Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Streetside Brewery with Garrett Hickey - Complete Episode | Cincinnati Craft Beer, Hazy IPAs & Barrel-Aged Stouts : Episodes 129 & 130 Combined

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Streetside Brewery with Garrett Hickey - Complete Episode | Cincinnati Craft Beer, Hazy IPAs & Barrel-Aged Stouts : Episodes 129 & 130 Combined · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:17
  A Steven Scott Daily The Way Brewery Underground, night and
• 0:25
  day. Hey Steve and Scott, we are back
• 0:40
  in Nashville, TN on the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 0:43
  And Scott man, we're excited as we always are because today we
• 0:49
  are going to Cincinnati. We are talking to Garrett
• 0:52
  Hickey. He is the owner and head Brewer
• 0:55
  at St. Side Brewing in the Cincinnati,
• 0:59
  OH area, my hometown. Garrett man, thanks for joining
• 1:04
  us. We appreciate it.
• 1:05
  Yeah, no problem. Yeah, thanks for this Was a
• 1:08
  quick turn around too. I think we reached out to, we
• 1:10
  got this booked in like a week or two or something though.
• 1:13
  It was pretty great turn around. So thanks for being interested.
• 1:17
  Yeah, this is it's always, this is right before fest season, so
• 1:22
  this is a good time to to get something in the end.
• 1:26
  Not that we're not that we're going down to festivals or out
• 1:28
  to festivals on a Wednesday, but it is one of those things where
• 1:32
  once it gets into the summer, the timing starts to get a
• 1:35
  little iffy. Yeah, You know, the, the
• 1:38
  weather's turning right. It's everything's getting nicer.
• 1:40
  He's outside. And, you know, you guys are
• 1:42
  probably already planning some stuff for the fall, I would
• 1:44
  imagine too. Not just events necessarily, but
• 1:46
  you know your beers. You got to look that far out,
• 1:48
  don't you? Yeah, I mean, we've got, we are
• 1:50
  actually. We're just talking about our
• 1:52
  fest beer yesterday, deciding how much we want to make and
• 1:56
  like what our, what our logger plan was for basically after, I
• 2:02
  guess after the fest Bureau, like how we want to, how we want
• 2:06
  to run the rest of the year because we know we're going to
• 2:08
  make the fest beer and how we'll run like the last three loggers
• 2:11
  of the year. Like if we're going to do a fest
• 2:13
  beer, nothing. And then like our, the, the like
• 2:18
  a darker logger that we always release like January or
• 2:21
  December, January, or if we were going to run just like try to
• 2:25
  get 3 out around that time. And because we've done, we have
• 2:28
  a couple loggers that we haven't done in a minute and I want to,
• 2:31
  we've been trying to run them back, but it's busy and you know
• 2:34
  how it goes trying to get the beers that pay the bills out
• 2:38
  there so. Well, Speaking of beer, you know
• 2:43
  we have to thank you because you sent us, you sent us some really
• 2:47
  great beer and Scott's, Scott and I are going to talk about
• 2:49
  one we just had at this house last night.
• 2:52
  But you brought, you brought us and you sent us the Spring
• 2:55
  Breaker, which I am actually drinking right now.
• 2:59
  And ironically, this is one that we you, you did a collab with
• 3:04
  New Groove and we just had them on our podcast not long ago.
• 3:09
  You have a good connection with them.
• 3:10
  That was that was unintentional, but I'm glad it worked out that
• 3:13
  way, Yeah. That was perfect.
• 3:16
  Those guys were great. We brought you up in the
• 3:17
  conversation too, so we might get a little bit into that a
• 3:20
  little bit more during this episode, but it was cool.
• 3:22
  We kind of brought you into that.
• 3:23
  So very nice. I've got the one and Steve and I
• 3:27
  met up last night and he shared what he had that you had sent
• 3:31
  the. Yeah, the our our New England,
• 3:36
  our New England that we're brewing the 88th batch of over
• 3:43
  the last 10 years next week. Holy.
• 3:44
  Shit, really. Yeah, it's, it is like a full,
• 3:49
  it's a full tenth of our production over the last 10
• 3:52
  years. Does the recipe change or has it
• 3:56
  changed over those years? Or does the beer just vary a
• 3:58
  little bit even though it's the recipe might be the same?
• 4:01
  It the only thing that's really changed is the the base malt.
• 4:06
  So the base malt has progressed to a like a lighter base as
• 4:11
  people's visual palette has changed.
• 4:15
  Back when we opened, everyone really wanted that like orange
• 4:19
  juice looking New England, and now you're kind of getting more
• 4:23
  to that towards that pale. Yep, there you go.
• 4:26
  The the straw pale looking beer. I think we still it's a still a
• 4:32
  little bit probably darker than your average, but we're trying
• 4:37
  to keep it trying to keep it somewhat true to the to the
• 4:42
  original recipe. Other than the the base malt
• 4:44
  though, it is 100% everything's still the same.
• 4:49
  So if I could read a quick description of it, it says
• 4:53
  flavor leaves with soft mango and pineapple Peach in light
• 4:56
  darkness and then it's rounded out by soft fluffy, almost
• 4:59
  creamy body. Yeah, that that that description
• 5:03
  is like 9 1/2 years old, so it could probably use some
• 5:05
  updating. But I, well, I'd say I haven't
• 5:09
  tried it yet, but but it's all those things visually.
• 5:13
  Yeah, definitely. It's definitely, and it's
• 5:15
  definitely gotten more like as we've as we've brewed more and
• 5:19
  more of it, we've kind of learned, I mean, we have learned
• 5:21
  a lot through this has been like a big year of secondary
• 5:28
  learning, I guess tertiary learning for me where I started
• 5:32
  listening to a lot more podcasts.
• 5:33
  I had gone through a long time of just kind of not not delving
• 5:37
  into the craft as much as I had just being busy and not kind of
• 5:43
  just, I mean, just being in the in the muck of every year in and
• 5:49
  year out. You kind of go through phases
• 5:50
  where you're you're learning and then you kind of like let
• 5:54
  everybody else can do the the legwork on on research.
• 5:57
  And then right now I'm in the I'm ramping back up.
• 6:01
  So I've I've made some tweaks procedurally to that beer and to
• 6:06
  all of our New England so that I think it has really helped.
• 6:10
  Well, I know you said that it's delicious.
• 6:11
  You were brewing today. Yeah, you said that you were
• 6:13
  brewing today. Did you bring anything that
• 6:16
  you're drinking on the podcast? I went to my parents house and
• 6:18
  helped them re season their Blackstone and then I came home
• 6:21
  and did some gardening. So I am drinking water right
• 6:24
  now. Yeah, it's been busy.
• 6:25
  So we had it was busy day brewing and we had tanks clean
• 6:31
  and some barrel edge projects that we were working on.
• 6:34
  And then I had busy, busy personal stuff.
• 6:37
  So it is definitely we are, I'm ramping down right now.
• 6:43
  Well, thanks for fitting us in, truly.
• 6:46
  Yeah, no problem. Yeah, we'll take it easy on you.
• 6:48
  The other the other beer before Scott and I get to the one that
• 6:52
  we've already had. I also have with me the Coconut
• 6:56
  Beach side. Would you like to talk a little
• 6:59
  bit about that one? Yeah, sure.
• 7:01
  That is a that is a collab with a local restaurant, better beer
• 7:07
  store, better beer restaurant, Hop and Vines.
• 7:10
  As you could see on the back of the can, It's a we originally
• 7:14
  brewed it in 2020, I think. So like right in the midst of
• 7:17
  COVID it is or 2021, I can't remember it was, but it was
• 7:20
  definitely like right there. Everything was kind of shut
• 7:23
  down. It was that the original version
• 7:25
  is a Key Lime, Key Lime Pie milkshake IPA for their
• 7:29
  anniversary this year. We, we did a variant, a big
• 7:32
  batch of a variant. So we did coconut Key Lime Pie.
• 7:35
  We'd done a small keg only batch of that last year.
• 7:38
  They enjoyed it. They asked us to scale it up to
• 7:41
  production size. That's what we did.
• 7:43
  Key Lime, bunch of vanilla probably.
• 7:45
  I think it's like 7500 lbs of coconut between toasted coconut
• 7:49
  and just like raw normal coconut that you would get out of like
• 7:53
  when you're whatever you see at a store.
• 7:56
  I believe we put a little coconut cream in there as well.
• 7:58
  We didn't put a whole ton of it in there because of we want the
• 8:02
  head retention to to remain be. We really want to push that
• 8:06
  coconut to, to the forefront on that beer because Key Lime is a
• 8:09
  very strong flavor and it's hard to, it's hard to overcome it
• 8:13
  when you're trying to like match it with something else.
• 8:16
  So you got to really push the other the the limits on the
• 8:19
  other ingredient that you're adding with it.
• 8:22
  I know Steve was excited about that can because when he got
• 8:24
  when he got the cans, he was like, do you mind if I keep this
• 8:27
  one? Because he was really looking
• 8:28
  forward to drinking that beer. Yeah.
• 8:31
  That's how we used to make a lot more milkshakes.
• 8:33
  So that's we, I don't know if we call it like our specialty, but
• 8:37
  it was like something that we did a ton of and we've done as
• 8:43
  sales have gone down on milkshake IP as in general we've
• 8:45
  definitely done less and less, but we'll do like three to four
• 8:49
  a year. And that's that's when we almost
• 8:51
  always do for the spring because that's their Anna Hobbenby's
• 8:55
  anniversary is in April. So we almost always have it for
• 9:00
  the start of whatever start of spring, middle of spring,
• 9:04
  beginning of summer. Because those types of beers and
• 9:07
  those sales of those beers have gone down.
• 9:09
  Are you still kind of expected? I know you say you make 3 or 4 a
• 9:12
  year, but you still kind of expected a street sides to still
• 9:14
  make those certain people like hey you, you kind of overdue
• 9:17
  from what we're looking forward to the next one.
• 9:20
  Yeah, I think like if we don't, if we weren't brewing like
• 9:25
  specific like John Lennon, John Lennon is our December
• 9:29
  milkshake. It's always lemon, lemon
• 9:31
  meringue milkshake. IPAI feel like if we didn't do
• 9:33
  that one, there would definitely be some comments for sure, like
• 9:37
  when we when we've retired popular beers, you do we do hear
• 9:41
  about it. I think we've had we had a guy
• 9:46
  come in last week to do a barrel pick.
• 9:49
  He won in an auction and he told me like his his daughter, her
• 9:54
  favorite beer was one of the milkshakes that we don't make
• 9:56
  any more. I said, well, maybe we'll now
• 9:57
  that I hear somebody talking about maybe it's maybe we'll go
• 10:00
  back on the list. We used to make a ton of it and
• 10:02
  now I don't even know. It's probably been three years
• 10:05
  since we made it last. So I don't know sometimes if if
• 10:09
  you talk about enough or if I see it online or whatever,
• 10:12
  there's always a chance it'll, it'll get in my get in my head
• 10:16
  and I'll throw it on the brewery list just because it's it
• 10:19
  whatever. I feel like it's something that
• 10:21
  we haven't done in a minute and we have improved brewing
• 10:24
  processes that we could probably make it better.
• 10:26
  So. Well, Scott and I being brewery
• 10:29
  guys, you know, we just love to try anything.
• 10:33
  So, you know, if you walk in, we haven't had it, we're likely
• 10:36
  going to get a try it. But there is one more beer.
• 10:40
  And when you, when you sent that beer to my house on Saturday,
• 10:46
  Scott was out of town. He was in Asheville on a beer
• 10:48
  trip, and so I went over to his house last night and I brought
• 10:53
  this beer over and we did a beer share on his porch.
• 10:56
  Then we made a video and we'll put that out soon.
• 10:59
  But Scott, would you like to talk a little bit about that
• 11:02
  one? Yeah, too.
• 11:04
  First of all, the plan was to drink and share two of those
• 11:08
  beers last night. And we and we started with this
• 11:12
  one. It's he was like, I got to
• 11:14
  drive. We're not going to do 2, we're
• 11:15
  going to do just the one. Yeah, we live.
• 11:18
  We live about 1/2 hour from each other.
• 11:20
  Yeah, and the beer is decadent. Speak of the devil.
• 11:24
  And it's 14 1/2% and it's an imperial double stout and it was
• 11:28
  freaking amazing. Let me give a quick description
• 11:31
  if I can. Toasted coconut, cashew,
• 11:34
  almonds, bee pollen, Indonesian W Papa vanilla beans, and it was
• 11:38
  aged and apple Brandy, Maple syrup barrels for two years.
• 11:42
  Incredible. And it was all of those things,
• 11:46
  including 14 1/2 percent. Yeah, that is, that was the, I
• 11:52
  think that's probably the most popular, maybe second most
• 11:55
  popular of our Speak of the Devil releases this year.
• 11:58
  We had a couple single cans leftover.
• 12:00
  So I, I got down to you guys. That is actually another New
• 12:04
  Groove beer that they did it. I don't remember what beer they
• 12:07
  did it, but I saw it when they were doing their release.
• 12:10
  I think it was for their Black Friday event this past year and
• 12:13
  I was like, well that sounds pretty good.
• 12:15
  I'm going to steal the idea. So I think I have even says it
• 12:18
  on the description where I said it's inspired by inspired by
• 12:23
  those guys. So you guys got 2 beers that
• 12:28
  either were brewed with or inspired by A New Groove.
• 12:31
  But yeah, that. Absolutely.
• 12:33
  I mean, it's they, they do a ton of barrel edged stuff, a ton of
• 12:37
  great barrel edged stuff. If you like, if you have the
• 12:40
  opportunity to borrow from a friend, it's always, it's always
• 12:45
  a good idea if you can. But yeah, we, that's one of
• 12:49
  those ones. Like normally if I'm, if I'm
• 12:51
  looking for new ideas, I'll, I'll pop on on tabs and I'll
• 12:53
  scroll through, see what like go through the the top top raid
• 12:59
  stouts on that top rated list. Just go through and Scroll down
• 13:03
  and see what other people have done has done well.
• 13:05
  And that's kind of some of them. Some of the beers that we do are
• 13:08
  inspired by that. Some of it is beers that we've
• 13:11
  done obviously in the past that we're bringing back or variants
• 13:15
  of different stouts that we want to do with the new stout, new
• 13:19
  base. Some of it is just like straight
• 13:22
  up, just steal it from somebody else.
• 13:27
  I do feel like when you and new group get together, it's like
• 13:29
  these two great minds come together that do really well.
• 13:33
  Both of what you guys do is you do it very well and you come
• 13:35
  together and do it even Better Together.
• 13:37
  It's so, yeah, so cool. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:40
  They, we've done, we've done some, some good stuff with those
• 13:44
  guys and I'm very appreciative of of the help that they've
• 13:50
  given us and the invite to Woodstock this past year and all
• 13:53
  that. So.
• 13:54
  Back on that beer real quick. We had last night, We we poured
• 13:57
  it in, Steve. Good.
• 13:58
  What's the first thing you get? I go.
• 13:59
  It's the Maple syrup. You got the syrup, right, Right.
• 14:02
  Right on the nose. And it was incredible.
• 14:05
  Yeah. And.
• 14:06
  And he tasted all the way through, too.
• 14:08
  Yeah. So those barrels, we do AVIP
• 14:11
  event before all of our stout releases and those barrels have
• 14:16
  been tasted a couple times by the the people at the VIP event
• 14:20
  and they're always super popular.
• 14:22
  It's just like everyone's like when are you gonna release that?
• 14:24
  When you gonna release everyone? When are you gonna release that?
• 14:26
  So that was the year that we released all the speak of the
• 14:29
  devils. We still have a couple, a couple
• 14:31
  of those barrels just tucked away with just like barrels that
• 14:34
  we're using for blenders. They're not going to, they'll
• 14:37
  probably never see the light of day as like the, the brand
• 14:41
  that's written on the barrels, it'll probably get blended into
• 14:44
  your demo. We're going to speak of the
• 14:45
  devil or if we, I know we're releasing one of those barrels
• 14:49
  in a blend that we're releasing for July 4th.
• 14:54
  So we have a couple left. They'll get blended in the next
• 14:58
  couple releases. So you'll still get some of
• 15:00
  that, some of the benefit of those barrels which are great in
• 15:03
  future releases. Yeah, the and the other thing I
• 15:06
  was going to say is I, I can't speak for Scott, but I can speak
• 15:09
  for myself that that is my #1 rated beer so far this year on
• 15:14
  on tap. We we said last night that we
• 15:18
  just did a kind of mid review thing, you know, best beer so
• 15:22
  far and then we do a year end, you know, best beers of the year
• 15:25
  and we, we both said that is going to end up on the list.
• 15:27
  So we're very high on the list, that beer for both of us.
• 15:30
  That's yeah, it's it was like I said, it was super popular.
• 15:35
  I think we still have it on draft, but we are all those the
• 15:41
  Speaking of the devil this year is way more limited than it has
• 15:43
  been in the past. So we I would expect almost all
• 15:48
  of the speak of the devil that we have here to to be gone here
• 15:52
  shortly. Like I know we still have couple
• 15:54
  cans of the least or the less popular variants, but then the
• 15:57
  draft should all be gone next year.
• 15:59
  It'll just be all new stuff on tap next, like when we when we
• 16:02
  do our next release. I know you've been brewing for a
• 16:05
  while and you've been at it for a while, but and when you have a
• 16:10
  beer like this and you feel like you've nailed it as it's going
• 16:14
  out, is there some high fiving going on with you and some of
• 16:17
  the other people there that the some of the other employees
• 16:20
  like? We have freaking nailed this one
• 16:23
  and we cannot wait to get it out.
• 16:25
  Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's honestly it's a little bit it's
• 16:29
  not even not it's not stressful, but it is like if we wanted to
• 16:33
  put this into a competition, it's actually more it's causes a
• 16:37
  little consternation on our end because like FOBAB is until
• 16:41
  until later this year and it's not like we want to hold on to
• 16:44
  this specific variant for however many months, you know, I
• 16:49
  mean we want. So I think we're going to end up
• 16:53
  redoing same variant with everything with Demogorgon that
• 16:57
  would release on Halloween this year.
• 16:59
  So like it is nice because we now have, we know we were going
• 17:02
  to do one, we know one variant that we're going to do this year
• 17:06
  out of however many barrels. Like last year I think we did 8
• 17:09
  or 98 or 9 variants. So it is nice.
• 17:12
  It's nice to have like something that we know that we can fall
• 17:15
  back on if we want to make a beer that people really like.
• 17:19
  But yeah, I mean, like for the most part, most of the guys, we
• 17:24
  were more excited about the nochino barrel that we had that
• 17:29
  was like a Ohio distiller, their black walnut liqueur.
• 17:37
  We were pretty excited about that one that was just straight
• 17:39
  barrel. Definitely not like the most
• 17:42
  beloved on untapped, but it is sometimes you just got to do
• 17:46
  some do one for you, you know, I mean.
• 17:48
  Yes, Yep, and I bet you still had some people out there that
• 17:52
  really appreciated that too with untapped or not.
• 17:55
  Yeah, for sure. Especially those styles aren't
• 17:57
  for everyone. And you know, we've talked about
• 17:58
  this all the time. Somebody might not might check
• 18:00
  it in, not like the style, and not really appreciate that beer
• 18:04
  for what it is. Yeah, it's and it's like because
• 18:07
  it's such a a big fixed out without any adjuncts in it,
• 18:11
  you're getting you're getting a ton of stout and you're getting
• 18:14
  a ton of barrel, especially when they age for two years.
• 18:17
  So you really have to be like, if you don't love, if you don't
• 18:20
  love that barrel or you don't love the the base, it's really
• 18:23
  tough. I'm sure to to check it in.
• 18:25
  It's not that's not my it's not my thing, but I understand that
• 18:29
  like that's a that's a big thing for most consumers is to is
• 18:33
  their check insurance. So.
• 18:35
  I I appreciate you guys and New Groove still, still doing that.
• 18:39
  You know, there's a lot of, you know, we're kind of getting away
• 18:42
  from that. People are going to beer
• 18:43
  flavored beer and you guys do some of that too.
• 18:44
  We're talk about it, but you guys are still keeping that
• 18:47
  alive and you're doing a really good job of that too.
• 18:50
  Yeah, it's, I mean, the, the market in Cincinnati is still
• 18:54
  like we do. We have our our beer flavored
• 18:57
  beers. The market's still there for
• 18:59
  sweet stouts. I mean hazy Ipas I think have
• 19:03
  almost become like that's, that is beer flavored beer at this
• 19:07
  point. But West Coast Ipas are, I mean,
• 19:10
  West Coast pills obviously like that what you got.
• 19:12
  West Coast Ipas are are making a comeback.
• 19:14
  It's probably like if you look at our brewing schedule, it's
• 19:18
  probably like out of I typically order in like 6 beers at a time.
• 19:25
  It's when I'm ordering it's like 2 Ipas or two New England's, one
• 19:33
  West Coast or something like more like more perceived
• 19:37
  bitterness, affirmative sour. And then like probably something
• 19:42
  for like the, the OG beer fans, whether it's like an amber,
• 19:47
  which is we do an ESB and just call an amber.
• 19:50
  It's easier. It's easier to describe it that
• 19:52
  way. Or sells more.
• 19:54
  Yeah, it definitely sells more than saying an ESB or doing like
• 19:58
  or mild or brown ale or anything like that.
• 20:02
  We're trying to do that's like the the last one, just to make
• 20:05
  sure that we have something on that that appeals to everybody.
• 20:09
  Yeah, I was sitting there last night as we were drinking the
• 20:12
  Decadence and I said to Scott, I said, you know, and we've been
• 20:15
  to a lot of breweries in Cincinnati.
• 20:17
  I think it's one of the things that really makes you all stand
• 20:21
  out because you're not probably going to walk into a lot of
• 20:23
  breweries in Cincinnati and see something that's 14.5% on on the
• 20:28
  board. There's just not as many
• 20:30
  breweries doing super high stouts.
• 20:33
  I mean it's just super high baby stouts.
• 20:36
  I think it's less of a need for them.
• 20:39
  Whereas like our market and our crowd is still like looking
• 20:43
  specifically for that kind of that kind of beer, like you're
• 20:47
  not going to Mad Tree and and getting a 14% period.
• 20:50
  Their crowd is definitely more looking for that drinkable like
• 20:55
  everyday beer, whereas like we have our releases, we have our
• 21:02
  Tevor buy stuff, we've got our festivals, we got to, we do have
• 21:05
  to have that stock of of like air and beer isn't the way to
• 21:10
  say it, But like the the premium product that is like that you
• 21:14
  would sell for $22.00 a two pack or whatever we're selling,
• 21:18
  selling the beers for nowadays. I think that's that's one of
• 21:22
  those things where like there's some brews that do it, some
• 21:26
  brews that don't. It doesn't like one way or the
• 21:28
  other, it doesn't really matter. Like as long as you're making
• 21:31
  money and selling beer, it's it's all good.
• 21:33
  Yeah, that's that's, that's a lot of it, I would think.
• 21:37
  Let's go back. You were talking a little bit
• 21:39
  before about untapped. How much do you use untapped as
• 21:45
  a resource? Probably more than I should.
• 21:49
  We, I look at it, if we release a new beer, I like to check it
• 21:55
  to see like what people are saying about it.
• 21:57
  If we release like a like a brown ale, which we were never
• 22:00
  going to do, we've got 1 brown ale and that's the only brown
• 22:03
  hill that we're going to do because it doesn't make sense to
• 22:05
  have multiple brown nails. Like I'm not going to, I don't
• 22:08
  care. I don't care what people check
• 22:10
  in as because it's it's not a style that's going to rank
• 22:12
  highly. It is I'll check to see like
• 22:15
  what people do on style. So I'll check to do see what
• 22:18
  people are rating for New England's and then other than
• 22:22
  that, it is what it is. For the most part, I was, I am
• 22:25
  curious every time we do a West Coast pills just because it's a
• 22:28
  newer style and I want to see how people are receiving it.
• 22:32
  But the for the most part I, I'm really only in there on on the
• 22:38
  bike hype, the hype beers. You know, I mean, I want to see,
• 22:42
  I want to see what I want to see what people are saying about the
• 22:43
  beers that I perceive. Like I, I think that people
• 22:46
  should be hyped about and see if they agree with me.
• 22:50
  So like we just did, we just released a double New England
• 22:54
  IPA on Tuesday. Curious to see how it how it
• 22:58
  does on adapt. I haven't checked it.
• 23:00
  We weren't super busy last night.
• 23:02
  So wait, was last night Tuesday? Yes, we did on Monday.
• 23:07
  Really still on Monday. So it's been on sale for almost
• 23:11
  2 days now We so it'll be interesting to see like how that
• 23:14
  goes throughout the weekend. We're releasing another New
• 23:17
  England on Friday. So those two, those two I'll
• 23:21
  check up on throughout the weekend, see how they go.
• 23:23
  I'm hoping the double does well. It's a, it's one of the, it's in
• 23:27
  that 10 year series that we did with new Groove.
• 23:31
  We've done with, I mean, we're halfway through.
• 23:34
  So we're, we've done a bunch. We did Mad Tree at the very
• 23:37
  beginning. We did Voodoo at the very
• 23:38
  beginning. This month we are brewing with
• 23:41
  Dorothy Lane Market, which is a grocery store in Dayton and
• 23:45
  Mason doing a Galaxy dry Hop Saison with honey.
• 23:49
  So that'll be our June release. But it's always that one I care
• 23:54
  a little bit more about because we're putting it behind it the
• 23:56
  the 10 year collab series. So I'm always a little bit more
• 24:01
  on top of those as well, even if they are like boring styles or
• 24:04
  whatever. So obviously the better when it
• 24:06
  comes to untapped ratings, but what's like satisfactory for you
• 24:10
  what you're looking at? Or anything.
• 24:14
  Well, 39 is probably like the lowest I like to see.
• 24:18
  I mean, it also depends on the style, you know what I mean?
• 24:21
  Our loggers, our loggers are never going to hit.
• 24:25
  If we got a 38-ON logger, like it's killer.
• 24:28
  Like might be like the best beer we've ever done, but on like a
• 24:34
  stout, anything below a 415 is not great on New England.
• 24:39
  It's like 4395 is probably what I'm looking for, which sounds
• 24:43
  kind of ridiculous when you look at when you think about the
• 24:45
  scale is out of five. But that's just kind of like
• 24:48
  where we're, it's kind of where we're at.
• 24:51
  We can, I can tell you this and it's not, we're not cheating.
• 24:53
  The the beer we had last night, I gave it a 48.
• 24:57
  Steve gave it a 49. So.
• 25:00
  Oh, yeah. So I hope that was pretty.
• 25:03
  Good. I'm sure, I'm sure they'll drag
• 25:05
  it up because I'm there were I mean, because it's not like
• 25:08
  because it was limited. Yeah.
• 25:10
  It's one of those things where it's not, it's the each, each
• 25:15
  really high rating drags up that that overall, which is nice.
• 25:18
  Yeah, I like the fact that you usually untap for for research
• 25:22
  to going back and just finding stuff in there too, because it
• 25:24
  is a great tool for that. And you know, as a Brewer, I
• 25:27
  know you guys look at it differently from your side than
• 25:29
  our side. Yeah, it's one of those.
• 25:31
  I mean, like it's at this point, like it's hard to keep track of
• 25:35
  everybody's releases. Like I don't, I don't know what
• 25:38
  everybody's doing anymore. It's, it's, there's so many
• 25:41
  releases and they're so like even like people that I'm
• 25:44
  friendly with or I'm friends with or whatever.
• 25:46
  It's just like I don't follow. I don't follow for a reason on
• 25:50
  my personal account for the most part on my personal Instagram
• 25:53
  account. So I'm not seeing what other
• 25:54
  people are doing in my whatever I'm doing air quotes.
• 25:58
  I don't know if my my box goes out that far, but in my quote UN
• 26:01
  quote personal time, I'm not doing a whole lot of like seeing
• 26:06
  what releases are doing. So are going.
• 26:08
  So like if I'm not, if I'm not on the brewery account, the
• 26:11
  brewery Instagram account or the brewery Facebook account, I'm
• 26:14
  not seeing what other breweries are doing.
• 26:16
  Mostly just because like I'm trying to, if I can get a little
• 26:20
  bit of time away from looking at beer stuff when I'm not
• 26:23
  listening podcasts or whatever. So and I, and I run the a lot of
• 26:29
  the social media anyway. So like I am very often on
• 26:33
  there. But yeah, I try not to, I, I
• 26:35
  just don't see releases quite as much anymore.
• 26:37
  So it is really nice to be able to like get on there, especially
• 26:40
  top rated, Obviously click on see what the, the best breweries
• 26:44
  in the in the world are doing. I think I, I leave it all the
• 26:48
  way up to world. I don't even narrow it down to
• 26:51
  the US. So sometimes it is like you see
• 26:54
  this esoteric brewery in Finland that just did like a crazy
• 27:00
  hazelnut style with some stuff that like I, we can't even get
• 27:04
  in the US. And now I have to like feel
• 27:05
  like, all right, well, I don't know, I'm going to do with that.
• 27:07
  But you just go and Scroll down to the next one, see if it's a
• 27:10
  good idea or not or whatever. You imagine feeling, I think
• 27:12
  about some of those Scandinavian countries and I know because
• 27:14
  I've seen and done some like some of those weird, you know,
• 27:18
  whale blubber ingredients with such and such smoked sometimes
• 27:23
  and I'm like. I've seen there was something
• 27:26
  somewhat recently that like got pushed in my in like in my
• 27:29
  algorithm. I saw some weird, something
• 27:31
  weird. I was like that that's I'm glad
• 27:33
  that we have some kind of constraints here that don't
• 27:37
  allow people to do that. Are you?
• 27:41
  Are you the one that has those constraints?
• 27:44
  I yeah, I mean there is stuff that I, I mean, I, yeah, I do.
• 27:48
  There are some, there's some things that I, I have, I've said
• 27:51
  no to that. I don't, I don't, I don't really
• 27:54
  like like I'm not a big fruit in stout person.
• 28:00
  So that's one of those ones where like you won't see a whole
• 28:03
  lot of those from us Pepper. I'm not big pepper, pepper and
• 28:07
  stout person. So those are the two we've done
• 28:10
  them, but not a, it's not as that's definitely not one of
• 28:13
  those things that we do a whole lot of.
• 28:15
  So you, if you see it, I mean somebody won an argument or it
• 28:19
  might be or it might be a collab that was really passionate about
• 28:22
  doing that, that style. How many people are involved in
• 28:26
  these conversations besides yourself?
• 28:29
  It's really just me and our production manager Steve does.
• 28:35
  He's kind of in charge of like the execution of my ideas.
• 28:40
  So like a lot of times I'll be like, all right, I want to do
• 28:42
  this and then he'll go off and he'll be buying the ingredients
• 28:46
  and he'll do the actual dosing and everything.
• 28:48
  But Speaking of the devil, it was kind of like equal parts
• 28:52
  him. And I feel like we were just
• 28:53
  like very busy during that time. That April was a incredibly busy
• 28:58
  month for us. So we had a lot going on leading
• 29:01
  up to basically from Saint Patrick's Day till the end of
• 29:04
  April. We were, we were jam packed.
• 29:07
  So I, he and I boast like really work like X, like buy
• 29:14
  ingredients, dosing everything, getting it going, packaging and
• 29:18
  then just keep, keep going, keep doing that with like there was
• 29:22
  for the sub raw day that we did on 4/18, we packaged 3 variants
• 29:27
  in a day just to, just to get it.
• 29:29
  I mean, it wasn't, it was that's 45 cases.
• 29:32
  It's not a ton of cases, but it was like you got to flip the
• 29:34
  tank, you got to get the new beer and you got to dose the new
• 29:36
  beer and then you got to package it.
• 29:38
  So it does, it was a long day, I think.
• 29:43
  And we're just, I mean, it's just one of those things where
• 29:45
  like you're just banging out beers trying to get them ready
• 29:49
  for releases and we're slowing down now.
• 29:52
  We don't have any events planned for quite some time.
• 29:56
  So we don't have to, we don't have to worry about that as
• 29:59
  much. But now we're now we're ramping
• 30:02
  up big production, not like small, small production runs for
• 30:06
  limited releases. So now's now is the time where
• 30:09
  whatever I'm, like I said, brewed this morning, I'm brewing
• 30:12
  on Friday and then brewing again on Monday.
• 30:15
  So and then I think on Memorial Day, I already have, I'm, I'm
• 30:18
  scheduled to brew on that day as well.
• 30:20
  We have two Brewers, 2 1/2 Brewers ish.
• 30:24
  So if somebody's out of town or somebody wants a day off, it
• 30:27
  typically falls to me. So that's why I'm, I am getting
• 30:31
  loaded right now because not loaded with drink, loaded with
• 30:35
  loaded with production. Because our guy, the guy who is
• 30:39
  the is the second Brewer, he has a lot of days off scheduled in
• 30:44
  May. So I get the pleasure of brewing
• 30:48
  many, many beers this month. We can't forget from beers.
• 30:52
  I agree. I know you have a sense of humor
• 30:55
  because in December I was in Cincinnati up for the holidays
• 30:59
  visiting my family and they all. I'm from the West side of
• 31:03
  Cincinnati and right down the street from where my my sister
• 31:07
  and brother-in-law live there's a marathon gas station has a
• 31:11
  little tap room. I've gotten some St. side on
• 31:13
  their taps before and they sell St. side and I I looked up and I
• 31:19
  saw some St. side and the name alone of this one got me hooked
• 31:25
  me in. I bought a four pack of this
• 31:28
  shit is bananas. I brought it back.
• 31:32
  I gave one to Scott. Can you describe this beer and
• 31:36
  are you the one that was behind brewing this one?
• 31:41
  I don't think I brewed it, but it was that was my naming, my
• 31:45
  name. Although I mean, if you look at
• 31:46
  a beer, typically it's named by me.
• 31:49
  It's like 99% of the beers are named by me.
• 31:54
  Yes, that was me. That's banana pancake sour.
• 31:58
  I don't remember the whole thing, but that was for our 9 or
• 32:03
  800th batch of beer. I believe.
• 32:05
  No 900 because we're coming up on it'll be 1000 be just today's
• 32:11
  batch was actually 950. So we'll probably hit 1000 by
• 32:15
  the end of the year. But we yes, there are some of
• 32:19
  the some of the beers are are named interesting things.
• 32:24
  If you if you ever people don't but like if you ever read the
• 32:27
  description, sometimes I will sneak some interesting things in
• 32:30
  there as well. Some Easter.
• 32:33
  Eggs you. You're putting the Easter eggs.
• 32:36
  You never, yeah, you never know, Especially if it's like if we're
• 32:40
  if the label has to do with has to do with like a whatever
• 32:47
  popular culture. I'll try to sneak some some
• 32:51
  references into the the description if I can.
• 32:55
  I mean, it's Spring Breakers has a like, it's actually, it's
• 32:59
  funny because our creative guy was like this doesn't really
• 33:04
  jive with the label, but the, the label is very heartfelt and
• 33:08
  like talking about our, how we vacation in South Carolina.
• 33:13
  What like our, our family, the Hickey family has goes down to
• 33:17
  South Carolina like every year. My, my mom's down there right
• 33:20
  now. My dad's going down on Friday.
• 33:23
  So they we talked about how like South Carolina means so much to
• 33:26
  us. And then the label is, I mean,
• 33:29
  labels from the movie Spring Breakers, which if you've seen,
• 33:33
  it's pretty ridiculous movie. It's not really not really
• 33:36
  doesn't really jive with a like a heartfelt, heartfelt, well,
• 33:41
  description, but here we are. Well, going back to that beer
• 33:44
  real quick because, you know, it says it's packed with banana,
• 33:48
  Maple, cinnamon pancakes. And for me it was like, I feel
• 33:53
  like I'm going into an IHOP and this is what I've ordered.
• 33:59
  But I also felt like if I was in a Willy Wonka movie, if you
• 34:04
  remember the old Willy Wonka with the golf shopper.
• 34:06
  And I was like this, this is absolutely incredible.
• 34:10
  And I mean, you guys nailed it. And to me, and I know Scott's
• 34:14
  the same way, you know, as brewery guys, you just love that
• 34:18
  kind of experience. Yeah, the, that, I mean, like I
• 34:22
  say it when whenever we do a, whenever we do a beer, like if I
• 34:28
  put that the, it tastes like something, I want you to be able
• 34:32
  to taste it. Like I don't want you to come
• 34:33
  from that experience of drinking it and say this doesn't taste
• 34:36
  like what I what, what the, what the label says.
• 34:40
  So it's a big one for me. It's always been a, that's
• 34:43
  always been like a pet peeve of mine from the early days when I
• 34:48
  was back doing beer shares and all that.
• 34:50
  Like when people would be like, oh, this is this and this and
• 34:52
  this, and then you taste it like you don't taste anything.
• 34:55
  I'd rather go overboard than underboard.
• 34:57
  You know, underboard isn't really though describe that.
• 34:59
  But whatever I'm we're on, we're on minute 38.
• 35:03
  I'm going to say some words that don't make a whole lot of sense.
• 35:07
  Well, that's OK, We got a we. Got a lot to get to and I'm
• 35:09
  going to, I'm going to throw out one more at you because Scott
• 35:12
  was with me. We had that when we went the
• 35:14
  street side a few years ago. And my cousin was with me.
• 35:18
  And the other day he had text me something and I said, hey, we
• 35:21
  got St. Tribe Brewery coming on.
• 35:23
  My, my cousin lives over in Anderson Township and he goes,
• 35:26
  Oh yeah, I remember when you had that, that he called it the blue
• 35:30
  concoction. I had gotten a flight and it was
• 35:33
  the IT was the Blue Monday, the ice cream beer, the ice cream.
• 35:37
  Beer. Let me tell.
• 35:38
  You something that was really funny about that.
• 35:40
  We do a big Reds outing every year.
• 35:42
  My family do. We do.
• 35:44
  And the next day we had gone to the Reds game, my cousin there,
• 35:49
  Scott was there and I about 3 or 4 of my cousins come up to me
• 35:52
  and they said I heard you had like this Wild Blue beer last
• 35:56
  night at St. Side.
• 35:58
  Yeah. So it was kind of a talk.
• 35:59
  It was talk of the Reds game in my family, man.
• 36:02
  Yeah, it was that. Was a that was an interesting
• 36:05
  one that actually it was not supposed to be a full batch.
• 36:09
  It was supposed to be 4 barrels. And I did bad math and like the
• 36:15
  the ice cream that we got was in a 5 gallon bucket they dump into
• 36:18
  their soft serve machine. That's how they make it.
• 36:21
  My math was way off and I dumped it into our 4 barrel tank, our 4
• 36:26
  barrel like small, small release tank.
• 36:29
  Steve actually was like, yo, this is not this is not right.
• 36:32
  This is way too much and I think I may have gone out of town.
• 36:37
  Maybe I may have done it on like a Thursday and left for the like
• 36:43
  the weekend. It may have been the festival,
• 36:45
  may have gone out on vacation, unlikely vacation, probably
• 36:47
  festival. But I came back and he's like we
• 36:50
  got to do. He's like we got not do whatever
• 36:54
  sour we were planning on doing and like put all of this
• 36:58
  together in a big tank and he's like, I don't even know that
• 37:01
  it's going to like taste right after that.
• 37:04
  He's like it. You may have just added so much
• 37:06
  that like we need to do like a 20 barrel batch as opposed to
• 37:09
  like a 15. And then we did it.
• 37:12
  Obviously it was it was overly blue.
• 37:15
  I liked I like I thought it was a a fun beer, fun concept, but I
• 37:18
  don't think we'll ever do that one again.
• 37:20
  Unfortunately, that was. That's OK, I.
• 37:23
  Have a picture of it on my phone though, so yeah I do too.
• 37:26
  When we post, Yeah, When we post some.
• 37:28
  Things about this episode, I'll have to find that one and and
• 37:33
  stick it out there. Yeah, it was.
• 37:35
  It was quite. Colorful, for sure.
• 37:37
  It was. It was.
• 37:38
  It's it's, I had quite a few people texting me about that
• 37:43
  beer especially like festivals or whatever, because it coated
• 37:47
  glasses and just kind of looked. It was not.
• 37:52
  It was just like it was a it was a fun idea that probably that
• 37:56
  obviously got executed on poorly by me and then we made it right
• 38:01
  ish. I think I would have to like to
• 38:03
  think real hard on how I want to do it again if I was to if I was
• 38:06
  to do it again, how did it? How did it?
• 38:08
  End up ultimately, did you sell through all of it?
• 38:12
  We did sell through. All of it, I don't know.
• 38:14
  I didn't drink it. Honestly, I have no idea.
• 38:17
  I had it once, I'm sure. Yeah, I was going to say Steve
• 38:21
  will have to. Say, but maybe look.
• 38:25
  Back on your own debt training and see what you gave it because
• 38:27
  it's, it's not one of those ones that it's not one of those ones
• 38:30
  that I expected a whole lot of. I think it's true.
• 38:32
  So true confession. I did look, I rated it a 3.5 O
• 38:38
  There you go. Yeah, I that's about right.
• 38:41
  If you look at the, I think if you look, I think if you look at
• 38:43
  the overall, I think that's probably about and I don't and I
• 38:46
  don't know. You asked.
• 38:48
  You asked because I don't normally will say that to her.
• 38:50
  But by the way, I mean, I don't it was it was all right.
• 38:53
  But you know what, again, it's what we said.
• 38:56
  It makes it makes the the outings fun.
• 38:59
  I mean, it became a conversation of cousins at a Reds game, for
• 39:02
  God's sake. So you know you'll take the 35
• 39:06
  won't? You, I'll take the 3/5 and move.
• 39:08
  Yeah. I mean, it's on.
• 39:10
  Especially on that one, it's it is what?
• 39:12
  Like again, it's it was I, I knew it was, it was, I knew it
• 39:17
  was going to be hit or miss when we did it.
• 39:19
  And then after everything, it was even more hit or miss.
• 39:23
  So I'm glad it's one of those like it's one of those ones,
• 39:26
  some of some of these beers that we do.
• 39:29
  I'm just like, all right, I'm ready for this to be out in the
• 39:32
  world and out of my tanks. We've had a couple of those
• 39:36
  where I'm just like, who knows what people are going to think
• 39:39
  of this beer? Like I'm just happy that happy
• 39:42
  that I don't have to deal with anymore.
• 39:45
  When you when you get. Out of the beer, go with God.
• 39:49
  When you get out. Of the back of the house and you
• 39:50
  get it gone. You're like OK, it's your
• 39:52
  problem now kind of thing. It's the world sometimes.
• 39:56
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially if it's
• 40:00
  something that somebody else wanted to do and I'm just like,
• 40:02
  all right, well, you this is this was your thing and I made
• 40:06
  it the best I could and hopefully.
• 40:09
  Hopefully it sells. So that was actually wasn't that
• 40:11
  was like that was 100% me thing. That was after talking with RAR,
• 40:18
  their Brewer was like you guys, you guys could do this pretty
• 40:20
  easy. I was like, all right, I'll try
• 40:23
  it and it it didn't. It just didn't go over well.
• 40:26
  I don't know. Maybe I'll now that now that
• 40:28
  we're talking about, maybe I'll try it again this summer or
• 40:30
  something. Well, you know you learn from.
• 40:32
  Mistakes with a little bit more restraint.
• 40:33
  With a little bit more restraint, a little bit more.
• 40:37
  Yeah, just restraint really. That's all I need to do.
• 40:39
  And we've we've changed our sour base too, which I think would
• 40:42
  help a lot. I think it also like dial back
• 40:45
  the sourness, use one of the use one of the like a lacto blend
• 40:49
  that doesn't produce quite so much fuss or not phosphoric
• 40:51
  acid. Excuse me, lacto, lacto, lactic
• 40:54
  acid. Hey, you got my support.
• 40:56
  You do. It again, we'll bring it back
• 40:57
  on. There you go, totally.
• 41:00
  And I love. That you mentioned RAR because
• 41:01
  we've had some of those beers. We've had a lot of those beers
• 41:03
  and man, you want to talk about colorful, We did a we did a an
• 41:06
  episode, we had flights. Of it and.
• 41:08
  Three of the four that Steve had were white, three whites and a
• 41:13
  blue. They love their.
• 41:15
  They love their ice cream. Oh, that's that.
• 41:18
  He's he's he's helped me along with that one.
• 41:21
  We just don't do it a whole lot. They don't that style beer
• 41:25
  doesn't really sell well for us. We are going to do a like a
• 41:28
  smoothie sour release in July. July 18th, I think is what we're
• 41:33
  going to do. We used to do a series called
• 41:35
  Too Cool that we did. I think we did like four or five
• 41:39
  variants of and then I just kind of like, it was just like they
• 41:42
  sold well, but it just like it became too much.
• 41:46
  We like it. At some point you got to like
• 41:48
  kind of pair down the the things that you're doing, especially
• 41:50
  when you're doing, you've got all the other showers that have
• 41:54
  to be released. So I just was like, yeah, this
• 41:56
  is too much. We can't do it.
• 41:58
  So we're going to bring them back.
• 41:59
  We're going to do a little, a little festival or anything, but
• 42:03
  like just a release day like we do with Subraw Day or return the
• 42:06
  Mac day or whatever. We'll see how people respond to
• 42:09
  it. It'll be nice to to gauge
• 42:11
  people's interest in something that we haven't done in quite
• 42:14
  some time. I.
• 42:16
  Am really fascinated with your beer story.
• 42:19
  Like how you got started. You were a home Brewer and you
• 42:23
  brewed beer with your dad, right?
• 42:25
  Like in the garage. I did.
• 42:27
  I did. Well, to start, I was a I was a
• 42:34
  ticket sales Rep for a Miley baseball team.
• 42:38
  He started home brewing in Cincinnati.
• 42:40
  I was in Erie, PA, was the offseason, so I had a lot of
• 42:43
  time to kill on the like leaving work.
• 42:47
  I. Don't know if you've ever been
• 42:49
  to Erie? Pennsylvania in the winter, but
• 42:50
  there's not a whole lot to do. It's very cold.
• 42:52
  That was actually the the snowiest year I think they've
• 42:55
  had like at this point, I think it's 1213 years.
• 43:01
  We won the Golden snow globe that year, which is most most
• 43:06
  snow in a city over 50,000 people I believe or.
• 43:10
  We came in second, but it was. Ridiculous.
• 43:11
  It was like 200 something inches of snow that year, so I didn't
• 43:16
  have a whole lot to do. You can basically drink, work
• 43:19
  and watch TV. That was so that's what I did.
• 43:23
  So he started home brewing. I was like, oh, I think I'll, I
• 43:26
  can do better than you. So I'm going to start home
• 43:29
  brewing. I started home brewing.
• 43:30
  I had more people to give it to because I, I coworkers and we
• 43:34
  drink the home brew as we are like prepping the stadium for
• 43:38
  the spring. And then we kind of from there,
• 43:41
  I kind of pivoted very quickly. They, my parents had always
• 43:45
  wanted to start a bar in Cincinnati.
• 43:47
  And we're like, well, why not? Why not do a brewery?
• 43:50
  It's makes all the sense in the world to make your own product
• 43:53
  as opposed to buy product, which is obviously a lot of people say
• 43:58
  it's extremely naive. You shouldn't do that.
• 44:00
  You shouldn't. That should not be how you how
• 44:02
  you go about opening a brewery. So I end up quitting the job mid
• 44:08
  season came back home, started home brewing.
• 44:12
  I worked it. I worked in a bar during the
• 44:14
  day. I was bar backing and then I
• 44:18
  would volunteer at Mad Tree during my off time on their
• 44:22
  canning line back when they had the canning line was a was a
• 44:25
  behemoth. It was like I think you had to
• 44:28
  have like 6 people working it, which is now I think you
• 44:31
  probably have three people working quadruple the the size
• 44:35
  canning line over there. But I would volunteer over
• 44:38
  there. They paid me and beer.
• 44:40
  Then I kept working at the bar. Kept working at the bar.
• 44:46
  We like as we looked. For a, a site for the brewery, I
• 44:53
  was like, well, I like, I don't know that I'm going to, I don't
• 44:55
  know that I'm going to learn enough just home brewing.
• 44:58
  So I looked for a school with like a practical side, like a
• 45:02
  brewing school with a practical side.
• 45:04
  Found one in Sunderland, England, which is on the coast
• 45:09
  right by Newcastle, and you didn't really apply, you just
• 45:14
  paid. So I went over there.
• 45:16
  I was over there for three months, worked.
• 45:20
  We only ate. Whatever it is. 1111 weeks, 10
• 45:23
  weeks total of actual brewing time, maybe a little bit longer,
• 45:26
  I can't remember. Every week. 3 days were two days
• 45:33
  were theoretical. No, three days were theoretical.
• 45:36
  2 days were practical. We'd basically homebrew one day
• 45:39
  and then go another day. We'd go around the area to
• 45:43
  breweries in Northeast England and we'd we'd work at, we'd work
• 45:47
  at a brewery, see how it worked over there.
• 45:50
  And then basically it's just like hung out.
• 45:53
  I hung out in Europe for those months like I was most most
• 45:58
  weekends I was out like exploring.
• 46:01
  I would either go, I never actually, I think I went to
• 46:04
  Newcastle one night, which is like the that's like the party
• 46:08
  center of that area. But I went to Glasgow, went to
• 46:11
  Edinburgh, I went to Dublin, I went to Belfast, I went to I
• 46:16
  went all over, all over Europe. That's just that's obviously
• 46:19
  just the UK ish in Republic of Ireland.
• 46:23
  But I did do other things. I went to, I went to France, I
• 46:26
  went to Belgium. Did you find good beer?
• 46:29
  Over there, by the way, did find some good.
• 46:31
  Beer got to drink at Cantillon, got to drink a bunch of wine in
• 46:39
  in France. So I got to, I got to experience
• 46:42
  some, some interesting, some interesting places, some
• 46:44
  interesting beverages. And then I learned a bunch.
• 46:47
  Our professor was, or our teacher was formerly the head of
• 46:51
  production at Newcastle. And he was so, yeah, a lot of
• 46:55
  experience, like very large. But he, I mean, he knew, he knew
• 46:58
  everything. So learned a lot from him and
• 47:01
  then came back to Cincinnati and almost immediately got a job at
• 47:07
  Rivertown, which now no longer exists.
• 47:08
  But they were in Lockland and got a job.
• 47:12
  I was in, I was on the packaging side for a couple weeks just to
• 47:16
  make sure I went quit and then they moved me over to the seller
• 47:20
  side. So cleaning tanks, transferring
• 47:23
  beer, whatever, taking gravity is all that stuff.
• 47:26
  It's mostly when you're, when you're on that, when you're
• 47:28
  doing that much beer, it's mostly cleaning tanks and
• 47:32
  transferring and filtering. And they moved me over to the
• 47:36
  brewing side pretty quickly after that.
• 47:37
  I was only selling for about a month, maybe a month and a half.
• 47:41
  And then I was 1st shift on the brewing side for about 10 months
• 47:47
  and then left that worked at a bar bartending so I could kind
• 47:52
  of get another aspect of like what front of house side And
• 47:55
  then we open St. side shortly after that.
• 47:57
  So I tried to get all aspects of everything.
• 48:00
  So I've done, I mean, I did everything on the way to set,
• 48:04
  make sure that I knew at least had some idea of how to do
• 48:08
  anything that might come up at the brewery when you're at Brew
• 48:10
  Lab. Are they teaching you?
• 48:12
  Kind of the practices of that part of the world, it was a lot.
• 48:16
  Of English practices, the biggest, I mean, one of the
• 48:19
  biggest different, the biggest difference really is there's a
• 48:22
  couple, Oh, the first one is like they, even though they've
• 48:26
  been brewing obviously forever and the, the brewing industry
• 48:29
  over there is, is significantly more advanced time wise.
• 48:34
  There's still breweries over there that are using like
• 48:36
  plastic fermentors and like the equipment just like it's, it's
• 48:39
  pretty shitty, honestly. And it's crazy that these places
• 48:42
  are like doing well and surviving, running on like the
• 48:46
  most raggedy ass equipment that you've ever seen.
• 48:48
  Like it's crazy, like in like warehouses that are like not
• 48:51
  very nice and like you like you go to a brewery in in the US and
• 48:56
  you see that and you assume the beer is probably be pretty bad.
• 48:59
  And they do they make pretty good beer at most these places.
• 49:02
  It's pretty crazy. I mean, the, the place that I'm
• 49:04
  talking about, they had the plastic for marriage, didn't
• 49:06
  make very good beer, But so that was like a big one is like, it's
• 49:09
  crazy. They were able to make pretty
• 49:11
  good to very good beer on bad equipment.
• 49:15
  And then the other thing is like they, they use all holy pops.
• 49:19
  So it is a huge difference coming over and the, the big
• 49:23
  difference between like once you're in the kennel, there's a
• 49:27
  big, there's a huge change. So there was a, there was like a
• 49:30
  weird adjustment period when I started using like obviously at
• 49:35
  Rivertown, when I got over here, I had used whole wave hops on a
• 49:41
  production level. I'd never used a penalized hops
• 49:44
  on a production level. And there was definitely like a
• 49:46
  weird thing. I was like, how do I like how do
• 49:49
  I filter this beer out? Because that those the holy fat
• 49:52
  hops act as a filter for them. They don't really a lot of those
• 49:56
  places don't have a Whirlpool to settle everything out, which is
• 49:59
  how you settle out like protein and hops in American brew
• 50:02
  houses. I was like, how the how am I
• 50:04
  going to do this? Like I don't, I don't know.
• 50:06
  And then like, obviously you run a Whirlpool and it's all fine,
• 50:10
  you just spray it out. But over there, like you throw
• 50:14
  those hops, you do your, you might do like a a Whirlpool if
• 50:17
  they have the Whirlpool arm. And at the end of the day, you
• 50:20
  like spray down the the coat, the giant cone of holy hops with
• 50:24
  cold water. And then you climb in, you
• 50:25
  shovel it into a garbage can. So your days are are much
• 50:29
  stickier and you're in the equipment way more than you
• 50:32
  would be over here. Like most of the time I'm not
• 50:35
  climbing the kettle at the end of the day unless something went
• 50:37
  really wrong, so they're not brewing over.
• 50:40
  There like a decadence. Some of them might.
• 50:44
  I mean like you. Do have you do have your
• 50:46
  American, I don't want to call it American style, but you you
• 50:49
  do have your like more modern styles over there.
• 50:51
  It's not it's not all like English summer ales and ES BS,
• 50:56
  but like you do like the places that I brewed.
• 50:59
  I never got to go to the more modern place that was in
• 51:03
  Edinburgh. We just like there was 12
• 51:06
  breweries to go to and we went to 10.
• 51:08
  I went to so like you only had time to go to 10 and I didn't
• 51:11
  get to, I wasn't lucky enough to go to the one that was super
• 51:14
  small. And they tried to match you with
• 51:15
  what size production that they thought you were going to be
• 51:18
  doing. So I was going to bigger, more
• 51:19
  production size breweries. But yeah, the places I went to,
• 51:23
  I was, I think I probably brewed an ESP at everyone.
• 51:27
  If I had to guess, maybe a blonde ale.
• 51:29
  Think I may have. No, I don't even think I brewed
• 51:32
  A lager. There was 1 this dude, I mean it
• 51:36
  was literally like I got, we got there at 9:00 and we left at
• 51:40
  5:00 and he still had like 6 more hours on his brew day.
• 51:45
  And we left and we had like we had a whole ass English lunch
• 51:49
  and we had like 3 or 4 pints at lunch.
• 51:51
  And he was, I mean he did not care about And I was like, this
• 51:55
  is not, this is not for me. This this amount of time is not
• 51:58
  for me. I was like at my.
• 52:00
  Brewery or when I get. Out here, I'm going to be, we're
• 52:02
  going to be running off much quicker and we're going to be
• 52:04
  much more, much more about getting in and getting out and
• 52:09
  not not being efficient, yeah. Jeez, yeah, it was.
• 52:13
  Dude, it was it was a it was a crazy day.
• 52:16
  It was a fun day, but man, it was I I was like, I think he had
• 52:20
  two kids and a wife and I was like, what?
• 52:22
  Like what is going on? Couldn't imagine doing that.
• 52:26
  I know some Brewers that are very slow, but not that slow.
• 52:29
  Garrett, do you keep in? Touch with anybody that you
• 52:31
  worked with over there. Not really.
• 52:35
  I have a every once in a while, I will hear from my, I have one
• 52:42
  of my classmates. He was South Korean classmate.
• 52:45
  He was the like the, he was kind of just there to be there.
• 52:49
  Honestly. He was, his family was the sole
• 52:54
  importer of Fuller's in South Korea.
• 52:57
  And he wanted to see what brewing was like.
• 53:00
  Because I mean, he honestly, if he, he had the money, he didn't
• 53:03
  need to, he didn't need to be doing anything.
• 53:06
  He could just run his company and, and be fine.
• 53:09
  But he wanted to see the other side of it.
• 53:11
  So he went to school. Still hear from him every once
• 53:14
  in a while. I hear from a couple of other
• 53:15
  guys just ever like randomly, the three US guys.
• 53:19
  I've seen one of the guys from the East Coast Virginia area at
• 53:23
  CBC, but not in not in a while. I think I saw him, I think it
• 53:28
  was in Denver. So it was 2019 was the last time
• 53:31
  I saw him. Every once in a while is like
• 53:33
  still following on Instagram. So I see a lot of like what
• 53:35
  they're doing and everything, but most of us don't talk as
• 53:38
  much anymore when you come from. From England and you're, you
• 53:42
  know, they're teaching the kind of the traditional styles.
• 53:44
  Where does the modern day beers come into play for you?
• 53:48
  You know, the adjuncts and stuff?
• 53:49
  That's something you always kind of wanted to do.
• 53:51
  Yeah. I mean, honestly, no it.
• 53:53
  Like, I mean, especially back 10 years ago when we opened, like
• 53:56
  there weren't a lot of places doing like super high adjuncted
• 54:01
  stouts. I mean, there was there was a
• 54:02
  couple obviously, but it wasn't like as prevalent as as it is
• 54:07
  nowadays. Like, I mean, obviously, like if
• 54:09
  you if you're opening a brewery and and your intention is to is
• 54:13
  to make beer, hype beer, I guess you got to do you got to do a
• 54:17
  pastry style. Like that's like you better be
• 54:20
  throwing beer in a barrel and expect to throw coconut in
• 54:24
  whatever year or year and a half.
• 54:26
  I think a lot like when I got back, I wasn't really even sure
• 54:31
  like what I was going to brew. When we opened.
• 54:33
  We had some ideas obviously, like we all we wanted to start
• 54:36
  with the IPA. We wanted to start with like a
• 54:38
  wheat beer. A lot of our ideas that we
• 54:40
  started with we're just like not very good.
• 54:42
  Our first Brewer kind of really helped clarify like what we were
• 54:45
  going to be making. He was, he was big into sours.
• 54:49
  He was big into. He was like, he was the one who
• 54:52
  wrote the Sub Rock recipe originally.
• 54:55
  He so he was very much into that whole like the hype.
• 55:00
  I mean the hype beer. I just like honestly, like he
• 55:02
  was big beer trader, big hype beer guy.
• 55:04
  He loved the veil. That was like his favorite
• 55:06
  brewery. So that was like we would drink
• 55:09
  those beers all the time after work.
• 55:11
  He would get him. His dad was a pilot.
• 55:12
  He would get him. His dad would bring him some
• 55:15
  beers from the veil when he was in that that area.
• 55:18
  So like when very early on that was like what we were, that's
• 55:20
  what we were trying to do. And then like, as we went on, he
• 55:25
  left, we just kind of like kept working, kept working.
• 55:30
  And like, as we kept hiring people, I kind of was like, I'm
• 55:33
  going to let them. I mean, I let that Brewer be
• 55:36
  like the be like the voice of the brewery, like their
• 55:40
  personality is going to be the, the voice of the brewery.
• 55:43
  And then 2020-2021 I was, that was kind of like when I was
• 55:47
  like, all right, this is dumb. Like work.
• 55:49
  I nobody else is making decisions but me.
• 55:52
  It's me and Steve. Basically Steve has been there
• 55:54
  for work since two weeks after we opened.
• 55:56
  He wasn't always a Brewer, but he's or he wasn't always on the
• 55:59
  production side, but he was, he's always been at the brewery.
• 56:03
  So like it's basically him and I making every decision.
• 56:06
  Now. Obviously I get input from sales
• 56:09
  staff and in front of house staff, but like it's his and I's
• 56:13
  personality that is guiding most of the beers at this point.
• 56:16
  So like, he's a big West Coast guy.
• 56:19
  He he loves his, he loves his West Coast, he loves his, his
• 56:22
  bitter beer. And he so I do try to keep like
• 56:27
  traditional West Coast IP as on on tap for him.
• 56:30
  But everything else is it's kind of just like knowing what we
• 56:33
  want and kind of going from there.
• 56:35
  And when it comes to like big stouts, it's mostly it's mostly
• 56:39
  me and and looking up what other people are doing.
• 56:42
  And if it's sours is sours is almost entirely me just seeing
• 56:45
  what we really don't haven't brewed a new sour in quite some
• 56:48
  time. It's just like we've people have
• 56:51
  their favorites and it's not really worth it to deviate from
• 56:54
  the 7:00 or 8:00 that we're doing regularly because like at
• 56:59
  most times, we can't keep them on.
• 57:00
  We can't keep them on tap anyway.
• 57:02
  So it doesn't like why? Why brew something that sells as
• 57:05
  well as it does or why brew something else when those beers
• 57:09
  are selling as well as they do? So we.
• 57:13
  Unless like basically. It's just me picking what I want
• 57:15
  to brew at this point, not so much like inventing something
• 57:19
  new unless it's something like that nine hundredth batch where
• 57:23
  I'm looking for something totally different than what
• 57:26
  we've we've done. We do have a couple people that
• 57:29
  ask for banana. We have a we have a sour called
• 57:32
  Nana pudding and we have got a guy that like if you scroll
• 57:36
  through our Facebook page, he always comments that he wants it
• 57:39
  back. At one point I, there was
• 57:41
  another guy who was asking for a beer called Puckett, which is
• 57:44
  our pine of upside down sour. And I believe I said to him, I
• 57:49
  was like, if you keep asking, I mean, I keep pushing it back.
• 57:51
  So I pushed it back for like a year and a half because he kept
• 57:54
  asking for it. And I was like, I'm not, I was
• 57:55
  like, I'm not kidding. I was like, yeah, I like if you
• 57:58
  ask for it, I'm not. I mean, it don't like, don't,
• 58:00
  don't annoy me. It's it was like the he was, I
• 58:04
  saw it on Facebook, like every single Facebook post for like
• 58:07
  ever had this dude asking for. I think if you would go back to
• 58:11
  like whenever we did, whenever we finally brought back, like we
• 58:14
  did a post with every single one of his comments flashing and
• 58:19
  finally I was like, all right, well, it's been long enough.
• 58:21
  We can bring it back because we did a ton of it.
• 58:23
  And then I was like, all right, it's we've, we need to, we need
• 58:26
  to pull back a little bit. We've been doing this beer too
• 58:28
  much. Like it's not, it's losing its,
• 58:31
  its specialness. So we for that one we, yeah, I
• 58:34
  mean, like it if it's like eventually, like if you brew
• 58:38
  some beers, like if you brew your one offs that are like
• 58:42
  typically only supposed to be like not supposed to be, but
• 58:45
  like are only once in a while and you brew like brew like
• 58:50
  every other month or whatever loses its, its appeal to the
• 58:53
  masses. And then you end up sitting on a
• 58:56
  bunch of beer because people were like, oh, I don't need to,
• 58:58
  I don't need to buy this beer. They'll brew it again next
• 59:00
  month. So that's when I end up not
• 59:02
  brewing it for a year and a half or whatever.
• 59:07
  Did any of your home? Recipes make it to St. side at
• 59:10
  least originally 22. Ish Alpha, which is like our
• 59:14
  IPA. It was just like your standard
• 59:17
  IPA that you make when you're like when you're home brewing,
• 59:20
  you just two row Brewers malt and it's it's Citroen in El
• 59:27
  Dorado. And that was kind of a I think
• 59:30
  maybe originally we had lemon drop in it, maybe because it was
• 59:33
  supposed to be like stone delicious because I really like
• 59:35
  that beer back when it first when it first came out.
• 59:38
  And then that's that's changed. I don't even know that they grow
• 59:42
  lemon drop anymore. I've never I haven't seen it in
• 59:45
  quite some time. So like it's changed quite a
• 59:48
  bit. It's definitely more it was like
• 59:50
  way less bitter when we first opened and then I've dialed up
• 59:54
  that bitterness to be like almost a true West Coast IPA at
• 59:56
  this point. It was kind of based around that
• 59:58
  Bells 2 hearted idea of like multi and a touch of bitterness,
• 1:00:03
  but not like rip your rip your face off bitter.
• 1:00:05
  And now I'm much more on the on your on your true West Coast
• 1:00:09
  side and sofa king, which honestly doesn't is not the same
• 1:00:14
  recipe at all other than the hops.
• 1:00:16
  When I first brewed it, it had it's a India red ale.
• 1:00:21
  It was two row and roast barley to give it color and probably
• 1:00:25
  like some crystal malt or something.
• 1:00:28
  And now we've completely changed.
• 1:00:29
  There's a company in Germany that makes a malt called Red X,
• 1:00:33
  which is like a red hued, red hued base malt.
• 1:00:36
  So we use that and we use just like whatever pale 2 row Brewers
• 1:00:40
  malt that we have on hand. And then that's so yes and no on
• 1:00:45
  that one. But those are the only two that
• 1:00:47
  are definitely home brew recipes.
• 1:00:49
  Even like Raspberry Beret that we've been brewing since day one
• 1:00:52
  is not the same beer as it was back when we first opened
• 1:00:55
  because we don't make it as a Berliner vice anymore.
• 1:00:56
  We just make it as a sour, which is just all all Brewers malt.
• 1:01:01
  Just go back to sofa. King real quick, because that
• 1:01:04
  was not lost on me. You can fill it, sofa King, and
• 1:01:08
  then fill in any adverb you wanted to after that for 100
• 1:01:11
  years, couldn't you? Sofa, king red and sofa,
• 1:01:14
  whatever that thing. Yeah, yeah, it's.
• 1:01:19
  I don't remember. I don't remember why I named it
• 1:01:22
  that. It was just like, 'cause it's
• 1:01:23
  funny it. Is funny.
• 1:01:25
  It was like it was very early on.
• 1:01:26
  We had some, we had some names. We had some names early on that
• 1:01:29
  I was, I was trying to be punny on and like I don't, I try not
• 1:01:33
  to do that anymore, but unless I'm like truly out of names.
• 1:01:38
  But yeah, they were even now names are names are not one of
• 1:01:43
  the most difficult parts of the job.
• 1:01:44
  But trying to find a nail like we've got a on Friday.
• 1:01:48
  The beer on brewing is another West Coast pills with forbidden
• 1:01:51
  root and orchestrated minds and will release in July or
• 1:01:55
  whatever. And I'm like dreading trying to
• 1:01:57
  find a name for it. I have no idea why I call this
• 1:02:00
  beer you're. Trying to find a tie.
• 1:02:02
  Probably all the time, right? A tie to the sometimes.
• 1:02:06
  Sometimes if like if. Like if I can like try to find
• 1:02:10
  like sometimes a, a great name will just come to me.
• 1:02:13
  Sometimes a not so great name like this shit is bananas.
• 1:02:17
  That was a that was like I was very happy with that one.
• 1:02:20
  Spring Breakers was good. Like it made sense.
• 1:02:22
  Like it's a we go to South Carolina and it's a it's a
• 1:02:26
  whatever. It's I was thinking like it's a
• 1:02:27
  beer that a good beer to drink on the beach.
• 1:02:30
  Speak of the devil stories. Well, you know what?
• 1:02:32
  They're brews closed. So it's it's actually, it was
• 1:02:36
  one of the base is a beer that my Brewer brought with him from
• 1:02:43
  a Brewer in Cincinnati that's now closed.
• 1:02:46
  And he was like, well, I hate naming beers.
• 1:02:48
  I hate naming beers. I don't want to name it.
• 1:02:50
  And I was like, all right, fine, I'm going to name it.
• 1:02:51
  And liked, I think I may have just watched the the the witch,
• 1:02:54
  which is like what the the labels based off of.
• 1:02:58
  And I was like, Oh, this will be fun.
• 1:02:59
  Like speak of the devil, like whatever.
• 1:03:01
  Sometimes we'll push the the devil imagery a little bit too
• 1:03:05
  far sometimes, but like whatever.
• 1:03:07
  And I was like, oh, like he hated his boss.
• 1:03:09
  Like, and we were talking about his boss.
• 1:03:11
  I was like, and his boss may have showed up.
• 1:03:12
  So I was like, speak of the devil, whatever.
• 1:03:14
  And then like a couple, I think a couple weeks after we release
• 1:03:19
  a beer, he's like, by the way, that's that's the be right brood
• 1:03:21
  for my wife. I was like, well, you sure have
• 1:03:23
  probably should have told me that because I named it speak of
• 1:03:26
  the devil. Like that's that's on you, dude.
• 1:03:29
  Yeah, Like that, Like that one, that one works.
• 1:03:32
  I like that. That's one of my favorite ones.
• 1:03:34
  Like Demo Gorgon doesn't really make any sense.
• 1:03:36
  Like it was just like we brew a beard that was called Where's
• 1:03:39
  Barb? And then we barrel aged and we
• 1:03:41
  call it Demo Gorgon. Like that is kind of a tenuous
• 1:03:44
  line between the names, but whatever it is, it is what it
• 1:03:47
  is. And it's now I like, I don't
• 1:03:49
  know if it's our most popular beer, but it's our our biggest.
• 1:03:52
  It's our biggest stout release for sure, but it's also tied to
• 1:03:56
  Halloween. It's tied to Stranger Things
• 1:03:58
  inside all sorts of stuff. It's definitely one of those
• 1:04:00
  ones where, like, it may not make a whole lot of sense to
• 1:04:04
  anyone who's not like in Cincinnati and doesn't know the
• 1:04:06
  lore of the beer, but is what it is the one of the beers.
• 1:04:11
  You have that makes me laugh the most is called the Boring Beer
• 1:04:17
  Lager. Oh yeah, Boring beer.
• 1:04:19
  Yeah. Which is the complete opposite
• 1:04:21
  of. Almost every other beer you
• 1:04:22
  have, name wise that is. I mean that is.
• 1:04:25
  Definitely like as it is a boring beer is it is the like I
• 1:04:30
  put a little like it's I mean it's supposed to be our Bud
• 1:04:33
  Light. I mean, that's what we tell
• 1:04:34
  people like when we when we when we have it on tap or when we
• 1:04:37
  have it in cans or whatever. It is supposed to be Bud Light.
• 1:04:41
  So when somebody asks like it would, if I could, if I, it
• 1:04:45
  would have been called our lightest beer.
• 1:04:47
  But everybody has a many, many breweries out there have a beer
• 1:04:50
  called Our Lightest Beer. But you got to have something
• 1:04:52
  like. That right for people that are
• 1:04:54
  coming, I mean, we do, we have. We have a couple now.
• 1:04:57
  We have less now because boring beer exists.
• 1:05:00
  But like Game Ball, which is our our golden ale, is one of those.
• 1:05:04
  Is that beer? What is that beer that we always
• 1:05:06
  have? Because boring beer takes it,
• 1:05:08
  because it's longer, it takes a little bit more time.
• 1:05:10
  We can't always tie it up to always have it.
• 1:05:13
  Yeah, it's one of those ones where like it's.
• 1:05:16
  Great to have during the. Summer, so I I try to make sure
• 1:05:19
  it's it's on tap during the summer.
• 1:05:21
  It's great for football season, great for Reds games.
• 1:05:24
  So it's is definitely one of those beers that like I've I
• 1:05:28
  wanted to I wanted people to know.
• 1:05:30
  I think I said it as a joke and then our creative guy was like,
• 1:05:33
  no, that's great. We should we should run with
• 1:05:35
  that. So that's what we did and we
• 1:05:36
  were going to, I mean, we, we really tried to push that as
• 1:05:39
  like it's own because it was like right around the time
• 1:05:41
  garage beer is taking off that we brew, I think our first
• 1:05:44
  batch. And I was like, all right, well,
• 1:05:46
  like maybe if this catches on, like this could take off.
• 1:05:48
  And obviously like we, we did put a lot of creative work
• 1:05:52
  behind it, but like we're too small and we don't have, we
• 1:05:56
  don't have the push that like we tried to make it a thing and
• 1:05:59
  it's a thing for us, but it's not really a thing for anybody
• 1:06:03
  else. It's coming out again here soon.
• 1:06:05
  We've got, if I could pull it up and share that with you guys, I
• 1:06:08
  would. But we've like there's a little
• 1:06:09
  stamp on, there's a little stamp on that says I want an exciting
• 1:06:13
  new color. And the blue is just like a
• 1:06:15
  slightly lighter shade of blue. And it's not like obviously we
• 1:06:19
  try not to make anything too exciting because like that
• 1:06:21
  doesn't make a lot of sense. But it is our only 12 ounce can
• 1:06:25
  Garrett. Street Side is a family run
• 1:06:29
  operation and you're in your 10th year now, Yes.
• 1:06:33
  What's it meant? For you.
• 1:06:34
  Guys, your whole family, you and your entire family.
• 1:06:37
  That is an interesting. Question that I am probably not
• 1:06:40
  the best person to ask. I think my parents would
• 1:06:43
  probably my parents and my sister.
• 1:06:45
  I mean like most of my family has worked at the brewery.
• 1:06:50
  My wife worked at the brewery, my wife worked at the brewery.
• 1:06:53
  My mom manages the tap room, my dad's does CFO type stuff.
• 1:06:59
  My sister was marketing for a little bit.
• 1:07:01
  My cousin and her husband both bartended.
• 1:07:04
  My brother-in-law built the outside tables.
• 1:07:07
  So like it's definitely provided.
• 1:07:10
  And he also plows for us during the winter because I stopped
• 1:07:13
  trying to do that, stopped the line of shovel.
• 1:07:15
  Like one of the things that we say to bartenders to remind them
• 1:07:18
  like that this is important. Like this is like how like that
• 1:07:22
  what they do is important and like this is how a lot of people
• 1:07:25
  pay their bills. Like this is, is it's everyone's
• 1:07:28
  livelihood. It's like it's been a huge part
• 1:07:30
  of our lives for 10 years. It's like, like I said, like
• 1:07:33
  Steve has been there for, for 10 years.
• 1:07:36
  Our sales guys been there for like 8 1/2.
• 1:07:40
  One of our Brewers has been there for five years.
• 1:07:43
  Like the all, like our guys have, the guys that have that
• 1:07:46
  are the core people at the brewery have been there for a
• 1:07:49
  long time. It's like how they, how they
• 1:07:51
  feed their family and how they, how they pay their bills and all
• 1:07:53
  that. So like it's, it's incredibly
• 1:07:55
  important for us to like keep everything going and like doing
• 1:07:59
  the best we can because like that's, that's, that's like,
• 1:08:02
  that's it. Like we don't have anything else
• 1:08:04
  going on. Like for like me and for Kathy
• 1:08:07
  and Brian, my parents, like you've sacrificed a ton to, to
• 1:08:12
  keep everything going. If you ask my wife, I'm sure she
• 1:08:15
  wouldn't be, she's not super psyched at like what our social
• 1:08:18
  life looks like or what our vacations look like.
• 1:08:20
  Because if I was working on a normal whatever job at 36 that
• 1:08:24
  we would, we would have our two weeks, 3 weeks, whatever,
• 1:08:27
  however many weeks of vacation that like a person normally
• 1:08:29
  gets. Like during the summer.
• 1:08:31
  I, I, she goes on vacation and I'm, I'm either at the brewery
• 1:08:35
  or I'm at festival or whatever. We've given up a lot of our our
• 1:08:38
  time in our late 20s now getting into our late 30s on on this
• 1:08:45
  project that is St. side. It's one just one of those
• 1:08:47
  things like we've just we've put we've put a ton into it and like
• 1:08:51
  we're happy. I'm glad that like people enjoy
• 1:08:54
  streets and I'm glad people enjoy the beer think it's
• 1:08:57
  getting. I think we've we've gotten to
• 1:08:59
  the point where like the beer is always getting better.
• 1:09:01
  We're always trying to improve and like it's.
• 1:09:04
  Nice. It's nice that.
• 1:09:06
  People recognize that and and want to talk about like you guys
• 1:09:09
  want to talk about it and want to drink it.
• 1:09:11
  Like are like the people that come to burrito and whatever,
• 1:09:15
  you know. I mean it's like we've been
• 1:09:16
  recognized. Recognized, I guess nationally
• 1:09:20
  ish yeah and with awards and with festivals and all that
• 1:09:24
  stuff and we get we have our our people at home that are the are
• 1:09:28
  the ones that really do pay the bills the the regulars that the
• 1:09:31
  level of beer and they're there every day so or not every day
• 1:09:34
  that's well and and you're probably going to be.
• 1:09:35
  Maybe humble about this, but in a city where there's a lot of
• 1:09:39
  great breweries and Scott would agree with that too.
• 1:09:42
  I mean St. side gets talked about is is being ranked ranked
• 1:09:45
  right up there. I mean, is there anything that
• 1:09:47
  you really feel like you can say about that as by how you how you
• 1:09:51
  feel when you're those kind of things?
• 1:09:53
  I mean like there's when. It when it comes to like where
• 1:09:56
  you look at yourself in the like echelons of breweries around
• 1:10:00
  you, like I can certainly see that.
• 1:10:04
  Like, I mean just based on like awards or whatever, Like if you
• 1:10:07
  just base it on like or you're on tap score or whatever.
• 1:10:11
  Like if you, if you just go off of real metrics, yes, we are
• 1:10:15
  definitely like up there in the in the echelon, like upper
• 1:10:18
  echelon, but everyone's got their thing, you know, I mean,
• 1:10:21
  it's we're we're not trying to be, we're not trying to be West
• 1:10:24
  side. We're not trying to be mad tree.
• 1:10:26
  We're not trying to be like high grain because they all have
• 1:10:28
  their thing like mad trees, mad trees, a big boy and they they
• 1:10:32
  play on a much bigger scale. Like West side has their thing.
• 1:10:35
  Their I mean they are wholly focused on the West side and
• 1:10:37
  Westwood and then or not, well, nine giant and high grade both
• 1:10:42
  have their I mean their their food focus, their beer focus.
• 1:10:45
  They've got all sorts of stuff that they have going on.
• 1:10:47
  Like both their kitchens are are pretty are like top tier
• 1:10:52
  restaurants that you would have just if it like don't even talk
• 1:10:56
  about the beer, like just the food itself.
• 1:10:59
  Sure. We've got our, we've got our
• 1:11:01
  thing going on. And our thing is mostly is
• 1:11:04
  mostly beer, like we've got our food truck out front.
• 1:11:06
  But like we are, we are mostly trying to, we are getting people
• 1:11:11
  in by making the best beer we can.
• 1:11:14
  So that's that's our thing. I think we've done that well,
• 1:11:18
  obviously, but that's like, that's why we are, that's why
• 1:11:22
  I'm still doing. I mean, that's why I'm still
• 1:11:24
  actively involved every day. That's why I'm still brewing.
• 1:11:27
  That's why I'm still doing all this.
• 1:11:28
  Because like if, if, if I'm not doing it like you never know, it
• 1:11:31
  might not get done or well in my standards.
• 1:11:34
  Yeah. And the great thing is some of
• 1:11:35
  the ones that you mentioned, yeah, we like, but I also go,
• 1:11:38
  you know, St. Side is up there because you
• 1:11:41
  guys have your own thing and that makes a different,
• 1:11:44
  especially for guys like us that that want that, you know, want
• 1:11:49
  that different experience. Hey, let's go to St.
• 1:11:51
  Side. We've been here, but you know,
• 1:11:52
  St. Side's going to be on our list
• 1:11:54
  too. Sure.
• 1:11:55
  Yeah. And like one of the nice things
• 1:11:57
  is like some of the smaller breweries.
• 1:12:00
  I mean, like you go to you go to I'm just going to keep going
• 1:12:04
  back to Madri. But if you go to Madri, like
• 1:12:06
  they're always going to have their, they're always going to
• 1:12:08
  have their beers that they always do.
• 1:12:09
  Like if you come to St. side, like for the most part, you're
• 1:12:12
  probably going to find, I mean, if you don't go, if you haven't
• 1:12:16
  been there for six months, you it's going to be almost entirely
• 1:12:19
  new tablets. Like there might be something
• 1:12:21
  that like there's going to be some crossover, especially
• 1:12:24
  during the summer where we'll have Raspberry Beret, whoever
• 1:12:27
  turn the Mac, we'll have sub rod.
• 1:12:28
  But like other than that, we've got 24 taps and it'll probably
• 1:12:31
  be 21 beers that you have not had or is a new batch of a beer
• 1:12:35
  that you have had. So you, you guys are one of
• 1:12:38
  those. Breweries that are perfect for
• 1:12:40
  flights and not one flight two or three because what you just
• 1:12:44
  said you might there's 21 new ones and I haven't been in a
• 1:12:47
  couple years so I'm going every single thing is going to be new
• 1:12:49
  the colors are going to be all different on the flight and it's
• 1:12:53
  going to be great you're going to get to try all these styles.
• 1:12:56
  I think you your brewery is set up perfectly to have flights at
• 1:12:58
  at least for for the way Steve and I drank beer.
• 1:13:01
  Yeah, sure. I mean, that's.
• 1:13:02
  That's definitely like, I have my opinions on flights.
• 1:13:05
  I don't know that they're the best way.
• 1:13:06
  They're the best way to, to consume a beer.
• 1:13:08
  But if you're trying to try every, every beer that we have,
• 1:13:12
  that is like there's, there's very few ways that you can do it
• 1:13:15
  other than getting a flight and and trying 4 beers at a time.
• 1:13:19
  So we're traveling into town. As we're like traveling town,
• 1:13:22
  you know, he goes a couple times there a few times a year, but I
• 1:13:24
  might get once a year. So I could, you know, I want to
• 1:13:25
  get his all I I can at one time, you know what I mean?
• 1:13:28
  Yeah, yeah. And that's, I mean, like
• 1:13:30
  especially Cincinnati. I mean, like many towns are like
• 1:13:34
  this, but like Asheville, like you were, we were, I don't even
• 1:13:38
  know if he said it while we're recording, but Asheville, you
• 1:13:40
  can walk to a lot of these places that that are like you
• 1:13:44
  can try a bunch of beers easily by walking.
• 1:13:46
  Like you can't do that in Cincinnati.
• 1:13:47
  Like you got to you got to drive, you got an Uber and
• 1:13:50
  there's a ton of breweries. So like if you're going to have
• 1:13:52
  a long, like if you're going to have a whole day of drinking,
• 1:13:57
  flights are flights are probably a good way to do it.
• 1:13:59
  Well, Scott and I are. Coming up in September and we're
• 1:14:04
  going to be doing all sorts of brewery tours and we'll be at
• 1:14:06
  St. side so you know when we stop in there, hopefully we're
• 1:14:11
  going to see you. But one of the reasons we're
• 1:14:13
  coming up we do an annual trip every year.
• 1:14:15
  We hit breweries. Sometimes we'll hit a baseball
• 1:14:17
  game, but also we're coming up this year because we don't
• 1:14:20
  wanted to go to Oktoberfest Cincinnati, which I've been to
• 1:14:25
  Scott has never been before. Are you guys going to have any
• 1:14:28
  involvement in that I. No, probably not.
• 1:14:32
  OK, we it is. Honestly, I don't even know how
• 1:14:36
  to do it. It's like I would have to ask
• 1:14:38
  our sales guy how like how it how to get involved.
• 1:14:41
  They do have like a a local craft beer tent, but I don't
• 1:14:45
  remember how it works. The other thing is like our fest
• 1:14:49
  beer isn't really named something that would make a
• 1:14:52
  whole lot of sense to like send. So like it was prior to a lot of
• 1:14:58
  prior to us trying to make loggers a little bit more of
• 1:15:02
  like a classy affair. Obviously boring beer is not
• 1:15:04
  like one of them. But like eventually, like we
• 1:15:06
  started to be like, all right, like our Japanese rice lager is
• 1:15:09
  just going to be one word. And it's going to be, it's going
• 1:15:11
  to make, it's going to be very short, very sustained, and
• 1:15:14
  you're going to know what you're drinking.
• 1:15:15
  Like it's best beer is called Rainy Day Clubhouse doesn't
• 1:15:18
  really make a lot of sense to anyone.
• 1:15:20
  You got to read the story on the back of the on the back of the
• 1:15:23
  can to understand why we call it that.
• 1:15:26
  But yeah, it's one of those I would like to be there, but I
• 1:15:30
  like to go just go as like a consumer.
• 1:15:31
  It's AI went last last year for the first time in forever
• 1:15:35
  because they moved it down to the park on, they moved it down
• 1:15:41
  to our point. It used to be up on Fountain
• 1:15:43
  Square and then it's moved around.
• 1:15:45
  But like now that it's off the streets, it's so much better.
• 1:15:48
  It's like a, it's like a real like Oktoberfest.
• 1:15:51
  You've got your 10s. It's all like it's so much like
• 1:15:54
  physically it's cooler, like it's not as hot because you're
• 1:15:57
  not standing in the street. It's like it was, it was very,
• 1:16:00
  very not. I was really enjoyed myself this
• 1:16:02
  past year. I'm very glad that they moved it
• 1:16:04
  down to Sawyer Point because it's a lot more like viable for
• 1:16:07
  me to go down and hang out. I just don't want to like hang
• 1:16:11
  out, like hang out the street. Like I'll just go and sit.
• 1:16:14
  You can sit in the grass. You can't sit in the middle in
• 1:16:17
  the middle of a street. That would be weird.
• 1:16:19
  Do you do a lot of? Will you be doing many
• 1:16:22
  Oktoberfest events? You know, at St.
• 1:16:24
  Side we got one. We got one.
• 1:16:28
  We do our normally it's around Labor Day, around that weekend.
• 1:16:34
  It might be that Friday. I think it's, I'd have to look
• 1:16:37
  at the calendar and see what like the first Friday.
• 1:16:39
  I think we try to do it like the first Friday and in September.
• 1:16:42
  Yeah, we do it like a mug release and we have, we've got
• 1:16:45
  our tuba guys last year and we did pretzels.
• 1:16:47
  We probably won't do pretzels this year because it doesn't
• 1:16:49
  work with a Mexican food truck. They don't.
• 1:16:53
  Do they don't do a whole lot of. Pretzels may Wolf try to figure
• 1:16:55
  out a way to get pretzels there. But yeah, it's that is like one
• 1:16:58
  of my favorite events that we do just because it it feels nice in
• 1:17:02
  a Germantown to do something German, German beer focused.
• 1:17:06
  And we're definitely going to reach out to you before.
• 1:17:07
  We get there, just it's been several days there, not just
• 1:17:10
  Oktoberfest, we're going to come by and see you at the brewery,
• 1:17:13
  but maybe we can hang out and have some beers outside of there
• 1:17:15
  as well. Yeah, yeah, it's.
• 1:17:17
  There's some places that I like to take people for beers that
• 1:17:20
  are definitely like not like hidden spots or anything.
• 1:17:23
  It's not like anything crazy, but like we have our spots that
• 1:17:26
  we like to take collabs or whatever because it's seeing it
• 1:17:29
  from from the like an insider side is a little bit more fun
• 1:17:34
  than just popping by a place. The guys from Spyglass up in New
• 1:17:38
  Hampshire we're in and we went to Tiki Bar and we went stop by
• 1:17:41
  Hofbrauhaus, which like I haven't been in forever.
• 1:17:44
  Like sometimes you get to see it.
• 1:17:45
  Like you get to see it like that where it's like you get to be a
• 1:17:48
  tourist in your own town or the other side is like you get to go
• 1:17:51
  to like the places that I go every other weekend or whatever.
• 1:17:55
  And I know all the bartenders and they know what I order and
• 1:17:59
  all that. So yeah, that's fun.
• 1:18:01
  That's. Fun going.
• 1:18:03
  Back to. 10 years, is there going to be a big celebration
• 1:18:08
  sometime this year to mark all of that and what you're planning
• 1:18:11
  on doing there is I should probably I'll.
• 1:18:13
  Look that up because I'll get on my phone and I will look because
• 1:18:17
  I want to actually have the correct date.
• 1:18:20
  What weekend is that? The 26th, Saturday, the 26th of
• 1:18:25
  September. That was our that was the
• 1:18:27
  official. That was actually that will be
• 1:18:29
  10 years to the day that we opened.
• 1:18:31
  That was we'll do like a pre party on Friday.
• 1:18:36
  We've got DJ coming who's DJ at a couple different events for
• 1:18:40
  us. And then Saturday will be like
• 1:18:43
  the all day, all day thing. We do the same thing every year
• 1:18:46
  basically 5 or 6 years because five years was COVID, 6 years we
• 1:18:52
  did like we really blew it out and did a whole weekend.
• 1:18:56
  Whole weekend is really tough on all of us.
• 1:19:00
  So we're just going to do like Friday chill event and then
• 1:19:03
  Saturday do the whole thing. The whole Hickey family will be
• 1:19:06
  there all day. Like last year we had my friends
• 1:19:10
  from Dayton that I went to Dayton with came down.
• 1:19:15
  I had a buddy. We'll see if anybody, I don't
• 1:19:17
  know if anybody like actual friends that were here for the
• 1:19:19
  opening will come down. We'll see.
• 1:19:21
  We'll see what's going on. We're doing a giant collab that
• 1:19:25
  I just kind of finished setting up.
• 1:19:28
  Like that'll be, that'll be the culmination of this 10 year
• 1:19:31
  series. It's basically everybody, many
• 1:19:34
  people that I've done a collab with, many like friends in the
• 1:19:36
  industry, all sorts of stuff. So we'll see if there anybody
• 1:19:41
  actually, if anybody comes up for the event or if they just
• 1:19:43
  come up for the brew day or they just come off packaging or if
• 1:19:45
  they don't come up at all and just we just do it all via
• 1:19:47
  e-mail. We'll see.
• 1:19:48
  We'll see how that goes. It's it's hard to, it's hard to
• 1:19:51
  wrangle Brewers, that's for sure.
• 1:19:55
  So. Yeah, it might be the biggest
• 1:19:57
  cloud that has ever happened in since I don't know.
• 1:20:00
  I don't want to say that I want to see that for sure. 126714
• 1:20:08
  different breweries Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting.
• 1:20:11
  Only one local, 9 giants, the only local.
• 1:20:13
  So we are, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a
• 1:20:19
  interesting couple days, but yeah, we'll make, we're already
• 1:20:22
  trying to think of how to. How to make it, we'll have,
• 1:20:26
  we'll have our, we'll have a couple of different releases.
• 1:20:28
  We've got some barrels that we've released in the past that
• 1:20:32
  are we've got like at the last barrel that we've that we have
• 1:20:35
  of of that brand that will release. 450 N We did a cloud
• 1:20:40
  with. 450 NA couple years ago that we released fresh that
• 1:20:45
  we're going to release and we've got 450 and there's one other
• 1:20:52
  brewery that we did start with a couple years ago that will
• 1:20:56
  release more release for the anniversary as well.
• 1:21:00
  That's really exciting. Yeah.
• 1:21:02
  It should be. It should be fun.
• 1:21:04
  This is actually like probably the this is probably going to be
• 1:21:07
  the easiest on me that Anniversary has ever been.
• 1:21:11
  Trying to wrangle 5 different or six different collabs like we've
• 1:21:15
  done in the past is like way too much.
• 1:21:17
  It's such a, it's such a hassle. This is actually going to be
• 1:21:21
  easier. Even though it's trying to get
• 1:21:23
  14 different people to like figure out their own thing.
• 1:21:26
  It will be hopefully, hopefully it'll be easier just because
• 1:21:29
  it's only one or two days really of, of brewing and one day of
• 1:21:34
  one day of packaging. So I don't have to worry about
• 1:21:37
  like trying to figure out five different brew days and five
• 1:21:40
  different days of packaging and all that.
• 1:21:42
  That's always. This might be the way I try to
• 1:21:45
  do it from now on. Yeah, like that collab would.
• 1:21:48
  That be like, hey, all right, let's all agree on a style and
• 1:21:50
  then let's all agree on who's going to do what for the collab.
• 1:21:53
  It'll probably just be say hey. Like we all make.
• 1:21:58
  I mean, if I'm going to be honest, it's probably going to
• 1:22:01
  be an IPA because, and it might be maybe it'll be a double New
• 1:22:06
  England. Maybe it'll be like maybe we'll
• 1:22:07
  do like a triple New England. Maybe we'll make it like because
• 1:22:10
  at this like if you're trying to really blow it out like the
• 1:22:12
  higher ABB tends to, that tends to be how people do it.
• 1:22:16
  That's why I'm kind of thinking it's just like do a double or a
• 1:22:18
  triple or whatever and just release it.
• 1:22:20
  And basically it'll probably just be like, hey, like this is
• 1:22:23
  what I'm thinking. Does anyone have any issues with
• 1:22:25
  it or like does anyone have anything, like anything
• 1:22:31
  experimental that they want to use?
• 1:22:32
  Like sometimes what will happen is like somebody will get
• 1:22:34
  something but like none of us can get or like the rest of the
• 1:22:39
  people can't get. So you've got like experimental
• 1:22:42
  stuff from YCH, you got something from a New Zealand,
• 1:22:46
  New Zealand hop grower that like you like we can't get because
• 1:22:51
  we're not part of either like an experimental trial program or
• 1:22:54
  like we just don't buy enough from whatever.
• 1:22:56
  Maybe that's like maybe they'll throw us a bag or two or
• 1:22:59
  whatever of hops just to get something different.
• 1:23:02
  Also like it's a good way for other people to get to trial
• 1:23:06
  like by me brewing it like they can, if I get something that
• 1:23:09
  they can't get, like can trial what that tastes like in the in
• 1:23:13
  a beer. The beer, the double New England
• 1:23:16
  that we just did with spyglass and structures use two different
• 1:23:20
  types of Ruaka from two different cultivators and they
• 1:23:25
  were all they were both excited to try it because it's a 1 is
• 1:23:28
  like the furthest S hop grower and one's like kind of the
• 1:23:31
  traditional hopper there right, thinks about in in New Zealand.
• 1:23:35
  So they were excited to to see what the differences are.
• 1:23:38
  It was it was very interesting to see like what the flavors
• 1:23:41
  were. We actually end up having to
• 1:23:42
  like not age it, but like let it's let it cool down a little
• 1:23:45
  bit. It was very, very, very dank and
• 1:23:48
  it's kind of chilled out a little bit.
• 1:23:49
  We let we let coal crash for a little bit longer than we
• 1:23:52
  normally would because it need to need some time to mellow out
• 1:23:55
  when everybody says hey, this is what we're in.
• 1:23:56
  For two, you still have to develop the recipe.
• 1:23:59
  OK, I've got this and I've got this and I've got this and I
• 1:24:01
  know what the style is going to be, but now you got to dial in
• 1:24:05
  the recipe and the numbers and all that stuff.
• 1:24:06
  Is that kind of your job at this point for the 10 year?
• 1:24:09
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'm, I will
• 1:24:12
  write the recipe and like if anybody has any, like probably
• 1:24:15
  what it'll end up having is like we'll pick, I'll probably send
• 1:24:18
  out a poll. That's what I'm thinking.
• 1:24:20
  I'll, I'll send out a poll and be like vote on what you want to
• 1:24:22
  do. And I'll send out the recipe
• 1:24:24
  like does anyone have any, Does that anyone have any huge issues
• 1:24:28
  with this? And if somebody's like, I don't
• 1:24:30
  like that, then I'll take into a consideration like whether I
• 1:24:35
  strip out that what the thing that they don't like or be like,
• 1:24:37
  or maybe hopefully that's the positive and they're like, hey,
• 1:24:41
  we really like this. Maybe do this, take that into
• 1:24:44
  consideration and then apply it to the brew day and then just
• 1:24:49
  kind of go from there. Most of it is like us just
• 1:24:52
  writing like I'll I'll write the recipe just like I always do and
• 1:24:56
  then see if anybody has any like issues with issues one way or
• 1:25:00
  the other. And then we go from there And
• 1:25:02
  then hopefully everything turns out well.
• 1:25:05
  It's very I will probably not brew any of it so that I can
• 1:25:11
  manage it a little bit more. And if we've got, I've got 28
• 1:25:15
  people in the brewery, I'm definitely going to need to not
• 1:25:17
  be brewing that day. But yeah, we are.
• 1:25:20
  We'll see. We'll see how we've.
• 1:25:22
  Already talked we've we've already started to talk about
• 1:25:24
  the logistics of having that many people in the brood and the
• 1:25:27
  brewery for possibly two days. Well, sounds like a lot of.
• 1:25:31
  Fun. Sounds like herding cats, but it
• 1:25:32
  sounds like a lot of fun, yeah. Yeah, we'll see.
• 1:25:37
  I'm not. That I don't want everybody.
• 1:25:40
  To show up. But you know, almost it's better
• 1:25:41
  if only half the people show up because it's because it's going
• 1:25:45
  to be if everybody's like, yo, yeah, I'm going to be there.
• 1:25:48
  That's a lot of people to be. It's a lot of people would be
• 1:25:50
  dealing with and finding everyone things to do in
• 1:25:53
  Cincinnati for two nights, possibly four nights if they
• 1:25:58
  stay for the weekend. It's going to be extra
• 1:26:00
  interesting. We're winding down, but there's
• 1:26:04
  something I really want to talk about as your brewing system.
• 1:26:06
  You guys do something which I think is unique.
• 1:26:09
  You've got a. Direct fire system.
• 1:26:12
  And I think that's kind of unique in the States or at least
• 1:26:15
  in the minority of what breweries are using.
• 1:26:17
  Can you talk about that a little bit as in is it and kind of why
• 1:26:21
  is that different from like electric or steam?
• 1:26:23
  I I think it. Is very, I mean it's
• 1:26:26
  significantly less you significantly less now than it
• 1:26:30
  was when we opened. I was at Rivertown, they were on
• 1:26:36
  direct fire system and that was what I was comfortable with.
• 1:26:38
  That's part of the reason we went with it.
• 1:26:41
  Steam is definitely like a more efficient system.
• 1:26:43
  I wanted to go with direct fire for the caramelization.
• 1:26:47
  It's something that you can really, you're really getting a
• 1:26:51
  lot of it's a different type of carmelization on direct fire
• 1:26:54
  because it's obviously direct fire as the name implies.
• 1:26:57
  Steam you just kind of have like a it's just a different, it's a
• 1:27:00
  different type of carmelization You got on the kettle.
• 1:27:02
  Think actually steam is a better is a better system for like IPA.
• 1:27:07
  So you're imparting a lot less color on IPA.
• 1:27:10
  If you're like, if you're trying to go for that straw color like
• 1:27:13
  that's it would be nice to not have the direct fire system.
• 1:27:16
  You can change the way you can change the boil time and that's
• 1:27:19
  the big way with that. We can reduce the amount of
• 1:27:21
  color. But yeah, it was like one of
• 1:27:23
  those things that we it was what I was comfortable with.
• 1:27:26
  In the UK it's pretty popular. That and electric are very
• 1:27:29
  popular. And I had never worked with a
• 1:27:31
  boiler before and I didn't really want to start working
• 1:27:35
  with a boiler at my own brewery because it is it is a hassle.
• 1:27:40
  You have a lot more, you have a lot more regulation on a with a
• 1:27:45
  boiler than you do and a lot more maintenance than you do
• 1:27:49
  with a direct fire. Like I, I really don't have to
• 1:27:51
  do a whole lot with our system. We we have, we'll call somebody
• 1:27:56
  in every once in a while to clean it out and make sure
• 1:27:57
  everything's right, right and the combustion is, is proper, is
• 1:28:00
  running properly. But honestly, like we kind of
• 1:28:02
  just like turn on, turn off, turn on, turn off like it's
• 1:28:05
  fine. It's great for stouts.
• 1:28:08
  It really like the amount of the amount of carmelization that you
• 1:28:11
  get on a direct fire system is, is significant compared to
• 1:28:17
  steam. I would say the, the worst part
• 1:28:21
  for us is that it takes a long time.
• 1:28:23
  It's a, it's a, it's, you can't get to a boil quite as quickly
• 1:28:28
  as you can with a with a steam system.
• 1:28:30
  It takes us once we're done running off, it takes us like
• 1:28:32
  another 35 ish minutes to get to a boil.
• 1:28:37
  Whereas steam system, like most of the time those guys are like
• 1:28:41
  4° off of a boil when they get to when they get to end of run
• 1:28:45
  off. So there's some there's some
• 1:28:47
  Devon trade backs. If I were if I were to go back
• 1:28:51
  and and do it again, I'd probably get a steam system.
• 1:28:54
  You can do a lot more. You can do decoction matches,
• 1:28:57
  you can do step matches, you can do all sorts of stuff.
• 1:29:01
  And like the like I said, the color pick up on a on a New
• 1:29:05
  England is significantly less. It is what it is.
• 1:29:08
  You know, I mean, I've got, I've got my system.
• 1:29:10
  We like it for what it is. It does, it does the job.
• 1:29:14
  I mean, in general, I like our brewhouse.
• 1:29:17
  There are, there are, there are better brewhouses out there for
• 1:29:22
  sure. But what we, what we've got
• 1:29:25
  works for us. And the big issues that we have
• 1:29:30
  are solvable for the most part and don't take a whole lot of
• 1:29:34
  like extra thinking on our part to to remedy.
• 1:29:40
  But you're but you're still. Learning, right?
• 1:29:41
  I mean, you haven't mastered everything yet.
• 1:29:44
  I mean on that brewhouse. If I, there's not much left to
• 1:29:48
  learn, if I'm honest, it is. But like like once you get to
• 1:29:53
  fermentation side, like there's I, there's so much stuff that
• 1:29:57
  like there's new science. I mean there's new science
• 1:30:00
  coming out every month about fermentation.
• 1:30:02
  There's new, I mean, when new hops come out, like the physical
• 1:30:06
  action of brewing on that brew house, like there's not a whole
• 1:30:08
  lot left to learn. I'm sure there's something,
• 1:30:11
  sorry, my dog just ran up the the actual physical action of
• 1:30:15
  brewing. There's not a whole lot, not a
• 1:30:18
  whole lot left to like learning on that, on that side of things.
• 1:30:21
  But once it gets to like I said, like fermentation, it's like
• 1:30:26
  with everything new that's coming out, all the new advanced
• 1:30:28
  products that are coming out, I don't know that you could say
• 1:30:31
  with any, with any certainty that you, that you know,
• 1:30:35
  everything like that. I mean, I would like if I were
• 1:30:37
  to put a percentage on it, like it's, it's super like I know 40%
• 1:30:43
  of the things that are going on out there.
• 1:30:44
  You know, I mean like a 50% maybe like with especially with
• 1:30:48
  like all the trial programs that everybody's doing.
• 1:30:50
  Like I don't, if we're not involved in it, like I have no
• 1:30:53
  idea what's going on. Like I'm still finding new
• 1:30:55
  products. We're using a new product the
• 1:30:57
  next Monday and Tuesday that I've I've never used before.
• 1:31:00
  It's similar to other product that we've used, but not, not
• 1:31:03
  exactly. So it's always like we get to
• 1:31:06
  learn, we get to see how it interacts with the beer compared
• 1:31:09
  to the product that we used to use.
• 1:31:11
  No, Breweries are typically. Dog friendly.
• 1:31:14
  This podcast is dog friendly too, So there you go.
• 1:31:16
  Yeah, he's. He is the brewery dog of my two
• 1:31:21
  dogs. He is.
• 1:31:22
  He's the one that goes to. He used to go to work with me a
• 1:31:24
  lot used. To go work with me a lot.
• 1:31:28
  And he still goes to the brewery fairly frequently.
• 1:31:30
  He's we have one, he's he's chill and she is the female is
• 1:31:35
  not OK. She's happy to see that.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah, you guys. Have something?
• 1:31:42
  To be remiss if we didn't talk about it brew cause and it's a
• 1:31:45
  it's a you guys help a local nonprofit organization,
• 1:31:48
  charities talk about that kind of how people could get involved
• 1:31:51
  in that Yeah. So that is.
• 1:31:53
  Like every, not every Wednesday, whenever we have a charity that
• 1:31:57
  is interested, the concept was basically like, it's expensive
• 1:32:02
  to rent A room to do a, to do a fundraiser.
• 1:32:06
  So like what our, our thought was when we first started, that
• 1:32:09
  was like on a, we have slow nights.
• 1:32:11
  Obviously everyone does. Wednesdays tend to be the
• 1:32:13
  slowest. Like if you, if somebody wants
• 1:32:15
  to come and rent the brewery, quote, UN quote, it's not really
• 1:32:18
  renting. You're just they, they come,
• 1:32:20
  they show up and then they get a portion of the proceeds from or
• 1:32:24
  they get a portion of the how much we sold pint sold over the
• 1:32:29
  course of their brew cause and it's just like a nice way to get
• 1:32:33
  back on. It helps us fill the tap room on
• 1:32:37
  a on a Wednesday. It helps them.
• 1:32:39
  They don't have to pay for a rental.
• 1:32:40
  They get a nice little donation afterwards.
• 1:32:43
  Really all we ask from them is to promote it, which doesn't
• 1:32:47
  always happen, but when it does, when it does, it's like a great
• 1:32:51
  partnership. When people are when people are
• 1:32:54
  involved and they're into it and they're doing, they do their
• 1:32:58
  part. We do our part.
• 1:33:00
  They can get a nice, a nice check that they wouldn't have
• 1:33:03
  otherwise gotten and they get to bring all their people in and do
• 1:33:06
  whatever they want. We have, we have our other
• 1:33:09
  charity events that we do that aren't tied to the brew cause,
• 1:33:13
  but like we'll probably have. 22.
• 1:33:17
  Or three a month on Wednesdays, just grabbing people, just
• 1:33:20
  coming in and setting up a table and getting information out.
• 1:33:24
  I think we have one next week that's gone on Miami Valley
• 1:33:28
  forestry, maybe just forestry group that comes in.
• 1:33:32
  They they have, they have a happier, they meet with people
• 1:33:35
  that are donors or people that work with them or whatever.
• 1:33:38
  And then they just that's it. I mean, it might give out
• 1:33:41
  information, but really it's it's pretty low key, Yeah.
• 1:33:45
  And if if an. Organization want to be a part
• 1:33:46
  of that. They can just go to your
• 1:33:48
  website, There's a, there's a little, just a little thing they
• 1:33:50
  can fill up with their information in there.
• 1:33:51
  And yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's super easy.
• 1:33:55
  e-mail goes to my mom. She'll whatever she sends an
• 1:33:58
  e-mail and kind of, I mean, there is a little bit of
• 1:34:01
  vetting. You can't just like do it if
• 1:34:02
  there is like you want to make sure that you're in a real
• 1:34:05
  organization that like we're writing.
• 1:34:07
  If we're writing you a check, we're not just writing a guy a
• 1:34:09
  check or whatever. There was somebody Once Upon a
• 1:34:12
  time that tried to do that. It was just like they were like,
• 1:34:15
  oh, I'm doing this and whatever. And then they want a check
• 1:34:18
  written, a personal check written out to them.
• 1:34:19
  And we had to think, we had to be like, all right, then it
• 1:34:23
  needs to go to a 5O13C or whatever.
• 1:34:25
  It needs to go to an organization.
• 1:34:27
  Can't just go to a guy. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:29
  I mean, like it's super easy to sign up on the website and
• 1:34:33
  there's a tab and everything. I mean, like, obviously you
• 1:34:36
  found it because we doing free, free conversation about BM and
• 1:34:41
  it's it, it works. It's a nice win win for
• 1:34:44
  everybody. It's a nice, nice way for us to
• 1:34:47
  stay, keep and stay involved in the community other than like
• 1:34:51
  our pet causes that we always do so and we get to meet new people
• 1:34:55
  doing interesting stuff. I haven't ever like gotten more
• 1:34:59
  involved with any of these, but there's the, I think, I think my
• 1:35:04
  mom is like, there's a guy who does a as a duck rescue and she
• 1:35:09
  was very involved in that for a little bit.
• 1:35:11
  I mean, the biggest one that we do is the, is the who's a good
• 1:35:15
  beer with the Safety Animals Foundation.
• 1:35:18
  They do two big giant fundraisers twice a year.
• 1:35:22
  They get 25% of proceeds from the from the can sales.
• 1:35:26
  So that's that's our big one. But I think that may have
• 1:35:29
  started out as a brew cause very early on.
• 1:35:31
  It's under your website. It's under the about us page.
• 1:35:33
  It's it's right there. Just says a brew 'cause right
• 1:35:35
  there it takes it's a direct link right to.
• 1:35:37
  If someone's looking for that, you can fill out the information
• 1:35:40
  right there. I would think I would know a
• 1:35:41
  consider. I I edit the web, that's what
• 1:35:43
  we're here for. Streetside.
• 1:35:46
  Brewery.com. I know.
• 1:35:48
  That I know that I. Know the event page?
• 1:35:50
  I don't know. I, I have to say I, I don't go
• 1:35:53
  to, I don't go to the other sites.
• 1:35:55
  I don't go to the other tabs very often.
• 1:35:56
  Little busy brewing beer? You know, got a few things going
• 1:35:59
  on, right? You got like going to, I've got
• 1:36:02
  some 3 or 4 little fun things to end with.
• 1:36:04
  Steve may have something else after this, but if you don't
• 1:36:06
  mind, we're going through real quick.
• 1:36:07
  They're they're fun. Yeah.
• 1:36:09
  They won't take long. OK, what's the most British
• 1:36:11
  thing you brought back from the UKI didn't bring anything.
• 1:36:15
  Actually like physically back the most British.
• 1:36:20
  Oh, word. Probably.
• 1:36:23
  I mean. Probably the probably Black Cats
• 1:36:26
  are brown ale. It's like it was, it was my my
• 1:36:30
  goal to make like a Newcastle brown ale.
• 1:36:33
  I really wanted to make something that was tied to where
• 1:36:36
  I went to school, so that was the one.
• 1:36:38
  But other than that, like I didn't really get into soccer.
• 1:36:40
  I ain't really get into like I went to, I went to a Sunderland
• 1:36:43
  game. It was interesting and fun, but
• 1:36:46
  like I wasn't other than that, like I wasn't, I wasn't.
• 1:36:49
  You weren't following the Royal. Family.
• 1:36:51
  No, I mean like I. Rugby.
• 1:36:55
  Oh, you know. What Most Americans aren't big
• 1:36:59
  like blood pudding fans, but like, I'll eat haggis and blood
• 1:37:01
  pudding. Like I'll eat some stuff that is
• 1:37:04
  is a little a little weird to most, most Americans.
• 1:37:08
  Yeah, that's I I have an Infinity for I haven't had in
• 1:37:12
  forever. It's you can't, can't get it,
• 1:37:14
  but I'll eat it if I saw if I, if I get back there at some
• 1:37:18
  point, I'm I will still eat that head in Ireland.
• 1:37:21
  So I I I could attest it was actually good.
• 1:37:23
  It was really good. Yeah.
• 1:37:24
  That's why I had blood. Blood pudding was breakfast in
• 1:37:27
  Dublin. Yeah, it's good, good stuff.
• 1:37:29
  Right. What's the most craft beer guy
• 1:37:33
  think someone has said to you? Or you've heard you have some.
• 1:37:39
  Customers who have said some interesting things, most of it
• 1:37:41
  is like the the stereotypical like home Brewer like you should
• 1:37:46
  do this instead of this or like why don't you do this instead of
• 1:37:51
  this? Because I do it like this on my
• 1:37:54
  home brew system and I like, you could easily do it and like that
• 1:37:58
  just doesn't work. Diesel.
• 1:37:59
  Actually, I have a buddy who will text me every once in a
• 1:38:01
  while. He's a big umperer.
• 1:38:03
  He'll text me stuff. I'm just like, this is stupid.
• 1:38:06
  And like, luckily he's heard it enough times.
• 1:38:09
  But like, yeah, we'll just outright be like, you know,
• 1:38:11
  dude, that's dumb. It's.
• 1:38:13
  Dumb, especially. When you've done it, like you've
• 1:38:15
  done the home brewing thing, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:38:17
  it's stupid, yeah. Which beer style would
• 1:38:20
  absolutely lose in a fight? Probably like.
• 1:38:23
  Beer to guard. Maybe beer to guard?
• 1:38:27
  Beer to guard or maybe like. A French table beer or something
• 1:38:31
  like that. Nothing against the French, but
• 1:38:33
  like a table beer, like 2 1/2%, yeah.
• 1:38:37
  Wheat beer, saison, wheat beer type thing.
• 1:38:40
  That makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:41
  He's Glass Joe. And Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
• 1:38:44
  Remember that game? Did you ever play that game?
• 1:38:46
  The very first game? Yeah.
• 1:38:47
  OK, Yeah. All right.
• 1:38:50
  I've got one last thing and it's kind of a three parter, but
• 1:38:52
  it'll be we go quick. OK, If there were weight
• 1:38:55
  divisions in beer styles, I'm just going to pick out three
• 1:38:58
  beer styles. Who would be the champ of each?
• 1:39:00
  OK, the lightweight division, I'm going to give you some
• 1:39:03
  options. American Logger, Hefeweizen,
• 1:39:07
  Amber Ale, ESB Pale Ale. Brad, It's it's American.
• 1:39:11
  It's. American logger.
• 1:39:12
  I was going to say American logger around the American
• 1:39:15
  logger is wins. The lightweight division, The
• 1:39:18
  welterweight division, West Coast IPA, Hazy Black IPA, Rye
• 1:39:22
  IPA or Brut. Who wins that one?
• 1:39:25
  Who's the champ? Can I vote?
• 1:39:28
  Sure. I'm going black IPA going.
• 1:39:31
  Black IPA, OK. Absolutely not.
• 1:39:33
  It's like West Coast IPA or New England, I mean.
• 1:39:36
  If you just like, think about. Like the the market, just like
• 1:39:38
  if you're thinking about like what you're seeing the most of
• 1:39:40
  it's it's probably it's probably hazy nowadays.
• 1:39:44
  It's like the the new, the new, well, you're the new.
• 1:39:46
  So I'm going to go with you the. The new, the new.
• 1:39:48
  Welterweight champion is the New England, but like in the past,
• 1:39:51
  it was. It was definitely West Coast and
• 1:39:56
  I feel like West. Coast in that division is the
• 1:39:58
  Muhammad Ali might lose the title to Hazy, but come right
• 1:40:01
  back and knock Joe Frazier out. OK, yeah, there you go.
• 1:40:04
  OK. All right, and.
• 1:40:06
  Then the last one, the heavyweight division.
• 1:40:08
  Barrel aged imperial stout, Barley wine pastry stout,
• 1:40:12
  Russian imperial stout, Belgium quad.
• 1:40:15
  And if there's another one I hadn't put up, put in there,
• 1:40:17
  feel free to add. Barley wine wins the heavyweight
• 1:40:20
  champions. Easy, easy.
• 1:40:22
  OK, Yeah, wow. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:40:26
  It's I don't, I don't like them and I don't drink them.
• 1:40:29
  But like that, there's a reason why I don't like them and I
• 1:40:31
  don't drink. Because of the heavyweight?
• 1:40:34
  Yeah, they're heavy and they're. It's it's, it's a lot of it's a
• 1:40:38
  lot of beer. It's a lot of beer to have in
• 1:40:40
  one city. Yeah.
• 1:40:41
  And to come. Full circle ESB versus American
• 1:40:44
  Pale Ale and in three round boxing match who wins?
• 1:40:50
  Probably. I don't know, I like.
• 1:40:55
  I'm tempted to see ESP, but it's probably pale ale, yeah.
• 1:40:59
  OK, it's. I.
• 1:41:01
  Mean. Just going with my gut on that
• 1:41:03
  one, yeah. Like you get the ESB, the old
• 1:41:06
  tried and true, but the APA comes in and you know, it's kind
• 1:41:09
  of yeah, bolt up and just just got a little bit just.
• 1:41:12
  Got a little bit more Zing, you know?
• 1:41:13
  Yeah, yeah. OK.
• 1:41:17
  So that's kind of the last thing.
• 1:41:18
  I had I had more, but we'll save that for another day.
• 1:41:20
  Steve, you got something to end on, you know I, I got.
• 1:41:23
  One thing and then I couldn't less is the sly man you
• 1:41:27
  mentioned a Steve during your entire during this podcast
• 1:41:31
  episode and even though this podcast is going to come out
• 1:41:34
  after this happens on May the 8th, you have a special event
• 1:41:39
  going on at your brewery. Can you talk about that?
• 1:41:42
  It is Steve Day. We It's a celebration of all
• 1:41:46
  things Steve, not because of me. Not because of you.
• 1:41:49
  Because of Because of Steve Schmidt, He I don't really this
• 1:41:55
  is like our creative guys thing. He he wanted to do it and I was
• 1:41:59
  like, whatever, I don't I don't care one way or the other.
• 1:42:01
  If you want to, if you want to do Steve Day, it's I told I'm I
• 1:42:06
  the thing I say to them often is like the world's your oyster or
• 1:42:09
  your it's your world. I'm just living in it.
• 1:42:11
  So yeah, if they, if they feel passionate about doing something
• 1:42:14
  like that, that's they did it. So Steve Day he's get got the
• 1:42:17
  Steve flight. You got the Steve discount, you
• 1:42:20
  got the Steve food item on the on the menu for the food truck.
• 1:42:26
  And then we have Steve stickers. That's a that's a whole thing.
• 1:42:29
  Well, it's just a sticker that says, hello, my name is Steve.
• 1:42:32
  So you're not like you can you get to just go to Staples and
• 1:42:35
  get get a sticker that says that?
• 1:42:38
  Yeah, it's, yeah, we've done it always and it's always on.
• 1:42:44
  It's always a couple days after Steve's wife's birthday, which
• 1:42:50
  is not intentional or the first time wasn't intentional and now
• 1:42:53
  it's kind of just funny. So we keep doing it.
• 1:42:54
  We could move it around. There's no there's no reason to
• 1:42:57
  keep Steve day on the day that we have it, but we think it's
• 1:43:00
  funny. At least some of us think it's
• 1:43:02
  funny to keep it right by his wife's birthday.
• 1:43:04
  Just do it. Well, is there a vetting?
• 1:43:08
  Process are you checking? IDs at the door to make sure
• 1:43:10
  there is a We will. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to
• 1:43:13
  you. Got to be like a Steve or a
• 1:43:14
  variant of a Steve. Stefan, I don't know.
• 1:43:18
  There's a whole list of Steve's so so on my driver's license.
• 1:43:21
  I can get in. Yeah.
• 1:43:22
  Yeah, You'll. You were.
• 1:43:23
  You will definitely you could definitely get the discount for
• 1:43:26
  sure. Well, Steve and I used to get.
• 1:43:27
  Confused with each other early on so I don't wonder if I could
• 1:43:30
  pass for Steve Maybe, Maybe. The proper I mean if.
• 1:43:34
  You said. Your name was Steve.
• 1:43:35
  You never know, we might just just give it to you.
• 1:43:37
  Well. I don't think it's I.
• 1:43:41
  Don't think it's that big of a steel 8. 100 Steve's of the
• 1:43:45
  Tapper. Yeah, Yeah, we would.
• 1:43:46
  I think we would know on that one if it was 800.
• 1:43:49
  Well, Garrett? You've been great man, you've
• 1:43:51
  been great. We've had you for two hours and
• 1:43:54
  this has been fantastic and we want to say cheers to Steve, but
• 1:43:57
  also cheers to you and Streetside on 10 years.
• 1:44:02
  Thank you very much guys. I.
• 1:44:03
  Appreciate it. Congrats, you guys.
• 1:44:05
  Thank. You so much for spending so much
• 1:44:06
  time. It's been a lot of fun.
• 1:44:08
  Yeah, no problem. Have a good one.
• 1:44:09
  Guys, you too, man. See you soon on the Beerie
• 1:44:11
  Underground. Cheers.