Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Streetside Brewery's Garrett Hickey on His Brewing Journey, Craft Beer & Cincinnati Beer Culture | Part 2 | Episode 130

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Streetside Brewery's Garrett Hickey on His Brewing Journey, Craft Beer & Cincinnati Beer Culture | Part 2 | Episode 130 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:04
  Stand by for the Brewery Underground Nashville's horrible
• 0:15
  rise. Crafts and Brews will need the
• 0:19
  skies. Steven Scott.
• 0:21
  They lead the way. Brewery Underground, night and
• 0:25
  day. I am really fascinated with your
• 0:40
  beer story. Like how you got started.
• 0:43
  You were a home Brewer and you brewed beer with your dad,
• 0:47
  right? Like in the garage?
• 0:48
  I did. I did well to start.
• 0:52
  I was AI was a ticket sales Rep for a Miley baseball team.
• 1:00
  He started home brewing in Cincinnati.
• 1:02
  I was in Erie, PA, it was the offseason, so I had a lot of
• 1:05
  time to kill on the like leaving work.
• 1:09
  I don't know if you've ever been to Erie, PA in the winter, but
• 1:12
  there's not a whole lot to do. It's very cold.
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  That was actually the the snowiest year I think they've
• 1:17
  had like at this point, I think it's 1213 years.
• 1:23
  We won this golden snow globe that year, which is most, most
• 1:28
  snow in a city over 50,000 people I believe.
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  But we came in second. But it was ridiculous.
• 1:34
  It was like 200 something inches of snow that year.
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  So I didn't have a whole lot to do.
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  You can basically drink, work and watch TV.
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  That was so that's what I did. So he started home brewing.
• 1:47
  I was like, oh, I think I'll, I can do better than you.
• 1:50
  So I'm going to start home brewing.
• 1:51
  I started home brewing. I had more people to give it to
• 1:53
  because I, I had Co workers and we drink the home brew as we are
• 1:58
  like prepping the stadium for the spring.
• 2:01
  And then we kind of from there. I kind of pivoted very quickly.
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  They my parents had always wanted to start a bar in
• 2:08
  Cincinnati. And we're like, well, why not?
• 2:11
  Why not do a brewery? It's makes all the sense in the
• 2:14
  world to make your own product as opposed to buy product, which
• 2:18
  is obviously a lot of people say it's extremely naive.
• 2:21
  You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't.
• 2:23
  That should not be how you how you go about opening a brewery.
• 2:27
  So I end up quitting the job mid season came back home, started
• 2:34
  home brewing. I worked at I worked in a bar
• 2:36
  during the day. I was bar backing and then I
• 2:40
  would volunteer at Mad Tree during my off time on their
• 2:44
  canning line back when they had the canning line was a was a
• 2:47
  behemoth. It was like, I think you had to
• 2:50
  have like 6 people working it, which is now I think you
• 2:53
  probably have three people working quadruple the the size
• 2:57
  canning line over there. But I would volunteer over
• 3:00
  there. They paid me and beer.
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  Then I kept working at the bar, kept working at the bar.
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  We like, as we looked for a, a site for the brewery.
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  I was like, well, I like, I don't know that I'm going to, I
• 3:17
  don't know that I'm going to learn enough just home brewing.
• 3:20
  So I looked for a school with like a practical side, like a
• 3:24
  brewing school with a practical side.
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  Found one in Sunderland, England, which is on the coast
• 3:31
  right by Newcastle and you didn't really apply, you just
• 3:36
  paid. So I went over there.
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  I was over there for three months, worked.
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  We only ate whatever it is. 1111 weeks. 10 weeks total of actual
• 3:47
  brewing time, maybe a little bit longer, I can't remember.
• 3:50
  Every week. 3 days were two days were theoretical.
• 3:56
  No, three days were theoretical, 2 days were practical.
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  We'd basically homebrew one day and then go another day.
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  We'd go around the area to breweries in Northeast England
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  and we'd we'd work at, we'd work at a brewery, see how it worked
• 4:11
  over there. And then basically it's just
• 4:14
  like hung out. I hung out in Europe for those
• 4:17
  months like I was most, most weekends I was out like
• 4:23
  exploring. I would either go, I never
• 4:26
  actually, I think I went to Newcastle one night, which is
• 4:28
  like the that's like the party center of that area.
• 4:32
  But I went to Glasgow, went to Edinburgh, I went to Dublin, I
• 4:35
  went to Belfast, I went to I went all over, all over Europe.
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  That's just that's obviously just the UK ish in Republic of
• 4:44
  Ireland. But I did do other things.
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  I went to, I went to France, I went to Belgium.
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  Did you find a good beer over there, by the way?
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  Did find some good beer, got to drink at Cantillon.
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  Got to drink a bunch of wine in in France.
• 5:02
  So I got to, I got to experience some, some interesting, some
• 5:06
  interesting places, some interesting beverages.
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  And then I learned a bunch. Our professor was, or our
• 5:11
  teacher was formerly the head of production at Newcastle.
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  And he was so, yeah, a lot of experience, like very large.
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  But he, I mean, he knew, he knew everything.
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  So learned a lot from him and then came back to Cincinnati and
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  almost immediately got a job at Rivertown, which now no longer
• 5:30
  exists. But they were in Lockland and
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  got a job. I was in, I was on the packaging
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  side for a couple weeks just to make sure I went quit and then
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  they moved me over to the seller side.
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  So cleaning tanks, transferring beer, whatever, taking gravity
• 5:46
  is all that stuff. It's mostly when you're, when
• 5:49
  you're on that, when you're doing that much beer, it's
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  mostly cleaning tanks and transferring and filtering.
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  And they moved me over to the brewing side pretty quickly
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  after that. I was only selling for about a
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  month, maybe a month and a half. And then I was 1st shift on the
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  brewing side for about 10 months and then left that worked at a
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  bar bartending so I could kind of get another aspect of like
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  what front of house side. And then we open St. side
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  shortly after that. So I tried to get all aspects of
• 6:22
  everything. So I've done, I mean I did
• 6:24
  everything on the way to set, make sure that I knew at least
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  had some idea of how to do anything that might come up at
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  the brewery. When you're at Brew Lab, are
• 6:33
  they teaching you? Kind of one of the practices of
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  that part of the world. It was a lot of English
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  practices. The biggest, I mean one of the
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  biggest different, the biggest difference really is there's a
• 6:44
  couple, Oh, the first one is like they, even though they've
• 6:48
  been brewing obviously forever and the, the brewing industry
• 6:51
  over there is, is significantly more advanced time wise, but
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  there are still breweries over there that are using like
• 6:58
  plastic fermentors and like the equipment just like it's, it's
• 7:01
  pretty shitty, honestly. And it's crazy that these places
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  are like doing well and surviving, running on like the
• 7:08
  most raggedy ass equipment that you've ever seen.
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  Like it's crazy like in like warehouses that are like not
• 7:14
  very nice and like you like you go to a brewery in in the US and
• 7:19
  you see that and you assume the beer is probably pretty bad.
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  And they do they make pretty good beer at most these places.
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  It's pretty crazy. I mean, the the place that I'm
• 7:26
  talking about, they had the plastic for Mayor's didn't make
• 7:28
  very good beer, But so that was like a big one is like it's
• 7:31
  crazy. They were able to make pretty
• 7:33
  good to very good beer on bad equipment.
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  And then the other thing is like they they use all holy pops.
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  So it is a huge difference coming over and the, the big
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  difference between like once you're in the kennel, there's a
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  big, there's a huge change. So there was a, there was like a
• 7:52
  weird adjustment period when I started using like obviously at
• 7:57
  Rivertown, when I got over here, I had used whole wave hops on a
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  production level. I'd never used a penalized hops
• 8:06
  on a production level. And there was definitely like a
• 8:08
  weird thing. I was like, how do I like how do
• 8:11
  I filter this beer out because that those the holy fat hops act
• 8:15
  as a filter for them. They don't really a lot of those
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  those places don't have a Whirlpool to settle everything
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  out, which is how you settle out like protein and hops in
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  American brew houses. I was like, how the how am I
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  going to do this? Like I don't I don't know.
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  And then like, obviously you run a Whirlpool and it's all fine,
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  You just spray it out. But over there, like you throw
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  those hops, you do your, you might do like a, a Whirlpool if
• 8:39
  they have the Whirlpool arm. And at the end of the day, you
• 8:42
  like spray down the, the coat, the giant cone of holy pops with
• 8:46
  cold water. And then you climb in, you
• 8:47
  shovel it into a garbage can. So your days are are much
• 8:51
  stickier and you're in the equipment way more than you
• 8:54
  would be over here. Like most of the time I'm not
• 8:57
  climbing the kettle at the end of the day unless something went
• 9:00
  really wrong. So they're not brewing over
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  there like a decadence. Some of them might I mean like
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  you do have you do have your American, I don't want to call
• 9:09
  it American style, but you you do have your like more modern
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  styles over there. It's not it's not all like
• 9:15
  English summer ales and ES BS. But like you do like the places
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  that I brewed. I never got to go to the more
• 9:23
  modern place that was in Edinburgh.
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  We just like there was 12 breweries to go to and we went
• 9:29
  to 10. I went to.
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  So like you only had time to go to 10 and I didn't get to, I
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  wasn't lucky enough to go to the one that was super small.
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  And they tried to match you with what size production that they
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  thought you were going to be doing.
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  So I was going to bigger, more production size breweries.
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  But yeah, the places I went to, I was, I think I probably brewed
• 9:48
  an ESB at everyone. If I had to guess, maybe a
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  blonde ale. I think I may have No, I don't
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  even think I brewed A lager. There was 1 this dude, I mean,
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  it was literally like I got, we got there at 9:00 and we left at
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  5:00 and he still had like 6 more hours on his brew day.
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  And we left and we had like we had a whole ass English lunch
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  and we had like 3 or 4 pints at lunch.
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  And he was, I mean, he did not care about.
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  And I was like, this is not, this is not for me.
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  This, this amount of time is not for me.
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  I was like at my brewery or when I get out here, I'm going to be
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  we're going to be running off much quicker and we're going to
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  be much more, much more about getting in and getting out and
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  not. Not being efficient, yeah.
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  Yeah, it was dude. It was, it was a, it was a crazy
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  day. It was a fun day, but man, it
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  was I I was like, I think he had two kids and a wife and I was
• 10:43
  like, what? Like what is going on?
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  Couldn't imagine doing that. I know some Brewers that are
• 10:49
  very slow, but not that slow. Garrett, do you keep in touch
• 10:52
  with anybody that you worked with over there?
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  Not really. I have a, every once in a while,
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  I will hear from my, I have one of my classmates.
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  He was South Korean classmate. He was the like the, he was kind
• 11:10
  of just there to be there, honestly.
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  He was, his family was the sole importer of Fuller's in South
• 11:18
  Korea. And he wanted to see what
• 11:21
  brewing was like. Because I mean, he honestly, if
• 11:24
  he had the money, he didn't need to, he didn't need to be doing
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  anything. He could just run his company
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  and, and be fine. But he wanted to see the other
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  side of it. So he went to school.
• 11:35
  Still hear from him every once in a while I hear from a couple
• 11:37
  of other guys just ever like randomly, the three US guys.
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  I've seen one of the guys from the East Coast Virginia area at
• 11:45
  CBC, but not in not in a while. I think I saw him, I think it
• 11:50
  was in Denver. So it was 2019 was the last time
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  I saw him. Every once in a while I was like
• 11:55
  still following on Instagram. So I see a lot of like what
• 11:57
  they're doing and everything, but most of us don't talk as
• 12:00
  much anymore. When you come from from England
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  and you're you know, they're teaching the kind of the
• 12:05
  traditional styles. Where does the modern day beers
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  come into play for you? You know, the adjuncts and
• 12:11
  stuff. That's something you always kind
• 12:12
  of wanted to do. Yeah, I mean, honestly, no, it
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  like, I mean, especially back 10 years ago when we opened like
• 12:18
  there weren't a lot of places doing like super high adjuncted
• 12:23
  stouts. I mean, there was there was a
• 12:24
  couple obviously, but it wasn't like as prevalent as as it is
• 12:29
  nowadays. Like, I mean, obviously, like if
• 12:31
  you, if you're opening a brewery and your intention is to is to
• 12:35
  make beer, hype beer, I guess you got to do, you got to do a
• 12:39
  pastry style. Like that's like you better be
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  throwing beer in a barrel and expect to throw coconut in
• 12:46
  whatever year or year and a half.
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  I think like when I got back, I wasn't really even sure like
• 12:53
  what I was going to brew when we opened.
• 12:55
  We had some ideas, obviously, like we all, we wanted to start
• 12:58
  with the IPA. We wanted to start with like a
• 13:00
  wheat beer. A lot of our ideas that we
• 13:02
  started with we're just like not very good.
• 13:04
  Our first Brewer kind of really helped clarify like what we were
• 13:07
  going to be making. He was, he was big into sours.
• 13:11
  He was big into he was like he was the one who wrote the sub
• 13:16
  recipe originally. He so he was very much into that
• 13:21
  whole like the hype. I mean the hype beer.
• 13:22
  I just like honestly, like he was big beer trader, big hype
• 13:25
  beer guy. He loved the Vale.
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  That was like his favorite brewery.
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  So that was like we would drink those beers all the time after
• 13:32
  work. He would get them.
• 13:33
  His dad was a pilot. He would get them.
• 13:35
  His dad would bring them some beers from the Vale when he was
• 13:38
  in that that area. So like when very early on, that
• 13:41
  was like what we were, that's what we were trying to do.
• 13:44
  And then like as we went on, he left.
• 13:48
  We just kind of like kept working, kept working and like
• 13:52
  as we kept hiring people, I kind of was like, I'm going to let
• 13:56
  them. I mean, I let that Brewer be
• 13:58
  like the be like the voice of the brewery, like their
• 14:02
  personalities got to be the the voice of the brewery.
• 14:05
  And then 2020-2021 I was that was kind of like when I was
• 14:09
  like, all right, this is dumb. Like we're I, nobody else is
• 14:13
  making decisions but me. It's me and Steve.
• 14:15
  Basically Steve has been there for since two weeks after we
• 14:18
  opened. He wasn't always a Brewer, but
• 14:20
  he's or he wasn't always on the production side, but he was,
• 14:22
  he's always been at the brewery. So like it's basically him and I
• 14:27
  making every decision. Now.
• 14:29
  Obviously I get input from sales staff and in front of house
• 14:33
  staff, but like it's his and I's personality that is guiding most
• 14:37
  of the beers at this point. So like, he's a big West Coast
• 14:40
  guy. He he loves his, he loves his
• 14:43
  West Coast, he loves his, his bitter beer and he so I do try
• 14:47
  to keep like traditional West Coast IP as on on tap for him.
• 14:52
  But everything else is it's kind of just like knowing what we
• 14:55
  want and kind of going from there.
• 14:57
  And when it comes to like big stouts, it's mostly it's mostly
• 15:01
  me and and looking up what other people are doing and if it's
• 15:05
  sours is sours is almost entirely me just seeing what we
• 15:08
  really don't haven't brewed a new sour in quite some time.
• 15:11
  It's just like we've people have their favorites and it's not
• 15:14
  really worth it to deviate from the seven or eight that we're
• 15:19
  doing regularly because like at most times, we can't keep them
• 15:22
  on. We can't keep them on tap
• 15:24
  anyway. So it doesn't like why?
• 15:25
  Why brew something that sells as well as it does or why brew
• 15:30
  something else when those beers are selling as well as they do?
• 15:32
  So we unless like basically it's just me picking what I want to
• 15:38
  brew at this point, not so much like inventing something new
• 15:41
  unless it's something like that nine hundredth batch where I'm
• 15:45
  looking for something totally different than what we've we've
• 15:48
  done. We do have a couple people that
• 15:51
  ask for banana. We have a, we have a sour called
• 15:54
  Nana Pudding and we have got a guy that like if you scroll
• 15:58
  through our Facebook page, he always comments that he wants it
• 16:01
  back. At one point I, there was
• 16:03
  another guy who was asking for a beer called Puckett, which is
• 16:06
  our pine of all upside down sour.
• 16:09
  And I believe I said to him, I was like, if you keep asking, I
• 16:12
  mean, I keep pushing it back. So I pushed it back for like a
• 16:15
  year and a half because he kept asking for it.
• 16:17
  And I was like, I'm not, I was like, I'm not kidding.
• 16:18
  I was like, yeah, I like if you ask for it, I'm not.
• 16:21
  I mean, it don't like, don't, don't annoy me.
• 16:23
  It's it was like the he was, I saw it on Facebook, like every
• 16:28
  single Facebook post for like ever had this dude asking for.
• 16:31
  I think if you would go back to like whenever we did, whenever
• 16:35
  we finally brought back, like we did a post with every single one
• 16:38
  of his comments flashing and finally I was like, all right,
• 16:42
  well, it's been long enough. We can bring it back because we
• 16:44
  did a ton of it. And then I was like, all right,
• 16:46
  it's we've, we need to, we need to pull back a little bit.
• 16:49
  We've been doing this beer too much.
• 16:50
  Like it's not, it's losing its, its specialness.
• 16:53
  So we for that one we, yeah, I mean, like it if it's like
• 16:59
  eventually, like if you brew some beers, like if you brew
• 17:02
  your one offs that are like typically only supposed to be
• 17:06
  like not supposed to be, but like are only once in a while
• 17:09
  and you brew like brew like every other month or whatever
• 17:14
  loses its, its appeal to the masses.
• 17:16
  And then you end up sitting on a bunch of beer because people
• 17:19
  were like, oh, I don't need to, I don't need to buy this beer.
• 17:21
  They'll brew it again next month.
• 17:23
  So that's when I end up not brewing it for a year and a half
• 17:27
  or whatever. Did any of your home recipes
• 17:31
  make it to St. side, at least originally?
• 17:33
  2-2 ish alpha, which is like our IPA.
• 17:37
  It was just like your standard IPA that you make when you're
• 17:41
  like when you're home brewing, you just two row Brewers malt
• 17:46
  and it's it's Citroen in El Dorado.
• 17:49
  And that was kind of a I think maybe originally we had lemon
• 17:53
  drop in it, maybe because it was supposed to be like stone
• 17:56
  delicious because I really like that beer back when it first
• 17:59
  when it first came out. And then that's that's changed.
• 18:03
  I don't even know that they grow lemon drop anymore.
• 18:06
  I've never I haven't seen it in quite some time.
• 18:08
  So like it's changed quite a bit.
• 18:10
  It's definitely more it was like way less bitter when we first
• 18:14
  opened and then I've dialed up that bitterness to be like
• 18:17
  almost a true West Coast IPA at this point.
• 18:19
  It was kind of based around that Bells 2 hearted idea of like
• 18:23
  multi and a touch of bitterness, but not like rip your rip your
• 18:27
  face off bitter. And now I'm much more on the on
• 18:30
  your on your true West Coast side and sofa king, which
• 18:34
  honestly doesn't is not the same recipe at all other than the
• 18:37
  hops. When I first brewed it, it had
• 18:42
  it's a India red ale. It was two row and roast barley
• 18:46
  to give it color and probably like some crystal malt or
• 18:49
  something. And now we've completely
• 18:51
  changed. There's a company in Germany
• 18:53
  that makes a malt called Red X, which is like a red hued, red
• 18:57
  hued base malt. So we use that and we use just
• 19:00
  like whatever pale 2 row Brewers malt that we have on hand.
• 19:04
  And then that's so yes and no on that one.
• 19:07
  But those are the only two that are definitely home brew
• 19:10
  recipes, even like Raspberry Beret that we've been brewing
• 19:13
  since day one. It's not the same beer as it was
• 19:16
  back when we first opened because we don't make it as a
• 19:18
  Berliner vice anymore. We just make it as a sour, which
• 19:20
  is just all all Brewer small. Just go back to Sofa King real
• 19:25
  quick because that was not lost on me.
• 19:28
  You could fill it, sofa King, and then fill in any adverb you
• 19:31
  wanted to after that for 100 years, couldn't you?
• 19:34
  Sofa King Red and sofa, whatever that thing, Yeah.
• 19:39
  Yeah, it's. I don't remember.
• 19:43
  I don't remember why I named it that.
• 19:44
  It was just. Like it was funny it.
• 19:46
  Is funny. It was like it was very early
• 19:48
  on. We had some we had some names.
• 19:50
  We had some names early on that I was I was trying to be punny
• 19:53
  on and like I don't I try not to do that anymore, but unless I'm
• 19:58
  like truly out of names. But yeah, they were even now
• 20:03
  names are names are not one of the most difficult parts of the
• 20:06
  job. But trying to find a nail like
• 20:08
  we've got a on Friday. The beer on brewing is another
• 20:11
  West Coast pills with forbidden root and orchestrated minds and
• 20:15
  will release in July or whatever.
• 20:18
  And I'm like dreading trying to find a name for it.
• 20:20
  I have no idea why I want to call this beer.
• 20:23
  You're trying to find a tie probably all the time, right?
• 20:26
  A tie. Sometimes sometimes if like if
• 20:29
  like if I can like try to find like sometimes a great name will
• 20:34
  just come to me. Sometimes a not so great like
• 20:38
  this shit's bananas. That was that was like I was
• 20:40
  very happy with that one. Spring Breakers was good.
• 20:43
  Like it made sense. Like it's a we go to South
• 20:45
  Carolina and it's a it's a whatever.
• 20:48
  It's I was thinking like, it's a beer that a good beer to drink
• 20:51
  on the beach. Speak of the devil stories.
• 20:54
  Well, you know what? They're brews closed.
• 20:56
  So it's it's actually it was one of the base is a beer that my
• 21:02
  Brewer brought with him from a Brewer in Cincinnati that's now
• 21:06
  closed. And he was like, well, I hate
• 21:09
  naming beers. I hate naming beers.
• 21:11
  I don't want to name it. And I was like, all right, fine,
• 21:13
  I'm going to name it and liked. I think I may have just watched
• 21:15
  the the the witch, which is like what the the labels based off
• 21:19
  of. And I was like, Oh, this will be
• 21:21
  fun. Like speak of the devil, like
• 21:22
  whatever. Sometimes we'll push the the
• 21:25
  devil imagery a little bit too far sometimes, but like
• 21:28
  whatever. And I was like, oh, like he
• 21:30
  hated his boss. Like, and we were talking about
• 21:32
  his boss. I was like, and his boss may
• 21:34
  have showed up. So I was like, speak of the
• 21:35
  devil, whatever. And then like a couple, I think
• 21:40
  a couple weeks after we released a beer, he's like, by the way,
• 21:42
  that's that's the beer I brew for my wife.
• 21:44
  I was like, well, you sure probably should have told me
• 21:46
  that because I named it Speak of the devil.
• 21:48
  Like that's that's on you, dude. Yeah, Like that, Like that one.
• 21:54
  That one works. I like that.
• 21:55
  That's one of my favorite ones. Like Demogorgon doesn't really
• 21:57
  make any sense. Like it was just like we brew a
• 22:00
  beard that was called Where's Barb?
• 22:02
  And then we barrel aged and we call it Demogorgon.
• 22:04
  Like that is kind of a tenuous line between the names.
• 22:07
  But whatever it is, it is what it is.
• 22:09
  And it's now I like, I don't know if it's our most popular
• 22:12
  beer, but it's our our biggest. It's our biggest stout release
• 22:15
  for sure, but it's also tied to Halloween as tied to Stranger
• 22:19
  Things. It's tied to all sorts of stuff.
• 22:21
  It's definitely one of those ones where, like, it may not
• 22:24
  make a whole lot of sense to anyone who's not like, in
• 22:27
  Cincinnati and doesn't know the lore of the beer, but is what it
• 22:31
  is. The one of the beers you have
• 22:35
  that makes me laugh the most is called the Boring Beer Lager.
• 22:39
  Oh. Yeah, boring beer.
• 22:41
  Yep. Which is the complete opposite
• 22:43
  of almost every other beer you have name wise.
• 22:46
  That is, I mean that is definitely like as it is a
• 22:49
  boring beer is it is the like I put a little like it's I mean,
• 22:53
  it's supposed to be our Bud Light.
• 22:55
  I mean, that's what we tell people like when we when we when
• 22:58
  we have it on tap or when we have it in cans or whatever.
• 23:00
  It is supposed to be Bud Light. So when somebody asks, like it
• 23:05
  would if I could, if I, it would have been called our lightest
• 23:09
  beer. But everybody has a many, many
• 23:11
  breweries out there have a beer called Our Lightest Beer.
• 23:13
  But you got to have something like that, right for people that
• 23:16
  are. Coming.
• 23:16
  I mean, we do, we have, we have a couple now.
• 23:19
  We have less now because boring beer exists.
• 23:22
  But like game Ball, which is our our golden ale is one of those.
• 23:26
  Is that beer? What is that beer that we always
• 23:29
  have because boring beer takes it, because it's longer, it
• 23:31
  takes a little bit more time. We can't always tie it up to
• 23:33
  always have it. Yeah, it's one of those ones
• 23:36
  where like it's great to have during the summer.
• 23:40
  So I I try to make sure it's it's on tap during the summer.
• 23:43
  It's great for football season, great for Reds games.
• 23:47
  So it's is definitely one of those beers that like I've I
• 23:50
  wanted to, I wanted people to know.
• 23:52
  I think I said it as a joke. And then our creative guy was
• 23:55
  like, no, that's great. We should we should run with
• 23:57
  that. So that's what we did.
• 23:58
  And we were going to, I mean, we, we really tried to push that
• 24:00
  as like it's own because it was like right around the time
• 24:03
  garage beer was taking off that we brew, I think our first
• 24:06
  batch. And I was like, all right, well,
• 24:08
  like maybe if this catches on, like this could take off.
• 24:10
  And obviously, like we, we did put a lot of creative work
• 24:14
  behind it, but like we're too small and we don't have, we
• 24:18
  don't have the push that like we tried to make it a thing and
• 24:21
  it's a thing for us, but it's not really a thing for anybody
• 24:25
  else. It's coming out again here soon.
• 24:27
  We've got, if I could pull it up and share that with you guys, I
• 24:30
  would. But we've like there's a little
• 24:31
  stamp on it. There's a little stamp on it
• 24:33
  that says I want an exciting new color.
• 24:36
  And the blue is just like a slightly lighter shade of blue.
• 24:38
  And it's not like obviously we try not to make anything too
• 24:42
  exciting because like that doesn't make a lot of sense.
• 24:44
  But it is our only 12 ounce can. Garrett St.
• 24:49
  Side is a family run operation and you're in your 10th year
• 24:54
  now. Yes.
• 24:55
  What's it meant for you guys, your whole family, you and your
• 24:58
  entire family? That is an interesting question
• 25:01
  that I am probably not the best person to ask.
• 25:04
  I think my parents would probably my parents and my
• 25:07
  sister. I mean like most of my family
• 25:10
  has worked at the brewery. My wife worked at the brewery,
• 25:14
  my wife worked at the brewery. My mom manages the tap room.
• 25:17
  My dad's does CFO type stuff. My sister was marketing for a
• 25:23
  little bit. My cousin and her husband both
• 25:25
  bartended. My brother-in-law built the
• 25:28
  outside tables. So like it's definitely
• 25:31
  provided. And he also plows for us during
• 25:34
  the winter because I stopped trying to do that, stopped the
• 25:36
  line of shovel. Like one of the things that we
• 25:38
  say to bartenders to remind them like that this is important.
• 25:41
  Like this is like how like that what they do is important and
• 25:45
  like this is how a lot of people pay their bills.
• 25:47
  Like this is, is it's everyone's livelihood.
• 25:50
  It's like it's been a huge part of our lives for 10 years.
• 25:54
  It's like, like I said, like Steve has been there for, for 10
• 25:57
  years. Our sales guys been there for
• 26:01
  like 8 1/2. One of our Brewers has been
• 26:03
  there for five years. Like the all, like our guys
• 26:07
  have, the guys that have that are the core people at the
• 26:11
  brewery have been there for a long time.
• 26:12
  It's like how they, how they feed their family and how they,
• 26:14
  how they pay their bills and all that.
• 26:15
  So like it's, it's incredibly important for us to like keep
• 26:20
  everything going and like doing the best we can because like
• 26:22
  that's, that's, that's like, that's it.
• 26:25
  Like we don't have anything else going on.
• 26:26
  Like for like me and for Kathy and Brian, my parents, like
• 26:30
  we've sacrificed a ton to, to keep everything going.
• 26:35
  If you ask my wife, I'm sure she wouldn't be, she's not super
• 26:38
  psyched to like what our social life looks like or what our
• 26:41
  vacations look like. Because if I was working on a
• 26:43
  normal whatever job at 36 that we would, we would have our two
• 26:47
  weeks, 3 weeks, whatever, however many weeks of vacation
• 26:50
  that like a person normally gets during the summer.
• 26:53
  I, she goes on vacation and I'm, I'm either at the brewery or I'm
• 26:57
  at a festival or whatever. We've given up a lot of our our
• 27:00
  time in our late 20s now getting into our late 30s on on this
• 27:07
  project that is St. side. It's one just one of those
• 27:10
  things like we've just we've put we've put a ton into it and like
• 27:13
  we're happy. I'm glad that like people enjoy
• 27:16
  streets and I'm glad people enjoy the beer.
• 27:18
  I think it's getting. I think we've we've gotten to
• 27:21
  the point where like the beer is always getting better.
• 27:23
  We're always trying to improve and like it's nice.
• 27:27
  It's nice that people recognize that and and want to talk about
• 27:31
  it. Like you guys want to talk about
• 27:32
  it and want to drink it. Like are like the people that
• 27:35
  come to the burrito and whatever, you know, I mean, it's
• 27:37
  like we've been recognized. Recognized, I guess nationally,
• 27:42
  ish. Yeah.
• 27:43
  And with awards and with festivals and all that stuff.
• 27:46
  And we get, we have our our people at home that are the, are
• 27:50
  the ones that really do pay the bills the the regulars that the
• 27:53
  level of beer. And they're there every day.
• 27:54
  So we're not every day. Well, and, and you're probably
• 27:57
  going to be maybe humble about this, but in a city where
• 28:00
  there's a lot of great breweries and Scott would agree with that
• 28:03
  too. I mean, Streetside gets talked
• 28:05
  about is, is being ranked, ranked right up there.
• 28:08
  I mean, is there anything that you really feel like you can say
• 28:11
  about that as by how you how you feel when you're those kind of
• 28:14
  things? I mean, like there's when it,
• 28:16
  when it comes to like where you look at yourself in the like
• 28:20
  echelons of breweries around you.
• 28:22
  Like I can certainly see that. Like, I mean just based on like
• 28:28
  awards or whatever. Like if you just base it on
• 28:30
  like, or you're on tap score or whatever.
• 28:33
  Like if you, if you just go off of real metrics, yes, we are
• 28:37
  definitely like up there in the, in the echelon, like opera
• 28:40
  echelon, but everyone's got their thing, you know, I mean,
• 28:43
  it's we're we're not trying to be, we're not trying to be West
• 28:46
  side. We're not trying to be mad tree.
• 28:48
  We're not trying to be like high grain because they all have
• 28:50
  their thing like mad trees, mad trees, a big boy and they they
• 28:54
  play on a much bigger scale. Like West side has their thing.
• 28:57
  Their I mean, they are wholly focused on the West side and
• 28:59
  Westwood and then or not, well, nine giant and high grain both
• 29:04
  have their I mean their their food focus, their beer focus.
• 29:07
  They've got all sorts of stuff that they have going on.
• 29:09
  Like both their kitchens are, are pretty are like top tier
• 29:14
  restaurants that you would have just if it like don't even talk
• 29:19
  about the beer, like just the food itself.
• 29:21
  Sure. We've got our, we've got our
• 29:23
  thing going on. And our thing is mostly is
• 29:26
  mostly beer, like we've got our food truck out front.
• 29:28
  But like we are, we are mostly trying to, we are getting people
• 29:33
  in by making the best beer we can.
• 29:36
  So that's that's our thing. I think we've done that.
• 29:39
  Well, obviously, but that's like, that's why we are, that's
• 29:44
  why I'm still doing. I mean, that's why I'm still
• 29:46
  actively involved every day. That's why I'm still brewing.
• 29:49
  That's why I'm still doing all this.
• 29:50
  Because like if, if, if I'm not doing it like, you never know,
• 29:53
  it might not get done. Well, and standards, yeah.
• 29:56
  And the great thing is some of the ones that you mentioned,
• 29:58
  yeah, we like, but I also go, you know, St.
• 30:01
  Side is up there because you guys have your own thing and
• 30:05
  that makes a different, especially for guys like us that
• 30:10
  that want that, you know, want that different experience.
• 30:12
  Hey, let's go to St. Side.
• 30:13
  We've been here, but you know St.
• 30:15
  Side's going to be on our list too.
• 30:17
  Sure. Yeah.
• 30:18
  And like one of the nice things is like some of the smaller
• 30:21
  breweries. I mean, like you go to you go to
• 30:25
  I'm just going to keep going back to Madri.
• 30:27
  But if you go to Madri, like they're always going to have
• 30:29
  their, they're always going to have their beers that they
• 30:31
  always do. Like if you come to St. side,
• 30:33
  like for the most part, you're probably going to find, I mean,
• 30:37
  if you don't go, if you haven't been there for six months, you
• 30:39
  it's going to be almost entirely new tablets.
• 30:42
  Like there might be something that like there's going to be
• 30:45
  some crossover, especially during the summer where we'll
• 30:47
  have Raspberry Beret, whoever turn the map, we'll have sub
• 30:50
  route. But like other than that, we've
• 30:51
  got 24 taps and it'll probably be 21 beers that you have not
• 30:55
  had or is a new batch of a beer that you have had so.
• 30:59
  You, you guys are one of those breweries that are perfect for
• 31:02
  flights and not one flight two or three because what you just
• 31:06
  said you might. There's 21 new ones and I
• 31:08
  haven't been in a couple years. So I'm going every single thing
• 31:11
  is going to be new. The colors are going to be all
• 31:13
  different on the flight and it's going to be great.
• 31:16
  You're going to get to try all these styles.
• 31:18
  I think you your brewery is set up perfectly to have flights at,
• 31:20
  at least for for the way Steve and I drank beer.
• 31:23
  Yeah, sure. I mean, that's that's definitely
• 31:25
  like I have my opinions on flights.
• 31:27
  I don't know that they're the best way.
• 31:28
  They're the best way to to consume a beer.
• 31:31
  But if you're trying to try every, every beer that we have,
• 31:34
  that is like there's, there's very few ways that you can do it
• 31:37
  other than getting a flight and and trying 4 beers at a time.
• 31:41
  So if you're traveling into town as we're like traveling town,
• 31:44
  you know, he goes a couple times there a few times a year, but I
• 31:46
  might get once a year. So I could, you know, I want to
• 31:47
  get his all I, I can at one time, you know what I mean?
• 31:50
  Yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, like,
• 31:52
  especially Cincinnati, I mean, like many towns are like this,
• 31:56
  but like Asheville, like you were, you were, I don't even
• 32:00
  know if he said it while we're recording, but Asheville, you
• 32:02
  can walk to a lot of these places that that are like you
• 32:06
  can try a bunch of beers easily by walking.
• 32:08
  Like you can't do that in Cincinnati.
• 32:10
  Like you got to you got to drive, you got an Uber and
• 32:12
  there's a ton of breweries. So like if you're going to have
• 32:15
  a wall, like if you're going to have a whole day of drinking,
• 32:19
  flights are flights are probably a good way to do it.
• 32:21
  Well, Scott and I are coming up in September and we're going to
• 32:26
  be doing all sorts of brewery tours and we'll be at St.
• 32:29
  Side. So you know when we stop in
• 32:32
  there, hopefully we're going to see you.
• 32:33
  But one of the reasons we're coming up, we do an annual trip
• 32:36
  every year. We hit breweries, sometimes
• 32:38
  we'll hit a baseball game, but also we're coming up this year
• 32:42
  because we don't wanted to go to Oktoberfest Cincinnati, which
• 32:46
  I've been to Scott has never been before.
• 32:49
  Are you guys going to have any involvement in that?
• 32:52
  I no, probably not. We it is honestly, I don't even
• 32:58
  know how to do it. It's like I would have to ask
• 33:00
  our sales guy how like how it how to get involved.
• 33:04
  They do have like a a local craft beer tent, but I don't
• 33:07
  remember how it works. The other thing is like our fest
• 33:11
  beer isn't really named something that would make a
• 33:14
  whole lot of sense to like send. So like it was prior to a lot of
• 33:20
  prior to us trying to make loggers a little bit more of
• 33:24
  like a classy affair. Obviously boring beer is not
• 33:26
  like one of them. But like eventually, like we
• 33:28
  started to be like, all right, like our Japanese rice lager is
• 33:31
  just going to be one word. And it's going to be, it's going
• 33:33
  to make, it's going to be very short, very sustained, and
• 33:36
  you're going to know what you're drinking.
• 33:37
  Like it's fest beer is called Rainy day Clubhouse doesn't
• 33:40
  really make a lot of sense to anyone.
• 33:42
  You got to read the story on the back of the on the back of the
• 33:45
  can to understand why we call it that.
• 33:48
  But yeah, it's one of those I would like to be there, but I
• 33:52
  like to get just go as like a consumer.
• 33:53
  It's AI went last last year for the first time in forever
• 33:57
  because they moved it down to the park on.
• 34:02
  They moved down to our point. It used to be up on Fountain
• 34:05
  Square and then it's moved around, but like now that's off
• 34:08
  the streets. It's so much better.
• 34:10
  It's like a, it's like a real like Oktoberfest.
• 34:13
  You've got your 10s. It's all like, it's so much like
• 34:16
  physically it's cooler, like it's not as hot because you're
• 34:19
  not standing in the street. It's like it was, it was very,
• 34:22
  very not. I was really enjoyed myself this
• 34:24
  past year. I'm very glad that they moved it
• 34:26
  down to Sawyer Point because it's a lot more like viable for
• 34:29
  me to go down and hang out. I just don't want to like hang
• 34:33
  out, like hang out the street. Like I'll just go and sit.
• 34:36
  You can sit in the grass. You can't sit in the middle in
• 34:39
  the middle of the street. That would be weird.
• 34:41
  Do you do a lot of Will you be doing many Oktoberfest events?
• 34:46
  You know, at St. side we got. One we got one we do our,
• 34:52
  normally it's around Labor Day, around that weekend.
• 34:56
  It might be that Friday. I think it's, I'd have to look
• 34:59
  at the calendar and see what like the first Friday.
• 35:01
  I think we try to do it like the first Friday and in September.
• 35:04
  Yeah, we do it like a mug release and we have, we've got
• 35:07
  our tuba guys last year and we did pretzels.
• 35:09
  We probably won't do pretzels this year because it doesn't
• 35:11
  work with a Mexican food truck. They don't do they don't do a
• 35:16
  whole lot of pretzels. May Wolf try to figure out a way
• 35:17
  to get pretzels there. But yeah, it's that is like one
• 35:20
  of my favorite events that we do just because it it feels nice in
• 35:24
  a Germantown to do something German, German beer focused
• 35:28
  we're. Definitely going to reach out to
• 35:29
  you before we get there and just, it's been several days
• 35:31
  there. Not just Oktoberfest, we're
• 35:32
  going to come by and see you at the brewery, but maybe we can
• 35:35
  hang out and have some beers outside of there as well.
• 35:38
  There's some places that I like to take people for beers that
• 35:41
  are definitely alike. Not like hidden spots or
• 35:44
  anything. It's not like anything crazy,
• 35:45
  but like we have our spots that we like to take collabs or
• 35:48
  whatever because it's seeing it from from the like an insider
• 35:53
  side is a little bit more fun than just popping by a place.
• 35:57
  The guys from Spyglass up in New Hampshire were in and we went to
• 36:01
  Tiki bar and we went stop by Hofbra House, which like I
• 36:03
  haven't been in forever. Like sometimes you get to see it
• 36:06
  like you get to see it like that where it's like you get to be a
• 36:09
  tourist in your own town or the other size.
• 36:11
  Like you get to go to like the places that I go every other
• 36:14
  weekend or whatever. And I know all the bartenders
• 36:17
  and they know what I order and all that.
• 36:20
  So. Yeah, that's fun.
• 36:22
  That's fun, Yeah. Going back to 10 years, is there
• 36:27
  going to be a big celebration sometime this year to mark all
• 36:31
  of that and what you're planning on doing?
• 36:33
  There is I should probably I'll look that up because I'll get it
• 36:36
  on my phone and I will look because I want to actually have
• 36:39
  the correct date. What weekend is that?
• 36:43
  The 26th, Saturday, the 26th of September.
• 36:47
  That was our that was the official, that was actually that
• 36:50
  will be 10 years to the day that we opened.
• 36:52
  That was we'll do like a pre party on Friday.
• 36:56
  We've got DJ coming who's DJ at a couple different events for
• 36:59
  us. And then Saturday will be like
• 37:01
  the all day, all day thing. We do the same thing every year
• 37:04
  basically 5 or 6 years because five years was COVID, 6 years we
• 37:08
  did like we really blew it out and did a whole weekend.
• 37:12
  Whole weekend is really tough on all of us.
• 37:14
  So we're just going to do like Friday chill event and then
• 37:17
  Saturday do the whole thing. Oh Hickey family will be there
• 37:21
  all day. Like last year we had my friends
• 37:24
  from Dayton, OH that I went to Dayton with came down, I had a
• 37:29
  buddy. We'll see if anybody, I don't
• 37:31
  know if anybody like actual friends that were here for the
• 37:33
  opening will come down. We'll see.
• 37:34
  We'll see what's going on. We're doing a giant collab that
• 37:39
  I just kind of finished setting up.
• 37:42
  Like that'll be that'll be the culmination of this 10 year
• 37:44
  series. It's basically everybody, many
• 37:47
  people that have done a collab with many like friends in the
• 37:50
  industry, all sorts of stuff. So we'll see if there anybody
• 37:53
  actually if anybody comes up for the event or if they just come
• 37:56
  out for the brew day or they just come off packaging or if
• 37:58
  they don't come up at all and just we just do it all via
• 38:00
  e-mail. We'll see.
• 38:01
  We'll see how that goes. It's it's hard to, it's hard to
• 38:03
  wrangle Brewers, that's for sure.
• 38:06
  Yeah. So yeah, might be the biggest
• 38:10
  collab that has ever happened in since I don't know.
• 38:13
  I don't want to say that. I want to see that for sure.
• 38:17
  126714 different breweries. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be
• 38:23
  interesting. Only one local Nye Giant's the
• 38:25
  only local. So we are, yeah, it's going to
• 38:30
  be, it's going to be a interesting couple days.
• 38:33
  But yeah, we'll make a we're already trying to think of how
• 38:35
  to, how to make it. We'll have, we'll have our we'll
• 38:39
  have a couple of different releases.
• 38:41
  We've got some barrels that we've released in the past that
• 38:44
  are we've got like the last barrel that we've that we have
• 38:47
  of of that brand that we'll release 450 N we did a cloud
• 38:52
  with 450 NA couple years ago that we released fresh that
• 38:57
  we're going to release and we've got it's 450 and there's one
• 39:04
  other brewery that we dissed out with a couple years ago that
• 39:08
  will release more release for the anniversary as well.
• 39:12
  That's really exciting. Yeah, it should be.
• 39:16
  It should be fun. This is actually like probably
• 39:18
  the this is probably going to be the easiest on me that
• 39:22
  anniversary has ever been. Trying to wrangle 5 different or
• 39:26
  six different collabs like we've done in the past is like way too
• 39:29
  much. It's such a, it's such a hassle.
• 39:33
  This is actually going to be easier.
• 39:34
  Even though it's trying to get 14 different people to like
• 39:37
  figure out their own thing. It will be hopefully, hopefully
• 39:40
  it'll be easier just because it's only one or two days really
• 39:44
  of, of brewing and one day of one day of packaging.
• 39:48
  So I don't have to worry about like trying to figure out five
• 39:51
  different brew days and five different days of packaging and
• 39:54
  all that. That's always.
• 39:57
  This might be the way I try to do it from now on.
• 39:59
  Yeah, like that collab, Would that be like, hey, all right,
• 40:01
  let's all agree on a style and then let's all agree on who's
• 40:04
  going to do what for the collab? It'll probably just be say hey
• 40:08
  like we all make. I mean, if I'm going to be
• 40:12
  honest, it's probably going to be an IPA because, and it might
• 40:16
  be, maybe it'll be a double New England, Maybe it'll be like
• 40:19
  maybe we'll do like a triple New England.
• 40:20
  Maybe we'll make it like because at this like if you're trying to
• 40:24
  really blow it out like the higher ABV tends to, that tends
• 40:26
  to be how people do it. That's why I'm kind of thinking
• 40:29
  it's just like do a double or a triple or whatever and just
• 40:32
  release it. And basically it'll probably
• 40:34
  just be like, hey, like this is what I'm thinking.
• 40:36
  Does anyone have any issues with it or like does anyone have
• 40:39
  anything, like anything experimental that they want to
• 40:44
  use? Like sometimes what will happen
• 40:45
  is like somebody will get something but like none of us
• 40:49
  can get or like the rest of the people can't get.
• 40:52
  So you've got like experimental stuff from ych, you got
• 40:56
  something from a New Zealand, New Zealand hop grower that like
• 41:00
  you like we can't get because we're not part of either like an
• 41:03
  experimental trial program or like we just don't buy enough
• 41:05
  from whatever. Maybe that's like maybe they'll
• 41:08
  throw us a bag or two or whatever of hops just to get
• 41:11
  something different. Also like it's a good way for
• 41:15
  other people to get to trial like by me brewing it like they
• 41:19
  can, if I get something that they can't get, like can trial
• 41:22
  what that tastes like in the in a beer beer, the double New
• 41:25
  England that we just did with spyglass and structures.
• 41:28
  We use two different types of waka from two different
• 41:31
  cultivators. And they were all they were both
• 41:35
  excited to try it because it's a one is like the furthest S hop
• 41:39
  grower and one's like kind of the traditional hopper that
• 41:42
  everybody thinks about in in New Zealand.
• 41:44
  So they were excited to to see what the differences are.
• 41:47
  It was, it was very interesting to see like what the flavors
• 41:50
  were. We actually end up having to
• 41:51
  like, not age it, but like let it let it cool down a little
• 41:55
  bit. It was very, very, very dank a
• 41:57
  little bit. We let we let coal crash for a
• 41:58
  little bit longer than we normally would because it need
• 42:00
  to need some time to mellow out. Whenever he says, hey, this is
• 42:03
  what we're in for. To you still have to develop the
• 42:06
  recipe OK I've got this and I've got this and I've got this and I
• 42:09
  know what the style is going to be but now you got to dial in
• 42:12
  the recipe and the numbers and all that stuff is that kind of
• 42:15
  your job at this point for the 10 year yeah yeah yeah I.
• 42:18
  Mean I'll, I'm I will write the recipe and like if anybody has
• 42:22
  any like probably what it will end up happening is like we'll
• 42:24
  pick I'll probably send out a poll.
• 42:26
  That's what I'm thinking. I'll I'll send out a poll and be
• 42:28
  like vote on what you want to do and I'll send out the recipe
• 42:31
  like does anyone have any Does that anyone have any huge issues
• 42:35
  with this? And if somebody's like, I don't
• 42:38
  like that, then I'll take into a consideration like whether I
• 42:42
  strip out the what the thing that they don't like or be like,
• 42:45
  or maybe hopefully that's the positive and they're like, Hey,
• 42:49
  we really like this. Maybe do this, take that into
• 42:51
  consideration and then apply it to the brew day.
• 42:56
  And then just kind of go from there.
• 42:58
  Most of it is like us just writing like I'll, I'll write
• 43:01
  the recipe just like I always do and then see if anybody has any
• 43:05
  like issues with issues one way or the other.
• 43:08
  And then we go from there. And then hopefully everything
• 43:11
  turns out well. It's very, I will probably not
• 43:17
  brew any of it so that I can manage it a little bit more.
• 43:20
  And if we've got, I've got 28 people in the brewery, I'm
• 43:23
  definitely going to need to not be brewing that day.
• 43:25
  But yeah, we are. We'll.
• 43:28
  See, we'll see how we've already.
• 43:29
  Talked we've, we've already started to talk about the
• 43:32
  logistics of having that many people in the brood and the
• 43:34
  brewery for possibly two days. Well, sounds like a lot of fun.
• 43:38
  Sounds like herding cats, but it sounds like a lot of fun.
• 43:41
  Yeah, yeah. We'll see.
• 43:44
  I'm not that I don't want everybody to show up, but you
• 43:48
  know, almost it's better if only half the people show up because
• 43:51
  it's because it's going to be if everybody's like, yo, yeah, I'm
• 43:54
  going to be there. That's a lot of people to be.
• 43:57
  It's a lot of people would be dealing with and finding
• 43:59
  everyone things to do in Cincinnati for two nights,
• 44:03
  possibly four nights if they stay for the weekend.
• 44:06
  It's going to be extra interesting.
• 44:10
  I know we're winding down, but there's something I really want
• 44:12
  to talk about as your brewing system.
• 44:14
  You guys do something which I think is unique.
• 44:17
  You've got a direct fire system and I think that's kind of
• 44:21
  unique in the States or at least in the minority of what
• 44:23
  breweries are using. Can you talk about that a little
• 44:26
  bit as in is it and kind of why is that different from like
• 44:29
  electric or steam? I I think it is.
• 44:32
  Very. I mean, it's significantly less
• 44:35
  use, significantly less now than it was when we opened.
• 44:40
  I was at Rivertown, they were on direct fire system and that was
• 44:45
  what I was comfortable with. That's part of the reason we
• 44:47
  went with it. Steam is definitely like a more
• 44:49
  efficient system. I wanted to go with direct fire
• 44:53
  for the caramelization. It's something that you can
• 44:56
  really, you're really getting a lot of it's a different type of
• 45:00
  carmelization on direct fire because it's obviously direct
• 45:03
  fire as the name implies. Steam you just kind of have like
• 45:06
  a it's just a different, it's a different type of carmelization
• 45:09
  you got on the kettle. I think actually steam is a
• 45:11
  better, is a better system for like IPA.
• 45:15
  So you're imparting a lot less color on IPA.
• 45:18
  If you're like, if you're trying to go for that straw color like
• 45:20
  that's, it would be nice to not have the direct fire system.
• 45:24
  You can change the way we can change the boil time and that's
• 45:27
  the big way with that. We can reduce the amount of
• 45:29
  color. But yeah, it was like one of
• 45:30
  those things that we it was what I was comfortable with.
• 45:33
  In the UK it's pretty popular. That and electric are very
• 45:36
  popular. And I had never worked with a
• 45:39
  boiler before and I didn't really want to start working
• 45:43
  with a boiler at my own brewery because it is it is a hassle.
• 45:47
  You have a lot more, you have a lot more regulation on a with a
• 45:53
  boiler than you do and a lot more maintenance than you do
• 45:56
  with a direct fire. Like I, I really don't have to
• 45:59
  do a whole lot with our system. We we have, we'll call somebody
• 46:03
  in every once in a while to clean it out and make sure
• 46:05
  everything's around right and the combustion is, is proper, is
• 46:07
  running properly. But honestly, like we kind of
• 46:10
  just like turn on, turn off, turn on, turn off.
• 46:12
  Like it's fine. It's great for stouts.
• 46:15
  It really like the amount of the amount of carmelization that you
• 46:18
  get on a direct fire system is, is significant compared to
• 46:24
  steam. I would say the, the worst part
• 46:29
  for us is that it takes a long time.
• 46:31
  It's a, it's a, it's, you can't get to a boil quite as quickly
• 46:35
  as you can with a with a steam system.
• 46:37
  It takes us once we're done running off, it takes us like
• 46:40
  another 35 ish minutes to get to a boil.
• 46:44
  Whereas steam system, like most of the time those guys are like
• 46:48
  4° off of a boil when they get to when they get to end of run
• 46:52
  off. So there's some there's some
• 46:55
  Devon trade backs. If I were if I were to go back
• 46:58
  and and do it again, I'd probably get a steam system.
• 47:01
  You can do a lot more. You can do decoction matches,
• 47:05
  you can do step matches, you can do all sorts of stuff.
• 47:08
  And like the like I said, the color pick up on a on a New
• 47:12
  England is significantly less. It is what it is.
• 47:14
  You know, I mean, I've got, I've got my system.
• 47:17
  We like it for what it is. It does, it does the job.
• 47:21
  I, I mean, in general, I like our brewhouse.
• 47:24
  There are, there are, there are better brewhouses out there for
• 47:29
  sure. But what we, what we've got
• 47:32
  works for us. And the big issues that we have
• 47:37
  are solvable for the most part and don't take a whole lot of
• 47:40
  like extra thinking on our part to to remedy.
• 47:46
  But you're but you're still learning.
• 47:47
  Right. I mean you haven't mastered
• 47:49
  everything yet. I mean on that brewhouse if.
• 47:51
  I, there's not much left to learn, if I'm honest.
• 47:56
  It is, but like print out, like once you get to fermentation
• 48:01
  side, like there's I, there's so much stuff that like there's new
• 48:05
  science. I mean, there's new science
• 48:06
  coming out every month about fermentation.
• 48:08
  There's new I. Mean when new hops.
• 48:10
  Come out like the physical action of brewing on that brew
• 48:13
  house, like there's not a whole lot left to learn.
• 48:16
  I'm sure there's something, sorry, my dog just ran up the
• 48:20
  the actual physical action of brewing, but there's not a whole
• 48:23
  lot, not a whole lot left to like learn on that on that side
• 48:27
  of things. But once it gets to like I said,
• 48:29
  like fermentation, it's like with everything new that's
• 48:32
  coming out, all the new advanced products that are coming out, I
• 48:35
  don't know that you could say with any, with any certainty
• 48:39
  that you, that you know, everything like that.
• 48:41
  I mean, I would like if I were to put a percentage on it, like
• 48:44
  it's, it's super like I know 40% of the things that are going on
• 48:49
  out there. You know, I mean like a 50%
• 48:51
  maybe like with especially with like all the trial programs that
• 48:55
  everybody's doing. Like I don't, if we're not
• 48:57
  involved in it, like I have no idea what's going on.
• 48:59
  Like I'm still finding new products.
• 49:01
  We're using a new product next Monday and Tuesday that I've
• 49:04
  I've never used before. It's similar to other product
• 49:07
  that we've used, but not, not exactly.
• 49:09
  So it's always like we get to learn, we get to see how it
• 49:13
  interacts with the beer compared to the product that we used to
• 49:16
  use. Breweries are typically.
• 49:18
  Dog friendly This podcast is dog friendly too.
• 49:21
  So there you go, he is. He is the brewery dog of my two
• 49:26
  dogs used to go work with me a lot and he still goes to the
• 49:29
  brewery fairly frequently. He's we have one, he's he's
• 49:33
  chill and she is the female is not OK.
• 49:36
  She's just happy to see that. Yeah.
• 49:39
  You guys have something to be? Remiss if we didn't talk about
• 49:42
  it brew cause and it's a it's a you guys help a local nonprofit
• 49:46
  organization charities talk about that kind of how people
• 49:49
  could get involved in that yeah so that is like.
• 49:52
  Every, not everyone said, whenever we have a charity that
• 49:56
  is interested, the concept was basically like it's expensive to
• 50:01
  rent A room to do a, to do a fundraiser.
• 50:04
  So like what our, our thought was when we first started, that
• 50:08
  was like on a, we have slow nights.
• 50:10
  Obviously everyone does. Wednesdays tend to be the
• 50:12
  slowest. Like if you, if somebody wants
• 50:14
  to come and rent the brewery, quote UN quote, it's not really
• 50:17
  renting. You're just they, they come,
• 50:19
  they show up and then they get a portion of the proceeds from or
• 50:23
  they get a portion of the how much we sold a pint sold over
• 50:27
  the course of their brew cause. And it's just like a nice way to
• 50:31
  get back on. It helps us fill the tap room on
• 50:35
  a on a Wednesday. It helps them.
• 50:37
  They don't have to pay for a rental.
• 50:38
  They get a nice little donation afterwards.
• 50:41
  Really all we ask from them is to promote it, which doesn't
• 50:45
  always happen, but when it does, when it does, it's like a great
• 50:48
  partnership. When people are, when people are
• 50:50
  involved and they're into it and they're doing, they do their
• 50:54
  part. We do our part.
• 50:56
  They, they can get a nice, a nice check that they wouldn't
• 50:59
  have otherwise gotten and they get to bring all their people in
• 51:02
  and do whatever they want. We have, we have our other
• 51:05
  charity events that we do that aren't tied to the brew cause,
• 51:08
  but like we'll probably have two, two or three a month on
• 51:13
  Wednesdays just grabbing people, just coming in and setting up a
• 51:17
  table and getting information out.
• 51:19
  I think we have one next week that's gone on Miami Valley
• 51:23
  forestry, maybe just forestry group that comes in.
• 51:26
  They, they have, they have a happier, they meet with people
• 51:29
  that are donors or people that work with them or whatever.
• 51:32
  And then they just that's it. I mean, it might give out
• 51:36
  information, but really it's it's pretty low key, Yeah.
• 51:39
  And if if an organization. Want to be a part of that?
• 51:41
  They can just go to the website. There's a, there's a little,
• 51:43
  just a little thing they can fill up with their information
• 51:45
  in there. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:48
  It's it's super easy. e-mail goes to my mom.
• 51:51
  She'll whatever she sends an e-mail and kind of, I mean,
• 51:55
  there is a little bit of vetting.
• 51:56
  You can't just like do it if there is like you want to make
• 51:58
  sure that you're in a real organization that like we're
• 52:00
  writing it. If we're writing it you a check,
• 52:02
  we're not just writing a guy a check or whatever.
• 52:05
  There was somebody Once Upon a time that tried to do that.
• 52:08
  It was just like they were like, oh, I'm doing this and whatever.
• 52:11
  And then they want a check written, a personal check
• 52:13
  written out to them. And we had to think we had to be
• 52:17
  like, all right, then it needs to go to a 5O13C or whatever.
• 52:20
  It needs to go to an organization.
• 52:21
  Can't just go to a guide. Yeah, I mean like it's super
• 52:25
  easy to sign up on the website and there's a tab and
• 52:28
  everything. I mean, like, obviously you
• 52:30
  found it because we doing free, free conversation about but
• 52:34
  yeah, I mean, it's it it works. It's a nice win win for
• 52:38
  everybody. It's a nice, nice way for us to
• 52:41
  stay, keep and stay involved in the community other than like
• 52:45
  our pet causes that we always do so and we get to meet new people
• 52:49
  doing interesting stuff. I haven't ever like gotten more
• 52:53
  involved with any of these, but there's, I think, I think my mom
• 52:58
  is like there's a guy who does a, has a duck rescue and she was
• 53:03
  very involved in that for a little bit.
• 53:05
  I mean, the, the biggest one that we do is the, is the, who's
• 53:09
  a good beer with the Save the Animals Foundation, they do two
• 53:13
  big giant fundraisers twice a year.
• 53:16
  They get 25% of proceeds from the from the can sales.
• 53:20
  So that's that's our big one. But I think that may have
• 53:23
  started out as a brew cause very early on.
• 53:25
  It's under your website. It's.
• 53:26
  Under the About us page, it's it's right there just so the
• 53:28
  brew 'cause right there it takes it's a direct link right to.
• 53:31
  If someone's looking for that, you can fill out the information
• 53:34
  right there. You would think I would know it.
• 53:35
  Consider. I I edit the web, that's what
• 53:37
  we're here for. Streetside.
• 53:40
  Brewery.com Yeah, I know that I. Know that I know the.
• 53:44
  Event page, I don't know, I I have to say I I don't go to, I
• 53:47
  don't go to the other sites. I don't go to the other.
• 53:49
  Tabs very often. Little busy brewing beer you.
• 53:52
  Know I've got a few things going on right you got like going to
• 53:54
  I've. Got some 3 or 4 little fun
• 53:57
  things to end with. Steve may have something else
• 53:59
  after this, but if you don't mind, we're going through real
• 54:01
  quick. They're they're fun.
• 54:02
  Yeah. They won't take long.
• 54:03
  OK, What's the most British thing you brought back from the
• 54:06
  UKI didn't bring anything. Actually like physically back
• 54:11
  the most British. Oh, probably, I mean probably
• 54:17
  the probably Black Cats are are brown ale.
• 54:20
  It's like it was it was my my goal to make like a Newcastle
• 54:25
  brown ale. I really wanted to make
• 54:27
  something that was tied to where I went to school, so that was
• 54:30
  the one. But other than that, like I
• 54:32
  didn't really get into soccer. I ain't really get into like I
• 54:35
  went to. I went to a Sunderland game.
• 54:36
  It was interesting and fun, but like I wasn't other than that,
• 54:40
  like I wasn't, I wasn't. You weren't following the royal
• 54:43
  family. No, I mean like I.
• 54:46
  Rugby. Oh, you know what?
• 54:48
  Most Americans aren't big like blood pudding fans, but like
• 54:53
  I'll eat haggis and blood pudding.
• 54:54
  Like I'll eat some stuff that is, is a little, a little weird
• 54:58
  to most of most Americans. Yeah, that's I I have an
• 55:03
  Infinity for I haven't had in forever.
• 55:05
  It's you can't can't get it, but I'll eat it if I saw if I if I
• 55:09
  get back there at some point, I'm I will still eat that.
• 55:12
  I had it in Ireland so. I I, I could have test.
• 55:14
  It was actually good. It was really good.
• 55:16
  Yeah. That's why I had blood.
• 55:18
  Blood pudding was breakfast in Dublin.
• 55:20
  It's good, good stuff. Right.
• 55:22
  What's the most craft beer guy think someone has said to you or
• 55:26
  you've heard you have some? Customers who have said some
• 55:31
  interesting things, most of it is like the, the, the
• 55:34
  stereotypical like home Brewer, like you should do this instead
• 55:39
  of this or like, why don't you do this instead of this?
• 55:43
  Because I do it like this on my home brew system and I'm like,
• 55:47
  you could easily do it and like that just doesn't work that way.
• 55:51
  Actually, I have a buddy who will text me every once in a
• 55:53
  while. He's a big home Brewer.
• 55:55
  He'll text me stuff. I'm just like, this is stupid
• 55:58
  and like luckily he's heard it enough times, but like, yeah,
• 56:01
  we'll just outright be like, Nah dude, that's dumb.
• 56:04
  It's dumb, especially when you've.
• 56:06
  Done it like you've done the home brewing thing.
• 56:07
  You're like, yeah, yeah, it's stupid.
• 56:09
  Yeah. Which beer style?
• 56:12
  Would. Absolutely lose in a fight.
• 56:14
  Probably like beer to. Guard.
• 56:16
  Maybe beer to guard? Beer to guard or maybe like.
• 56:20
  A French table beer or something like that.
• 56:24
  Nothing against the French, but like a table beer, like 2 1/2%
• 56:29
  wheat beer. Cezanne wheat beer type thing,
• 56:31
  probably. That makes sense.
• 56:32
  Yeah, yeah, he's. Glass Joe and.
• 56:35
  Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Remember that game?
• 56:36
  Did you ever play that game? The very first game, yeah.
• 56:41
  All right, I've got one last. Thing and it's kind of a three
• 56:43
  parter, but it'll be we go quick.
• 56:45
  If there were weight divisions in beer styles, I'm just going
• 56:49
  to pick out three beer styles. Who would be the champ of each?
• 56:51
  OK, the lightweight division, I'm going to give you some
• 56:54
  options. American Logger, Hefeweizen,
• 56:59
  Amber Ale, ESB Pale Ale, Brown. It's it's American.
• 57:03
  It's American. Logger.
• 57:04
  I was going to say American logger.
• 57:06
  American logger is wins the lightweight.
• 57:08
  Division The welterweight division, West Coast IPA, Hazy
• 57:13
  Black IPA, Rye IPA or Brut. Who wins that one?
• 57:17
  Who's the champ? Can I vote?
• 57:20
  Sure. I'm going black IPA.
• 57:22
  Going black IPA, OK. Absolutely not.
• 57:24
  It's it's like. West Coast IPA or New England.
• 57:27
  I mean, if you just like think about like the the market, just
• 57:29
  like if you're thinking about like what you're seeing the most
• 57:31
  of it's, it's probably it's probably hazy nowadays.
• 57:35
  It's like the, the new, the new, the new.
• 57:37
  So I'm going to go with you the. The new the new welterweight.
• 57:40
  Champion is the New England, but like in the past, it was.
• 57:44
  It was definitely and I feel like West Coast.
• 57:48
  In that division is the Muhammad Ali might lose the title to
• 57:51
  Hazy, but come right back and knock Joe Frazier out.
• 57:54
  OK, yeah, there you go. OK all.
• 57:56
  Right. And then the last one, the
• 57:58
  heavyweight division. Barrel aged imperial stout,
• 58:02
  Barley wine pastry stout, Russian imperial stout, Belzel
• 58:05
  Quad. And if there's another one I
• 58:07
  hadn't put in there, feel free to add.
• 58:10
  Barley wine wins the heavyweight champion.
• 58:12
  Easy. OK, Yeah.
• 58:15
  Wow, Yeah. I mean it's.
• 58:18
  I don't. I don't like them and I don't
• 58:20
  drink them, but like that there's a reason why I don't
• 58:22
  like them and I don't drink because.
• 58:24
  Of the heavyweight yeah, they're heavy and they're.
• 58:27
  It's it's it's a lot of it's a lot of beer.
• 58:30
  There's a lot of beer to have in one sitting.
• 58:32
  Yeah. And to come full circle.
• 58:34
  ESB versus American Pale Ale in in three round boxing match, Who
• 58:39
  wins? Probably.
• 58:44
  I don't know, I like. I'm tempted to see ESP, but it's
• 58:48
  probably pale ale, yeah. OK, it's I mean.
• 58:53
  Just going with my gut on that one, yeah.
• 58:56
  Like you get the ESP the old try and true, but the APA comes in
• 58:59
  and you know, it's kind of yeah, bolt up and just it's just got a
• 59:03
  little bit just got. A little bit more Zing, you
• 59:04
  know? Yeah, yeah.
• 59:08
  That's kind of the last thing I had.
• 59:09
  I had more, but we'll save that for another day.
• 59:11
  Steve, you got something to end on.
• 59:14
  You know I I got 1. Thing and then I couldn't less
• 59:17
  is the slide man you mentioned a Steve during your entire during
• 59:22
  this podcast episode and even though this podcast is going to
• 59:25
  come out after this happens on May the 8th you have a special
• 59:30
  event going on at your brewery. Can you talk about that?
• 59:33
  It is Steve Day we. It's a celebration of all things
• 59:38
  Steve, not because of me. Not because of you, because of.
• 59:41
  Because of Steve Schmidt, he I don't really this is like our
• 59:46
  creative guys thing. He he wanted to do it and I was
• 59:50
  like, whatever, I don't I don't care one way or the other.
• 59:53
  If you want to if you want to do Steve day, it's it.
• 59:55
  I told I'm I the thing I say to them often is like the world's
• 59:59
  your oyster or your it's your world.
• 1:00:01
  I'm just living in it. So yeah, if they if they feel
• 1:00:04
  passionate about doing something like that, that's they did it.
• 1:00:07
  So Steve day, he's get got the Steve flight.
• 1:00:09
  You got the Steve discount, you got the Steve food item on the
• 1:00:14
  on the menu for the food truck. And then we have Steve stickers.
• 1:00:19
  That's a, that's a whole thing. Well, it's just a sticker that
• 1:00:22
  says, hello, my name is Steve. So you're not like you can you
• 1:00:25
  get to just go to Staples and get get a sticker that says
• 1:00:28
  that? Yeah, it's, yeah, we've done it
• 1:00:33
  always and it's always on. It's always a couple days after
• 1:00:38
  Stevens wifes birthday, which is not intentional or the first
• 1:00:43
  time wasn't intentional and now it's kind of just funny.
• 1:00:45
  So we keep doing it. We could move it around.
• 1:00:47
  There's no there's no reason to keep Steve Day on the day that
• 1:00:50
  we have it, but we think it's funny.
• 1:00:51
  At least some of us think it's funny to keep it right by his
• 1:00:55
  wifes birthday. Just do it.
• 1:00:58
  Well, is there a vetting? Process are you?
• 1:01:00
  Checking IDs at the door to make sure there is a We will, Yeah,
• 1:01:03
  yeah. Yeah, you got to, you got to be
• 1:01:05
  like a Steve or a variant of a Steve Stephen, I don't know.
• 1:01:09
  There's a whole list of Steve's so so on my driver's.
• 1:01:12
  License I can get in yeah yeah. You'll you were.
• 1:01:15
  You will definitely. You could definitely get the
• 1:01:17
  discount for sure. Well, Steve and I used to get
• 1:01:19
  confused. With each other early on so I I
• 1:01:21
  don't wonder if I could pass for a Steve maybe maybe the proper I
• 1:01:25
  mean if you said your name was. Steve, you never know, we might
• 1:01:28
  just just give it to you. I don't think it's.
• 1:01:32
  I don't think. It's that big of a steel, you
• 1:01:34
  got 800. Steves of the TAP room.
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, yeah, we would. I think we would.
• 1:01:38
  Know on that one, if it was 800, well, Garrett, you've been
• 1:01:42
  great. Man, you've been great.
• 1:01:43
  We've had you for two hours and this has been fantastic and we
• 1:01:47
  want to say cheers to Steve, but also cheers to you and
• 1:01:51
  Streetside on 10 Years. Thank you very much guys.
• 1:01:54
  I appreciate. It Congrats to you guys thank
• 1:01:56
  you so. Much for spending so much time.
• 1:01:58
  It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, no problem.
• 1:02:00
  Have a good one guys. You too, man.
• 1:02:01
  See you soon on the Brianna Grande.
• 1:02:04
  Cheers.