Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Great Lakes Brewing Company Part 2 - (Re-Release of Episode 48)

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Great Lakes Brewing Company Part 2 - (Re-Release of Episode 48) · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

0:10
I want to go back, you mentioned how cans and bottling most of
0:14
your stuff like everybody else's can.
0:16
I think everything is canned. However, you still have some
0:19
that are bottled and it looks like to me, and you can tell me
0:23
if it's different, it looks like the originals or some of the
0:26
originals, the OG stuff is are still bottled and I love that.
0:31
Is there is it nostalgia to keep that around?
0:33
Is it is it customers saying here you got to have it bottled
0:36
still or what? What keeps those bottles alive?
0:40
Yeah, it's, it's customer demand pretty much.
0:44
I'm all as our historian and archivist, I love the nostalgia
0:48
aspect of things, but you know, we ain't got that much time for
0:53
that in the sales side. So, you know, like I kind of
0:58
alluded to it before, but like you put crap and I was one year
1:05
old when the brewery opened. So I don't, this is secondary
1:08
stuff for me. But like in the 80s and 90s,
1:11
like you put good beer in a bottle, bad beer came in a can,
1:14
right? And it was very easy to think
1:16
that way because you're 30 racks and Natty Lite for 15 bucks and
1:20
stuff and so on and so forth. So those, again, those long time
1:25
fans of ours grew up on bottles and they drank Dort from the
1:30
bottle and Oktoberfest from the bottle and Connolly's Irish
1:33
Shell from the bottle and so on. So those guys are still around,
1:38
still love our beer. So we still want to be
1:41
delivering that that beer for them in the package so that they
1:44
want it. But we also know that cans have
1:48
become so much more of a commodity in the past decade or
1:51
so. And so that's why obviously we
1:54
had, I mean, most of the most craft beer in the countries and
1:57
cans now. But we love our old time, you
2:00
know, our long time fans so much that we want to continue
2:03
delivering that package. Now.
2:04
Are we slowly phasing bottles away?
2:07
I mean, yeah, we're kind of doing that.
2:10
There's there's less and less bottles every year, but we
2:15
definitely keep them around. It's great and for.
2:18
Those on time, fans. Yeah.
2:21
And you know, probably not till the last, I don't know, 5-6,
2:23
seven years, the cans really came on and get, and there was
2:26
always a thing about beer and cans and it tastes like aluminum
2:29
and all that kind of stuff. And maybe the beer, the cans
2:31
have even been upgraded over the years.
2:33
But that's that's kind of all you get anymore.
2:36
So it's for me it's draft bottles and then cans because
2:39
you kind of stuck with them. But yeah, if I see something in
2:42
the bottle, I'm a fan of it automatically.
2:44
Sure, Yeah. And there's a it's in the end,
2:46
same beer one way or the other, right?
2:48
So I always advocate my biggest reason for the cans is that you
2:53
can fit more in the fridge. You know what I mean?
2:56
Yeah, when I carry my when I carry my free case from the
3:00
brewery to the car, it's just way easier when it's in cans
3:02
than the. Bottle and it's the same volume
3:04
that's in the bottle. Same volume, yeah, but there's
3:07
something, there's something elegant, elegant about the
3:09
bottle. And especially when it comes to
3:12
even for our barrel aged stuff, like we do a barrel aged stout,
3:15
barrel aged blackouts stout. There's a barrel aged version of
3:17
Christmas sale. Those are in cans too.
3:20
But there is something elegant about having a specialty beer in
3:24
the bottle for sure. Yeah.
3:26
Yeah, it's presentation. Sometimes it's yeah, it's just
3:29
really cool to look at. Yeah, especially the bombers and
3:33
or the cork and cage and all that stuff.
3:34
That's exactly. What I'm just thinking of, you
3:36
have those bigger bottles, yeah. Those Belgian goose and all that
3:39
stuff. So, but if if we open up
3:43
Tennessee, you guys are getting cans, Sorry.
3:48
We'll take what we can get. I've been saying for years, my
3:52
friend, that I wish Great Lakes was sold here because every time
3:56
I go up to Ohio I'm like, I've got to load up and what I can
3:59
find. I'm not saying I, Well, yeah,
4:03
you never know. I'll say you never know.
4:05
Yeah. We are we're I looked the other
4:08
day because you guys on your website have, you know, kind of
4:11
a find it. You know what you're like, where
4:14
can you find the zip code in and I know we're going to find any
4:16
Tennessee, but there literally is some just across the Kentucky
4:20
border. Like you don't even have to go
4:21
all the way to Bowling Green. It's just like that's probably
4:24
40 minutes from here. So it's 3540 minutes here.
4:27
So it's doable. It's very.
4:29
Right there guys. It's right there.
4:31
Yeah. That's like Akron, OH, from us.
4:35
You know, it's like, yeah, well, I was.
4:38
Reading, and I was reading where you guys are in like 14 states
4:41
in Washington, DC now is where you can find your beer, is that
4:43
right? Yeah, we actually and we, we
4:46
just opened up two more states three or four months ago.
4:50
We opened up Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
4:53
So kind of filling out a little bit of the East Coast.
4:57
So you never know, guys. You never know.
4:59
We did, we did NYC last year. So like opening up a new market
5:04
here or there. Tennessee's, it's a contiguous
5:07
state. You never know, I mean.
5:09
You're so close. You're so close.
5:12
Yeah, it's close. Out a little bit, we'll come up
5:15
and see you. You guys come down to us too.
5:16
That'd be great. Yeah, yeah.
5:18
And. And has that been they slow
5:20
growth over the last few years of expanding to other states?
5:24
You know, as far as like, we don't, we don't want to, we
5:27
don't want to overtax ourselves. But has it been kind of a, a
5:31
slow burn into doing that kind of thing?
5:33
Yeah. So like our setup, our
5:36
production facility can probably realistically handle like 150
5:40
ish. I mean, we could probably
5:44
squeeze more out of it, but like we've done 150,000 ish barrels
5:48
out of that facility and it's like kind of 24/7, you know what
5:51
I mean? Outside, like it's a little slow
5:53
in the, you know, in like February, March when people are
5:56
drinking less beer and all that stuff.
5:57
But so we can't just go to say we're going to open for new
6:05
states or something because we don't have the capacity to do
6:07
it. And I don't know, you know, the
6:10
conversations you have with other people in the biz, but
6:14
like craft beer right now is kind of stable but not really
6:20
growing or anything. So like we're kind of happy
6:25
where we are. If there's a little bit of
6:28
growth here and there, maybe it's kind of helping us stay at
6:32
that, that even keel or up a couple of percentage points,
6:35
something like that. So those are, we call them
6:38
levers. You know, you can pull a lever,
6:40
do that, do that. So, but we, we really like
6:45
historically outside maybe like the late 90s, early 2000's, the
6:51
Conway's have have been very methodical in their growth
6:55
approach. And even when they open new
6:56
states in the the heady times of the 2000s, it was never like
7:00
we're going to open 10 new states at one time.
7:02
It was like, OK, we'll we'll go Pennsylvania, Detroit, you know,
7:10
actually we weren't even in Indiana until sometime
7:13
relatively recently, just kind of funny Chicago, you know,
7:15
stuff like that. It was never just this big like
7:18
money grabbed because they everything's affected.
7:20
And I'm not saying like you can expand fast and do it well, but
7:25
that's never really how the guys rolled.
7:27
It was always just like quality product first, OK, we did, we
7:32
did that market right. Now we can think about this one
7:35
and and move on from there. OK, good people.
7:37
And all of them too, you know. Yeah.
7:39
And if you add new market, you still have to be able to sustain
7:41
what you already doing and not piss anybody off that you're a
7:45
customer have as customers. Yep.
7:47
And the in the end, you know, you guys know from down there
7:50
it's like ultimately the local markets is king.
7:55
So like, you know, I'm sure it's probably mostly tap rims and
7:59
stuff like that down there anyways.
8:00
But those who do package their beer and cans and bottles and
8:04
stuff sell most of it close to home anyway.
8:07
So like even though we're in 16 states, a majority of what we
8:13
produce is, is consumed within fifty 100 miles.
8:19
Yeah. So it's pretty much northern
8:22
Ohio. It's not.
8:23
It's not far, yeah. So in the states that you
8:26
mentioned, for people that may be listening to their states or
8:29
other places, what are normally the offerings from Great Lakes
8:32
that they're going to be able to find?
8:34
So pretty much anywhere the in the states that we're in are
8:39
that goes basically the states around the Great Lakes.
8:42
So Minnesota down through, you know, obviously Wisconsin,
8:45
Illinois and so on, going over to the other side, New York, of
8:50
course, PA and all that. And then East Coast.
8:54
So again, I mentioned, I mentioned Massachusetts and
8:56
Rhode Island, that New York City, DC, Virginia and all that.
9:00
So that's kind of our footprint. You're going to see the classics
9:04
because you know, Dormunter again, Dormunter and Emman
9:07
Fitzgerald and so on. Well, actually the further you
9:10
go from Cleveland, the less dorm under you see, but Elliot Ness,
9:14
Edmund Fitzgerald are huge. Further away from home, you'll
9:18
see the seasonal. So Christmas sale, of course, is
9:20
going to be everywhere. That's the we'll have to talk
9:24
Christmas sale in particular, because that one's the it's
9:27
totally insane what that beer does.
9:30
But Oktoberfest and Conway's are huge, but the the sales guys are
9:34
definitely trying to make sure that like Midwest IPA and
9:38
Vivacious get out there. It's tough because everyone has
9:41
their own local IPA, you know what I mean?
9:43
But Midwest will be out there and it's a very consistent and,
9:49
you know, affordable and all that.
9:55
Yeah. That's a nice ABV on that
9:57
Midwest too. I was looking at it when I
9:59
poured it a minute ago. It's a 7%.
10:01
It's a really nice, you know, the 9 might be a little too much
10:04
for some people. That 7 to me is just right on
10:07
par. Yes, anywhere between 6:00 and
10:08
7:00 is kind of perfect. Nice is the operative word for
10:11
that Bureau, too, by the way. Midwest.
10:14
Yeah, Midwest. Nice.
10:16
That's what that beer is all about.
10:17
Yeah, everything about it. Very.
10:20
Nice. It's the perfect word.
10:22
Everything about that beer is nice.
10:24
Just like, just like us in the middle.
10:25
Exactly. Yeah.
10:26
Yeah. When I write this beer later,
10:27
that's my comment is going to be nice.
10:29
It's. Just nice.
10:29
Exactly. Nice.
10:30
It's a nice IPA. It's approachable.
10:33
It's friendly. It's just like us in the
10:35
Midwest. Yeah.
10:37
So that's what that's that's what people are going to see.
10:39
Yeah. So you sent us Christmas ale and
10:42
it's almost as they say, it's his the season.
10:45
Let's talk about it, because it's one that you all.
10:48
Are let's. Dive in, I got a whole section
10:50
on. Let us dive in, because
10:52
Christmas Ale. Is going.
10:54
Back the knuckles. Great Lakes has been selling for
10:57
quite some time, right? Yeah.
10:59
So this beer is in the early 90s.
11:01
So I mentioned Dormunder and Elliot Ness are kind of the 1st
11:04
2:00. We brought on a Brewer in the
11:08
early 90s who were was more familiar with ale fermentation
11:12
stuff. So that's where the Paleo on the
11:14
Porter came from and the Christmas sale.
11:16
So we say 92 and we wish that Pat and Dan wrote more stuff
11:22
down. So we're kind of like it's
11:24
probably 92. That's when we started
11:27
streaming. That's.
11:28
What we could tell it's. Probably 92.
11:30
Yeah. And the inspiration there was
11:33
really Pat, he wanted to make a beer for the holidays.
11:37
He just wanted to, he wanted to make a beer that channelled that
11:40
spirit. And in particular from the
11:43
Midwest perspective, you know, so there's like celebration from
11:47
Sierra is a wonderful beer. It's one of my favorites period.
11:52
But they they tried that and they're like, oh, it's, it's
11:56
very happy. And it's, it doesn't feel like a
11:58
Midwest holiday beer. And all that makes sense for the
12:01
West Coast. And of course, there's the
12:02
Anchor one. There's maybe a little bit of
12:04
inspiration there. So they landed on this blend of
12:09
honey, cinnamon and ginger the way we do it today.
12:14
And the recipe has not, for any intents and purposes, change.
12:17
It's just the scale that we brooded at because of our
12:21
different systems. Today in 175 barrel batch it's
12:25
20 lbs of cinnamon and it's whole cinnamon sticks, 20 lbs of
12:30
ginger and it's ginger root fresh sliced and 155 gallon drum
12:37
of honey which is 612 lbs of honey per batch.
12:43
So, and you know, some of the others, there's we brewed some
12:48
beers today. You guys have the Cran orange
12:50
wheat juicy vivaceous. Just Full disclosure, there's
12:55
there's some, some of the real stuff in there, some real juice
12:58
and all that. There's some flavor boost going
13:00
on in there too. But Christmas sale remains.
13:03
It's part of what makes this beer special is that it's still
13:07
the Brewers. It's a pain in the butt,
13:09
basically. There's a lot going on there.
13:12
They Steve the the cinnamon and ginger in the boil, the the
13:16
duration of the hour boil. And it's like if you're up in
13:19
the brewhouse, it's basically like this giant tea strainer
13:23
thing that they dunk in there. And then there's, I mean,
13:25
there's a crane that sound like someone has to monitor it all
13:29
the time, But it's a lot of raw material, a little bit of extra
13:33
expense that goes into that beer.
13:36
But those proportions just they, they nailed the balance of the
13:41
spices, part of the beauty of a lot of our beers, but especially
13:45
this one is like you get all that cinnamon and ginger and
13:50
it's got some extra brightness to it because it's, it's fresh
13:53
stuff and all that. But it's also a really drinkable
13:59
7.5% spiced beer. So do you guys see like in
14:05
Nashville, Nashville area? Are there beers like this down
14:08
there? No, no.
14:12
Not like that, I don't think, no.
14:14
I don't think anybody even locally makes anything and we
14:17
maybe something from outside of here but nothing comes to mind.
14:22
I mean, about the only, about the only one I can think of on
14:25
the top of my head is I know like obviously Sam Adams does
14:28
seasonal stuff around the holidays, but I don't, I don't
14:32
know if they do anything at like exactly what you're talking
14:34
about there. You know that that checks out,
14:36
though. But it's a big, like, it's a big
14:38
Ohio thing. So there's and you know, it's
14:42
craft beer, we're all chummy and stuff like that.
14:44
And there are a bunch of homages out there, if you will, but none
14:48
of them really seem to nail that same blend of the flavor and the
14:53
drink ability that ours does. And the honey ferments out so,
14:56
so nicely. There's, there's a little bit
14:58
less body that makes it more drinkable and the, the cinnamon
15:01
kind of dries that a little bit like a pleasant astringency to
15:04
it and all. So it's, it's a crazy beer.
15:10
It's we just really nailed the recipe, the vibe.
15:15
It's got that little train car on the label, right?
15:18
And something about that little train car that channels
15:20
Christmas and all that, right? You know, in Cleveland, we've
15:23
got the Christmas story house in Cleveland.
15:25
Like, I mean, we love this stuff here.
15:28
So this thing just blew up. And like, you know, I'm in
15:33
marketing and stuff that's I know that stuff's important,
15:36
especially when obviously when it's done tastefully and you're
15:38
not shoving something in someone's face.
15:41
This beer just blew up on its own.
15:47
You can't make a beer like Christmas ale up.
15:49
So they they nailed the beer. It got gained A cult following.
15:54
Next thing you know, it's our number one selling beer, even
15:58
though it's only sold for 10 weeks of the year.
16:01
And again, we're we're we're the 17th largest great for in the
16:04
country. So to say that Christmas sale is
16:07
our our leading brand, that means there's a ridiculous
16:10
amount of Christmas sale being brewed every year.
16:14
And it's purely just because people love that beer and the
16:17
the spirit that it brings and everything.
16:20
We market it now obviously, but like last week on Thursday the
16:26
the beer hit the market on the when this is being recorded,
16:30
it's second last week of October.
16:33
So the beer had this past Monday.
16:34
The Thursday before that we did our first pour party at the brew
16:38
pub. Yeah.
16:40
Do you guys ever line up for a specialty beer release?
16:43
You ever done that? Nope.
16:45
You know that. Do you know the notion of it,
16:47
though? There's like that like.
16:51
Like, I think people do it for it in Chicago for like Bourbon
16:55
County. Exactly right.
16:57
That kind of thing, that special.
16:59
Exactly. And that's like, OK, so the the
17:01
Bourbon County variance, there's like 500 bottles, right?
17:04
Yeah. Yeah.
17:05
So you line up. I get that for our Christmas
17:09
sale, first pour day, people started lining up at 6:45 AM
17:15
Wow. They open at 11 on a Thursday.
17:19
That means they take the day off, and they probably took
17:21
Friday off. Sit outside for four hours to
17:28
drink a beer that will be in the grocery store on Monday.
17:32
That shows you the power of that beer.
17:34
It's an. Event and when I say line up, I
17:37
literally mean at least down the street, up the street, down the
17:42
street again. And we've had years where the
17:44
line has almost extended back around to the brew pub because,
17:48
wow. Yeah.
17:50
So that we didn't make that. It just happened, you know what
17:54
I mean? And thinking about that, there's
17:57
probably people that you have run into and met that probably
18:03
have done that for a number of years like it's.
18:04
A yearly. Tradition that they gather for.
18:07
Absolutely. And I, I do that.
18:09
So we do a fun contest where we ask people to submit.
18:12
It's, it's been different submissions throughout the
18:15
years, but we asked fans to submit something to, to be the
18:20
first poor VIP. So they get to go behind the
18:23
bar, receive the first pour of Christmas sale and everything.
18:26
So I get to give them a little tour before the 1st pour and
18:29
everything. So I've gotten to know those
18:31
people. And when I was going to meet
18:35
this year's first poor people, I walked out to the outside the
18:39
office and I ran into the guys from two years ago in line.
18:43
And then I looked down at the the beginning of the line and
18:45
saw the couple from the year before that.
18:51
They're invested. Some of the people who were at
18:54
the front of the line have been in towards the front of the line
18:57
for a number of years and we were taking selfies and stuff in
19:00
the tap room and everything. So it's really cool.
19:02
It's awesome. So that shows you guys the
19:04
power. I mean, it's just, it's an
19:05
amazing beer. It's just no matter where we go.
19:08
I used to travel a little bit more pre COVID and all that to
19:11
go to some of the other states. No matter where you go, you say
19:14
Great Lakes. Oh, Christmas sale, Christmas
19:16
sale. It's like it's great.
19:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not only do you guys do that,
19:22
you have the poor there in Cleveland, the first poor in
19:24
Cleveland, but I saw that other cities and states do a first
19:28
pour as well, right, for the Christmas sale, like Wisconsin
19:31
and New York and and Chicago. I think Pennsylvania's in there
19:34
somewhere like yeah. Do they also do it on the same
19:37
day as it all coordinated or? No, no, those guys do it.
19:41
They all get the beer. They they have the beer, but
19:44
they for whatever makes sense for their market.
19:46
So yeah, it's not, it's not like all on that, that first Thursday
19:50
or that Thursday before market release.
19:54
It's, it's kind of what makes sense.
19:55
But it's usually, you know, late October, early November because
19:58
people want to get it out, they want to get it on, on tap and
20:00
all that. Yeah, that's, it's just a fun
20:03
extension. It's just a fun extension of of
20:07
what we do, you know, at the pub, extending that to the rest.
20:11
Yeah, and to tell so, so not only do you drink that beer you
20:15
guys have and you have it for other beers too, but you've got
20:18
recipes on your website for for the for the Christmas sale.
20:23
Oh yeah. Things like apple pie, chili,
20:27
wing sauce. The chili is really good.
20:30
Yeah, there's even one there. I think it was like a mold, the
20:35
molded thing, like a crock pot mold where you basically you
20:38
create a spice drink, like a warm spice drink, and you put
20:40
that beer in there and then you put some other spices and things
20:43
and and stuff to go along with it too.
20:45
So this thing is so versatile. It's not good.
20:48
I mean, it's not just for drinking, but it's it's edible
20:50
in a way too. Yeah, and like, you know, it's a
20:54
multi beer. Like when we're cooking all
20:57
those, like you're growing a steak, those lines that you got
21:00
in the steak, that's a that's a Browning reaction.
21:02
It links up perfectly with the the malt and the spices.
21:06
We just wifey and I had ramen this past Friday, Christmas sale
21:13
and ramen. And like it was, it was, it
21:16
wasn't just Maruchan. You know, it was like full on
21:20
ramen, right. It was like it wasn't just this
21:22
this the seasoning packet. It was you got the real stuff.
21:27
You got the real stuff, by the way.
21:29
I love that stuff too. I do too, to throw an egg in
21:32
there. You know the.
21:33
Spices with fans like it works so.
21:36
Yeah, I'm curious, how many? What do you average a season of?
21:40
How many Christmas hails that you drink?
21:42
What's your average? OK, so for those of us who work
21:49
at Great Lakes, we tend to not actually drink that much of it
21:55
for various reasons. I am actually, I have swung back
22:00
to really, I have always like known that it's a good beer.
22:03
But like this past year I've been like, yeah, I'm excited.
22:07
Like ow, I like I'm drinking. I'm like, oh, this is I'm going
22:10
to have a good amount of it this year.
22:12
But like, historically speaking, a lot of us don't really drink
22:16
it that much because we deal with the mania all the time.
22:20
Yeah. It's kind of like, Oh my
22:22
goodness. Yeah.
22:23
And then so, you know, with my the advanced sister and stuff
22:28
and all that, I've got the trained pallet and we of course
22:31
plenty of other people with trained pallets too.
22:33
But I sit on sensory panel all the time.
22:36
And I've been Q seeing Christmas sales since like mid August.
22:39
So it's like, I've already been drinking this beer for two
22:42
months. Yeah.
22:44
By the time it comes, typically by the time it comes around,
22:47
it's like. Yeah, and you're not even really
22:50
getting to drink it, like casually or leisurely, right?
22:53
You're drinking it for work in that sense.
22:56
Though Yeah, but no. But this year it's I don't know
22:59
if it's we got the little girl in our life this year.
23:02
And there's then there's a little bit more of that vibe.
23:04
So it's I almost brought a Christmas sale to to enjoy on
23:09
the pod but I just I kept in Midwest.
23:13
Well, you sent US1 and I'm looking forward to and we don't
23:15
want to hang on to it too long because we want it to stay
23:18
fresh. But I think what I'll do is I
23:20
think it's going to be 86 here tomorrow.
23:22
I'd like for a nice chilly night sometime soon.
23:25
Yeah, you guys are a little bit further South.
23:27
Yeah, yeah, the nice weather is hanging on.
23:30
Yeah, I mean, it's really nice. We're going to set a record
23:32
tomorrow at 86 and I love it, but it doesn't really lend
23:35
itself to drinking Christmas ale.
23:36
I mean, I will, and it's no problem.
23:38
It's just. No, no.
23:39
But that's that. We see that too, though.
23:42
We. Yeah, usually the the the couple
23:45
days leading at the first pour was like 50 in Gray here.
23:47
And I was like, yes, yeah, that's good.
23:50
Ideal. You can bet when I'm up in Ohio
23:53
in early December, I'll be getting myself some more
23:56
Christmas. Yeah, yeah, maybe you could.
23:57
Maybe you could bring your buddy back some too, because I feel
23:59
like I'm gonna cook some now. I want to cook with it.
24:02
Hey. Girl.
24:04
I know we're running out of time, but but I want to go back
24:06
to something we we mentioned a couple of these these beer names
24:10
throughout the podcast, but there's there's a reason some of
24:13
these beer names are named what they are.
24:14
So kind of the OG stuff. There's a you guys have embraced
24:20
the Cleveland obviously and Great Lakes area with the names
24:25
of some of these beers. Obviously we've mentioned Elliot
24:26
Ness, kind of obvious why right, crime fighter there.
24:31
But but there there's a couple others and they're actually,
24:34
there's a reason they're name this thing like the Commodore
24:36
Perry, Edmund Fitzgerald and Conway's, all of these have a
24:41
tie to that area. Can you talk a little bit about
24:44
that? Yeah, totally.
24:45
So, yeah. And that's that was a big thing
24:47
for the Conways. Like they had especially his big
24:50
time storyteller and all that. So and he's fascinated with the
24:52
history of everything. So that's where the the impetus
24:55
was for a lot for those early names.
24:59
So like Evan Fitzgerald, many are aware that was that's it's
25:05
not a fun it's not a fun story. Some some of these are fun
25:07
stories and some are not. So the Edmund Fitzgerald not a
25:09
fun story that was famous freighter that sunken Lake
25:13
Superior on November 10th, 197529 crew members perished.
25:18
Many of them were from Northeast Ohio.
25:21
So why name a beer for that? The Conways are are friends with
25:27
the son of the first mate from the Edmund Fitzgerald.
25:32
And when we were brewing the Porter, Pat kind of imagined
25:36
what it would have been like on Lake Superior on that fateful
25:40
day when that storm kind of came out of nowhere, you know, dark,
25:44
all that stuff. And so he really wanted to name
25:47
the beer in honor of the crew who lost their lives on that
25:51
ship. So he asked for he asked for the
25:54
son of the first mate's blessing.
25:56
He said, I think my father would be honored if he named the beer
25:58
after him and his crew. So so it's pretty cool,
26:00
especially because that beer has done so well for us quality wise
26:04
and everything. Commodore Perry was the hero of
26:09
the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812.
26:14
So there's a lot of stuff along Lake Erie that's named Perry
26:18
something. So he performed, you know, some
26:25
sort of very heroic maneuver in that battle.
26:28
If something like he like sailed a ship through the British fleet
26:35
and then from the other side was able to take him out.
26:37
Some very bold move like that. It changed the tide of that war
26:42
and kept it for the good guys and all that, right?
26:44
So. Absolutely.
26:47
So, you know, at the time that beer came out, Commodore Perry,
26:52
even though it was an English style IPA at that time, it was
26:55
very hot poured, very bold and hot flavor and all that.
26:58
So it kind of reflected the nature of the beer there too.
27:00
So the stories are farming and chanting and all that, but they
27:05
also kind of reflected the nature of the beer as well.
27:09
Conway's, I have Michelle's named after Pat and Dan's
27:11
grandfather who was a traffic officer in in the neighborhood,
27:14
all that kind of stuff. And then you've got vibration
27:17
vibacious, which we made-up so. And I would.
27:23
Tell you it's a vibe and it's delicious so.
27:25
There you go. That's awesome.
27:28
Those those beers we just mentioned there with the, you
27:30
know, the ties to, to Cleveland, the great look at the look at
27:33
the artwork, whether it's on the can or the bottles and all.
27:36
They all tell that story of what that beer is kind of of what
27:40
that beer is from, right? Don't they all kind of tell a
27:43
little bit of a story of what it is?
27:45
Yeah, and the our artists. So we, we worked with a man
27:49
named Sam Hadley. He's an illustrator.
27:52
He's actually from, he's from Ireland.
27:53
He's done, he's done some work for a couple of other breweries
27:55
too, I believe. But he does an amazing job with
27:58
the intricacy of the detail. You know the the bold pose, the
28:04
Commodore Perry's and the lightning going on, the Edmund
28:08
Fitzgerald mysterious figure in the back of the Elliot Ness
28:11
label and all that. We've been doing some in house
28:14
stuff. Jamison Campbell, one of my team
28:16
mates has been doing some of the newer labels like the Dormunder
28:19
and Midwest and all that too. But it's kind of fun to see the
28:22
different expressions of what's going on in the art, too.
28:26
I think it's another example of you were talking about kind of
28:28
the traditional and the modern. You guys are, you're maintaining
28:32
traditional, you can see the labels of that stuff and that's
28:34
kind of the traditional stuff and you got the new stuff kind
28:36
of the flashier things, but it's a nice meld of those things.
28:40
Yep, came in all in balance, so yeah.
28:43
Yeah, it's, it's really cool. And I, you know, you, you can
28:45
recognize you walk into a store and you know it.
28:48
And for us, we don't see it every day.
28:50
Walk into a store, you can pick out a Great Lakes bottle.
28:52
I can tell from 30 feet or 50 feet that's I'm going to be able
28:56
to read with the label sets. But I can, Yeah.
28:58
Definitely. That's you know what I mean.
28:59
That's all about that's. A Great Lakes bottle?
29:01
Absolutely yes. Yeah, it's about that
29:04
recognition, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:06
Really cool stuff. Have you got a couple of more
29:08
minutes or you want to kind of wind this now?
29:10
I'm good. We can keep going for a little
29:12
bit. Yeah.
29:13
Yeah. I got a little bit more time.
29:14
I'm cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:15
OK, we don't want to keep you too long.
29:16
What? What do we still need to hit?
29:19
You guys have Emcs? I'll tell you what I would love
29:22
to talk about. See you probably have some stuff
29:24
too, but the stuff you guys do environmentally and and I'll ask
29:29
you specific questions, but with the community stuff too.
29:32
So you guys are environmentally conscious.
29:35
You've got some solar panels up on I think on the brew house and
29:39
the tap room too maybe? The brew pub.
29:41
There's some on top of the brew pub.
29:45
And so and you mentioned the River Burning Fest beer.
29:49
That you had. You had you.
29:50
Had to go with, but you guys, actually there is a river
29:53
burning burn fest, right? It's river burning fest.
29:56
Yeah, so the the beer kind of preceded all that.
29:59
But when we started doing and the the the river caught on fire
30:03
a number. It happened everywhere, but we
30:05
got some notoriety for it in Cleveland BIG.
30:07
Historical event up there we. Go Indeed.
30:10
Yeah, June 22nd, 1969. So we used that.
30:17
Obviously it was kind of a cheeky thing for the beer, but
30:21
then we used that. We use that brand for our film.
30:24
Some of our philanthropic efforts specifically for water
30:27
conservation up here haven't been able to do the fest for a
30:30
little while. You know, COVID kind of killed
30:32
it for a little bit and it may or may not come back, but we
30:35
still generally do water conservation efforts.
30:38
There's a group up here called Drink Local Drink Tap.
30:41
We've been doing work with. A lot of that stuff comes from
30:45
the pub these days, but when it comes to general sustainability
30:51
stuff, we actually just won an award.
30:54
Oh my goodness, I'm going to cheat.
30:57
I'm allowed to and I'm going to look.
31:00
There's no hurry. Yeah, I'm going to look at our
31:01
Instagram so I can so I can give it a proper shout.
31:07
So basically I put the platinum level business resource champion
31:11
award by the local lake or local county recycling some sort of
31:17
group so. OK.
31:19
Those kind of things we're still able to do.
31:20
Unfortunately, you know, like with so many other things and
31:24
the current state of not, that's not a general commentary, but
31:28
just like our industry and and rising cost for everything and
31:33
fallout from past couple years and everything from 2020 and
31:36
2021, we have been able to do as much stuff as we did in the
31:40
past. But that's still a very core
31:41
part of what we do at Great Lakes.
31:45
It's a little bit more localized right now in small scale.
31:48
But knowing Pat and Dan, when they have the the funds to bring
31:55
it back to a bigger scale, they will definitely do that because
31:58
they are, they're good guys. That's like it's, it's very
32:02
heart warming for working for a couple of guys who care that
32:05
much about the people in the planet on top of their business,
32:08
you know? Yeah.
32:10
And and I think it even says on your website, you know, 90% of
32:12
beer is water. So, you know, it takes, it makes
32:15
sense to take care of that and to and to give back and to, you
32:18
know, recycle where you can and those kind of conservation.
32:22
And. Those things obviously you guys
32:23
do like you recycle the spank grain, which is always a huge
32:26
thing, right? You can livestock and what else
32:30
you ever may do with that. We've got the circle of life
32:32
thing going on, like the brew, the beer spank grain, goes to
32:36
the cattle market across the street from us, buys beef from
32:43
that farmer, butchers. It goes to burger patties, goes
32:47
to the pub and it's like I'll. Continue.
32:51
Yeah. That's been on and off, but I'm
32:53
pretty sure we're doing that again right now.
32:55
So yeah, OK. Yeah, that's a beautiful.
32:57
It wouldn't be funny if you get the patties and they're like
33:00
taste a little bit like Dortmunder brain.
33:03
That's what this cows are happy. Cows, yeah.
33:07
We had a little buzz when they were eating it.
33:10
Yeah, well, it's all pretty fermentation, but yeah, extra
33:14
sugars though. Extra sugars.
33:15
Yeah, fat and happy they are. Yeah.
33:20
Yeah. So that stuff's still.
33:21
That stuff's important for us. Yeah, no doubt.
33:23
And you mentioned earlier you guys have a farm around the
33:25
corner too, that's. Yep, it's it's an acre of urban
33:30
farmland. That was one that was founded
33:33
was probably the largest urban farm in the country.
33:38
It's, it may not be anymore, but it it's, it's, it's fairly vast
33:43
and it's got a, it's got a beautiful view of the downtown
33:45
Cleveland skyline too. So nice sons of produce don't do
33:49
anything like hops or anything there, but a lot of produce that
33:51
we serve in the pub. OK, all right, So you just grow
33:54
it there and just bring it over to the pub.
33:55
Very nice. Yep.
33:58
I saw something on your social media today that was pretty
34:00
cool. Steve, I don't know if you saw
34:01
this. Maybe you did.
34:02
It's it's called, it's not even out yet.
34:05
It's called Interstate tailgate here that you're coming out
34:08
with. OK, so it's a, it's a it's, it's
34:11
a, it's a 50 W in Great Lakes collab.
34:16
Cincinnati and Cleveland. It comes out with 11/2 November.
34:22
Yeah, I think the big tapping party is in nearly November.
34:28
Yeah. So how does something like that
34:30
come about? As you say, we just two cities
34:32
get together and hey, let's, let's, let's make a beer.
34:35
That's the that was the local sales guys.
34:36
I think they're they're friends with the the peeps at 50 W.
34:40
So that's that's how a lot of those like we we've got that.
34:43
We do one with lakefront in Milwaukee.
34:48
So that's an annual collab as well.
34:50
That's for the great taste in the Midwest Beer fest.
34:53
But you guys are a Great American beer fest, right.
34:56
Were you were you both at that? OK, that was I wasn't.
34:58
That wasn't Yeah. Good times.
35:01
Yeah, good times. We did.
35:03
You go. Were you there?
35:05
Oh no, I've only been the one time.
35:07
Yeah, it's been a while, so. Yeah, I did.
35:09
We, we did the Friday event, but we like to go a few days early
35:12
and we hit like this year we hit Colorado Springs for a couple of
35:14
days and hit those breweries and then, you know, go to Denver for
35:17
the big event. So we've done Fort Collins
35:19
before and we we'll do different cities every year and then hit
35:21
Denver on the last day. Cool, very nice check.
35:24
That out so yeah, yeah. So anything you can tell us any,
35:30
any break, not breaking news, but any exclusives you can give
35:34
us for 2025? Anything coming up expansions?
35:39
There's there's nothing concrete for anything like that right
35:42
now. What I can say for sure is so
35:45
like we have a new, so we had a different hazy in the past,
35:54
which was a solid brew and all that, but but this Midwest IPA
35:58
kind of being like the the big thing for us right now, there's
36:02
going to be a hazy version of that rolling out.
36:06
That is for those who are listening who are in the
36:10
distribution area, there's going to be some draft of that
36:12
floating around. It's actually kind of floating
36:13
around right now. Like if you're in, if you're in
36:16
the Northeast Ohio area, you could go to like Winking Lizard
36:20
Taverns or local chain kind of craft beer chain.
36:23
They've got it on tap right now. So there's going to be a hazy
36:26
version of Midwest coming out. It's the same nice approach.
36:29
You know, it's not, it's not overly heavy.
36:32
It's not super turbid and it's hazy.
36:35
It's hazy, but it's not, there's not chunks of stuff floating
36:37
around there or anything like that.
36:39
So right, that's coming out like I didn't send you guys this
36:43
this, but I don't think I did. There's a light lager.
36:47
I mentioned it earlier. I think in the podcast, it's
36:49
called Cold Rush. That might be a thing.
36:53
Big thing next year. We'll see.
36:55
That's kind of, we're kind of feeling that one out right now.
36:57
So 4 percent, 100 calories. It's you know, rate it higher
37:03
than a 3.5 on untapped. I'd say we, we've, we've come
37:08
across some light loggers recently.
37:10
Ryan guys had had a good one, has a good one.
37:13
National Brewing here locally has a good one.
37:15
So there's definitely something there to those and they are
37:17
really good. Yep, yeah, it's playing that
37:19
same, that same sandbox as Sensi Lite and all that.
37:22
So those are kind of the things. But like the nice thing is when
37:26
it comes to the beers and all that, I mean, we have, we need
37:28
to be coming out with new stuff. But some of the stuff we've come
37:31
out with recently is like it's clicking.
37:33
So we're going to kind of keep kind of keep rolling with that.
37:36
But hazy version, just like there's the juicy version of
37:38
vibacious, right? There's the juicy version of
37:40
Vibacious, hazy version of Midwest.
37:44
Yeah. And the late lager.
37:45
I mean that those are the, those are the big things.
37:47
We're still going to be in Ohio City for the, for the brewery,
37:50
for the, for the foreseeable future, Tennessee.
37:53
We'll see. I don't know.
37:55
I'll tell. You What if Indiana messes up in
37:58
in, If they just messed up a little bit, you kick them out.
38:01
You come here. That's right.
38:03
We'll twist your arm. Come on down.
38:05
Indiana, you're on the clock, baby.
38:07
You know, it's all about contiguous States and stuff and
38:10
you guys are right there. So we're.
38:11
Right here we're. Right, never know, Maybe this
38:14
podcast will be what gets it done.
38:15
Hey that. Would be awesome.
38:17
The. Demand just blows up even more.
38:21
Come down for the ribbon cutting, we'll join you.
38:22
Wherever the. First, Yeah, that'd be good.
38:26
That'd be good. Hey, there was something
38:28
interesting. I saw you were St. that you guys
38:31
are on Market Avenue. I believe it is.
38:33
Yep, there was some controversy. There is some controversy over
38:36
the past few years about closing that to traffic.
38:40
Yeah. And I say that because
38:42
apparently that's all the businesses down there kind of
38:45
want that The mayor apparently wants it.
38:49
I think most people want that to be closed traffic, but it hasn't
38:52
happened yet. Is that still, do you guys hear
38:54
about that a lot? Is that still kind of in the
38:55
news? Yeah, well, we actually know we
38:57
did. We did get it.
38:58
We got to close down. So it is that was I think that
39:01
was this year. So just just this year that that
39:04
ended up happening. So but no, it's it's fine.
39:07
It's I think it's good for ultimately it's good for that
39:10
little square right there. I don't know if you do you guys
39:12
have like outdoor recreation areas where you can just carry a
39:16
beer from spot to spot or anything like that.
39:19
It's it's probably a state by state thing, right?
39:21
Yeah, and it's certainly events downtown.
39:23
You can do it, but not all the time.
39:24
Yeah. And that's like that's some kind
39:25
of AI think a relatively new thing for Ohio.
39:28
So I don't know if that's in the plans for the neighborhood, but
39:30
I mentioned back earlier on like our neighborhood was the
39:35
original brewing district. It's that again today.
39:39
So that's kind of the hub where the highest concentration of
39:42
breweries is in the city of Cleveland.
39:45
So I think the street being closed is probably good and
39:49
maybe who knows, a sign towards something like that down the
39:53
road. But for first, I'll tell you
39:56
what, for the first board party that we just had, it's
39:58
definitely nice to have that the street closed down.
40:01
We were able to have that overflow area.
40:04
It was a it was like 60° and sunny, which is perfect for.
40:09
Like the beginnings of Christmas sale because it's cooler.
40:12
But it was it was nice and dry out and all that.
40:14
You can be outside, yeah. Do they close?
40:16
Do they put like Ballers at the end of the street or something
40:18
so cars could get through? How do they Yeah, yeah, exactly.
40:20
Yeah. There's big planter type thing,
40:23
so I. Kind of ask because we've got
40:25
downtown Broadway and we don't go down there much but we wish
40:28
that would happen down there too and the traffic is there's 8
40:31
million people down there at any moment crossing the street and
40:34
horse and buggies and all this and that right come traffic just
40:37
right on through yeah, it's. I did Nashville.
40:40
I did Nashville once. It's been a while, but I gotta,
40:43
I gotta get back down there. If you come back, yeah, we'll
40:47
show you the good stuff. You don't.
40:48
You don't go downtown speaking. Of.
40:52
Places. That's where I was.
40:53
But yeah, I'm and I, we're going to do that, yeah.
40:57
Yeah, you could do that one so really big for the people in
41:00
your area. You guys had are the official
41:03
Brewers of the Cleveland Cavaliers and you have a a beer
41:07
that is specific. I won't say it's been like
41:08
before that, but it is served at with that market Rocket mortgage
41:12
field house. Yeah, yeah, right.
41:14
It's called Easy Buckets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
41:18
So, yeah, you know, for for a large, again, a larger craft
41:21
Brewer like us, having partnerships like that is big.
41:24
We had one with the Guardian, the baseball team for a little
41:29
while. We're doing Cavs right now.
41:32
And that one, it's been a fantastic partnership.
41:38
The Cavs run a really good show. It's a great franchise.
41:41
They whip the they're opposing team by 30 points in the in the
41:46
opener. So I'm pretty helpful for the
41:47
season right now and they're they're great partners.
41:51
It's a wonderful space. The arena downtown.
41:54
They're of course events that happen all all year round
41:57
outside of just the, the basketball season 2, you have a
42:01
really cool bar space in the arena that's got I think about
42:05
10-10 different beers on tap from us and we're always trying
42:08
to feature some new things there.
42:10
And then yes, there's the collaboration beer called easy
42:12
Buckets, which we have 3 sports beers.
42:16
You know, there's a, a vague football beer.
42:19
It's actually with Joe Thomas, the retired minor, the rally
42:23
drum, which was the general baseball theme and then easy
42:27
buckets, the blonde, all easy drinking sessionable styles for
42:31
easy to tip back while watching games and all that.
42:33
So I think we're on year three of that partnership and it's
42:37
it's been pretty cool. The opener's tomorrow.
42:42
So I wanna, I think I'm on baby duty.
42:45
Yeah. Am I on baby duty?
42:47
Yeah. Yeah, especially since you just
42:49
just ran long, so you. Definitely cuz I just got, I
42:51
just got I, I went to a lot of baseball games.
42:54
So yeah, this close, guys, we're this close.
42:57
Yeah, watch out. Yankees are coming.
43:01
Well, it's, you know, I am a Yankee fan.
43:04
I didn't want to bring up at the beginning of the podcast.
43:06
I figured you'd leave. So I.
43:08
No, no, no, you're fine. You're fine as long as you're
43:10
not a Red Sox fan. I'm.
43:11
Good. No, that's the bait of my
43:14
existence. And I'm.
43:17
A Reds and I'm a Reds fan. Yeah, you got you got our boy,
43:23
you got Tito. You're good.
43:25
Yeah. Frank And we got the hitting
43:27
coach today, too. That.
43:28
Yeah, yeah, that's all that so. Theo's had success everywhere
43:32
he's been so. He's the man.
43:33
Yeah. I think it's an all Ohio World
43:36
Series next year. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
43:39
Yeah. I think the, I think the, I
43:42
think the Yankees have something to say about that.
43:45
Yeah, we'll see. Now we're taking.
43:46
We're finally going to take you down.
43:48
I know it's only been four times the past.
43:51
We've only been eliminated by the Yankees four times in the
43:53
past seven years. So, you know, we're gonna get
43:55
this one. Yeah.
43:56
I was worried about this series this past year.
43:58
I was a little worried about. It it was good, those games
44:00
could have gone those games could have gone a different way
44:02
you. Guys got back in every one of
44:04
them at the end of the game, got back in everyone and I was.
44:06
I'm hopeful, yeah. It's gonna be fun.
44:08
It's gonna be fun, yeah. No doubt.
44:11
Did you have something to finish up with?
44:13
Yeah. Just one last question for
44:15
people that are obviously listening to this podcast and if
44:19
they don't live in Cleveland, but they come to Cleveland, they
44:21
want to go to Great Lakes, you guys do tours sometimes, right?
44:25
Absolutely, yeah. We've got so the whole campus
44:28
experiences top notch. We already talked about the
44:32
buildings, the the charm, the mystique for all that pub food
44:37
again, is, is amazing. But the events type stuff that
44:40
we do are excellent as well. So, and again, I was a tour
44:43
guide for a couple years, so I always got to pump my, my, my
44:46
fam up. But tours are Friday nights,
44:50
Saturday, most of the day is Sunday, early afternoon, hour
44:55
long. I mean, you basically you get
44:57
this experience in person. That's wonderful.
45:01
Couple samples, you know, an exclusive glass, you could see
45:04
the facility and all it's charm and all that stuff.
45:08
We do a bunch of, I do a number of classes, we do a bunch to
45:14
call it Hop College and it's a bunch of, it's a lot of pairings
45:19
actually with local businesses. So like there's a place that
45:22
makes Donuts with beer. So like we did the beer and
45:24
donut pairing and all that stuff.
45:26
So definitely if you're coming down, do more than just the pub.
45:31
The pub's awesome, but there's so much other stuff you can
45:33
experience there down there as well.
45:37
That's fantastic time. Yeah, sounds like it.
45:40
Steve and I make an annual trek to Cincinnati.
45:42
We were talking about it as we were doing this podcast.
45:44
We kept realizing more and more interesting stuff about your
45:46
brewery and how great it is. And we're like, all right, we're
45:48
going to add we're back down to Cincinnati.
45:50
So that's part of our plan next next spring.
45:53
Nice, I like it. Come to you.
45:57
Beautiful. I like it.
45:58
Come on up, you guys know, Hit me up if you're in Cleveland,
46:01
don't worry. You hit me up some beer, you get
46:05
the the behind the scenes and all that.
46:07
So love it, love it. We'll make sure to do that.
46:11
Cool. Beautiful.
46:14
Steven, wind it down. Yeah.
46:16
Well, Michael, thank you very, very much.
46:18
We appreciate it. And, you know, I think that
46:22
hopefully we'll have you back one of these days again that.
46:24
'D be great, more beer with you. Let's get more questions.
46:28
I know we we only have the first half tonight, right?
46:31
That's true. I think so.
46:32
You got it. You got it.
46:34
Awesome. Thank you.
46:35
Thank you very much. That's Michael Williams.
46:37
He is with Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland, OH, and that's
46:43
going to do it for us. We're Scott Tehran.
46:45
I'm Steve Sullivan, and this has been the Brewery Underground
46:48
podcast.