Latest / No Dirt No Flowers Podcast / Traveling Mics @ Austin Hop EXPerience / Ft. Matt Couch & Kirby Kirkconnell

Transcript

Traveling Mics @ Austin Hop EXPerience / Ft. Matt Couch & Kirby Kirkconnell · No Dirt No Flowers Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to another Travelin'
• 0:02
  Mike's episode of No Dirt, No Flowers. In this
• 0:05
  episode, Mike and I are down in Austin, Texas
• 0:08
  for our most recent Latitude 46 hop experience.
• 0:11
  And we had the great opportunity to sit down
• 0:12
  with Matt Couch and Kirby Kirkconnell from Old
• 0:15
  Greg Brewing and Solon Consulting. This wide
• 0:17
  -ranging episode covers their early days in the
• 0:19
  brewing industry, their approach to craft, and
• 0:21
  building a new brew pub in today's market. It's
• 0:23
  a long one, but a good one. Hope you enjoy. So
• 0:35
  I'm supposed to talk in my accent. You're supposed
• 0:38
  to talk in my accent. You're supposed to talk
• 0:41
  in my accent. You read it? Oh, yeah. You guys
• 0:42
  slipping it on during? Yeah, I'm going to do
• 0:44
  it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to try it.
• 0:45
  I'm going to try it. My wife, Lisa said that
• 0:48
  you were like, you got to call your sister so
• 0:49
  you can get your accent right. That's a pretty
• 0:53
  big flip right there. We're totally Americanized.
• 0:57
  Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get into the accent,
• 0:59
  but we'll see. Well, here we are at Old Greg
• 1:01
  with... kirby kirk connell and matt couch hi
• 1:07
  guys thanks for having us yeah welcome welcome
• 1:10
  welcome hello welcome yeah thank you thanks for
• 1:13
  inviting us having us and so far what have we
• 1:17
  done we've done a lot in the first 30 minutes
• 1:19
  we've ripped milk beers which i don't even know
• 1:23
  what that is kirby you want to take that one
• 1:26
  yeah um so ripping milks was what we're calling
• 1:29
  it we're basically we're just making doing a
• 1:31
  milk pour so we're doing a Traditional Czech
• 1:34
  style side faucet pour, full foam in the glass.
• 1:39
  It's great for chugging with your friends and
• 1:41
  finishing out a night or starting a morning.
• 1:44
  Breakfast starts with milk. So we're clear, though.
• 1:46
  The milk name is Milka, which is Czech. And don't
• 1:51
  ask me to spell it, okay? There's an L where
• 1:53
  there shouldn't be one, at least in English.
• 1:55
  So it's a milk pour, we call it. Love it. So
• 1:59
  we're down here for the... hop experience in
• 2:02
  austin you guys brewed beer for that using 1631
• 2:07
  you can talk about that a little bit later maybe
• 2:09
  and yeah we just wanted to get together and have
• 2:11
  a chat before we go over there later today and
• 2:14
  i think to start tell us a little bit about each
• 2:18
  of you guys and what your history's been in the
• 2:20
  brewing industry and old greg you guys are what
• 2:24
  a year a little over a year a couple months yeah
• 2:27
  you're in and yeah talk about maybe how that
• 2:31
  experience has been opening up and where you're
• 2:34
  at and you know take it from there well uh my
• 2:37
  experience in the brewing industry has been um
• 2:40
  i moved to austin after i got out of the service
• 2:43
  in the navy um was working in the hospitals i
• 2:46
  was a corpsman and got into brewing beer here
• 2:49
  in austin started a smaller brewery called 512
• 2:51
  and then went on from there to a couple other
• 2:54
  brewers i met up with matt decided to start building
• 2:58
  some brewers for people and helping people out
• 2:59
  in the industry found this place, decided we
• 3:02
  wanted to put one together and started founding
• 3:05
  our business partners. And we started building
• 3:07
  it from the ground up. Obviously, we've helped
• 3:09
  out a bunch of people, built other brewers around
• 3:12
  town and the nation. And so we had a lot of experience
• 3:16
  in building them. So we got everything as we
• 3:18
  bought on the market, used and pieced it together
• 3:22
  exactly the way we wanted. And it came in for
• 3:25
  a really great budget. So it helped out on the
• 3:27
  startup, which is a very important key part of
• 3:31
  starting up in this climate nowadays, is saving
• 3:33
  some money on the get -go. And so, yeah, this
• 3:36
  year has been really good. We've been playing
• 3:38
  around with a lot of different hops because since
• 3:40
  we built out the brew house, we've been able
• 3:44
  to do step mashes and a bunch of other things,
• 3:46
  which is really unique and fun. So it allows
• 3:48
  us a lot more opportunity to experiment with
• 3:51
  beers and expand. Matt, what about you? So I
• 3:55
  started brewing in about 2011. So I went to school
• 4:00
  in England first. I didn't start out in the industry.
• 4:02
  I actually went to school first, did an intensive
• 4:06
  course over there, came back to the States, got
• 4:08
  a job in a little brewery in Virginia, Williamsburg
• 4:11
  Ale Works. They're still rocking, still going.
• 4:14
  After a couple of months, I got picked up by
• 4:15
  Victory Brewing up in the northeast, just outside
• 4:18
  of Philly. And when I got there, they were doing
• 4:21
  around 70 ,000 barrels a year. We're really starting
• 4:26
  to grow. By the time I left, we were at 135.
• 4:29
  So that was in a five year period. So ridiculous
• 4:31
  growth. That was the good times, we'll call them.
• 4:34
  You know, as I was there, I got lucky enough
• 4:36
  to be kind of pulled up into more roles all the
• 4:39
  time. They were constantly pushing me to do more,
• 4:41
  help me learn faster. and was lucky enough to
• 4:45
  meet the Roy team through that. So I was in charge
• 4:49
  of basically all of Victory's North American
• 4:51
  Southern Hemisphere hop contracts. So everything
• 4:55
  that went through Victory that wasn't German
• 4:58
  because Ron did not want to give up German contracts
• 5:01
  because that gave him a good excuse to go over
• 5:04
  every year. So I got to take that over, ran their
• 5:08
  facilities, commissioned with... some of our
• 5:11
  other teammates their 200 barrel facility that's
• 5:14
  a 200 barrel brew house a thousand barrel fermenters
• 5:17
  all that fun stuff lost a lot of years of my
• 5:20
  life and that process um so you know instead
• 5:24
  of getting burned out and leaving the industry
• 5:26
  i decided that i wanted to get more into it ended
• 5:29
  up down here in austin at a little brew pub called
• 5:31
  lazarus Came down to start that with some other
• 5:34
  guys and we rocked it. I mean, the first couple
• 5:38
  of years, we were, I think, the fourth largest
• 5:41
  on -premise sales brew pub in Texas relatively
• 5:44
  quickly. And as everybody is familiar, COVID
• 5:48
  set in. So had to reevaluate, was working with
• 5:52
  Kirby a little bit on some side projects. And
• 5:55
  we kind of both realized that, hey, helping people
• 5:58
  out right now. is everything like we really enjoyed
• 6:01
  it helping people survive giving them advice
• 6:03
  building facilities and you know that went really
• 6:07
  well we grew that business did some projects
• 6:10
  all over the world now and we're dumb enough
• 6:13
  again to start our own brewery so we got some
• 6:17
  really good partners We are one of those teams
• 6:21
  that we're brewer owned on our side with some
• 6:25
  partners that are really good at front of the
• 6:27
  house operations. So it made the partnership
• 6:29
  just perfect from our standpoint. And as Kirby
• 6:32
  said, all of our equipment is used. I mean, we
• 6:35
  couldn't really validate the cost of new right
• 6:38
  now. And also we had the know -how to put it
• 6:40
  together. I don't recommend that for everybody
• 6:42
  unless you really know what you're doing. And
• 6:45
  I wouldn't say we really know what we're doing,
• 6:47
  but we pieced together multiple systems, doing
• 6:52
  some really cool stuff that we've always wanted
• 6:54
  to do. Pressure fermentation across the board,
• 6:57
  natural carbonation and everything that comes
• 6:59
  across the tap. And playing around with croissing
• 7:03
  in different styles, not just traditional German
• 7:06
  croissing, but doing it with some IPAs, the way
• 7:08
  we dry hop, modifying the system to kind of fit
• 7:11
  what we want to do. It's been a lot of fun, and
• 7:14
  I feel like we spent the first year just trying
• 7:18
  to find our baseline of what we're going to do
• 7:21
  and get the community behind us. And now that
• 7:23
  we're in our second year, that's been happening
• 7:25
  much more. If you're in Austin, you'll see our
• 7:28
  beer at about 16 to 18 different bars downtown.
• 7:32
  So if you're coming down to Austin, we ourselves
• 7:35
  are in Pflugerville. I want to acknowledge that.
• 7:37
  We feel like we're in Greg. Okay. But you know,
• 7:40
  Greg doesn't exist anymore. That's why it's old
• 7:42
  Greg and other reasons. Okay. But we won't get
• 7:46
  into that right now. So if you're up in the Greg
• 7:49
  area, we are here. Come see us. I also want to
• 7:55
  make note that we're, we're using, it's really
• 7:58
  cool that we've had a chance here to do a lot
• 8:01
  of novel. raw ingredients in our beers now like
• 8:05
  we've got a few that we're we're experimenting
• 8:08
  with nixon lies in corn um in different because
• 8:11
  we're pressure fermented and that stuff we started
• 8:13
  doing just other ingredients from i mean i'm
• 8:16
  originally from an island off the coast of honduras
• 8:18
  and so we bring in a lot of other ingredients
• 8:21
  that aren't traditionally used as as often but
• 8:24
  we're incorporating into more traditional styles
• 8:27
  a lot of um novel green ingredients like Nixmai's
• 8:33
  corn and stuff like that and experimenting, applying
• 8:35
  it to traditional styles. We have a Vienna, which
• 8:39
  we have Nixmai's corn in. We also do a pale lager
• 8:43
  that we do the same kind of thing in. And so
• 8:44
  we're looking to take traditional styles and
• 8:48
  add something that feels like once you drink
• 8:51
  it, it sounds kind of novel, but once you drink
• 8:54
  it. It's almost takes you and makes you think
• 8:57
  like, why hasn't this existed before? And why
• 8:59
  isn't this, you know, wasn't this done already?
• 9:02
  And so it's been a really good opportunity to
• 9:05
  do a lot of that. And because the system where
• 9:07
  we built it, we had the opportunity to put in,
• 9:10
  be able to step mash and do these different processes
• 9:13
  that opens, that allows us to use these unique
• 9:16
  greens and stuff like that. And it opens the
• 9:18
  door to a lot more. unique adaptations to the
• 9:21
  beers that we're experimenting with whether it
• 9:23
  is hot or just raw you know base grains and stuff
• 9:26
  like that i want to take a moment real quick
• 9:28
  and just point out that kirby is actually talking
• 9:31
  in his native accent uh if you meet kirby he
• 9:35
  probably will be putting on airs as an american
• 9:37
  um which he is okay let's be clear Hearing Kirby
• 9:46
  Dog is blowing my mind right now. I know. That's
• 9:49
  what I tell everybody. You're not ready for this.
• 9:51
  I've just been getting to know Kirby through
• 9:54
  the faux American accent. How many years did
• 9:58
  it take you to get that accent? The American
• 10:00
  accent? I moved to the States when I was, I'd
• 10:04
  say probably full -time when I was a... end of
• 10:06
  my 16th year so going into 17 and then um i joined
• 10:11
  the military which is really when i started developing
• 10:13
  my american accent because obviously when you're
• 10:15
  in the military and you're trying to communicate
• 10:16
  and you got thick caribbean accent it kind of
• 10:19
  makes it really hard to get information across
• 10:21
  fast enough without somebody asking what the
• 10:24
  hell you're saying what I had to start developing
• 10:28
  there. So I'd say since I was about 18, I started
• 10:31
  working on my American accent. It took very many
• 10:34
  years. And still, I have a hard time, especially
• 10:36
  if we've been drinking. Yeah, drinking. Yeah,
• 10:38
  you'll get it. I can't keep my very proper American
• 10:42
  accent. Man, the difference between when we came
• 10:45
  in this morning and now. Yeah, yeah. You know,
• 10:48
  that's all of a show. That's all a show. That's
• 10:50
  all that is. Well done. Well, you say you pieced
• 10:56
  all the brewing equipment together, and you wouldn't
• 10:59
  know it because I'm staring at it right now,
• 11:02
  and it's very beautiful back there, and it looks
• 11:03
  like it's put together very thoughtfully. And
• 11:06
  Matt, you mentioned that, well, Kirby and Matt,
• 11:09
  you guys both mentioned that you're doing unique
• 11:11
  things in the brewery here with ingredients.
• 11:13
  And I think, Matt, you said that when you guys
• 11:16
  built this, you did that. with that intention
• 11:19
  in mind yeah yeah i mean we we chose equipment
• 11:22
  and part of it was availability but also we chose
• 11:25
  equipment where we could do these processes so
• 11:27
  we have standard brew length fermenters we have
• 11:30
  a couple of those right but we actually went
• 11:32
  with larger capacity fermenters so that we could
• 11:35
  do croissanting into those bigger fermenters
• 11:38
  right like when you plan for these processes
• 11:41
  you have to give yourself the capacity Otherwise,
• 11:44
  you're going to be hamstrung by what you're able
• 11:46
  to do. Your brew house is going to be limited
• 11:48
  on what it can put out. And when you're designing
• 11:52
  a system, in fact, one of the coolest things
• 11:54
  that we did is we have a steam system, but we're
• 11:57
  not using a steam boiler. We're actually using
• 11:59
  a hot oil burner that we converted from. It was
• 12:03
  technically what they call it. It was like a
• 12:06
  hydrothermal booster. for thermal fluid heating
• 12:11
  systems, we actually took that, converted it
• 12:14
  to be a hot oil burn. Originally it was used
• 12:16
  for high pressure water to basically heat high
• 12:19
  pressure water in the same way you would steam,
• 12:21
  but the pressure keeps it from vaporizing. So
• 12:23
  it just stays as water. We rebuilt that to be
• 12:26
  hot oil with food grade oil that we then jail
• 12:30
  broke the system to get the temperature up in
• 12:32
  the hot oil where we needed it. And that system's
• 12:34
  now running to where we can run half batches.
• 12:37
  We can do mash heating. We're heating our hot
• 12:39
  liquor tank up at the same time, the work kettle
• 12:41
  at the same time. And that system is more efficient
• 12:44
  than steam. And literally, it's not classified
• 12:47
  as a boiler because it's open to atmosphere.
• 12:50
  So we don't have to have the inspection every
• 12:52
  year. We're not doing chemical dosing for anything.
• 12:55
  It's all just oil in that system. We did that
• 12:58
  because it gives us so much more flexibility,
• 13:00
  better quality in our beers, better efficiency.
• 13:03
  Overall, it was like those small choices you
• 13:05
  make. That it's really important that you have
• 13:08
  either the know -how or the willingness to get
• 13:11
  the know -how. Listening to the right people,
• 13:13
  learning as you go, taking those risks can pay
• 13:16
  off. Sometimes it doesn't. It's just one of those
• 13:19
  things you have to be okay with. So there's a
• 13:20
  lot of cool stuff happening back there. And I
• 13:22
  don't think we talked about it enough. Yeah.
• 13:24
  And to tell you how this worked out, it was that
• 13:30
  we got all the way to pretty much commissioning
• 13:34
  this thing. Now, this is a prototype. We made
• 13:36
  it because it wasn't available on market to what
• 13:39
  we wanted for our size. The day we were firing
• 13:41
  it up was the first day that we were trying.
• 13:43
  So if we didn't have, there was no plan B. It
• 13:45
  was this hard to work because there wasn't a
• 13:47
  room for a boiler. We had all steam jackets.
• 13:50
  And so we just basically, we crunched the numbers.
• 13:53
  We talked to the engineers, some of which said
• 13:55
  no. It wasn't going to work. Retrofit, because
• 13:59
  the unique thing that we did is. It would work,
• 14:02
  and a lot of them said it would work, but you
• 14:03
  had to have an external calandria of some sort.
• 14:06
  We wanted to retrofit it to existing jackets.
• 14:10
  The reason we wanted that was because if we could
• 14:12
  retrofit it to existing jackets, it made it much
• 14:16
  better to incorporate or to backfit into existing
• 14:20
  brewers if they wanted to transition into this
• 14:22
  new system. and it opens the door for smaller
• 14:25
  breweries like group of size 10 barrel five barrels
• 14:29
  where you can have the control of steam without
• 14:32
  the heavy cost of steam and you can do your step
• 14:37
  mashing and all your stuff that you need which
• 14:39
  typically when you have a direct fire which is
• 14:42
  the other option electric you really can't get
• 14:46
  that kind of detail work with it you can't get
• 14:50
  that kind of steps or half batches and all that
• 14:53
  kind of stuff and so we wanted this to work and
• 14:56
  we had to make this work and luckily when we
• 14:59
  fired it up She came on. Although we had a couple.
• 15:02
  Yeah, we did some work on it. There was some
• 15:04
  work. I would say if you ever try it, make sure
• 15:07
  the water's out the jacket, especially if you're
• 15:09
  using used jackets. Yeah, that was. And so we
• 15:13
  had a geyser. We had a geyser. We had some pop
• 15:15
  in and water, you know, water and oil don't mix,
• 15:18
  especially when it's really hot oil. It's like
• 15:21
  a fryer, you know, just like a Tarka fryer on
• 15:23
  Thanksgiving. So, but we got. Nobody was hurt.
• 15:26
  Nobody was hurt. We got it worked out. And now
• 15:28
  we have an SOP for safety and how to. how to
• 15:30
  operate it started up so that was a positive
• 15:33
  that came out of it especially but um we're very
• 15:36
  excited about it we love it it's been working
• 15:38
  it's super efficient obviously we because this
• 15:41
  is a prototype we have other things that we want
• 15:43
  to add to it make it better but at this rate
• 15:46
  we're heating just as fast as in a steam system
• 15:49
  with really dialed in because we can dial in
• 15:52
  the temperature of our oil that's hitting it.
• 15:55
  We can dial in our evaporation by adjusting our
• 15:58
  temperature on our oil versus having a jacket
• 16:02
  that has to turn on and off and all that stuff.
• 16:04
  And in the future, what we'd like to do is look
• 16:06
  into actual DMS boil off and off flavor boil
• 16:10
  off with minimizing evaporation and all that
• 16:13
  by adjusting our temperatures to really dial
• 16:16
  in. what is the point at which we get maximum
• 16:22
  efficiency with maximum amount of volatilization
• 16:26
  for those off flavors that we don't want. And
• 16:29
  so that's a future project. Obviously, we have
• 16:31
  a lot on our plate right now. So we're trying
• 16:34
  to keep up with beer, et cetera, et cetera, just
• 16:36
  like any other person. You know, it's on the
• 16:38
  list. It's not at the top of the list. Andy,
• 16:41
  you're going to say something. There you go.
• 16:42
  Oh, no, no, no. I was just going to ask about
• 16:45
  how many horizontals you have. oh yeah so we
• 16:47
  have eight horizontals all mueller tanks they're
• 16:49
  the bag in system so the check style bag in uh
• 16:53
  horizontal serving tanks it helped us shrink
• 16:55
  our cold room size our cold room's tiny by comparison
• 16:58
  right to most brewers and that is with distributing
• 17:01
  kegs too we have that kind of dial to run kegs
• 17:04
  out as soon as they're filled got those pickup
• 17:06
  windows dialed in but those horizontals i will
• 17:10
  be honest the bag in system we're a little skeptical
• 17:13
  uh the guys that hold out downtown actually recommended
• 17:16
  that they like them they use them but they have
• 17:19
  them inside their cold room we took ours out
• 17:21
  and they're jacketed right for bartenders it
• 17:26
  is a godsend because that pours the same through
• 17:29
  start to finish all the same no matter what right
• 17:33
  the bag keeps that exchange of gas from happening
• 17:36
  so you don't have more carbonation on the upper
• 17:38
  layer you don't have the difference at the bottom
• 17:41
  either um it's uniform and then when we're done
• 17:44
  with a beer take the bag out right throw a new
• 17:47
  one in within about an hour or two after seeing
• 17:50
  the lines and transfer that beer's full again
• 17:51
  so the downtime is nothing we can refill serving
• 17:56
  tanks in a matter of an hour or two which is
• 17:58
  huge because they always go on a weekend every
• 18:01
  brewer knows everything runs out on a weekend
• 18:02
  right so we can come in and run it real quick
• 18:04
  and get out of here and not spend a ton of time
• 18:07
  so there are they're good we got eight of them
• 18:10
  four on the bottom four on top so we do we're
• 18:13
  kind of crazy and we do in metric they're 1500
• 18:15
  liters of capacity and that keeps us held one
• 18:19
  beer runs every month basically through about
• 18:22
  two of those and some you know lasted a little
• 18:24
  bit longer depending on what it is what people
• 18:26
  want so we have eight beers on tap maybe plus
• 18:29
  two if we do a couple kegs on the side but keeps
• 18:32
  us from getting that huge portfolio where stuff
• 18:35
  just sits around too long we turn beer way faster
• 18:38
  that way. We like the simplification of it. And
• 18:41
  our crowd, they're lager drinkers. So that's
• 18:45
  what we roll through the most. Which is part
• 18:46
  of the reason, you know, we do the poisoning
• 18:48
  and we do larger batches of our lagers because
• 18:51
  one, we like to lager them for a longer time.
• 18:54
  And it actually, our crowd drinks a lot of lagers.
• 18:57
  And so we make sure that we have them. But the
• 19:00
  simplification of only having eight on is kind
• 19:02
  of what we like because of that. It just keeps
• 19:07
  everything fresh. And the turn rate on some of
• 19:10
  the batches that we go on, our seasonal stuff,
• 19:12
  goes fast enough that there's another one on
• 19:14
  regularly. And we had some pushback. The initial
• 19:17
  first crowd that walked in, you don't have 15
• 19:20
  beers on tap. But that quickly changed once they
• 19:24
  realized that they're always getting fresh beer.
• 19:26
  And we can turn those seasonals quicker. where
• 19:30
  you're getting something fresh. So people come
• 19:31
  back on one weekend and they come back the next
• 19:33
  week and they have a new beer and stuff like
• 19:35
  that. And so it really has turned out to be the
• 19:37
  best option. You know, people want variety, but
• 19:40
  the fact is what people really want is quality.
• 19:42
  And so if you can deliver on the quality, less
• 19:46
  beer is actually a better project because you'll
• 19:48
  actually turn those beers faster and your clients
• 19:51
  will come back. Not that the idea and the execution
• 19:55
  of quality ever left the industry, but I am seeing...
• 19:59
  it being talked about more and more i think is
• 20:01
  you know kind of new was the topic for a while
• 20:05
  i do see quality working its way back in as one
• 20:07
  of the the um i mean the main focuses yeah you
• 20:13
  know it's i mean to your point kirby instead
• 20:14
  of just churning out more new we're maybe focusing
• 20:19
  on less and better i think so it's a really great
• 20:23
  kind of lead into the the current state of where
• 20:28
  we are right and i think whenever i got into
• 20:32
  the industry craft was growing without restraint
• 20:34
  i mean it was literally there was there was no
• 20:36
  rules to it there were guys wrong yeah anytime
• 20:39
  you have craft beer right and i think what we
• 20:42
  so when when i was in england they were going
• 20:45
  through a brew pub crash while i was there right
• 20:49
  so and even the pubs were starting to get affected
• 20:52
  by it too people weren't going to the pubs they
• 20:53
  were buying beer at the supermarket, right? Everybody
• 20:57
  was tighter financially. They were looking for
• 20:59
  better options and they could get a case for
• 21:01
  the same price you get two pints in the pub,
• 21:02
  right? Why would you not? So that was weeding
• 21:05
  out a lot of the brew pubs and pubs that really
• 21:09
  didn't take care of their lines. The quality
• 21:10
  wasn't there and they were notorious, right,
• 21:13
  for doing practices that were just kind of lazy
• 21:16
  and not paying attention to quality. Those were
• 21:18
  the ones that went out first. go back to the
• 21:21
  states and it's like craft is blowing up you
• 21:23
  can't you can open a brewpub anywhere you can
• 21:26
  do super niche products people jump on that keep
• 21:29
  growing it was the loudest thing was the most
• 21:32
  successful right when we got into the industry
• 21:35
  in general 100 ibus 100 ib oh man yeah those
• 21:38
  days man i remember that it's like the original
• 21:41
  west coast ipa is enamel strippers right like
• 21:44
  that's what we were shooting for It was like,
• 21:48
  all right, well, this is a whole thing. Not my
• 21:50
  bag, but you know. And I think we started to
• 21:53
  see impact of that mindset probably around five,
• 21:58
  six years ago. And now everyone blames COVID.
• 22:01
  And I'm not going to argue that COVID had a massive
• 22:03
  impact to transition a movement that was already
• 22:06
  happening and accelerating. That's the big thing
• 22:10
  I think everyone has to remember is that this
• 22:12
  isn't new. What we're going through is not new
• 22:15
  at all. This happens in the brewing industry
• 22:17
  every 20 to 25 years. There is shrinkage, consolidation.
• 22:22
  There is an elimination. And then it's all after
• 22:26
  about five years of retrospect, everyone comes
• 22:28
  back to say, you know what? It was the quality.
• 22:31
  That was the issue. There was a lot of brewers
• 22:34
  and breweries that weren't paying attention to
• 22:37
  the very basic absolutes of quality that then
• 22:40
  disenfranchised. the craft beer crowd because
• 22:43
  you never knew what you're going to get, right?
• 22:45
  It was so various. You start to look at it and
• 22:48
  you're like, look, I'm going to go buy a 12 -pack
• 22:51
  of Coors Banquet because I know what I'm getting
• 22:53
  in that beer. If I buy another 12 -pack for twice
• 22:57
  as much at the supermarket and the beer is oxidized,
• 23:00
  it's old or the brewing quality is not there,
• 23:03
  why would I buy that for the price? And that's
• 23:06
  a conversation that we're still not having that,
• 23:09
  I think, to the complete level yet. But if you
• 23:13
  do a direct and I had to go check this because
• 23:16
  I wanted to make sure I was speaking accurately.
• 23:17
  If you look at the decline of beer drinkers in
• 23:21
  the U .S. versus the rising costs of beer, they
• 23:25
  are directly opposites. The more beer costs,
• 23:28
  the less drinkers there are for beer. And this
• 23:32
  goes even to the macro side. I mean, I just saw
• 23:34
  the other day Dos Equis has grown in price by,
• 23:38
  I think, 30 percent over five years. which doesn't
• 23:42
  seem like much when you're talking like 1299
• 23:44
  1599 we're now at like 1999 right for a case
• 23:49
  of Dos Equis and this was all part of i'd say
• 23:54
  craft brewer started this because yeah our costs
• 23:57
  are generally more we're not buying things in
• 23:59
  massive bulk like the biggest of breweries can
• 24:03
  do But there's a lot of conscious choices you
• 24:06
  make in how you use your raw materials, how you
• 24:09
  structure your labor, whether you rely on automation
• 24:12
  or not, that affects how much your beer costs
• 24:15
  that we never had to pay attention to. Efficiency
• 24:18
  used to be a dirty word. Seriously, like you
• 24:21
  would get in arguments with people when you started
• 24:23
  to talk about efficiency and they're like, why?
• 24:24
  It doesn't matter. Oh, the number one thing I
• 24:26
  would hear all the time. Oh, we just sell more.
• 24:29
  Yeah. Now that we can't sell more. Now what's
• 24:33
  the conversation? The days of the premiumization
• 24:36
  of beer is waned, waning or absolutely waned.
• 24:42
  And now it's like now efficiency is at the forefront
• 24:44
  of all conversations and also cost of goods,
• 24:47
  because now you have to compete not just on having
• 24:50
  a flashy beer name, good looking label. It's
• 24:53
  like because I see it in the grocery stores as
• 24:56
  well. Like when I do buy beer there, it's like
• 24:58
  I. the days of just kind of like oh this looks
• 25:01
  new this looks you're more hesitant to try a
• 25:04
  new untested brewery that you never had before
• 25:07
  because you're committing a significant amount
• 25:09
  of money to it and you're gonna be sitting there
• 25:12
  with a six pack you know or a four pack in your
• 25:15
  fridge and you're like oh well i don't want to
• 25:16
  be sitting on these three beers i don't want
• 25:18
  or four or five beers so i'm like i usually go
• 25:20
  to like to one of my two or three standards in
• 25:23
  my region because i know that i'm gonna get the
• 25:26
  beer that i want every time i get it yeah Yeah,
• 25:29
  I mean, you look at one thing to touch on that.
• 25:32
  One of the biggest cost drivers for craft breweries
• 25:34
  is aluminum. It's cans. We all transition from
• 25:37
  bottles to cans almost at the same time. That
• 25:41
  was like 2016, 2014, right? When everybody started
• 25:44
  switching because of the increase in demand for
• 25:48
  aluminum and cans. Obviously, the price goes
• 25:50
  up. That's up 91%, I think, for aluminum right
• 25:54
  now. in five years pardon my ignorance but what
• 25:57
  is the cost difference between a bottle and a
• 26:00
  can oh now i it's honestly i think glass used
• 26:03
  to be expensive it's probably the opposite now
• 26:05
  aluminum is probably expensive i need to look
• 26:07
  up the numbers but it wouldn't surprise me because
• 26:09
  the demand for glass is shrunk so much in that
• 26:12
  same time now granted there's a there's a conscious
• 26:16
  choice you have to make of the accessibility
• 26:18
  of cans makes it a much more appealing package
• 26:22
  right and people have come to expect quality
• 26:25
  out of aluminum that they didn't used to it used
• 26:28
  to be that bottles were higher quality product
• 26:30
  it was more nuanced and refined that's all gone
• 26:33
  to the wayside it's practicality right and the
• 26:35
  one point i think here especially here in texas
• 26:37
  because we started when i was at oasis we were
• 26:39
  one early on adopted into cans right we got a
• 26:42
  lot of kickback from the bottle guys saying how
• 26:45
  cancel not a good idea or whatever but i love
• 26:47
  a can because you can take it places we camp
• 26:49
  all the time i go camping and outdoors and cans
• 26:52
  have that accessibility they can access all those
• 26:54
  areas that a bottle really can but bottles is
• 26:59
  still an option on the table especially you know
• 27:01
  in a package format brewers should look at when
• 27:05
  it's when you're looking at pricing and stuff
• 27:06
  like that obviously it has its drawbacks as well
• 27:09
  ultimately i know people who are in the situation
• 27:12
  where they're distributing and they have to distribute
• 27:15
  and they have to put that and that's part of
• 27:16
  their plan but i i encourage people not to distribute
• 27:20
  if they don't have to distribute to the smallest
• 27:22
  amount possible looking at your budget and saying
• 27:24
  okay this distribution has a purpose it's marketing
• 27:28
  it's I'm going to do I need distribution because
• 27:32
  this is my cost of my rent. And this equates
• 27:35
  to this amount of distribution per year to pay
• 27:37
  my rent so I can cover my rent for so my taproom
• 27:39
  could be more successful. Those strategic kind
• 27:42
  of project, when you look at it that way, when
• 27:44
  this is my goal, it makes distribution more of
• 27:48
  a project where you're like, OK, distribution
• 27:51
  makes sense. But when your distribution is just
• 27:53
  distribution because you want to have beer out.
• 27:56
  It makes it not a really great plan in the long
• 28:00
  run on a strategic platform, right? Because the
• 28:02
  amount of distribution that you have to do to
• 28:04
  actually bring back profit that makes a difference
• 28:06
  is a large, large number. And people do not recognize
• 28:11
  that. People get into the industry. They put
• 28:13
  out beer on the distribution and the numbers
• 28:16
  are coming in. But the cost to do that is so
• 28:18
  high that I prefer to sit in the tap room and
• 28:21
  convince somebody to drink one more beer. A customer
• 28:25
  that's there, other than putting beer out on
• 28:28
  the shelf and having someone happen to pass by
• 28:31
  it in the grocery store without anybody to tell
• 28:34
  them about it, that maybe it's going to burn
• 28:36
  them because it might not have been packaged
• 28:37
  right. And then it's turning, you know, like,
• 28:41
  so I'd prefer to sit here for the profit that
• 28:43
  I can make by getting somebody to have another
• 28:45
  beer or have a better experience at the brewery
• 28:47
  is worth the time for me to make that happen
• 28:51
  versus distribution. You just said. have an experience
• 28:55
  and and I always think about beer as a vehicle
• 28:57
  for community and an experience and we talked
• 29:00
  about quality and You know having the right price
• 29:03
  point But I wonder like how much of like the
• 29:09
  total Success has to do with providing that experience
• 29:13
  to the consumer and part of that's flavor but
• 29:16
  part of it is the environment and and a lot of
• 29:20
  things the story behind you guys yeah yeah flavor
• 29:23
  is intrinsically connected to experience because
• 29:27
  i've been i lived in italy had wine there i had
• 29:31
  some of the cheapest wine one dollar for a bottle
• 29:33
  of wine it came in a plastic jug but I drank
• 29:36
  it on the seaside in Italy, and guess what? It
• 29:38
  tastes better. Some of the best wine I've ever
• 29:40
  had in my life. If you were to give me a bottle,
• 29:42
  a plastic bottle of that same wine here somewhere,
• 29:45
  you know, it wouldn't be the same experience.
• 29:47
  So the experience is intrinsically connected.
• 29:49
  Our palate and how we experience flavors is connected
• 29:53
  to our mood and where we're at and how we're
• 29:56
  enjoying it. And so you can't separate it. You
• 29:59
  can make the best beer, but if you have a bad
• 30:01
  place to experience that best beer in the world,
• 30:04
  it's not going to be as good as you think it's
• 30:06
  going to come across. I think all of us have
• 30:08
  that beer we've had somewhere where the atmosphere
• 30:12
  made that beer taste so much better. I mean,
• 30:14
  mine was like a sunny day in England, by the
• 30:16
  way, which is very rare. And it was like perfect,
• 30:19
  perfect weather. It was like 65 degrees, slight
• 30:23
  breeze. And I was at a pub and I had Timothy
• 30:25
  Taylor's Landlord. on the the actual outside
• 30:28
  seating area and i was like this beer is amazing
• 30:31
  you go to a different pub and have that beer
• 30:33
  and you're like this beer is mediocre at best
• 30:35
  right but the experience made me remember that
• 30:37
  forever and it's like the experience is part
• 30:39
  of the flavor experience like that's what you
• 30:42
  get i mean i remember stashing some cans and
• 30:44
  like a river on the way up to this climbing area
• 30:46
  and drinking them on the way back and i specifically
• 30:48
  remember who i was with you know what the air
• 30:50
  temperature was what how i was feeling i don't
• 30:53
  even remember what beer it was it probably tasted
• 30:57
  pretty good 100 and i think that's you know we
• 31:03
  are lucky enough that we and you know we work
• 31:06
  for it but we get to advise people on how to
• 31:08
  start their businesses and The brew pub is the
• 31:12
  best way to create a long -term brand right now.
• 31:16
  If you can establish experience and check all
• 31:19
  the boxes. And it's a lot harder than it used
• 31:21
  to be. I mean, the idea, I remember seeing this
• 31:23
  and this, I mean, there was a lot of talk a few
• 31:26
  years ago about how tap rooms were the new future
• 31:29
  of beer, but that wasn't the whole story, right?
• 31:32
  It's not an industrial tap room where all you
• 31:35
  have is the beer you produce and there's like
• 31:37
  six or eight choices. It's about having food.
• 31:39
  It's about having play areas. And there's a lot
• 31:42
  of controversy about kids at breweries. And I'll
• 31:44
  be honest with you, we are behind as a culture
• 31:47
  on creating breweries as a family space. The
• 31:51
  rest of the world has done that. And it works,
• 31:54
  right? 100%. I mean, if you ever go to any small
• 31:58
  town in Texas, too, they have like German, you
• 32:01
  know, especially if it's a German descent small
• 32:03
  town, they have the community hall that they
• 32:05
  have beer and all the families get together.
• 32:08
  But that was something that was very socially
• 32:11
  accepted back then. And just now that we, you
• 32:13
  know, and I understand when you're an adult and
• 32:16
  you're single and you don't have kids, you want
• 32:18
  to, you know, you need a place that's yours.
• 32:21
  But we have those places too. This is the one
• 32:25
  thing that I tell brewers. You have to be mindful.
• 32:28
  You can't be everything to everyone or you'll
• 32:31
  be nothing to nobody. You won't exist anymore.
• 32:33
  You have to find who you want to cater to and
• 32:36
  accept that fact. It's fine. If you don't have
• 32:38
  seven hazies on, that's fine. If you only have
• 32:43
  loggers or you want to cater to the families,
• 32:44
  that's fine. You'll find your market. But make
• 32:47
  sure that you know who that is. Don't go around
• 32:49
  just floating. Thinking that if you just cater
• 32:52
  to everybody and appease everybody, that you're
• 32:54
  going to get more crowd. Because what's going
• 32:56
  to happen is you won't have your set clientele.
• 33:00
  You won't have your loyal clientele of what is
• 33:04
  truly who you need. Because who pays our bills
• 33:06
  is not necessarily the crowd that comes on the
• 33:10
  weekend for the party that we're having or the
• 33:12
  event that we're having. The ones that pay our
• 33:14
  bills, and we look at the numbers. The one that
• 33:16
  pays our bills is the... Guy, girl getting off
• 33:20
  of work, going home, stopping in, having one
• 33:23
  or little of one or two beers. And usually it's
• 33:25
  our lightest lager that we have, our American
• 33:27
  light adjunct lager. They don't want anything.
• 33:29
  They don't even know the craft beer. They just
• 33:32
  happen upon us. They love our light lager and
• 33:34
  they sit here and they enjoy it. And they talk
• 33:36
  to the bartender for an hour and they go home
• 33:38
  and they repeat it every day. I would give up
• 33:43
  any fair weather fine on the planet. For 10 of
• 33:48
  them. I mean, I will take them any day. Cause
• 33:51
  they're coming here monthly costs. Like they're,
• 33:54
  they're going to be here day in, day out. Yeah.
• 33:56
  They bring their coworkers afterwards. They talk
• 33:59
  about it. And then I would also push back and
• 34:02
  just kind of say that, you know, we are a little
• 34:05
  bit different model than I think most brew pubs.
• 34:07
  We do have liquor. Right. And I remember having
• 34:10
  these very definitive discussions back 10 years
• 34:14
  ago about as soon as a brew pub, gets liquor
• 34:18
  they become a bar and nothing good happens at
• 34:21
  a bar that's not how it works like there is not
• 34:24
  a crowd that comes to a brewery with liquor that's
• 34:26
  like let's get messed up and like break pool
• 34:29
  table or pull sticks over people's heads it's
• 34:31
  not happening like we're still getting families
• 34:33
  because guess what mom may not be a beer drinker
• 34:36
  dad may not be a beer drinker they can still
• 34:38
  come here right if one of them is and then work
• 34:41
  crowds yeah you get one person that doesn't drink
• 34:43
  beer they can still come especially with the
• 34:47
  promiscuity in consumers drinking habits people
• 34:50
  may not want a beer they may want like a cocktail
• 34:54
  or a seltzer or they may not be wanting to drink
• 34:56
  at all so having options keeps them from having
• 35:00
  one beer and then move on to the next place and
• 35:03
  that keeps them to have that second third beer
• 35:05
  and so other food on top of that helps out a
• 35:07
  lot and this comes from i mean we're in the bit
• 35:10
  like me particularly Been brewing for 15 years.
• 35:15
  I love this industry. I love a beer. But man,
• 35:19
  I do love a rum from time to time. If I could
• 35:22
  go to the brewery and get, if I could go to my
• 35:24
  friend's brewery and get a rum, if I leave, you
• 35:27
  know, I leave the brewery and I go out somewhere
• 35:29
  else and I get a, sometimes I need something
• 35:31
  else and a rum. And if I can go get it at a friend's
• 35:34
  brewery, a million, I would do it over and over.
• 35:37
  You know, it's way better than. you know i don't
• 35:39
  want to go to a bar that just serves alcohol
• 35:41
  it's just a it's more of an effort my space is
• 35:44
  the brewpub space and so i feel more comfortable
• 35:47
  because this is much more casual much friendlier
• 35:50
  you know people go home at a regular hour there's
• 35:53
  no rowdiness and stuff like that and so having
• 35:55
  cocktails in a space like this really is like
• 35:58
  basically having cocktails at a restaurant you
• 36:00
  know it's the same kind of it's that demographic
• 36:02
  that you're looking at is basically that's how
• 36:04
  it works and so We've had, I mean, we have the
• 36:08
  numbers and we're happy to talk to people about
• 36:10
  it. But we've noticed that whatever your projections
• 36:13
  are for beer, and this is another complaint that
• 36:15
  we had that people, not necessarily complete,
• 36:17
  but they were concerned, is people said, well,
• 36:21
  if you make beer and then you sell mixed beverage,
• 36:25
  my beer sales are going to get cut in half by
• 36:29
  liquor because there's a liquor option. But the
• 36:31
  truth is, if you're a brew pub and you... If
• 36:34
  you are making your beer, what ends up happening
• 36:37
  is whatever your projections are for beer, realistic
• 36:39
  projections for your beer sales, whatever that
• 36:42
  is, you can just add on top of that your liquor
• 36:47
  sales. And our liquor sales, it's basically the
• 36:49
  same amount of money. Let's say you project,
• 36:51
  I'm going to make $500 ,000 in beer sales. It's
• 36:57
  pretty much almost identical. We've seen it over
• 36:59
  and over again for the people that have mixed
• 37:01
  bath. You can just take. $500 ,000 and add that
• 37:05
  on your annual income because that's what you're
• 37:08
  going to, on top of what you're already doing
• 37:09
  in beer, you're going to do, which takes a lot
• 37:12
  of heat off of you because it helps you pay the
• 37:13
  bills. And you can focus on your beer where,
• 37:18
  you know, if you have to sell, you have to sell
• 37:19
  twice the amount of beer to get that same amount
• 37:22
  and you don't have to do that. So you can make
• 37:24
  real special, you know, you can dial in your
• 37:26
  beers and make good beer and not worry about
• 37:29
  the other side. Yes, does it come with some more
• 37:31
  bartenders and stuff? Absolutely. But the way
• 37:34
  we got around having, you know, you don't have
• 37:36
  to necessarily have a professional bartenders.
• 37:38
  It's nice to have them because people want cold
• 37:40
  drinks and stuff like that. But we make it where
• 37:43
  it's super casual. And there's not a lot of high
• 37:45
  expectations for cocktails at a brew pub. If
• 37:48
  somebody is coming in a brew pub with high expectations
• 37:51
  of cocktails, they're in the wrong place. They're
• 37:53
  confused. I'm not saying that you make bad cocktails.
• 37:57
  I'm just saying you can batch cocktails and you
• 38:00
  can batch amazing cocktails nowadays and serve
• 38:02
  them on draft and garnish them. And you can still
• 38:06
  have a good price point for your cocktails. And
• 38:08
  people have no problem with it. People love it.
• 38:11
  They love the speed of the turn because it's
• 38:13
  the same amount of speed as they pour in a beer.
• 38:16
  And so all that turn rate on lines and all that,
• 38:19
  if you're dealing with lines, we try not to deal
• 38:20
  with lines. At the bar, we want people to speed
• 38:23
  us out around the bar. But the speed is the same
• 38:25
  amount of speed. And so there was a no -brainer
• 38:28
  to us. What you guys are really talking about
• 38:30
  is, I mean, just an overall operational approach
• 38:35
  here that extends beyond brewing, it feels like.
• 38:41
  And I guess I didn't ask this question earlier,
• 38:44
  but are you guys continuing to consult even with
• 38:49
  your current roles here? Yeah, we're crazy enough
• 38:51
  to have two young kids, each of us individually.
• 38:54
  We're not together. Business partners. Business
• 38:59
  partners, yeah. But we do consult. I mean, we
• 39:03
  have a couple ongoing clients that are monthly
• 39:06
  and we're still advertising for more. We have
• 39:09
  kind of selectively chosen some other brewery
• 39:12
  owners. uh that are brewers themselves too to
• 39:15
  kind of come on board and help us out and like
• 39:17
  yeah so we use them as our resources for very
• 39:21
  specific projects so yeah 100 and like it's honestly
• 39:26
  as we've we've met a lot of other consultants
• 39:28
  as we've done this and not to say you know we're
• 39:33
  extremely unique but we are genuinely in that
• 39:35
  not only do we put our money where our mouth
• 39:37
  is based on what we preach But also the experience
• 39:41
  that we have is very different than current consultants
• 39:43
  tend to be. A lot of them look at it from a macro
• 39:46
  perspective of, well, there's a lot of stuff
• 39:50
  I don't do because I won't just do that. I like
• 39:52
  we do everything because you have to in this
• 39:54
  current climate. And honestly, that's what we
• 39:56
  like to do is hands on everything from operations
• 39:59
  the whole way through to financials, even compliance.
• 40:03
  I mean, we've learned and study a lot of the
• 40:06
  general compliance for every state. We bring
• 40:10
  a very unique perspective because this is where
• 40:12
  businesses are going to be coming. This isn't
• 40:14
  the downturn isn't just us right now. Right.
• 40:18
  It's macro is feeling this strain to 100 percent
• 40:21
  more. I don't think they predicted this. They
• 40:25
  thought they were going to skate by without getting
• 40:27
  affected. That's not happening. Right. And it's
• 40:30
  everybody. It's wine. It's liquor. Everyone is
• 40:32
  feeling this right now. We look at it from foundational
• 40:38
  principles when we consult is let's go back to
• 40:40
  the basics. If you're going to start a brand
• 40:42
  now, this is how you do it. This is not dissimilar
• 40:45
  from what's happening in the hop industry. Right.
• 40:47
  Right. Yeah. But we're tied at the hip, though.
• 40:50
  I mean, inevitably, we are the same industries.
• 40:54
  Farmers in general. Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest.
• 40:59
  My family was dairy farmers. My brother just
• 41:02
  sold. All of the dairy cattle, literally four
• 41:05
  years ago, the market was just not there. They
• 41:09
  weren't making money. They were getting further
• 41:10
  into debt. And he was able to keep the farm itself,
• 41:13
  but had to do other things, like had to diversify
• 41:15
  what we were actually doing to keep that farm
• 41:17
  going. You look at beef right now. I think everybody's
• 41:20
  seen the price of beef go outrageous. This is
• 41:23
  a cycle. This is what happens is there are cycles
• 41:26
  in the dairy industry and the beef industry and
• 41:29
  all ag industries because of the way those markets
• 41:31
  work. Their supply and demand, imports, exports,
• 41:36
  all of that hits heads, all of that regresses.
• 41:38
  And then in 10 years, everything's back to better
• 41:41
  again for everybody. Like it's the cycle we go
• 41:43
  through. My father calls it cleansing periods.
• 41:46
  I don't know if I like that. It's very sanctified.
• 41:52
  A big important part that we have to look at
• 41:55
  is know thyself. We need to remember what beer
• 42:00
  is for and what it existed for. you know for
• 42:02
  it's like it is the ever it's like the everyman's
• 42:06
  drink the every person's drink beer has a place
• 42:08
  and i understand like from a budgetary wise if
• 42:11
  you can't make it happen you can't make it happen
• 42:13
  because of your rent you're paying the amount
• 42:15
  of people you have but being more efficient is
• 42:19
  about giving the clients a product that is affordable
• 42:22
  because beer is supposed to be affordable one
• 42:27
  It's good to have unique beers and stuff like
• 42:29
  that that are priced at a high. But you have
• 42:30
  to have somewhere in your portfolio, you have
• 42:33
  to have beer that is the actual beer. Beer is
• 42:37
  meant to be affordable. It's meant to be easily
• 42:40
  accessible. And it's supposed to be communal.
• 42:42
  And so you have to have that available. And we've
• 42:45
  seen it. Whenever we start crowding into those
• 42:47
  other realms, the price points, and we're getting
• 42:49
  closer to the price point of wine, we're getting
• 42:51
  closer to the price point of whiskey, people
• 42:52
  jump ship. Because... At that point, they're
• 42:56
  looking for the best bang for their buck, right?
• 42:58
  And so then we get left behind. So beer needs
• 43:00
  to remember just who we are and what we're doing
• 43:04
  because that's how we're going to keep our clients.
• 43:06
  It's actually giving it a place where people
• 43:08
  can come every day and drink your beer. Because
• 43:11
  they're not going to come every day if your beer
• 43:12
  is $10. Do you guys have a name for the consulting?
• 43:17
  Yeah. So our consulting branch is Solon Consulting.
• 43:22
  I'm a classics major, actually. So I went to
• 43:25
  school for archaeology and Greek and Roman was
• 43:28
  my entire jam. But named it after Solon, who
• 43:32
  was one of the very first consultants we have
• 43:34
  in history, who literally was in Athens, gave
• 43:38
  them a bunch of laws, how to operate things.
• 43:40
  It worked out awesome for about two years. And
• 43:43
  he's like, I'm going to get out of here. Follow
• 43:45
  these directions. Don't do anything different.
• 43:47
  He leaves, goes towards the world. All of a sudden
• 43:49
  he comes back. They changed everything. They're
• 43:51
  getting ruled by tyrants because there are a
• 43:53
  bunch of idiots that changed all of his law.
• 43:54
  And he comes back and he's like, you had democracy.
• 43:56
  Like I gave you everything you needed. Why did
• 43:59
  you not follow him? And they're like, no, no,
• 44:01
  no, we're good now. We got tyrants. It's all
• 44:02
  good. So he established the groundwork for democracy
• 44:06
  in Athens and lived his entire life fighting
• 44:10
  to get it back. And it didn't happen until after
• 44:12
  he died. So to make the things better at the
• 44:16
  cost of whatever it takes, right, is kind of
• 44:18
  the philosophy. And we our big motto is a rising
• 44:22
  tide raises all ships. I mean, honestly, in the
• 44:25
  beer industry, if one of us isn't pulling their
• 44:28
  weight, everyone else feels it. That's where
• 44:31
  we're at now. And it's our partners, too. I mean,
• 44:33
  100 percent. Right. And I think to go back. That
• 44:37
  goes both ways, too. I mean, it's happening on
• 44:39
  the farming side and throughout the supply chain.
• 44:43
  We are linked at the hip. I mean, to put it in
• 44:46
  perspective, right, we went into this entire
• 44:49
  industry being craft brewers. And that was with
• 44:53
  our partners to help us be craft brewers, right?
• 44:56
  You look at what craft means, it's a label that
• 45:00
  consumers put on us as well. It's not just something
• 45:03
  we call ourselves. So if one of us is serving
• 45:06
  craft beer that isn't good, the consumer relates
• 45:10
  that to all craft beer. I can't really accentuate
• 45:15
  any more how important this is because craft
• 45:18
  beer right now, I think is what, 10 and a half
• 45:20
  percent to 11 % of the overall beer market. We
• 45:24
  are a niche, right? And that includes Yingling,
• 45:27
  that includes Sam Adams, that includes New Belgium.
• 45:30
  Like we're talking huge volume producers where
• 45:32
  the rest of us are just, we're rounding errors,
• 45:35
  right? When it comes to what we're doing per
• 45:37
  year. So think about that when you're talking
• 45:40
  about products and quality is that, you're not
• 45:43
  just immediately granted a huge clientele. You
• 45:47
  have to fight for it. You have to be out there
• 45:50
  not pushing into the niche of the niche because
• 45:53
  you just cut your market by another two thirds.
• 45:57
  Which this is what we tell people too. I mean,
• 45:59
  if there is a place for niche, you know, there
• 46:01
  are people that want a, I want to do this super
• 46:04
  niche craft beer project. Fine. Let's look at
• 46:09
  the numbers. And this is your clients. Build
• 46:11
  your business plan around that. Specifically
• 46:13
  around that. Don't take a broader market -based
• 46:17
  approach and business plan and apply it to people.
• 46:21
  Exactly. And that's our number one fight. Every
• 46:24
  time somebody reaches out to us and say, I want
• 46:26
  to do this very obscure project for beer. And
• 46:31
  then they're like, I'm going to be doing, you
• 46:33
  know, like on -site sales of 10 ,000 barrels
• 46:36
  a year. We're like, listen, we need to sit down
• 46:38
  and talk. Because it doesn't, you know, you have
• 46:42
  to know, like, know that you have a cap. Know
• 46:44
  that you are, and you can be very successful
• 46:47
  at it. But if you know that you're like, this
• 46:50
  is going to equate to max 800 barrels, maybe
• 46:54
  a year max for the foreseeable future. Make your
• 46:59
  plans off of that. Yeah, those numbers aren't
• 47:01
  exponential growth either. I mean, you hit your
• 47:03
  capacity. at your location that is your capacity
• 47:07
  i mean you you can't fit more people in unless
• 47:10
  you start breaking fire codes that's just the
• 47:12
  way it works right i mean you can get creative
• 47:14
  to drive it up a little bit but once you start
• 47:16
  bumping that ceiling that's what it is right
• 47:18
  yeah we plan whenever we plan plan group ups
• 47:20
  like this one there's no expanding on this one
• 47:22
  so once we hit our capacity that we had projected
• 47:25
  because that's the tanks we have in here we're
• 47:27
  not going to try to figure out a way to put more
• 47:29
  tanks in here and that's where it's at that's
• 47:32
  the capacity it hits and that's where it's at
• 47:33
  we look for another location if that's what we
• 47:36
  want to do if we want to put another location
• 47:38
  or a different project but we have hard lines
• 47:41
  for our project and we encourage other people
• 47:42
  to have it because it makes the numbers work
• 47:44
  better and in your favor and you know what you
• 47:47
  have a target it's not moving you're like this
• 47:49
  is the target we have to hit this is how we're
• 47:51
  going to get there and not everything goes according
• 47:53
  to plan but that's okay you still plan it and
• 47:55
  you have a target to hit but people they say
• 47:58
  they have a plan and then they have but then
• 48:00
  there's always this background of well maybe
• 48:02
  we can like don't well maybes have your plan
• 48:05
  well now address something else that's been happening
• 48:08
  a lot is um at least in Texas it's a lot easier
• 48:11
  to do that where you can take another brew pub
• 48:13
  license and like move on so Texas has brew pub
• 48:15
  license and manufacturing brewery licenses which
• 48:17
  makes it harder because you have to pick one
• 48:20
  and you have to stay in it you can't switch You
• 48:22
  can switch, but you can't have one in each. So
• 48:25
  a lot of guys approach this by doing multiple
• 48:28
  brew pubs under the same brand. That is not something
• 48:31
  you have to do. No, it can be any brand you want.
• 48:34
  Right. And honestly, when you look at it, you
• 48:37
  may be dividing your clientele by doing that
• 48:39
  because people will travel to you if you have
• 48:42
  good name recognition. But if you put one closer
• 48:44
  to them. you just took all the ones that are
• 48:46
  traveling to just go to you instead right yeah
• 48:48
  i think we have to break out of the fact that
• 48:50
  everybody this is the product you know like and
• 48:52
  this is what we hope that the industry goes to
• 48:54
  at some future right is that if there's a concept
• 48:56
  for your brew pub and you're brewing these styles
• 48:59
  here you don't have to brew every style under
• 49:00
  the sun at this one project that you're doing
• 49:03
  right i want to do loggers in this project we
• 49:05
  do the loggers in this project do we want to
• 49:07
  put another group up of the same name because
• 49:09
  it's recognition and all because there's benefits
• 49:11
  to having the same name and the same project
• 49:13
  in a different place you can do that but there's
• 49:17
  nothing wrong and it's actually really you know
• 49:19
  we think it's a great idea that you come up with
• 49:22
  another project hey at this project we're going
• 49:24
  to do a bunch of you know we're going to do a
• 49:25
  bunch of hazies with some loggers here and we're
• 49:28
  going to do it where it's you know it's outdoors
• 49:29
  it themed in this like that's okay remember whether
• 49:34
  people want to accept it or not we're in the
• 49:35
  bar and restaurant industry I mean, we're in
• 49:38
  that consumer, you know, niche. And so give,
• 49:43
  you know, make different projects. And people
• 49:45
  never, I think a lot of times people don't think
• 49:47
  about that. They don't say, hey, I've been wanting,
• 49:50
  you know, maybe I should just do, you know, this
• 49:53
  one project where we're doing, you know, chat
• 49:55
  faucets and we're doing loggers. And it's going
• 49:59
  to be an outdoor feel. And this is what we want,
• 50:02
  right? This is our clientele XYZ. Let's do that.
• 50:04
  And we name it something else. I don't know if
• 50:08
  maybe you said it, but I didn't catch it. Kirby,
• 50:10
  what's your background? No, I love the accent.
• 50:14
  Yeah. So what was your background or educational
• 50:19
  background? I moved to the States. I got in the
• 50:22
  Navy. I worked as a hospital corpsman. And then
• 50:25
  when I got out, I started working the hospitals
• 50:29
  and I just, I was burnt from being in, you know,
• 50:32
  you know, I worked at the trauma hospital and
• 50:35
  the OR and I was just done with, medical and
• 50:37
  trauma and all that and so i went to 512 and
• 50:41
  i asked them 512 brewing 512 brewing yeah and
• 50:44
  i asked them you know to help out if i could
• 50:46
  help out and i helped out a couple times and
• 50:48
  they made me do the worst job there which was
• 50:50
  great because it hooked me because which was
• 50:52
  green and out by hand this big starter barrel
• 50:54
  mash done and i loved it though i fell in love
• 50:58
  because they it made me it gave me a like because
• 51:01
  before i was going into or i was seeing sick
• 51:02
  people we were treating these people and they
• 51:04
  were leaving but you never you never felt like
• 51:06
  you were getting ahead like you didn't see the
• 51:07
  fruits of your labor and in this it was a full
• 51:10
  tank and then it was an empty tank and then we
• 51:12
  made beer and at the end of the day you could
• 51:14
  drink this product that you made so it felt complete
• 51:16
  the circle were complete and so that's what really
• 51:19
  hooked me and then i just but i didn't have an
• 51:22
  experience You know, in Bruin, I didn't have
• 51:25
  an education in Bruin. So I had to self -taught.
• 51:27
  I had to read as much as I could read, look up
• 51:30
  as much podcast and all that as I could find.
• 51:33
  The one thing, I read a couple of books and it
• 51:35
  was really fun. It was like molecular gastronomy
• 51:37
  books, which is really weird, right? It sounds
• 51:39
  like a funny book. But in it, there was one book
• 51:44
  that I read and it was How to Boil an Egg. That
• 51:47
  opened my mind in, which I've always loved, restaurant
• 51:49
  industry and all that stuff. But it opened my
• 51:51
  mind in the fact that people get so stuck on
• 51:55
  something that they've learned. Well, this is
• 51:57
  how you do it. Well, why you do it that way?
• 51:59
  Well, because that's the way they taught me to
• 52:01
  do it. And I'm like, yeah, but why? And we have
• 52:05
  that in this industry. But restaurant industry
• 52:07
  has it too. But that's the whole idea of that
• 52:08
  book, right? Is there's a million different ways
• 52:11
  to boil an egg. Let's find scientifically what
• 52:14
  is the most efficient. And so they go through
• 52:16
  and they go through all the different ways, right?
• 52:18
  The truth is there is no right way of boiling
• 52:20
  an egg. It's how you get to the end, right? Like
• 52:22
  the worst ending ever where you're like, okay,
• 52:24
  so I read this one. Nothing. But understanding
• 52:27
  that is important because we get in habits of,
• 52:31
  I think I've digressed a lot, but we get in habits
• 52:33
  of we make a lager or an IPA or any other beer.
• 52:39
  in a very specific format like people are scared
• 52:41
  of changing anything they think that they like
• 52:43
  crack the code they have their own special way
• 52:45
  to do it and that's the only way to do it whereas
• 52:47
  you can have somebody do it in more of a traditional
• 52:50
  way or a different stepper style and it's just
• 52:52
  like just as good a beer just like i mean just
• 52:54
  different so i've had people say like no what
• 52:57
  like me we made our october fest and we put corn
• 52:59
  in our outdoor fest surprise germany yeah but
• 53:04
  our german friends they love you know the beer
• 53:06
  was great they loved it beer was great you told
• 53:08
  them they're like oh no you know like what'd
• 53:10
  you do to me but The fact is, it's about making
• 53:13
  good beer. And the processes of how to get there,
• 53:15
  there is absolutely right and wrongs on sanitation
• 53:18
  and all that stuff. But the actual act of getting
• 53:21
  there and how you do it and the mash stepping
• 53:23
  and all that stuff, be open to that. You have
• 53:25
  to be able to change. Is what I know right? Or
• 53:28
  is what I know just what I know because someone
• 53:31
  told me that? It brings us right back to the
• 53:33
  ag side. Because as you guys know, our raw materials
• 53:36
  change every year. it's an agricultural product
• 53:40
  so it changes every year it's not the growers
• 53:44
  are trying their best to make it as uniform as
• 53:46
  possible from year to year that is inevitably
• 53:48
  something that is i would say consistency is
• 53:51
  the key word that we try to aim for every year
• 53:53
  back to the quality thing every raw material
• 53:56
  supplier through the entire chain is going to
• 54:00
  want to push for consistency and that's awesome
• 54:02
  but they're relying on nature for their products
• 54:05
  that they're selling The raw material we get
• 54:07
  is a natural product. Nature's not consistent
• 54:09
  at all. I mean, the only place it is is San Diego,
• 54:12
  and they don't grow shit. So when we get it,
• 54:17
  and I had this discussion with some other brewers
• 54:19
  in the area where they were like, well, the malt's
• 54:22
  been inconsistent, so we just had to switch suppliers.
• 54:25
  And I was like, you're a brewer. You should know
• 54:28
  when that raw material comes in, if it's slight
• 54:31
  changes in X, Y, and Z, read the COAs. The protein
• 54:34
  content's going to change. you're a brewer you
• 54:37
  should be able to change your processes to fit
• 54:39
  that incoming raw material this is a total side
• 54:43
  tangent but is there anything as hops suppliers
• 54:46
  that we can do differently with analysis i mean
• 54:50
  because obviously we supply coas but is there
• 54:53
  is there anything we can do to further help the
• 54:55
  brewers on the analysis side yeah i think it
• 54:59
  comes down to two things right like when we talk
• 55:01
  about hops I think we kind of get into the minutiae
• 55:05
  of we're either using it for flavoring or bittering,
• 55:07
  right? It's kind of the two sides we go with.
• 55:09
  And the analysis that really matters, like we're
• 55:12
  starting to understand more of what the oils
• 55:14
  do for actual bitterness that go beyond alpha,
• 55:16
  for sure. But I think as brewers go into it,
• 55:20
  they start to understand where they want to use
• 55:21
  it. And sensory analysis is becoming way more
• 55:25
  important per lot to say, hey, this is what you
• 55:28
  can expect in aromatics and flavor. And just
• 55:31
  having that information, the more information,
• 55:33
  the better. Because I think the brewers are getting
• 55:36
  more educated. More preloaded information on
• 55:39
  the aromatic profiles. So is that like a spider
• 55:43
  graph, just a list of descriptors? Or is that
• 55:48
  more of a in -depth oil analysis? Well, I think
• 55:52
  the oil analysis loses a lot of brewers who don't
• 55:55
  understand it, right? Like they look at it from
• 55:57
  citrus, from berry, from dark fruits, right?
• 56:00
  Like they know that. But I think it's also important.
• 56:04
  And you and I have talked about this a lot for
• 56:06
  selection. Pointing at Andy for the record. Yeah.
• 56:10
  Mike and I don't get to talk as much as Andy
• 56:11
  and I get to talk. But we've talked about it
• 56:14
  for selection. When we go out there and do selection,
• 56:16
  everyone has to remember you're getting a one
• 56:18
  pound block. out of 20 ,000 pounds of hops. This
• 56:22
  is super representative. It's like me going to
• 56:31
  the Arctic, taking a little ice sample and being
• 56:33
  like, holy shit, this explains the whole Antarctic
• 56:35
  continent. Not to say it's not important. You
• 56:41
  get an idea of what this crop and this lot at
• 56:46
  this picking window is doing. Sure. But you can't
• 56:50
  rely on that. You have to trust the growers to
• 56:53
  give you more information about the entire lot
• 56:56
  and what that looks like, right? Because they're
• 56:59
  the ones that are in that field every single
• 57:01
  day. They're getting samples. I mean, you guys
• 57:03
  are seeing samples of various parts of that lot
• 57:06
  throughout the entire process. You know it better
• 57:09
  than we do by going out there. And walking the
• 57:11
  whole field. 100%. The more information we have
• 57:14
  is great, but to the detail level... I think
• 57:17
  it depends on the brewer. Yeah, because this
• 57:19
  is how I see it. It's just like boiling an egg,
• 57:22
  right? You know how many brewers I've asked?
• 57:23
  Full circle. There's some brewers that they're
• 57:27
  like, I pick the hops that have, when they're
• 57:30
  looking at the numbers, right? And the little,
• 57:31
  you know, all the oil content, the breakouts.
• 57:33
  They're like, well, I like high oil content in
• 57:37
  my hop. That's how I pick it. And some other
• 57:39
  was like, well, I need a threshold linalool of
• 57:41
  this percentage. And then you're like, I'm like,
• 57:44
  yeah, but what does that, how? does that apply
• 57:47
  to your final beer and your aroma and your flavor
• 57:51
  profile? And what are you ignoring? And so ideally,
• 57:52
  the ideal thing really is that, and people have
• 57:54
  this where they're like, well, that's, I've done
• 57:57
  it and I've made good beer because I've always
• 57:59
  picked a beer with high literal or whatever.
• 58:01
  You know, like they pick one oil, they pick one
• 58:02
  content that they're looking at the numbers and
• 58:05
  a lot of them will look at it and you try to
• 58:06
  deduce, right? Because we're still learning all
• 58:08
  this information, how this applies, translates
• 58:10
  into actual product, right? But really, the best
• 58:14
  way of doing it that we found, that really translates
• 58:17
  to the beer and the final product is actual sensory
• 58:20
  like and it's and visual is nice i i love a spider
• 58:23
  graph because it's nice it's visual in it but
• 58:26
  even written version of that but sensory is king
• 58:29
  when it comes to final product application and
• 58:33
  you need the more century we get because obviously
• 58:36
  everybody's palette is different i grew up in
• 58:38
  the tropics so what i smell on some hops is some
• 58:42
  weird out -of -the -box fruit. All the time.
• 58:44
  I'll smell mosaic to me. All the time. He'll
• 58:46
  say a fruit. I don't even know what that is.
• 58:47
  Well, mosaic to me smells is the hot version
• 58:50
  of a fruit that we have in the islands called
• 58:53
  a hog plum. I'll translate that to hog plum.
• 58:57
  Hog plum. Hog plum. So everybody's palate is
• 59:00
  different. And so the more information you have,
• 59:02
  I think the wider range of sensory that you can
• 59:04
  apply, you can take that information and then
• 59:08
  that actually translates to final product. to
• 59:10
  me when i'm picking hops and i'm looking at lots
• 59:13
  i want sensory i want to see what somebody else
• 59:15
  smelled and i want to see and i hope that pool
• 59:18
  is big enough that it gives me a range that i
• 59:20
  can look at say okay it went from this to this
• 59:22
  obviously everybody has different palettes and
• 59:24
  they have different experience and that applies
• 59:26
  to their sensory you know interpretations and
• 59:29
  so i kind of take that and i said this is my
• 59:32
  range of the products that i can do and then
• 59:35
  you use it and then you smell it and then now
• 59:37
  you have an actual representation of what you
• 59:40
  smell within that and then i can pinpoint within
• 59:43
  that range what this lot gave me and so then
• 59:47
  i take that and i say okay whenever somebody
• 59:49
  has between you know you have stone fruit this
• 59:52
  amount of stone fruit and this amount of citrus
• 59:54
  this is my interpretation of what i got when
• 59:56
  i put it in these conditions in the beer and
• 59:59
  then i'll repeat off of that so i use that to
• 1:00:01
  give me a baseline off of that sensory and then
• 1:00:04
  i develop my sensory off of that and i build
• 1:00:06
  from there so it's interesting but first question
• 1:00:09
  is is because you know you've selected with us
• 1:00:13
  over the years probably through um whole leaf
• 1:00:17
  and pellet um and maybe a little bit of back
• 1:00:20
  and forth in your experience within the industry
• 1:00:23
  do you ever see where that the product that you
• 1:00:26
  select could be different when you get it in
• 1:00:29
  pellet form was there any issues with selecting
• 1:00:33
  from the pellet? It's a curiosity. It's not a
• 1:00:38
  leading question. It's just a curiosity. And
• 1:00:40
  I think the thing I would say, there is variation,
• 1:00:43
  sure. Especially whenever, I mean, just like
• 1:00:47
  all of us, some things can happen in the process
• 1:00:49
  that just kind of change it. But if you're doing
• 1:00:51
  whole leaf selection, yeah, you could do a brewer's
• 1:00:53
  cut, right? Or we would used to go into the actual
• 1:00:56
  hills whenever it came in post the kiln. right
• 1:00:59
  and literally oh yeah into the cooling room yeah
• 1:01:01
  that's the best place to do it oh yeah because
• 1:01:03
  then you have thousands of pounds and you can
• 1:01:05
  grab yeah you can grab anywhere from in there
• 1:01:07
  right so the core right 100 yeah but even the
• 1:01:11
  pelleting process right it could be a separate
• 1:01:13
  run of a different section so you get little
• 1:01:15
  variation but generally speaking i found personally
• 1:01:20
  that that lot is mostly consistent and it's mostly
• 1:01:25
  tied to picking window for individual varieties.
• 1:01:28
  I will credit my former brewery, Victory, for
• 1:01:33
  being very smart. At one point they did a trial
• 1:01:36
  run for the German hop growers where we got spalt
• 1:01:39
  from three different days of picking and we brewed
• 1:01:43
  with it in individual beers. So we had spalt
• 1:01:45
  day one, spalt day two, and spalt day three in
• 1:01:48
  three different pills, all different. Really?
• 1:01:51
  So what did you think? I mean, obviously from
• 1:01:54
  day to day as the crop matures, that profile
• 1:01:58
  is going to change and some varieties change
• 1:02:00
  faster than others. Some of them have, you know,
• 1:02:03
  12 day harvesting windows. Some of them have
• 1:02:05
  like a three day harvesting window. And cashmere
• 1:02:07
  has a half day. Cashmere has like a one day.
• 1:02:11
  This is a huge point. And there's some that.
• 1:02:15
  Want it to be a 30 day. Yeah. I mean, cascade
• 1:02:17
  can hang for just about ever depending. It doesn't
• 1:02:20
  go bad, but it changes a lot. I mean, even Columbus,
• 1:02:25
  like, or we talk any of the CTZs. If you start
• 1:02:28
  early, you may like what you get versus letting
• 1:02:31
  it hang for way too long. And it does get more
• 1:02:33
  alpha. And this takes us to the point I'd like
• 1:02:37
  to make, where it's like, really, I'm not as
• 1:02:40
  interested nowadays in new varieties as much.
• 1:02:44
  as i want to explore existing varieties in their
• 1:02:48
  range obviously not all of them have a good range
• 1:02:51
  some of them have terrible ranges as a matter
• 1:02:54
  of fact that's what i'm interested in is seeing
• 1:02:56
  more of what we can do with the existence ones
• 1:02:58
  we have based on picking you know picking windows
• 1:03:01
  obviously it's easier said than done but all
• 1:03:03
  that has to do with there's a lot of motion you
• 1:03:06
  know machinery that has to be activated and moved
• 1:03:08
  to get all that happening but it's very interesting
• 1:03:11
  to me because we've already had like we just
• 1:03:13
  had those deep cuts that we that we smelled from
• 1:03:15
  cascade which is very different beautiful yep
• 1:03:17
  and it's you know it's a different it's an amazing
• 1:03:20
  expression of cascade which i love and so i think
• 1:03:22
  like if you know i'd like to see more of that
• 1:03:25
  like like columbus i like columbus even when
• 1:03:28
  it's really garlicky and stuff like that and
• 1:03:31
  i like columbus when it's picked where it's you
• 1:03:34
  know has a lot of that pineapple expression and
• 1:03:36
  stuff like that and i'll use them both very differently
• 1:03:39
  when in you know like dank super oniony columbus
• 1:03:43
  i use it in smaller measure but i use it to round
• 1:03:46
  out beer give a lot more depth and umami kind
• 1:03:48
  of characteristic to a beer but i use it in a
• 1:03:50
  smaller amount when we're dry hopping and then
• 1:03:53
  the fine you're obviously good columbus is just
• 1:03:55
  anywhere and everywhere but um but i like to
• 1:03:57
  do that's the stuff that i want to explore more
• 1:04:00
  on i'd wish to see more of that which i know
• 1:04:03
  it's a little more difficult it's not difficult
• 1:04:05
  to execute to study i think the harder part in
• 1:04:11
  that when we look at uh a farms or let's say
• 1:04:16
  our farms portfolio is that there's a certain
• 1:04:19
  amount of the portfolio that can represent that
• 1:04:23
  type of product and then we also have these other
• 1:04:26
  types of products that are mixed into our portfolio
• 1:04:29
  and they all average out to some return per acre
• 1:04:34
  right and You know, currently, whether it's because
• 1:04:39
  the genetics are higher yielding or it's because
• 1:04:44
  they're commanding a premium in the marketplace,
• 1:04:46
  proprietary genetics are driving the most value
• 1:04:50
  on a per acre basis back to the farm. And then
• 1:04:53
  if you go the opposite end of that spectrum,
• 1:04:55
  you know, CTZ into bittering as an example, or
• 1:05:00
  probably any alpha based product. is going to
• 1:05:04
  be the lowest return and then you have you know
• 1:05:06
  like what you're talking about where you have
• 1:05:08
  a you know a ctz which is highly commoditized
• 1:05:11
  even though the craft beer world pays more uh
• 1:05:15
  you know you have you have that with you know
• 1:05:19
  cascade centennial chinook and we love all those
• 1:05:21
  varieties those are very core to our portfolio
• 1:05:24
  but they have a very defined ceiling on what
• 1:05:28
  people can pay because breweries are also cost
• 1:05:30
  averaging per barrel You know, and so and so
• 1:05:34
  I don't think it's hard to do. I think the economics
• 1:05:37
  have to work across the entire portfolio. So
• 1:05:41
  for us, let's say if we had, you know, I'm kind
• 1:05:44
  of making numbers up here, but if we had 40 percent
• 1:05:47
  of our portfolio in, you know, CTZ or alpha based
• 1:05:52
  products, and then we had 30 percent or 25 percent
• 1:05:56
  with Publix or, you know, could be Cascade Centennial.
• 1:06:02
  Chinook, it could be Vera, Vista, Thora. I mean,
• 1:06:06
  any of those varieties, right? And then we have
• 1:06:11
  a certain portion in that proprietary bucket.
• 1:06:13
  And for us, it kind of dovetails into the hop
• 1:06:16
  experience that we're going to go to this afternoon.
• 1:06:19
  We don't need or want to create another Citra.
• 1:06:24
  And I think that those days are long gone. Nobody's
• 1:06:26
  going to recreate a Citra. It had the first mover
• 1:06:29
  advantage. You know, it is a great hop, but I
• 1:06:32
  think a lot of it had to do with the velocity
• 1:06:34
  that he experienced early on and the beers and
• 1:06:37
  the styles that it defined helped define along
• 1:06:40
  the way. And it's an adaptable hop, right? Yep.
• 1:06:44
  And so for us, let's say in like new varietals,
• 1:06:46
  it's going to be a point or it's going to be.
• 1:06:50
  New varietals for us are going to represent some
• 1:06:53
  percentage of the portfolio, but it's not going
• 1:06:55
  to be the entirety of it. And then when you look
• 1:06:57
  at the independent grower space right now, a
• 1:07:00
  lot of them were growing or healthy because of
• 1:07:06
  HBC varietals and the growth that was getting
• 1:07:09
  allocated out into those individual growers.
• 1:07:12
  Right now, there's a pullback on HBC varietals.
• 1:07:16
  into basically into the ownership of those varietals.
• 1:07:19
  And so, you know, for some merchants, it's pull
• 1:07:22
  back into maybe a couple growers and themselves.
• 1:07:25
  And then in other merchants, maybe it's, you
• 1:07:28
  know, pull back into their broader ownership
• 1:07:30
  base. And I understand that in this constriction,
• 1:07:34
  in this consolidation, that's a natural course
• 1:07:36
  of action. But then you have this independent
• 1:07:38
  grower base and we're in there where, okay, well,
• 1:07:42
  we probably need to offset some. portion of that
• 1:07:46
  hbc market share with our own genetics anyway
• 1:07:50
  that's a long -winded explanation but it's it's
• 1:07:52
  a it's i don't it's not hard to do and you are
• 1:07:55
  seeing it with deep cut cascade or um this gets
• 1:07:59
  in the weeds but you know you say well let's
• 1:08:02
  explore it more in its range and to some degree
• 1:08:05
  i'm like let's just harvest it right there's
• 1:08:07
  always very there's always very there's always
• 1:08:09
  variations of that that we can explore and and
• 1:08:13
  and innovate on But to some degree, during the
• 1:08:16
  whole proprietary craft beer, you know, run up,
• 1:08:20
  a lot of those varieties got ignored or moved
• 1:08:23
  around in the harvesting window because they
• 1:08:25
  didn't get the return that these proprietary
• 1:08:27
  genetics got. And we moved away from maybe just
• 1:08:31
  harvesting them appropriately. Yeah, right. Cascade
• 1:08:36
  is one of the prime examples of that. We just
• 1:08:38
  shifted around because what's the change? What's
• 1:08:40
  funny is, is brewers... We talked about sensory.
• 1:08:43
  We talked about what we want with sensory, but
• 1:08:45
  we ignore way too much agronomics. Clearly how
• 1:08:50
  the farms are run and how it makes sense to run.
• 1:08:53
  And yeah, I mean, a lot of brewers would be like,
• 1:08:56
  I want that new variety. I want to try that out.
• 1:08:58
  I really want to be like, I want to lead the
• 1:09:00
  industry by using X, Y, and Z variety. You're
• 1:09:03
  ignoring what the farmer is doing to get that
• 1:09:06
  variety out there and maybe what the genuine
• 1:09:09
  cause of that such variety is. Centennial. No
• 1:09:13
  one likes to grow it. We like it for the record.
• 1:09:16
  But it is... It's a pain in the ass. It's not
• 1:09:21
  that bad for us, but it can be... Farm to farm.
• 1:09:24
  When you look across the industry, it is a pain
• 1:09:28
  in the ass and not everybody likes it. And this
• 1:09:30
  is in farm to farm, which I think, you know,
• 1:09:32
  this isn't abnormal. I think the US market, as
• 1:09:36
  compared to, let's say, how Germany grows things,
• 1:09:38
  Germany has regional... varieties right like
• 1:09:42
  there's certain varieties they're really named
• 1:09:44
  after regions that they grow because they do
• 1:09:46
  really well in those regions and those growing
• 1:09:48
  conditions and obviously that's changing over
• 1:09:50
  time but they have it set where you grow tetananger
• 1:09:55
  in tetanang and it's different than hollow tower
• 1:09:57
  tetanang or tetanang hollow tower is different
• 1:10:00
  than hollow tower hollow tower right they know
• 1:10:02
  that really well in the u .s we just kind of
• 1:10:04
  blanketed that everything was american grown
• 1:10:07
  so like oregon grown should be the same as washington
• 1:10:10
  grown should be the same as idaho grown that's
• 1:10:13
  not how that works at all and farm to farm even
• 1:10:16
  like in yakima especially 20 30 miles down the
• 1:10:19
  road you're going to get another microclimate
• 1:10:21
  that's entirely different for one farm soil not
• 1:10:24
  to toot our own horn but chinook and moxie other
• 1:10:27
  than microclimates subjective Farmer preference
• 1:10:36
  and consumer preference. Schedules. And for Mike
• 1:10:40
  bringing up Chinook, we have a certain window
• 1:10:44
  that we pick Chinook in. And climate. And we
• 1:10:47
  highly favor, we have a strong customer base
• 1:10:50
  that looks for that type of aroma profile that
• 1:10:52
  they expect from us going back to consistency.
• 1:10:54
  Whereas two miles, five miles down the road,
• 1:10:58
  there are growers that are like, it's one of
• 1:11:00
  the last varieties they pick out of the whole
• 1:11:01
  harvest. And to me, that seems... like sacrilegious
• 1:11:05
  because i love chinooks my favorite variety but
• 1:11:08
  That's what they have found their customer base
• 1:11:11
  like. So who am I to say it's wrong? I call a
• 1:11:13
  little bit of bullshit on that. I think part
• 1:11:15
  of the reason that people aren't harvesting your
• 1:11:17
  rice is because they have competing interests
• 1:11:18
  within their varietal portfolio. Oh, yes. So
• 1:11:22
  the moral of the story is you need to have a
• 1:11:27
  good relationship with your farmer. Find a farmer
• 1:11:31
  you like and what they're doing and have the
• 1:11:33
  relationship with them that you can say, hey,
• 1:11:34
  what you got going on? You can't forget that
• 1:11:36
  it's financially driven. And we operate the same
• 1:11:39
  damn way. Like, I'm going to make an IPA that
• 1:11:42
  I don't have a really great margin on. And I'm
• 1:11:44
  okay with that being our leader as far as what
• 1:11:47
  people think of us as. But you better be damn
• 1:11:50
  sure I'm going to sell adjunct lager like crazy.
• 1:11:52
  I'm going to sell as much of that as I possibly
• 1:11:54
  can because my margin makes up for my IPA. Consumers,
• 1:11:57
  you didn't hear that. And we're finding different
• 1:12:01
  ways of being more efficient. We should expect
• 1:12:03
  that from y 'all as well that you make decisions.
• 1:12:06
  based on what keeps the farm alive. And also
• 1:12:09
  for like picking is like very much like logistics
• 1:12:11
  based too. It's like, you know, basically making
• 1:12:13
  sure we have the capacity at the right time.
• 1:12:16
  And then something may come on earlier, be hanging
• 1:12:18
  longer than, you know, it's not maturing fast
• 1:12:19
  enough. And so it's kind of like. A storm runs
• 1:12:22
  through Yakima, let's say it starts raining and
• 1:12:24
  Moxie, you got to change everything within a
• 1:12:26
  day. Yeah. You got to get that Redwood CTZ field.
• 1:12:29
  It's like about ready to like tip over because
• 1:12:31
  the weight's too much. Good yields. Yep. Yeah,
• 1:12:35
  circling back around to the varietal thing, because
• 1:12:37
  I mean, I would like to spend a couple of minutes
• 1:12:39
  talking about the hop experience and the beer
• 1:12:42
  that you guys brewed. But yeah, if you look at
• 1:12:46
  the economics, to your point, Matt, you know,
• 1:12:49
  if you look at, I don't know, industry average
• 1:12:50
  yields, they seem to be flexing up a little bit
• 1:12:53
  with new genetics. But, you know, somewhere between
• 1:12:55
  eighteen hundred to two thousand pounds, probably
• 1:12:57
  on average across the industry. And I don't know
• 1:13:00
  what price point you want to put in there. But,
• 1:13:02
  you know, if you look at. just for easy math,
• 1:13:04
  if you say, well, the funny thing is even citrus,
• 1:13:08
  probably like 1800 pounds, you know, across the
• 1:13:11
  industry, right? So if you look at 1800 pounds
• 1:13:13
  and you look at like, let's say a return back
• 1:13:16
  to the grower, say five bucks, right? Like, you
• 1:13:20
  know, it's like, all right, well, $9 ,000 an
• 1:13:22
  acre is not covering. It doesn't pay for a new
• 1:13:26
  acre either. That does not pay for new acre that.
• 1:13:29
  barely covers your cost on fully loaded existing
• 1:13:32
  acre. And then you look at a Zaka as an example,
• 1:13:36
  we do probably about 2 ,800 to 3 ,000 pounds
• 1:13:40
  per acre. All of a sudden, like that's a noticeable
• 1:13:43
  amount of profit margin. So circling back around,
• 1:13:46
  Kirby, we need to be doing some and more of what
• 1:13:50
  you're talking about. And we also need to, you
• 1:13:53
  know. look at these new proprietary genetics
• 1:13:56
  and maybe get more of a balance in the marketplace.
• 1:14:00
  And it also, I think also too, it's like, we
• 1:14:03
  don't need 50 new varieties, but we need, probably
• 1:14:05
  need some more, not a lot. There's some that
• 1:14:09
  could go away. Yeah. There's some that could
• 1:14:11
  go away for sure. There's yeah. It's like new
• 1:14:13
  varieties need to have like solve one or two
• 1:14:16
  problems, either a agronomic issue or a flavor
• 1:14:21
  aroma addition that's you know unique but not
• 1:14:24
  too unique yeah novel but yeah yeah but basically
• 1:14:28
  helps with cost saving at the end yeah i think
• 1:14:31
  we forget that the hop industry has grown with
• 1:14:35
  the brewing industry obviously but changed so
• 1:14:38
  much oh yeah from 40 years ago to what the actual
• 1:14:43
  focus has been and what varieties exist now for
• 1:14:46
  you guys to choose from for supplying maybe some
• 1:14:50
  of the older varieties now that don't make sense
• 1:14:52
  for certain higher volume clients that you can
• 1:14:55
  replace it with something else that's more economically
• 1:14:57
  viable which is like saying hey we're getting
• 1:15:00
  a better margin on our mass produced and we can
• 1:15:03
  do more of this fun proprietary stuff for brewers
• 1:15:06
  that hey if it makes agronomic sense yeah we'll
• 1:15:09
  roll it and if it's doing what you need it to
• 1:15:12
  do too it's the partnership like it comes back
• 1:15:14
  to that partnership of we should be able to adapt
• 1:15:17
  along with you guys adapting at the same time
• 1:15:19
  communication partnership yeah so let's talk
• 1:15:23
  about the um the beer you guys made for the hop
• 1:15:27
  experience using 1631. first off could you please
• 1:15:31
  tell us the name of the beer oh yes yeah so we're
• 1:15:34
  shooting for the awards we don't really do awards
• 1:15:37
  um of longest name beer in history so it is literally
• 1:15:42
  called we don't need the words of reviewers to
• 1:15:45
  tell us what we are about. And I didn't contract
• 1:15:47
  any of that because I wanted every single word
• 1:15:50
  to hit. Yeah, we're on tap at Pine House now.
• 1:15:55
  I think we call it like Wooden Award. Just abbreviate
• 1:16:00
  down to first. Oh, it's all first. It is all
• 1:16:03
  first letters on the tap list. You'll see that,
• 1:16:04
  yeah. They can ask what it's about. So, I mean,
• 1:16:09
  just as a little background on the name, we do
• 1:16:12
  a lot of references to a certain show that maybe
• 1:16:14
  you may have not have seen that is a reference
• 1:16:16
  of the name. We're not going to say we named
• 1:16:18
  this brewery after that, but we could have. But
• 1:16:22
  anyway, so. And oh, just to say you do have Bailey's
• 1:16:25
  in a shoe. We do have Bailey's in a shoe. Creamy
• 1:16:26
  beige. Our dry Irish stout is a shoe, so you
• 1:16:30
  can put Bailey's in a shoe. So we decided to
• 1:16:35
  go with 1631 as we did some some rubs and smells
• 1:16:38
  which really came through as like yeah we want
• 1:16:41
  to play around with this variety and we decided
• 1:16:44
  to do a hazy IPA because we wanted to have this
• 1:16:47
  kind of rebuild of a hazy IPA with making sure
• 1:16:51
  we could focus on the hop with a good malt backbone
• 1:16:55
  that wasn't overbearing. Honestly when we do
• 1:16:57
  hazies we try to go a little bit drier. than
• 1:17:00
  most hazies and build body through other means
• 1:17:02
  usually like a minimal amount of multidextrins
• 1:17:05
  but using the protein haze to kind of drive that
• 1:17:08
  mouthfeel that we get and what we did was we
• 1:17:12
  pulled the 1631 all to dry hop we wanted it to
• 1:17:16
  be the star of the show And we generally don't
• 1:17:20
  add a whole lot of bittering hops for hazies
• 1:17:22
  anyway. We try to kind of keep that bitterness
• 1:17:24
  super soft, modern style. But it has a nice gold
• 1:17:28
  color. And 1631 came through in the dry hop with
• 1:17:33
  really, I mean, the most pronounced thing I think
• 1:17:35
  that all of us touched on was the dark fruit.
• 1:17:38
  It's got a lot of rich dark fruit character,
• 1:17:41
  a lot of berry. And it's really welcoming in
• 1:17:44
  a beer that has... a really smooth subtle it's
• 1:17:48
  6 .6 but you don't taste that at all very round
• 1:17:51
  mouth feel with a really nice complex dark fruit
• 1:17:54
  and berry character and it's different than most
• 1:17:57
  hazies because most guys lean into the citrus
• 1:17:59
  and the passion fruit and like this high bio
• 1:18:02
  transformation character now high bio character
• 1:18:04
  here is uh more of what's interesting is almost
• 1:18:09
  like what used to be classic east coast ipa hops
• 1:18:12
  style more or less like some of that rich dark
• 1:18:16
  fruit without the extreme woodiness without that
• 1:18:19
  character that always made east coast ipas kind
• 1:18:21
  of like a little bit resinous a little bit too
• 1:18:23
  heavy on the bitterness right like we kept it
• 1:18:26
  very soft and it's around really nice beer i'm
• 1:18:29
  really enjoying it yeah we do um and our process
• 1:18:32
  here is a little different with um and it has
• 1:18:35
  to do with going back to the you know we bought
• 1:18:38
  everything used and so our kettle that we bought
• 1:18:41
  was from an old rock bottom And so back in those
• 1:18:44
  days, they weren't using very many hops at all
• 1:18:46
  in beers. And so they're dammed for their hop
• 1:18:49
  dam. She's a beast. She is. She's a beautiful
• 1:18:51
  thing. But her hop dam is not very big. So what
• 1:18:57
  we transferred to doing, instead of low temp
• 1:18:59
  hop in the kettle, we'll do, I guess it's kind
• 1:19:03
  of a variation on a hot dip. I don't know. Other
• 1:19:06
  people call it other stuff. But basically, I'll
• 1:19:08
  explain. We take it and we knock out. into the
• 1:19:11
  fermenter about one hectolitre to two hectolitres.
• 1:19:14
  We do metric. About a barrel. And then we, you
• 1:19:20
  can blame me. No, that's mine. That's my choice.
• 1:19:23
  But yeah, so basically we knock out about a hectolitre,
• 1:19:30
  two hectolitres in the fermenter. And then we
• 1:19:32
  put the hops in there with that and we let that
• 1:19:34
  steep for, you know, about 15 minutes at about
• 1:19:38
  180 degrees. fahrenheit um and we let that sit
• 1:19:42
  for about 15 minutes or so and then we cold we
• 1:19:46
  knock out immediately drop the temp on our knockout
• 1:19:48
  coldness so we bring the overall temp down and
• 1:19:51
  pitch yeast and then we um pressure ferment on
• 1:19:55
  top of that so all that a lot of that we end
• 1:19:58
  up you know all of the biotransfer all those
• 1:19:59
  characteristics from the hops end up in the in
• 1:20:02
  the fermenter at the beginning of the fermentation
• 1:20:03
  and then we pressure ferment it and then in this
• 1:20:07
  case we had another fermenter after the fermentation
• 1:20:11
  was done obviously we did a classic you know
• 1:20:14
  50 degree cool and then we got all the hops and
• 1:20:18
  yeast off the bottom and then we transferred
• 1:20:20
  it into another vessel with the 1631 yeah and
• 1:20:24
  we sit it but it was already because we pressure
• 1:20:26
  ferment it was already fully conditioned um carbonated
• 1:20:29
  and everything so it was under full it got all
• 1:20:32
  its carbonations natural carbonated which adds
• 1:20:34
  to that softness and it retains a lot of those
• 1:20:36
  vault you know like you know we have no scrubbing
• 1:20:38
  issue because we don't force cut we're not forced
• 1:20:40
  carbonated so it went in there there wasn't any
• 1:20:43
  kind of you know very little of any kind of flash
• 1:20:46
  off so we retain a lot of those delicate um volatiles
• 1:20:50
  and stuff in there so it really came through
• 1:20:52
  really nice on it but it's very soft um it has
• 1:20:56
  obviously uh i think we put some um hops that
• 1:21:00
  lent to biotransformation i think we in there
• 1:21:02
  at that 180 and then um and i don't even think
• 1:21:07
  we didn't really do any kettle hopping at all
• 1:21:08
  other than that the 180 we put in in the fermenter
• 1:21:12
  so we the kettle didn't even have any hops you
• 1:21:14
  said there's a little bit of a zaka in there
• 1:21:15
  yep yeah there's a zaka in raca and then i want
• 1:21:19
  to keep it at least have Roy Farms represented.
• 1:21:22
  Yeah, yeah. Of course, of course. Appreciate
• 1:21:24
  it. Roy Farms, Azaka. Plug, try it. Get more
• 1:21:29
  of it. Buy more of it. Was that this year's selection?
• 1:21:33
  I think it was last year's. I love Azaka. I like
• 1:21:36
  adding it to just about everything if I can.
• 1:21:39
  When you get it dialed, it's... Because that
• 1:21:41
  goes all the way back to the victory days. Yeah,
• 1:21:43
  when we first came out. Early adopters. Yeah.
• 1:21:47
  I mean, it was, we were, we were on the, the
• 1:21:50
  initial triers. One of the first sets. Yeah.
• 1:21:53
  Jim. Old Boyd. Hi, Jim. Miss you, Jim. Seriously.
• 1:21:58
  Let's hang out. Yeah. And that's right. And so
• 1:22:00
  like most of our beers that we do, we, we do
• 1:22:03
  have a hop in early on and we pitch yeast and
• 1:22:06
  then we develop, you know, method. We've made
• 1:22:09
  other beers, which we're in the process of doing
• 1:22:11
  where we repitch hops and yeast and to, to make
• 1:22:15
  another hop of beer. And with amazing success.
• 1:22:20
  I'll be honest, like the hop blindness thing
• 1:22:22
  for yeast is a pretty antiquated view of yeast
• 1:22:27
  from probably more storage issues, more nutrient
• 1:22:32
  issues. It's still out there where people are
• 1:22:34
  always afraid to repitch yeast from hoppy beers.
• 1:22:36
  And really it's carry over of hops. But I mean,
• 1:22:39
  if you're doing proper harvest techniques. of
• 1:22:43
  your yeast if you're being really careful about
• 1:22:45
  what's being pulled through and getting good
• 1:22:46
  drops on it the yeast is fine it's not hurting
• 1:22:50
  to get started again especially new newer varieties
• 1:22:53
  of yeast or they're amped up for it so yeah we've
• 1:22:56
  had no we've had no issue with fermentation any
• 1:22:59
  kind of fermentation the hop blindness thing
• 1:23:03
  i think is an old kind of an old world idea i
• 1:23:06
  don't really see any impact from especially things
• 1:23:09
  like chico that thing just runs whenever you
• 1:23:12
  need it to run it doesn't care about hops yeah
• 1:23:13
  it's just a consideration of what hops are in
• 1:23:16
  the beer and then obviously some of that carryover
• 1:23:18
  is going to go into your next beer so you don't
• 1:23:20
  want to follow up yeah if you don't want another
• 1:23:23
  secondary hoppy beer you don't follow up an ipa
• 1:23:26
  one that you pitch a lot of yeast in and i mean
• 1:23:28
  a lot of hops in and then into another beer that
• 1:23:30
  you want like a light lager in or something like
• 1:23:32
  that yeah be hopping in some character which
• 1:23:35
  is what we did with this one i mean this is you
• 1:23:37
  know we pitched it into basically a light lager
• 1:23:40
  three three six three three point six alcohol
• 1:23:42
  recapture and that's the one that we recaptured
• 1:23:46
  and we put it in there and it makes such a beautiful
• 1:23:48
  yeah so yeah just for mike you can try it fragments
• 1:23:55
  is basically explain so what we did was we took
• 1:23:59
  uh our ipa love games right fermented all the
• 1:24:02
  way through all the hopping in the fermenter
• 1:24:05
  and we literally instead of trying to really
• 1:24:06
  separate the yeast and the hops we just repitched
• 1:24:09
  all of what was the dry hop and the yeast that
• 1:24:12
  was in there into a secondary beer and it was
• 1:24:14
  like a 3 .6 percent low abv low calorie what
• 1:24:19
  ended up like we didn't know exactly what we
• 1:24:21
  were getting we had the malt base ready but what
• 1:24:24
  it ended up being is basically like a low calorie
• 1:24:26
  session idea really good hop character and we
• 1:24:30
  discussed with some other guys that had tried
• 1:24:32
  it and they're like yeah it got too bitter or
• 1:24:34
  like they didn't like x y and z and i think what
• 1:24:36
  we found was the yeast matters a lot right but
• 1:24:40
  also the base beer matters a lot too right we
• 1:24:43
  built out something that would have bitterness
• 1:24:46
  show up a lot more and we didn't get that at
• 1:24:48
  all yeah i mean we and we kept well we also kept
• 1:24:51
  the hop you know like the hop dosing in the in
• 1:24:53
  the cattle was very light we just did a first
• 1:24:55
  word and we you know with some hops and that
• 1:24:57
  was it you know so we kept it very low we get
• 1:24:59
  the you know calculated estimated ibu very low
• 1:25:02
  um for what we use here obviously and then you
• 1:25:06
  know we with the idea that we we knew we were
• 1:25:09
  going to pick up some type of bittering characteristic
• 1:25:10
  because you know it's to lack of better words,
• 1:25:13
  pre -masticated hops, you know, going into the
• 1:25:17
  thing. So you get, you know, we were, you know,
• 1:25:19
  we're expecting to get a little more plant matter
• 1:25:21
  kind of character. Yeah. We're like the bitterness
• 1:25:22
  like you were talking about. But it's beautiful.
• 1:25:24
  The bitterness came up because we were planning
• 1:25:26
  for it. It came out. It actually shows up really
• 1:25:28
  well and plays perfectly well with the beer.
• 1:25:31
  Having the beer yesterday, you detect some of
• 1:25:34
  the bitterness, but the hop character is still
• 1:25:36
  there. It's more balanced. It's not one overpowering
• 1:25:39
  the other. We tangent it so hard from 1631. I
• 1:25:43
  know. This is what it's for. Back to the 1631,
• 1:25:50
  though. Yeah, I got a lot of berry out of it.
• 1:25:53
  And I tasted blueberry, but I thought it was
• 1:25:56
  awesome. Yeah. And I would even say that I'm
• 1:25:58
  not the biggest hazy fan all the time. I feel
• 1:26:01
  like all of us have gotten away from that. That
• 1:26:04
  was a beautiful beer. I think it's a hazy you
• 1:26:07
  can drink more of because even at 6 .6%, right?
• 1:26:10
  I did not taste the 6 .6%. The alcohol doesn't
• 1:26:14
  come through. It's very balanced throughout.
• 1:26:16
  And the hop character isn't that that fatigues
• 1:26:19
  your palate. You can go to another one and you'll
• 1:26:21
  get the same experience, which is what I personally
• 1:26:23
  want. That same beer I just had, I'm going to
• 1:26:26
  have another one of it. I don't want my palate
• 1:26:28
  fatigued when I go back into it. And that's the
• 1:26:30
  key. I mean, that's why kind of what we dry our...
• 1:26:34
  hazies and stuff out a little bit more than what
• 1:26:36
  i i guess whatever the standard is you know most
• 1:26:39
  people are doing we try ourselves a little further
• 1:26:41
  down uh and we're and we can we're finishing
• 1:26:43
  you know about three three two to three and a
• 1:26:47
  half plato or finishing gravity on it um but
• 1:26:51
  we take that in consideration right it's just
• 1:26:52
  like making lemonade we make we just make sure
• 1:26:54
  that our bittering components aren't so high
• 1:26:58
  that then it has this big right we go easy on
• 1:27:00
  the parts when we're picking up alpha acids and
• 1:27:02
  then we do heavier in the dry hot in the in the
• 1:27:05
  cold side hopping right and then we give it the
• 1:27:07
  time to settle out and then it still makes a
• 1:27:09
  super soft beer has the exact experience it's
• 1:27:12
  just on a lower scale of bitter and because we
• 1:27:14
  know we're putting out a drier beer and so you
• 1:27:16
  don't have the sweetness to balance off the the
• 1:27:18
  bitter components right and so we take that in
• 1:27:21
  consideration and so it's the seam you drink
• 1:27:23
  it you wouldn't even know you know it just tastes
• 1:27:25
  the only thing is that one reason that you know
• 1:27:27
  that it's it's nice it's lighter and nice is
• 1:27:30
  because you can have another one and another
• 1:27:32
  it's like it is super easy to drink make beer
• 1:27:38
  to drink beer that's the idea is don't don't
• 1:27:41
  have a beer that somebody only has one and it's
• 1:27:43
  like i can't do anymore yeah like that's like
• 1:27:45
  pastry stout milkshake ipa days where it's like
• 1:27:49
  okay it's interesting the expression that we
• 1:27:51
  get here it's cool but I can not have more than
• 1:27:54
  half of this. I think it's super interesting.
• 1:27:59
  I don't know where this conversation's gone.
• 1:28:01
  All over the place. Well, I think it speaks to
• 1:28:04
  the passion that you two have, which is refreshing.
• 1:28:08
  And I'm curious, like how much time do you guys
• 1:28:10
  spend on a daily basis between, because it sounds
• 1:28:12
  like you have kind of two different businesses
• 1:28:14
  that you're really managing. spending time with
• 1:28:18
  it's like how much time is spent here and how
• 1:28:20
  much time is spent on your guys's consulting
• 1:28:22
  business we work from here because we kind of
• 1:28:25
  100 and 100 yeah we we operate both offices out
• 1:28:29
  of here because at the end of the day we want
• 1:28:32
  to if somebody is thinking about partnering up
• 1:28:36
  with us to for us to consult for them i want
• 1:28:39
  them to come here right and say this is what
• 1:28:42
  we actually did i mean our most of our clients
• 1:28:45
  our new clients are all word of mouth we haven't
• 1:28:47
  advertised much at all generally speaking so
• 1:28:50
  that reference means a lot to us but at the end
• 1:28:52
  of the day i want you to come see it and like
• 1:28:55
  experience it try the beers and be like this
• 1:28:57
  is why and this is the results the proof is in
• 1:28:59
  the pool i think that how do you accurately teach
• 1:29:01
  somebody to do something when you're not doing
• 1:29:03
  it anymore well i think that's i think that brings
• 1:29:06
  up a good point to me being an outsider and just
• 1:29:10
  now being exposed to this this being what you
• 1:29:13
  guys are doing here more specifically. It seems
• 1:29:17
  like part of the magic is in the fact that you
• 1:29:19
  guys have experience and not just experience
• 1:29:23
  within, but experience in hands -on. In a changing
• 1:29:28
  market. And we make a point, even our consultants
• 1:29:31
  that work for us, that help us out, right? Every
• 1:29:34
  one of them are operators. They're actively working
• 1:29:38
  in the industry in some capacity, whether ownership.
• 1:29:41
  or actual head brewers and stuff like that because
• 1:29:44
  it matters. It matters to be able to say, I did
• 1:29:47
  this yesterday, so I can tell you that this works.
• 1:29:50
  And you guys are really talking about nuances
• 1:29:53
  that come from experience. And I'll insert this
• 1:29:57
  word. You tell me if it's accurate, but kind
• 1:29:59
  of mentorship. I mean, through consulting. Yeah,
• 1:30:02
  absolutely. And that seems like across a lot
• 1:30:05
  of areas of life and business, there's this lack
• 1:30:08
  of mentorship because there's just so much information
• 1:30:11
  out there and you can watch something and think
• 1:30:13
  you're an expert overnight. Yeah, 100%. And I
• 1:30:15
  don't think that's... They get in an echo chamber
• 1:30:18
  that is literally their own head. And I mean,
• 1:30:22
  we've dealt with it at all sizes. There's guys
• 1:30:24
  that we've worked... that have called us in from
• 1:30:27
  experience of being assistant brewmaster to AB.
• 1:30:31
  And we get in there and they're like, can you
• 1:30:33
  do all of this for us? And we're like, have you
• 1:30:35
  never done this before? And they're like, no,
• 1:30:38
  we don't. We do it this way because we have always
• 1:30:42
  done it the AB way. And we're like, okay, that
• 1:30:44
  doesn't work whenever they're doing 1 ,000 barrels
• 1:30:47
  a year. So let's revisit all of this and explain
• 1:30:50
  why we're doing X, Y, and Z. And we were lucky
• 1:30:54
  enough to have good teachers. I mean, that's
• 1:30:55
  I'll go back to that all day. I was taught by
• 1:30:57
  the people who would do things a certain way
• 1:31:01
  because they always did it or they had a vision
• 1:31:05
  of what they wanted, but they always were adaptable
• 1:31:08
  whenever they had to be. Right. That's a difference.
• 1:31:11
  Being adaptable now is. Oh, yeah. And to me,
• 1:31:15
  it just came down like in my case, it was just.
• 1:31:18
  I know that I didn't know. I got in the game
• 1:31:20
  late. I started here. I've been doing it for
• 1:31:23
  15 years, but I started when I was 30. This was
• 1:31:26
  a completely different life that I had started.
• 1:31:29
  But I know that I don't know. And a lot of times,
• 1:31:32
  I still don't know. And I'm always open with
• 1:31:34
  people. I don't know. That's healthy. But I know
• 1:31:37
  where to find it. I don't know the thing, but
• 1:31:40
  I know where to find it. And I've made the network
• 1:31:42
  where I don't have to know. I can find somebody
• 1:31:45
  that knows, or I know somebody. I know where
• 1:31:47
  it's at in the book. and that's where i mean
• 1:31:48
  because i think it's like ultimately that's the
• 1:31:50
  hard part is when you think you know it's like
• 1:31:52
  where you put yourself in a dangerous position
• 1:31:54
  being being confidently ignorant is way better
• 1:31:57
  than being confidently incorrect yeah yeah i
• 1:31:59
  mean that is i will say at least you're willing
• 1:32:02
  to learn and you know what you don't know yeah
• 1:32:04
  that's led us to i mean but that's why we've
• 1:32:07
  learned so much right now we we know how to do
• 1:32:09
  steam we know how to do black because we knew
• 1:32:11
  that we didn't know we're like we gotta learn
• 1:32:12
  this and then now we can teach it because we
• 1:32:14
  know it but can we do we still know all those
• 1:32:17
  details no but we know where to find it and we
• 1:32:19
  keep those people close to us and we always reach
• 1:32:21
  out to them and obviously the the company is
• 1:32:24
  the vessel for that That way we can pull on that
• 1:32:27
  big pool of knowledge because one person is not
• 1:32:30
  going to know everything. But if we can get in
• 1:32:32
  enough people that can actually do what they
• 1:32:35
  do really well, then we can help other people
• 1:32:38
  out because we can put you with that person if
• 1:32:40
  that's what you want to do. Anything else that
• 1:32:43
  you guys wanted to communicate or get off your
• 1:32:47
  minds? Thank you guys for letting us have a talk.
• 1:32:49
  I mean, this is stuff that I feel like we talk
• 1:32:51
  about internally. We'll have conversations at
• 1:32:53
  conferences, events, you know, but... uh sharing
• 1:32:56
  it i think everybody needs to hear a lot of these
• 1:33:00
  things from both sides because it's going to
• 1:33:03
  be a little bit until things get better we all
• 1:33:05
  we all have to come to terms with that and it's
• 1:33:08
  it's not going to be long but we still got a
• 1:33:10
  couple years to work through so survive yeah
• 1:33:14
  yeah it's like the key yeah be adaptable yeah
• 1:33:18
  adaptable communicate yeah we're in it together
• 1:33:22
  yeah you know your farmers yeah you know your
• 1:33:24
  farmers go visit i mean maybe not during harvest
• 1:33:28
  because gosh that's an exhausting six -week stretch
• 1:33:31
  for you guys let alone us they show up and they're
• 1:33:34
  like hey it's easy for me to say but no problem
• 1:33:38
  at all no it's one of the most stressful yet
• 1:33:45
  enjoyable times of the whole year just because
• 1:33:48
  stressful in the fact that basically everything
• 1:33:52
  for the year leading up to it has led to that
• 1:33:55
  moment and if there's the the potential to screw
• 1:33:57
  it up or like you know ace it just the margin
• 1:34:00
  error just like can be so small and also enjoyable
• 1:34:03
  because it's just it's harvest there's an energy
• 1:34:05
  you know you gotta see everybody that you know
• 1:34:08
  you talk to via email or like see briefly at
• 1:34:11
  like you know a conference it's like they all
• 1:34:13
  come and we gotta hang out and geek out over
• 1:34:15
  hops and have share beers it's like the best
• 1:34:18
  time to visit the valley the only thing that
• 1:34:19
  stresses me out is rejection Yeah. I think my
• 1:34:24
  highest stress. Your life's work sucks. My highest
• 1:34:28
  stress points during harvest are the first day
• 1:34:31
  of picking and the first selection. Yeah. Because
• 1:34:35
  you're like, oh. It's like it usually sets the
• 1:34:37
  tone. Like, oh, God. Okay. Did you get this right?
• 1:34:41
  I think for any brewer that hasn't at least gone
• 1:34:44
  to witness it, I think it's important because
• 1:34:48
  you get to see how much effort and how much care.
• 1:34:51
  has gone into just one year imagine that being
• 1:34:54
  your entire farm's history right is every year
• 1:34:58
  is a lead up the tension there really needs to
• 1:35:01
  be like some sort of documentary channel or discovery
• 1:35:05
  channel series about it at some point because
• 1:35:08
  it's i mean it's an experience being a farm that's
• 1:35:11
  branching out into things like podcasting and
• 1:35:15
  and different ways of communicating beyond the
• 1:35:19
  trade shows and the harvest selections and whatnot.
• 1:35:22
  From your guys' perspective, how can we do a
• 1:35:24
  better job, you know, communicating, I mean,
• 1:35:28
  beyond the normal contracts and selections and
• 1:35:33
  things that we do? I'd like to think that...
• 1:35:36
  and i don't think it's necessarily something
• 1:35:39
  that everybody gets but we have a personal relationship
• 1:35:41
  with you guys right like we've we've known each
• 1:35:43
  other for years we are in the same places we're
• 1:35:46
  members of the hop quality group which gives
• 1:35:49
  us even more that's a good point more chance
• 1:35:52
  to hang out with you guys and talk about what's
• 1:35:55
  coming down the line and i would say that is
• 1:35:57
  like It's not necessarily on y 'all for us to
• 1:36:00
  keep up the communication. Texas came through.
• 1:36:03
  Well, if I say fixin' to, then you know it's
• 1:36:07
  fully been acclimated. I think being members
• 1:36:10
  of organizations like the Hop Quality Group and
• 1:36:13
  then following up being in the MBAA, being part
• 1:36:18
  of the BA, actually finding the value in these
• 1:36:21
  industry organizations that we all communicate
• 1:36:24
  through. is hugely important and i will up ping
• 1:36:27
  up quality group is probably the most important
• 1:36:29
  for this relationship because it's where we literally
• 1:36:32
  have the conversation and yeah and i will say
• 1:36:34
  it's you know um when i was there for the convention
• 1:36:37
  for the awkward it's great if i have to put it
• 1:36:41
  as like is the value of the membership worth
• 1:36:44
  it just think about it's the network and the
• 1:36:48
  relationships that you build off of it it's 100
• 1:36:51
  worth the value of admission to get part of the
• 1:36:56
  group to be with you know like yes we're developing
• 1:36:58
  new you know public varieties and all that and
• 1:37:01
  that is that's a fun project in in itself but
• 1:37:04
  actually the mem the friendships and the relationship
• 1:37:08
  and networks that you build within that because
• 1:37:11
  the people that are in that group are some high
• 1:37:14
  high caliber individuals yeah and so just like
• 1:37:17
  when i was there i felt weird because i'm like
• 1:37:19
  you know i'm like i don't know anything i'm like
• 1:37:20
  all right you know like i'm fine i'm fine Matt
• 1:37:24
  Brindleson you know like I'm like hey Matt it's
• 1:37:29
  just it's funny but it's off you know like it's
• 1:37:31
  such a cool and it's just within this small room
• 1:37:33
  and so your growth is so exponential being just
• 1:37:36
  in the room with them listening to you know to
• 1:37:39
  them talk and being a part of that is amazing
• 1:37:41
  so I can't recommend hot quality group enough
• 1:37:44
  that's a really good point I didn't think about
• 1:37:47
  that I mean we've Our involvement and interaction
• 1:37:50
  with the Hop Quality Group has fluctuated a bit
• 1:37:52
  over the years. And I would say within the last
• 1:37:55
  two or three years, we've taken more of an active
• 1:37:59
  role in engaging with the Hop Quality Group.
• 1:38:02
  It's also a little bit of an interesting trajectory
• 1:38:04
  for the Hop Quality Group going from, you know,
• 1:38:06
  I would say in the earlier days when Val started
• 1:38:10
  that thing, it felt very much like policing quality.
• 1:38:13
  And I don't know if we've always met eye to eye
• 1:38:17
  on that. It's been really nice to see where they
• 1:38:22
  are taking that program, where they've taken
• 1:38:25
  it. I mean, obviously they branched out into,
• 1:38:26
  you know, breeding, but I can't remember who
• 1:38:30
  mentioned this. It might've been actually Joe
• 1:38:32
  from Pine House. He mentioned mentorship and
• 1:38:36
  I think he kind of mentioned it amongst some
• 1:38:39
  other statements, but I really grabbed onto that.
• 1:38:41
  And I do think that that's a really. a really
• 1:38:46
  worthy purpose and and and kind of like area
• 1:38:50
  of exploration where the hop quality group can
• 1:38:52
  go and i mean i have no vested interest in this
• 1:38:55
  if i was a brewer i'd i'd be a part of that thing
• 1:38:57
  yes i just think it's to your point kirby like
• 1:39:00
  the the networking that you get out of that i
• 1:39:03
  think it's powerful i mean it just we've moved
• 1:39:05
  so far past what quote unquote craft was when
• 1:39:10
  it started out it was like this tight -knit group
• 1:39:12
  of people they were just always came together
• 1:39:14
  making new and unique and uh beers pushing the
• 1:39:17
  boundaries but willing to share information share
• 1:39:20
  stories back and forth and now just by size it
• 1:39:23
  just was unattainable to keep because now there's
• 1:39:26
  thousands upon thousands of breweries and so
• 1:39:29
  you've seen like this communal component kind
• 1:39:31
  of fragmented into more regions and more like
• 1:39:34
  towns and industry organizations too exactly
• 1:39:37
  and so and then people are becoming a little
• 1:39:39
  more guarded about how they do things sometimes
• 1:39:42
  too so it's like having a hop quality group have
• 1:39:44
  an mba where you go to these like meetings it
• 1:39:47
  allows the ability to rebuild those relationships
• 1:39:50
  and share knowledge and kind of grow together
• 1:39:52
  be able to find efficiencies find you know what
• 1:39:56
  works what doesn't and be able to like all grow
• 1:39:58
  together yeah i mean it also lets you uh gives
• 1:40:01
  you a chance to realize that your secret is ever
• 1:40:04
  bought a secret and then you realize that together
• 1:40:06
  you let your guard down and you actually start
• 1:40:08
  helping each other yeah i remember an art teacher
• 1:40:10
  told me once they look everything's been done
• 1:40:13
  i mean it it's also understanding what these
• 1:40:20
  organizations are for and how they're different
• 1:40:23
  right like the the ba is more of a brewery owner's
• 1:40:26
  resource industry organization and that's what
• 1:40:29
  it's built for right it's built for breweries
• 1:40:31
  the entire collective to be a member of for legislative
• 1:40:35
  action, for compliance, for quality. And then
• 1:40:40
  you have MBAA, which is an individual organization.
• 1:40:43
  As a brewer, you individually have to choose
• 1:40:45
  to become a member of MBAA. There's not a company
• 1:40:49
  membership that doesn't exist. And their focus
• 1:40:52
  is more about your quality brewing techniques
• 1:40:55
  based on history and tradition. The Hop Quality
• 1:40:59
  Group has turned into, from being... really regulating
• 1:41:02
  growers and quality which i never i understand
• 1:41:05
  the the concept but you can't you're not going
• 1:41:09
  to be able to do that for every grower anyway
• 1:41:10
  so you know i get to their standards and like
• 1:41:13
  we should work for it but those standards have
• 1:41:15
  changed massively in the last 30 years too right
• 1:41:18
  but now it is more of a community of brewers
• 1:41:21
  that are focused on understanding quality themselves
• 1:41:26
  and having a good role in communicating with
• 1:41:31
  growers of how they're improving quality i think
• 1:41:34
  that's what it's transitioned to it's right but
• 1:41:36
  the core of it is having the relationship keeping
• 1:41:40
  the communication going with growers so we can
• 1:41:43
  figure out solutions together and just know what
• 1:41:47
  each other side is looking for yeah yeah i mean
• 1:41:50
  there's you guys are kind of in it i guess from
• 1:41:52
  the standpoint of the hda too right so like that's
• 1:41:55
  who we go see whenever we go out for this conference
• 1:41:59
  is bringing those two groups together, right?
• 1:42:02
  And that you get to have, and I will say we covered
• 1:42:04
  it here, but you get to have more conversations
• 1:42:06
  about the stuff that you're not thinking about,
• 1:42:08
  like the economics, like the cost per acre of
• 1:42:10
  starting new acreage, which that's gone up a
• 1:42:14
  lot, right? All of those costs, new kiln facilities,
• 1:42:18
  new drying facilities, right? Although right
• 1:42:20
  now expansion is happening for buying failing
• 1:42:22
  farms. Yeah, consolidation, right? Yeah, consolidation.
• 1:42:26
  Which you can get pennies on the dollar. Oh,
• 1:42:28
  yeah. Same thing. Like you're talking about how
• 1:42:29
  this whole brewery is repurposed. I mean, you
• 1:42:32
  know, it's happening on the grower end as well.
• 1:42:34
  And as a brewer, you may not even know that's
• 1:42:36
  happening. Because no one else is going to tell
• 1:42:39
  you that's going on until you go have this conversation.
• 1:42:41
  Oh, you guys are in the same spot. We all. Right?
• 1:42:43
  Like that is, we're all in this together. Like
• 1:42:46
  you said, we're tied to the hip. Yep. We as brewers
• 1:42:50
  just have to do the work. As long as you're not
• 1:42:52
  a jerk, you're probably going to get along with
• 1:42:54
  everybody. Oh, yeah. For sure. All right. Well,
• 1:42:57
  thanks a lot guys. And yeah, see you in a couple
• 1:42:59
  hours. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.