Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Emily Hutto Interview: RadCraft & Craft Beer Marketing Explained | Episode 118

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Emily Hutto Interview: RadCraft & Craft Beer Marketing Explained | Episode 118 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:02
  Stand by for the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 0:13
  'S Steven Scott, The Way Brewery Underground night and day.
• 0:36
  Hey, welcome back to the Brewery Underground podcast, where hey,
• 0:40
  I'm Steve and you're Scott. I am Scott.
• 0:44
  We haven't changed. Again with the hair.
• 0:46
  Again with the hair. My hair changes, yours does it.
• 0:50
  That's right, that's right. And we still are the Brewery
• 0:54
  Underground podcast and on today's episode we are we're
• 0:58
  extremely happy and welcoming Emily Hutto.
• 1:02
  She is with. She's the founder of Red Crap.
• 1:06
  How are you, Emily? I'm so good.
• 1:07
  Hi Scott, my hair changes a lot too.
• 1:10
  Hello. Well, good, you and I have.
• 1:16
  That in common. It's great to be here fellas.
• 1:18
  Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks.
• 1:22
  Thanks for being here, We appreciate you.
• 1:24
  I want to read off a couple of of your titles.
• 1:27
  If I. May and let me know if I leave
• 1:30
  any out. You're a journalist, freelancer,
• 1:33
  podcaster, strategic marketing professional public speaker
• 1:37
  specializing in the craft beverage supply chain.
• 1:40
  Did I get? Is that all?
• 1:41
  Correct, You got it all. Is there?
• 1:46
  More Well, I just did the math recently and I've been working
• 1:49
  in the beverage and supply chain space for about 16 years.
• 1:54
  My role has evolved, but all, all of those things are true.
• 1:58
  I I started out as a journalist telling stories about the craft
• 2:02
  beer industry, specifically in the Pacific Northwest where I
• 2:06
  went to college. And that freelancing landed me a
• 2:10
  gig writing a book called Colorado's Top Brewers, which
• 2:13
  profiled not just the top Brewers Colorado at the time,
• 2:17
  very outdated today in 2026, but we also profiled some of the
• 2:21
  best chefs in Colorado and got them together to do food
• 2:24
  pairings. It was such a fun book to write
• 2:28
  and be a part of. And it introduced me to
• 2:31
  literally every Colorado Brewer at the time, to which I I
• 2:35
  visited all of them, just about every single one at the time
• 2:38
  they were, they were opening left and right, but I did my
• 2:40
  best. So I think the count back then
• 2:42
  was maybe under 200. This is a little more digestible
• 2:46
  than are now close to 600, but please don't quote me on that
• 2:50
  because I haven't checked our number in a while.
• 2:52
  But Long story short, a lot of those Brewers in the book
• 2:56
  connected with me to do marketing and sales projects for
• 3:00
  them. And I adapted those freelance
• 3:03
  jobs that I was getting into an LLC in 2012.
• 3:07
  Radcraft is a napkin name, literally John at a bar over
• 3:11
  beers. It stands for the word radical,
• 3:14
  which I adore it. It's a nod to Colorado where I'm
• 3:17
  from. And now 13 years later, I can
• 3:21
  tell you my elevator pitch, which is that we do marketing
• 3:25
  communications and sales support for the beverage supply chain
• 3:29
  and that includes The Who are growing green and hops that then
• 3:35
  sell that product to monsters and Brewers and distillers down
• 3:40
  the line. So the name Rad Crap.
• 3:42
  Was that the very first name that you just decided on, or
• 3:45
  were there others out there? That you were thinking about.
• 3:49
  I was at a house at Amato's in Denver with a couple buddies
• 3:54
  from high school and college, and we were brainstorming and it
• 3:58
  was like, yeah, that's the one with a capital R and a capital C
• 4:01
  And I, I got that LLC a few weeks later.
• 4:04
  But to be honest with you guys, I, I didn't think that I would
• 4:07
  ever use this name all that publicly.
• 4:09
  And I just needed a vessel for my freelance that I was doing at
• 4:12
  the time. We should have known about you
• 4:16
  prior to when we did, but we came across you as we had
• 4:21
  reached out to Riverbend Malt House and you must be.
• 4:25
  Are you the marketing? Director.
• 4:29
  Because you. Were the liaison, yeah, I Rad
• 4:30
  Craft does all of their marketing.
• 4:32
  So however you want to describe that partnership, it's true.
• 4:36
  Yeah, it was great. So we were in touch with them
• 4:38
  and then we were kind of corresponding with you and you
• 4:40
  were setting us up and then you put us in touch with Brent and
• 4:43
  we did all that. And then we had further
• 4:45
  conversations and then you was like, well, it you kind of were
• 4:48
  telling about what you did. And then you're like, I have a
• 4:50
  podcast too. And I started listening to the
• 4:51
  podcast. We're like, holy crap, we've
• 4:53
  missed this fun thing we didn't know about.
• 4:57
  So, so extremely happy to have you on because of that.
• 5:02
  That one thing led to to you being on here, which is so
• 5:05
  interesting to everything you're doing is very, very interesting.
• 5:07
  We'll talk about all of it. Well, we know that you're
• 5:10
  drinking some tea tonight. You're not drinking actually
• 5:13
  alcohol and we're not going to hold that against you, but you
• 5:15
  got a you got. So you got some something you're
• 5:18
  drinking at. It's kind of interesting, right?
• 5:20
  And the cup. Yes, I have a a vessel here that
• 5:22
  says behold the fields where I grow my fox lay thine eyes upon
• 5:27
  them and see that they are barren.
• 5:29
  And you can see on my mug that it has barren fields of what
• 5:33
  maybe would be would be barley for me.
• 5:38
  But yeah, my my buddy W got me this mug and you guys are both
• 5:44
  drinking. Beers made by Brewers who
• 5:47
  utilize. Riverbend malt so I love the
• 5:50
  connection. That's right.
• 5:52
  What are you guys, Steve? Yeah, I've got the our friend
• 5:55
  from Berek here. It is called the Blue Door
• 5:57
  Bitter. So yeah, I've been sipping on
• 6:00
  this for a few minutes and has some amber malts in there and
• 6:04
  the toffee and some biscuit tea biscuits.
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  So, you know, I'm, I'm not that far off from me there, Emily.
• 6:12
  It's all that delicious riverbed malt in there.
• 6:15
  Yep, there you go. So delicious.
• 6:16
  I've got another company that uses riverbed malt.
• 6:19
  We'll see here. It's called Stokehouse Signature
• 6:22
  and they're right here out of Nashville, TN.
• 6:24
  One of my favorite new breweries.
• 6:26
  And when this one is gone, I've got some of their original,
• 6:29
  which is my favorite current beer, right?
• 6:31
  I love their branding. Which is just a traditional
• 6:34
  Tennessee lager that uses Riverbend malt.
• 6:36
  It all comes from a circle, doesn't it?
• 6:41
  Yeah, it's very interesting. And you know, Emily, the other
• 6:44
  interesting thing is getting you on the night, as Scott said,
• 6:47
  because when we have done interviews and we did
• 6:50
  interviews, I mean, with Brett Manning, I mean, it was such a
• 6:54
  learning experience of what you know, he does.
• 6:57
  And I'm curious because you've been in the marketing realm, as
• 7:01
  you said, for a long time now in working with a lot of these
• 7:04
  Brewers and others. What have you learned over the
• 7:07
  years and and your experience and especially marketing of what
• 7:10
  you've been doing without? Steve and to both you and Scott,
• 7:13
  y'all are so flattering. Thank you for having me on and
• 7:16
  for this conversation. Brent is an exceptional
• 7:19
  storyteller and one of the reasons I love working with him
• 7:22
  is that he's this wealth of knowledge about craft malt.
• 7:25
  But also he's full of alliterations and amazing
• 7:31
  illusions and he's just, you know, full of metaphor that that
• 7:34
  helps you understand it. And he's he's got a great kind
• 7:38
  of like storytelling, podcasty voice with a lovely Southern
• 7:41
  drawl. So a friend ever listens back to
• 7:44
  this time. He knows I love working with
• 7:46
  him. So over the years, I something
• 7:49
  I've learned especially about Brewers doing their marketing is
• 7:54
  that they have a gold mine of marketing resources and content
• 7:59
  opportunity in their brewhouse making their product before they
• 8:03
  ever even leave and, and meet the public.
• 8:06
  And I think one of the reasons that the malts, the ingredients,
• 8:10
  the hops, the process itself is often not talked about as
• 8:15
  regularly in the marketing space is that we're all, we're all
• 8:19
  generally utilizing the same process.
• 8:22
  And not everyone who's doing marketing for a brewery knows
• 8:25
  that process as intimately as the person whose job it is to do
• 8:28
  so professionally. I wouldn't expect that, but
• 8:31
  there is that disconnect often. So something I've learned to to
• 8:35
  just put it quickly with working with breweries over these years
• 8:39
  is that if they're not marketing their ingredients already, they
• 8:43
  have a huge opportunity. Yeah, we get so much and, and I
• 8:47
  hear it from friends, so much positive feedback and so much
• 8:50
  cool feedback on that episode with Brant, because it was that
• 8:53
  it's all those things you described.
• 8:55
  He was technical, but he he said it was a we could explain it and
• 8:58
  it was kind of the science behind it and everything we were
• 9:01
  asking, we didn't know. We really were learning at the
• 9:03
  same time. Like, you know, we did our
• 9:05
  research, but we didn't know all these things.
• 9:07
  And it's like people were like, that was cool.
• 9:10
  It was science involved and all that.
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  And but he made it easily. For us to.
• 9:13
  Digest. And I think, yeah.
• 9:16
  And I also think what it what's really cool from your standpoint
• 9:20
  and going on your website and looking at what you do and
• 9:22
  working with all these partners is that you're helping bringing
• 9:25
  everybody together. Because as we we do Riverbend,
• 9:28
  it's talking about, you know, they're working with farmers
• 9:31
  too. And you're also involved in that
• 9:33
  kind of aspect of? Things, right And, and that's
• 9:37
  exactly what I aim to do is, is be the glue along the supply
• 9:41
  chain. This in particular supply chain
• 9:44
  of farmers to maltsters, to Brewers and distillers is an
• 9:49
  important one for our industry because it's the flavor of what
• 9:54
  we're all drinking and why we're all here.
• 9:56
  A lot of us love that, that science and technical element to
• 10:02
  beer because we've made it ourselves or often do you have
• 10:06
  fermentation projects going on at home?
• 10:08
  So that's, I think that's one of the reasons so many of us got
• 10:11
  involved in the 1st place. So there's a true human interest
• 10:15
  there. And then on top of that, this
• 10:18
  supply chain extends much more extensively beyond farmer to
• 10:23
  Brewer because we have folks that are creating seed, we have
• 10:29
  folks that are breeding it at the university level, selling it
• 10:34
  at the professional level. I mean, there is so much
• 10:36
  agriculture that goes into just what's in our class and that
• 10:42
  agriculture is something that has been, we've had a heightened
• 10:45
  focus on it in the last, I'd say 5 especially, but maybe 10 years
• 10:50
  of my career. Lucky me.
• 10:53
  I'm so excited to be in beer at this time as we bring it back to
• 10:57
  local farms in, in our regions, in our, our states or even our
• 11:02
  towns, depending on where we live.
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  And that's, that's a really special spot, I think bringing
• 11:08
  beer back to the agriculture that that fuels it.
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  And I think it's a huge opportunity in a year when we're
• 11:16
  otherwise looking at some flat places in the beer community.
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  And I, I don't want to say down because I'm really not abreast
• 11:24
  to the numbers well enough, but a lot of people are taking super
• 11:29
  close and conscious look at what they're bringing in financially,
• 11:34
  what they're spending. It's a year of line items in the
• 11:37
  craft beer industry and I'm just so elated to be able to talk
• 11:43
  about ingredients and farms and and really bring it back to the
• 11:46
  essence of of what we all do. As part of my day-to-day.
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  It keeps me literally eyes on the horizon.
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  Puns intended all of that, but it keeps me positive and
• 11:56
  hopeful. Yeah.
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  And we've seen the changes. I mean, Scott and I living in
• 12:01
  Nashville, we've seen, I mean, just recently there was a big
• 12:04
  change announced with A2 Breweries in Nashville, Black
• 12:08
  Abbey. They've been around for a long
• 12:09
  time and they're merging and Jackalope Brewing here in
• 12:14
  Nashville is taking them over. And if you would have said a
• 12:17
  year ago, it's just going to happen, I'm not so sure, Scott,
• 12:20
  we would have, we would have believed that one.
• 12:22
  But it's really sort of no, but it's really sort of like the
• 12:25
  evolution, Emily, of where things are going in the
• 12:28
  marketplace. And you know, as a marketing
• 12:31
  professional like yourself, you're seeing it.
• 12:33
  And I would imagine that the partners that you work with, you
• 12:37
  guys are having to stay on top of this all the time to say, you
• 12:40
  know, to make. Yes, and I'm sure I'm biased
• 12:43
  when I say this, but times like these call for more marketing.
• 12:47
  They call for more incentivization of your
• 12:50
  customers to return and and they call for more creativity.
• 12:53
  So yes to to everything you just said.
• 12:59
  And I also want to point out that beer has never not been a
• 13:03
  dynamic place to be. It is an industry that is
• 13:08
  agriculture based with a live product and it's consumer
• 13:12
  dependent. So we have all of these factors
• 13:15
  out of our control. We we all got excited about it
• 13:19
  around the same time and what a fun time to be in beer.
• 13:22
  That was 10-15 years ago. That's as far as I go back.
• 13:26
  So I'm sure there are folks who have much more exciting stories
• 13:31
  from those two decades before that.
• 13:34
  But all that's to say, I think that the craft beer space will
• 13:37
  always change. It will always be dynamic and we
• 13:42
  might have seen it's boom in our in our time already.
• 13:48
  And that doesn't mean that we don't get to still enjoy it
• 13:51
  authentically in our communities as an established cultural
• 13:56
  practice instead of a big booming industry that's rapidly
• 14:03
  changing. That could be cool.
• 14:04
  Emily, I know brewery sourcing local ingredients is important
• 14:07
  to you. Should breweries know their
• 14:11
  farmers and their malt houses, and if so, why and why is that
• 14:14
  important? I know I've made it pretty
• 14:17
  obvious that this is one of my priorities and so thank you for
• 14:21
  the platform for my soapbox. Breweries getting connected with
• 14:27
  the farmers who are responsible for their ingredients or any
• 14:32
  producer getting connected with the farmer responsible for their
• 14:35
  ingredients is so significant because this is the source of
• 14:39
  your flavor. This is your differentiation
• 14:42
  from other products. This is the moment that people
• 14:45
  experience when they try it for the first time and return to it
• 14:49
  over and over again. Malt in particular is is such a
• 14:52
  huge derivative of a a beer's flavor that I'd say it's so
• 14:56
  important to get to know the folks who are growing your grain
• 14:59
  and then malting your grain because knowing that those
• 15:03
  ingredients makes for a better beer.
• 15:05
  Not only is it a top quality product that you're getting from
• 15:10
  the ground, especially with some smaller and intentional farmers,
• 15:14
  if you're if you're growing grain, in particular barley in
• 15:17
  the United States, you are committed.
• 15:19
  This isn't exactly a cash crop, and people are doing it because
• 15:23
  they want to better serve the beer and spirits industries.
• 15:26
  So those are people to get to know because that's the source
• 15:28
  of your flavor. It's the source of the quality
• 15:31
  of your product, and it's a huge place or a huge opportunity I
• 15:36
  should say, for troubleshooting. If you know your Moldster and
• 15:40
  the person who grew that grain, you're so much more likely to
• 15:45
  develop relationships and solve those problems together.
• 15:49
  And that's going to make your products better in the end too.
• 15:52
  So I'm what I'm what I'm soapboxing on is that it's
• 15:57
  better for the bottom line. Because if you're if you're
• 15:59
  making better beer, all the more reason to pay good money for
• 16:03
  better beer. In the heaven and Brent talked
• 16:06
  about this to having a line of communication with say, the malt
• 16:09
  house. Suppose you wanted to tweak
• 16:11
  something. I'm looking for this.
• 16:12
  I'm trying to get this out of this beer.
• 16:14
  I want to create a beer. You've got that Direct Line of
• 16:16
  communication, right? And we learned from like malt
• 16:18
  houses can do that they could customize something for you
• 16:21
  specifically, which is very, very cool.
• 16:24
  Yes, that's the fun part when you get to go to your maltster
• 16:27
  and say, hey, I want to create this exact flavor and or I want
• 16:32
  to use this exact green from this field where I knew, I know
• 16:36
  where it came from. And your maltster can work with
• 16:39
  you on a custom project, which surprises and delights them and
• 16:43
  is why they do what they do. It's, it's very similar to a
• 16:46
  Brewer, a dispeller, I would say, who's excited about the new
• 16:50
  project that they're working on that they get to do in a one off
• 16:53
  or small batch capacity. There's, there's redundancy in
• 16:56
  malting and brewing. And, and when you get the
• 16:58
  opportunity to experiment with your friends, it's one of the
• 17:02
  reasons we all stick around in this community year over year.
• 17:06
  And not to get lost in this entire conversation, you have
• 17:10
  such a great history of this because before you start a rat
• 17:13
  craft, you were also involved and have been involved in home
• 17:16
  brewing. Yes, I sure was, and I have my
• 17:19
  college roommate Trevor to take to thank for that.
• 17:22
  He's the one who really sparked the first interest and after
• 17:25
  living with him, I I got on board in a big way and got just
• 17:30
  super excited about fermentation.
• 17:33
  I have indeed tried to malt a batch of grain in my in my oven.
• 17:38
  I I don't recommend it. I actually do recommend it
• 17:42
  because you really get to know why you appreciate your monster
• 17:45
  so much. But for all you home Brewers out
• 17:47
  there, there are small monsters doing it for you and you can buy
• 17:51
  their awesome products online. I heard you say, and it was in
• 17:57
  your first episode of your podcast that we'll get to, but
• 18:00
  and and I like this statement. You said I'm one of the many
• 18:03
  home Brewers out there who took her work pro.
• 18:06
  I don't make beer at a brewery, though.
• 18:08
  I write and speak about craft beer in malt for a living, which
• 18:11
  I thought was very, very cool. Like you were a home Brewer, but
• 18:16
  then you took the pro side. You took it to another level.
• 18:20
  Thank you so much. Thanks for the shout out quote
• 18:23
  too see. We.
• 18:25
  Really did. Yeah.
• 18:26
  I I. I appreciate it.
• 18:27
  Thank you. I had big aspirations to own a
• 18:31
  brewery of my own. I think a lot of us who made our
• 18:35
  own beer in our garages felt that way.
• 18:37
  Like I'm going to do this for a living one day or I'm going to
• 18:39
  start a brewery or I know this buddy of mine is so good.
• 18:43
  This buddy's a better Brewer than mine.
• 18:45
  So I'll get in on a brewery and I'll, you know, I'll get his
• 18:48
  recipes or I'll support his brewing.
• 18:50
  You know, we all have those fun dreams as hell Brewers.
• 18:52
  And to those who GoPro, I I'm so impressed by them endlessly day
• 18:57
  over day. But what happened is I used my
• 19:01
  background, I used my skill set, and I kind of fell into slash
• 19:06
  carved my own path for this wonderful career in craft beer
• 19:13
  and craft malt communications that I feel really grateful,
• 19:19
  grateful to be in. And it's very much a product of
• 19:22
  my connections with all of the people in the space.
• 19:26
  And you found going down this road, you've discovered other
• 19:31
  things too, right? It was kind of maybe beer to
• 19:33
  start with. And you've discovered all these
• 19:34
  other things like, but like fermentation, right?
• 19:37
  I think I heard you say sake and still spirits and things.
• 19:41
  So it looked like that path kind of led you down all these other
• 19:43
  paths too, and lets you learn as you kind of went down those
• 19:46
  paths about these. Many rabbit holes, yes, yes.
• 19:51
  My favorite of them being sake. So when I was writing for a
• 19:55
  publication, now defunct, called Beer W Magazine, my editor was
• 20:00
  invited to a. We didn't really know much about
• 20:04
  it, this socket class, and it was multiple days and this guy
• 20:08
  from Japan, or maybe he was originally from Japan, but he
• 20:12
  was living in New York at the time.
• 20:13
  He was going to be in Portland, OR and she didn't really want to
• 20:17
  go and she's looking for a writer who would go and cover
• 20:19
  it. I'm like eager Bieber.
• 20:22
  And at this point in my journalism career to learn
• 20:24
  anything new and and have a story and a byline.
• 20:28
  So I went unknowingly to effectively assessor or a
• 20:33
  Somali's equivalent certification in sake.
• 20:37
  Took the class for a couple days, met wonderful strangers
• 20:40
  who weren't in two days later from all over the country who
• 20:44
  were there to get their certification to.
• 20:46
  I had no idea about the the in depth nature of the course that
• 20:52
  I was walking into, but I'm so glad I did so blindly because I
• 20:56
  got this certification as at a very young age in sake and I've
• 21:00
  been extremely interested in in that product and with rice
• 21:04
  fermentation ever since. And I'm super excited to report
• 21:08
  that I see Brewers experimenting with rice and utilizing it as a
• 21:13
  recipe developer. A booster I should say, more and
• 21:17
  more. Yeah, I guess that's something
• 21:20
  too. You know, we can this, this
• 21:22
  seems like a whole big topic of the beer community, right, of
• 21:26
  the things expanding. I mean, not just craft beer, but
• 21:29
  different offering. So can you go into that a little
• 21:32
  bit more? You know, obviously you're
• 21:34
  saying that the expand more too. Yes.
• 21:37
  And I'll start with alternative grains as I'll call them or
• 21:42
  basically non barley. Barley is the primary ingredient
• 21:47
  in, in craft beer, but we see a lot of rye, wheat, corn, and now
• 21:52
  things like rice, sorghum, kernza, I mean, you name the
• 21:57
  grain there are, there are probably people in different
• 22:02
  areas of the world fermenting expressions of that grain.
• 22:07
  And you can go down these rabbit holes all over our, our, this
• 22:10
  country, North America or anywhere else and, and see the
• 22:15
  excitement around fermented grains across the community.
• 22:19
  One that I really am excited about is rice.
• 22:22
  And I also think that corn as an addition to things like Mexican
• 22:26
  lager or just light lager in general has been quite frankly
• 22:31
  spectacular on my taste buds these last few years.
• 22:34
  And so it's fun to see that crop be utilized so much more, in
• 22:40
  particular because our history of of beer in the United States
• 22:45
  is 1 of this kind of corn based, light fizzy, long forgotten
• 22:52
  flavor that we're now coming back to you in a very
• 22:55
  intentional way agriculturally working with farmers exploring
• 22:59
  different varietals of corn. One of the prettiest things I
• 23:04
  see is bloody butcher laid out on the Riverbend floor before
• 23:08
  malting. Those bright red kernels are
• 23:11
  purple sometimes and they just have this whole spectrum of that
• 23:14
  reddish to purple hue. But all that to say that the
• 23:18
  experimentation in grains is so awesome.
• 23:21
  And I think that we also see an experimentation in beer styles
• 23:25
  as we explore more of the depths of of the history of of beer
• 23:31
  making and fermentation in general.
• 23:33
  One style that I'm seeing, and I'd love to hear from you guys
• 23:36
  if you're experiencing this down South too, is check logger.
• 23:41
  The check loggers are everywhere right now.
• 23:43
  I'm stoked. Yeah, I think it's part of that
• 23:47
  that that traditional a lot of breweries and beer just in
• 23:50
  general seems to be going back to those traditional style beers
• 23:53
  just and we've mentioned beer flavored beers and they're
• 23:55
  they're done so well. Yeah, this one I'm drinking this
• 23:59
  original, right. It's just a Tennessee logger.
• 24:01
  It's you asked me five years ago if I would have liked the
• 24:03
  logger. I wouldn't have liked any of
• 24:04
  them and they. Are so.
• 24:05
  Good right now. So yeah, I think it's the trend,
• 24:08
  just kind of traditional style beers.
• 24:10
  It really is. And, and the backtrack a little
• 24:12
  bit what you were saying about the Mexican loggers, because we
• 24:17
  last year in 2025, you know, Scott and I will go travel with
• 24:22
  some other friends as well. We were up in Ohio.
• 24:24
  We're, you know, through Tennessee and we went on a
• 24:27
  couple of brewery runs for like a week and it was like
• 24:30
  everywhere we would go into a brewery.
• 24:32
  It was like during the summer they got a Mexican lager.
• 24:35
  Got to try that Mexican lager, everybody.
• 24:37
  It was a theme. It was a theme.
• 24:40
  It really was. And I and I was really getting
• 24:42
  into it. I hope Scott was too.
• 24:44
  And some of our other friends are like, try that Mexican
• 24:46
  lacquer. Yeah.
• 24:47
  And it's, and it's such a great, light, good beer, especially,
• 24:51
  you know, for that time of the year.
• 24:54
  And I. Want the?
• 24:55
  Most of them had the stronger the corn flavor in those this
• 24:58
  more I seem to like them. Could not agree more.
• 25:01
  It's this kind of sweet, earthy space that just is unique in
• 25:06
  comparison to other loggers that you come across.
• 25:09
  So I want to take this opportunity to give shout out to
• 25:12
  a couple of my partners. One of them is the OG of Mexican
• 25:17
  lager creation in Colorado, and that's Ska Brewing.
• 25:20
  They've been putting Mexican lager in a can longer than I've
• 25:25
  been legally able to drink beer and they are still selling their
• 25:31
  Mexican lager and fun renditions of it now as one of their best
• 25:36
  sellers to date. And then I also will shout to
• 25:39
  Lone Tree Brewing Company, their Radcroft's longest standing
• 25:43
  partner. They've been making their
• 25:44
  Mexican lager out of the gate and I remember feeling so
• 25:48
  excited because Scott Scott paved the way.
• 25:51
  And then for a long gap, they were the only Mexican lager
• 25:54
  maker, at least that you can find around here, that wasn't a
• 25:56
  one off. So when Lone Tree put their
• 25:59
  Mexican lager into a can that was give or take 12:00-ish years
• 26:05
  ago, maybe a little less than that, I was just excited to see
• 26:10
  a Mexican lager that was a flagship out in the market.
• 26:13
  And Lone Trees done very well with that beer.
• 26:15
  Multiple Great American Beer Festival awards.
• 26:17
  Just over this last week they won a gold at the Colorado
• 26:21
  Brewers Cup for their Mexican Lager.
• 26:24
  And Scott is well decorated for their Mexican lager too.
• 26:27
  So it's fun to drink beer in rural Colorado where I live.
• 26:33
  And it be this awesome style that just hit the the national
• 26:38
  mainstream radar a couple of years ago.
• 26:40
  We're we're feeling ahead of the times for for once, which isn't
• 26:45
  always the case in southwestern Colorado.
• 26:48
  When when you're working, especially here in 2026, when
• 26:51
  you're working with the marketing, with all the partners
• 26:54
  that you have, what's been, what's been or what do you think
• 26:58
  is going to be more of the focus this year on certain beer
• 27:01
  styles? I think you've already set it to
• 27:06
  some degree, which is just beer flavored beer.
• 27:09
  People want to drink a beer that they can repeat.
• 27:12
  I'm one of those people. I want to have a couple of them
• 27:15
  at the bar or I want to have a six pack in my fridge.
• 27:18
  I want it to be low, ABV, clean, bright, dry is what I always say
• 27:22
  when people ask what my favorite kind of beer is.
• 27:25
  But I think that cleanliness, that brightness, that dryness,
• 27:28
  it's returning as a trend, interestingly enough, as maybe a
• 27:33
  pendulum, pendulum shift back from some of the crazy
• 27:37
  experimentation that we've all been experiencing in the beer
• 27:40
  industry. And as the beer industry grows
• 27:44
  up, so does its demographic. And we, we want to, we want to
• 27:50
  take it easy these days. When you so when you go into any
• 27:55
  brewery maybe that you're not doing marketing for and you look
• 27:59
  up the can you tell right away what you think for them is
• 28:02
  working and one may may not be working.
• 28:04
  Is that is that something that goes through your mind?
• 28:07
  Good question. It is hard to turn off the
• 28:10
  marketing brain sometimes, and I'm sure it's hard to turn off
• 28:13
  the podcast brain when you're out there listening to others in
• 28:16
  the space too, or, or whatever craft may be.
• 28:19
  So that's there. But something that I repeatedly
• 28:23
  tells customers and partners, especially when we first start
• 28:26
  working together is I'm going to give you a, a, a third eye, if
• 28:31
  you will, or an outside looking in perspective.
• 28:35
  And I rely on your inside looking out so that together we
• 28:39
  can kind of mirror one another and, and create and
• 28:42
  understanding that it goes both ways.
• 28:45
  And, and so I, I think that, yes, I, I would definitely look
• 28:49
  at a, a brewery website, for example.
• 28:51
  That's another, a good place to kind of know if they're, if
• 28:54
  they're keeping up on things and see, well, they need to update
• 28:58
  their beer list. Or I had a bunch of questions
• 29:01
  about how to get there in park that just weren't answered or
• 29:04
  they took me too long to find. The user experience that you're
• 29:07
  going to have when you're working with a website or the
• 29:11
  user experience that you have when you first walk into a tap
• 29:14
  room is definitely, I think indicative of how they're doing
• 29:17
  it. And if they're, if they're doing
• 29:19
  their sales and marketing well. But I try to keep my lenses in
• 29:23
  check because, you know, I don't know their back story.
• 29:27
  And there's a lot of different reasons why business owners make
• 29:31
  their decisions. So sometimes I'll come in
• 29:33
  thinking maybe just that, you know, you need to update these
• 29:37
  specific website pages and then they explain to me why they
• 29:40
  shouldn't. And that's typically how the
• 29:43
  conversations go. And and they land in a
• 29:45
  compromise so that maybe the user gets a little more of what
• 29:48
  they need. But the Brewer, also a brewery,
• 29:51
  has that ability to tell their story.
• 29:53
  Mark daily. This is a perfect segue I have
• 29:56
  OK, you, you, you take me right to this perfect segue.
• 29:59
  I got a list of questions, marketing questions.
• 30:01
  So you get to expand on this. OK, it it it I've only
• 30:05
  highlighted four or five. We don't have to go through all
• 30:06
  of them, but OK, marketing questions.
• 30:08
  What's the biggest libraries still tell themselves about
• 30:11
  marketing? And these can just be fun thing,
• 30:14
  you know? Sure, we'll brew what we want
• 30:17
  and you can drink the rest. That's a good one.
• 30:21
  OK. Best marketing spend under $500.
• 30:30
  A sponsorship of a community event.
• 30:34
  Oh, what's a good one? OK, great.
• 30:37
  If a Brie only did three marketing things well, what
• 30:41
  should they be? This is hard.
• 30:48
  Only three three marketing things well make great beer,
• 30:56
  perfect your website and also accept that it's never really
• 31:02
  finished. I will be #2 And the third
• 31:06
  marketing thing or tactic is tell your story clearly on
• 31:13
  whatever channels that you choose to tell it.
• 31:17
  Awesome. Can I ask just two more and
• 31:19
  there's there's. Sure this is fun.
• 31:21
  I just. Wanted to be fun with OK.
• 31:23
  I'll have another answer to all of these in another 20 minutes.
• 31:26
  That's how it. Goes well.
• 31:29
  I had a list. Of smoke coming out of the brand
• 31:31
  you'd. Have to go through all of them,
• 31:33
  but what's something most breweries are doing on social
• 31:36
  media that's actively harming them or hurting them?
• 31:40
  Copying each other constantly left and right.
• 31:43
  It's a vicious cycle. Y'all give me some fresh
• 31:45
  content. OK, what would some fresh
• 31:49
  content look like? What would you suggest?
• 31:51
  Well. Yeah, especially if we're
• 31:53
  working with an Instagram algorithm as an example.
• 31:57
  There are a lot of trends out there, trending audio types of
• 32:02
  content that we see perform well and then we emulate that.
• 32:06
  So to some degree we're trying to capture trends on social
• 32:11
  media. And I can't blame a brewery for
• 32:13
  trying and getting on board and and grabbing that engagement,
• 32:17
  especially when it comes from that algorithm which is ever
• 32:21
  changing. So I understand that they're
• 32:23
  trying to capture that, but if ever you are leaning into a
• 32:29
  trend, my advice is to put your own company branded spin on it
• 32:34
  so it doesn't just seem like you're doing the same thing as
• 32:36
  everyone else. If your brand, for example, is
• 32:40
  all about ska music or tent camping or supporting dogs, then
• 32:47
  please make your version of that real of that trend of that hype
• 32:52
  that you're trying to get on about the ska music or the tent
• 32:56
  camping or the dogs. And I think that if you're
• 32:58
  regularly asking, does this come back to my brand?
• 33:02
  Is it could this fall in with my my mission and the way things
• 33:07
  look aesthetically? And the answer is yes, go with
• 33:10
  it. But I think sometimes we get
• 33:13
  lost in that need to put out content and we forget the reason
• 33:17
  that we're doing it. So I kind of I kind of killed
• 33:20
  the the fast action question that was.
• 33:24
  Fine, you nailed it right there. I've got one more, but I want to
• 33:27
  go back to something. So you said websites and why are
• 33:31
  websites still important? Is that because is that kind of
• 33:33
  the where people can retrieve all of the information about a
• 33:36
  place, hours, menus, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing, you
• 33:40
  know, versus just like a social media page which might just have
• 33:43
  partial things, right? Sure, Scott.
• 33:46
  I love this question and my answer is yes, plus two more
• 33:50
  answers. So I don't have an exact data
• 33:54
  point on this, but I can tell you year over year from the
• 33:57
  market research that I do that statistically more people will
• 34:01
  visit your website page than will ever set foot in your
• 34:04
  brewery. So when you think about those
• 34:09
  first impressions, maybe from across the country, even before
• 34:12
  someone is deciding to visit your place of business, your
• 34:15
  third place, your culture is really putting your best foot
• 34:18
  forward right then and there on your homepage of your website.
• 34:22
  So that that first impression is exactly the way that you would
• 34:28
  create from a hospitality perspective if someone walked in
• 34:31
  the door. The other answer to that
• 34:34
  question that I have is that your website is owned by you.
• 34:37
  You buy the URL, you host it yourself, you design it
• 34:40
  yourself. I mean, sure, maybe you're
• 34:42
  working with some contractors, but the point is you own this
• 34:45
  media. There's no algorithm that tells
• 34:47
  you what is going to trend. You have your own organic data
• 34:52
  points and you don't have to pay additional money that you didn't
• 34:56
  sign up for to eventually get the same perks and resources
• 34:59
  that you originally had when you signed up for these platforms.
• 35:03
  I know we're all experiencing a big shift in alcohol producer
• 35:09
  Facebook pages and how they are demonstrated, or I should say
• 35:14
  shared publicly on Facebook this year.
• 35:17
  That's been a shift everyone's dealing with on your website.
• 35:19
  You don't have to worry about anything like that and you don't
• 35:22
  have to pay extra to make those changes as they come up.
• 35:26
  So something to consider as you run all of those different owned
• 35:31
  pages. I think the website is
• 35:33
  absolutely the most important. It's your hub.
• 35:35
  And it's about. Like, yeah, go ahead.
• 35:37
  I'm sorry, real quick. I just follow up.
• 35:38
  Just think about this as consumers, whether it's brewery
• 35:41
  or restaurant or anything, and you're driving down there and
• 35:43
  like, oh, let's the first thing you do is go to the website.
• 35:47
  Are they open yet? Or let's check the menu out.
• 35:50
  So it makes perfect sense. Yeah, can I bring my dog?
• 35:55
  Can I bring my dog? Questions should be answered on
• 35:57
  that thing, right? Right then and there, yes.
• 36:00
  And maybe they're not on your home page, but your FAQ page is
• 36:04
  a very clean and click, clean and quick click away so that
• 36:09
  people can get the information that they need pretty shortly
• 36:12
  after landing on your page. Steve, I feel guilty because our
• 36:16
  website has not been updated in at least.
• 36:18
  Six months and. We're the ones in control of it,
• 36:20
  not. That we.
• 36:21
  Have a brick and mortar we're trying to get anyone to.
• 36:25
  Well, let me validate you. We have been under construction
• 36:28
  at radcroftbeer.com for not just months but years now and finally
• 36:33
  accepted that it's a slower burn construction zones that have
• 36:39
  otherwise operating places of business.
• 36:41
  Like I started thinking about it like a shopping mall where I was
• 36:44
  like, well, these stores are open and these others not so
• 36:47
  much. And sometimes that changes.
• 36:49
  And I think I just, I had to get to that place that maybe bakers
• 36:54
  and professional chefs experience where they get home
• 36:57
  and they don't want to cook or bake for themselves.
• 37:01
  That might be what's happening with my website.
• 37:03
  I build so many better ones for my customers but.
• 37:09
  And I also think about, yeah, and I also think about so many
• 37:12
  questions from a marketing standpoint of what you do,
• 37:15
  because, you know, you start in 2012 and from 2012 to 2026 from
• 37:22
  a marketing standpoint and helping out doing marketing for
• 37:25
  all these folks. How much has changed?
• 37:29
  You go from we have a website, but wait a minute, there's all
• 37:32
  these other platforms. There's Facebook, which has been
• 37:34
  around forever, Instagram and TikTok.
• 37:37
  How do you how do you work with all of them to navigate all
• 37:42
  these type of things? It's, I would say it's that duck
• 37:50
  on water analogy where it might just look like you're gliding
• 37:53
  along and going with the flow, but underneath you are
• 37:56
  frantically kicking and, and just trying to make it happen.
• 38:00
  It's a combination of the dynamic craft beer industry that
• 38:03
  I was describing before and the rapid changes in the
• 38:07
  communications age of information space in which we're
• 38:12
  all doing our work is a, it's a lot to keep up with.
• 38:15
  And if you are a Brewer out there considering what platforms
• 38:20
  to use, my first advice is consider your bandwidth first.
• 38:24
  So coming back to that idea of your website is a non
• 38:27
  negotiable. After you built your website and
• 38:29
  that's functional and you have someone or some entity updating
• 38:33
  it on a regular basis, what else do you have time for beyond
• 38:37
  that? And if the answer is no to any
• 38:40
  of the platforms that are on your agenda, don't do it.
• 38:43
  And I'm not saying don't do that forever, but if you're not
• 38:46
  putting that regular energy into these platforms, they're built
• 38:49
  on algorithms that rely on consistency and usage.
• 38:53
  So don't set yourself up for failure by launching a bunch of
• 38:57
  these and then not really updating them in in the long
• 39:02
  term. So that's kind of my advice if
• 39:04
  you're just getting into things. And then I'll also say there are
• 39:07
  different platforms that are used by demographic sections of
• 39:14
  our population that you can use to your advantage or not.
• 39:20
  To put it bluntly, Facebook has an older readership than
• 39:25
  Instagram, which has an older readership or or user
• 39:31
  demographic than things like Snapchat and even sub stock.
• 39:37
  I would, I would say is is one of our newer social platforms.
• 39:40
  So keeping a, keeping abreast of who's using them goes a long way
• 39:45
  in determining if that's going to make sense for whatever
• 39:48
  business you're running. If your target audience or your
• 39:51
  target market isn't on sub stock as an example, maybe don't have
• 39:55
  one. But yeah, I, I'd say like
• 39:58
  bandwidth and demographics go a long way when choosing.
• 40:02
  And so does just regular research which which can be
• 40:06
  conversations like these, talking to people you know in
• 40:09
  the industry and and asking questions on.
• 40:12
  We're throwing spaghetti hit the wall sometimes.
• 40:14
  So what's sticking for you? Yeah.
• 40:17
  Yep. Our podcast is basically the
• 40:19
  website. What we're really doing, we're
• 40:21
  kind of rehashing and putting articles and things on the
• 40:24
  website. So it's like we just get it all
• 40:25
  out here basically for the most part.
• 40:27
  And that is that thing to talk. It's the bandwidth part.
• 40:29
  We're going to focus our energies over here and the
• 40:31
  research that goes into these things and we have these some
• 40:33
  social stuff, so. Because people's attention span
• 40:36
  is so short, you know? Oh.
• 40:37
  Yeah, 7 seconds or less like goldfish.
• 40:41
  Yeah. So in the in the spirit of
• 40:43
  market research, I'll I'll try something out on you guys, which
• 40:46
  is a a slogan or just a kind of mission ish point that I've been
• 40:52
  thinking about for rad craft, which is human powered since
• 40:57
  2012. I see that as a response to our
• 41:01
  growing AI community and in my opinion dependence.
• 41:09
  And I'm I'm proud to say that we don't use a lot of AI because we
• 41:13
  don't want our content to sound like a lot of the other content
• 41:17
  in the beer and specifically malts and ingredients market
• 41:20
  that is out there already. As a person who's been writing a
• 41:24
  lot of the content about, or I should say a small slice of
• 41:29
  writing a lot of, but a small slice of the overall pie on
• 41:33
  what's out there when it comes to the beer journalism, I, I
• 41:37
  just think it's really important that we're putting out fresh
• 41:40
  information when it comes to our own brands.
• 41:44
  I'm not advocating avoiding AI for the use of efficiency or
• 41:49
  other internal tools that make your life easier.
• 41:53
  I'm just saying that we don't rely on AI to create our content
• 41:56
  or rely on real humans, real designers, real copy editors,
• 42:00
  contractors of all kinds. And I'm very proud of that.
• 42:03
  This is a human powered industry of beer drinking and so I want
• 42:07
  it to be a human powered company that I'm running too, so I'm
• 42:12
  curious to see how that lands for fellow beer community
• 42:17
  friends. It's fantastic because that
• 42:19
  creativity still comes out right.
• 42:21
  That's that's the thing. You know, you can get facts from
• 42:24
  AI, but and I love that because it's going to be colorful and
• 42:28
  it's just not going to be like, it's not going to be like
• 42:30
  stagnant and like scripted, you know?
• 42:33
  Yes, you you can see that yeah, we laugh at that sorry Scott to
• 42:36
  interrupt, but we laugh at that. We were actually talking to
• 42:39
  somebody last night that was texting us so they were they
• 42:41
  somebody reached out to them and asked us what we thought about
• 42:46
  who was reaching out to them in a response.
• 42:48
  And you know, I think both of our our reactions was kind of
• 42:51
  like that looks sort of just scripted.
• 42:52
  It's it almost looks like AI, not like just a real person
• 42:56
  that's just trying to reach out to you for whatever reason you.
• 42:58
  Know it was like insert name here.
• 43:00
  Yeah, insert name, you know. And that's the slippery slope.
• 43:05
  I I'm not here to, I'm not here to get down on AII.
• 43:09
  Just think that when you are creating content about a brand
• 43:16
  that feels really personal to you and a craft brewery or a
• 43:20
  farm or a malt house should be I I think that pouring a human
• 43:25
  element into it matters and I just want myself to be very
• 43:31
  mindful about dependency on these once more tools and then
• 43:36
  could become crutches. I want to make sure I'm the
• 43:38
  continuing to think for myself. So I I have to keep it in check
• 43:42
  one? 100% are even like I'm pretty
• 43:45
  proud that we write all over in questions, good or bad they are.
• 43:49
  Ours. We.
• 43:50
  We. We also.
• 43:52
  Three questions so far. We also, when we post, when we
• 43:57
  post things on our platforms of guests and things like that, we
• 44:02
  write it from our own perspective.
• 44:04
  It's not from AI or anything like that, you know?
• 44:07
  And so that's a good thing. Speaking of writing on your
• 44:11
  website, I was looking the other day and you have press releases
• 44:15
  on there and you had mentioned this brewery before, one of your
• 44:18
  partners. I think it's I'm going to get it
• 44:21
  right, Scott Brewing, right? Scott Brewing, Yeah.
• 44:25
  I want to make sure I had the name right, right in Durango, Co
• 44:29
  and you know, we talked about all the all the different
• 44:33
  changes that are going on in breweries and I I read this one
• 44:36
  that you guys had put on your website rolling out a new line
• 44:40
  of non alcoholic hemp derived social tonic.
• 44:47
  Talk about that. That has that has to be really
• 44:50
  different. It is really different and I
• 44:53
  have been in the front seat of several different THC and other
• 44:58
  hemp derived brands through my work over the years, especially
• 45:04
  in Colorado where we had more hemp legally available to us
• 45:09
  sooner. There's been a lot of product
• 45:11
  development in the space. Scott is experimenting right now
• 45:16
  with an exciting market section which is low dose THC.
• 45:22
  When you get into higher dosages in Colorado, the qualifications
• 45:25
  change your ability to sell that, to package that product
• 45:30
  and sell it and where all changes.
• 45:32
  And so Scott, to my knowledge, is the first brewery in Colorado
• 45:37
  experimenting with this low dose type of product.
• 45:41
  And it's exciting to see them expand.
• 45:44
  They've been in the scene for going on 31 years now.
• 45:47
  Their 30th anniversary was a grand celebration this last
• 45:51
  fall. And they have long been pioneers
• 45:56
  in all different kinds of beverage segments.
• 45:59
  They have, they have Skagua, which is my favorite bubbly
• 46:02
  water. They have experimented with hard
• 46:06
  seltzer, hard tea. I mean, they have played in so
• 46:11
  many fun sandboxes. They have a pilot system that
• 46:15
  allows them to do that in smaller batches.
• 46:17
  And they also have a national distribution network that's
• 46:20
  allowed them to explore a lot of the different segments in the
• 46:24
  marketplace as they've altered and changed over the years.
• 46:28
  So I'm excited about this new product of theirs in particular
• 46:32
  as I drink less and less. I, I mentioned earlier that the
• 46:35
  demographics growing up with the breweries, I think we can all
• 46:38
  relate. Stop just taking it more easy.
• 46:41
  And I think Ska knows that its customers still want to be part
• 46:45
  of its environment. They want to be part of its
• 46:47
  brand. They, they want that social
• 46:49
  experience, but they just want to consume less alcohol.
• 46:52
  So this has been an exciting gateway in Colorado and out and
• 46:58
  all over the country. Right now we're we're dealing
• 47:00
  with a lot, a lot of uncertainty around legislation around hemp.
• 47:05
  And so I really honor or I should say I commend SKA for
• 47:11
  exploring in this space while they can, when they can.
• 47:14
  There's that's very make a while the sun shines farmer of them
• 47:19
  and I can appreciate it because we don't know what's happening
• 47:22
  next. Right, right.
• 47:24
  And and that's just one example. I mean you talked about the
• 47:27
  seltzers and ciders because that has also become you go into a
• 47:31
  brewery now and you even go into other places and you see more of
• 47:35
  those up on the board. Can you talk a little bit more
• 47:37
  about from a marketing standpoint of working with your
• 47:42
  partners of, hey, you got to have these too?
• 47:45
  Sure, I'm big on the option. I think it's important to have
• 47:50
  NA options at your place of drinking, especially if you are
• 47:55
  a more family friendly establishment.
• 47:59
  But if you hold yourself accountable for the research and
• 48:04
  development on the production of, the packaging of and the
• 48:08
  serving of a whole new line, my best advice is to make sure that
• 48:14
  you have that bandwidth. We have a theme here because you
• 48:18
  don't want to bite off more than you can chew and and degrade the
• 48:22
  quality of your beer or pay less attention to it if you are
• 48:26
  calling yourself a brewery. So again, another slippery slope
• 48:29
  where it's so important to have those options.
• 48:32
  But I don't necessarily advocate for everyone trying to make
• 48:36
  their own because they just that won't have that kind of
• 48:39
  capacity. And there are great producers
• 48:41
  out there who do. So I see a lot.
• 48:44
  I see a lot of Athletic, for example, at various brewing
• 48:47
  companies. I'm sure you guys do too.
• 48:49
  They have an insane reach. They make great liquid.
• 48:52
  And it's an excellent alternative if you are a craft
• 48:55
  Brewer who cares about craft in all of your fridges, but you
• 48:58
  don't want to take the time and energy and money and resources
• 49:03
  to make a new NA brand. Well, and it also seems like
• 49:06
  we're, you know, as you mentioned earlier, like circling
• 49:10
  back, like circling back to the beginning of like you have
• 49:14
  those, but now because more people are coming in, more
• 49:17
  families. Hey, there's also this light
• 49:20
  lager over here for me to have too.
• 49:23
  Something I think we're all seeing and feeling and that we
• 49:27
  could embrace more is the return of the brewpub model.
• 49:33
  That model fell away for a long time as we realized we didn't
• 49:37
  have to, right? We didn't have to be a serving
• 49:40
  food or full on restaurant style service in order to make our
• 49:43
  product. Now, though, consumers have a
• 49:47
  lot of choices. This consumer tends to be older
• 49:52
  and come with more humans. So a lot of our, our prime
• 49:55
  demographic and craft beer right now are parents.
• 49:59
  And so how can we provide that full experience again?
• 50:03
  And, and maybe it's not with a brew pub license specifically,
• 50:06
  which I know is going to change based on wherever you are, but
• 50:10
  just the providing of options, the, the, the serving of food so
• 50:14
  that people want to stay a little longer and have that
• 50:16
  second beer. I think we're coming back to
• 50:19
  place in craft beer where the experience, well, I, we've
• 50:24
  always been in a place in craft beer where the experience
• 50:27
  matters, but it's starting to matter more and more depending
• 50:30
  on where you are and based on the just abundance of options
• 50:35
  that we have. So I'll be I'll be excited for
• 50:38
  more food at breweries and and more wide options as we continue
• 50:45
  to figure out what works and what doesn't.
• 50:47
  This place right here, they've got great food and beer options,
• 50:52
  just Stoke House. Emily, we got to get to
• 50:53
  Nashville, man, to go to Stoke House.
• 50:55
  They have. Barbecue, Yes, please.
• 50:56
  I've heard of some before and you know, it's interesting the
• 50:59
  way that marketing effects our perception.
• 51:02
  I think their branding is so on point.
• 51:04
  And when you said just now that they have great, great food and
• 51:09
  a full experience, I thought to myself, of course, that totally
• 51:12
  tracks. They put so much care into how
• 51:14
  they put it out there. From looking at their brand only
• 51:18
  having never experienced a over in Colorado, that's that's the
• 51:21
  impression that I have of them. So yes, please, I'll come to
• 51:24
  Nashville and and drink that beer with you.
• 51:26
  Come. On, that's the first place we're
• 51:28
  taking. We're there.
• 51:29
  We're there. We.
• 51:30
  Took some people that came to town and been here before the
• 51:32
  Hill Tappers and the last time they were here they didn't
• 51:36
  exist, Stoke House didn't exist and I go this is on your list,
• 51:39
  we are taking you. We built it up so much they were
• 51:42
  ready to be disappointed and they were not.
• 51:45
  Yeah, well done. And, and we interviewed them
• 51:49
  recently. That episode's not even out yet,
• 51:51
  so that's coming soon. So maybe you'll get to listen to
• 51:54
  that one and you'll learn even more about them.
• 51:57
  I can't wait. I will TuneIn.
• 52:00
  I want to go back. I didn't finish.
• 52:01
  I had one more question for you in the marketing questions and I
• 52:03
  didn't want to let wow because I think it's funny and I hope it's
• 52:05
  a funny thing. So.
• 52:06
  Have you ever? Fired a client and what?
• 52:09
  And if so, what happened? You don't have to.
• 52:13
  Mention it. Absolutely.
• 52:14
  I have fired a client in no way. I won't say names fired might be
• 52:20
  a little too bold of a statement, but sometimes you get
• 52:23
  to a point where it's just not working.
• 52:26
  My favorite way to fire a customer is when they don't need
• 52:31
  me anymore. That is such a fun conversation
• 52:34
  to have someone in. And because we've talked about
• 52:36
  websites a lot tonight, I'll use that as my example.
• 52:39
  But let's say we built our website and we've taught them
• 52:42
  how to update it regularly and they have all the tools that
• 52:45
  they need to succeed. And it looks great and things
• 52:48
  are working and they know they can call us if they need us.
• 52:51
  But it's just like, go free, spread your wings, have fun.
• 52:56
  That's a really fun way to to fire a customer.
• 53:01
  But then some of the less fun ways are that things weren't
• 53:05
  working out when it came to paying bills, or maybe it just
• 53:11
  wasn't the right fit anymore. From the messaging perspective,
• 53:14
  we work with a lot of different teams and we try to integrate
• 53:17
  with whatever they have set up already.
• 53:19
  So sometimes the combination of people or rolls or cooks in the
• 53:23
  kitchen just isn't a fit. And, and typically when that
• 53:27
  happens, it's no hard feelings. Everyone knows we're kind of on
• 53:32
  the same page. This makes sense.
• 53:34
  And being an over communicator and just straightforward about
• 53:39
  about what's working and what's not and being straightforward
• 53:42
  about things like finances has really helped me over the years
• 53:46
  to get to a place of comfort with those conversations.
• 53:51
  But truly I am just the most grateful lucky lady who has ever
• 53:56
  done beer marketing because I work with some fantastic
• 54:00
  customers. So many of them.
• 54:02
  I've had long standing relationships with Lone Tree and
• 54:05
  I go back almost as long as I've been in business at 12 or 13
• 54:09
  years. Scott and I are going on a
• 54:11
  decade and I just get to have these wonderful partnerships
• 54:15
  with people that grow over time, like relationships in real life,
• 54:20
  and that is just so special and I feel grateful for it.
• 54:25
  And when you, when they work with you, right?
• 54:28
  And then you show them results and you're like, OK, this, if
• 54:31
  you do this and this and this, that's like, that's the proven
• 54:33
  thing, right? Just stick with me.
• 54:35
  I'll show you how to do it. And it works.
• 54:37
  And you're like, Oh my God, it's it's see, I told you.
• 54:40
  Yes, I I hope everyone gets those moments of of validation
• 54:44
  and understanding and in their work.
• 54:49
  I mentioned the podcast, you have a podcast, but prior to
• 54:53
  something led to the podcast though with 2020, you actually
• 54:55
  started these Zoom calls with people that ultimately led to
• 55:00
  the podcast. Can you talk about that, why it
• 55:03
  started and kind of what were you hoping to gain when you
• 55:05
  started those, those, those Teams calls or Zoom calls?
• 55:09
  It's another great question, Scott.
• 55:10
  Thank you so much. This is such a a well researched
• 55:14
  interview. Hey.
• 55:16
  I did not do it at. All I know he did it.
• 55:19
  Himself. Here in action.
• 55:24
  So I'm laughing to myself because Radcroft Industry Relief
• 55:27
  started out of defaults. The world shuts down and I run a
• 55:33
  remote business without the ability to connect in person,
• 55:36
  which is what our industry is all about.
• 55:39
  So a bunch of folks asked me if I was planning on offering some
• 55:42
  type of virtual something gathering.
• 55:45
  We'd already done a few of those types of events in the past, so
• 55:49
  it made sense. And I said sure.
• 55:52
  So I I jumped on my first ever Zoom conversation and invited
• 55:57
  our network to join. And they really did week over
• 56:01
  week and then month over month, once everyone got Zoomed out to,
• 56:05
  to come and just honestly just be there in this space.
• 56:09
  I think in the very beginning of the shutdown period, people
• 56:14
  wanted a place to go and say, hey, is this what's happening at
• 56:17
  your brewery too? It was nice to crack a beer at
• 56:20
  4:00 in the afternoon and see your friends from afar.
• 56:23
  It felt social, but it was also cathartic.
• 56:26
  And it, it felt good to just talk things out and see how
• 56:29
  things were going in other corners of the state, country,
• 56:32
  etcetera. And these Zooms grew not just in
• 56:35
  attendance, but also in, in quality because what I ended up
• 56:40
  doing was beaming each one. And sometimes I'd have a panel
• 56:45
  come on and talk or an expert come on or, or other times I do
• 56:48
  a round Robin and ask the same question to every participant.
• 56:52
  And we popcorn around and we'd all talk about how we were
• 56:56
  approaching events that summer or what kinds of forecasting we
• 57:00
  had in mind for the year ahead because there are a couple of
• 57:02
  examples. And then we also got deep.
• 57:05
  We we talked about mental health, we talked about balance
• 57:09
  and, and how we all stay just emotionally sound during this
• 57:14
  period of time. We had a stand up comedian join
• 57:17
  us on one of them. I mean, we went, we went in all
• 57:19
  the different directions that you could.
• 57:21
  It was so much fun and we recorded every single one of
• 57:25
  them. And about halfway through those,
• 57:28
  which lasted about two years, my colleague Peter said this would
• 57:32
  be a really great podcast. I, I don't know exactly what it
• 57:35
  is here, but like we're on to something and, and this is
• 57:37
  something I think people are really enjoying coming to listen
• 57:40
  to and they would listen to it in podcast format.
• 57:43
  So the podcast was born. And, and then another 2 1/2
• 57:47
  years later, I, I finally found the right partners to, to help
• 57:51
  me make that podcast. And it is a snapshot in time of
• 57:56
  those conversations. Some of the key players who
• 58:00
  returned regularly and currents, well, current in 2024.
• 58:05
  Interviews with me and these key players about how their worlds
• 58:09
  have changed over the course of the few years and what's gotten
• 58:14
  better, what their Silver Linings have been and what a
• 58:17
  valuable set of conversations it was.
• 58:19
  It was really fun to to ask how people's lives have improved
• 58:23
  after, quite frankly, that dumpster turned forest fire that
• 58:28
  we all had to deal with during those years, Yeah.
• 58:31
  It's a great podcast I listened to.
• 58:33
  You had great guests on there. I really enjoy it.
• 58:35
  And I you get snippets of some of those previous conversations
• 58:39
  along the way too, which I thought was really cool.
• 58:41
  You get some insight to those to the Zoom calls, right?
• 58:47
  Thank you so much for that feedback and thank you to Eli,
• 58:52
  Josh and Carson who made that possible.
• 58:55
  The team were really the technical minds behind it and
• 58:59
  they taught me everything I know about the tech side of podcasts
• 59:04
  and in kind of a one O 1 like expedient format.
• 59:08
  And I really appreciate them for that.
• 59:11
  They they made it possible. It was, it was, it was awesome.
• 59:16
  Do you have plans to do more? I get asked.
• 59:21
  Us a lot. The answer is yes.
• 59:24
  Yes I'd I'd love to make more podcasts.
• 59:26
  I'd love to turn Rodcraft Industry Relief into something
• 59:31
  larger, maybe take on a second season with a different topic.
• 59:36
  But to transparently answer your question, I really don't think
• 59:41
  that will happen anytime soon in partiality because of bandwidth.
• 59:46
  So Rodcraft Industry Relief sparked a whole new business
• 59:51
  that I am privileged to be a part of called High from
• 59:53
  Durango. We're a podcast network and we
• 59:57
  help produce podcasts not just about this area, but by people
• 1:00:03
  who are located in this area. And we have our plate bowl right
• 1:00:08
  now producing podcasts for other folks.
• 1:00:11
  One of one of those podcasts I'll give a shout out to, it's
• 1:00:14
  called This Is Not Your Hobby by an amazing woman, Julie Rhodes,
• 1:00:18
  who also does. Sales and marketing consulting
• 1:00:21
  in the beverage space. Her business is called This is
• 1:00:24
  Not Your Hobby marketing solutions and her podcast is all
• 1:00:28
  about the bottlenecks that beverage brands experience in
• 1:00:31
  their sales and marketing departments.
• 1:00:33
  And she is sassy and snappy and funny about the way she
• 1:00:37
  interviews folks and the way that she delivers gems of advice
• 1:00:42
  for sales and marketing professionals.
• 1:00:44
  So. This is not your hobby is a a
• 1:00:47
  great podcast. And so yeah, to, to I'm, I'm
• 1:00:51
  like, I am making more podcasts, but not, not Radcroft industry
• 1:00:56
  relief at the moment. OK, I did hear you when I was a
• 1:00:58
  year ago in change. I did hear you when Dave
• 1:01:00
  Zalitoris beer in front episode 2.
• 1:01:04
  I I like Dave. I like listen to his stuff too.
• 1:01:06
  I love Dave, thanks for giving him a shout out Dave.
• 1:01:11
  Dave's The Best Beer in Front is an excellent production.
• 1:01:14
  Yep. Well, I met him once we did a a
• 1:01:17
  live virtual happy hour with some friends and he was on
• 1:01:20
  because he was on with Hoppin, We're drinking Nick and Joe's
• 1:01:26
  podcast. And then right afterwards he
• 1:01:28
  came on the virtual happy hour, got to meet him virtually anyway
• 1:01:30
  and speak to him. So he's got a great radio voice.
• 1:01:33
  He's got a great he's got. That.
• 1:01:35
  Oh my gosh, absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  Let's go back to your book for a minute.
• 1:01:40
  I know you said it was 2012. There's a couple cool things
• 1:01:43
  about it. You mentioned the breweries that
• 1:01:45
  you visited for research and when I was listening to
• 1:01:47
  something along the way, so you had visited like there's 160
• 1:01:50
  breweries you went to. This is the greatest research
• 1:01:56
  project on earth. Absolutely it is.
• 1:02:00
  It really was. It was such a trip, truly a
• 1:02:04
  trip, a big road trip, kind of a series there of across Colorado.
• 1:02:08
  I'm a Colorado native and I grew up on the Front Range, so to
• 1:02:12
  have a reason to drive to these far corners of my gigantic state
• 1:02:17
  that I'd never had an excuse to visit before was so exciting to
• 1:02:21
  me. So it was just an epic road
• 1:02:25
  trip. It required a lot of sleepovers
• 1:02:28
  and camping along the way as I indulged with the various
• 1:02:33
  Brewers that I was meeting and interviewing.
• 1:02:37
  And it just it opened my eyes to the beer scene in Colorado and
• 1:02:40
  to the incredible beauty of of the geography here too it.
• 1:02:45
  Was so good and I saw something today.
• 1:02:48
  I assume you're aware of it because you probably put it on
• 1:02:51
  there, but there's a YouTube, there's a 4 minute YouTube video
• 1:02:54
  and it must be from your adventures and from your
• 1:02:57
  there's, there's ten different breweries that are speaking on
• 1:03:00
  it. OK, It's like 4 minutes long.
• 1:03:01
  You know what I'm talking about. I do, yeah.
• 1:03:04
  I worked with the gal who made it to recap the process.
• 1:03:08
  I took video at a lot of the different Brewers that I'm that
• 1:03:13
  I visited. I visited several beer bars as
• 1:03:15
  well. I remember really fun interview
• 1:03:20
  with Chris Black in the basement of Falling Rock in Denver and
• 1:03:24
  and some others that like Euclid Hall couple other places that
• 1:03:28
  are no longer. But yeah, all that to say tons
• 1:03:30
  of fun visits. I took video along the way and
• 1:03:33
  there is a very archaic YouTube video that I'm amazed that you
• 1:03:38
  found. I.
• 1:03:39
  Found it. It's.
• 1:03:41
  Like gives you the glow down, it's just.
• 1:03:43
  It's got you. It's like it's, there's no
• 1:03:45
  description. There's nothing other than, I
• 1:03:47
  think, the title. On it.
• 1:03:48
  Old school. Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  I, I feel like I used that for a presentation.
• 1:03:55
  It was, I think it was that the Rocky Mountain Microbrew
• 1:03:57
  Symposium that next year in 2013.
• 1:04:01
  And I needed it to be live. And that's the whole reason it's
• 1:04:04
  on YouTube in the 1st place. But I'm, I can't believe you
• 1:04:07
  found that. That's so funny.
• 1:04:10
  One of the other funniest parts about it.
• 1:04:12
  So it's rolling through the ending credits, right?
• 1:04:14
  And then for some reason I catch, I guess I want to make
• 1:04:17
  sure your name was on it, right? Like, it's because again, there
• 1:04:20
  wasn't a lot in the description. And it goes.
• 1:04:21
  So at the very end, the editing the the credits video author
• 1:04:27
  Emily Hutto, usually haphazardly after multiple beers.
• 1:04:34
  This is this is right underneath this is editing, IE deciphering
• 1:04:40
  of Hutto's pathetic excuse for videography.
• 1:04:44
  Cali, Kerberly. The Cali or Kerberly?
• 1:04:45
  Yeah, Cali, Who made the video? I.
• 1:04:49
  Thought those were hilarious. I go that's in real time.
• 1:04:52
  Like that happened, you know what I mean?
• 1:04:53
  Like it was. Like, oh, yeah.
• 1:04:54
  And like, such a true call out. Like, hey, I had to watch all
• 1:04:57
  these videos of you get drunk with Brewers and like, keep it
• 1:05:02
  together, but ask them all these questions on camera and now and
• 1:05:07
  yeah, that years later. Actually, no, it's.
• 1:05:09
  Been 13 years hasn't. It yeah, like not math.
• 1:05:13
  And if you're like us, a lot of times we'll go in there and like
• 1:05:16
  we would. Do some social media stuff
• 1:05:17
  before go to brewery, especially we're traveling and we forget
• 1:05:20
  until maybe later on. So with that, some of that like
• 1:05:22
  you start drinking the beer, you're like, oh, you know what,
• 1:05:24
  I need to get a video. I need to interview someone.
• 1:05:26
  But you're 3 or 4 beers in, you know, I, I think.
• 1:05:30
  All of them were were well staged.
• 1:05:33
  They knew I was coming. They knew I was taking video.
• 1:05:37
  It was a pretty elaborate e-mail execution of emailing all of
• 1:05:42
  these Brewers in Colorado and then also all of the chefs that
• 1:05:44
  paired up with them. Yeah, quite a quite a staged
• 1:05:48
  event. But.
• 1:05:50
  You definitely, I think get to I, you know, you have a beer
• 1:05:54
  with someone and you you just derail, you go in a different
• 1:05:57
  direction. You're like, oh, yeah, I wanted
• 1:05:59
  to ask you about this. Or maybe I just remembered this
• 1:06:02
  on the tour. And so these videos, I'm sure
• 1:06:05
  we're just like all over the place.
• 1:06:06
  That's what makes a come on. And in the moment I'm getting
• 1:06:10
  these. Gems of quotes.
• 1:06:11
  And I know exactly what my plan is as a journalist and I've got
• 1:06:14
  it all up here in my head. And Callie, this poor editor is
• 1:06:17
  like, Lady I, where do I even start with this?
• 1:06:22
  But we had we had some great humor in the process of making
• 1:06:24
  no doubt it looked like a lot of fun.
• 1:06:26
  And that the fact that I saw those credits and that, that.
• 1:06:28
  Was in good fun too. The Oh man, you're bringing me
• 1:06:31
  back to my early 20. That's so fun, I don't even know
• 1:06:36
  why I even look back to look at the creds.
• 1:06:37
  I think it's a trailer to. Make sure your name was on it.
• 1:06:39
  You know, I'm, I'm wildly impressed.
• 1:06:41
  Scott, this is such good journalism.
• 1:06:43
  That we're working with here. You dig deep over here.
• 1:06:46
  Hey, I could not pull that out. That's right, it's all human.
• 1:06:51
  We're. Alive.
• 1:06:52
  We're doing it live. We're doing it live.
• 1:06:56
  We don't want to keep you. Forever, but I do.
• 1:06:58
  We had a few more. Things Steve might have.
• 1:06:59
  To see if you got something. Go ahead.
• 1:07:03
  I don't want to keep you from anything.
• 1:07:04
  Oh, you know I my only last question that I have before you.
• 1:07:07
  Have last questions is Emily, when are you coming to Nashville
• 1:07:10
  now? I mean, you know, we need to
• 1:07:12
  make it happen. I have some dear friends that
• 1:07:14
  live there. And as you know, I work with
• 1:07:16
  Riverbend, who works all over the state of Tennessee.
• 1:07:19
  So let's make some plans. I would I would love to come and
• 1:07:23
  and see it through your eyes and go to your favorite places,
• 1:07:27
  right? Yeah, just come, just come, Just
• 1:07:28
  come when there's not an ice storm.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah, I'll think I'll I'll on that one.
• 1:07:34
  For sure, I hope you all stay warm and safe.
• 1:07:37
  Well, but look, it'll be 95° before you can.
• 1:07:40
  Blink. Around here, so it'll be on the
• 1:07:42
  other end of it soon, do you? Go to GM in.
• 1:07:47
  I have participated. In GBF.
• 1:07:49
  For so many. Years this year I'm TBD on GABF.
• 1:07:55
  Another popular one is the Craft Brewers Conference, which is
• 1:07:58
  coming up in Philly in April and unfortunately I will not be in
• 1:08:03
  Philly. So I'm sending all my good
• 1:08:05
  energy to the folks who are working hard to put that on and
• 1:08:09
  and desperately trying to cram as many beers and conversations
• 1:08:13
  into their schedule as four days can allow.
• 1:08:16
  I don't know if you saw, but GABF this year they're.
• 1:08:18
  Going to have it outside. They're changing the venue this
• 1:08:20
  year and putting it outside. Did you see that?
• 1:08:22
  Yes, I did. And I mean, it's all over the
• 1:08:25
  news. Headlines in Colorado and
• 1:08:27
  beyond. Right now it is a major switch
• 1:08:30
  up and I am excited to I'm excited to see what the
• 1:08:36
  resonance is among people who participate and volunteers.
• 1:08:40
  I'm also doing the sunshine dance so that we get perfect
• 1:08:43
  weather on those days for all of our reverse.
• 1:08:46
  I think it was right before we started recording today when you
• 1:08:49
  were talking about Colorado just being 60° one minute with a
• 1:08:53
  Blizzard later that afternoon and like back in thought again a
• 1:08:56
  couple days later. So we're we'll, we'll do the
• 1:08:58
  good weather dance for. Yeah, because October.
• 1:09:01
  It could go either way, right? Or it could go both ways,
• 1:09:03
  literally. Yeah, in an in an hour.
• 1:09:06
  Totally. So OK, why plan on going?
• 1:09:08
  I've been three or four years in a row now and plan.
• 1:09:10
  On going and they said like the the early bird tickets are only
• 1:09:14
  like 60 bucks, like the prices come down.
• 1:09:16
  The days are different, though. I don't think they've got the
• 1:09:18
  Friday session, but they've added Sunday.
• 1:09:20
  So some things have changed. I mean, I love the place, Danny.
• 1:09:23
  I loved it anyway. So we'll just see if it makes it
• 1:09:25
  better or worse or, well, it'll be different.
• 1:09:27
  Yeah. Let's stay in touch on your
• 1:09:29
  Colorado travels. I.
• 1:09:30
  Commend the Brewers Association for switching it up.
• 1:09:33
  I think that the Great American Beer Festival is so large, so
• 1:09:39
  well. Known there's so many eyes on it
• 1:09:40
  to. Do so many different things,
• 1:09:42
  including keep the nostalgia alive for for those who attended
• 1:09:48
  in its early days and they. The Brewers Association has a
• 1:09:51
  lot on their shoulders to put that on, and I'm so excited that
• 1:09:55
  they're breathing fresh life into it and in all the different
• 1:09:58
  ways that they are year over year.
• 1:09:59
  And I don't know, they didn't say that.
• 1:10:01
  Maybe there's some changes for some?
• 1:10:03
  Vendors too, I don't know, maybe even all that.
• 1:10:05
  Maybe it's not that it was hard, but maybe it makes it easier.
• 1:10:08
  I don't know. Maybe the whole thing has
• 1:10:10
  changed and maybe for the better.
• 1:10:11
  We'll see. I hope so.
• 1:10:13
  I I think it's such a. It's such a landmark in our
• 1:10:18
  culture of beer and I am excited to see what this next chapter
• 1:10:23
  looks like. And when we go, we always go.
• 1:10:26
  We always do GBF. On the one day, but we always do
• 1:10:30
  like two or three days prior, whether it be in Fort Collins or
• 1:10:33
  Colorado Springs. Last year we spent all the days
• 1:10:35
  in Denver. So we're hitting all the birds.
• 1:10:38
  That's as much fun. That's actually more fun than
• 1:10:39
  actual the actual event because you're getting to see all these
• 1:10:42
  new places. Heck yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Please put Southwest Colorado. On your radar for those few
• 1:10:48
  days, and I'll be your tour guide, OK?
• 1:10:51
  We'll do that. OK.
• 1:10:53
  We'll go to spa. And we'll have a Mexican lager
• 1:10:55
  we have there. You go, or two certainly will.
• 1:10:59
  I got something I want to end. On and this is going to be
• 1:11:01
  another fun thing, all right? And it won't take that much
• 1:11:04
  time. So I want to give you a fake
• 1:11:06
  brewery scenario. All right, OK, if I give you a
• 1:11:10
  it's fake, everything's fake, a fake struggling brewery
• 1:11:13
  scenario. Can you give us some
• 1:11:14
  recommendations on what you would do to try to fix it?
• 1:11:18
  You got it. I'll do my best.
• 1:11:20
  OK, it's. I'm going to read this thing the
• 1:11:21
  scenario to you in. 20 or 30 seconds to read.
• 1:11:24
  It's not. It's just kind of a summary.
• 1:11:26
  All right and let's see. OK, so Rivertown Forge Brewing
• 1:11:31
  Company is a 5 year old 15 barrel brewery Tapper and
• 1:11:35
  traffic is down 25%. Distribution is flat and the
• 1:11:38
  flagship IPA isn't carrying them anymore.
• 1:11:42
  The 2 owners don't agree. One wants better marketing, the
• 1:11:45
  other thinks the beer should speak for itself.
• 1:11:47
  So marketing exists but nobody really trusts it.
• 1:11:50
  Branding is generic. Social media is inconsistent and
• 1:11:53
  boring. They've got 18 rotating beers
• 1:11:56
  with no clear flagships, no e-mail list or loyalty program.
• 1:12:00
  About 100 bucks a month. 800 bucks a month going to boosted
• 1:12:03
  post in highway billboard. They've got good beer, limited
• 1:12:08
  budget, stubborn owners. What would you do to fix it?
• 1:12:12
  What would you kill? And can this brew even survive?
• 1:12:18
  Awfully specific. But I mean this is, this is how
• 1:12:24
  the process goes with a business.
• 1:12:29
  So. Yeah, I mean, this brewery has a
• 1:12:33
  lot going on. And the the one part that stood
• 1:12:37
  out to me the most was when you said generic branding.
• 1:12:40
  So if I were working with this brewery, I'd say, hey, we need
• 1:12:42
  to pause everything else and go back to the drawing board on
• 1:12:46
  your brand. What do you already have going
• 1:12:48
  for you? What can we accentuate?
• 1:12:51
  What do we need to take away? What do we need to refine?
• 1:12:54
  What are you all about? And and that's advice I'd give
• 1:12:56
  to any brewery, even a long established one that is well
• 1:13:01
  ingrained in their community. It's it's just to regularly come
• 1:13:05
  back to why do we do what we do? What are we all about and how
• 1:13:08
  are we different than others in this space?
• 1:13:10
  And if you continue to answer those questions and then ask
• 1:13:14
  why, like a three-year old would you know?
• 1:13:17
  Well, we're we're different in the space because we make really
• 1:13:20
  good beer. Well, not quite.
• 1:13:22
  That's that should be a non negotiable.
• 1:13:24
  Let's just start at really good beer.
• 1:13:26
  And then maybe you think you're different in this space because
• 1:13:28
  you care about local ingredients.
• 1:13:30
  Well, why? Well, because we have near, we
• 1:13:33
  have farms nearby and we like to support our neighbors.
• 1:13:35
  OK, now we're getting to something.
• 1:13:37
  So if you keep asking why over and over and over again, and it
• 1:13:40
  will likely land you in a place of differentiation and
• 1:13:44
  knowledge, deeper knowledge of your brand and re emphasizing
• 1:13:49
  that or even going through a whole brand refresh or anything
• 1:13:54
  in between is probably where this brewery needs to start.
• 1:13:57
  So that as they move forward, they know where they're coming
• 1:13:59
  from. And they and they have a, a
• 1:14:01
  guide or a compass, so to speak, to come home to in terms of why
• 1:14:07
  they do what they do. And then I could probably come
• 1:14:10
  up with a lot of other things that they need based on that
• 1:14:12
  description. No offense to Tree River Ford
• 1:14:19
  Brewing, I forget the name already.
• 1:14:24
  No offense. To.
• 1:14:25
  Them but I I'll stop there and just say like go back and and
• 1:14:30
  make sure that brand is strong before you before fresh.
• 1:14:33
  It's almost like the start. Let's do the basics.
• 1:14:35
  Let's do the basics. That's what it is, yeah.
• 1:14:37
  And then so many businesses already know.
• 1:14:39
  Exactly why they're special and what they're all about.
• 1:14:41
  They just haven't put it on paper.
• 1:14:43
  And so going through that process, even just with your
• 1:14:45
  internal team and then maybe doing your market research, show
• 1:14:48
  it to a neighbor, show it to someone else and get that
• 1:14:51
  feedback is a really great way to start.
• 1:14:53
  That costs you no money. Excellent, excellent.
• 1:14:56
  Thank you for that that. Was fun.
• 1:15:00
  I really need to have one last thing.
• 1:15:01
  It's just talk. About your team and how
• 1:15:03
  important they are to you and give them a shout out and how
• 1:15:06
  valuable they are. Well, thanks for that
• 1:15:08
  opportunity, Scott, everyone. Who does work for Radcraft makes
• 1:15:12
  this company possible. I'm the talking head here, but I
• 1:15:16
  work with contractors across the country who are so supportive in
• 1:15:19
  making the overall work happen and they have been for 13 years
• 1:15:24
  and in various renditions and combinations.
• 1:15:26
  So thanks to them and thanks to our incredible partners, our
• 1:15:29
  Brewers, maltsters, hop farmers, distillers, all the folks we
• 1:15:33
  work with just really make me more passionate and excited
• 1:15:39
  about. What I do?
• 1:15:40
  And I feel very lucky to be here.
• 1:15:43
  So thank you for that opportunity and thank you both
• 1:15:46
  for having me. This has been so fun.
• 1:15:48
  Absolutely sorry to keep you so long, but there's we've got.
• 1:15:52
  More, we'll bring you back. I'd love to, I caused a lot.
• 1:15:56
  Of technical problems at the beginning.
• 1:15:58
  Of this conversation. Yeah, you're going.
• 1:16:00
  You're all hang out. We don't, we don't want to keep
• 1:16:03
  you. Forever we'll save.
• 1:16:04
  Some for later, but thank you so much.
• 1:16:07
  This has been so cool. It's it's better than I even
• 1:16:09
  imagined. I knew it would be great.
• 1:16:12
  Thank you both so much for such great questions and good.
• 1:16:15
  Energy. I'm really looking forward to
• 1:16:17
  our time in Nashville together. Yes, awesome.
• 1:16:21
  Keep up the good work out there. We see.
• 1:16:24
  The community needs it, the industry needs it.
• 1:16:26
  Please keep doing what you're doing and let me just finish
• 1:16:30
  with this if there's any. Brewery out there.
• 1:16:32
  If you need some marketing help and you listen to this podcast,
• 1:16:37
  contact Emily Rad Craft. She could help you out.
• 1:16:39
  They just got a bunch. For free.
• 1:16:41
  Thank you, Steve. I didn't.
• 1:16:42
  Even ask him to say that. Y'all operators are standing by
• 1:16:50
  they. Could pull so much freak
• 1:16:53
  information. Out of this from Emily.
• 1:16:55
  Out of this episode, they could. I know it, I know it.
• 1:16:57
  We're here to help everybody. Heck, Emily, how do we find you
• 1:17:00
  before we go, How do we find you?
• 1:17:02
  How do we find? Rad Craft.
• 1:17:04
  Sure. You can find me at
• 1:17:05
  radcraftbeer.com and. On Facebook, Instagram and
• 1:17:09
  LinkedIn at Rad Craft Beer. Thank you.
• 1:17:13
  Thank you very much. Yep.
• 1:17:15
  We'll be looking for you, Emily. Thanks a lot.
• 1:17:17
  Thanks you guys. Cheers.
• 1:17:19
  I'll do it to everybody. Cheers.
• 1:17:22
  The Brewery Underground podcast. The.