Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Riverbend Malt House | Brent Manning on Craft Malt, Local Grain & the Future of Beer

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Riverbend Malt House | Brent Manning on Craft Malt, Local Grain & the Future of Beer · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

0:37
Well, hey everybody, I'm Steve and of course he's Scotch.
0:41
And yes, we are the Brewery Underground podcast.
0:43
And you know, Scott, we, we, we take on a lot of different
0:46
avenues. Sometimes here on the podcast,
0:48
sometimes we talk a beer, sometimes we talk about
0:52
breweries and we talk about, you know, rating beer.
0:55
Well today we're going to be talking about malts and the guy
0:59
to do that with us is Brett Manning.
1:01
He is the co-owner and Co founder of Riverbend Malthouse
1:06
and one of the best brewery towns in America, Asheville.
1:11
The best brewery town. Yeah, the.
1:15
I would die on that hill. Brent, welcome.
1:19
Hey, man. You bet.
1:20
Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah.
1:22
Well, before we hit the record button, we were, we were talking
1:25
about a great many things involving, you know, water and
1:31
things that you guys do and for for breweries.
1:34
And I'm really curious, you know, Riverbend Mall House for
1:37
people our audience. I know I was started researching
1:41
this a couple of weeks ago when we knew we were going to have
1:44
you on. Let me just say that your
1:46
website is such a plethora of great information and hopefully
1:52
we're going to do a lot of education for people once we get
1:55
done with this podcast today. But in kind of simple terms, can
2:00
you give an overview of what's Riverbend Malt House is?
2:03
For sure. So we're we're a craft malt
2:06
house like you say, located in Western North Carolina and what
2:10
we do is we bring locally sourced barley, wheat, rye,
2:13
oats, corn, etc. Into the malt house and put it
2:17
through a three-step process, steeping, germinating, and
2:21
kilning to create a variety of different malts.
2:24
They're used in brewing and distilling and to kind of step
2:27
back and define malting. What we're basically doing is
2:30
managing the enzymatic digestion of the cell walls that are
2:34
inside each and every kernel of barley, corn, wheat, rye,
2:37
whatever, and managing that conversion process as they
2:40
convert to a starch or simple sugar.
2:43
And so obviously we, we kind of set the table for Brewers and
2:47
distillers by making Pimney starches and simple sugars
2:50
readily available for, for the mashing process.
2:54
The coolest thing about making malt is you know these three
2:57
steps are the same regardless of scale.
2:59
We're one of the larger craft malt houses in the nation.
3:02
We're going to produce about £5,000,000 a year, which sounds
3:06
like a lot until I tell you that Sierra Nevada Mills River takes
3:09
in about £1,000,000 a week when they're processing it full
3:13
bores. We at a even at that eye popping
3:17
clip of £5,000,000 a year, we're a rounding error for what the
3:20
craft beer community looks for just in the Southeast.
3:24
So it's a, it's a pretty wild topic to wrap your head around.
3:28
Most of the southeastern states grow about half a million acres
3:32
of small grains, and we only need probably a couple 1000
3:37
acres to supply the malt house with those grains.
3:42
Brent And this was one of the things as I was as I was kind of
3:45
researching you guys and stuff is malt.
3:48
I'll let you tell me, are malt and grain the words kind of
3:53
synonymous or are they two different things?
3:55
Malt kind of makes up the grains, right?
3:57
Or grains make up malt? Grains.
3:59
We take grains to make malt and we can malt a lot of different
4:03
things. So I can malt pumpkin seeds if
4:06
you send them to me. It's really the mechanics are
4:09
the same. We're just essentially tricking
4:12
the plant into growing by creating the perfect conditions
4:16
for that growth to take place. But if you're a gardener, you
4:20
know who's ever taken like tomato seeds and put them in a
4:24
wet napkin, in a paper, in a plastic bag, or to get that that
4:27
jump on that spring crop, It's the same mechanics.
4:31
We're just hydrating a seed to a certain level, typically around
4:36
45% moisture, keeping the temperature and humidity in
4:40
place to allow that plant to continue to grow.
4:43
And the the trick is though, as maltsters, we don't want to let
4:47
the plant actually begin to photosynthesize.
4:50
So we're just wanting that early growth, that sort of starch
4:54
reserve that the plant uses to kick start its growth and get up
4:58
through the soil and before it can begin to photosynthesize.
5:02
That reserve is what Brewers and distillers are tapping into to
5:06
then eventually feed yeast. We want to feed.
5:09
Instead of the plant growth. OK.
5:10
Is that process? Is that germination?
5:12
Yes, yeah. So steeping, germinating and
5:15
kilning are three main steps and it takes about 7 days to execute
5:20
that process regardless of scale.
5:23
So we'll do a A2 ton floor malt badge or a 10 ton, what we call
5:28
GKV batch or a germ kiln vessel. You know, now our friends at the
5:32
larger malt houses, we'll do 250 to 500 ton batches.
5:38
Process is the same. Barley doesn't care how many of
5:40
its friends it's surrounded by. OK.
5:42
There's a picture on your website and it's probably your
5:45
malt houses or warehouse is something where it's spread out
5:48
on the floor, right? And I think it even says
5:50
something about you guys still kind of hand rake the thing out
5:53
there. Talk about that process.
5:54
Is it because we see the picture, it's like it looks like
5:56
maybe there's a certain level or a certain amount or certain
5:59
depth to that all the way across.
6:01
There's probably some science behind that, right?
6:02
So they do what they're supposed to do correctly.
6:04
For sure floor molting was where we started.
6:07
You know, our our first Malthouse 1.0, we had a massive
6:11
one ton batch, which is ridiculously small, but we did
6:16
it all floor malted. We were just trying to like
6:19
understand the processes and the nuances of making malt and the
6:23
best way to learn that is by floor malting.
6:26
You're literally in touch with the grain every day.
6:30
You spread it out on about a four to six inch deep bed.
6:33
The germination process continues on.
6:36
You've got a nice cool humid room.
6:38
The rootlets as they begin to grow kind of bind up and they
6:41
called it, they call it felting. And we'll pull a rake through
6:45
that material three times a day, morning, mid afternoon and late
6:49
evening, gently breaking that felted material apart, mixing
6:53
the grain that's in the bottom to the top, getting some fresh
6:56
air in there. And basically what's happening
6:59
is we're keeping the grain kind of under control by doing that.
7:03
If that felted layer on top continued on, it would basically
7:07
act like a blanket and lock in all the heat that's a byproduct
7:12
of that germination prostate. So even if the room 60°F, the
7:16
bed temps can hit 100 Fahrenheit quite easily.
7:20
And so at that point you've got all the building blocks for some
7:23
pretty nasty things to start growing, you know, molds,
7:26
etcetera. And so we really want to make
7:29
that raking event, you know, happen in a steady cadence and
7:33
keep everything nice and cool in there.
7:35
And you get this nice, nice sort of sinusoidal wave of the heat
7:38
building, the rake occurs, and then it drops back down.
7:41
And this is kind of one of the key and key differences between
7:45
floor molting and what we call pneumatic molting is pneumatic
7:49
molting at larger scales is basically a uniform temperature
7:53
throughout floor molting. You kind of get this rise and
7:56
fall. And researchers think that
7:59
that's part of the differentiating factor of what
8:02
makes floor molt taste different is you've got this sort of rise
8:07
and fall that may favor different enzymes versus the
8:11
standardized sort of this is the temperature, it's 62°F for four
8:15
days. And that's all there is to it.
8:17
You know, so floor malting is kind of the historic deal as
8:21
well. I mean, that's, that's how
8:23
people made malt long before we had the Industrial Revolution.
8:27
And so malt houses of old were vertical and say the malt would
8:32
take one trip up, steep in tank, drop down into one floor, it
8:36
would go through. It would have lots of cross
8:38
ventilation, lots of windows. They only malted in the cool
8:42
months. So it only went like, you know,
8:44
they'd start in September and stop in April and lots of cross
8:48
ventilation. And then once germination was
8:51
done, it would drop down into the kiln, dried the grain down,
8:55
build some color, and then they would package it off as finished
8:58
malt and yet another floor below that.
9:00
And so they built up. And so that that's how the old
9:04
malt houses look. Once we had, you know, motorized
9:07
augers and blowers and all kinds of things, malting took on a
9:11
very different turn. They built something called a
9:13
Saladin box wherein all the augers were in a row and the
9:18
grain was much, much deeper, like meter deep, and they blew
9:21
air from underneath in addition to turning it.
9:24
So lots of different technologies came about with the
9:27
industrial revolution and batch sizes got bigger, malt houses
9:31
got larger and more efficient. And I guess that that's sort of
9:34
the history of molting in 3 minutes.
9:37
No, it's great. What do you?
9:39
Because you have that picture, do you still do some floor
9:41
molting too? What kind of?
9:42
Percentage is that versus pneumatic.
9:45
It's about 10% of our product line right now.
9:49
We've got several customers that you know they've got a, a
9:52
dedicated beer or spirit that this is part of the personality
9:58
of that product and people will we typically will use that.
10:03
We'll also use floor melting as our R&D process.
10:06
So if we've got a new variety of barley or wheat to test out or
10:11
we want to, you know, get a feel for a a different kilning
10:15
recipe, we'll start at that two ton scale and make small
10:19
mistakes 1st and then scale it up into the 10 ton system.
10:23
It's like a small batch system like a brewery might have,
10:26
right? They can still make some small
10:27
stuff and kind of put in the tap room or screw up if you want to,
10:30
but. If we can mass produce Yelp,
10:33
it's and it's definitely been helpful.
10:36
You know, like I said, we've got customers that that, you know,
10:40
want to explore in that space and build a custom malt and we
10:43
can use that two ton malt system for those types of projects as
10:48
well. You know, we were talking about
10:51
water chemistry earlier. We've actually done a couple of
10:53
batches where we're actually tinkering with the water
10:57
chemistry of the steep water to mimic a Belgian malt house's
11:01
water profile as a way way of sort of seeing if that affects
11:05
flavor termination rates, etcetera.
11:08
So we're able to really play around and do some fun stuff
11:11
with the two time lot of science.
11:13
Involved in this, isn't there it?
11:15
Is it is. And that's, that's really the
11:18
the fun part for us is it truly is one of those art and science
11:22
things because, you know, each even each year over year, you
11:26
know, just like wine grapes have differences in their crop year,
11:30
barley does too, you know, not as pronounced bounce, but Bart,
11:34
like crop A from 2024 might require a little bit more time
11:39
in the steep cycle than the crop from 2025.
11:43
And we don't always have a great answer for why that's the case,
11:47
but it just is. And so we know that, oh, hey,
11:50
look at this Avalon from this year's harvest or this farmer's
11:54
lot needs two or three more hours in the steep cycle to get
11:58
the same target moisture as it did last year.
12:02
Make a note of that and then put that into the recipe going
12:05
forward. Hey, you know on your website,
12:08
as I said earlier, your website is fantastic. riverbendmalt.com,
12:12
I'm looking at the section where it has like standard malts and
12:16
talking about shop by a type of grain.
12:18
Can you go through a lot of that because it's very fascinating.
12:22
And I would imagine for, you know, Brewers, they have to they
12:26
have to love this page because you have so many different
12:28
things on there. You know that that different
12:31
styles for different beers. Can you go there a little bit
12:34
about that? For sure.
12:35
Yeah. So, you know, we kind of what
12:38
we're basically trying to do is, is walk people through, you
12:41
know, the flavor profiles of each of the main products.
12:44
You know, most of what we sell, no surprise, are barley based
12:48
products. But we spend just as much time,
12:51
you know, educating folks about the heirloom rye that goes into
12:55
our Carolina rye product. You know, we want them to know
12:59
like, hey, this pack's a little bit more punch than the
13:02
standard, you know, mass produced stuff that you might
13:05
have come into contact with. You know, here's the flavor
13:08
wheel that introduces you to some of the main, you know, top
13:12
line flavors that we're picking up.
13:14
Here's kind of a basic spec sheet and here are some styles
13:17
that we think this will work well in.
13:19
And then when it comes to base malts, we're just kind of trying
13:22
to help people make connections with certain flavor profiles.
13:26
And then also like where some of these products will fit in and
13:30
replace products that they're more comfortable using, let's
13:34
say. So like if you're, if you're a
13:36
home Brewer that specializes in, you know, British or English
13:41
special bidder, extra special bidders, what am I going to do?
13:45
I, I don't see a, a British pale ale on this.
13:48
Well, we have a product called Southern Select and that's kiln
13:51
darker than our traditional base camp, which are our sort of
13:56
workhorse baseball. And the the discussion points in
14:01
that web page about Southern Select kind of clearly define
14:04
like hey, if you're building a pub ale, this is your base malt
14:08
to start with. Yeah.
14:10
But yeah, you're exactly right there.
14:11
There's because people are coming to this website with a
14:13
lot of from a lot of different backgrounds and.
14:16
We would think. We try to help people find their
14:19
way from a lot of different pathways in and help them build
14:23
recipes because we we really, it sounds kind of crazy, but
14:27
sometimes we actually will lead off with customers by saying
14:32
please don't put this malt in your flagship beer because your
14:37
flagship beer is your flagship beer.
14:39
And maybe this will make it. It's going to make it different.
14:42
It might be better different, but it's going to be different.
14:44
And so we kind of like to walk people in with, you know, here's
14:49
the flavors that we picked up. We suggest you do the same.
14:52
You know, we'll do the hot steep with them.
14:54
I don't know if y'all had a chance to do that, but it's
14:56
basically making a malt tea. That's the same concentration
15:00
that a Brewer will create in the brewhouse and we'll build some
15:03
teas. So sometimes even doing complete
15:06
recipes then this way so that people can get a feel for the
15:10
mouthfeel, aromatic profile, all these things.
15:13
So that we kind of want them to build a recipe from the flavors
15:17
that they perceive. My opinion isn't just that, my
15:20
opinion. So we kind of want to get them
15:23
get the wheels turning and then have them say, yeah, no, I get
15:28
that flavor note rent, but I'm over here.
15:31
I want to do a, you know, a dunkle with this, you know, not,
15:35
not what you were thinking about.
15:37
And so that's really why we lay out all of this information on
15:40
the website is like, if you can't have the one-on-one with
15:43
us, we hope there's enough sort of bread crumbs there for you to
15:46
find your way to a new recipe that's of interest to you.
15:50
And how often have you heard back from folks that have used
15:53
these where they're like, do you have what kind of success
15:55
stories do you have folks that tell you been a lot of help?
15:58
They a lot of them, you know, we've had a lot of fun, you
16:03
know, we're always looking for like the, what's next in the, in
16:08
the beer trends and whatnot, you know, so like when hazy IPA blew
16:12
up, I was like, we don't have any oats, what are we going to
16:16
do? And so we started with a a naked
16:20
oat that we called streaker oat, so no hull on it and had this
16:24
beautiful almond character and people were really excited.
16:27
We got some good feedback, but the one thing we heard was
16:30
loudering was kind of a pain. And so we were like, OK, well,
16:34
we also have hold oats, traditional oats, and everyone
16:38
was like, they use those and they're like, Oh my God, this is
16:41
perfect. We get the mouthfeel oats and we
16:44
get beautiful loudery. And I was like, and I was
16:46
talking with this with a friend of mine, Jen from wicked weed
16:49
and and she said, well, so of course you're going to call the
16:51
product hall and Oates and I was like, well, and now you know,
16:55
like because that's fantastic. So we had some fun with with
17:00
oats during the the hasty IPA run up.
17:03
And then as loggers came to the forefront, we, we really took
17:07
this opportunity to kind of try to deliver as much diversity in
17:12
the Pilsner malt space as possible.
17:14
Again, kind of back to the varietal and back to the farm
17:18
aspect. We really spent a lot of time
17:21
zeroing in on, you know, what does variety A versus variety B
17:25
taste like in its unblended and adorned format?
17:29
Very low color malt, not a lot of tricks in the malt house,
17:33
just straight ahead. So what we came with, what we
17:37
started with was Chesapeake Pilsner.
17:40
It's all Violetta barley and you get nice sort of floral, grassy,
17:45
sort of dry, crispy profile out of this mall and that's perfect
17:49
for German pilsner. And we had another variety
17:53
called Calypso and now a new one called Avalon.
17:56
It's more bready rounded, you know, sort of Melanie kind of
18:00
character to it. And we're like that'll be great.
18:03
And the Hellas and you know, so having some of the some folks,
18:07
you know, come back to us and they're like yes, you know this,
18:11
that German pilsner was absolutely fantastic.
18:15
Like y'all killed it. And I was able to, you know,
18:18
displace one of the the big sort of international stars of malt
18:22
wireman in a few occasions, like where people were like this malt
18:25
was good enough. I'm putting local malt in place
18:28
of a classic German malt for a German beer style and.
18:32
That's fantastic. Anytime you get that kind of a
18:35
phone call, that's a good day. Yes.
18:38
We have, we have set on here in the last 4-5 years and it may be
18:42
a combination of things of our appreciation more of loggers and
18:46
pilsners in the craft beer, but I think they've gotten better.
18:50
And I was given 100% credit to the Brewers.
18:53
Hey man, you guys are making great loggers and they're
18:56
fantastic. And then we we start reaching
18:58
research and even I'm like, wait a minute, it starts with you
19:01
guys. That's right.
19:03
It's definitely it's it's definitely a partnership, no
19:06
doubt. You know, again, we want to sort
19:08
of layout a buffet of options for for Brewers to to build
19:13
lager recipes with. The the most recent step we took
19:18
was, you know, as as check logger started to to bubble up
19:23
as sort of the latest sort of sub genre to explore.
19:28
Yeah. And again, this is going to get
19:29
a little a little geeky, but let me let me roll for a minute.
19:32
And so if you look at a modern pilsner malt, it's pretty much
19:38
what we would consider fully modified, meaning Brewer or
19:42
maltsters pushed it as far as it can go to maximize sugar of
19:46
delivery in the brew house. So most beer for your buck
19:50
basically. And that's great kiln nice and
19:53
light. So we still have that piece of
19:54
the story in place, light colored crispy pilsner, but
19:58
maximum extract. So when we looked at the
20:02
certificate of analysis. Or Czech pilsner still coming
20:07
out of that part of the world. We said, wow, look at this
20:10
grain, this is really under modified material like this is
20:15
this could be a real disaster if we handed this to a Brewer and
20:18
they didn't know what they were doing because they basically
20:22
have to step mash or decock this material to get to sort of
20:27
finish out that conversion step of the process.
20:31
And we said, well, some of most of our customers do not have the
20:35
equipment to step into cocked, but they, they kind of, but
20:40
there's also a flavor change that happens the, the less
20:42
modification you allow to happen in the malt house, the sort you
20:47
really keep that sweetness component at Bay.
20:50
And so we said, what would that look like if we sort of took a
20:53
few steps in that direction to make it a crispier, drier, you
20:59
know, under modified pilsner, How would we do that?
21:02
Well, we starve it with moisture and then we would keep
21:05
germination shorter and cooler to sort of tamp down all that
21:10
germination energy. And so we kind of took those
21:13
steps and said, okay, here you go.
21:15
This this is going to be a little bit more complicated to
21:19
the work in the brewhouse. You might need a little bit more
21:21
conversion time if you want to step or decock you can.
21:25
But here you go. And we we had a brewery, a group
21:29
called Rock Solid in Georgia win a medal with the Czech Pilsner
21:34
and another one of our products, double Kiln Munich in the Czech
21:38
dark lager category. And that was pretty special.
21:42
Again, anytime you put local malt into an international
21:46
category and take home some hardware, that's an awesome day.
21:50
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's so funny. I think about this, you know,
21:53
Scott and I were out at a couple of breweries over the weekend
21:57
and I think about some of the beers we were drinking, whether
22:00
they were loggers and check loggers and things like that.
22:02
And then I think, you know what, also, what about like pumpkin
22:05
beers? And then you have, we've been,
22:07
we've been into the style lately.
22:09
Every once in a while we'll try them where it's like a peanut
22:11
butter and. And what was it?
22:13
The BlackBerry. BlackBerry.
22:16
Yeah. Marble fox that we had.
22:17
And so. Interesting.
22:19
As as those kinds of things have evolved, we know it's not maybe
22:22
the typical brew that you're going to see at every brewery
22:25
across the United States, but you see it popping up.
22:29
How do you guys keep up with those sort of trends?
22:32
I have a great answer for that. You know, the heavy adjunct
22:37
stouts and all of that. All I would say is that we would
22:41
make something that sort of plays nicely with those flavors,
22:46
kind of give a Brewer a solid base to jump off from.
22:50
You know, typically when they're putting that level of adjuncts
22:54
in, anything I'm doing in the malt house is, is going to get
22:57
washed away. So but yeah, you, you said y'all
23:01
were at, at GAPF. Did you get by cohesion?
23:04
No, I didn't get to cohesion. Next time you're in in there or
23:08
they just I was thinking check logger specialist and.
23:12
Are they are they in the Denver area or just one of the outlying
23:16
towns cities? Yeah, they're they're in Denver.
23:19
OK. The they are big fans of craft
23:23
mauled as well. They work with a group in that
23:25
area called Troubadour. It's again, it's that same sort
23:28
of lovely relationship of these malts make these types of
23:32
flavors and and you know, it's sort of traditional check
23:35
process with local malt mixed into it.
23:39
So it they're, they've got a neat story going on there.
23:42
Oh, that's cool. I just wrote them down because
23:44
I'm we're always looking for new, not that the Denver area
23:47
needs like, I mean there's so many places, but like we're
23:49
always looking for places like I would recommendation when we get
23:52
out that way because they're just so many, you know.
23:54
Yeah, yeah, they're great. Hey, before we go any further,
23:57
we're all drinking beer. At least I think Steve is.
23:59
I don't know if I saw you drinking 1 yet.
24:01
Yeah, Brent, what are you drinking cuz?
24:03
And I want to ask, do you have Riverbend Malt House in that
24:06
beer? I actually don't, but I just,
24:08
there's a chill in the air. Right now.
24:11
We're in Asheville and I have an Ondex Doppelbach in the
24:14
refrigerator and this is an absolute banger of a Doppelbach
24:21
classic style. They just nail it and it's,
24:24
yeah, probably. I don't even know what malt they
24:27
use in it, but it is just a beautiful beer and.
24:31
And it's, it's that time of year, like I said, it's that
24:33
time. Of year.
24:33
We need something with a little bit of heft to it.
24:36
And this what I always forget they've been in.
24:39
They've been making beer since 1455.
24:41
Wow. You think they know what they're
24:42
doing yet? They've figured a few things
24:45
out. It's it's pretty special.
24:49
Got. Man, I have got this zool.
24:52
There you go, right here. Oh yeah, speaking, Speaking of
24:55
adjuncts, actually that's probably just a double IPA,
24:57
right? Yeah, this is the their double
25:00
IPA. It's got Citra and Pete
25:03
Tangerine. This thing is pretty good man.
25:05
Nice. Yeah, Zul's making some big
25:07
waves in in Tennessee. They've they.
25:10
Are. Making.
25:11
Some they're in our backyard or about.
25:13
Positions right on OK Are y'all based in Nashville?
25:16
Nashville, yeah. Right on.
25:18
Cool. Yeah, I heard Marble Fox.
25:19
I was like, yeah. Yeah, Marble Fox is great.
25:22
And then, yeah, some Zul's thing is they're taking over this 2
25:25
Southern, Southern Grist locations that are here.
25:28
So that's, I love Southern Grist, but it's exciting also at
25:31
the same time. So we're coming to town.
25:33
Yeah. We'll see how that shakes out
25:35
with I've I've got 1 and it's Steve, you know about these
25:39
Stoke House and and they're they're new.
25:41
It's their West Coast IPA and these guys were at tenfold prior
25:45
brand of the new tenfold and the cool and I wish I'd had when I
25:49
thought I bought it the other day, but I didn't.
25:50
Stoke House I believe is a customer of yours.
25:53
For sure they. Buy your for their signature
25:58
beer I believe, which is their their dark dark English ale.
26:01
I think cuz he told us on the when we're talking to them
26:04
recently, he brought your name up, specifically the Riverbend
26:07
Malhouse. Yeah, yeah.
26:08
Great, great folks. They're so excited to see them
26:11
kind of jump out and do their own thing.
26:13
It's yeah. Nashville's got a beautiful beer
26:16
scene. We we do a bunch of stuff with,
26:18
with Stoke House, Tenfold, Harding House and Jesse Beer
26:23
works, Brew works. Yeah.
26:24
So we've got great representation in the in the
26:26
center of the state, which makes total sense because one of our
26:29
major farmers is located just about an hour north of
26:34
Nashville, right near the the Tennessee Kentucky line.
26:37
And we get a a tremendous amount of material from them.
26:41
So that that's kind of Tennessee's bread basket right
26:44
there. From what I've heard that that
26:46
area of the state and then also in between Nashville and
26:50
Chattanooga has some good barley growing areas as well.
26:54
Yeah. Before, before Chad mentioned
26:56
this one, we actually heard about you from two other
26:59
breweries that we've had on this podcast, actually both of them
27:02
twice, Eric Latham, who's E who is a Johnson City Brewing.
27:07
For sure. Yeah, he's great.
27:08
Brought you guys up one time and then Anthony Davis from East
27:11
National Beer Works brought you guys up.
27:13
You guys, I think you provide one for his Tennessee pills or
27:16
the Tennessee pills thing that you do that.
27:18
So your name has come up multiple times prior to today.
27:22
Yeah, yeah. We've we've, we've, we've done,
27:25
done, done good work in Tennessee.
27:27
It's, you know, it's followed our kind of our general playbook
27:32
is go out, get a grower or two from that state that grows good
27:36
barley, work with the material and then go back and visit the
27:40
Brewers and distillers and say here we've got XYZ products
27:44
developed with material from your state.
27:47
You can isolate it. We had great success with, we
27:51
had a Cumberland Pilsner that was made with 100% barley from
27:56
Tennessee. And then we also have a malted
27:58
corn from Tennessee. So we had tons of folks making
28:02
beautiful American lagers with those two ingredients.
28:06
So people got a lot of traction at market with like it's 100%
28:10
Tennessee grain now. Yeah.
28:12
So Brent, I tell you when when Scott had told me about you guys
28:18
and we were going to get you on here and when I started doing a
28:21
lot of research, one of the things that really I wanted to
28:25
hear about was when you all started this up around 2011, I
28:30
believe. Can you really recall like when
28:34
you start talking like the first farmers and breweries and others
28:37
about trying to bring everybody together?
28:40
I mean, how did those conversations start?
28:43
Yeah. So the early ones, but you know,
28:46
I, I can't say enough wonderful things about North Carolina and
28:51
Virginia's AG Extension programs.
28:53
They did exactly what they were designed to do, which is connect
28:57
a market with the growers that make those products.
29:00
And so we started very early on talking with the folk, the small
29:06
grain specialist at North Carolina or NC State's eye
29:10
extension program, They connected us with some barley
29:13
growers early on. We did some test trial stuff,
29:18
even working with the researchers who were doing, you
29:20
know, small scale variety trials that are, you know, 1/10 of an
29:25
acre plots or smaller. You know, they sent us home
29:28
after a couple of meetings with, you know, burlap bags full of
29:31
stuff from these trials. And so we humble beginning, you
29:35
know, my Co founder Brian Simpson, you know, he had so I
29:40
was the homebrewer. So I had all the homebrew gear
29:42
at my house and Brian had all our early molten gear in his
29:46
place. And that consisted of a
29:49
galvanized metal tub from a farm supply shop and a meat smoker
29:54
with a bathroom fan duct tape to it.
29:58
So humble beginnings, 10 LB batches, you know, enough to do
30:01
a 5 gallon homebrew run. And we started with six row
30:05
barley, which, you know, at me being the home Brewer, I had
30:09
read Charlie Papazian's book, of course.
30:12
And you know, he has this disparaging paragraph in there
30:16
about like, you know, six row barley is only for the land of
30:19
micro loggers and macro loggers and, you know, adjunct stuff.
30:24
And I'm like, I don't know, Brian, you know, six row barley
30:28
may not have a place. And we took a shot at it and I,
30:32
we, it made great beer right out of the, I mean, the first couple
30:35
of tries I was like, OK, I'm in, let's do this, you know, and we
30:40
also met a gentleman, Rick Wasman out of Sperryville,
30:43
Virginia, Copper Fox distilling. He was malting his own barley,
30:48
the thoroughbred 6 row that we started with.
30:50
He was making award-winning American single malt 15 years
30:54
ago. You can believe that.
30:55
And so all of these things, all of these aha moments and light
30:59
bulb moments kind of came together.
31:01
And, you know, one of our earliest customers, Full Steam
31:05
Brewing out of Durham, I had met the owner of that brewery, Shawn
31:09
Wilson. We were working together on a
31:12
campaign called Pop the Cap in North Carolina to get rid of our
31:15
6% alcohol law, which of course kept craft beer, you know,
31:21
completely, you know, pinned down in terms of creativity.
31:25
So Sean was one of the first people I approached.
31:28
He was up here in Asheville doing an event.
31:30
And I, I bellied up to the bar, the side of it at Thirsty Monk.
31:34
And I was like, Sean, I could make local malt using North
31:38
Carolina grown barley. Would you buy it?
31:40
And he was like, yeah, yeah, I would, Brent.
31:42
And I was like, OK, well, here's our first customer, you know,
31:46
keep going. So somehow or another that move
31:49
made me Riverbend salesman from the word go.
31:53
But anyway, we all got started that way and I like I say
31:58
started with a one ton malt house in 2010, two 1011, went to
32:03
a 10 ton facility in 2014 and then took the big leap and went
32:08
into a 70,000 square foot facility with room to grow in
32:12
2018. So 50,000 this Year, 5 million
32:18
this year. Do you think those early days
32:21
was because not that selling it was easy, but because you were
32:25
getting locally sourced stuff for selling it locally was a big
32:28
selling point? Yeah, I mean, it really, in some
32:32
cases it was, you know, we were learning our craft.
32:35
So it at some point, you know, people would call and be like,
32:38
hey, Brent, I really need, I want to do some malt.
32:41
I want to make a beer. And I'd be like, well, I'm be
32:43
honest with you, the batch we just finished is not what we
32:47
expected. I think it's this color and it
32:49
has these flavors to it and they're like, well, just send it
32:53
on. We'll make something out of it.
32:54
And I'm like, thank you for that.
32:56
You, you know, but you know, flash forwarded A decade or more
33:01
later, you know, consistency is key.
33:03
And if we want to be a part of, you know, year round Ipas and
33:07
loggers, we got to deliver the same stuff week in and week out.
33:12
And sure, it's it. That's probably been the the
33:15
greatest challenge. And you know, kudos to our
33:18
growers for growing with us is that, you know, over the years
33:22
they've gotten better. We've gotten better.
33:25
And that's the key to consistency.
33:27
Your, your customers have needs, right?
33:29
You've talked about and we're going to talk about some more
33:31
about them too. You have needs from your
33:32
growers, right? How do those out of those
33:35
conversations go? Hey, I kind of need a little bit
33:37
more of this. Or can you, I don't know, can
33:39
you talk to a grower and say, hey, can you refine this in a
33:41
certain way or anything like that?
33:43
Yeah. Sure.
33:44
Yeah. So the conversation, so I'll
33:46
back up and say the good thing about talking with growers in
33:50
the Southeast is we are talking about winter barley.
33:54
So it goes in the ground right about now mid-october and is
33:58
harvested in June. So that keeps us out of the way
34:02
of the main cash crops of of the South corn, soybeans, etc.
34:07
So that's that's an easy the entree right there.
34:10
So we're basically saying, hey, while your fields aren't doing a
34:13
whole lot, could you plant something that will pay you for?
34:15
Okay, cool. So I've they, I've got their
34:18
attention, but we are kind of a pain.
34:20
We want specific barley varietals.
34:23
We want specific specs regarding germination, fungal growth
34:28
limitations. We use a term called test weight
34:32
as kind of an easy catch all. So a healthy high quality batch
34:37
of barley should have at least £48 per bushel test weight.
34:41
Fantastic quality barley will have like 50 or 52 LB test
34:46
weight so we kind of set a floor on test weight.
34:49
Now if we were selling into the feed market, no one cares about
34:52
these things it's just it's going into animal feed no one
34:55
cares so we offer a premium price because we're asking for a
35:00
premium grain and so we kind of lay out all of these things and
35:04
we say, you know, we need it cleaned we need it in tote bags
35:08
and Oh yeah I also can't take all of it as soon as you harvest
35:13
it, which is the other thing that is problematic.
35:18
Our target growers will kind of had to have a dedicated river
35:21
bend bin on site that's like that's their barley.
35:25
They order it, you know, couple truckloads at the time over the
35:29
course of the year and you know, it's on them to keep the bugs at
35:34
Bay and keep the moisture levels at at where we need them.
35:38
So we're we're definitely kind of a pain, but but by putting
35:44
all that out in front of everybody from the get go, you
35:47
know, everybody knows where we stand and what everyone's
35:49
expectations are. And so we just kind of lay it
35:53
out clearly from the start. I want Avalon barley at this
35:57
level of protein, this level of moisture, this level of
36:01
germination. And I'm going to take it, you
36:04
know, 50 to 100,000 lbs at a time over this coming year.
36:09
Is that OK? And they say, yes, this is the
36:12
price I need. And we say, OK, fair enough,
36:14
let's do this, you know, the win, win.
36:16
Yeah. Well, and the other thing about
36:18
that too is we pull our customers out of the global
36:22
market for small grain. So we're not talking about, you
36:27
know, logging into the Chicago Board of Trade and looking at
36:31
futures contracts and all of that business.
36:33
You know, it's a handshake agreement on the back of a
36:36
pickup truck. You know, it's really how we
36:38
like to do business. And so pulling everybody out of
36:41
that, they know exactly what they're going to get.
36:43
We know exactly what we're going to get that keeps our prices
36:46
from fluctuating, You know, regardless of what geopolitical
36:49
things are going on, what kind of climatic issues are going on,
36:53
you know, you know, you guys and they remember a couple of years
36:56
back, there was a freak rain event out in the western US near
37:00
harvest time. They got like an unexpected inch
37:04
or two of rain and all the barley started sprouting in the
37:07
head, basically starting to malt itself essentially.
37:11
And you know, markets went crazy.
37:13
Everyone was completely, you know, everyone was freaking out
37:16
because the malt quality was inevitably going to be impacted.
37:20
And everyone kept calling me and they're like, what's going on?
37:23
And I'm like, what do you mean what's going on?
37:25
Our barley was harvested 3-4 months ago.
37:28
We're fine. It's in the bin.
37:30
Oh. Yeah.
37:31
It's winter barley. Everything that grows out West
37:33
is spring barley. And so, you know, we, we find
37:36
that we have to continually message these kinds of key
37:40
differentiating factors to everyone basically that, you
37:44
know, by having this smaller supply chain, there's a whole
37:48
host of benefits that everyone in the brewing and distilling
37:52
world can take advantage of. It's amazing.
37:55
It's a buffer. You've got this buffer built in
37:57
for both sides. It's amazing.
37:59
And it's true. Yeah.
38:00
And people don't panic. Now you're like.
38:02
Right. We haven't, knock on wood, we
38:04
haven't had a panic yet. And you know, the other thing
38:07
too is we space out our growers across the Southeast.
38:10
So we're taking advantage of those microclimate.
38:13
So we have growers in coastal Virginia, central Tennessee, we
38:18
have and sort of in the Piedmont portion of North Carolina.
38:22
And so, you know, if there's an early tropical storm or a late
38:25
freeze or whatever, you know, we've got options going in to
38:30
harvest that that have pretty, pretty well served us and we
38:35
haven't had any shortages yet. But how cool is it?
38:38
But how cool is it though that, you know, we know farmers
38:41
struggle. You know, that's a tough, tough
38:44
business. That's a tough, tough life.
38:45
But you guys, you know, you said you're a pain at times, but I'm
38:49
sure they appreciate it because you're really helping, I would
38:53
imagine a lot of farmers out there.
38:55
Yeah. You know, we, we try to be a
38:57
good partner and, you know, we're always looking for farmers
39:00
that are what we call students of the game.
39:02
You know, the guys that show up at the AG extension events where
39:06
they're demoing a new, you know, approach to adding fertilizer
39:12
or, you know, different techniques for planting or
39:15
herbicide treatment or whatever. You know, the folks that are,
39:19
you know, basically attending the equivalent of a continuing
39:21
education kind of thing. Like those are the folks that
39:24
are going to have the highest degree of success when it comes
39:27
to getting good barley out of the field, which supports us
39:30
making good malt, which supports Brewers making great beer.
39:35
Brent, we in going into this I assumed beer, right?
39:39
All the malt goes to beer, but that does not, does it?
39:43
No, no. So we you guys.
39:45
Looking on your website as Steve referenced earlier, the great
39:47
fantastic website that you have. Fantastic website.
39:51
You have some whiskey connections too, and actually
39:53
one that's in Tennessee if you want to talk about that
39:55
Chattanooga whiskey I saw on your website.
39:57
Yeah, yeah. So we so we find ourselves to be
40:03
kind of a secret sauce for a lot of distilleries.
40:07
If you look at bourbon in its. Most clear unadulterated form
40:12
you're talking about a a recipe that's mostly corn more than 51
40:17
by by law, typically more like 70 to 80.
40:20
And then you'll have, you know, a portion of either raw wheat or
40:24
raw rot and then anywhere from 5 to 15% malted barley.
40:29
That being called upon to do some pretty heavy lifting in
40:33
terms of converting all the starch in that corn into
40:36
something that can be utilized by yeast.
40:40
So it's kind of a different animal.
40:42
Most distillers are looking for higher enzyme products.
40:46
But in the case of of sort of modern craft whiskey, most folks
40:51
are tamping down that corn and bringing up the malted
40:56
percentages in. That also helps do the support
40:59
better conversion, or easier conversion I should say, but
41:04
probably more importantly brings in a lot of interesting flavors.
41:07
So when you sort of make the decision to swap out some of
41:12
that corn for like a dark Munich or a Crystal Malt or a Munich
41:17
rye or something like that, you're bringing in some really,
41:21
really bold flavors into the mash that are much more
41:25
pronounced than a raw wheat or a raw rye can deliver.
41:30
Because most of the time a distillers mall, if driven just
41:33
for enzyme production, it's going to be kind of bland on the
41:37
flavor profile. Maltsters don't have the ability
41:40
to kiln at very warm temperatures to develop a lot of
41:43
complex flavors because those higher temperatures will knock
41:47
down the enzyme levels. So when we say, oh, we've got
41:50
more malt to work with, we want more flavor, all sorts of doors
41:54
open up so we can do a for for grain bourbon.
41:59
It's still bourbon by law, but has a whole host of new, more
42:04
exciting flavors than kind of your your standard everyday
42:07
stuff. Have you heard of, so we've
42:09
talked beer, we've talked whiskey.
42:11
Have you heard of any unique or any other, say, facets or
42:15
industries that use malt that maybe you weren't expecting,
42:18
whether it's drink or food products or anything like that?
42:21
You know there, there's some bizarre things out there.
42:25
You know, one thing we're one thing we're looking at is the
42:29
food industry is looking to step further and further away from
42:34
artificial colors. And so specialty malt can
42:38
deliver that color and some pretty similar flavor profiles
42:42
and in more natural origin. So that's one thing we're
42:46
exploring, but we're always keeping our eye out.
42:49
You know, we have a partnership with a chocolate French Broad
42:53
Chocolates here in Asheville. They use our dark Munich, you
42:56
know, one of their special releases.
42:58
And so there's tons of fun stuff like that going on.
43:01
Yeah. Real quick, the place and I just
43:04
imagine everywhere you walk in your facility, whether it's the
43:07
offices or the warehouse or whatever, everything smells
43:10
good. I think it's got to smell good,
43:11
right? You got a.
43:13
Smokehouse over here, you're smoking things, talking.
43:15
It's like I just imagine. It does most days.
43:18
You know, Brian and I have both tuned our, our olfactory census
43:23
so where we can open the front door and be like, okay, what's
43:27
wrong? So something falls off, you
43:29
know, and we'll walk over and, and we'll check with the guys
43:33
that running the production and they'll be like, Oh yeah, yeah,
43:36
the kiln cut off on batch #2 in the middle of the night.
43:40
And we're having to catch up. And, you know, it's like, okay,
43:44
all right. And then, you know, we've run a
43:47
several different smoked products.
43:49
And so that's always fun too, to open the door in the morning and
43:52
you get that waft of like pecan wood coming through and you're
43:56
like, Oh yeah, we're working on that recipe, you know, working
43:58
on that order for, you know, XYZ distillery.
44:02
And so, yeah, the flavors are good.
44:04
And our new, relatively new neighbor of poppy popcorn in
44:07
town. Oh boy.
44:09
So they're more than artisanal popcorn in the sweet over.
44:13
And so we we get there like caramel popcorn flavors coming
44:17
through our offices. So it's smells pretty good in
44:21
there. Not a bad combination.
44:22
Maybe you could guys could do some kind of collab?
44:24
Somewhere, right, Right. We're trying.
44:26
They they've been so busy, they, they got a deal with the
44:28
Bucky's. Yeah.
44:30
So they got the Bucky's chain deal and they have had their
44:33
heads down ever since then. Yeah, I live in an area and I
44:38
live South in Nashville where they just broke ground for a
44:41
Bucky's. I think it's going to open in
44:43
about a year or so. It's going to be crazy.
44:45
You know, Brian, I'm curious, you know, you you Co founded the
44:48
company in 2011. How has your role in what you do
44:53
evolved and really kind of changed from when you first
44:56
started till now? Yeah, no, great questions.
45:00
When it started and for for many, many years Brian and I
45:03
were, we were shuffling Crane. And so I don't think I was taken
45:08
out of production duties until 2018 or 19.
45:13
So, you know, we were, we were both standard entrepreneurs, you
45:17
know, wore all the hats. You know, I would come home from
45:21
a day of, you know, shoveling grain and I would send out
45:24
invoices for my, you know, sofa at night and then get back up
45:29
and do it again, You know, and I think now my, my current title
45:33
is chief strategy officer. And so that kind of puts me in
45:36
the role of I always say, you know, it's like listening for
45:39
the the first hubs of the Buffalo, you know, you want to
45:42
get the front end with that herd.
45:44
And so I'm always in charge of like, what is the industry doing
45:48
next? What's happening?
45:50
And so I think that's probably the biggest shift is, is going
45:54
away from production. And the only thing I'm involved
45:58
with in production right now is QA QC.
46:00
So I still taste every batch be a hot steep that leaves the malt
46:05
house. So, but I'm not shoveling
46:07
anymore. I've held roles as you know,
46:10
sales director or also sorts of stuff, again, wearing all the
46:13
hats. The one thing I was very happy
46:16
to get is when they looked at me and they said, Brent, we don't
46:18
want you to ever touch QuickBooks again.
46:21
And I said, fair enough, that's great.
46:23
I wasn't at it anyway you can have.
46:26
So we, we've had, you know, several talented accountants
46:29
come in and and drive that for us.
46:32
And I'm thankful for them. So, yeah, it's been a, it's been
46:35
a hell of a ride. But I I still spend a lot of
46:38
time with our customers. Technical sales and recipe
46:42
development is still something I really get into.
46:45
You know, I wish I could tell you I knew I had a feel for
46:49
where the industry is going next.
46:50
I don't. Yeah, for the first time, I
46:54
think I've gone a full 12 months without like I think this style
46:58
is going to pop next. You know, it's like I'm I'm not
47:01
seeing that it if anything, the style funnel is getting a little
47:05
bit more narrow. Everything's yellow, I feel
47:08
like, and everything very much so 5 to maybe V.
47:12
And that's why I'm so thankful to have a beautiful Doppelbach
47:16
to drink. Because.
47:17
Yeah, well, it does. I started joking before, you
47:21
know, you see some of these different beer styles that come
47:23
along and we joked about Scott and I did about the like the PB
47:28
and J beers that have become like a big deal with breweries
47:31
around here. And I don't know, you know,
47:33
we're, we're parts of the country if it's everywhere or
47:36
not. But I, I don't, I don't even
47:38
know if there's even feasibility for you guys.
47:41
If somebody contacts you and say, hey, by the way, 'cause
47:43
you're like, we don't know. I mean, that may be, that may be
47:46
a fad that lasts two or three months, so.
47:49
Yeah, You know, all I can say is throughout all these fads, we
47:54
thought a lot of them were going to take us out.
47:57
You know, when when seltzer came on, cider came on.
48:01
And, you know, you, you look at their growth curves and we're
48:04
like, all right, well, that's it.
48:05
Everyone's going to drink cider now.
48:07
And then you watch their data, like fall off a Cliff.
48:11
And now the thing that we're watching is THC drinks.
48:15
You know, like those things are going.
48:16
I don't know what Tennessee's approach is to them, but the
48:19
Carolinas are starting to kind of mainstream them and meaning
48:24
they're in grocery stores instead of just head shops.
48:27
And that's interesting. But, you know, again, the
48:30
experience teaches wisdom and I'm, I'm less concerned now.
48:35
It's like I'm going to have their pop and, and, and they're
48:39
going to just have a real tangible impact on beer sales
48:43
for, you know, three to six months, maybe a year.
48:47
And then people are going to be like, all right, been there,
48:49
done that. THC does make me sleepy next,
48:52
you know. Yeah.
48:55
Well, and Scott referenced this earlier and I know he kind of
48:57
asked you about this. That's, you know, we've been
48:59
doing the podcast for about two years.
49:01
And it's something that I would say, Scott, when you say over
49:04
the past year or so, we, you know, when we have talked to
49:07
Brewers and we personally have experienced that, you know,
49:11
loggers have really become a big deal again and another.
49:16
One yes. Yeah, exactly.
49:17
And but don't you think though, Brent, that helps you because
49:20
you're going look, things are coming full circle again, right.
49:23
Yeah. No, I'm so excited for this.
49:26
I mean, and I give full faith and credit to Brewers who just
49:30
absolutely willed this trend into existence.
49:34
I mean, yeah, we, we've been wishing and hoping and, and, and
49:39
no cheerleading the year of the lager since probably 2018 or 19
49:46
and I think 2324. And now we're, we're kind of
49:52
we're there, you know, everybody is.
49:54
I would and I would venture most breweries are, are, are measured
49:58
just as much by their IPA as their lager portfolio now.
50:02
And sure, I, I think that's a beautiful thing.
50:04
And yes, it absolutely helps us. It helps craft malt.
50:07
It's a beautiful entree into what else is in this beer that
50:11
I'm tasting it. It's you know, the yeast by
50:14
design is kind of taking a back seat.
50:16
The hops are restrained, serving a much more straightforward
50:21
purpose of kind of just cleaning up your palate.
50:23
And it's it's really for the Brewers technique.
50:26
What are chemistry choices and malt character that are driving
50:29
these? And we're excited.
50:31
We're here for it. And we're trying to just keep
50:34
products in front of the Brewers that they find interesting and,
50:38
you know, politely elbow our way into the brew house in the
50:43
styles that were previously only the domain of of.
50:47
German ingredients, I think these traditional beers that
50:50
we're just talking about, I think it's what's going to save
50:53
when I say craft beer, maybe even make it grow because we're
50:56
kind of flat, you know, the last couple years.
50:57
Ultimately, at least with breweries opening and closing,
51:00
that might be the thing that saves it.
51:02
And they might even be a thing where those that aren't making
51:04
it will and they got to make them well, because like you
51:06
said, you can't hide behind anything.
51:08
It's got to be good, but also maybe it brings back some old
51:12
world styles that haven't been produced, at least not produced
51:14
in this country. Still along those lines.
51:16
Sure. Yeah, you know.
51:18
Things like that it's like, hey, let's we discover that these are
51:21
good. Let's discover a few other
51:22
things along the same lines. Are still pure and traditional
51:25
and. Right.
51:26
And they're not so strong that you can't hang out and have a
51:29
couple. And yeah, you know, I think that
51:32
that's a big piece of it is kind of restoring that that third
51:37
place, you know, it's like, is there a spot I can go that's
51:41
that's truly a part of this community?
51:44
And can I bring my family or my buddies or whatever and we hang
51:47
out? You know, we see a lot of people
51:50
winning in this. I mean, some of the headlines
51:54
sound horrible, like we should all just pack up our stuff and
51:57
go home, you know, But the word on the street is, is much
52:01
different. I mean, if you're, if you're
52:03
bringing great beer, a well thought out atmosphere, well
52:07
trained staff, you know, some events, some interesting food,
52:11
like that's a recipe for success.
52:13
You know, we see it time and again.
52:15
I mean, there's, there's definitely people kicking cans
52:17
out there that are not, you know, for whatever reason are
52:21
not able to succeed. But there's plenty of other
52:24
success stories yet. You know, I actually wanted to
52:28
start a podcast this year that was just sharing those success
52:32
stories because I was so tired of hearing, you know, the if it
52:36
bleeds, it leads kind of A to beer media and, you know, just
52:43
time got away from us and but I definitely think it's a story
52:46
that needs to be told. There is a success.
52:48
There's tons of success stories throughout the Southeast and
52:51
throughout the larger crappier market.
52:53
So we're here for it. I mean, we're one of 70 craft
52:57
malt houses around the nation that are, you know, ready to
53:00
support a variety of lager styles that are leaning into
53:05
malt and barley varieties that grow in a much more regional
53:09
approach. I mean, we again, are we at Wine
53:12
Terroir? No, we're not there yet.
53:15
Right. So many beer journalists.
53:17
I talked to her, like, please tell me we're ready with it.
53:20
You can tell the difference between, you know, the same
53:22
batch of barley grown in one field to the other.
53:25
And I'm like, no, I can't, I'm sorry.
53:28
But yeah, I can tell you the difference in the barley
53:30
varieties. And you're right in the malt
53:32
house, but that's it, you know? But that's enough.
53:35
I mean, if we can tell the difference in the same German
53:39
style lager made it from a Southeastern brewery to a
53:42
northeastern brewery, then that's interesting.
53:45
I mean, that's a cool story to tell.
53:47
Well, and the other thing is Scott mentioned a few minutes
53:50
ago about East Nashville Beer Works and we did a podcast with
53:54
them recently with their owner, Anthony Davis.
53:57
And one of the things we brought up was, you know, they're seeing
54:00
it. I mean, they know that Michelob
54:02
Ultra is now, you know, the best selling beer in America, right?
54:06
But they have, they're making other like East natural beer
54:10
works, for example. They're making other beers that
54:13
are almost similar to that. But thank God, you know, they're
54:17
better. And I think Scott could say the
54:19
same thing. I mean, he goes out and drinks
54:21
beer. I go out and drink beer.
54:22
Sometimes we go out and drink better, you know, drink the beer
54:25
together and we see it and we're like, oh man, did you taste that
54:29
lager, Scott? Did you get that lager?
54:31
Did you get that filter? You know the.
54:32
Light lager like you just said, like these natural ones, like
54:35
it's a light lager too, like this is actually like national
54:37
brewing has a really good light lager.
54:39
They want to I think they want a gold medal of medal at JBF a
54:43
year or two ago. It's.
54:44
The key is it not just watered down?
54:48
That that is the trick you know and and that's a skill unto
54:52
itself. I mean, you know will we see you
54:55
know the the British mild come in and and fill a similar space.
54:59
I don't know. Probably not because it's a
55:02
little people are just scared of dark beer still and so but yes,
55:08
I think there's a a lot of ground to be covered.
55:11
You know, I think the only thing that's challenging for craft
55:16
breweries on the light lager front as the price point issue,
55:19
you know, if you sit down and they charge you 7 bucks a pint,
55:24
that's a tough, that's a tough sell, you know?
55:26
When the guys used to drop buying a 24 pack for 9 bucks.
55:30
Right, exactly. You know, so I, I think that
55:33
piece is still to be determined. I, I think it's, you know, like
55:38
Bart Watson from the BA said, you know, it's like the, the
55:42
$7.00 a pint price point is a tipping point for the consumer.
55:47
And sure, I think that's most acute at that 4% light logger
55:53
style because, because everyone immediately says I can buy X
55:58
amount of X beer. I mean, you know, of course,
56:01
banquet or whatever, you know, you immediately go to that
56:06
comparison and and I think that's that's kind of a
56:08
dangerous play for, for a craft Brewer to to get into.
56:12
You know, I I'd want to make sure the rest of my port I'd
56:16
probably air of reducing that beer's price and add a quarter
56:21
to everything else on the top wall and.
56:25
That's really good. People recognize that.
56:27
Oh yeah. OK.
56:28
Well, they, they did debit that down based on the ABV and OK,
56:33
that feels right, you know. Good point.
56:36
Yeah, it's an excellent point. I hadn't heard that or thought
56:38
about that before. That actually is actually
56:40
perfect. Yeah.
56:41
Yeah, like that could be your loss leader.
56:43
Exactly. You know, what we always think
56:45
about it is, you know, what's the price point that's going to
56:48
stop you from that third beer? Is it 7 bucks?
56:51
Is it 750 you, you know, like what's going to stop you from
56:55
hanging out? And and that's the and that's
56:58
what every crap we're should think about when they plan their
57:01
menu out is like, is this per is this guy or gal done at 2 beers?
57:07
Because now they have they spent 20 bucks after the tip, you
57:11
know, so and because then we get into whole volumetric, you know,
57:15
issues of like, you know, if I sell 3 beers at $6 versus 2 at
57:19
7:50, did I win? I don't know, you know, and
57:23
that's going to be different for every brewhouse in every tap
57:26
room environment that we. On your website.
57:28
Off top. It's all connected, all
57:33
connected. It's all we care about.
57:34
On your website, you've got some partners listed, industry
57:37
partners in university partnerships.
57:40
And I love this because we've had and, and they're actually on
57:43
this list. Appalachian State University
57:45
fermentation science program has been on this podcast.
57:48
Doctor Topper Toppman's been on here and they are one of your
57:51
partners. Talk about them specifically and
57:55
or the universities in general. What is that partnership like?
57:58
And is it really just kind of is same kind of thing that you're
58:00
doing with with Brewers or is it a little bit different because
58:03
they're universities? It takes a lot of different
58:05
forms. So like typically, you know,
58:08
it's about putting a little bit more of a face and a name and an
58:13
experience around malt. You know, if you're, if you're a
58:16
student in a brewing class or program, you know, and I always
58:20
kind of pick on it because malt kind of gets short shrift.
58:24
You know, it's like, Oh yeah, malt, here we go.
58:26
It's two days out of your whole curriculum, you know, and it's
58:29
like, but if they actually, if the students visit the malt
58:33
house, they go through the different steps of the process
58:36
in real time, taste the grain at each step, see it, you know,
58:40
then do the hot steep with me and all of that.
58:43
It's like it's a deeper imprint in terms of like what the role
58:47
that malt plays in recipe development, you know, because
58:52
inevitably that like a classroom ASU will will come visit, do the
58:57
tour, and then I will send them home with different products And
59:00
they're, you know, next brew day is a mix of recipes from all of
59:05
our products and everyone's like, holy crap, you, you know,
59:09
I've home brewed before, but you know, I'm getting this different
59:12
note from, you know, Riverbends dark Munich versus Wireman's or,
59:18
you know, this pilsner absolutely outshine something
59:22
from the big boys here in North America and light bulbs go off,
59:27
you know, and so I think that's where we really like that that
59:30
academic connection is that it's the old adage home Brewers
59:34
become pro Brewers, right. So we're we're catching them in
59:37
that development stage. And then sort of from a true
59:41
academic standpoint, you know, we have some really interesting
59:44
partnerships with folks like the University of Kentucky where
59:48
we're actually test molting material that they've grown
59:52
under different growing conditions to see a, is there
59:57
terroir? Does that difference in
1:00:00
fertility management actually translate into different specs
1:00:05
or, you know, a better barley, a higher test weight, a better
1:00:09
performing malt? You know, so it, it really runs
1:00:11
the gamut from early intervention, let's call it,
1:00:15
with an aspiring Brewer, to a seasoned academic with a PhD who
1:00:20
has a totally different set of goals.
1:00:22
That's so cool. Like thinking back on that
1:00:24
episode, I don't know, I just, I just feel like I don't just
1:00:27
putting it all together, right. If I if I was early in my
1:00:30
fermentation career, if I'm at the University of Upstate or
1:00:33
wherever upstate university, I would want to know about these
1:00:35
things. It might be one of those things
1:00:37
you don't think about on the front end or like, oh, I can
1:00:39
take this with me in my career later on.
1:00:41
You know what I mean? Like.
1:00:42
Well, and it, you know, typically most of these students
1:00:45
are younger, right? And so they're, they have a
1:00:49
broader suite of concerns. It's not just like, hey, teach
1:00:52
me how to make beer. That's cool.
1:00:54
But yeah, hey, well, I also have some environmental things that
1:00:58
I'd I'd like to uphold And well, so this checks that box too.
1:01:03
You know, this malt was, was made with barley that's grown
1:01:08
100 miles away instead of, you know, 3000.
1:01:12
So that's a win. And so we're, we can, we kind of
1:01:16
have that, that stage, if you will, to sort of talk about all
1:01:20
the things that make local malt valuable.
1:01:22
It it's not just the flavor and freshness, but we've got some
1:01:26
environmental benefits, we've got some local economy benefits,
1:01:29
a whole host of things that can kind of resonate with a lot of
1:01:33
different consumers. See, I would think in that
1:01:35
instance, again, as a student going into any of those
1:01:38
programs, my thought would probably be, hey, I'm going to
1:01:40
go in, I'm going to be a Brewer, right?
1:01:42
I want to brew beers. And then you realize there's
1:01:44
other aspects like Steve, Steve, Steven Moxley, I think went on
1:01:47
to like a yeast company. All these other avenues you
1:01:49
might not even have thought about as far as a career goes
1:01:51
later on. You know, when you graduate four
1:01:53
years later. Yeah, sure.
1:01:55
And malt being one of them. Yeah, no, absolutely.
1:01:58
I mean, you know, early on we had a lot of environmental
1:02:01
science majors and agroecology type folks coming through to
1:02:06
work at the Mold House because again, we, we represented that
1:02:09
perfect intersection of, you know, something that had mass
1:02:14
appeal, but also had an environmental ethos behind it.
1:02:18
And that that really resonates with the younger generation.
1:02:21
I mean, I'm full Gray hair now and almost 50s.
1:02:25
I wouldn't say I'm part of that generation anymore.
1:02:28
But you know, still, that's really one of the tenants that
1:02:31
Brian and I laid out is, you know, when we looked at
1:02:34
companies like New Belgium and Patagonia, like we wanted a
1:02:37
company that had that sort of durable environmental ethos
1:02:41
behind it. And we've been able to stick to
1:02:43
it And I'm but we're pretty proud of that.
1:02:45
Will you, will you continue on that pace in and talk about
1:02:47
sustainability? You guys have a big section on
1:02:50
your website that we keep referring to because it's so
1:02:52
awesome. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:53
By the way. And there's a whole, I know
1:02:55
there's a million angles of sustainability, but please talk
1:02:57
about kind of your, your, your, your angle.
1:03:00
Yeah, sure. So, so first and foremost, just
1:03:04
to kind of frame things up, malt is a global commodity.
1:03:07
Malt is primarily produced in Western, US, Western and Central
1:03:12
Canada, Western Europe, Australia.
1:03:15
And so it's a global commodity. It literally moves all over the
1:03:18
planet with trains, planes, automobiles, boats, you name it,
1:03:22
it moves around the southeast was typically not seen as a
1:03:25
barley growing region still isn't If you look at the USDA's
1:03:29
barley production maps, we're not on it.
1:03:32
We're a rounding error. We're we're dust compared to the
1:03:36
the bigger producers. And so we're in Nashville.
1:03:39
The closest major malt house to where we are is Chilton, WI.
1:03:42
That's breeze. Breeze spots their barley from
1:03:45
the Big Horn Valley in Wyoming, which grows exquisite barley.
1:03:48
No, no shade in that at all. The trip from the farm to the
1:03:53
fermenter is a couple 1000 miles.
1:03:55
As I said, we're at Max 4 to 500.
1:03:59
Most of our stuff is coming from 300 or less.
1:04:01
So from a strictly food mile perspective, we've got a win
1:04:07
there. And obviously the people over in
1:04:10
Europe have thousands of 8000 miles I think is the distance
1:04:13
from wireman to Asheville. So we've got some basic food
1:04:17
mile stuff there that that is a win.
1:04:20
More recently, we we started as a organic and Mother Nature
1:04:25
quickly showed us that that was too aggressive and that we
1:04:28
needed to step back and stay conventional to just get a
1:04:32
decent crop of barley in the door.
1:04:34
But one of the most exciting things that we've been able to
1:04:37
to jump back into is regenerative agriculture.
1:04:40
So we're the first regenified certified malt house on the
1:04:45
planet. And what that basically means is
1:04:49
we are able to preserve that transparency and traceability of
1:04:54
a given lot of barley from a regenerative farm all the way
1:04:59
through to the brewery. So back to our friends at Full
1:05:02
Steam in Durham, they're the first certified brewery.
1:05:05
So we're now closing that loop from a regenerate, regenerate 5
1:05:11
certified farm in Maryland. Their barley comes to us in
1:05:14
Asheville and then the malt goes to Durham to make beer.
1:05:17
So regenerative agriculture includes things like no till
1:05:21
farming, which reduces erosion. We've got cover cropping, which
1:05:25
also reduces erosion but also preserves nutrients and carbon
1:05:28
in the soil. All these different things
1:05:31
improve the soil health and actually build structure within
1:05:34
the soil that retains carbon. And so, and Regenified is
1:05:40
really, really special in the sense that they visit their
1:05:44
farms every year and do an entire battery of tests that
1:05:48
actually documents the carbon sequestration that takes place
1:05:52
in these farms. It documents the increase in
1:05:54
biological activity in the soil and the surrounding areas.
1:05:58
All these beautiful things are happening.
1:06:00
So we're really proud of that Regenified certification as a
1:06:04
way of sort of staying ahead of a lot of the the marketing and
1:06:09
what we consider greenwashing around agriculture by
1:06:13
documenting farms that that take these practices to heart.
1:06:17
We're seeing environmental benefits and seeing seeing
1:06:22
Brewers and distillers get excited about this and really
1:06:25
fold this into their marketing efforts and and environmental
1:06:30
management plans as well. Amazing.
1:06:32
And I know, I know we're running long and we, we want to, we want
1:06:35
to let you go. You're good.
1:06:36
You're a. Million other you're doing good.
1:06:38
OK, I got a couple. I won't keep you forever.
1:06:40
I got a couple others go. For it.
1:06:45
Quality, how do you guys maintain quality?
1:06:48
You've got to have because you got it, you kind of have it
1:06:50
twofold, right. You have to have quality coming
1:06:52
in. You touched on a little bit
1:06:53
earlier and your product has to go out.
1:06:55
Your quality has to be there on the on the product going out
1:06:58
too. So how do you maintain that?
1:06:59
That's got to be a lot. It's got to be a big part of the
1:07:02
day, if you will. And and not only that, let me
1:07:05
because I want to follow up on that too, Scott, because I was
1:07:09
thinking about this earlier, how the quality has changed with
1:07:12
technology over the years since you started, right?
1:07:14
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, several things.
1:07:17
Let me let me see. So first and foremost, I
1:07:20
mentioned it earlier, a certificate of analysis AC of A.
1:07:24
So each batch that's produced goes up to Hartwick College in
1:07:28
New York State. Their Craft Beverage Institute
1:07:31
does a full battery of tests on that.
1:07:33
So we get everything from protein to enzyme package to
1:07:38
extract all of that full battery of tests done there in house.
1:07:42
We're able to do fry ability, moisture, color, flavor.
1:07:47
And so that's kind of me and and the lab team doing some of that
1:07:51
basic QA QC up front. What we can do in the lab is
1:07:55
typically enough to give it a thumbs up, thumbs down to go to
1:07:58
market. If we have concerns about a
1:08:01
given batch, we can sort of shit off to the side, put it in the
1:08:05
sort of a holding pattern until we get lab data.
1:08:08
And then that's really kind of the the final, you know, is this
1:08:12
OK to release? Is this true to brand?
1:08:14
Go forth and conquer. Here we go.
1:08:17
So yeah, so that that's a big piece of it.
1:08:19
There is really a lot of testing.
1:08:21
The front end testing, like we talked about earlier is is
1:08:24
really crucial. You know, we don't let bad
1:08:26
barley in the building. So that that helps us sort of
1:08:30
put a floor under a lot of what we're trying to accomplish.
1:08:33
And then that's, I mean, it's, it's really just, I mean, some
1:08:38
of its basic, it's just Good Housekeeping, you know, keeping
1:08:41
a clean malt house keeps the bugs at Bay.
1:08:44
You know, if there's nothing for them to eat on the floor, they
1:08:46
don't proliferate, you know, and so it's really a team effort.
1:08:50
You know, everybody kind of eyes on the prize every day.
1:08:54
You know, we, we have an adage that that's completely worn out.
1:08:58
But if it, it, it's just simple. It's see something, say
1:09:00
something, you know, like it can be a, a torn bag in the racks.
1:09:05
It can be a, a temperature range that that's out of spec when
1:09:10
we're in germination, it can be a funky smell and coming out of
1:09:14
a, a germinating batch, you, you know, it's, it's, it's our team
1:09:18
really that that's driving there.
1:09:20
I mean, everyone's got their eyes and ears and nose open at
1:09:23
all times. Any one of those things you just
1:09:26
mentioned could be a small thing right?
1:09:28
Just in passing but the small detail but it could be affect
1:09:31
the final product. Exactly, You know, I I mean too
1:09:34
much dust is a perfect place for bugs to hang out and build a new
1:09:39
family and then their family builds a family and and.
1:09:43
You know what? And not that you have to give
1:09:45
any, any, you know, any examples, but I would, I would
1:09:49
imagine like anything else. You know, you've had to learn
1:09:53
the hard way a few times over the years, right?
1:09:55
Oh yeah, no, I, I, I we call it the Halo.
1:09:59
And basically if a, if a super sack bag has a bug infestation
1:10:04
and they're really crunching on that material, the dust will
1:10:07
come out of that bag in form a Halo around the pallet.
1:10:11
And that pallet is immediately going out the door into the
1:10:14
trash can. So, yeah.
1:10:17
So just little things like that looking for, you know, it's just
1:10:21
basic hygiene and it's, it's just knowing what the correct
1:10:26
portfolio of smells should be like in the mall.
1:10:29
Yeah, or lack of them, right, if you.
1:10:32
Don't smell something, something's wrong.
1:10:35
Something's wrong you guys and tell me plowed a pint Pilsner.
1:10:39
Yes, it's something you guys developed with full Steam
1:10:41
Brewery. Is that kind of a private label
1:10:44
beer for you guys? What is that exactly?
1:10:46
So plow to pie is kind of full Steam's ethos that that we sort
1:10:50
of play into really nicely. You know, we've worked on a ton
1:10:55
of projects over the years with with full steam really, you
1:10:58
know, they love the fact that we're able to tie individual
1:11:03
lots of barley back to a a given or malt back to a given farm.
1:11:08
And so whether it's Pilsner or whether it's, you know, with
1:11:12
this regenified stuff, they've released an ESB, they've
1:11:15
released an Oktoberfest. And then we're let's see, we
1:11:20
did. We're doing for North Carolina
1:11:22
crap Brewers conference. We're doing a Belgian pale that
1:11:25
I'm really excited about. But again, it it's it's about
1:11:29
having that two way St. of dialogue between Molster and
1:11:32
Brewer where we're able to get these sort of custom built
1:11:36
projects put together. And that's just not something
1:11:39
big mole houses can do. You know, it's just sort of
1:11:41
like, here's our catalog. This is our this is what we got
1:11:45
pick from the menu. But you know, there's no
1:11:47
opportunity to say, well, I'd really love to have a lot.
1:11:51
That's just Farmer John stuff from this year, you know, and
1:11:56
I'm like, all right, well, give me a couple of weeks and let me
1:11:58
make a floor batch and and we'll, we'll do that.
1:12:01
You know, what's your target? SRM on color.
1:12:04
OK, cool. We'll, you know, we'll add some
1:12:07
heat to the curing step and we'll make you what you want,
1:12:10
you know, and those types of projects just just satisfying
1:12:13
for all involved, you know, in the finished beer, especially if
1:12:16
it wins a medal or something like that.
1:12:18
Like, sure. Yeah.
1:12:19
Feels good. Yeah, there's a maybe it's part
1:12:21
of the tour. I saw something somewhere along
1:12:23
the way about sensory training and if it was sensory training
1:12:26
for staff or was it sensory training for like people taking
1:12:29
tours or is that two different things or is it the same thing?
1:12:31
All of the above yeah. So that's the hot steep method.
1:12:34
OK, so this was something developed probably 7 or 8 years
1:12:38
ago lady named Lindsay Barr, who used to be with New Belgium and
1:12:43
has now launched a company called draft Lab has really been
1:12:46
at the the bleeding edge of this.
1:12:49
Basically what draft Lab is, is it, it sort of bolts the so a
1:12:54
hot steep is basically what I said, the same concentration of
1:12:57
multi that a Brewer would create in the brew house.
1:13:00
But the trick with Draft Lab is it's a gives you a true to brand
1:13:04
sort of analysis step of questionnaire to go through.
1:13:08
You know, for example, if it was that that Southern select I was
1:13:11
talking about earlier that our British Pale Ale mall, it's like
1:13:15
it's going to ask you, is it in this color range?
1:13:18
OK, cool. Am I picking up bready biscuit
1:13:21
notes? OK, excellent.
1:13:22
Am I getting a little bit of like fruit?
1:13:25
Am I getting a little bit of toast?
1:13:27
OK, cool. It's going to walk me through
1:13:29
all of those sensory sort of check boxes to arrive at the
1:13:34
ultimate question, is this true to brand?
1:13:37
And so we use that in house for your QA QC.
1:13:40
We use it in sales as a way of saying, you know, here's our
1:13:44
pills in their malt up against you know, XYZ malt houses
1:13:48
pilsner malt. How do you feel about ours?
1:13:51
You know, is it different better?
1:13:53
Do you not care? All right.
1:13:55
But really to answer your question though, with training,
1:13:58
the most effective thing that we found with like bartenders is
1:14:02
helping them connect dots is saying here's what Riverbend did
1:14:07
here's the farmer. Here's how we made this malt.
1:14:09
This, you know pale malt is in this style beer that you're
1:14:14
pouring. Here's the connection side by
1:14:16
side. Do you pick it up?
1:14:18
You know, like, and that's when the light bulb goes off and
1:14:21
they're like, oh, wow, OK, now I understand what malt does.
1:14:25
You know, it's not just the sugar source, but it's, it's,
1:14:28
it's giving all these other nuances to the beer along with
1:14:32
the yeast and hops, of course. It's like, it really helps drive
1:14:35
home the role that malt plays. I always say, I always give this
1:14:39
analogy. So it's like if if beer, if beer
1:14:42
ingredients were the Led Led Zeppelin crew, right?
1:14:46
So malt is John Bonham in the background just banging on the
1:14:50
drums, doing a cold job, holding things down.
1:14:54
He's not always the one you talk about.
1:14:56
When people talk about Led Zeppelin, they talk about Robert
1:14:59
Plant with his shirt off. And that's hops, right?
1:15:01
You know, that's Robert Plant and he gets all the the the show
1:15:06
stopping groupies and all all the headlines being the hops.
1:15:09
But without John Bonham, Led Zeppelin doesn't exist.
1:15:12
So, you know, so that's kind of the storyline I like to tell
1:15:17
when it comes to where malt fits into the craft beer spectrum.
1:15:21
Who is Jimmy Page in that analogy?
1:15:23
Yeah, so. Maybe maybe if Robert Plant is
1:15:26
the sexy dry hop, Jimmy Page is like the still the sexy
1:15:31
bitterness hop that's playing right behind that's.
1:15:35
Great. John Paul Jones is who.
1:15:39
John Paul Jones would would be maybe he's the yeast.
1:15:42
So still very important, still still laying down a crucial part
1:15:46
of the rhythm section. Right which that the saying the
1:15:49
sum of the parts. Yes, whatever exactly right the
1:15:52
the the sum is greater than the its parts.
1:15:55
The individual parts exactly. But I do love the John Bottom
1:15:57
analogy. It keeps everything together,
1:15:59
keeps everyone, time and the whole.
1:16:00
Thing right, Right. The soul of beer.
1:16:02
But I got a million more. I got to let, we got to let you
1:16:04
go here soon. But one other thing, talk about
1:16:07
your team, just your team in general, like like you talked
1:16:11
about you, you're able to do different things now or they
1:16:13
want to allow you to do other things thing, but but talk about
1:16:17
your team like you've got to have a a wonderful team as a
1:16:20
whole, Yeah. And not only that and only that,
1:16:22
let me also expand on that question.
1:16:25
How is your team grown from when you first started to now?
1:16:28
Oh, geez, yeah. So when when we started our our
1:16:32
first employee came in and we're just like, we don't really have
1:16:35
a job for you other than to just help us lift things.
1:16:39
And, and it was like, cool, I'm in, this sounds great.
1:16:42
And I'm like, all right, come on, show up at 8:30 tomorrow
1:16:45
morning. So, you know, it started from
1:16:47
just Brian and I now we're like 16 or 17 folks strong covering
1:16:52
the Southeast in sales. We have somebody at the
1:16:57
Malthouse 10 hours a day, seven days a week.
1:17:00
Our production crew is great. You know, like everybody else,
1:17:04
it was hell going through the pandemic and then the great
1:17:07
resignation after that. But thankfully things have
1:17:11
settled in. We've got a, a beautiful group
1:17:14
of folks that come in and, and just work their butts off every
1:17:18
day for us. You know, it's a lot of the same
1:17:21
stuff, but again, there's just enough nuance that if you fall
1:17:25
asleep and get complacent, something's going to go
1:17:28
completely off the rails. So thankfully, like everyone has
1:17:32
been with us long enough to watch things go off the rails
1:17:36
and they all are dialed now. So it's great.
1:17:39
It's, you know, when we first got started with these GV's, you
1:17:43
know, think about it like like train cars lined up, you know,
1:17:47
so it's like we steep one batch, push it into batch 2, steep the
1:17:51
next one, push it into batch 3 and so on and so forth.
1:17:54
If something screws up in one of those, they all just mash
1:17:59
together and then you have 100,000 lbs of train wreck on
1:18:03
your hands, you know, And again, we were talking about Helene
1:18:06
earlier, Speaking of 100,000 LB train wrecks, when the power
1:18:09
went out and the water went out, That's exactly what we had in
1:18:12
Helene. And I can't say enough about our
1:18:15
crew. I mean, they showed up the next
1:18:18
day. I don't even know how some of
1:18:20
them got there. One guy showed up too early,
1:18:24
actually, and then trees fell down and he couldn't get back to
1:18:27
his house. And so it was just amazing to
1:18:31
watch everybody come together. I mean, we cook communal meals
1:18:35
together for a week and 1/2 as power was coming back on and the
1:18:40
city was getting its legs back under it.
1:18:42
And it was fantastic. I mean, I, I'll never forget I,
1:18:46
I showed up one of our guys, Moses, he was standing guard
1:18:50
over the malthouse. And I was like, how long have
1:18:52
you been here, Moses? And he was like, all day.
1:18:55
And I'm like, wow, thanks, bud. That was way above the Call of
1:18:59
Duty, you know? Yeah, I don't know if you've
1:19:02
heard the National Guard helicopters are overhead, like I
1:19:05
think we're OK, you know, but it was that kind of dedication that
1:19:10
just showed up over and over again after Helene.
1:19:13
So I. Yeah.
1:19:14
And obviously you're you're referencing Hurricane Helene
1:19:17
that happened, you know, in Asheville, I mean, devastated a
1:19:20
lot of Asheville a year ago. I mean, when you think, when you
1:19:24
look back now almost a year later, I mean are you all still
1:19:28
impacted at all by that in the local community?
1:19:31
You know, we've come back strong.
1:19:32
A couple of our customers, their facilities were just truly wiped
1:19:35
off the map. So they're, they're not back,
1:19:39
but as a, as a town, I mean, I, I think we've snapped back
1:19:42
pretty well. We're a resilient group.
1:19:45
I'm, I'm still hearing that, you know, tourism numbers are down
1:19:49
double digits from where they were last summer, which isn't
1:19:53
awesome, but we're having a great leaf season.
1:19:57
I mean, I'm, I'm almost, it sounds silly, but I'm thankful
1:20:00
to be stuck in traffic some days.
1:20:02
You know, I know that means people are visiting us and
1:20:05
they're excited to, to, you know, see the foliage and hike
1:20:09
in the woods and then come back and drink and eat in our
1:20:12
breweries and restaurants and, and I think that's definitely,
1:20:16
you know, a beautiful thing. I mean, that's Asheville's been
1:20:18
a tourism town for well over 100 years now.
1:20:21
So if that's not happening, then something's.
1:20:24
Wrong. It feels off, you know, so we're
1:20:27
people are coming back. Kudos to everybody in the
1:20:30
community for rallying around and rebuilding and getting
1:20:33
restarted. I was just meeting with the guys
1:20:35
from Silicola earlier today and, you know, their story is just
1:20:39
really just one of grit. I mean, they just went back at
1:20:43
it before they, even before anyone knew if they could
1:20:46
rebuild, they just started rebuilding and said, yeah, we're
1:20:49
going to do this. You know, and I think that's
1:20:51
emblematic of a lot of folks around town that we're just,
1:20:54
we're just going to go do this and rebuild and and remain the
1:20:59
really amazing place that we've always been.
1:21:01
It is my favorite beer city. It is for so many reasons.
1:21:05
The beer is fantastic. The ability to walk from one to
1:21:08
another and so many is such a huge factor to.
1:21:11
It's a great town, Steve. We're going to get you there
1:21:14
soon. It's a wonderful.
1:21:15
It's a good spot, you know, the, the people are wonderful.
1:21:20
And it's, you know, any time you can have an Asheville day where
1:21:24
you get up and go hiking or biking and, or fishing and then
1:21:29
come back and, you know, have a beer at, you know, somewhere in
1:21:32
the river arts around 3:00 or 4:00, a great meal.
1:21:36
And then go see some live bluegrass.
1:21:37
Like, I think that's just as good as it gets, you know?
1:21:40
It is. I love it.
1:21:41
I love it. I'm gonna I'm gonna end on this.
1:21:43
So Steve might have some more, but tell us something about
1:21:46
malt. Like I've said that three times
1:21:48
that night. Tell us something about malt we
1:21:50
may not have known if we haven't covered it already.
1:21:53
Oh what can I say? New barleys varieties take over
1:21:57
a decade to create. Wow.
1:21:59
So I mentioned Avalon, I think from Virginia Tech.
1:22:03
That variety began life at a round table discussion in 2013
1:22:10
thousand and 14 and we did not have commercial quantities of it
1:22:15
until 2023. It was worth the wait.
1:22:17
It's an awesome variety, but ten years?
1:22:20
What as a, as a, as a follow up to that real quick, yeah.
1:22:24
What what causes that? Is it just red tape?
1:22:26
Is it just kind of developing it?
1:22:28
It's Mother Nature, so we don't we don't use GMO techniques.
1:22:32
So it's old school genetic crosses and then they basically
1:22:37
select the strongest offspring over the course of several crop
1:22:43
years. And the great thing about Avalon
1:22:46
is during that 10 year trial, it went through hot years, dry
1:22:51
years, wet years, all it it got all the stressors put on it.
1:22:55
And so the the variety that made it to the finish line from that
1:23:00
type of brutal trial is tough and the flavor profile is great.
1:23:06
So it works for maltsters, Brewers and farmers.
1:23:09
So at the end of the day, after the Taylor, then the after the
1:23:11
decade, you've got a good problem.
1:23:13
We've got something good and we've got lots of his brothers
1:23:16
and sisters waiting in the wings to be the next thing.
1:23:19
So we've basically created a new genetic pool of Southeastern
1:23:24
grown malting barley varieties to work with for the foreseeable
1:23:28
future. And Steve, you may have
1:23:30
something Brit, you've taught us so much.
1:23:32
I'm telling I've got 100 more questions.
1:23:33
We'll have you back on if you'll come back on when it's the same
1:23:36
point. This was fantastic.
1:23:38
You were absolutely fantastic and we I'm blown away like I
1:23:41
have goosebumps just from what we've learned today that's.
1:23:43
Awesome, my work here is done then.
1:23:46
Yeah, yeah. You'd be.
1:23:49
Proud. If only my wife said that after
1:23:51
spending an hour and a half with me.
1:23:53
Oh, there. You go, we see what you did
1:23:54
there, we see what you did there.
1:23:56
Now you know what, you know what, Scott?
1:23:57
I have questions, but as you said, we're going to save them
1:24:00
for the next time. I'm going to go back on their
1:24:02
website at riverbend.com because there is so much on that website
1:24:07
to check out, so much information.
1:24:10
I would just tell people go there.
1:24:12
If you want to learn more, if you haven't heard enough on this
1:24:14
podcast, go there and you will hear and see a lot more from you
1:24:19
guys. That is Brett Manning, he is the
1:24:21
Co founder of them and we certainly appreciate it man.
1:24:25
Thank you for coming today. Appreciate.
1:24:27
You on the Brewery Underground podcast.
1:24:29
And spending so much time and sharing so much knowledge with
1:24:32
us. Absolutely, my pleasure.
1:24:33
From Nashville, we say cheers to you.
1:24:35
Sir, cheers. Thank you guys.
1:24:37
Cheers. Thank you.
1:24:38
Cheers. Thanks, Brett.