
• 36:56
  all these hops available and you have all these
• 36:59
  new new breweries up and coming with a lot of
• 37:03
  cheap hops and a very intense interest in learning
• 37:07
  how to use all these hops and make hop forward
• 37:11
  beers that's what i think drove the whole craft
• 37:15
  industry focusing on on the hop side because
• 37:19
  even at that time that was ipas were the beer
• 37:24
  that was really taking off you think about the
• 37:27
  other beers other styles of beer that were available
• 37:29
  so you think i mean to some degree the the hoppy
• 37:34
  beers were a product of just excess inventory
• 37:37
  and cheap prices. Over supply. Yeah. Over supply.
• 37:40
  Yeah. Interesting. Well, because as a craft brewer,
• 37:43
  it was like, should we do half a pound per barrel?
• 37:47
  Like, no, these are cheap. Let's do a pound per
• 37:49
  barrel. You know, it's just like it. And then
• 37:51
  it became kind of an arms race. I remember that
• 37:54
  period of time where it was like, how. hoppy
• 37:57
  and bitter could you could you get a beer exactly
• 38:00
  i was like man there seems like there's a point
• 38:02
  of diminishing returns here exactly exactly because
• 38:05
  average human perception for for bitterness is
• 38:08
  you know what is it like 50 bus or something
• 38:11
  yeah something like that but you know people
• 38:13
  were pushing 50 or 180 and 100 bu beers you know
• 38:18
  where it's no one's going to taste the difference
• 38:20
  but it was more of a big hat contest huh And
• 38:26
  then so, and then you've, that's your current
• 38:28
  rule there. I am no longer a shift brewer. Yeah.
• 38:33
  Which is good. I'm getting kind of old for that.
• 38:35
  Yeah. Well, yeah. So, so that was when we had
• 38:38
  our 50 barrel system. And so I brewed on that
• 38:40
  from 2011 to 2013. So yeah, right at two years.
• 38:49
  And then that's when we put in our 140 barrel
• 38:53
  system. which was semi -automated, going from
• 38:57
  basically an oversized homebrew system, 50 -barrel
• 39:00
  homebrew system, which was 100 % manual. There
• 39:04
  was no controls on that, to a semi -automated
• 39:07
  new system. I did that for a couple more years,
• 39:12
  and then I had an opportunity to start working
• 39:15
  on procurement, ordering all the raw materials.
• 39:19
  For brewing. So they moved me kind of into a
• 39:22
  dual role there. I would still pick up a brew
• 39:25
  shift here and there. But over time, I've moved
• 39:28
  out of that into more of a raw material quality
• 39:31
  role. Yeah. Which is what I currently do. So
• 39:36
  I'm starting my 16th year with Odell Brewing.
• 39:39
  That's crazy. Next month in October. So then
• 39:43
  as you watch this landscape change. Yeah. I mean,
• 39:48
  what were your thoughts or takeaways or what
• 39:50
  are your takeaways now? What were your thoughts
• 39:52
  then thoughts now? I mean, you know, I think
• 39:55
  probably the biggest thing for me is, and probably
• 39:59
  the thing I'm most grateful for is going back
• 40:03
  to Bush ag days is the way I was accepted into
• 40:09
  this hop industry, not really being a trained
• 40:13
  brewer. not necessarily being a trained hop scientist,
• 40:18
  but just the acceptance, you know, for me, that
• 40:24
  was the biggest, my biggest takeaway. I remember
• 40:27
  the first hop convention I went to with Odell
• 40:32
  Brewing. It'd been a couple of years since I'd
• 40:34
  been to a convention and it was like coming home
• 40:37
  and it was, it was actually quite emotional for
• 40:39
  me to see everybody again, you know, and it was
• 40:42
  just like, Oh, glad you're back. And I was like,
• 40:44
  I'm glad to be back. Cause it really is a special
• 40:47
  industry. You know, for me with my appreciation
• 40:51
  of agriculture, you know, and studying agriculture
• 40:53
  and the appreciation for brewing being the original
• 40:58
  agribusiness, you know, it really, it really
• 41:02
  was something for me to come back home. I felt
• 41:06
  like I was coming home to the hop industry. Yeah.
• 41:09
  It's been very special. So I guess that's. That's
• 41:12
  my first takeaway, I guess I'd like to say. The
• 41:15
  second is, at the time when I started in hops
• 41:20
  25 years ago, I was one of the younger guys at
• 41:25
  that time. Again, the market was very depressed
• 41:30
  at that time, as we mentioned. Prices were low,
• 41:33
  and there was a lot of concern from the older
• 41:37
  generation about the younger generation. there
• 41:41
  was concern that there wasn't something for the
• 41:44
  younger generation to come back to the hop farm
• 41:47
  for. Yeah. When I came back, I came back for
• 41:51
  the love of farming, not really knowing, you
• 41:54
  know, I'd been involved in the market, you know,
• 41:58
  as a kind of a sideline observer, but it took
• 42:01
  me a while to kind of understand maybe how bad
• 42:03
  it was. And I came back just for the love of
• 42:06
  farming and then quickly realized that, yeah,
• 42:08
  it was a challenging industry. And there was,
• 42:11
  I don't remember many or any younger people coming
• 42:17
  back to the farms. And then craft beer, you know,
• 42:19
  took off and younger people started coming back
• 42:22
  into the space. Yeah. Or into the space. So,
• 42:24
  yeah. You included, right? What year did you
• 42:26
  come back? Well, I mean, like I said, I came
• 42:29
  back pre -craft or, you know, early stages. And
• 42:34
  so that was probably like 2004, 2005. Yeah. Like
• 42:38
  right in there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that makes
• 42:40
  sense. Yeah. So you've been able to ride this
• 42:43
  whole wave for a long time. I feel like I've
• 42:47
  rode a couple waves. We're on another one right
• 42:49
  now. Right. Well, and that's the thing about
• 42:52
  the hop industry is that, you know, it's a challenge
• 42:57
  for you guys to figure out what to plant, when
• 43:01
  to plant it, how much to plant, you know. And
• 43:04
  these boom and bust cycles are. are challenging.
• 43:08
  They're really challenging. Yeah. And you know,
• 43:11
  that, that's one thing, I guess the good years
• 43:15
  are fun. You know, we have, but we have fun during
• 43:17
  the down years too. I think, I don't think we're
• 43:21
  really in a, well, yes, we're in a down year
• 43:25
  because there are a lot of hops that have come
• 43:27
  out of the ground. There's some entities that
• 43:29
  are, you know, struggling. Yeah. And that's sad
• 43:33
  to see. You don't want to see any more growers.
• 43:36
  We don't want to lose any more growers. To me,
• 43:40
  that's something that's always tough to see something
• 43:46
  like that happen. And I guess that's one of the
• 43:49
  things that the craft industry, I have to say,
• 43:53
  has been because of our relationship with the
• 43:58
  growers. I think that's something that we really
• 44:00
  have to make sure that we keep you guys healthy.
• 44:06
  I personally, I don't want to ever see, I don't
• 44:09
  want to go back to the days when it's the big
• 44:12
  three just beating the grower down to the point
• 44:15
  where it's like squeezing you guys for everything
• 44:17
  you can get. You know, looking back at it now,
• 44:21
  it was Wall Street to me. Wall Street was driving
• 44:26
  that. It was shareholder value is what they were.
• 44:31
  what the management of the big three were going
• 44:33
  after at that point. And you guys were the ones
• 44:35
  that were taking the brunt of that. Hopefully
• 44:40
  we'll never go back to that situation. And that's
• 44:42
  where I think the craft has been somewhat able
• 44:44
  to, the craft industry has been able to smooth
• 44:48
  that out to a certain degree. For sure. The thing
• 44:52
  we have to figure out now is how to get younger
• 44:53
  people to drink beer. I know. Do you think it's
• 44:55
  going to come back a little bit? I am hopeful.
• 44:59
  There are times I see, Young people enjoying
• 45:02
  beer and at breweries and coming into our tap
• 45:06
  rooms and other tap rooms that I visit. And I
• 45:09
  think, OK, maybe this will work. And then there's
• 45:11
  times when I look at the numbers and I'm like,
• 45:14
  oh, I don't know. I've always been a beer guy.
• 45:18
  Yeah. So for me, it's strange to not see that.
• 45:23
  I think it's cyclical. I'm hoping people come
• 45:27
  back. They went out and. try to other things
• 45:30
  and come back to the old tried and true. Right.
• 45:33
  Right. Exactly. And that's what, that's my hope
• 45:35
  as well. If we as a craft brewing industry and
• 45:39
  we as a hop growing industry and we as a barley
• 45:43
  growing industry, if we can just kind of hang
• 45:46
  on and, and, and ride this one out and hopefully
• 45:48
  things will come back. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean,
• 45:52
  interesting journey. Yes. It's been an honor
• 45:56
  to work. in this industry. And again, that was,
• 46:02
  that was really special being able to come back
• 46:04
  after, you know, being jettisoned after MBEV.
• 46:11
  Cause, cause I, I did not think I'd have this
• 46:13
  opportunity. It's, it's been extremely rewarding
• 46:19
  to see the younger generation come back and,
• 46:23
  and really build this industry. To a point where
• 46:29
  it's amazing. I think about the reinvestment
• 46:33
  you guys have made into your farms, into your
• 46:38
  people. It's one thing, I think, that brewers
• 46:43
  who just came up through craft, they don't have
• 46:46
  that perspective of how different things were
• 46:51
  25 years ago. Yeah, they're materially different.
• 46:56
  Yeah. Yeah. It's just because that's in fact,
• 46:59
  that's something we've, we've been talking a
• 47:01
  little bit about this, you know, this harvest
• 47:03
  is brewers who are here for the first time. They're,
• 47:07
  they're thinking, Oh, it's always been like this.
• 47:09
  You know, these are beautiful facilities and
• 47:11
  you know, these, but it's, it's been a lot of
• 47:15
  work on the growers part to get it to that point.
• 47:19
  And I'd like to give, you know, I think some
• 47:22
  credit, hopefully credit goes to Groups like
• 47:25
  Hop Quality Group. Yeah. I think that's been
• 47:28
  a good thing for the industry, hopefully. Yeah,
• 47:32
  we didn't even talk about Hop Quality Group.
• 47:35
  Joe talked about it a bit the other day. Yeah,
• 47:38
  so I don't know. What's your current role with
• 47:40
  Hop Quality Group? I represent Odell Brewing
• 47:45
  at Hop Quality Group. And I sit on some committees.
• 47:49
  I'm also on some Brewers Association committees
• 47:52
  as well. So that way, you know, I can keep hopefully
• 47:56
  younger brewers coming up. Hopefully I can give
• 48:00
  them some words of advice possibly. Yeah. No,
• 48:05
  I think the Hop Quality Group is really good.
• 48:08
  And I think one of the things that I'm not sure
• 48:12
  if this was the original intention of the Hop
• 48:14
  Quality Group, but to pass on stories, mentorship
• 48:19
  to some of these younger brewers, I think is
• 48:22
  going to be really important. Yeah, I agree.
• 48:24
  It seems like that, and Joe talked about that
• 48:26
  a little bit as well, which is really nice to
• 48:29
  hear that because I hadn't even thought about
• 48:30
  it serving that purpose. But I think it's really
• 48:34
  needed. Well, and I think this is an excellent
• 48:36
  venue to do that. I mean, hopefully brewers are
• 48:40
  listening to this and they're picking something
• 48:42
  up there as well. Yeah, for sure. What would
• 48:46
  you say, Leslie? I just snuck in. It's good to
• 48:51
  see you, sir. It's kind of mentoring. I think
• 48:56
  that is important. I think it's the younger generation
• 49:00
  to understand this. You're a grandson. We had
• 49:05
  your grandson up on the ladder. And helping us
• 49:09
  make hop pellets at Single Hill the other day.
• 49:12
  Yeah, it was amazing to see that. And I think
• 49:15
  that's going to be important for that generation,
• 49:18
  you know, to keep them involved. Because I think
• 49:21
  that's the ultimate goal, right, is to keep the
• 49:25
  next young people interested in coming back to
• 49:28
  the farm. Yeah, I mean, farming in general needs
• 49:31
  that. And, you know, we're speaking specifically
• 49:34
  of the hop industry, but farming in general needs
• 49:36
  that. Well, Leslie, earlier we were talking about,
• 49:39
  you know, when my father told me I wasn't coming
• 49:42
  back to the farm. But that was a very – that
• 49:44
  was the early 80s. You know, and that was not
• 49:46
  a good time in agriculture at all. And, you know,
• 49:51
  looking back on it, he was probably right because
• 49:53
  I've had a great career and great opportunities.
• 49:56
  In fact, speaking of your career, go back to
• 49:59
  about 2008 when you went to work for Berry, which
• 50:03
  is Bush Agricultural. Right. I'm going to do
• 50:06
  a little bit of a thank you. Speaking of the
• 50:09
  next generation, I've got to pick my son up.
• 50:11
  I want you guys to talk for a while. Liz could
• 50:14
  just turn this off. I'm going to do the ending.
• 50:20
  Scott, you say that you're very grateful for
• 50:24
  the career that you've been able to have. You
• 50:27
  mentioned how welcoming the industry is to you.
• 50:32
  I think I can speak for the industry where, like,
• 50:35
  we are better because you've been a part of it.
• 50:38
  Well, thank you. It's truly an honor to sit here
• 50:42
  with you. I appreciate that. And you're always
• 50:45
  a bright, shining human, and I always get a smile
• 50:49
  on my face when I see you walking across the
• 50:50
  room. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's good for
• 50:52
  me. And, I mean, I got a chance to thank him
• 50:55
  very specially last year in Poland when Scott
• 50:59
  received the Order of the Hop. Yeah, that was
• 51:01
  a very humbling experience. Well, it's well -deserved.
• 51:05
  Thank you so much. I really appreciate that because
• 51:07
  it's not what I was after. As I mentioned, this
• 51:13
  industry is so important to me. These families
• 51:16
  are so important to me. Well, you're important
• 51:18
  to us, so thank you very much. Thank you very
• 51:20
  much. That's very kind. I appreciate that. Yeah,
• 51:24
  and thank you for coming on and sharing. Oh,
• 51:26
  this has been a blast. I hope to have you back
• 51:27
  on. Oh, I'd love to. I'd love to, yeah. Yeah,
• 51:31
  you guys talk for a little bit. Okay. Yeah. So
• 51:34
  I walked in a little bit late here on the discussion
• 51:39
  about mentoring, which I think is very important
• 51:41
  to a lot of people. You know, when Mike first
• 51:43
  came back to the farm, he was... Only one of
• 51:47
  a handful of young people in this industry. We
• 51:51
  talked a little bit about that. How about at
• 51:54
  that time in the early 2000s, there were not
• 52:00
  a lot of young people that were coming back.
• 52:02
  It was pretty scarce. And I remember that being
• 52:06
  a concern amongst the growers. And I remember
• 52:11
  going to my first few hop conventions and thinking,
• 52:15
  wow, this is an old industry. Yeah, that sounds
• 52:20
  like the IHGC, all those old guys. A lot of them
• 52:25
  have gone already around the world. But to me,
• 52:28
  that was the bright spot, is seeing so many young
• 52:33
  people come back to the farm. And I know Mike's
• 52:37
  been through the cycle, but I think that's tough
• 52:42
  for a lot of these. The younger generation has
• 52:45
  come back to see, okay, it's not all. Yeah, it's
• 52:49
  not all roses, that's for sure. And, you know,
• 52:52
  I think that's what's going to be the determining
• 52:55
  factor. I mean, anyone that's successful has
• 52:57
  to go through that period of pain. Yes, yes.
• 53:01
  Yeah, exactly. It makes you also appreciate the
• 53:05
  good times that much more. The craft beer movement
• 53:09
  definitely brought back young people. Yeah. Otherwise,
• 53:14
  it'd be a whole different world out there. It
• 53:16
  really would. I don't know where we would be
• 53:18
  without that craft boom explosion. As we were
• 53:23
  talking not so long ago, before the craft beer
• 53:26
  deal, we'd be surprised if we had one brewery
• 53:29
  come through during harvest. You know, now with
• 53:33
  still over 8 ,000 breweries. It's crazy. It's
• 53:36
  been fun staying up here for this extra time
• 53:40
  just to... Especially helping out at Single Hill.
• 53:44
  Because all these breweries are coming through.
• 53:46
  And it's like, I have no idea. They're wearing
• 53:49
  their gear usually, but that's how you can tell.
• 53:51
  You don't know everybody? No, I don't. There's
• 53:53
  so many breweries out there. And it's a lot of
• 53:57
  younger people as well. Which is good. That brings
• 54:01
  up a question on the breweries. Is there a whole
• 54:04
  new generation of young people coming into the
• 54:06
  breweries? I mean, that's part of that mentoring
• 54:07
  thing. I don't interact with a lot of them. Right.
• 54:12
  Well, they seem younger to me. Yeah. Yeah, I
• 54:17
  think, you know, they're probably, I would say,
• 54:20
  30s, 40s. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's still
• 54:24
  people in their 20s that are interested as well.
• 54:27
  So one of the things we talked about was how
• 54:29
  to get the youngest generation, you know, the
• 54:32
  20 -year -olds interested in beer. Because a
• 54:35
  lot of the previous ones came out of home brewing
• 54:38
  or proverbial garage. Right. Did you and Mike
• 54:43
  talk about your time collecting the world collection
• 54:46
  of hops? No, we did not go into that. Oh, my
• 54:48
  gosh. Everyone should know about that. That was
• 54:51
  a really interesting experience to be able to
• 54:54
  do that. I'll give credit to Mel Anderson and
• 54:58
  Gary Wickenstein were the ones that really. to
• 55:02
  recognize the need to do that. You might explain
• 55:04
  what the goal of that was. Because it went on
• 55:06
  for, what, three, four, five years? Yeah, yeah.
• 55:08
  Well, and this is, yeah, so this goes back to
• 55:11
  hot powdery mildew and looking for new sources
• 55:15
  of genetic resistance. Because, you know, when
• 55:19
  mildew first came in in, what, 1996, 97? 1997
• 55:24
  is when. Yeah, that was when, yeah, it really
• 55:27
  took off. And at that time, there wasn't the
• 55:30
  chemistries available. And so there was that
• 55:33
  immediate emergency clearance to use chemistries.
• 55:38
  And most people recognize that, well, that's
• 55:41
  short term. Eventually, things got to a point.
• 55:45
  But there was always this more of a long -term
• 55:47
  concern. It's like, we need to look at native
• 55:51
  hops. that are growing in the wild because they're
• 55:55
  all over. Yep. All over North America. You know,
• 55:57
  I've walked in a lot of strange places. I've
• 55:59
  seen hops in very strange places. Exactly. Yeah.
• 56:03
  And so, you know, and that goes back to a lot
• 56:06
  of the work that Dr. Richard Hampton, the USDA,
• 56:09
  he was a retired USDA plant pathologist. He had
• 56:13
  done quite a bit of that work. Out of Colorado?
• 56:15
  No, he was in Corvallis. I don't remember that
• 56:18
  name. Yeah. He would have been a contemporary
• 56:21
  of Al Hunnell. Or Cal Scotland. Cal Scotland,
• 56:24
  exactly. Yeah, they were all part of that same
• 56:27
  generation. And he had done some work mostly
• 56:30
  in the upper Midwest. So North Dakota, Manitoba,
• 56:35
  Saskatchewan. And one of the projects we were
• 56:39
  working on with USDA, which to me was quite interesting,
• 56:42
  was it was a phylogenetic study because there's
• 56:45
  three common subspecies of Humulus lupulus. Well,
• 56:52
  Japanicus is a separate one. Yes, but that really
• 56:55
  doesn't have much brewing value. No brewing value,
• 56:58
  basically. But Lupuloides and Neomexicanus are
• 57:02
  the two that have the brewing value. And so Dr.
• 57:07
  Hampton was always interested in Lupuloides,
• 57:10
  which is that upper Midwest. What we ended up
• 57:15
  doing, we had some USDA ARS scientists travel
• 57:19
  with us. when we would find these hops at different
• 57:23
  places and they would collect the leaf material,
• 57:25
  send them back to Fort Collins, where the National
• 57:29
  Center for Genetic Resource Preservation, and
• 57:32
  they would run genomic analysis on them. Back
• 57:36
  in those days? Yeah, well, this was 2001, 2002.
• 57:42
  Yeah, it was possible. Which is interesting because...
• 57:48
  I don't know if everyone knows this, but the
• 57:49
  genome of hops is quite complicated. I mean,
• 57:52
  it's, what, 5X of a human or maybe 50? I don't
• 57:55
  know. It's something crazy. Exactly. But they
• 57:57
  were able to, they call it a phylogenetic study,
• 58:01
  and they can tell relatedness. Oh, yeah. So what
• 58:04
  they determined, it's interesting because there's
• 58:07
  a map. 24andMe. I'm sorry? 24andMe. Yeah, pretty
• 58:10
  much. But it's the Wisconsin Glacier that created
• 58:15
  the Great Lakes. And it came down to southwest
• 58:20
  Iowa, northwest Missouri, southeast Nebraska,
• 58:27
  northeast Kansas. Kind of in that St. Joseph,
• 58:31
  Atchison area. That's kind of where the glacier
• 58:34
  approached to that point. And then it started
• 58:38
  retreating. But it picked up all these plants
• 58:41
  as it was coming down, right? And it stopped.
• 58:44
  and it deposited, and then it started receiving.
• 58:47
  And then they started all intermating, and then
• 58:50
  they spread out from there. In a lot of the literature,
• 58:53
  you'll read of a native North American hop. So
• 58:56
  that would be Neo -Mexicanus or even all three
• 59:00
  of them? Well, all three. All three. Yeah. So
• 59:02
  there is a native, but there is the source of
• 59:05
  the parent materials. Is it still out of? China.
• 59:09
  China. Yeah, Yunnan. province, I believe, is
• 59:12
  where they've determined that. That was the original.
• 59:15
  Exactly. And it goes back to, you know, before
• 59:17
  tectonics moved everywhere. Yeah, yeah. We were
• 59:20
  still. What did they call it? Pangea. Pangea.
• 59:23
  Pangea, exactly. And spread things out. But it's
• 59:27
  interesting because during that time, we wanted
• 59:30
  to go to Manitoba because Professor. who was
• 59:35
  the hop breeder. The very first plant. The true
• 59:40
  hop breeder. Just picking hops out of the field.
• 59:43
  Exactly. He was making crosses. Yeah, and he
• 59:46
  was based in Kent in the UK. I believe he had
• 59:50
  come over and was working with Ag Canada at the
• 59:53
  time, and they found these native hops in Morden,
• 1:00:00
  Manitoba, which there's an Ag Canada station
• 1:00:02
  there. And so one of the places we were wanting
• 1:00:06
  to look was that area. And we actually found
• 1:00:09
  hops in that area. And we collected them. Just
• 1:00:15
  for everybody's edification, that whole collection
• 1:00:18
  went? Well, actually, no, there's still a lot
• 1:00:21
  of that at the National Center for Genetic Resource
• 1:00:23
  Preservation. Yeah, they still have it. Some
• 1:00:26
  of it came up to Prosser. I think a lot of it
• 1:00:29
  got tossed in Prosser, unfortunately. But they're
• 1:00:32
  still there, and I still know how to get back
• 1:00:34
  to them. So if we want to go back, we can do
• 1:00:36
  that. Well, so you're geo -marked. Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:38
  Oh, you're cool. Oh, yeah. But what's interesting
• 1:00:41
  about that Morden, Manitoba hop, so Professor
• 1:00:45
  Salmon back in like 1919 or something. Yeah,
• 1:00:47
  something like that. Yeah, that was very 1909.
• 1:00:49
  Yeah, they collected a female in Morden, Manitoba,
• 1:00:53
  and it was labeled BB -1 and went back to the
• 1:00:57
  U .K. And it was open pollinated by European
• 1:01:01
  males. And resulting from that were bullion and
• 1:01:07
  Brewer's Gold. And then from Brewer's Gold. Everything
• 1:01:11
  else came. Yeah. In fact, the new hop that's
• 1:01:16
  just been released by Kayla Alfendorf down in
• 1:01:19
  Prosser. Was it Vera? Vera, yeah, is a daughter
• 1:01:21
  of Northern Brewer as well. I mean, there was
• 1:01:25
  a lot of granddaughters, great granddaughters.
• 1:01:27
  It's amazing. Well, and then I'm going to talk
• 1:01:30
  a little bit about Strata because if you follow
• 1:01:32
  Strata, Strata is the daughter of Purley. Purley
• 1:01:37
  is the daughter of Northern Brewer. Northern
• 1:01:39
  Brewer is the daughter of Brewer's Gold. So it's
• 1:01:43
  all – I thought Brewer's Gold was the head of
• 1:01:45
  Northern Brewer's, but maybe it was. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:48
  So BB1, Brewer's Gold, Northern Brewer. Okay.
• 1:01:53
  And then the Germans took Northern Brewer and
• 1:01:55
  they crossed it with a wild male from Denmark.
• 1:02:01
  Anton Lutz told me this. Yeah, I have all this.
• 1:02:04
  He's a great guy. Oh, he is. I've got a lot of
• 1:02:06
  good notes from him. We were just talking all
• 1:02:09
  these pedigrees. It's fascinating to me. So anyway,
• 1:02:13
  Strata, which many people are using now, has
• 1:02:16
  that lineage as well. Another one that's interesting
• 1:02:19
  to me is Comet. Yeah, we did raise Comet for
• 1:02:23
  a brief period. Comet is the daughter of Sunshine,
• 1:02:26
  but the male is a Neomexicanus out of Utah. Did
• 1:02:33
  not know that. Yeah. It was originally bred as
• 1:02:36
  a high alpha hawk, right? Which you think about,
• 1:02:39
  because it was maybe, what, 10, 12? 10, yeah.
• 1:02:41
  10, 12%. And then it wasn't long after that,
• 1:02:45
  I think, that, was it Galena? Came out of Idaho.
• 1:02:49
  Yeah. And then Nugget followed that. And then
• 1:02:52
  it was kind of an arms race. Yeah. It just kind
• 1:02:56
  of kept going on and on. Roca. There was all
• 1:02:59
  kinds of talismans. Oh, yeah. I forgot about
• 1:03:01
  that one. Yeah. That was out of Idaho also. Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  We raised that for a while. That was a nasty
• 1:03:05
  critter. Oh, yeah. Huge find. But not many colons.
• 1:03:09
  But it was very late. It was probably the latest
• 1:03:12
  hop we ever picked into late September. Well,
• 1:03:15
  back in those days, we would start middle of
• 1:03:18
  August. And finished by mid -September. So this
• 1:03:21
  harvested late September, which was very late.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah. Yeah, that would be. We had a mid -season
• 1:03:27
  frost in September one time. Ooh. All the hops
• 1:03:30
  turned brown. Talisman. Nope. Was that right?
• 1:03:33
  It just kept growing. Wow. It was a tough old
• 1:03:35
  one. So could you keep people around, keep workers
• 1:03:38
  around? Yeah, it was a whole different world
• 1:03:40
  back then. And we're still in apples and hops
• 1:03:44
  and other fruits. So you can move around. Yeah,
• 1:03:46
  and people moved, and it was very pruning in
• 1:03:50
  the winter for apples, for fruit. Then they came
• 1:03:53
  into the spring to help twine and train. Then
• 1:03:57
  they went into summer thinning apples. Then they
• 1:04:00
  went into hop harvest, and they went to apple
• 1:04:02
  harvest. That was within our own organization.
• 1:04:05
  Then you started getting all these trellis systems
• 1:04:07
  and apples, so people were needed almost year
• 1:04:10
  -round to train all the apples on the trellis.
• 1:04:12
  So it changed the whole workforce quite a bit.
• 1:04:15
  I didn't realize that, but that makes sense.
• 1:04:17
  You know, you talked about, I don't know if you
• 1:04:20
  guys talked about CRISPR or any of the other
• 1:04:24
  potential GMO. Yeah, we didn't really go into
• 1:04:28
  that too far, but that to me is quite exciting
• 1:04:32
  right now. We had an update in July at the Hop
• 1:04:38
  Research Council. We had an update from Oregon
• 1:04:41
  State University where they're doing some work
• 1:04:44
  on regenerating plants. This could be... When
• 1:04:48
  you say regenerating... Well, so they have to
• 1:04:50
  figure out how to get the plants regenerated
• 1:04:56
  from callus. Oh, okay. Yeah. At the risk of saying
• 1:05:01
  something wrong here. I don't want to... Once
• 1:05:04
  you go through the gene editing phase, you have
• 1:05:09
  to regenerate the plant, okay, from tissue using
• 1:05:14
  tissue culture in the lab. And they've shown
• 1:05:17
  that we can do it with hops. It is possible to
• 1:05:21
  regenerate some new plant lengths that are coming
• 1:05:24
  from that. It's just on the cusp. But the early
• 1:05:28
  work that's going on is proving that it is a
• 1:05:32
  viable. technology. Well, given as complicated
• 1:05:35
  as the genome of hops is, I mean, because they
• 1:05:38
  already know that a lot of the traits that we
• 1:05:41
  have in hops are not associated with just one
• 1:05:43
  gene. It may be a series of genes. It may be
• 1:05:46
  a combination of genes, on or off. CRISPR is
• 1:05:50
  just kind of turning things on and off, isn't
• 1:05:51
  it? Well, it's more of an insertion, is my understanding.
• 1:05:55
  I don't think CRISPR inserts. I think GMO inserts.
• 1:05:57
  Well, no. Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong.
• 1:06:00
  Yeah, so CRISPR is an insertion. So what you
• 1:06:05
  do is you're cutting the sequence, and you're
• 1:06:08
  inserting into that sequence the same, or a different
• 1:06:11
  sequence. Yes, in a different order. Okay. But
• 1:06:14
  the sequence is coming from hops itself. Yeah,
• 1:06:17
  right. So it's what they call cisgenic. It's
• 1:06:21
  not transgenic. It's not coming from another.
• 1:06:24
  Exactly, from another species. It's within the
• 1:06:27
  species. I would have thought that technology
• 1:06:30
  would be slow in being adopted, but what's that
• 1:06:34
  apple that came out of Articryps? Yeah. Came
• 1:06:37
  out of Canada. Right. And that is full GMO. Yeah,
• 1:06:40
  yeah. There's no brownie with it. It's a non
• 1:06:42
  -brownie apple. Okay. Yeah. And I never thought
• 1:06:44
  that would make it across the border. Hell, it
• 1:06:46
  came right across the border. Is that right?
• 1:06:47
  Yeah. Okay. I have not seen it, but I know it's
• 1:06:51
  in the United States being marketed. Okay. Well,
• 1:06:54
  I think that it's going to be up to the Europeans.
• 1:06:57
  to really drive this because they're the ones
• 1:07:00
  that have so far been opposed. But at the same
• 1:07:05
  time, they're also opposed to the amount of pesticides
• 1:07:09
  that are being used. And one way we can get away
• 1:07:12
  from the amount of pesticides that we use is
• 1:07:15
  to be able to use this technology to reduce the
• 1:07:20
  dependency on, because what we can do is we can
• 1:07:22
  take segments from these native hops that, can
• 1:07:27
  be collected that have natural resistance. And
• 1:07:31
  you can take the segments out of those and insert
• 1:07:33
  them into. So, you know, resistance is an interesting
• 1:07:36
  discussion because let's say we have had varieties,
• 1:07:39
  Nugget being one of them, was resistant to powdery
• 1:07:43
  mildew forever and ever and ever, and powdery
• 1:07:45
  mildew went around it. Right. And now R9's not
• 1:07:48
  resistant anymore. So there's a couple other,
• 1:07:51
  I think there's a couple other genes still active.
• 1:07:53
  Yeah. That's a Megan question. That's the thing.
• 1:07:57
  We need to go into those collections, those native
• 1:08:01
  collections that are just growing on their own.
• 1:08:04
  We need to be collecting that and investigating
• 1:08:07
  what they have because it's novel sources of
• 1:08:11
  resistance. And we need to keep putting those
• 1:08:14
  into our commercial germplasm through either
• 1:08:18
  the technology or even just basic hybridization
• 1:08:21
  using a male and a female. Yeah, there's many,
• 1:08:25
  many opportunities there. The thing about using
• 1:08:28
  the gene insertion technology is it's very fast.
• 1:08:33
  And now that it looks like it's going to work,
• 1:08:36
  I think it could be a game changer for the industry.
• 1:08:39
  Private or public? You know, that's a good question.
• 1:08:44
  Loaded question. Yeah, boy. You know, I would
• 1:08:46
  hope it's being developed with public money.
• 1:08:51
  Yeah. Yeah. This is... Oh, I hope I get this
• 1:08:55
  right. A task grant. So it is through the USDA.
• 1:09:00
  And it's really, it's a grant that's designed
• 1:09:03
  for export market. And so it is federal money,
• 1:09:09
  taxpayer money, that's gone to support this.
• 1:09:12
  So I don't think it can be used. As a proprietary.
• 1:09:19
  Well, we go into the fruit industry. Yeah. Public
• 1:09:23
  developed, you know, if it's owned by the university
• 1:09:26
  and then it's, you know, there's royalties at
• 1:09:28
  that. It's very complicated. Yes. It'd be worth
• 1:09:31
  a whole podcast. Oh my gosh, yeah. And how the
• 1:09:34
  EU is pushing their regulations out beyond the
• 1:09:37
  EU. Right. For a couple of reasons. One is to
• 1:09:41
  keep their farmers financially stable, not losing
• 1:09:45
  everything, and then trying to get the whole
• 1:09:47
  world to adopt their deals. I just went through
• 1:09:49
  a discussion just today with some people over
• 1:09:53
  this. We're working with this on the ISGC stuff.
• 1:09:56
  And this push by the EU to get their agenda out
• 1:10:01
  into the world. If you get me squirreled off
• 1:10:04
  on that one, we'll talk way too long. I think
• 1:10:07
  Liz is going to cut us off here. It's going to
• 1:10:09
  be a lot of editing for Andy. I feel bad. We
• 1:10:12
  love you, Andy. We love you, Andy. I think you
• 1:10:15
  two need your own episode. Well, I was going
• 1:10:18
  to ask you, how do you feel about that as far
• 1:10:21
  as adopting the EU standards? Is there a risk
• 1:10:27
  there? I wouldn't. Not really. Okay. I mean,
• 1:10:31
  I think that some of them are pretty onerous.
• 1:10:34
  Some of them are specific to their unique environment
• 1:10:39
  there, say in the hop side, but there's other
• 1:10:42
  things, you know, in the halotron stuff. Right.
• 1:10:45
  But it's interesting when, especially in the
• 1:10:47
  MRL world, this would be a good way to get Maggie
• 1:10:49
  on here and really talk about it. Right. But
• 1:10:52
  there seems to be all these differences. You
• 1:10:54
  know, you may go one country and the MRL is...
• 1:10:57
  0 .001 or then you go somewhere else and it's
• 1:11:00
  0 .05 you know it's crazy right well and that's
• 1:11:03
  the whole harmonization concept right is to get
• 1:11:06
  everybody so that everyone's playing on an equal
• 1:11:09
  field equal playing field yeah do we want to
• 1:11:12
  uh play is this the eu field or is it the world
• 1:11:18
  Are we playing football or football? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:11:20
  football. There's two games of football, you
• 1:11:21
  know. Exactly. Maybe I throw rugby in there just
• 1:11:25
  for the fun of it. Exactly. What kind of goals
• 1:11:28
  are at the end of the field? So, yeah. No, but
• 1:11:31
  it's worth a discussion. I mean, I think, you
• 1:11:34
  know, we talk about tariffs and some of the other
• 1:11:36
  things, but really these non -tariff barriers
• 1:11:38
  are the ones that are really onerous to trade.
• 1:11:41
  From that standpoint, hopefully there remains.
• 1:11:46
  It's a market pull for U .S. hops going into
• 1:11:50
  Europe and other countries as well. And I think
• 1:11:53
  that's still been pretty strong, my understanding.
• 1:11:57
  It's still. Well, I think if we break down the
• 1:12:01
  market, you know, let's say that the world runs
• 1:12:03
  on alpha. Right. Over half the world is alpha
• 1:12:07
  -based pellets, whatever. Then you get into the
• 1:12:11
  specialized aroma varieties, you know, really.
• 1:12:14
  Germany, I think I just did some work on this.
• 1:12:17
  The United States is only about 30 -some percent
• 1:12:20
  aroma -based. It depends how you look at a variety.
• 1:12:24
  Where you cut it off by half a percentage at
• 1:12:26
  eight or nine. Where did you count Comet? Comet
• 1:12:32
  didn't make the cut. There's no acreage. Not
• 1:12:36
  enough acreage to count it. But you get into
• 1:12:39
  a whole discussion about where the world is right
• 1:12:42
  now and the alpha side on the Roman side. The
• 1:12:44
  United States is really in a very good position
• 1:12:46
  because we have a very still, I would say, a
• 1:12:49
  robust craft business. Right. Then the alpha
• 1:12:52
  world is just awash, you know, with alpha and
• 1:12:55
  how that plays out. It's going to be a war between
• 1:12:58
  the alpha producers around the world. Yeah, because
• 1:13:01
  they haven't reduced their acreage much. Yeah.
• 1:13:04
  Yeah. So they produce about 1 ,000. hectares
• 1:13:07
  this year. It's a drop in the bucket, isn't it?
• 1:13:10
  They have a real challenge because over half,
• 1:13:13
  close to 60 % of their acreage hectares would
• 1:13:18
  be in Hercules, Tietan, Polaris. Even Magnum,
• 1:13:23
  which was originally an alpha variety, is now
• 1:13:25
  pretty much a specialized. I'd put it almost
• 1:13:27
  in the aroma side. Although it does have higher
• 1:13:30
  alpha. But it's so specialized. It's really used
• 1:13:33
  what I would call varietal demand. Right. Is
• 1:13:37
  there any risk with some of the proprietary alpha
• 1:13:40
  types, you know, these 20 bale per acre, 20 %
• 1:13:43
  alpha, any risk of those getting over into Europe
• 1:13:47
  as far as just kind of blowing that market up
• 1:13:50
  even more? And maybe Andy or Mike or somebody
• 1:13:52
  will cut me off on this one. Okay, so you have
• 1:13:55
  proprietary varieties that are taking up to $1
• 1:13:57
  ,000 or more per acre in royalties. Oh. Yeah,
• 1:14:02
  we leap over that obstacle to be competitive
• 1:14:05
  with no royalty -based alpha. So that would be
• 1:14:08
  a hindrance for your general grower. Yeah, at
• 1:14:11
  least at this point, yeah. Well, that's probably
• 1:14:13
  a good thing. Yeah. Until the market somewhat
• 1:14:15
  gets corrected on the alpha side anyway. How
• 1:14:18
  often is the alpha market corrected? Or has it
• 1:14:22
  been? How often has it been corrected? Well,
• 1:14:25
  yeah. How often has it been stable, I guess,
• 1:14:28
  as far as? It seems like it's always out of whack
• 1:14:30
  one way or the other. Well, there's a couple
• 1:14:33
  of reasons for that. One is there's just a lot
• 1:14:36
  of alpha acreage out there, and alpha is kind
• 1:14:39
  of a dumping ground because there's a generic
• 1:14:41
  component to that, which is not related to any
• 1:14:44
  varietal. Yeah. It's just alpha. It's just alpha.
• 1:14:47
  Yeah, it's just bitter. And that just gets up.
• 1:14:50
  It throws, you know, I think there's some stability
• 1:14:52
  in the general alpha market. This generic market
• 1:14:55
  just kind of throws it out of whack. Right, right.
• 1:14:59
  So it will probably always stay out of violence.
• 1:15:01
  It will always be kind of crazy. Yeah, okay.
• 1:15:03
  And that's where I think we have an advantage
• 1:15:06
  as craft brewers, having such amazing aroma types
• 1:15:11
  available to us. Worldwide. Yes, exactly, exactly.
• 1:15:15
  We're in an enviable place there. I would think
• 1:15:18
  there's a lot of options out there. Does Odell's,
• 1:15:20
  do you guys bring anything in from outside the
• 1:15:22
  United States? No, no. All American homes. Well.
• 1:15:26
  Every once in a while, yeah, we'll do some one
• 1:15:28
  -offs and some different things here and there.
• 1:15:30
  But for the most part, yeah, we are – that's
• 1:15:33
  kind of been always our ethos as a company. You
• 1:15:37
  know, we want to – Support everybody. Exactly.
• 1:15:39
  We're not a global brewer. We have a very small
• 1:15:42
  footprint. I mean, we don't distribute in – we
• 1:15:44
  don't distribute along the West Coast at all,
• 1:15:46
  you know. Idaho and Nevada are as far west as
• 1:15:50
  we go. Yeah. And that goes back to – our founders
• 1:15:55
  you know doug liked the concept of regional of
• 1:15:59
  being a regional beer you know he liked traveling
• 1:16:01
  and tasting the different beers he didn't like
• 1:16:03
  the mcdonald's hamburger complex that i suppose
• 1:16:07
  we shouldn't have any can include this if he
• 1:16:09
  wants full disclosure we are wine grapes well
• 1:16:12
  no that's that's something we didn't talk about
• 1:16:15
  but yeah we but that's something we should we
• 1:16:17
  should mention yeah so i believe this is i have
• 1:16:21
  to think about this i think this is our eighth
• 1:16:23
  Eighth harvest? Yeah. And the first harvest,
• 1:16:26
  we did not have the equipment, so we just bought
• 1:16:28
  the juice. Right. Yeah, I believe that this is
• 1:16:31
  our eighth. I think we've been at it six years.
• 1:16:33
  Okay. We have a small plot, six acres of organically
• 1:16:37
  grown wine grapes, six varieties. And you guys
• 1:16:41
  have been very nice and have taken those grapes.
• 1:16:44
  Well, we love your grapes. Thank you. Yeah. You
• 1:16:48
  know, it was funny because when we first talked
• 1:16:50
  about doing this winery, You know, we're a small
• 1:16:54
  player in Colorado. We have a small winery that's
• 1:16:56
  been in existence for, again, seven years, I
• 1:17:01
  guess. We've been selling wine now or so. You
• 1:17:03
  know, we wanted to be somewhat local and buy
• 1:17:07
  as much Colorado grapes as we could. But we were
• 1:17:11
  such a small player and everything was pretty
• 1:17:13
  well contracted out. So we didn't have availability.
• 1:17:15
  And so it was like, okay, let's start thinking
• 1:17:18
  about where else we can get grapes. And so we
• 1:17:20
  thought. We were talking it over, and it's like,
• 1:17:23
  well, we know, hop growers grow grapes. And so
• 1:17:27
  really, roughly two -thirds of our grapes that
• 1:17:32
  we use at the winery come from a couple of our
• 1:17:35
  favorite hop growers. Yeah, I know. I won't divulge
• 1:17:39
  the other people's names, but they're all good
• 1:17:41
  people. Yes, they are. And totally different
• 1:17:43
  grapes as well. It's nice to have that diversity.
• 1:17:47
  Exactly. But, yeah, no, did you get a chance
• 1:17:51
  to try some of the wine? Yeah, we just got some.
• 1:17:54
  I think Liz tried some. I loved the Malbec. Okay,
• 1:17:57
  good. I loved it all. I liked the Syrah. Yeah,
• 1:18:01
  Travis, our winemaker, and Genevieve, his assistant,
• 1:18:05
  they're doing amazing work. I don't know a lot
• 1:18:07
  about wine, but we taste it, and I think, okay,
• 1:18:10
  that's good. I'm still a beer guy. Well, shout
• 1:18:15
  out to Travis. He's been great to work with.
• 1:18:17
  It was interesting, the original concept for
• 1:18:21
  Adele's was to run the wine across the taps alongside
• 1:18:25
  their beer. Yes. Well, yeah. Right now it's two
• 1:18:32
  separate TTB licenses, the way we're set up now,
• 1:18:35
  and we cannot. We cannot serve beer in the winery,
• 1:18:39
  and we cannot serve wine in the brewery currently.
• 1:18:43
  We can serve both on the patio, which works out
• 1:18:48
  well. You just have a common patio. We have a
• 1:18:51
  common patio, and that's been working really,
• 1:18:54
  really well. But we're investigating now how
• 1:18:57
  can we maybe even go beyond that. So we're working
• 1:19:01
  on that. That's hopefully in the works. Yes,
• 1:19:04
  thank you for your grapes. They're wonderful.
• 1:19:05
  And I'm glad you like it. That's wonderful to
• 1:19:07
  hear. Well, I think we could keep talking for
• 1:19:11
  quite a period here. Here, I'm going to stop
• 1:19:15
  it. Oh, yeah, yeah.