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Beer First. Gluten Free Second. | Otherwise Brewing's Aaron Gervais · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron Gervais.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the CEO and co-founder of Otherwise Brewing.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, Aaron, walk us over kind of your portfolio of Otherwise and kind of what it is, what it got you guys the precipice to start and everything.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that really makes us stand out is we are one of the few gluten-free breweries in the country.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe there's about a dozen 15 active currently across the U.S.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's only two in California.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're the only one in Northern California.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so out of those, when did you guys when did you guys get started officially?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then when did the idea start?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, about half my family is gluten-free.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something I've been thinking about for a while.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been a home brewer uh for many years and enjoyed making beer, and I was looking for a career change.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the tech industry doing marketing uh and wanted to do something more with physical products, and I really loved beer.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and because of my family background, I thought, you know, this might be uh this might be a good angle for the brewery.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I started kicking the can around, talking to people in 2019 originally, uh, and met my co-founder Stellar that way.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Her background is in beer sales, and we started collaborating, figuring out how to make gluten-free beer.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was important for us from the start that it it had to be delicious beer first and foremost, and the gluten-free is the value add afterwards, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, as I like to say, beer is not health food.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We we drink it for the enjoyment, right?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if it doesn't taste right, people are gonna drink something else.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So from the very start, we were really focused on how do we make beer that is truly great, craft beer, no compromises, but using entirely gluten-free ingredients.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that process uh took us about a couple of years, ton of test brewing, doing batch after batch, just changing one small variable, figuring out what went wrong, what we can tweak differently, what different ingredients we can we can use or remove in order to get more of the result that we wanted.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then when we had something that we were proud to share with our friends and family, we decided to uh launch to market.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was early 2021, our first beer release here in the Bay Area.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we went with a rice lager.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we did that is we wanted to have a style that was uh very transparent where you can't really hide any faults or errors or anything like that, just to prove that you know what you can make great beer that's gluten-free.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've got nothing to hide.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to bury it under all sorts of like fancy hops or fruits or whatever like that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a clean classic lager and it's made with rice and and uh and it's enjoyable in its own right.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: What um what were you doing?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I prior, you said uh marketing in the tech world.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: What what kind of niche of tech were you in prior to this?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was online marketing, things like uh search engine marketing, stuff like that, some organic content marketing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then were you a homebrew or anything like that?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or how did how did you uh what kind of drawing you drew you into the outside of the family being gluten-free?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get the mechanics together to start producing and recipe development?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd been homebrewing for a long time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So um that beer was near and dear to my heart.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I loved making it and brewing it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of uh a new challenge to see if can I make it with these different ingredients.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: What um when you uh homebrewing, how out of my own curiosity, how do you, when you're doing the gluten-free, are you were you homebrewing gluten-free beer when you were homebrewing?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at first.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was just homebrewing to make beers that I liked.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when I started thinking about it in terms of a business, you know, we you need something to make your brewery stand out.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it felt like something that was really needed in the marketplace.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were very few breweries doing it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I figured either it's that nobody wants it and needs it, or that uh the products that are out there are not good and it's and it's smart to do well.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in the process of researching, I found that it's the latter.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's very hard to do it, make it taste good.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I always felt like we had a bit of an advantage because me and my co-founder were not gluten-free ourselves, so we know what beer is supposed to taste like, right?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, a lot of the other gluten-free breweries out there, they're started by people by who who used to really love beer and then they developed celiac disease and they they they decided to open up a brew pub because they just can't imagine living life without beer.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and a lot of them make great products.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh, you know, we have the advantage that we sort of can taste everything else that's going on in the craft beer world right now and and see sort of where the flavors and styles are evolving, and we can we can make sure that what we do uh matches with what consumers want to taste.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Was there were there any technological advances in the past couple years that kind of helped advance the taste profile of gluten-free, such as what's happened with the non-alcoholic beer side, or is it is it strictly uh the the art part of everything now?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, our brewing process is quite a bit different from everyone else's, as far as I know.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of that is a secret sauce, so I can't give you too many details, but um we we worked on that for a couple of years.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there have been some advantages, advances in terms of the malt supplies.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few more gluten-free malters than there used to be, so that gives you some more variety of um ingredients to play with.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But even when you have the malts, you need to know how to use them.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't they don't work quite as easily as barley malt.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when in barley brewing you have that happy accident of nature where you can just take malted barley and put it in water and it'll magically turn into it into sugar and feed the yeast.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen with gluten-free grains, so you have to sort of like pull a lot of different levers to get there.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: When uh so I guess in the past we can we could chalk up like let's say like seven or eight years ago, the gluten-free thing could have had a the taste profile with it with the between blending the art and then also those raw materials.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the pathway forward with it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then have others gone back, not speaking any names of other brands, but have others gone back and revised since these malts, or is everybody some people kind of stand linearly to true to true to taste, so to speak?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You see both.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're definitely, I mean, there's innovation everywhere.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I talked to some of the other gluten-free brewers, and they're they're definitely curious people.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're always trying to learn and and play around with new ingredients, and I learned from them too.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a community and it is moving forward all the time.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other thing I that you just add too is uh is you know, in the non-alcoholic space, it seems like this as well that you guys aren't necessarily as cutthroat with each other because you need the numbers to kind of keep the category going.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is that kind of similar?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is there some is there any internal strifing or anything like that within your category?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the category is nascent enough still that um it helps to validate the space to have some some other breweries out there.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're not the only one out there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I guess the place where we we try to be a little more but cutthroat is the people who are like quasi-gluten-free.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that that that kind of hurts our value proposition.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there for a while there are a bunch of breweries trying to do gluten-reduced beer.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Omision was probably the most famous of that.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always felt like that's kind of a it's kind of a bad position to be in as a business owner because you're like, okay, it has less gluten, but people either have gluten issues or they don't.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So like some people would not react to that beer, some people would still react, and then they just don't trust anything that says gluten-free beer.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it just made everything really difficult for us.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But omission, they're not producing anymore.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't remember a couple of the other earlier gluten-reduced brands, they've all sort of fallen by the wayside over the past few years.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, what has been left standing uh as of 2026 is mostly true gluten-free beer, and we're really happy to see that because it reduces that confusion.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: People can trust that when something says gluten-free, uh it is what it what it means.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a a large brewery in Philadelphia where their year-round beers are all they all test everything fine.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: People with C Lacks come and use them, it's like an unspoken thing that they, you know, they know which ones they can drink, but they never wanted to go forward with the label because they didn't want it to be confusing to anybody.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then the same reason you said about the omission scenario, they didn't want it on tap, and then all of a sudden they change the taps, and then somebody's grabbing the first couple pours off another tap, and then and then you know it's either they want it to be gluten-free or not.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't want to do the quasi and dip their toes in both sides, yeah.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: What um, so what are kind of you know, some we have a lot of people in that follow this that either they're starting trying to start their own brewery or something in the adult beverage space, or they're you know, new entrants, and then also that are you know seasoned seasoned founders.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to anybody that's looking to get into whether whatever capacity it is inside of the beer industry, what are some things that maybe have changed in the recently or in the past five to six years, a kind of heads-up advice type things?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think beer has evolved to be a lot more of a mature industry.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was the craft beer boom in the 2000s, 2010s.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh for a while, you know, anybody who can who could brew half decent beer could open up a brew pub and turn a profit.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true anymore.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like any other food product.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's gonna be, first of all, you have to have a good product, that goes without saying, but then there's also the marketing behind that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be in the right place with the right people and the right consumers.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it is much more like starting any other business, um, which is maybe not the most exciting thing to say, but it is it is true.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to have a clear idea of who your business is for, what problem you're solving, you know, why does the world need your brewery?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: If your answer is just, oh, we make a better logger than everyone else, or we make the best IPAs, that's not a real reason because everyone thinks they make the best IPA or the best logger or whatever, right?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it has to be something that is uh much less subjective and that there's like an actual uh a need in the marketplace that's not being met.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I would encourage anyone getting into the space to really think long and hard um about that, uh, what makes their product different, and then how they're gonna communicate that difference, that that solution to the problem to the people who need it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh even 10 years ago when I was a brand management, I had like uh 30 some different craft breweries, and even at that point, 2015, 2016, that conversation started happening with new entrants, where it was what's the difference between you and the guy down the street, is what I'd say to people, and they would get jarred by that question.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, because we're at the point now where like everybody's got a great IPA, everybody's got a great log or and you know what's now you're you nailed it though.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: What it is now in the past couple years is you have to have a great business model that also produces great beer.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the days of like being overwhelmed by Excel or not checking your email is over.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one of those things where I tell people, I'm like, I'm not lying to you, because 15 years ago in the industry, it was it was a lot more fun than it should have been as far as the off times and everything like that.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: But there wasn't that stuff existed, but now it's so much more exponentially more of your time.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And because it has to be precise now, it has to be there.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So are you guys in the wholesale realm of things where you're working with retailers and distributors?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are, yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wholesales are the bigger part of the business for us.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you and do you also have a uh on-premise tap room or anything like that in California?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's in San Francisco in the North Beach neighborhood.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our brick and brick and mortar presence.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the the larger part of the revenues comes from the wholesale distribution, and we distribute across California with uh breakthrough beverage.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Are you guys looking in the next couple years to add any more states or looking to keep it really like focused, really going deeper into California?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do want to add more states.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a good thing about breakthrough is that they they are in 16 different states plus Canada.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's uh there's definitely room to expand right there.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they were happy to have us because we were their only active gluten-free beer.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They do they do also have Glutenberg out of Montreal, but Glutenberg hasn't produced anything in over a year.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so yeah, they they really had the had the need for us, and we're happy to have us join the portfolio.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty recent for us.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: We just joined with them in January, but it's gone really well.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Our sales are up like almost two and a half, three X since before them.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they they've put a lot of uh wind in our sales to help help promote the brand.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we do want to continue growing and adding territory, but it's one thing to get beer on a shelf, and it's another thing to get someone to buy the beer and take it off the shelf.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we want to be really cognizant of that and not move too fast because you just end up burning bridges with your retailers.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be successful at wholesale, you need to help them help your retailers win, you know.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that means uh growing awareness of your brand within their local communities, helping them figure out the best ways to sell your beer to consumers.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, that's really where we're focused now is what in the CBG world is talked about is velocity, you know, how many cases per door per month.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really the name of the game right now.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And once we can get to a sort of best in class position for all of our markets in California, then we're ready to start adding in new territories.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to make sure that we are not spreading ourselves too thin and we can properly support our retail partners.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron, that was music to my ears, man.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: You like it's coming coming from a guy that's been most of the uh that spent all my career in wholesale, that was it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what we wished any brand would understand right off the bat.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you got my next question I had when you were talking was was what are some of the things you learned?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I it sounds like that is what you learned is that selling in your tasting room to people that are coming into your tasting room is apples to bowling balls to how does your brand tell your story on the shelf to draw a consumer in when you're not standing there?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's true.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I like your your packaging and everything like that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have a really good visual and it really does set itself aside in the other gluten-free section in there.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: In California, I I'm not I don't have as much time shopping over there.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are the gluten-free beers they're in there with the regular beers and or how where do they categorize you guys in Planet Grands?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Depends on the retailer.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some people have dedicated gluten-free spaces and some don't.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it kind of depends on the clientele and where you want to put it.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We talk we talk to our um on-premise accounts a lot about this, like the bars and restaurants.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a really health-focused account, like a place doing like salad bowls or whatever, and they've got a ton of like um allergen-friendly choices, like no nuts, no gluten, no dairy, whatever, that absolutely put us in a gluten-free listing and you're gonna get all the right people there.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's like um, you know, craft beer bar that has, you know, 50 tap handles from all all the coolest breweries uh from the area, then don't put us under gluten-free because people are coming there for a beer experience and we want them to try our beer.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our beer tastes great.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: People who are not gluten-free, such as myself, drink our beer all the time and enjoy it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we regularly get people coming into our tap room just walking by because it's it's kind of a busy nightlife area where our tap room is, and they'll they'll stop by for beer because they see they see a brewery tap room.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then they don't even know that we're gluten-free until we tell them after they've had the beer.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's um, you know, it it it that's that sort of makes the point that I'm trying to make.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on the clientele.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's a place where it's really all about the beer and the beer flavors, then we don't want to be labeled as gluten-free.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: The people who who care and need that are gonna ask, what can I drink off of your menu?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't want to be stigmatized.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: We want people to judge us on the taste of the beer first and foremost.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: But then if it's a health conscious place where that's more of a selling point, then by all means shut up from the rooftop.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's funny when you think about it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I talked to a couple of non-alcoholic breweries on here and stuff like that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like, if you hand somebody an IPA that tastes really great, but it's not alcoholic and they're expecting a regular, they're gonna be disappointed.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have a great situation now that you have like really good recipes, is like nobody's gonna be disappointed, like, oh, I wanted more gluten in my beer.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the other thing was like, do you get a lot of people?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is your like in the in the tasting room, is your ratio of like celiacs to regular pretty normal, or do you see you over-index a little on people targeting you because of what you have with the gluten-free part?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: We do over-index on on the celiac uh clientele.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: People come out for us, you know, it's become a destination for gluten-free drinkers, and word has gotten around in the Bay Area.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but still, just because of where we are, there's like 12 bars down the street.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: People are walking by, they're like, Oh, I'd like to have a beer, and they walk in, and most of those people are not gluten-free.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's very rare that we get anyone who says anything negative about the beer.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I mean.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you guys say?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: They just comingly enjoy some beer, and then they're pleasantly surprised to learn that it's gluten-free.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Eric, I met I met you three and a half years too late, man.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I got sober three and a half years ago.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I wish so I've I've uh I gotta go with uh with my gut and tell people that years ago it did like decent gluten-free beer didn't really exist very prevalently, and I'm happy to hear that it is.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm also happy to hear that you have a tasting room because that was another thing that those guys I don't think I remember like five, six to ten years ago, those guys didn't really have tasting rooms.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: They they co-packed and did wholesale only.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a whole nother thing type of thing to see.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, is there other people in the in the country that have a gluten-free tasting rooms?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or uh you sound unique in that one.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of the smaller brands are just sort of uh brew pub type models.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So they mostly do the tasting room plus restaurant kind of thing.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And are they all in urban environments as well that have high populations?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the ones off the top of my head, yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's one in Orange County, there's there's a handful in Portland, there's one in Seattle.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, for the most part, they seem to be more urban areas.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I trended with my assumption in my head too that there were gonna be a line of west coast and north and pacific northwest, too.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch, there's a bunch on the east coast too.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just I don't know them as well because they're they're a little further.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta look them up and uh that's cool.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: What um what do you think uh when you're when you guys are out selling and everything like that, what do you think is is the hardest part about the wholesale side of things?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think is the most challenging?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not that it's something you can't overcome, but what do you think of the most challenging piece of wholesale versus the tasting room?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think, and this is not unique to us, but I think it's it's uh in very business terms, it's like it's the cost of labor.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the way the way um the way sales works in the beer industry, it's still very in-person, you know, shoes on the street, walk in, talk to the bartender kind of thing.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's a really expensive way to do business.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, very few industries um have that kind of sales model anymore.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it makes sense for for something like beer, because a lot of these bars are small businesses and it's the owner behind the bar, and they don't have time to be like fielding all these sales calls and emails that are coming in or whatever.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's a challenge that all beer brands are facing right now is figuring out how we can reach the the customers who who want us and need us uh in a way that's still going to be affordable.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I think very few brands are scaling up their sales teams more more they're looking at how can we find ways to consolidate larger territories for one rep and stuff like that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's less fun for the sales reps too to have to juggle these larger portfolios.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's uh I think that's a challenge that everyone in the industry is facing right now.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this for two decades, and that's still the same challenge you have.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you know it's it's it's it's exactly that.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh how much to invest in this account.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, on the beer side of things, it's not unless it's a retail and it's on premise, you're not always guaranteed to stay.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like retail, you most of the time you sell in a slot on the shelf, you're probably gonna be there as long as you hit the certain rate of sale and match that quota.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you sell in a keg or a placement, you know, you're your one seasonal menu change away from not being there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it could have nothing to do with your numbers, it's just whoever was took over the food and beverage program that quarter.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what whoever's a rep sales rep walked in the door when they needed to order something, you know.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that is that randomness about it is is a challenge for sure.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've been trying desperately to make our industry at least a little bit more hybridized where it's like a remote blend with the in-person.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll have to admit, even in the past year, I've done about 3,000 to 5,000 miles a month in the car, driving around Pennsylvania doing cold opens for brands and stuff like that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the that's one of the things because even though I've been in this a long time and have relationships, you still have a lot of they don't, you know, gatekeepers are not just in the corporate world.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean gatekeeper is it a bad way.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you call the host that's on a bad day and you sound like a salesman on the phone, you're getting hung up on.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you don't have that cell phone number to that buyer, or even if you do have it, that doesn't mean that today's your day.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're one of like you just said, that buyer most likely has the napkin guy coming in, the placemat guy coming in, the guy coming to change the linens, the guy coming, you know what I mean?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and that's just on a Tuesday.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Aaron, is there anything else you want to you want to share for uh as far as how you guys go to market or anything like that we want the audience to know?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're available across California.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listeners in California, go check us out.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a map on our website that shows people who are retailers that have ordered recently.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that gets updated daily.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so you can give a fresh look at where you can find our beer.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're curious to see if it lives up to the hype, it should be pretty easy to find in your local uh neighborhood.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome, Aaron.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And give everybody uh give remind everybody website, social media handles, and everything like that about where to find you and follow the business.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh otherwise brewing.com.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then the socials are the same for Instagram, it's otherwise brewing, uh, TikTok, same thing.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: You keep it simple.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody else makes it too complicated.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, my handles drink this and my other handles uh pour that, you know.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So well hey Aaron, I I appreciate you coming on, and and I want to also I do this every time, but I do have to publicly thank you because I also have to give you the courage, like thank you for the courage because there's no questions and there's no prep.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've never met each other.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the underlying formats of this show is that I want people to understand how to connect with a stranger.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So in the past 25 minutes, you I want to remind everybody that Aaron and I've never met each other.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've never shared a beer or a cup of coffee in San Francisco or in Philadelphia or anywhere in between.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I want people to understand, especially in 2026, there's a lot of things going on in this world.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And just because your life is full and you're you're feeling loved and you have a great family, not everybody's like that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to remind everybody when you're at the coffee or that you're filling up your coffee at the gas station, say how you doing to the person next to you and actually listen to what they say.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to challenge everybody to give five minutes of kindness to a stranger, and I don't mean just holding the door, just look everybody in the eye while you're walking down the street, put your phone in your pocket, five minutes of of your time to kindness to a stranger over the course of a month, that's 20 minutes.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you kept one person that it changes their day, their week, or their month, or even their year, that's a that's a hell of an ROI.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I Aaron, I appreciate you taking the time and taking the chance on here and hopping on.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I really appreciate hearing your story.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh that's words to live by.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I feel like the those interpersonal connections and meeting new people, it's some of the most rewarding aspects of of of building this business.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, I I love the beer and I love building the business, but it is the people you meet along the way that really sort of makes it energizing and exciting.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I totally with you on that one.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Say say hello to a stranger, meet someone new.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I quit drinking three and a half years ago, and after the first year of sobriety, I came back because of the people.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: People are always like, Why'd you come back?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I didn't come back for the beer.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I came back for the people, and I you nailed it right there.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much, man.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Nate.