Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Hofbräuhaus of America: Oktoberfest, Beer, History & Bavarian Tradition | Re-release of Episodes 108 & 109 Complete

Transcript

Hofbräuhaus of America: Oktoberfest, Beer, History & Bavarian Tradition | Re-release of Episodes 108 & 109 Complete · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:01
  Stand by for the Brewery Underground podcast
• 0:39
  Well, welcome to year three of the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 0:44
  We have been talking about this one for a while.
• 0:47
  You know, we've been teasing this everybody and we're here.
• 0:51
  We're back in 2026 for Year 3, Scott Taron and we're we're
• 0:57
  starting this off with a banger. With the banger, if you told me
• 1:01
  we were going three seasons, I'd have lost money on that bet.
• 1:05
  But here we are, and we're starting off 2026 with a bang.
• 1:11
  We got Steve Psyche. He is the CEO and of the import
• 1:16
  division for Hopper, a house here in America.
• 1:19
  Is that right, Sir? Yeah, I actually oversee our our
• 1:22
  entire business, both the import and franchise, so.
• 1:26
  All right. And Jerry Bishop, who is the
• 1:28
  regional sales manager and he covers territories like Ohio,
• 1:33
  Michigan, Kentucky, and here in Tennessee.
• 1:36
  And guys, as we said, we are so excited and so very pleased that
• 1:40
  you all are joining us today. That's great to be here.
• 1:43
  Yes, welcome, welcome. So let's, if you want to start
• 1:48
  out because I'm, I'm, I'm dying to do this.
• 1:51
  Let, let's, let's show what we're drinking cause 'cause I've
• 1:55
  got Hofbrau house beer and I've got the, the Dunkle.
• 2:00
  That's what I actually started with, the original that's
• 2:03
  already gone and I'm on to something else.
• 2:05
  But I've got the Dunkle and I got plenty more too.
• 2:07
  So when that one runs out, I got something else too, But and we
• 2:10
  got them in our mosses, right? Is that the proper turn for it?
• 2:18
  Yes, yeah. Nice, Joey, what have you got?
• 2:23
  So I so I have our original so I don't know if you can see it
• 2:27
  because I have the goofy background on, but it's our our
• 2:29
  original logger, a wonderful German lock.
• 2:34
  It's fantastic. So every time I did a beer,
• 2:40
  because I'm taking a drink, I might be a lot.
• 2:44
  It's OK, we know what you're doing, all right.
• 2:49
  Just keeping it all up front. Steve, how about you?
• 2:54
  What have you got? I do not have a beer in front of
• 2:56
  me right now, guys. I didn't.
• 2:58
  I didn't grab one. OK.
• 3:01
  If you you, you certainly can go grab one if you want to.
• 3:04
  Yeah, I go get. Them or I could drink 2 for
• 3:09
  them. I was telling Steve, you know,
• 3:14
  when you pour a beer into these, it just, you know, just looks so
• 3:18
  tiny when you just put in one in one of these steins.
• 3:21
  Yeah. So that's so that, so up to the
• 3:23
  line is, is a full leader. So you're looking at more than
• 3:28
  more than two regular beers? Basically, Yeah.
• 3:31
  It looks like you could just chug it when it's when you just
• 3:33
  have one in there because there's just so much, you know,
• 3:35
  so much water. Left.
• 3:36
  That's when you kind of get in trouble, yeah.
• 3:40
  Just a little bit. And post you got a nice glass,
• 3:44
  nice half of Eisen. So I'm pouring off the glass
• 3:49
  half of Eisen beers. OK.
• 3:52
  So this is our our Bavarian half of Eisen.
• 3:55
  So letting it settle up a little bit, but give it a little couple
• 3:59
  seconds and I can Prost with you guys.
• 4:01
  There you go. Yeah, we're doing it all in
• 4:03
  style. And that's the proper glassware
• 4:06
  too, right Steve? Oh yeah, you got to have the
• 4:08
  right glassware. Glassware's important for,
• 4:11
  right? Yeah.
• 4:11
  You guys know this for a lot of different reasons, not just for
• 4:14
  appearance sake, but also for, you know, for the for the beer's
• 4:18
  attributes and kind of roping us in with a a good look and
• 4:23
  accentuating aromas and things like that too.
• 4:25
  So very important. Absolute.
• 4:28
  That's actually something we're we're we're learning more about
• 4:32
  and we'll probably be a episode at some point proper glassware
• 4:36
  down the road. So something we're kind of
• 4:38
  working on. It's, it's been a, it's been a
• 4:40
  never ending challenge getting people away from the pint glass
• 4:43
  and into something that's more suited to show the beer off the
• 4:47
  way it's supposed to look as well as again, build on on those
• 4:51
  key attributes like aroma and where the beer hits your mouth
• 4:55
  or your tongue and such like that.
• 4:57
  So but. And it really is worth, yeah,
• 4:59
  it's really worth the extra effort to do it that way, to do
• 5:02
  it properly. It is.
• 5:04
  There are certain places. If you go to a certain bars and
• 5:07
  tap rooms and ever, like you said, everything's just in a
• 5:09
  pint glass. Everything just goes in the pint
• 5:11
  glass. Well, that, and that's for
• 5:13
  simplicity because they stack real easy.
• 5:15
  They clean real easy. If it's just not as much effort,
• 5:19
  like I said, it's worth it to take the extra effort and treat
• 5:21
  your customers to to a really good presentation, yeah.
• 5:25
  It is and there's such an appreciation for to when you
• 5:27
  start realizing, oh, that is the proper glassware and I am
• 5:30
  getting the proper things out of it because I got the right beer
• 5:34
  in the glass. Steve Sullivan, what have you
• 5:36
  got? Well, you know, I have the
• 5:38
  Dunkle here and man, I'm, I'm looking forward to toasting
• 5:43
  everybody on the dunk. Why is there so much?
• 5:46
  Why is there so much in your glass?
• 5:47
  Well, I got two of them there got two of them.
• 5:51
  I'm not slowing down tonight. That's right.
• 5:53
  Got to do it in style. I know it.
• 5:56
  But you know, the other thing real quick, before we get into
• 5:59
  all the wonderful questions that we have, we also have to talk
• 6:02
  about what we're what we're wearing tonight as well, 'cause
• 6:06
  we have to thank Selena who had sent us these.
• 6:09
  And we've got the shirts, you know, we got the pins, we got
• 6:13
  the hats. I even got the bottle opener.
• 6:17
  Yes, mine is. Mine is here somewhere.
• 6:19
  Yes, I got the bottle. Yeah, prepared.
• 6:23
  Yeah, yeah. And thank you guys for and
• 6:25
  Selena for getting this this stuff to us.
• 6:27
  It's a remarkable, it's wonderful stuff.
• 6:29
  Yeah, she. Doesn't fantastic to have that?
• 6:32
  Stuff. I know someone that could get it
• 6:36
  for you. Yeah, Yeah.
• 6:38
  Well. I told these guys I, I, I was
• 6:41
  wearing a shirt just like that and I told my wife that, you
• 6:44
  know, I better change because Selena set those guys own shirts
• 6:47
  and sure enough, they were. Yeah, yeah, Selena.
• 6:52
  Selena does a wonderful job representing our brand with
• 6:55
  marketing and great, great, great connections like you guys
• 6:59
  and obviously the the items to promote our our brand and and
• 7:02
  help with brand awareness. So we're very happy, happy and
• 7:05
  lucky to have her so. Well, and, and she helped bring
• 7:09
  this all together because really we've been talking about doing
• 7:12
  this for probably about a year or so and trying to coordinate
• 7:15
  everybody's schedules and things like that.
• 7:17
  And look, we knew that it may take some time to get you guys
• 7:21
  together, but you know what you do is very important for the
• 7:25
  Hofbrau brand. So certainly want to talk to you
• 7:28
  all about it tonight. So let's let's begin with you,
• 7:32
  Steve, let's really talk about, you know, your role and what you
• 7:36
  do with the Hoffrau House of America.
• 7:38
  Yeah, I've, I've been with the the Hoffroy side of the business
• 7:43
  in the United States since roughly 2011.
• 7:48
  So in one way shape or form, originally as a working directly
• 7:52
  for Fred Schumacher, who was the original president of Hopper
• 7:55
  House of America. And then I was a brief stint as
• 8:00
  our US brand manager. And then when the, the Hopper
• 8:05
  brewery took back the, the brand importing rights in 2018, that's
• 8:11
  when I became more back involved with Hopper House of America
• 8:14
  directly managing our, our import business.
• 8:17
  And then we've evolved a little further along.
• 8:21
  And now we also have, as always been part of the Hopper House
• 8:25
  has been our, our franchises, our restaurant businesses, which
• 8:29
  you guys are familiar with. You know, the Hopper House down
• 8:31
  there in Cincinnati, there's also the, the actually they just
• 8:35
  had their 20th anniversary. The Hopper House in Vegas just
• 8:38
  had their 20th anniversary. And then we've also got
• 8:42
  Pittsburgh, Columbus and Buffalo as well.
• 8:46
  So, but then that's our franchise side of the business.
• 8:50
  So overall, we, we bring beer over from Munich and then the
• 8:53
  restaurants here, they all with the exception of Vegas, they,
• 8:57
  they do have their own breweries.
• 8:59
  They brew on site under supervision from Munich.
• 9:02
  We have an international brewmaster that visits them on
• 9:05
  frequent schedules to make sure that they are maintaining the
• 9:08
  qualities that that the brewery you know, requires of them as
• 9:12
  well as they frequently send samples back over to Munich for
• 9:16
  testing to make sure again that the beer meets the the
• 9:19
  requirements of the the Hofbrau brewery.
• 9:22
  And Steve, you are in Las Vegas, is that right?
• 9:26
  Actually, we are a nationwide company.
• 9:28
  So we're sprinkled all over the place.
• 9:31
  Our our headquarters, our office I guess you would say is in
• 9:36
  Vegas because that's where our accounting and logistics person
• 9:38
  is. So, so that she's in Vegas and
• 9:43
  Jerry, myself, we're out in our own markets.
• 9:44
  I actually, and then Wisconsin right over the border and from
• 9:50
  Illinois and, and then Jerry's out in Ohio.
• 9:52
  We have 11 different people on our sales team around the
• 9:56
  country, each based in different markets.
• 9:58
  And then our our, our president of franchise, he's actually
• 10:02
  based out in Pittsburgh. But again, we're a national
• 10:04
  company. So everybody's usually on a
• 10:06
  plane or in a car dealing with the other places.
• 10:09
  So setting our roots in one place is a bit of a challenge.
• 10:14
  Awesome. Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:16
  Yeah, to cover a lot of ground. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:19
  And Jerry, tell us. Tell us what you do for the
• 10:21
  company. So I'm, I'm an area manager.
• 10:24
  So I cover, I work, I work with our distributors basically.
• 10:28
  So anything that you consume outside of the hop row houses
• 10:31
  comes from Munich and I work with making sure that the
• 10:35
  wholesalers get the product from Munich.
• 10:38
  So I cover Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana.
• 10:42
  So have a a bunch of really good wholesalers that work with us
• 10:45
  and do well. Also work well with the with the
• 10:48
  Hoffrau houses in Cleveland and Columbus and Newport.
• 10:52
  Just making sure we have a nice open line of communication there
• 10:55
  and we're all kind of rolling the boat in the same direction.
• 10:59
  But yeah, I, I asked so one Steve took over, he he made some
• 11:03
  calls and fortunately one of my good friends recommended me and
• 11:07
  Steve hired me in the. So I I've been with Steve since
• 11:10
  since the beginning just about he's put up with me for for
• 11:12
  going on 8 years now. Mutual tolerance.
• 11:19
  Maybe that goes back to that. Not everybody being in one spot
• 11:21
  at the same time. We we understand and appreciate
• 11:26
  each other's. Weaknesses like there?
• 11:28
  You go. There you go.
• 11:29
  It's well. Cheers and pros to you guys.
• 11:33
  You know pros. Absolutely, yeah.
• 11:35
  Pros to you guys? Definitely.
• 11:36
  Can't see mine but it's there. It's there's a guys, there's a
• 11:41
  new beer that's come to the States and it's the the Hallis,
• 11:46
  right, the hopper house Hallis lager.
• 11:48
  That is it's just count now hitting the States and and
• 11:51
  Jerry, I don't believe it's hit Tennessee yet.
• 11:53
  You probably talked to that a little more.
• 11:54
  I think that the strippers in town are in that in Tennessee.
• 11:57
  Haven't got it yet, but can you kind of talk about that?
• 12:00
  Has that beer been around in Germany for a while?
• 12:03
  And it's just kind of getting to the States?
• 12:08
  Yeah, so, so the beer has been in Germany for a while.
• 12:11
  Actually, the style was was developed during the minute in
• 12:14
  the 19th century and and the hell of style, it's my
• 12:18
  understanding was developed to compete with pilsners or to to
• 12:21
  be sort of like pilsners. But it's it, it has a little bit
• 12:24
  more body, it's a little more more malt forward, but it's a
• 12:27
  very crisp and clean beer. So we've we've had it in
• 12:31
  Germany. I don't know how, Steve.
• 12:32
  When was the? When did they start producing
• 12:35
  it? They've had it actually it's
• 12:37
  been in Germany for quite a while.
• 12:39
  I I shouldn't say Germany is it's been strictly Bavarian for
• 12:42
  quite some time. The the brewery kept it mainly
• 12:46
  for the Bavarian market exclusive it to the Hafra house,
• 12:51
  as well as some of their key on premise outlets.
• 12:55
  And it's that was just said. It was very restricted and I I
• 12:59
  honestly cannot give you that the full length of its
• 13:01
  availability. But again, as Jerry mentioned,
• 13:03
  it's it's a little it's a little lighter, 4.9 alcohol as well, so
• 13:08
  a little easier to drink. I guess that's as close to a
• 13:10
  German light beer as you're going to get.
• 13:13
  Is is a as a hell as A and A and a 4.9% alcohol so, but it wasn't
• 13:19
  until recently with a lot of the a lot of the changes we're
• 13:22
  seeing here in the market with people paying more attention to
• 13:25
  alcohol content and, and along those lines and and non
• 13:28
  alcoholic beers. It's also taking that kind of
• 13:33
  trajectory over there in in Bavaria as well.
• 13:36
  And that brand and that style gained a lot, a lot of momentum.
• 13:40
  And it wasn't until, you know, but they started getting calls
• 13:44
  from elsewhere outside of Bavaria that the brewery finally
• 13:47
  conceded to our complaints and, and open it up to to export.
• 13:51
  So we're very happy to have that so.
• 13:54
  The other, the other thing we only bring it in can.
• 13:56
  So it's it's only available in the 16.9 oz can, which kind of
• 14:01
  offers a little more opportunity in different accounts to to have
• 14:04
  it as far as Tennessee. We'll we'll work on that.
• 14:07
  It's yeah, I, I think they were kind of playing a little wait
• 14:10
  and see, see how it's doing everywhere else before we we
• 14:13
  bring it in. But it's doing very well.
• 14:15
  So hopefully we'll have it in 10 in Nashville and the rest of
• 14:18
  Tennessee sometime in the spring.
• 14:20
  That's my goal. We'll be, we'll be looking for
• 14:23
  it. Do you think the popularity and
• 14:28
  and you guys play in this field every day with the style of
• 14:30
  beers that Hafra makes, but do you think the popularity of
• 14:34
  loggers in the past several years maybe added to that beer
• 14:38
  coming over here or the popularity of that that style?
• 14:45
  Well, I, I would have to say that I mean, yes, I mean loggers
• 14:54
  are certainly more popular, but Hellas is also like the the
• 14:59
  mainstay in Bavaria now. I mean, it's the most popular
• 15:02
  style there. So it only makes sense, you
• 15:05
  know, if we're being authentic and we're being true to what we
• 15:08
  do, it only makes sense to bring it to to America as well.
• 15:13
  But it, but it does help that a lot of people are kind of
• 15:15
  turning away from the heavier, hoppier beers and, and moving
• 15:21
  into a more mainstream they're, they're kind of going to going
• 15:24
  back to, to where we started 400 years ago.
• 15:27
  So it's, you know, everything old is new, I guess.
• 15:30
  But yeah, yeah, the pop, the the increased and new popularity of
• 15:34
  bloggers, certainly it helped in the decision to bring it over.
• 15:37
  And I think it, I think in the consumers mind that they're,
• 15:40
  they're trying it because of that, you know.
• 15:42
  Yeah, you guys have to, from your perspective, you have to
• 15:44
  love that because it's, it's all coming back full circle again.
• 15:48
  And people want better style beers, you know, as you said
• 15:52
  they would, they want lower, they want some lower AB beers,
• 15:55
  but the ones that really, you know, are tasting good.
• 15:58
  And that's what you all have to offer.
• 16:01
  Jerry and I have been been in this business for more years
• 16:04
  than we'd like to admit. And we've been a part parts of
• 16:07
  other brands that we're proud of and other ones again, we we
• 16:10
  prefer not to mention. But again, as Jerry mentioned,
• 16:14
  what's old is new and, and there's a cycle here.
• 16:16
  And I mean, we've seen this happen in the, in the 90s and,
• 16:20
  you know, it's coming around again.
• 16:21
  And, and the good thing about these cycles is, is they do open
• 16:25
  up people's minds and, and pallets and show them there's a
• 16:27
  lot more opportunity for, for meeting new beers.
• 16:31
  But also, you know, when, when everybody gets out there and
• 16:35
  tries everything, they always do come back to more or less the,
• 16:39
  you want to call it the founders or, you know, touchstone brands,
• 16:44
  brands like, you know, a Hoffbry or Pilsner Quell, you know,
• 16:48
  brands that are, that are main, main brands or styles that
• 16:52
  established, you know, a lineage.
• 16:55
  And it's nice because again, people go out, they experience,
• 16:58
  they learn, they ask questions. And the good thing about that
• 17:01
  is, is brands like us, they can come back to it and find, you
• 17:04
  know, a beer that's still produced in Munich, still German
• 17:07
  owned company, actually owned by the state of Bavaria and still
• 17:11
  brewing to to the the Ryan High School boot.
• 17:14
  And in strict, very strict accordance to what the brand was
• 17:18
  when you drank it there 400 years ago.
• 17:20
  So it's a it's a good thing, like everything, you know,
• 17:24
  again. Yeah.
• 17:25
  Really does this problem, yeah, it really does this problem when
• 17:29
  we hear somebody compare their Dunkle to Hafrau Dunkle by their
• 17:33
  happy life to our half budget. I mean, yeah, we've, we've been
• 17:36
  doing the Dunkle for over 400 years.
• 17:38
  I mean, it's just so it's kind of fun to hear those
• 17:40
  comparisons. And I would imagine on occasion,
• 17:43
  maybe you guys hear this where you have maybe a younger
• 17:45
  consumer and they go, you know what, here I am and I'm drinking
• 17:49
  this beer and I remember my father or my grandfather telling
• 17:53
  me about it. And they're the ones that were
• 17:55
  drinking it. And maybe I haven't had it for a
• 17:57
  couple of years. And then all of a sudden you
• 17:59
  know they're hooked and you got a new generation hooked onto it
• 18:02
  as well. Yeah, it, it's, it's, it's
• 18:06
  really interesting the amount of the amount of, of, of, of
• 18:09
  younger people today who have had the opportunity to travel to
• 18:12
  Europe. You know, so we do get a lot of
• 18:14
  people who've actually said that they sat in the hopper house.
• 18:17
  They might have been there with their father or, or, you know,
• 18:20
  grandparents on a trip or whatever.
• 18:22
  And of course, as you mentioned, so you know, so many, so many
• 18:25
  individuals, you know, from previous generations who might
• 18:29
  have served and spent time in Germany, almost everybody, you
• 18:33
  know, if they were over there, they, they hit the Opera House
• 18:36
  at some point. So it's, it, it's really
• 18:40
  interesting to hear those stories.
• 18:42
  And, and it's, it's great because just about everybody,
• 18:45
  when they do talk to you about it, they usually have a story
• 18:47
  that incorporates it in some way, shape or form.
• 18:50
  So again, it it's it's pretty cool.
• 18:53
  Yeah, actually, if we're doing a tasting or something like that,
• 18:57
  people love our beer. That goes without saying.
• 18:58
  But but it's, it's always interesting to hear the stories
• 19:02
  that come back, you know? Yeah, My, my father did a tour
• 19:05
  served in, in Germany and he brought back this really neat
• 19:08
  Stein from Hoffrau House. And, you know, or we went to
• 19:12
  Oktoberfest down the street and they were serving, you know,
• 19:14
  just it again, people love the beer.
• 19:18
  But but the stories about the situations, the, the fond
• 19:22
  memories they have are the great stories they have behind it are,
• 19:25
  are just incredible. And you can imagine there's a
• 19:27
  ton of them. You know, the people that have
• 19:29
  gone on class trips, as Steve said, the military family
• 19:33
  reunions, whatever their, their people love it.
• 19:37
  I think because of the fondness they have for an occasion that
• 19:41
  that they were part of or someone in their family was part
• 19:44
  of. Creating memories, you know.
• 19:46
  Yeah, I think that's something that beer is beer is very good
• 19:50
  at. It brings people together and,
• 19:53
  and for purposes and and and as well as enjoyment, but, but
• 19:57
  also, you know, more so than other products.
• 20:03
  I I think beer, beer has a has a, an emotional tie to it.
• 20:07
  Again, you know, people remember.
• 20:09
  Having their beer at the Hoffra house or maybe being, you know,
• 20:13
  at, at a particular, you know, other country, maybe they were
• 20:16
  in Belgium drinking, you know, in Brussels, having a, having a
• 20:19
  fantastic, you know, Belgian, Belgian ale or whatever.
• 20:22
  But you know, the nice thing about beer is, is people tend to
• 20:27
  make those emotional connections with it and with the particular
• 20:29
  brand as well, which gives us, I think a total differentiation
• 20:34
  point from things like liquor and wine.
• 20:37
  Because you can have there's how many year old lagers out there,
• 20:40
  but there's one Hofbrau original.
• 20:43
  So you know, a lot of ingredients and processes are
• 20:47
  all very similar, but you know, there's little, little, little
• 20:50
  differences. But the biggest difference is
• 20:52
  when and where that person chose to remember and enjoy that beer
• 20:55
  their first time. I love that.
• 20:58
  It's almost like the prodigal son returns you, you send them
• 21:02
  out. Hey, go drink all this other
• 21:03
  stuff, right? Go drink it.
• 21:04
  We'll all, we'll be here when you get back and go try it and
• 21:07
  come back and you'll be and we'll be right here when you
• 21:08
  come back. Yeah.
• 21:10
  That's and that's kind of fun because a lot of people don't
• 21:13
  remember the beer because it, you know, five years ago, they
• 21:16
  really appreciated the Centennial hops that was in it,
• 21:19
  but they always remember where they had a Hofbrau.
• 21:21
  They always remember the circumstance, you know, around
• 21:24
  it and it's it's always very favorable.
• 21:26
  And again, it's fond memories that they associated with.
• 21:30
  When I was in Munich in in June and a group of us went and we
• 21:35
  went to, went to the Munich Hopper House.
• 21:38
  And unbeknownst to me, there are other places over there called
• 21:43
  Hoffbrau House, but they're not the same.
• 21:45
  And I kind of learned that while I was over, not the hard way,
• 21:48
  but I just learned it while I was there.
• 21:51
  They're not all the same. Munich obviously is the, is the
• 21:54
  historic one and the main one, but in the, in the only way I
• 21:57
  could, you could tell her that I, I learned was the, the logos
• 22:00
  are different, right? The names kind of the same, but
• 22:02
  the logos are different, all these different places.
• 22:04
  So it's kind of something to pay attention to it.
• 22:06
  Can you talk about that little bit like do you guys get
• 22:08
  confused or they get confused with you guys?
• 22:10
  Yeah, it it's the, the word itself, Hofbrau is, is quartz
• 22:15
  brew. So and that was reserved for
• 22:18
  breweries that brewed for royal houses in in Bavaria.
• 22:22
  So Wurzburg, for instant instance, has one, you know,
• 22:27
  frizing anybody who had a royal house in it and a brewery.
• 22:32
  Hofbrau was the that brewery was the of, of quartz brew of that
• 22:36
  city or, or particular region or town.
• 22:41
  So again, it's kind of like over here, we'd say the official beer
• 22:44
  of but but Hofrau Munich superseded all because Munich
• 22:49
  was the capital Bavaria is the capital Bavaria.
• 22:52
  So that was the the Hoffbrow, all Hoffbrows.
• 22:55
  So yeah, we get people get confused because so many people
• 22:58
  over here just call it Hoffbrow, you know, so that's when that's
• 23:02
  when people get used to it. And yeah, it was a bit of a
• 23:04
  learning curve for me as well when I started to see another
• 23:06
  brands call themselves Hoffbrow and I go, wait a second, what's
• 23:08
  going on here? You know, this is copyright
• 23:11
  infringement, what's going on? But you know, again, it's
• 23:14
  something that a little education can can resolve for
• 23:17
  you. So.
• 23:19
  Yeah, there are nuances that are different.
• 23:21
  Like the logo again is the big thing.
• 23:22
  If you if you know what the logo is, you know, that's the that's
• 23:24
  the tell tale. Yeah.
• 23:26
  Like who's who? Yeah, I actually went to a party
• 23:30
  at at a friend's house once and they thought they were being
• 23:33
  very nice and and purchased some Hoff Brow because they knew I
• 23:37
  was coming. But it was the long Hoff brows.
• 23:41
  I didn't know how to break a pill when I was drinking
• 23:43
  something else. Did you refuse to drink it?
• 23:49
  I, I, I didn't drink and I drank something else and, but I, I
• 23:53
  didn't bring it up. We didn't talk about.
• 23:55
  It like. Thanks for the effort though.
• 23:56
  Thanks for the. Effort.
• 23:57
  Yeah. I appreciate the effort.
• 23:58
  Totally. I didn't know, you know, I don't
• 24:00
  know you. I didn't know you could find
• 24:02
  another version of it in the States.
• 24:04
  I don't think I've ever seen anyone other than yours.
• 24:06
  No, there's a couple who do import small quantities.
• 24:09
  You might find it in in, you know, one off liquor stores or
• 24:13
  independent liquor chains that, you know, pride themselves on on
• 24:16
  a wide variety. So they're out there if you look
• 24:19
  for them. But again, you know, it's the
• 24:23
  the Hofbrau Munich is is the one that's you know, that's the
• 24:26
  well, the most well well known and, and, and best distributed,
• 24:30
  I would say probably best distributed in the United States
• 24:32
  and in terms of the other Bavarian Hofbrau brands, so.
• 24:38
  When I was there so much, I mean, it's just you walk in,
• 24:42
  you're like, Oh my God, this is the place, right?
• 24:44
  This is it. And one of the biggest things
• 24:47
  was the size of the place. Like it was a busy day.
• 24:50
  I think we were in there on a Saturday or something, a nice
• 24:53
  warm day. And we walk in.
• 24:54
  It's like, I don't think we're going to find a table.
• 24:55
  And we just kept walking and walking and walking because the
• 24:59
  place just never, just never ran out of space.
• 25:00
  And you finally found some spots for that were that were there
• 25:02
  because. And then there was a whole
• 25:04
  upstairs too we could have gone to.
• 25:06
  There's two more floors. There's two more floors, yeah.
• 25:09
  Yeah. We didn't even get up that way.
• 25:11
  It was like, oh, this place is humongous.
• 25:14
  Yeah, the, the, the 2nd floor is, is called the Beer Stube.
• 25:17
  And now that's more set up like a restaurant with some booths
• 25:21
  and tables and things like that. And the third floor is the fest,
• 25:24
  the fest hall, which is just a long narrow room or not with a
• 25:30
  hall, just, you know, on the 3rd floor it with a stage at the
• 25:34
  end. And that's where they, they do a
• 25:36
  lot of live entertainment with bands and dancers and, and
• 25:40
  they'll do a lot of events up there, political events, you
• 25:44
  know, fundraisers, stuff like that and everything.
• 25:47
  So but the, the shueme, the main floor that you guys were in, the
• 25:52
  beer hall, that's the floor that's open, you know, pretty
• 25:55
  much every day of the year. And you'll always find a spot in
• 25:59
  there. They'll tuck you away in a
• 26:01
  corner or stick you out in the beer garden.
• 26:04
  But yeah, they, they're very proud of the fact that they can
• 26:08
  serve. He's it's just over 3000 people
• 26:12
  a day or something like that. It's a crazy number, but you
• 26:15
  know, it's a, it's a food factory and a, and A and a beard
• 26:19
  turning machine. So.
• 26:22
  Like over 1,000,000 visitors a year.
• 26:25
  Yeah, I could see why it was. It was epic.
• 26:28
  And then we're sitting there, we got our beers, right, And then
• 26:30
  they're walking through somebody selling like pretzels.
• 26:33
  But the pretzels are the size of your head.
• 26:35
  I mean, they're massive. And and I don't know how.
• 26:39
  Often, yeah. And I don't know how often you
• 26:41
  you guys get over there, but when you do go, when you have
• 26:45
  gone, is it still that feeling of like, wow.
• 26:50
  To me, it is I, I always, whenever I walk in there because
• 26:54
  it's such a, it's such a historical building to begin
• 26:57
  with. I mean, it's been there since
• 26:59
  1589. I mean, there's been expansions
• 27:01
  and, and rebuildings, but I mean, whenever you see pictures,
• 27:05
  you know, the more or less the same outline that you see today.
• 27:08
  So from historical, you know, fact, you're sitting in, in a,
• 27:11
  in a, in a place where, you know, as Jerry mentioned,
• 27:15
  millions of people have sat before you and enjoyed a, you
• 27:18
  know, probably the same beer and, and the same pretzel
• 27:22
  recipes too. So for me, that's the most, most
• 27:26
  impactful part is just the historical part of it.
• 27:30
  I love history and and sitting down and actually in enjoying
• 27:33
  living history is even more, you know, sometimes overwhelming.
• 27:40
  Yeah, it's kind of Munich, Munich in general.
• 27:42
  I mean, if you appreciate history at all, it's just a
• 27:46
  wonderful place to be. It's it's beautiful.
• 27:48
  It's easily, easily to walk about.
• 27:52
  And then to go into the Opera House itself, where there are so
• 27:56
  many recognized events and things that have happened there.
• 27:59
  It's you're, you're inside of history, you're living in
• 28:01
  history. That's just incredible to be
• 28:03
  there. And one of the things that you
• 28:06
  mentioned this word earlier, Bavaria and Bavarians, they are
• 28:10
  very proud. That area is Bavaria.
• 28:12
  They still kind of call it that. They're proud to be there.
• 28:14
  They're proud to be from there. And that it is the, the whole
• 28:17
  area is screaming with it and it's it, it's I was prideful to
• 28:21
  be there. Like this is cool.
• 28:22
  This is, you know, I was, if you know what I mean, like it's,
• 28:25
  it's everywhere. And you, you're not.
• 28:26
  It's not lost on you. I, I try, I mean, and, and they
• 28:30
  do the, the Bavarians do have a, a entirely different outlook.
• 28:33
  I, I like to tell people Bavarians are kind of like
• 28:35
  Texans to us. You know, Bavaria considers
• 28:39
  himself a Free State. They can leave Germany anytime
• 28:42
  they want to, just like Texas does.
• 28:44
  They also have their own attire, their own way of speaking.
• 28:47
  I mean that the lederhosen and Jerndel, that's a, a very
• 28:50
  heavily Bavarian thing. And from what I understand,
• 28:55
  they're the, the Bavarian dialect and, and certain words
• 28:57
  they use is extremely limited to them elsewhere in German.
• 29:03
  Germans elsewhere can really pick up Bavarians, you know,
• 29:07
  quite easily. So, but they're very proud of
• 29:10
  that distinction and, and they wear it as a, as a badge of
• 29:12
  pride, you know, the, the, the brewery always jokes anything
• 29:15
  sold outside of Bavaria as an export.
• 29:17
  So. Yeah, I picked up on that
• 29:22
  everywhere you went, and I loved it.
• 29:24
  I was. We just love that culture.
• 29:26
  As a matter of fact, when I got back, the first thing I wanted
• 29:28
  to get, and I haven't done it yet, I want to build a maypole
• 29:30
  in the backyard because they're everywhere and they're so cool.
• 29:35
  Well, and you know, not one that's 100 feet tall, but.
• 29:39
  Yeah, your neighbors might have a problem with that.
• 29:42
  Yeah, probably so. And, you know, Scott and I were
• 29:45
  talking about his trip when he went there.
• 29:48
  We were talking about in a podcast episode, just, you know,
• 29:50
  'cause we talk, you know, all kinds of beer crappier as well.
• 29:53
  And I was like, do you see much crappier over there?
• 29:56
  You know, and it's not Scott talk about, you know, that
• 29:59
  experience too 'cause it's, it's very traditional.
• 30:02
  It's very traditional. You're in that area.
• 30:03
  That's all you're going to find. Yeah, Steve, go ahead.
• 30:05
  Please take that. They do have, I mean, there's a
• 30:07
  few upstart breweries there and everything, you know that.
• 30:10
  But they do try to, you know, still brew towards tradition.
• 30:13
  There's some guys out there that are trying to do things a little
• 30:15
  differently, which, you know, is, it's not frowned upon.
• 30:19
  You know, that they're, they're, they're willing to, you know, to
• 30:22
  try new, new styles and welcome new people in as well.
• 30:26
  It was, you know, it, it's just a, it depends too, 'cause you
• 30:30
  know, our, our, our head Brewer down there.
• 30:32
  You know, I just remember a few years back, there were some
• 30:36
  comments being made about from American Brewers about how Ryan
• 30:39
  High School boot was holding back, you know, Germany's
• 30:42
  Brewers from becoming, you know, great Brewers and everything.
• 30:46
  And our our head Brewer off said, I can paint.
• 30:50
  I can paint a portrait with four colors.
• 30:52
  They need more paint than I do. So.
• 30:57
  So again, you know, there's there's a skill to using four
• 31:00
  ingredients in getting everything you do out of that
• 31:03
  without having to, you know, add the, you know, other ingredients
• 31:07
  and along the lines like that. So there's, I think a lot of it
• 31:10
  comes down to pride. They're just very prideful, the
• 31:12
  fact that they do things the way they do.
• 31:13
  And but again, there have been some new upstarts there that
• 31:17
  have been welcomed. There's there's an annual,
• 31:20
  something you guys might want. I'll have to, I don't, I never
• 31:23
  get the name right, but there is an annual brewing competition
• 31:26
  held there. It's like Blancfest or something
• 31:29
  like that. We're all different beers from
• 31:32
  all over Germany compete more or less like could be kind of like
• 31:35
  our Great American beer festival.
• 31:37
  So it's it's a really fun event and all the breweries get
• 31:41
  involved even, you know, our brewery every year puts in a
• 31:44
  couple couple entries, something a little different that the
• 31:47
  Brewers put together. And but again, yeah, it's
• 31:52
  they're not close minded. They're open to it, but they're
• 31:53
  also very, very heavily guided by tradition.
• 31:57
  So. Which is, which has served them
• 32:01
  for 400 or 500 years. So there's something to that.
• 32:06
  Yeah. Well, and we won't get too much
• 32:09
  into the technical aspect of of the brewing, but you know, on
• 32:12
  your website and things like that, it really talks about, you
• 32:17
  know, certain aspects of it, like the water for example, how
• 32:20
  important that is. And the other, the other you
• 32:23
  talk about four ingredients. I mean, that's what they're
• 32:25
  doing and they haven't changed after over, what, 400 years?
• 32:29
  Yeah, that's 530 something now, so 1589.
• 32:34
  So yeah, yeah. And it they just dug a they just
• 32:39
  drilled the new well, I want to say a year ago at the brewery.
• 32:43
  So all the all the the Munich breweries all draw from the same
• 32:47
  well under Munich. So the six Munich breweries and
• 32:49
  those are why those are the ones limited to Oktoberfest.
• 32:52
  So and that well is I forget how many meters, 10,000 meters or
• 32:57
  something crazy like that. So we're the water they use is,
• 33:01
  you know, prehistoric water, which is ultimately pure and as
• 33:07
  the brewing qualities that they that they best, you know, that
• 33:10
  they need best to brew the beers they do so.
• 33:12
  But yeah, they're, they're the, the, the water again, that's the
• 33:17
  key part of it. And the wells that in Munich
• 33:19
  have some of the best water, so. We've got a brewery in Nashville
• 33:25
  called Nashville Brewing Company.
• 33:26
  I don't know if you guys have heard of them.
• 33:27
  And they're part of a Blackstone here in Nashville and Nashville
• 33:31
  Brewing Company does traditional German style beers and they get
• 33:35
  all of their ingredients from Germany.
• 33:37
  Like all the everything comes from there except the water,
• 33:40
  right. That's the only thing they can't
• 33:41
  duplicate is, is that. And they're they're they're
• 33:43
  fantastic beers. And they've been complimented
• 33:45
  from people in Germany coming over and finding one of the
• 33:48
  closest, you know, beers to what they drink.
• 33:51
  But he goes, one thing I can't duplicate is the water.
• 33:53
  Yeah. I mean, the, the biggest
• 33:55
  Brewers, they, they try, they try to, to duplicate water from
• 33:59
  around the world for the brands that they brew in America, But
• 34:03
  it's, it's very difficult and it can't be done with a lot of
• 34:05
  without a lot of chemical interaction and everything else.
• 34:08
  It's not even worth messing with, you know, just quote.
• 34:11
  Well, and Scott Murti, who we've had on our podcast for who owns
• 34:16
  National Brewing Company, he's been over to Munich.
• 34:18
  We've done he, he is all things history of, you know, that type
• 34:24
  of the brand of beer. And we've had him on our podcast
• 34:27
  a few times. You know, we did an Oktoberfest
• 34:29
  episode with him last year and he's just an encyclopedia of
• 34:33
  everything he knows. So you know, you he's, he's like
• 34:37
  one of you guys. You know, it's, it's, it's so
• 34:38
  much fun to listen to those stories.
• 34:40
  Yeah, actually. And actually, I listened to that
• 34:42
  that podcast and I, I took notes from him to use tonight.
• 34:45
  Jerry. You should.
• 34:49
  Close this he. Would love that.
• 34:51
  Jerry, you should quiz us on that because we probably won't
• 34:53
  get any of the answers right if you were wrong.
• 34:57
  No. No test.
• 34:58
  No testing. But you would love that though,
• 35:01
  yeah. Yeah, but Scott in that in that
• 35:02
  episode, even a little bit prior to that, he kind of probably
• 35:05
  paved the way for us or set the set the wheels in motion for us
• 35:08
  learning about kind of loggers and Oktoberfest and things.
• 35:11
  And we would learn more. And then he was talking about
• 35:13
  Bavaria before he even kind of even knew it was a thing and
• 35:15
  before I had been and, and the stories and stuff.
• 35:18
  So he kind of set the tone for this.
• 35:19
  It probably helps me for you guys being here because, you
• 35:23
  know, just because we it it, we became more and more we're more
• 35:26
  and more interested in it and more of an appreciation for it.
• 35:29
  Like, Oh my God. You think of, you have to think
• 35:32
  about Bavaria and beers and, and Germany and general on beers
• 35:36
  and, and most of the areas of Germany have their own
• 35:39
  particular style. So you have like Rouse beer
• 35:43
  comes from Bamberg and Dortmunder comes from Dortmund
• 35:47
  and Schwartz beer comes from Klombach or I can't pronounce it
• 35:52
  and they'll mess up some of the pronunciations.
• 35:55
  Berliner vice from Berlin, obviously.
• 35:57
  And and you have alt beer from Dusseldorf and Coles from
• 36:01
  Cologne. But those are all one.
• 36:02
  But if you look at Bavaria and the styles that come from
• 36:05
  Bavaria, it's Hellas Dunkel. They have the vice and best
• 36:08
  beer, Mars and Bach Meibach, Doppelbach.
• 36:12
  I mean, it's just it is beer central.
• 36:14
  It's it's an incredible place to go if you love beer, if you
• 36:18
  love. Another thing I love just being
• 36:21
  over there is like, we would take a train.
• 36:23
  So we went to Austria too, and we kind of went back and forth.
• 36:25
  We started Munich and ended in Munich, but we went to
• 36:27
  Traumstein. But the train rides are
• 36:30
  fantastic because you'd get into the train station and you go
• 36:32
  into the store and everybody else that I was with, you know,
• 36:35
  they're beer drinkers, but there were wine drinkers too.
• 36:36
  But you would just grab bottles of stuff and just take it on the
• 36:39
  train with you. And you would just, you know,
• 36:40
  I'd be like, I'd spend $1.50 on, you know, a bottle of, of Weiss
• 36:45
  or anything that was just in the store.
• 36:46
  Let me get three or four of these things for the train ride
• 36:50
  it, but it was all those kinds. It was all those styles.
• 36:52
  Everything you everything you found were those styles that you
• 36:54
  just mentioned. Well.
• 36:57
  And, and they do the breweries there do try to stick to their
• 37:00
  look to their, to the local beers as well.
• 37:02
  So I, I, you won't find a, you know, very seldom when you find
• 37:07
  a Bavarian Brewer making like a like, like, you know, an alt or,
• 37:12
  or, you know, Kolsch or something like that, they have
• 37:16
  a, the kind of like an unrespect, unwritten respect for
• 37:19
  each other that, hey, that's your styles.
• 37:21
  These are our styles. And so it's very, very like,
• 37:24
  it's very limited that you see that kind of crossover happening
• 37:27
  there. So I mean, obviously there are
• 37:29
  some larger, larger regional, I don't think there's quite any
• 37:33
  more national brands in in Germany.
• 37:35
  But for the most part, because you do have such wonderful
• 37:39
  choices locally that are, you know, just amazing beers that
• 37:45
  you really don't need to go too far to find something you like.
• 37:50
  Sure. I, I would like to talk because
• 37:52
  we mentioned at the top of this thing you cover multiple states.
• 37:56
  Are you finding differences in the markets between all those
• 37:59
  States and and as it relates to the Hofbrau beer, is everybody
• 38:03
  kind of getting the same thing at the same time or?
• 38:07
  Well, so we have some markets that we're very well established
• 38:10
  in and they're generally ahead of the game.
• 38:13
  And we use those as examples for, for developing markets, you
• 38:17
  know, where we want to spread more business.
• 38:20
  The upper Midwest in particular, is very, very strong.
• 38:23
  There's a very strong German influence.
• 38:26
  For instance, we were first imported, officially imported
• 38:31
  into Frankenmuth, MI in 1987 because it was a very strong
• 38:36
  German community. And, and the, and the community
• 38:39
  leaders and a couple businesses actually went and sought out the
• 38:42
  brand, went to Munich and convinced them that they could
• 38:44
  bring it into the United States, into Frankenmuth.
• 38:47
  And there are other, there are other areas like that around the
• 38:50
  country, but you know, you, you get in those very strong areas.
• 38:53
  And like I said, we, we use those as examples of reasons to
• 38:57
  sell a beer and other places. So it so it does spread.
• 39:00
  It just, it just takes a little longer to get to some of those
• 39:04
  areas. 10 you know, and, and part of it is, so I'm five hours
• 39:09
  from Nashville. I, I can't get there very often.
• 39:12
  And I, and I have other areas that sell a lot of beer that I
• 39:15
  have to be at more often. So part of the reason you don't
• 39:17
  see quite as much there is it's because I just can't get there
• 39:20
  to help our wholesaler out. If I could get there as often as
• 39:24
  I like, and I love country music, so I should be there more
• 39:26
  often. But if, if I could get there
• 39:29
  more often, we, we would be doing better.
• 39:31
  I would come down and we could go to several places where I
• 39:34
  could buy it. Oh, nice, we let we take you up
• 39:37
  on that. Yeah.
• 39:38
  Be wearing. Be wearing these, you know.
• 39:42
  Kind of warm down there sometimes.
• 39:44
  Yeah, yeah. Maybe when it's a little cooler,
• 39:46
  you know, but but Jerry, you know, being that you're up in
• 39:49
  Cincinnati area, you know where I'm from and Scott's been there
• 39:53
  with me, but I probably have been hop around house over there
• 39:56
  in Newport, KY, across the river from Cincinnati.
• 40:00
  You know, it opened over 20 years ago.
• 40:02
  I probably have been there about 10 times.
• 40:04
  And talk about that location because I think it's fantastic
• 40:08
  and I think it it serves the area really, really well.
• 40:11
  Yeah, it's a beautiful location. I mean, it's convenient to to
• 40:14
  the major sports stadiums. Really.
• 40:17
  It was supposed to be in Cincinnati, but the the
• 40:19
  Cincinnati leadership at the time couldn't, couldn't get it
• 40:23
  together. And Newport kind of swooped in
• 40:25
  and had a facility for him and everything else and just found a
• 40:28
  great area, beautiful, beautiful beer garden, very, very walkable
• 40:32
  all around that whole area. And that I don't, I think I'm
• 40:36
  correct. That was the very first one in
• 40:38
  in the United States was in Newport.
• 40:40
  Yeah, that was, that's the first one.
• 40:42
  That was a brew pub, Vegas and then Newport where?
• 40:45
  Yep. So but Vegas.
• 40:47
  Vegas is imported beer. Yeah, so, and I think, I think
• 40:50
  what makes it work so well as is the German heritage of the, of
• 40:53
  the whole area, you know, as you know, you know, Over The Rhine
• 40:57
  and all the breweries in the brewing tradition there.
• 40:59
  It was the same thing in in Northern Kentucky.
• 41:02
  Lots of, lots of breweries there, tremendous German
• 41:05
  heritage and brewing tradition. So I just made so much sense for
• 41:09
  it to be there. And so the location is
• 41:11
  phenomenal. Just a just a great place to be
• 41:14
  in. They they're they're well run.
• 41:17
  The, the beer is, is incredible. It's just, it's a fun place.
• 41:21
  And and, and I I can proudly say and gladly say they've been open
• 41:25
  for 20 years and they haven't changed much in 20 years.
• 41:28
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 41:29
  It's just, that's good, you know, And it's the place where
• 41:31
  you go for Father's Day. It's the place you go for
• 41:33
  graduations. It's bachelor parties.
• 41:36
  It is, it's the place. So if anybody's anywhere near
• 41:39
  Newport, KY, Cincinnati, stop. Stop by the hot Brahms.
• 41:43
  Yeah, definitely. You know, like I said, I have a
• 41:45
  lot of great memories there. And as you said, you know, it's
• 41:48
  very, very like up there. There's a big German heritage on
• 41:52
  my mom's side. You know, there's a big German
• 41:55
  heritage on, on my mom's side In my family, you know, we found
• 41:58
  out years ago that like her family migrated from like
• 42:01
  Germany and France to Cincinnati in like the mid 1800s.
• 42:05
  And that's when you started seeing a big influx.
• 42:08
  So I, I, every time I've been to Hopper House, I'm like, man, I'd
• 42:12
  love to keep coming back here. And the other thing that we
• 42:15
  haven't talked too much about is the food.
• 42:18
  There's also a lot of great German food there too.
• 42:21
  Well, well, absolutely. And, and I'll, I'll turn this
• 42:24
  one over to Steve because he's more of a foodie than I am.
• 42:27
  I'm, I'm a drinky. He's a foodie.
• 42:32
  Well, the, the, the franchise division, you know, the, the,
• 42:36
  the franchise restaurants like that.
• 42:37
  They all have a set, a set menu, recommended menu with the, the,
• 42:42
  you know, they call them the, the, I believe that's the
• 42:44
  Bavarian specialties or Hopper house specialties.
• 42:48
  And those are ones that the, the recipes almost exactly mirrored
• 42:52
  to what you're going to enjoy at the Hopper House in Munich.
• 42:56
  So obviously they try to do the best to get the same
• 42:59
  ingredients, the same, you know, process and everything.
• 43:02
  So those are ones that are signature dishes that you know,
• 43:04
  you're going to try. You'll get them at every Opera
• 43:06
  House and they're going to be as close to what you enjoy in
• 43:08
  Munich as possible. And then obviously too, you
• 43:11
  know, depending on location, they, they have to give a
• 43:13
  little, you know, local taste to it.
• 43:17
  And then at that point, the, the chef there will put on a couple
• 43:22
  things on the menu that might be more relevant to what's what's
• 43:25
  available locally. Like Cleveland, I believe they
• 43:27
  put walleye on the menu or pierogies, you know, so
• 43:31
  everybody has a little touch to it.
• 43:32
  But yeah, for the most part, you know, the, the swine's oxen,
• 43:36
  the, the, the, the Schnitzel, you know, a majority of those,
• 43:40
  those main dishes that, you know, Germans are known for and
• 43:43
  particularly that the ones that they do a lot of at the Hopper
• 43:46
  house, the, the roasted chicken, you know, that's one of the main
• 43:49
  ones too. So those are all ones that but
• 43:53
  we we try to make certain that the all the all the kitchens
• 43:57
  produces closely to the same recipe as what you enjoy in
• 44:01
  Munich. So.
• 44:02
  Did I see that the Newport, KY location building used to be a
• 44:07
  Hooda Paul is I say a Hooda Paul Hooda pole warehouse Hooda Paul
• 44:12
  Did it used to be a warehouse for?
• 44:14
  That what it was, but I don't think I thought it was Weedam
• 44:18
  and I'm not. I don't think it was you to
• 44:19
  pull, but it might have been. But it was, it was a warehouse,
• 44:22
  yes, definitely. OK, I just.
• 44:25
  Saw that great karma coming together I guess.
• 44:29
  Yeah, we were out. We were out Weedeman and, and
• 44:32
  back in May we went to, you know, May of 2025, We went up
• 44:36
  there and we stopped in a Weedeman.
• 44:37
  I've been there a few times. And then the the new weedeman
• 44:39
  that's in the old funeral. Home.
• 44:41
  Yeah. Well, the OK, give me, give me
• 44:43
  like, I'll, I'll tell you this story in about a minute because
• 44:46
  I don't want to bore you guys too much.
• 44:48
  Where where I grew up, most of my family was from Saint
• 44:51
  Bernard, my grandparents from there, my dad was from there.
• 44:54
  And before you, you mentioned the Funeral Home, we had the
• 44:58
  funerals for a lot of the Sullivans when I was younger.
• 45:01
  And then when our cousins and I, when we found out years ago that
• 45:06
  they were going to turn it into a brewery, we actually met there
• 45:09
  when it was a brewery and we're like a toast to the Sullivans.
• 45:12
  We had not been in that building for like, you know, 30-40 years.
• 45:16
  And then he used to be funerals. It was kind of odd, but you
• 45:18
  know, it's kind of it's, it's kind of odd, but it's kind of
• 45:20
  cool at the same time, so. It's kind of cool circle.
• 45:23
  Yeah, a lot of history there. A lot of history.
• 45:27
  Beer brings us all back. It does, yeah.
• 45:31
  Hey, you know, in this country and we're going to get into
• 45:34
  Oktoberfest here in a minute, but seasonal beers and
• 45:37
  Oktoberfest is the example of that come out seems to be
• 45:40
  earlier and earlier every year. Do you guys have to balance that
• 45:44
  here in the States with with your beer with what they do in
• 45:47
  Munich? Like as far as the seasons go,
• 45:50
  or at least it's specifically the Oktoberfest beer.
• 45:52
  We it for our main ones seasonal wise, obviously be on my Bach,
• 45:57
  you know, and then the summertime we bring in our
• 45:59
  Keller beer, which is the unfiltered original.
• 46:02
  And then obviously we roll into Oktoberfest and and we do then
• 46:07
  at this time of year. Now it should be hitting the
• 46:08
  markets within the next few weeks would be our our dapple
• 46:11
  box, the delicator. So where this gets a little
• 46:15
  tricky is as one thing people don't realize about about
• 46:18
  Hofbrau is everybody knows our name, but we are actually the
• 46:22
  smallest of the six minute breweries.
• 46:24
  So if you see our brewery, you'd be really shocked by a size.
• 46:29
  A lot of the beers that they make for us are specific to the
• 46:32
  US. Finding the time for production,
• 46:36
  aging and everything is a very complicated scheduling process
• 46:40
  over there for the logistics team at the brewery.
• 46:43
  So that's why we try to bring things in.
• 46:45
  We align pretty much what they can do to meet our best, meet
• 46:48
  our needs. Now the Germans think we're
• 46:50
  nuts. So we want Meibach in, in
• 46:51
  February, but you know, that's why, you know, people here will
• 46:55
  drink it that when it hits 70°, no one's going to touch a Bach
• 46:58
  beer in the Midwest. So it's just the way it is.
• 47:01
  So we kind of, we, we, we, we move to when they produce, but
• 47:05
  they also kind of adjust slightly the best they can to
• 47:08
  when we need product by. So, you know, so the, my Bach is
• 47:12
  1. I mean that they, they'll start
• 47:14
  brewing that before they shut down for the, for the, for the
• 47:17
  holidays. And then it'll, it'll age in the
• 47:19
  tanks and then they'll, they'll be packaging that up at the end
• 47:22
  of January to get out right away beginning of February.
• 47:26
  Then the next thing for us, the Keller is easy because that's
• 47:29
  just unfiltered original lager. But we get our Oktoberfest
• 47:33
  orders usually submitted to the brewery by April first because
• 47:38
  we are, we're the largest export market for Hofbrau.
• 47:42
  So obviously our orders are a big chunk of what they have.
• 47:45
  This was actually the first year that we had Oktoberfest orders
• 47:48
  that the brewery was not able to meet all of our orders on.
• 47:51
  So which is it just again, it's that style and people looking
• 47:55
  for authenticity and heritage. But so yeah, so it, it, it, it's
• 48:00
  a little bit of adjustment on both sides.
• 48:01
  I mean, if in order to get all the actor fest we need, they got
• 48:04
  to start brewing that, you know, they start pre brewing for us,
• 48:07
  you know, basically in in March, in March, April.
• 48:10
  So especially unique packages like the loose packages that we
• 48:14
  may do for Costco or the five liter cans, things like that.
• 48:17
  The five liter cans and we 5 liter cans and 16.9 cans.
• 48:21
  We have to ship the beer off site to get packaged because we
• 48:24
  don't have the capability of doing it at the brewery.
• 48:26
  So a lot of a lot of logistics and technical things in the
• 48:31
  background that that people, you know, just they don't see in.
• 48:33
  But again, it makes it for a challenge.
• 48:36
  And of course that all that all does add on to why exported
• 48:41
  beer, imported beer does cost, you know, a little more because
• 48:45
  you know, there's a lot of other costs incurred on that site.
• 48:47
  So we drive our beer around a lot of different places before
• 48:49
  it makes its way to you. So.
• 48:53
  Are you competing with like shelf space around that time for
• 48:56
  Oktoberfest beer? Like, you know how the stuff
• 48:58
  like Sam Adams will come out in August?
• 49:02
  Yeah, you know, it's it in the in the chain markets and the
• 49:06
  chain accounts particularly this stuff is these prod programs and
• 49:09
  stuff are sold in months ahead of time and that and that space
• 49:11
  is all, you know, allocated out and predetermined and
• 49:13
  everything. And but you know, that's where
• 49:16
  like Jerry talked about, you know, for the independence and
• 49:19
  stuff, that's where, you know, our, our area representatives
• 49:22
  come in handy, their relationships with our
• 49:24
  wholesalers, key accounts going in there to get the the cuckoos
• 49:29
  going off. Love it.
• 49:31
  Yeah, I'm. Glad I'm just hearing it in my.
• 49:35
  Head. The cuckoo hurt Oktoberfest and
• 49:37
  it's like going crazy now we got.
• 49:39
  October. Yeah, exactly.
• 49:40
  Yep. But but yeah, so it's, that's a
• 49:43
  little bit of both there. I mean, some of the stuff's
• 49:45
  predetermined, but other stuff depends on our local wholesalers
• 49:48
  and and our our local people to to get that done out there.
• 49:52
  The one thing that, again, this comes back to people's
• 49:55
  experiences in education. You know, over the years, people
• 49:58
  have realized that Oktoberfest beers aren't Amber Marzen beers,
• 50:02
  They're light Marzen beers. You know, I'll never forget the
• 50:05
  first time I, I was over in Munich and you know, I was
• 50:09
  actually, I used to sell beer in Chicago and Beck's was one of my
• 50:11
  brands and I was at Oktoberfest and I asked for a Oktoberfest
• 50:15
  beer and they brought me this beautiful, you know, golden
• 50:17
  colored beer. And I'm, I said to the waitress,
• 50:20
  I said, I think you brought me the wrong beer.
• 50:22
  I want it on Oktoberfest. And she said, where are you
• 50:24
  from? I said, United States.
• 50:25
  She said, ah, we keep the good stuff for ourselves.
• 50:28
  So that's when I realized that, you know, that that Oktoberfest
• 50:32
  is different. So, and actually, this is a
• 50:34
  decision that goes back to Fred Schumacher and and Rudy Zeider,
• 50:38
  who's our head of export. When they were deciding on
• 50:41
  bringing Oktoberfest into the United States market, they said,
• 50:44
  do we do like the rest of the States and bring in, you know,
• 50:46
  the amber like Sam Adams and Becks and everybody else did, or
• 50:50
  do we bring in our Oktoberfest And they made the decision,
• 50:53
  well, let's bring in what they serve in Munich.
• 50:56
  And so people know exactly what people over there are enjoying
• 51:01
  and talking about. So in hindsight, that was a
• 51:04
  tremendous decision because again, it gave us an excellent
• 51:07
  point of differentiation going into fighting for retail space
• 51:12
  as as well as draft handles. When you go into an account and
• 51:15
  they say, well, I already committed to Sam Adams, we're
• 51:17
  like, well, that's an amber Mars in Oktoberfest.
• 51:20
  We're the true Oktoberfest, a style that you drink in the
• 51:23
  tents in Munich for 16 days and that opens your eyes and ears
• 51:27
  and and hopefully an opportunity for us.
• 51:29
  You know, and I and I always sit there and think the Hopper House
• 51:33
  brand stands for tradition. And it's like, how important is
• 51:37
  for you? Is that for you guys
• 51:39
  representing the brand and standing by that tradition?
• 51:42
  Well, it's. It's incredibly important.
• 51:45
  So we don't just sell beer. We we sell history, we sell
• 51:49
  culture and we sell quality and, and all three are interwoven in,
• 51:53
  in everything that that we do. So to be able to stand tall and
• 51:58
  stand proud of talk to a customer about how authentic we
• 52:01
  are and how true to the brand we are.
• 52:04
  It, it means an awful lot and not too many people can
• 52:06
  duplicate that, that sales approach.
• 52:09
  And it's all, it's all as honest and true as you, you can
• 52:12
  possibly get. We're, we're authentic through
• 52:14
  and through. So when we see a lot of
• 52:16
  Oktoberfest out there and we see some brands that aren't very
• 52:21
  good Oktoberfest and, and everybody trying to jump on the
• 52:24
  Oktoberfest train, well, it's Munich.
• 52:27
  You know, we, we were there for the first one.
• 52:29
  We're there now. We are the authentic ones.
• 52:32
  This is what you drink. If you join my 10,000 friends
• 52:35
  out there in Oktoberfest, this is what, what they're drinking.
• 52:38
  So it's it's very important to us.
• 52:40
  Yeah. And, and you, you really, you
• 52:42
  really get that sense of protectors of history and
• 52:47
  tradition when you, when you, when you meet certain people at
• 52:50
  the brewery as well. I mean that the brewery again,
• 52:52
  you know, stayed owned. It was founded by the royal
• 52:54
  family. And then, you know, they, they
• 52:56
  turned it over to, to the state of Bavaria in the, the late
• 53:00
  1800s. Eighteen, 74, nine, something
• 53:03
  like that, you know, so they look at it as, you know, the
• 53:06
  passing on of a, of a of a state, state treasure history
• 53:10
  and, and what they are and an icon for what Bavaria and in
• 53:14
  particular what Munich represents.
• 53:16
  And you know, they have a saying over there.
• 53:17
  You know, a lot of the employees they offer the crown for the
• 53:20
  crown. You know, they still talk about,
• 53:22
  you know, the importance of that.
• 53:23
  And, and the beer itself. You know, there's some great
• 53:25
  stories about, you know, the history that that the Hofbrau
• 53:28
  beer has had in Munich. You know, the story of the
• 53:31
  Maibach, you know, being the beer that saved Bavaria.
• 53:35
  You know, during the 30 years war, the, the Danish armies had
• 53:40
  Munich surrounded and they were on the verge of sacking the city
• 53:43
  and, and wiping it off the map. But the Duke negotiated a piece
• 53:48
  for them. You know, obviously there's
• 53:49
  money to change hands and everything.
• 53:52
  And the story goes, part of the buyout was 1000 buckets of beer.
• 53:55
  But the the Dane stated that 300 had to be my Bach or was a no
• 53:59
  deal. So you know, they still
• 54:02
  celebrate them. You know, it with my fest in in
• 54:05
  in Munich and and they still celebrate it with Hoffer on
• 54:08
  Meibach, because that's the beer that, you know, save Bavaria.
• 54:12
  So just some great little historical stories like that.
• 54:15
  I mean it it that the beer, the breweries just woven into their
• 54:18
  history and is is a part of it ends on part of it, not just
• 54:23
  along for the rides. And I think it what?
• 54:26
  Really when I started thinking about getting you guys on this
• 54:29
  podcast, Scott and I were, you know, talking about getting you
• 54:33
  all on this podcast and talking about the history of it.
• 54:35
  It's not only the history, but to keep the tradition alive and
• 54:40
  finding the right people to keep that tradition alive.
• 54:43
  How how is that? Is that an easy thing, do you
• 54:46
  think? Is that a hard thing?
• 54:48
  I'd love to hear from both of you on that, you know?
• 54:50
  I'll give you guys the story, Jerry, You know, you know, first
• 54:54
  of all, finding any finding people is a challenge, you know,
• 54:59
  more so now than ever. But you know, when I mean
• 55:03
  everybody in our company, we've never advertised to hire
• 55:06
  anybody. It's always been word of mouth
• 55:07
  and recommendation. And and you know, that's before
• 55:11
  I was with Hofra. I was, you know, nine years with
• 55:13
  with SAB Miller and then I was a distributor in Chicago.
• 55:16
  And, you know, I always found that our best people were people
• 55:20
  that came by, you know, recommendation because people
• 55:22
  don't give you somebody's name that they don't believe in.
• 55:25
  And you know, obviously they don't want to, they want to make
• 55:28
  certain that they're doing you putting that they're putting
• 55:31
  both of you and the person I recommend in a great position to
• 55:33
  succeed. So obviously is when we started
• 55:36
  looking for, we needed somebody in the Ohio area market, you
• 55:39
  know, we go to our distributors first, our wholesaler and say,
• 55:42
  hey, is there anybody out here that you recommend that you have
• 55:45
  anybody First off in your own organization that, you know,
• 55:48
  that's ready to move on, but you don't have a place for him, you
• 55:50
  know, him or her or, and, and you know, you'd rather see him
• 55:54
  work with you then against you. Or do you have a competitor out
• 55:58
  there that we should go after and try to hire?
• 56:00
  You know, and, and you know, usually there's always good
• 56:03
  recommendations out there, whether they be from our
• 56:05
  wholesalers, they might know of an excellent bartender or bar
• 56:08
  manager or liquor store manager, things like that.
• 56:11
  And in the case with Heidelberg, you know, they were familiar
• 56:13
  with Jerry from having worked with him in, in different stages
• 56:15
  of his career in the market. And you know, they, they, they
• 56:19
  gave his name to us and you know, we came out there and met
• 56:21
  Jerry and Jerry and I have had some histories that crossed over
• 56:24
  with, with different breweries and stuff like that.
• 56:26
  So again, I think you tend to find tend to in my, in my, my,
• 56:33
  my, my, my experiences, I've always found the best people
• 56:35
  through people. So it's been the way it worked
• 56:38
  for me. And and Steve has done a great
• 56:40
  job of kind of curating and a nice team.
• 56:44
  My my background. I spent my first 17 years out of
• 56:48
  college with the straw brewery company out of Detroit in field
• 56:51
  sales, working in Alabama and Georgia and North Carolina.
• 56:54
  I think it was like that. And then I moved on to Labatt,
• 56:57
  which became in Bev and Anheuser portion.
• 57:00
  Yeah. So, so you, you learn an awful
• 57:02
  lot in situations like that. You, you, you take a lot from it
• 57:07
  with the in Bev portion. That's why I sold Stella when it
• 57:10
  was brewed in in Belgium and and some great France with history.
• 57:15
  But I got to the point in my career where, you know, I, I
• 57:19
  wanted to look for something that I could finish my, my
• 57:21
  career in something that I believed in, something that was
• 57:25
  the customers could believe. And I wasn't just telling a
• 57:28
  story. It was, it was true.
• 57:30
  It was a good thing to have. People would be happy to see you
• 57:33
  because of it. And, and I was thankful for the
• 57:35
  opportunity that, that Steve gave me.
• 57:37
  But I, but I have to say I'm, I am one of the more senior guys
• 57:40
  in the company. And some of the people have
• 57:42
  accused me of being one of the original employees with hot
• 57:44
  frogs. And I had one occasion where I
• 57:49
  was working with a with a young salesperson who who might have
• 57:53
  been 22 or 23 and we walked into A to a liquor store and and the
• 57:57
  owner of the place said, what was it bring your dad to work
• 57:59
  day? But I try to teach people, but
• 58:03
  but no have having the right people in the right place.
• 58:07
  Believing in yourself and and the product you sell is the most
• 58:10
  important thing you can do. And when you have a a company
• 58:13
  with so much history and so much pride, it's it's very easy to do
• 58:17
  so piece of cake. Are there things that you, even
• 58:20
  though you guys have been with the company for a long time, are
• 58:22
  there things about this brand that you're still learning?
• 58:25
  Yeah, I probably learned some things from Steve tonight about
• 58:28
  it. You know, when you've got 440
• 58:31
  years of history, Yeah, there's, there's things that you can
• 58:34
  learn about and you know, when it comes to brewing, it's such a
• 58:37
  technical process. But you know, there, there are
• 58:39
  things that I could learn every day.
• 58:41
  I, I went back through and looked at the website and
• 58:43
  everything else to, to prepare for this.
• 58:45
  And you know, if you're not learning that you're relearning
• 58:48
  it. Yeah, it's and, and, and things,
• 58:50
  even though things that there's a lot of consistency and stuff,
• 58:53
  there's also a lot of adaptation that has to take place, you
• 58:56
  know, over in Germany right now too, You know, a lot of, a lot
• 58:59
  of similar economic conditions like we have and everything.
• 59:02
  Things are more challenging, you know, fine, finding the right
• 59:04
  employees, sourcing, you know, again, you know, you use the
• 59:07
  same hops, you use the same malts from the same providers
• 59:09
  and everything. But weather conditions and
• 59:11
  everything, you know, can affect all that.
• 59:13
  So, you know, I, I really, I, I do get, I'm really happy when I
• 59:17
  get a chance to spend time with our Brewers because obviously
• 59:21
  brewing in Bavaria is, is something that's just to be a
• 59:24
  brew in Bavaria, You really the education, the effort, the, the
• 59:27
  pride and everything. So, and when you're with these
• 59:30
  guys, they really do love to talk about beer, but they also,
• 59:32
  it's nice because they talk about it in a way you can
• 59:34
  understand, but they also talk about it with such a point of
• 59:37
  pride and passion that you really kind of when you get done
• 59:40
  talking to them, you know, you really feel like you walk
• 59:42
  through a wall. So, but it, it, it's, it's, it
• 59:47
  really is different and it's, it's, it really isn't a nice
• 59:51
  thing to be a part of. Now, as Jerry mentioned, you
• 59:54
  know, we've got different brands for our own history and
• 59:56
  everything. And, you know, building up a
• 59:58
  building a brand is never easy. And then also putting a time and
• 1:00:02
  effort into something that you and then seeing it go on a
• 1:00:05
  different direction can be heartbreaking.
• 1:00:07
  So at least with this brand, you know the people we put together
• 1:00:10
  on it, like Jerry mentioned, this is something that we're a
• 1:00:13
  part of, we're building. And it's as in Munich, it's been
• 1:00:17
  here for years and it'll be here for years longer.
• 1:00:19
  As long as we do our job and do our job, our job well, the
• 1:00:23
  people who take up after us will have a good foundation to
• 1:00:28
  continue to build on and introduce people to this
• 1:00:30
  wonderful, wonderful brand and and the history as well that it
• 1:00:34
  it represents. And just to, you know, the, the
• 1:00:37
  other thing most imports are, there's, there's an import
• 1:00:40
  company that has several different brands that they
• 1:00:42
  import, that they sell, that they market for us, it's just
• 1:00:46
  hop route and, and we're relatively small.
• 1:00:48
  So we have to work a lot harder sometimes to, to get the share
• 1:00:52
  of mind that then our competitors who are lumped in
• 1:00:55
  with several other big imports that, you know, they have big
• 1:00:58
  chain departments and big marketing departments and
• 1:01:00
  everything else. And you know, as Steve said,
• 1:01:03
  we're a band of, what, 12 or 13 people trying, trying to do it
• 1:01:06
  all, trying to do what other people do with hundreds of
• 1:01:08
  people. Because you have brewing
• 1:01:11
  facilities in the state, you have certain freedoms here, not
• 1:01:15
  with the traditional beers, but can you brew some stuff here
• 1:01:17
  that you can't just because you catering to the to the US
• 1:01:20
  market? No, no, The franchises are those
• 1:01:23
  guys. They have limited capacity.
• 1:01:25
  They brew predominantly for on site consumption as part of
• 1:01:29
  their agreement with the brewery.
• 1:01:31
  They do, however, they were allowed to what they did discuss
• 1:01:35
  and and and and and the need to adapt to their markets and, and
• 1:01:39
  and compete with some of the other guys.
• 1:01:41
  So they do their own growlers and growlers now too, where they
• 1:01:44
  sell their own beers. So they produce those are those
• 1:01:47
  will probably be the the again, they're their own beers, but
• 1:01:50
  they do variation. So you'll get a hop wise or, you
• 1:01:53
  know, like a, a, a, a different kind of beer that they brew.
• 1:01:57
  But the main beers they brew, they're the ones that that are
• 1:01:59
  online with the brewery, you know, the original, the half of
• 1:02:02
  Eisen, the Dunkle, you know, those are all in line with the
• 1:02:05
  brewery recipes and, and, and, and then, you know, they'll brew
• 1:02:09
  some off styles. And then in particular, they do
• 1:02:13
  bring in imported Meibach and Oktoberfest kegs as well in
• 1:02:17
  certain quantities just so they, you know, people like to taste
• 1:02:20
  the, you know, the home and versus and what's here.
• 1:02:23
  And you know, everybody likes to become a judge and, and a, and a
• 1:02:26
  critic and everything too. So, but that, that's the only
• 1:02:29
  place you'll find it. And whatever they brew, again,
• 1:02:32
  that's for their own own business, you know, over there.
• 1:02:35
  So we do not take anything from the brew pubs and you know, we
• 1:02:39
  reintroduce that into retail through our our wholesalers.
• 1:02:43
  OK, there's this little event that happens and we touched on
• 1:02:47
  it earlier every year. It's called Oktoberfest.
• 1:02:49
  And it's kind of a big deal for the for the world, I think.
• 1:02:52
  And one of the things there's a sport that kind of goes with it
• 1:02:57
  and we see it in this country and it's called I'm going to,
• 1:02:59
  I'm going to murder this word. But mascrug Stemman, by the way.
• 1:03:07
  By the way, I was going to let Scott take this one.
• 1:03:09
  He was going to let me butcher that word.
• 1:03:11
  I was like, you go ahead and butcher that word.
• 1:03:14
  I looked up how to pronounce it and everything and I know I
• 1:03:16
  butchered it but. There's a Steinholt, really.
• 1:03:20
  You did pretty good. Really.
• 1:03:21
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, my first try.
• 1:03:24
  Well, I got the Moss right, because this is what this is.
• 1:03:26
  This is. Yep, We learned this from Scott
• 1:03:28
  Murdie. This is a Moss and not a Stein.
• 1:03:31
  Yep, that's right. So, but it's, it's it, you know,
• 1:03:33
  that goes hand in hand with Oktoberfest.
• 1:03:35
  I'm I'm sure it does over there. You see it everywhere here.
• 1:03:38
  Everybody's got a Stein holding competition.
• 1:03:41
  It actually is more of an American thing than it is over
• 1:03:44
  there, believe it or not. You know they do.
• 1:03:46
  They do. The servers have their
• 1:03:47
  competitions and stuff. But it's been interesting
• 1:03:50
  because as it's grown over here in popularity, the Germans over
• 1:03:54
  there are scratching their head asking us why they don't quite
• 1:03:57
  get it. But the last few years, the last
• 1:04:01
  few years, you know, it's been on, it's been on numerous news.
• 1:04:06
  We know we do a national event and it, it a championship all
• 1:04:09
  year long. And it ends up in New York City
• 1:04:12
  with the Stoneman Day parade and a, and a big event in Central
• 1:04:15
  Park. And it's, it's amazing how it's
• 1:04:18
  grown. But it, it, it really is just an
• 1:04:21
  American thing that that's really caught on.
• 1:04:25
  We the last couple years we there was a documentary crew
• 1:04:28
  from Europe who came over to, to, to do the whole thing and
• 1:04:32
  try to get an idea on what's going on with it.
• 1:04:34
  And we just had a, an article just came out an Austrian writer
• 1:04:40
  was over during, during the Moscow in New York and
• 1:04:44
  interviewing contestants and trying to get an idea on, on
• 1:04:46
  what this is all about. But Jerry holds several of these
• 1:04:50
  events. He's kind of like our our mosque
• 1:04:53
  rude king in terms of putting these events together and
• 1:04:56
  getting people on board with it. But it's just something that
• 1:04:59
  that came up years ago. And it was again, something that
• 1:05:01
  went back to Fred Schumacher and a gentleman in New York City who
• 1:05:06
  was the head of their, their Steuben committee.
• 1:05:10
  And oddly enough, an Irish Cuban named Lenny Coyne, who ran the
• 1:05:15
  German club out there. And Lenny did this mascrug out
• 1:05:20
  there and was looking for a sponsor.
• 1:05:22
  And, and Fred and him met and got together on it.
• 1:05:26
  And they started holding this thing in Central Park every
• 1:05:28
  year. And we've just used that as a,
• 1:05:31
  as a marketing tool and tried to grow it, you know, in specific
• 1:05:35
  areas with key accounts. And, you know, Sam Adams has
• 1:05:39
  done it, other people have had it, but it just seems like, you
• 1:05:43
  know, people tend to, again, gravitate towards the authentic.
• 1:05:47
  So it's, it's interesting. I mean, it's a 5 1/2 LB.
• 1:05:50
  When that beer is full, it's 5 1/2 lbs.
• 1:05:52
  And again, leave it to the Germans to invent a drinking
• 1:05:55
  game where you never drink the beer, you know?
• 1:05:59
  Yeah. But Jerry runs several of these
• 1:06:01
  events and. And it's amazing that the crowd
• 1:06:03
  turn out the participation, the excitement.
• 1:06:06
  And I'm sure he can add a little more color to this, to the
• 1:06:08
  story. I.
• 1:06:09
  Think there's a you know, I, I think a lot of people are, are
• 1:06:13
  really competitive for me. It's kind of fun because you
• 1:06:16
  know, I I've, I've talked people into participating in these
• 1:06:19
  events, you know, whatever event it was a mice fest or an
• 1:06:25
  Oktoberfest or whatever, and have talked people into it and
• 1:06:28
  do it and they'll get hooked. And, you know, thank, thank God
• 1:06:32
  for social media, I guess, because there is such an
• 1:06:35
  incredible community of Stein Hoysters must crew get down in
• 1:06:39
  participants. Yeah, I get friend requests from
• 1:06:43
  people that I have no idea who they are.
• 1:06:45
  And I just automatically assume it's someone from this community
• 1:06:48
  of people that love to go to these Stein holding
• 1:06:51
  competitions. And again, I kind of kind of
• 1:06:56
  goes back to the sincerity of of who we are.
• 1:06:58
  It's it's a it's camaraderie. It becomes camaraderie.
• 1:07:02
  You know, somebody might be get beat by a guy who turns out to
• 1:07:05
  be his best friend two months later.
• 1:07:07
  It's just, it's a fun phenomenon that I, I, I really don't
• 1:07:11
  understand. I would have never, never
• 1:07:13
  guessed it. But, you know, I try to do them
• 1:07:15
  at bigger events in the springtime, you know, again,
• 1:07:19
  whether it's a spring fest or, or whatever, and you'll get 30
• 1:07:23
  or 40 guys competing, you know, trying to judge it as a
• 1:07:26
  nightmare in itself. But and all of a sudden, the
• 1:07:29
  crowd, you know, will be during a break from the bands.
• 1:07:33
  So people are still on the dance floor still by that.
• 1:07:36
  And the crowds just keep getting closer and closer.
• 1:07:38
  So it's almost like you need security just to keep the people
• 1:07:41
  back and you get the chance, you know, hold that beer, hold that.
• 1:07:44
  You know, it's just, yeah, I, I, it's just, it's absolutely
• 1:07:48
  exploded when, when I started seven years ago when we did
• 1:07:51
  them, it was, you know, it's kind of a task to have to do it.
• 1:07:54
  But but now it's just, it's, it's incredible how much it's
• 1:07:57
  caught on it. And the other thing is you don't
• 1:08:00
  have to be a, a 30 year old who's 6 foot four and all muscle
• 1:08:05
  to win it. You know, we've, we've got a a
• 1:08:07
  guy here in Cincinnati who's, you know, there's a parallel
• 1:08:11
  organization to ours, but the guy in Cincinnati who's 73 years
• 1:08:15
  old, old and man, he's the best in Ohio year after year.
• 1:08:19
  And he's been to New York two years ago that the female
• 1:08:25
  national championship is a wonderful lady who actually
• 1:08:30
  lives in Georgia but competed in Ohio because she was from
• 1:08:34
  Cleveland. And she, you know, we talked her
• 1:08:36
  into doing it other than that and she became really good.
• 1:08:38
  But she's, you know, she might be 5 foot eight, 140 lbs and 63
• 1:08:45
  or 64 years old and she is the national champions.
• 1:08:50
  It just, it just amazes me. So you know, any anytime you get
• 1:08:53
  to watch one of these competitions, watch it and start
• 1:08:56
  practicing because we're going to sign you for the next event.
• 1:08:59
  Yeah, so here, here's a here's a couple questions.
• 1:09:01
  It it almost, I don't, I don't know if this is a great
• 1:09:04
  comparison or not, but it kind of reminds me every year, 4th of
• 1:09:07
  July, like the hot dog contest, like, how does he do that?
• 1:09:10
  Right? Yeah.
• 1:09:11
  So how do they do? How do they do it, Jerry, when,
• 1:09:13
  when you're hearing the stories from people about how they're
• 1:09:16
  doing and how they're gearing up and how they're training for
• 1:09:19
  this, What have you heard about some of the different things
• 1:09:21
  that they're trying to? Do yeah, they they have their
• 1:09:23
  own. They don't have their own
• 1:09:24
  methods. You know, I know one person who
• 1:09:27
  trained by lifting pumpkins. The gentleman that I talked
• 1:09:33
  about works for UPS and he just built incredible muscles doing
• 1:09:37
  all the stuff that UPS guys do over time.
• 1:09:40
  But I know people that have actually hired physical
• 1:09:44
  therapists to work on the muscles that they need to, to be
• 1:09:49
  an effective, you know, there's, there's all different methods
• 1:09:53
  And, and when it comes right down to the competition, it's
• 1:09:56
  generally, generally some kind of focus that they have to have.
• 1:09:59
  They just have to put themselves in a in a different world and
• 1:10:02
  just tough it out. And there's a the national
• 1:10:05
  champion this year, our champion.
• 1:10:07
  What was it, 24 minutes, Steve? 24 We never thought anybody
• 1:10:10
  would break the record at 21. He did it for 24 minutes.
• 1:10:14
  Which I could probably do it for 2 minutes maybe, yeah.
• 1:10:21
  The average is five, you said. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:23
  But I mean, just try it yourself.
• 1:10:25
  I mean, you just, you just hold it out straight.
• 1:10:26
  Your full beer, 5 1/2 lbs. You just hold it out straight.
• 1:10:29
  I'm on the side, arms flat, you know, shoulder length.
• 1:10:32
  And, you know, after about 3 minutes, you know, you start
• 1:10:35
  feeling the burn and everything and it's crazy.
• 1:10:38
  And you know, and you know, you mentioned people training, you
• 1:10:41
  know, the last last year's we usually our winners come out of
• 1:10:45
  two places. Oddly enough, there's a small
• 1:10:47
  town in Texas called Brunsfeld, New Brunsfeld, which is little
• 1:10:50
  Germantown. And they call it this dynasty
• 1:10:53
  down there. They've been posting the male
• 1:10:55
  and female winner like several the last few years.
• 1:10:59
  Krause sees the main account on there.
• 1:11:01
  They've got a big beer hall. It's Texas.
• 1:11:02
  So it's kind of like an open, you know, the the doors open up.
• 1:11:05
  But what they've done is they've taken Bavarian flags with HB
• 1:11:10
  logo and they put the winner's name, date and time on there.
• 1:11:12
  And all their champions hang in the rafters.
• 1:11:16
  And then it usually comes down to them.
• 1:11:18
  And a bar out in Philadelphia, Braja Schmitz, they've been
• 1:11:21
  posting winners, too. But yeah, the winner this year,
• 1:11:24
  he was, I think he came, He was from Seattle, right, Jerry?
• 1:11:27
  I think he's from a beer hall. No, actually I think he, I think
• 1:11:30
  he lives in New Jersey, but he qualified first in California
• 1:11:34
  to. Care he made.
• 1:11:35
  His way, yeah. He made his way across the
• 1:11:38
  country competing in other contests just just for the fun
• 1:11:41
  of it. He's he's retired.
• 1:11:44
  His wife competes as well. So that's, that's pretty
• 1:11:48
  incredible. I, I, you know, I, I, I say, I
• 1:11:51
  don't understand, but I kind of do because they're all, they're
• 1:11:53
  all really good people and they're, they'll be around and,
• 1:11:57
  you know, I'm just glad I don't have to compete against them.
• 1:12:00
  And as Jerry mentioned, you know, they all text each other,
• 1:12:03
  e-mail each other, they're all, they all become friends after,
• 1:12:05
  after their weekend together and everything.
• 1:12:07
  So yeah, just you just search New York City mosque group
• 1:12:11
  stemming your Central Park Oktoberfest.
• 1:12:13
  See some of the videos, 3500 people scream and hold that,
• 1:12:17
  hold that beer, hold that beer. It it it's crazy.
• 1:12:19
  It's definitely something to see so.
• 1:12:21
  So, and the, and the great thing is they've all become really
• 1:12:24
  good spokespeople for us as well.
• 1:12:27
  They they appreciate what what we do, how we got them started,
• 1:12:31
  how we got them into it. And there's a a lady out of
• 1:12:35
  Akron, OH catch it, Ericsson. And it was just a phenomenal
• 1:12:39
  person and an incredible spokesperson.
• 1:12:41
  You would swear she was on her payroll as as much as she as she
• 1:12:45
  pumps up hot brown and Moss crew stemming.
• 1:12:48
  But yeah, really, really good people.
• 1:12:50
  I mean, if, if, if you're going to be associated with people,
• 1:12:54
  those are the people you want to be associated with.
• 1:12:56
  They're just good, good. People, have you guys both tried
• 1:12:58
  it and what are your records? Why bother?
• 1:13:03
  You know if I pour a beer it's to drink and not to stare at for
• 1:13:06
  5 minutes, so. 5 minutes I'm not having a.
• 1:13:09
  Beer here's here's what I do. So I so when I give
• 1:13:12
  instructions, when I judge, I, I do it perfect for about 30
• 1:13:15
  seconds and I said OK, so that's how you have to do Good luck.
• 1:13:20
  Good luck after that. You guys take over?
• 1:13:22
  What's nice about that is somebody else doesn't doesn't
• 1:13:24
  have to worry about being the first one out.
• 1:13:26
  You're like, I'll volunteer for that.
• 1:13:30
  We did it at a friend's house back.
• 1:13:31
  You had an Oktoberfest party or whatever.
• 1:13:33
  We just did it for, for the hell of it.
• 1:13:35
  We all went about 2 1/2 minutes, but we all would have been
• 1:13:38
  disqualified in 30 seconds because there's leaning and then
• 1:13:40
  there's your arms weight with all that kind of stuff.
• 1:13:43
  The first time you move anything, you're out, right,
• 1:13:45
  Jerry? I mean.
• 1:13:46
  Well, you know, you get a couple warnings, but you know, the
• 1:13:49
  crucial thing is that you don't spill a drop.
• 1:13:51
  That's an automatic disqualifier because we want it on.
• 1:13:54
  Waste good beer. Right, right.
• 1:13:56
  It's certainly not. And and and it's tough.
• 1:13:59
  Some of the lines are are blurred.
• 1:14:01
  It's just you know how far back you can lean and you know, you
• 1:14:05
  just try you try to do your best and and judge fairly one.
• 1:14:08
  Yeah. And ultimately it's fine.
• 1:14:10
  Yeah. Have you guys?
• 1:14:12
  Ever gone to? Purpose.
• 1:14:14
  And let me, let me just one more thing about this.
• 1:14:17
  You know, we, we do it for, for the goodwill, but that, that's,
• 1:14:22
  that's what we're about. You know, we, we're trying to
• 1:14:24
  win friends and, and influence people.
• 1:14:27
  So we tend to be a little more generous when, when we're, when
• 1:14:30
  we're doing this stuff. We, you know, we, we don't want
• 1:14:32
  to take anybody off over, over a silly game basically, right?
• 1:14:36
  Right. That's, that's kind of, you
• 1:14:38
  know, you know, we want to sell more beer, but it's all about,
• 1:14:41
  it's all about goodwill. It's it's a way to promote.
• 1:14:43
  There are probably several people in that in the
• 1:14:45
  competition where you get past a certain point, they want to be
• 1:14:48
  taken out because like, I'm fighting here, but I don't want
• 1:14:51
  I don't want to we. Can't take anymore.
• 1:14:53
  Well, so the so The thing is like no guy wants to be beat by
• 1:14:57
  a woman in it either. So, so that's kind of a of a
• 1:15:00
  source of pride and, and there are a lot of women that beat all
• 1:15:04
  the guys. So it's just too bad for me.
• 1:15:06
  Yeah, but have you guys ever seen how many mosses you can
• 1:15:11
  carry at one time? You know how like they do over
• 1:15:14
  in Germany? Or have you ever tried it to see
• 1:15:16
  how many? No, I'm not.
• 1:15:19
  Interested. It seems like again it's it's
• 1:15:21
  for drinking and not. Yeah.
• 1:15:23
  Exactly. Have you tried that, Scott?
• 1:15:25
  I know I haven't. I tried it and I got and I got 4
• 1:15:29
  easily. The problem was I could have
• 1:15:31
  done more. Nobody else would give me their
• 1:15:32
  beers like it was the. People alcohol abuse right
• 1:15:38
  there, man. We don't want to spill it over
• 1:15:39
  they're. Like, no, you're not, you're not
• 1:15:40
  having my beers. So I said, oh, I could do four.
• 1:15:43
  I bet I could do it easily. But there you go.
• 1:15:45
  Those girls that do it and stack them.
• 1:15:47
  It's it's it's mind blowing. Yeah, it's incredible.
• 1:15:51
  And when you're at Oktoberfest, it is, you know, it is actually
• 1:15:54
  happening. Yep, there's some science behind
• 1:15:56
  it too. The way the handles fit together
• 1:15:57
  and and the whole thing and some strength.
• 1:16:00
  Yeah, yeah. So I get into math tonight, OK.
• 1:16:05
  It is very impressive when those when those young ladies do it.
• 1:16:10
  For sure, for sure. Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  So Steve, you got anything else? We want to let these guys go, go
• 1:16:16
  home, I guess at some point. Yeah.
• 1:16:18
  You know, I guess, I guess we just want to talk about, you
• 1:16:21
  know, I know you have a lot of locations across the United
• 1:16:23
  States. Is there any talk about
• 1:16:26
  expanding into other cities? Anything like that that you all
• 1:16:30
  can discuss at this point? You know, we're all, we're
• 1:16:32
  always looking of, you know, for an, an open.
• 1:16:35
  We, we basically last year we took on our former president of
• 1:16:41
  franchise retired and a new gentleman came on who has
• 1:16:46
  hospitality and restaurant background and actually was
• 1:16:49
  familiar with our opera houses in, in Pittsburgh, Columbus and
• 1:16:55
  Newport. So he's kind of taken over and
• 1:16:58
  he spent most of last year kind of revising our franchise
• 1:17:01
  structure because obviously you guys are familiar with what's
• 1:17:03
  going on with a lot of tap halls around the country and and micro
• 1:17:06
  breweries and stuff like that. It's it's gotten to the point
• 1:17:10
  where those large venues are just very difficult to make fill
• 1:17:13
  and maintain. And obviously running a brewery
• 1:17:16
  is very costly, especially if you're not at or above capacity.
• 1:17:19
  So we kind of done some reorganizing and some
• 1:17:22
  restructuring of our franchise offerings, focusing more on some
• 1:17:25
  smaller restaurant sized places, maybe some smaller beer stubes
• 1:17:29
  and of course beer garden type venues.
• 1:17:32
  So, and that's, you know, those are things that, you know, that
• 1:17:37
  we're open to. And, and usually the way that
• 1:17:39
  works is, you know, if people are curious as to how that works
• 1:17:42
  or whatever, you know, they go through our, to our franchise
• 1:17:44
  website and then they just, you know, put an inquiry out there
• 1:17:47
  and, you know, they then, you know, they'll get contacted and
• 1:17:50
  say what they're looking for. And, and if there's a particular
• 1:17:52
  market that they'd like to be, you know, that they, they think
• 1:17:55
  that would be successful and, and we'll work with them and,
• 1:17:58
  and, and see if indeed there is an opportunity and for, for, to
• 1:18:02
  work in that particular areas. But you, the way that works, the
• 1:18:05
  franchises work though, is, you know, an individual would come
• 1:18:08
  to us and want to, you know, open and, and run their, run
• 1:18:12
  their business and, or has a place in mind and things like
• 1:18:14
  that. You know, then they get from us
• 1:18:16
  the, you know, the, the franchise rights, the name
• 1:18:18
  rights and certain amounts of support and stuff like that in
• 1:18:21
  terms of the, the marketing and point of sale items and stuff
• 1:18:25
  like that. So but yeah, we're always
• 1:18:27
  looking and we're hoping now with the edit adaptations we've
• 1:18:32
  made, we've had a lot of prospects this year, perspective
• 1:18:35
  opportunities and working through those right now.
• 1:18:38
  So you know, maybe, you know, maybe we'll have some good news,
• 1:18:42
  you know, in the upcoming months about some some new location
• 1:18:46
  opening up somewhere besides Ohio.
• 1:18:49
  I know Jerry doesn't want to hear that, but somewhere besides
• 1:18:51
  Ohio would be nice. So you.
• 1:18:53
  Know, you know, I'm thinking that these guys would be great
• 1:18:55
  as owners of the of the Hopper house.
• 1:18:58
  I was thinking that too. Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 1:19:01
  Sign us up. You know, we got the shirts, got
• 1:19:03
  the pins. Basically, we basically.
• 1:19:06
  Work for you. Now look at us.
• 1:19:08
  There we go, got that, We got it, we got it all.
• 1:19:10
  But the other thing I want, the other thing I want to say too,
• 1:19:13
  is that your website is a great resource for finding the beer.
• 1:19:17
  So if people are interested, how can they go on your website?
• 1:19:20
  Where? Where would they go on your
• 1:19:22
  website to find that? Yeah, the website again.
• 1:19:24
  And that's, that's all Selena. You know, a quick, quick history
• 1:19:29
  on Selena too. We're very lucky to have Selena.
• 1:19:31
  She actually interned at the Hofbrau Brewery in Munich as an
• 1:19:34
  intern and then when she graduated, she was there on
• 1:19:38
  their marketing team and she was key in in in a lot of their
• 1:19:43
  digital marketing, their website and everything.
• 1:19:45
  So she took a lot of what she learned over there and brought
• 1:19:47
  that over to our website, which is so that's why it's so user
• 1:19:50
  friendly and everything. But you know, when you go to it,
• 1:19:53
  you've got the headers up there, you've got beer, you got
• 1:19:55
  history. And there's a, a, a tab up there
• 1:19:58
  called beer Finder. You know, you, you click on
• 1:20:00
  that, you enter your zip code and it tell you can find out
• 1:20:03
  exactly what you're looking for, if it's a restaurant, a bar,
• 1:20:06
  particularly if you want draft or bottles.
• 1:20:08
  And that, that automatically updates to our wholesalers
• 1:20:10
  reporting system pretty much every every week.
• 1:20:14
  So if they say they have it, you know, then you can click on
• 1:20:17
  there and it tells you what they're serving and everything
• 1:20:19
  and what's available and it gives you a phone number.
• 1:20:21
  So if you just. Want to call ahead and double
• 1:20:23
  check and make sure that that it's still there.
• 1:20:24
  You can do that too. So but yeah, that the website is
• 1:20:28
  is really a great resource for you guys mentioned it earlier.
• 1:20:32
  Anything you want to know about the beer itself breakdowns on
• 1:20:35
  the beers ingredients IBU S all kinds of brewing technical
• 1:20:40
  informations on there and and then a lot of good history on
• 1:20:44
  the brand too so. Good merch too.
• 1:20:46
  I'm looking at the merch and I've been at the the gift shop
• 1:20:48
  in Mimic and that that place. I could have spent a day in that
• 1:20:51
  place. I had to leave.
• 1:20:52
  Yeah, great merch. Yeah, the merchandising and and
• 1:20:56
  a lot of that over. There, I should have brought it
• 1:21:02
  up. I've got it and I'm looking at
• 1:21:03
  it right here. I've got a mini boot.
• 1:21:06
  It says Opera House on it from over.
• 1:21:07
  Just the mini boot. It's so cool.
• 1:21:09
  Yeah, yeah, we're. Drinking out of it.
• 1:21:13
  And a lot of what we do it, we do bring over.
• 1:21:15
  It's been a little challenging this year with the tariffs, but
• 1:21:18
  we do bring over what we can from Munich off of their
• 1:21:22
  offerings. And then we do have items
• 1:21:23
  produced domestically as well. So, but again, we we try to
• 1:21:27
  bring as much over from Munich as we can to stick with the
• 1:21:29
  authenticity so. And that's, you know, just to
• 1:21:32
  bring that up. So the merchandise, the
• 1:21:35
  wearables, I swear every time I'm out in public and I'm
• 1:21:38
  wearing a hot pot shirt, 11 will approach me and say I was there.
• 1:21:42
  I've been to Munich. How nice, how cool is that it?
• 1:21:44
  Always happens. Yeah, it's cool.
• 1:21:46
  It's like, it's like you said earlier, it's a it's, it's a
• 1:21:48
  brand that is recognized around the world.
• 1:21:51
  You just see it and you know what that is.
• 1:21:52
  Yeah, well, I know when I'm wearing mine from now on, I'm
• 1:21:55
  going to be like I was on a podcast with these two guys
• 1:22:00
  talking about the brand. They say.
• 1:22:02
  Do you work for Hopper House? I'll be late.
• 1:22:04
  Yes, yes, I do tell. Them you know Selena.
• 1:22:07
  Would love to. You know, Selena, that's all you
• 1:22:10
  got to drop. That's the only name that's
• 1:22:11
  important. One last thing for me and we've
• 1:22:17
  talked about a little bit, but when you, when someone sees your
• 1:22:20
  brand, you just kind of really alluded to it in the wild.
• 1:22:23
  What do you, what do you want them to think about your brand
• 1:22:25
  when they see you? Is it kind of that Hey I was
• 1:22:27
  there memory somewhere? I can tell my my thing I kind of
• 1:22:32
  like with German. To me, it's it's great because
• 1:22:34
  that that person sharing a very something they they remember and
• 1:22:39
  it makes them happy, makes them smile, you know, and what is
• 1:22:42
  beer all about? Beers, beers here to make us
• 1:22:44
  happy, right? So, you know, to me, it's a,
• 1:22:47
  it's a, it's a, it's a big win because it made that person
• 1:22:49
  happy and happy enough that they felt they needed to share that
• 1:22:53
  with someone else, too. So yeah.
• 1:22:54
  And that and that. Pretty much encapsulates.
• 1:22:56
  So did you remember your first car and the fond memories you
• 1:22:59
  had of your first? That that's great beer, great
• 1:23:03
  memories. It's, it's, it's not about the
• 1:23:08
  taste profile. It's not about, you know, all
• 1:23:10
  the ingredients and everything else.
• 1:23:12
  It's about it the experience that you had with the bread and,
• 1:23:15
  and the fondness that you have for it.
• 1:23:18
  Let's you know, they want people recognize the logo.
• 1:23:20
  You can see in their eyes that they're thinking about a great
• 1:23:23
  time that they had or a great point of their life that it
• 1:23:28
  happened because of Hoffbrau or happened with Hoffbrau.
• 1:23:31
  And I can attest that Steve talked about us going to Newport
• 1:23:34
  before I've been to Munich, and I was with friends then.
• 1:23:36
  I'll never forget that experience.
• 1:23:38
  And I will be in Columbus for Thanksgiving for like 3 or 4
• 1:23:42
  days. I'm going to Hoffbrau House.
• 1:23:44
  I'd actually made that decision today.
• 1:23:45
  I was like, Oh my God, it's what?
• 1:23:47
  Guess what we're doing? Yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice
• 1:23:50
  location and yeah and and again, it's under the same management
• 1:23:56
  group as as Newport as so you'll you'll get you'll get excellent,
• 1:24:00
  you'll get excellent customer service and and a great menu as
• 1:24:03
  well. So.
• 1:24:04
  Yeah. And actually As for Jason, he's
• 1:24:06
  Jason is the brewmaster there and he doesn't, he does a great
• 1:24:10
  job. Yeah.
• 1:24:10
  And they're and they're actually celebrating their anniversary
• 1:24:13
  this week, I think. Oh, that's right, yeah.
• 1:24:16
  Met themselves, so they've been around for a while too.
• 1:24:19
  Yeah, it's a it's a good place. Very nice.
• 1:24:20
  I actually was here a couple weeks ago.
• 1:24:23
  Good, good place. Nice.
• 1:24:25
  I'll makes. I'll make sure to get to get by
• 1:24:27
  there for sure. Steve, anything else?
• 1:24:29
  Man, how can I top that? Anything we didn't cover, you
• 1:24:33
  guys want to want to speak to? No, I, again, I, I just want to
• 1:24:36
  say thank you guys for the opportunity to talk about
• 1:24:39
  obviously something that Jerry and I care a lot about, you
• 1:24:41
  know, professionally and, and personally.
• 1:24:44
  It's, it's really great to share some of these stories with
• 1:24:46
  people who, who like to hear them, you know, and are willing
• 1:24:49
  to, you know, willing to ask some good questions.
• 1:24:51
  And, and, and here's some sometimes long winded answers.
• 1:24:54
  You know, I'm glad I got Jerry here to wheel me in.
• 1:24:56
  Wheel me in sometimes. So people often ask us what our
• 1:25:02
  what our favorite beer is, and I say it's any of mine.
• 1:25:06
  And it just depends on who I'm with and the good times I'm
• 1:25:08
  having it. Yeah.
• 1:25:09
  Love it. Yeah.
• 1:25:10
  So the beers that I've had tonight have been my favorite
• 1:25:12
  beers. Oh, that's great.
• 1:25:14
  Same. I'm going to say that too,
• 1:25:16
  gentlemen. We'll end it there.
• 1:25:18
  I say pros. I have a little left on what was
• 1:25:21
  a lot. I'm going to have to open one
• 1:25:23
  but. Come on, Jerry, you're falling
• 1:25:26
  behind. Come on, Jerry, go ahead.
• 1:25:28
  That doesn't normally happen. And either way.
• 1:25:33
  Thanks guys. Thank you The Hopper House on
• 1:25:36
  the Brewery Underground podcast. We appreciate it.
• 1:25:39
  Cheers and. Guys.