Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Mill Creek Brewing with Ashley Gibson: Nashville Craft Beer, New Brews & Beer Community | Episode 135

Transcript

Mill Creek Brewing with Ashley Gibson: Nashville Craft Beer, New Brews & Beer Community | Episode 135 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:37
  Well, hello there everybody. Hello.
• 0:40
  Hello, Leo. Leo.
• 0:44
  Seinfeld reference for those of you that are not familiar with
• 0:48
  Seinfeld. Seinfeld.
• 0:49
  Hey, this isn't a Seinfeld. Episode it's not.
• 0:52
  We wish it was. Although it's like the second
• 0:53
  time we've talked about Seinfeld just today since we've been
• 0:55
  here. That's all right.
• 0:57
  It could turn into a Seinfeld episode.
• 0:59
  You never. Know yes, every day is a
• 1:00
  Seinfeld episode. At least there was a moment or
• 1:02
  two. That's all right.
• 1:03
  Yeah, Steven Scott, we are at. Mill Creek Brewery Company.
• 1:07
  In Nolensville, TN, yes. So glad we did this or that
• 1:12
  we're doing this. It's something that's been on
• 1:13
  our kind of our bucket list for a while to get down here and we
• 1:16
  made it so. I could state the obvious and
• 1:19
  say we're the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 1:21
  I mean, if you're tuning into US, you probably know that.
• 1:24
  I. Mean, yeah, but if you're a new
• 1:25
  listener. You might be a new Guild.
• 1:27
  Yeah, or a new viewer. Say hi to the camera.
• 1:30
  Hey, well. We're not by ourselves.
• 1:32
  Very happy to have the very lovely, very talented Ashley
• 1:35
  Gibson. She is a regional sales manager
• 1:38
  from Mill Creek Brewing here in Nolensville.
• 1:41
  Hello, Ashley. Hey, guys.
• 1:43
  Hello, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, this is
• 1:46
  fantastic. This is a pleasant surprise.
• 1:48
  We kind of were planning this, and then we reach out to you and
• 1:51
  you like, yeah, I'd love to do it.
• 1:51
  And we're like, yes, bonus, bonus content.
• 1:54
  It is a bonus, yeah. It's perfect.
• 1:57
  It's my first my first ever podcast.
• 1:59
  You're going to be famous. I'm a wealth of beer knowledge
• 2:02
  and I can't believe nobody's asking.
• 2:04
  Well, we are going to scrape all that knowledge from your brain
• 2:06
  today. We're going to get it all out of
• 2:08
  you. One of the most fantastic things
• 2:10
  is a lot of times when Scott and I are doing very underground
• 2:13
  podcast episodes, we are across the computer screen, you know,
• 2:18
  from my house. He's at his house.
• 2:19
  So we don't always do this on location.
• 2:22
  Sometimes we do, and we talked about this particular one.
• 2:26
  Let's go to Mill Creek Brewing and find out all about them
• 2:30
  because we've been here many times.
• 2:32
  We have and we're going to, we're going to hit the 411
• 2:35
  today. We knew it would be big enough,
• 2:37
  yes. You think they could fit us in
• 2:41
  here? I think they plenty of room.
• 2:43
  They could put us anywhere in this building.
• 2:44
  There's so much room. So for people that are out of
• 2:48
  town and they're listening to us and they're saying where the
• 2:50
  heck is Mill Creek? It's in Nolensville, TN which is
• 2:54
  South of Nashville and in Williamson County.
• 2:58
  And the other thing is Ding, Ding Ding, Nolensville only has
• 3:02
  one brewery and that is here at Mill Creek.
• 3:05
  Yes, yes, it's, I mean, it's great to be in this town.
• 3:09
  I feel like the community has really embraced the brewery.
• 3:12
  We do a lot to give back to the community here.
• 3:14
  So you know, it's a great family friendly tap room, great food.
• 3:19
  I tell people that all the time when I'm out doing tastings with
• 3:22
  people. So, you know, love being here in
• 3:25
  in Nolensville. And again, as you mentioned, the
• 3:26
  space is huge. It is with private events.
• 3:29
  Whatever, whatever the people need, we can accommodate.
• 3:32
  Yeah, I think a emulator, I think a baseball game is about
• 3:34
  to break out over on that side. I saw the teams getting in line
• 3:37
  so. Yeah.
• 3:39
  And we'll, we'll talk so much about this place and the history
• 3:42
  and everything. I wanted to begin with something
• 3:44
  because I think it's really relevant to the growth of this
• 3:49
  area and why Mill Creek has become such an entrenched part
• 3:52
  of the community. Not we were talking before we
• 3:55
  hit the cameras here today. Start a record button.
• 3:58
  I've I've been here many times. I've been in Nolensville for a
• 4:00
  while as far as like, I don't live here, but coming here and I
• 4:04
  was I was pulling up some information from the US Census
• 4:07
  Bureau recently. Little little geekish, right
• 4:10
  all. Right, but.
• 4:11
  In 2010 the population here was more than 5000 residents.
• 4:16
  Any idea now in 2026 what it is? Can you guess?
• 4:20
  Based on traffic getting here, I'm going to say it's a lot
• 4:22
  more. Yeah, the traffic indicates that
• 4:25
  it's maybe hundreds of thousands. 15,000 people triple
• 4:30
  now live in Nolensville, TN. This place has grown so much.
• 4:36
  Hey, Scott and I were talking about this the other day.
• 4:38
  Like I remember years ago I would come through Nolensville,
• 4:42
  meet some friends and about there were a couple things you
• 4:45
  could do here. Martin's BBQ still here down the
• 4:48
  street. Great place, great food and
• 4:52
  basically what else they got the the Amish store.
• 4:55
  The Amish store. Yeah.
• 4:57
  But can you even talk about about about that from your
• 5:00
  perspective, like talk about the growth that's really helped this
• 5:04
  place? Yeah, I mean, the growth has
• 5:07
  been huge. I mean, lots of even bars and
• 5:09
  restaurants coming to this area who are even willing to feature
• 5:13
  our beer too instead of saying hey, they can go right over
• 5:16
  there and grab it, so why would we do that?
• 5:18
  But yeah, I mean, the foot traffic and really speaking to
• 5:22
  the family friendly aspect of it as well, it's just something
• 5:26
  that this community needs. I mean, the baseball fields in
• 5:28
  the park are right behind us here, so that helps.
• 5:32
  You know, we do pizza nights, Taco nights, stuff like that.
• 5:34
  Yeah, the growth and getting people in here has just been
• 5:38
  amazing. Yeah, if you look around right
• 5:39
  now, they're literally our family surrounding us.
• 5:42
  I mean, and from the minute we got here today, and it's always
• 5:44
  been this way every time we've ever come here, it's very family
• 5:47
  friendly. I mean parties of people are are
• 5:49
  here you. Know old parties, They do live
• 5:51
  music, some of the greatest music as well.
• 5:54
  There's a band called Beacon that plays here.
• 5:57
  I have not personally been out to see them, but I have been
• 5:59
  told if you ever catch Beacon at Mill Creek you should show up.
• 6:03
  And I'm like, OK, I'm putting it on my list to get back out here.
• 6:06
  Good. To know, good to know.
• 6:07
  Yeah. So for perspective, as Scott
• 6:09
  just said, so it is about we're recording doing this on a Sunday
• 6:13
  and it's a little after 1:30, You open at noon.
• 6:16
  This place is already getting pretty crowded here.
• 6:20
  I've been here before on a weekend or even on a weekday
• 6:23
  where there's always a lot of crowds.
• 6:25
  And we talked about the family aspect.
• 6:27
  This is such a great brewery where it's encouraged.
• 6:31
  Bring the family. There's a lot of things for the
• 6:33
  kids to do, a lot of things for the families to do.
• 6:35
  Can you talk a little bit more about that?
• 6:37
  Yeah. Yeah, we have a golf simulator
• 6:39
  in the back that you can book. There's a whole area in the back
• 6:42
  for the children to kind of run around.
• 6:44
  We have a patio out front here and it's just a great spot.
• 6:49
  I feel like especially in suburban communities of of
• 6:52
  Nashville, it's something that you have to bring to the table.
• 6:56
  And there's, you know, a lot of talk amongst breweries of are we
• 6:59
  family friendly? Are we not?
• 7:00
  And we, we in this community are, are definitely embracing
• 7:04
  that aspect of it. Even with the food, people are
• 7:07
  like, you have a food truck in your brewery.
• 7:09
  They're like, yes, we do. And the food is fantastic.
• 7:12
  Families can come and hang out, meet up with their friends, let
• 7:15
  the kids run around. And that's just great for
• 7:17
  everything that we're doing here.
• 7:19
  Yeah, we just had, we just killed a couple of smash burgers
• 7:22
  a little while ago before we got on here and I can attest it is
• 7:25
  awesome. Food.
• 7:25
  Yeah, I was going to ask you, what's your, what's your
• 7:27
  favorite on the food truck there?
• 7:29
  The smash burger or wings? The wings, the wings, the wings
• 7:32
  are fantastic. They even have some cauliflower
• 7:34
  wings. And when I first was like
• 7:35
  introduced to these, I was like, we're just gonna eat cauliflower
• 7:39
  like what's happening. But the cauliflower wings are
• 7:42
  fantastic. The smash burger has I I think
• 7:45
  is award-winning. I believe somebody told me that
• 7:48
  it. Should be.
• 7:49
  I'll give them an award. If they don't have one already,
• 7:50
  we'll give them. 1A. Burger Underground Podcast Award
• 7:54
  for. Yeah, it was funny.
• 7:55
  I I handed, I handed about 1/2 hour ago before we started doing
• 7:58
  this podcast. I'm going.
• 8:00
  Well, good for me. I'm glad I had it.
• 8:03
  Hopefully I don't. I'm not going to have to take a
• 8:05
  nap. Yeah, in a few minutes already.
• 8:07
  Kick you under the table. No, we've got our fun guest here
• 8:11
  and she's going to be fantastic. We're also drinking beer.
• 8:15
  We are drinking beer. Scott and I already had the
• 8:18
  Dunkle, and so we're already drinking some beer.
• 8:22
  This Dunkle is new, right? The dunkle is brand new.
• 8:24
  I actually just had it today for the first time.
• 8:26
  All right, so just came out of the tanks last week, I believe.
• 8:29
  And hey, I'm when Aaron told me Aaron is our Brewer.
• 8:33
  Once he told me he was making a Dunkle, I was like, I am here
• 8:36
  for that. It's one of my favorite styles
• 8:37
  of beer. Yep.
• 8:38
  And so, yeah, I just had it today for the first time and I
• 8:41
  love it. It's chocolate, it's multi and
• 8:43
  it is it is a Dunkle logger. So it's definitely hitting all
• 8:48
  of those, all of those tasting notes.
• 8:50
  When you said the other day that we were talking about before we
• 8:52
  came on here, you coming on here that they had the dunkle and I
• 8:55
  was excited. I was like, all right, I'm
• 8:57
  starting with the dunkle and I did.
• 8:59
  And our buddy Tom is here sitting right over there and he
• 9:02
  first thing he got was the dunkle.
• 9:03
  He goes this dunkle slaps like it's it is good.
• 9:07
  And I feel like it's something that a lot of local breweries,
• 9:10
  you know, once zones closed up, I mean, they had a great Dunkle
• 9:14
  in my opinion. We see yeehaws from time to
• 9:16
  time, but you know, they pulled back on production a little bit
• 9:19
  of that. I think it is back.
• 9:20
  But from a local standpoint, we're not getting a whole lot of
• 9:24
  dunkle. No.
• 9:24
  So I don't know if it's going to go out into the world.
• 9:28
  You may have to adventure down here to the tap room to get it.
• 9:30
  I've asked for some, but you know, you know, you never know.
• 9:33
  I'm all about spreading the love of our of our beers and getting
• 9:36
  it out to the community. But it's so good.
• 9:38
  I think you just hit the keyword there.
• 9:39
  You're going to have to come here to get it.
• 9:43
  Bring them in. That's.
• 9:44
  Bring them in so if. You're, if you're living
• 9:46
  anywhere in the area or you're coming into the area, come to
• 9:49
  Mill Creek or get it all the beer.
• 9:51
  Get all the beer. Lots of tap room exclusives.
• 9:54
  Yeah, and don't think that Nolansville is too far away.
• 9:56
  Look, it takes forever to get anywhere in in Nashville.
• 9:59
  So what? Why?
• 10:00
  Just put this on your list too? I mean, what's the difference?
• 10:02
  I mean, to me, I again, I, I live in Old Hickory, so it's a,
• 10:06
  it's a 45 minute drive for me. Mileage wise, it's not that far.
• 10:11
  It's the back roads, but I promise you it will be 1 of like
• 10:13
  the the most beautiful drives you've ever been on to get out
• 10:17
  here. It's just peaceful.
• 10:18
  When I come out here once a week and on the typically on a
• 10:21
  Tuesday morning, I'm like, it's just a nice way to start my
• 10:24
  Tuesday. That's good.
• 10:26
  I had mentioned the Scott when I got here today, I said it's nice
• 10:29
  to get on a road where the waves doesn't take me onto like I2465.
• 10:34
  I went some back roads, I got here no problems and here we
• 10:39
  are, Mill Creek. And back to what you were saying
• 10:41
  about the growth, if you take those back roads, you will see
• 10:44
  the growth in the amount of housing developments.
• 10:47
  I mean, I've been with Mill Creek, it'll be two years in
• 10:49
  August and, you know, been making that drive pretty
• 10:51
  frequently and there's a whole housing community down the road
• 10:55
  guys that there is was not there when I started two years ago.
• 10:58
  And they're all like drive through it and everyone is
• 11:01
  already sold and they're not even built yet.
• 11:03
  Yeah, in fact, right around the corner.
• 11:05
  I know they've been building it for a while.
• 11:06
  I don't know how many months it's been open or maybe in for a
• 11:09
  while because I hadn't come that way for a while the other
• 11:12
  direction. But there's a big Publix grocery
• 11:14
  store that opened up and then there's other shops and
• 11:16
  everything else. This entire area as we talked
• 11:20
  about with, you know, the, the, the number of people over 16
• 11:23
  thousand that now live here and I don't know if Mill Creek can
• 11:27
  hold 16,000 people. Maybe we don't want to, probably
• 11:30
  about 1/2, but you know, I don't.
• 11:31
  Know. What Nolensville Rd.
• 11:33
  Can. Handle.
• 11:33
  It that's 100% true. Hey, another little tidbit
• 11:36
  before we move on from Noblesville itself.
• 11:39
  If anybody recognizes the name and don't know why they they
• 11:42
  Noblesville, Tennessee sounds familiar.
• 11:45
  Think about the Little League World Series a couple of years
• 11:47
  ago. They made national news and I
• 11:49
  think they went pretty far into the Little League World Series
• 11:52
  and others. I know there's a banner hanging
• 11:54
  up over here dedicated to them. So I think a couple years in a
• 11:56
  row they were kind of nationally talked.
• 11:59
  About it really is. It's a big, big family friendly
• 12:04
  community. Nolan's Villas.
• 12:08
  Yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, again, seeing the
• 12:13
  families, we come in here for all the events.
• 12:15
  Yep. And just, yeah, it's a great
• 12:17
  place for your kids to hang out. And you can hang out and have
• 12:21
  great food and adult beverages. There might there might be a
• 12:24
  birthday party going on at some point or a a soccer game may
• 12:27
  have gotten out at some point. It's great people.
• 12:29
  Get married here. Do they people get married here?
• 12:32
  It's like, why would you mix the good with the bat anyway?
• 12:33
  That's a whole other the beer. The beer is the good part.
• 12:38
  It's it's a shame. It's a shame there wasn't a
• 12:40
  wedding going on today. Maybe.
• 12:41
  That would be great. Do some play by play.
• 12:43
  That would be great. Really say I do.
• 12:45
  It's not. I think it's.
• 12:47
  Not that's right. Now sitting down, this is the
• 12:50
  new bride and groom. Let's see how things going guys.
• 12:54
  I want out. Well, great for right now
• 12:56
  because they have a great beer. That's exactly right.
• 12:59
  Believe here. You might see her running down.
• 13:01
  The road back to reality. Straight in, straight into the
• 13:04
  ballpark over there. Hey, can you tell us a little
• 13:07
  bit about your background, how you got to Mill Creek?
• 13:11
  It's kind of crazy to think about when I, when I went out
• 13:16
  into the world after college, you know, I graduated from
• 13:19
  Tennessee Tech University, have an accounting degree.
• 13:21
  Technically, I love data, I love numbers, but I did not enjoy,
• 13:27
  you know, sitting behind a desk. And so from there I open my own
• 13:32
  gym. I've always been into fitness,
• 13:34
  CrossFit, things like that. And you know, as many people
• 13:38
  know, owning your own business is it's tough to get off, get
• 13:40
  off the ground. So I picked up a job at a local
• 13:45
  craft beer tap room in the Nashville Farmers Market.
• 13:48
  A little shout out to the picnic tap.
• 13:49
  Yeah, that's how I got to know you.
• 13:51
  Actually, I met you for the first time over there.
• 13:53
  Yes, I mean it's a it's a great spot.
• 13:55
  A little bit touristy these days.
• 13:57
  Parking is a little tough. I went by there yesterday and I
• 14:00
  was like, I just need to drop something off.
• 14:02
  I there is nowhere to park, but you know, they have 1515 taps
• 14:08
  and their whole, my blog is local beer.
• 14:12
  Obviously we've, you know, as beer has grown and everything,
• 14:14
  we've, we've expanded into some regional taps over there.
• 14:17
  But that's where I got most of my knowledge from.
• 14:22
  I worked there just kind of part time.
• 14:24
  I started there one night a month.
• 14:26
  That's what I did for the longest time.
• 14:28
  And then in 2021-2022, somewhere in that ballpark, I took over
• 14:34
  managing that establishment and getting to know the wonderful
• 14:39
  people in the beer industry, the supplier reps that are out
• 14:42
  there. And then again, all of that's
• 14:44
  where all of my beer knowledge comes from.
• 14:47
  From there, I just kind of turned beer into a passion, into
• 14:50
  a hobby. And my partner hates it.
• 14:52
  But we only travel for beer. When I plan vacations, it's
• 14:57
  because we want to go to this brewery.
• 14:59
  We're going to Fort Walton Beach this weekend.
• 15:01
  Shout out to Woodfoot. I'm coming for you.
• 15:03
  I'm super excited. I've never had any of their
• 15:05
  stuff. I've met the owner I believe a
• 15:08
  couple times at Berek, but I've never been so excited to check
• 15:12
  that out. Yeah, I just love finding new
• 15:14
  beer, love tasting the beer. Ended up at Mill Creek.
• 15:18
  That was a long winded way back to where your original question,
• 15:20
  but ended up in Mill Creek because of working literally at
• 15:25
  the tap room. There was another supplier Rep
• 15:27
  who would repeatedly come in and, you know, sell me products
• 15:33
  like as on the buyer side. That and she'd offered me a job
• 15:38
  a couple times to come work for a company called
• 15:41
  Countermeasures. They are local here in Franklin,
• 15:45
  in Williams County, Franklin, TN.
• 15:46
  And I turned her down five times.
• 15:49
  I was like, no, I love, I love my craft beer tap room.
• 15:51
  I'm I'm happy here. And then as I've gotten older, I
• 15:55
  started kind of looking at my life and I was like, I don't
• 15:57
  want not want to bartend forever.
• 16:00
  Yeah. So what's next?
• 16:01
  And she came in on a Friday night and maybe just happened to
• 16:05
  be the right Friday night. But she said a couple of words
• 16:08
  to me and that night where that changed my mind about maybe
• 16:11
  taking the job that she was offering.
• 16:13
  And those words were you could represent Mill Creek Brewing
• 16:16
  Company. And I was like, what?
• 16:18
  Local beer? Nice, Fantastic.
• 16:21
  So I interviewed the next week. I started 2 weeks later and here
• 16:25
  we are. It's been almost two years.
• 16:27
  That's amazing. That's awesome Quick story about
• 16:30
  you at the picnic tap. I walked in one day and you knew
• 16:33
  my name already and I go, how do you I was like, how do you know
• 16:36
  my name? She goes, oh, I follow you guys
• 16:38
  and I was like you like the first person ever said that like
• 16:40
  called us or whatever. I'll always remember that so.
• 16:43
  I mean, you guys are kind of living out a little side piece
• 16:47
  of my dream here, you know, and I love, I love beer.
• 16:50
  Again, my partner, we've we've talked about, you know, beer
• 16:53
  podcasting and, and beer influencing, I think they call
• 16:57
  it these days. But for me, it's really just, I
• 17:00
  just love sharing beer with people and, you know, good and
• 17:05
  all beer, it doesn't matter. Like, you know, just getting it
• 17:08
  out there into the world. And when you guys popped up, I
• 17:11
  was like, yeah, quick follow. And then in addition to that, I
• 17:13
  was managing a craft beer tap room.
• 17:15
  Whatever we can do to get. People sure or get.
• 17:17
  People in the bars. And I was like, what is this?
• 17:20
  What is this picnic tap thing? I must go.
• 17:22
  We have a lot of fun and even like Robert Spivey, that was
• 17:25
  just here in the beer community, we see Robert out all the time
• 17:28
  and he just came in. He just left.
• 17:29
  And you know, Tom Schumacher's here as well, one of our
• 17:32
  friends, and really, honestly. Interesting.
• 17:35
  Stevens over here as well, and not just in the Nashville area,
• 17:40
  but in other areas, you know, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia.
• 17:43
  We've met some fine folks up in Delaware and we've had friends
• 17:49
  that we've made through this podcast.
• 17:51
  A little bit, Yep. Yes, that have come into
• 17:54
  Nashville and we're like here's some of our recommendations.
• 17:57
  Here's where you need to go. Now we get also get in the Mill
• 17:59
  Creek. Give them the Mill Creek.
• 18:01
  Give them Mill Creek, That's all right.
• 18:03
  You mentioned Ohio, though. I think that's one of the things
• 18:05
  that kind of drew me to you guys.
• 18:07
  I think one of the first posts I may have ever seen was you guys
• 18:10
  walking around Cincinnati. And my, my partner is from
• 18:13
  Columbus, OH. And so I've done a lot, you
• 18:16
  know, as a patron in the the Ohio beer community.
• 18:20
  And I was like, who are these guys covering Ohio beer?
• 18:23
  Yeah, well, they live here. What's happening?
• 18:26
  I was like, they're talking about some of my favorite
• 18:27
  breweries. What's going on?
• 18:29
  Well, and I grew up there, so it's it's it's actually kind of
• 18:32
  how we talked about this. It's actually kind of how it
• 18:34
  started. You know, Scott and I've been
• 18:37
  friends for years and he, we would go up to Cincinnati and go
• 18:42
  to some Reds games and stuff like that and hang out.
• 18:44
  And then we were, we were, I don't know, 5-6 years ago we
• 18:48
  were sitting at a Reds game hitting some breweries and
• 18:51
  going, maybe we should start a podcast.
• 18:53
  And so we about once a year or two, we'll go back.
• 18:57
  I, I go to Cincinnati a few times a year because my family's
• 18:59
  up there. And then we make a trip once a
• 19:02
  year to whole do like a whole big Cincinnati takeover.
• 19:04
  We're going there in September, hitting an Oktoberfest event up
• 19:09
  there. I've heard that there
• 19:10
  Oktoberfest is one of the best. Yeah, yes, if I have.
• 19:14
  Never. Have you guys been already?
• 19:16
  He's been. I have been he's.
• 19:17
  Been watched? Yeah, it's the second largest in
• 19:19
  the world. Yeah, we were up there two
• 19:22
  weeks. We went to Third Eye up there
• 19:24
  two weeks before the Oktoberfest celebration last year and they
• 19:29
  were like, you've got to come back, you've got to come back.
• 19:31
  And you know, of course we couldn't, we couldn't, we
• 19:33
  couldn't pull that turn around that quickly.
• 19:35
  But it's it's on my list of Oktoberfest to get there, get
• 19:40
  you this year. We're going to Munich so.
• 19:44
  Holy cow. OK, well, if there's one to take
• 19:46
  a back seat to, it might be that one.
• 19:49
  It's a pretty big deal, apparently.
• 19:52
  Yeah, I'm jealous. I've been to Germany, but we
• 19:54
  didn't go to. We went to Bavaria, but we
• 19:56
  weren't there for Oktoberfest. But just just being there when
• 20:00
  it wasn't Oktoberfest was amazing.
• 20:02
  I mean, the beer, it's nothing but beer culture over there.
• 20:04
  It's amazing. I'm really excited about it.
• 20:07
  There's, I don't know if you guys have talked to Doug Page at
• 20:10
  all. He runs the beer department at
• 20:11
  Providence Wine and Spirits. He took a trip last year about
• 20:15
  the same time that I was taking a trip and we were because I was
• 20:17
  doing like New England. We went up into Burlington, we
• 20:20
  went to Main Beer Co, all that stuff.
• 20:22
  But he went and did a European beer trip.
• 20:24
  He was jealous. I was jealous, but I'm stealing
• 20:28
  his, his, his beer trip this year and we're doing, you know,
• 20:32
  Amsterdam, Prague, Brussels, Munich, Dublin.
• 20:35
  So incredibly excited. Beer flows like water over
• 20:38
  there. It's like literally yes, I think
• 20:40
  it's literally cheaper than water.
• 20:42
  That's what I'm told. You know, staying on the subject
• 20:46
  of Oktoberfest, well, it, it's, it'll be around the corner here
• 20:50
  soon. We, we actually just got into
• 20:52
  our first, one of our first 90° days in Nashville.
• 20:57
  It'll be 90° to 100 now to the end of September in Nashville.
• 21:02
  Oktoberfest season is not that far off either.
• 21:05
  Any any special plans, anything going to be happening at Mill
• 21:08
  Creek when Oktoberfest season happens?
• 21:10
  Yes. Oh, it's, it's actually, it's
• 21:12
  actually funny that you say that because we will, we, we run
• 21:17
  about two seasonals 1/4 out into the market.
• 21:21
  Unfortunately, the ones between, like, the summer seasonals
• 21:24
  always get cut short because, well, it's August and so
• 21:29
  therefore we must be out in the market, Pumpkin and Oktoberfest.
• 21:36
  And so those words are already coming out of my mouth when I'm
• 21:39
  out in the market talking to people and they're just staring
• 21:42
  at me. And then you see the realization
• 21:45
  where it's like, oh, she's not kidding.
• 21:46
  Yeah, that's going to be here very, very soon.
• 21:49
  Yeah, because it is August. It's literally August.
• 21:52
  Last year, so our pumpkin is slightly different than most
• 21:56
  people. We do a pumpkin cream ale, so
• 21:58
  it's a little bit sweeter, it's a little bit more vanilla, not
• 22:00
  just that, like punch you in the face kind of spice.
• 22:03
  And we were sold out of pumpkin by the second week of September
• 22:05
  last year. Pumpkin season, Oktoberfest
• 22:07
  season will be here. But here at the brewery, we
• 22:10
  again opening up to all the families and everything.
• 22:13
  We we do a big celebration here dressed up.
• 22:19
  This whole place is is packed front to back, if you can
• 22:22
  believe that with how much you know how much.
• 22:24
  So that's pretty much all of Nolensville.
• 22:25
  All in all, of all 16,000 people.
• 22:29
  Are in. They're all going to come here.
• 22:33
  And yeah, it's just a really, really great time.
• 22:35
  I believe our Oktoberfest beer is talk about Dunkle being one
• 22:39
  of my favorite styles. Oktoberfest is one of my
• 22:41
  favorite styles as well. I like ours.
• 22:44
  It's, it's not overly thick, so I feel like I can have two or
• 22:49
  three without feeling like I've eaten a loaf of bread.
• 22:51
  And I enjoy being able to have two or three.
• 22:53
  So, But yeah, that'll watch the social medias.
• 22:57
  We have a huge Oktoberfest here. I've got a a friend group and
• 23:01
  every year they do an Oktoberfest.
• 23:04
  I call it a bracket and we all get together and everybody
• 23:08
  brings different types of Oktoberfest, you know, Mill
• 23:10
  Creek and Mill Creek won one year, yes.
• 23:13
  And I, I don't know, just two or three years ago.
• 23:15
  And it was like, you know, just like it we, we get, we, we try
• 23:18
  and blind, right? And they all come out blind.
• 23:20
  Somebody's pouring them and then, you know, this one passes
• 23:22
  and this one goes to the next round, blah, blah, blah.
• 23:24
  But Mill Creek won, and it's always been high-ranking with in
• 23:27
  that group anyway. It is a phenomenal beer.
• 23:31
  And you know, honestly, this will be a little, you know, I
• 23:33
  don't know, I don't know how this will look on my part, you
• 23:35
  know, as a, as a representative of Mill Creek.
• 23:37
  But I, I had never tried it before And I started working for
• 23:41
  them and, and I was at a tasting, it was early, early
• 23:46
  October ish. And so all year, you know, I, I
• 23:51
  look forward to fest season and I had never even had Mill
• 23:54
  Creeks. I've been selling it for two
• 23:55
  months at this point and I'm at this tasting and I'm like, I
• 23:59
  should, maybe I should taste this.
• 24:01
  And and that particular year, this was two years ago, I was
• 24:03
  struggling to find one that I liked.
• 24:05
  I felt like some of them have got had gotten a little syrupy.
• 24:08
  Maybe the flavour wasn't coming through enough.
• 24:11
  And I'm standing at this tasting and I have just a little, you
• 24:13
  know, thimble cup and I'm like, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I've been
• 24:17
  sleeping on my own beard. What are you talking about?
• 24:20
  Wow. But it is by far one of the best
• 24:23
  Oktoberfest beers I've. Ever.
• 24:24
  It is. It is really good and I when I
• 24:27
  see it in the grocery stores come fall, it's like, yeah, run
• 24:29
  out and get it or or or come to Mill Creek.
• 24:31
  Come to. Mill Creek and get it, yes.
• 24:34
  Excuse me? Oh, you had mentioned that, you
• 24:38
  know, Oktoberfest and some of the folks that are kind of look
• 24:41
  to you like, is it that time already?
• 24:43
  But we love having the conversation of when is the
• 24:47
  perfect time to start putting out that Oktoberfest beer at a
• 24:51
  brewery and distributing it as well.
• 24:54
  Yeah, that's a great question. You know, everybody's trying to
• 24:56
  be Sam Adams. Sam Adams is like the Starbucks
• 24:59
  of pumpkin and octopus. You're fighting for shelf space
• 25:02
  at. That time not to interrupt, I'll
• 25:05
  let you continue that thought in a second.
• 25:06
  I'm one of those that on the very first day that Sam Adams
• 25:10
  Oktoberfest comes out, I'm that guy that's standing at the
• 25:13
  grocery store and I don't care what time of the year it'll be
• 25:17
  cuz I just love Oktoberfest. So anyway, continue on with.
• 25:20
  Your I have some thoughts on that too.
• 25:23
  Yeah, I'm a business from the distribution.
• 25:25
  We love to hear it all. We so the first year that I was
• 25:29
  here it again, it was my first year, I came in in the middle of
• 25:33
  August. And so it was we were, in my
• 25:35
  opinion, a little in my opinion now at that point I didn't know
• 25:38
  any better. But in my opinion now we were a
• 25:40
  little late to the game getting it out because they, I don't,
• 25:43
  they have like a little lapse and you know, maybe some
• 25:45
  representation, sales representation out in the
• 25:47
  market. And so we get it out there and
• 25:51
  we sold a ton, though, I mean, in this short amount of time.
• 25:54
  The one thing that I will say about that is that there were
• 25:58
  buyers, there were bars and restaurants that were still
• 26:00
  appreciative that we had some in October because a lot of them
• 26:03
  don't make it to October. And I told you last time we were
• 26:06
  out of Pumpkin in September, so that was kind of a cool thing to
• 26:10
  see there. Last year we were out the first
• 26:13
  week of August and it was round running and it was one of the
• 26:17
  craziest things I've ever seen, where people were buying up 96
• 26:21
  dolls at a time for their menu placement, 4 half barrels at a
• 26:24
  time for some of those places that were going to run it
• 26:26
  through the whole season. And I was like August from my
• 26:30
  standpoint, August and this year, because I just mentioned,
• 26:34
  you know, we're going to be in Germany for 12 days the latter
• 26:37
  part of September. So when I go out and talk about
• 26:40
  it now, I'm like, I really need you to be thinking about that
• 26:42
  because I'm not going to be in here.
• 26:43
  I'm not going to be here in September to sell it.
• 26:45
  Yeah. I have argued that I think we're
• 26:49
  within like 5 years at a lot of places, seeing Oktoberfest on
• 26:54
  the menu, on the tap menu almost all year long.
• 26:58
  I agree. I don't know if that's too much
• 27:00
  or not. It kind of reminds me this.
• 27:02
  I have a really, here's a pet peeve of mine.
• 27:04
  Not necessarily about Oktoberfest, but every year like
• 27:07
  July 4th happens and then July 5th you go to it, go into a
• 27:12
  store and they're already selling stuff for Christmas and
• 27:15
  you're like, can we get through? We're always, we're always in
• 27:21
  the, the a hurry to make it into the next thing.
• 27:24
  And there's again, as much as I would love to drink Oktoberfest
• 27:28
  throughout the year, it's also one of those things where it's,
• 27:31
  it's special. We look forward to it.
• 27:34
  We're guys that, as you talked about earlier, we want to get
• 27:36
  together and we want to try different variations of people's
• 27:40
  Oktoberfest. And that's the fun part of being
• 27:43
  a, a beer drinker too. So I don't know, man, I hope it
• 27:46
  doesn't get watered down. Not the beer, but just the
• 27:50
  essence of the Oktoberfest. Season.
• 27:52
  It's always something to look forward to, right?
• 27:54
  It's like, just like Oktoberfest season in general, whenever that
• 27:57
  is, you know? But it is.
• 27:58
  From a marketing standpoint though, you're driven by demand.
• 28:01
  That's just the way it is. Yeah.
• 28:03
  So from the marketing standpoint, yes, but even from
• 28:06
  my, you know, being a personal beer consumer, when I and, and
• 28:12
  as you know, even from the buyer's standpoint, right.
• 28:14
  So when I was at the picnic tap, I was like, I am not putting
• 28:18
  Oktoberfest on in August. Why would I do that?
• 28:21
  Come on, what's happening? That's silly pumpkin beer right
• 28:25
  now. And then two years ago, we took
• 28:28
  a trip up to Delaware. Love coastal Delaware.
• 28:32
  And I get you. Like, you can probably guess why
• 28:34
  we were going because we went to Dogfish Head and it was in
• 28:38
  August and they were releasing their pumpkin beer.
• 28:42
  And I'm standing there and I'm like, why would I deprive myself
• 28:46
  of this delicious pumpkin beer? It's August.
• 28:49
  I typically had a personal thing where I would not drink any
• 28:51
  Oktoberfest or pumpkin until September, but it was standing
• 28:54
  there in Dogfish Head where I completely let that all go.
• 28:57
  We proceeded to have a lot of pumpkin beer at Dogfish Head.
• 29:01
  And after that I'm like, now I'm, I'm on the train.
• 29:07
  I, I will not deprive myself of Oktoberfest and pumpkin.
• 29:10
  It's only here for a certain season.
• 29:11
  So August 1, I'm ready. Pumpkin gear, let's go.
• 29:14
  Yeah, even if you say, if you, if you say, hey, I'm going to
• 29:16
  wait a couple weeks before I even go by, you might not get
• 29:19
  it. Like you said you're going to,
• 29:20
  you might run out. Somebody's going to run out.
• 29:22
  I know. I was going to say earlier if
• 29:24
  somebody asked, well, why don't you just make more?
• 29:26
  Hey, you know you're going to run out.
• 29:27
  Why don't you just make twice as much?
• 29:29
  How come we don't do that? How come we don't do that?
• 29:32
  Because then there's the opposite effect within You are
• 29:36
  selling Oktoberfest all year long and it's losing its
• 29:39
  novelty, that kind of stuff. I am one that would drink an
• 29:42
  Oktoberfest all year though. But again, it I will, I'm
• 29:46
  personally about the nostalgia kind of like we just talked
• 29:48
  about of that of that time of year.
• 29:50
  We don't want to over make it all because then we get stuck
• 29:55
  with it. That's it.
• 29:56
  We. Don't want to do that.
• 29:57
  Literally, and Bruce have talked about this about other seasonal
• 29:59
  beers too, It's like literally the next day when it's over,
• 30:03
  you're kind of stuck with it. People aren't drinking it
• 30:05
  anymore for the most part. And that's crazy.
• 30:07
  When it's over, it's over. Like, there is no selling it.
• 30:10
  Yeah, N1, you can still sell some pumpkin, sell some pumpkin
• 30:13
  up to Thanksgiving, but October or N1, you're done.
• 30:18
  Like somebody sees an Oktoberfest on the menu and
• 30:20
  they're like, well, that must not be.
• 30:21
  Anything right here, it's got, it's got to be old.
• 30:23
  It's still. There, I would love to pivot to
• 30:25
  a different beer style that you all have on your menu right now.
• 30:29
  And it is popular this time of the year.
• 30:32
  It is the Mexican lager. OK, We, we again, Scott and I,
• 30:37
  we will go out and, you know, like see that Mexican lager got
• 30:40
  to get it and we'll get it. You know, we'll get it here
• 30:42
  today and don't have it yet, but plan to.
• 30:44
  Why do you think Mexican lagers have become such a big deal in
• 30:49
  the in the brewery scene? You know, I think it's, it's
• 30:53
  something that's relatable. It's, you know, it's funny when
• 30:55
  I, I love brewing and I could talk science and all the nerdy
• 31:00
  beer geek talk with just about anyone, but from a consumer
• 31:03
  standpoint, that's, that's not like what they're looking for,
• 31:09
  right? So even at the tap room, even in
• 31:11
  sales, I talk a lot about things that people can relate to.
• 31:16
  Everybody knows what Corona is, everybody knows what Modello is,
• 31:20
  everybody knows what Pacifico is.
• 31:21
  And when you can get that in craft form, I think that's what
• 31:26
  people are looking for. It's light, it's crisp, it's
• 31:28
  refreshing. Drop a lime in there and you
• 31:30
  found your beats, right? And so it's just a way for the
• 31:32
  craft industry to kind of take a little piece of that.
• 31:35
  We have definitely come across a lot of Mexican loggers in the
• 31:38
  past couple of years and we and it's, it's just one of those
• 31:40
  it's like, damn, they're good. It.
• 31:43
  Is again, we mentioned it today, Nashville, we're having, you
• 31:47
  know, probably the second or third day of 90° weather and
• 31:50
  almost Memorial Day weekend and. So here we go.
• 31:54
  You know, if I'm, if I'm sitting outside on the porridge or
• 31:56
  cutting grass or doing anything like that, what is one of the
• 31:59
  more perfect ones? We're also going to be talking
• 32:01
  about some of your other other ones, but a Mexican style lager
• 32:05
  is one of the perfect beers if you're just sitting outside with
• 32:08
  friends and this kind of weather it's.
• 32:09
  Like easy, crushable. And yeah, I mean, we, we have
• 32:14
  Delray, that's our Mexican logger.
• 32:15
  And to me, Delray kind of gets passed over a little bit.
• 32:19
  I'd, I'd love to sell some moreover more of it into the
• 32:22
  market, especially with the heyday that Mexican loggers is
• 32:24
  having. And we recently kind of just did
• 32:28
  a, did a little rejuvenation on it.
• 32:30
  It's not quite as sweet as it used to be.
• 32:33
  So definitely if nobody's trying to Delray recently, try it, it's
• 32:36
  a little bit different, a little more crisp.
• 32:40
  I say crisp, but I also, I'm going to say soft at the same
• 32:42
  time, just a little bit of like natural carbonation happening
• 32:45
  with it as well and. And I know you're going to ask
• 32:48
  about other beers, but why you still have some in your glass
• 32:50
  here? Let's talk about this beer
• 32:52
  you've got right here. And if anybody knows of Mill
• 32:54
  Creek beer, they've heard of this beer and they probably had
• 32:56
  this beer and it's a little darling.
• 32:59
  However, tell us something that this looks, this looks a little
• 33:02
  different. I wouldn't have known that was
• 33:03
  little darling, unless you told me.
• 33:04
  Yeah, so again, I'm going to kind of revert back to my buying
• 33:08
  days a little bit and little darling.
• 33:10
  And so when I kind of started with Mill Creek, I was like,
• 33:14
  guys, sometimes, sometimes like, I want that just big juicy,
• 33:18
  refreshing, you know, like flavor and, and look out of out
• 33:23
  of the beer. And sometimes it's not always
• 33:26
  there. So what are, what are we, what
• 33:28
  are we, what are we going to do with this beer?
• 33:30
  This, this, this was the bread and butter, right?
• 33:32
  Little darling kind of started it all was the big like rocket
• 33:35
  ship for Mill Creek. And when I'm out there talking,
• 33:39
  talking about it, people are like, yeah, little darling,
• 33:42
  that's that's one of my favorite beers.
• 33:44
  But I'll immediately say, well, why aren't you drinking it
• 33:47
  anymore? And they'll be like, oh, what
• 33:48
  kind of forgot about it or missing a little bit of a little
• 33:51
  bit of orange flavor, right? Like it just kind of, it just
• 33:55
  wasn't fair for me anymore. And I'm like, OK.
• 33:58
  And so, you know, I talked to 40 accounts plus a week and brought
• 34:03
  this information, this wealth of knowledge back into the brewery.
• 34:06
  And I cannot say enough. I mean, Aaron, our Brewer is
• 34:10
  absolutely phenomenal. Again, we'll get into that a
• 34:12
  little bit more when we talk about the newer beers, but this,
• 34:17
  this was kind of one of the things that I, I was very much
• 34:21
  like, we've, we've got to do something.
• 34:22
  We've got, we've got to get this unfiltered look back and all
• 34:26
  that flavoring. And so Aaron and the KP and Mark
• 34:29
  here, they really took that to heart.
• 34:31
  And we've tried various things and this is, you know, this is
• 34:35
  what the people wanted. This is what the people were
• 34:36
  asking for was this again, unfiltered orange kind of bomb.
• 34:42
  And that's what they got. Can you show that camera?
• 34:45
  Yeah. So it's like totally a different
• 34:49
  color than I remember. Yeah, it's not clear.
• 34:51
  Yep, it's not clear. And you guys do variations of
• 34:55
  that beer, too. I know you've done a mango.
• 34:57
  I know you've done a Peach. I mean, the possibilities got to
• 35:00
  be endless for that. I don't know how many you guys
• 35:01
  have actually done with little Darling, but.
• 35:03
  Well, and of course, I'm looking at your website right now.
• 35:05
  So it was Little darling Peachy and Mango, which is what you
• 35:09
  have on tap here today. Are there other, I think you
• 35:12
  kind of asked that other variations as well or maybe
• 35:15
  others that are that are going to be coming out as an
• 35:17
  extension? Those are the only three
• 35:19
  variations right now. I would love to see some more,
• 35:23
  you know, got got some Lovebird with the strawberry Raspberry
• 35:29
  going on. And, you know, I'd love to see a
• 35:31
  Raspberry darling. Like that sounds delicious.
• 35:33
  But as of right now, those are the only three.
• 35:36
  Little Darling is having a little bit of a heyday right now
• 35:39
  with the kind of the growth of the new beers and people kind of
• 35:43
  like, that's helping jog their memory.
• 35:45
  And they're like, Oh yeah, little darling.
• 35:47
  So they're picking that up now too.
• 35:49
  And now with this like, awesome unfiltered look and flavor that
• 35:51
  it has, it's really kind of sticking with people.
• 35:54
  Peachy Darling is 1 and we only do kind of like a small run of
• 35:58
  that like out into the world. But tap room and then mango
• 36:04
  darlin, that is the only place right here in this tap room is
• 36:07
  the only place you can get that mango darlin or or there's one
• 36:11
  other secret. So we do a little darlin variety
• 36:15
  pack. It's a 15 pack and it has the
• 36:18
  Mango Darlin in it. Very few places have it, maybe
• 36:21
  like Midtown, Cork dorks, R&B right up the streets, but that
• 36:26
  is the only place outside of the staff room that you can get.
• 36:28
  The Mango Darlin is in that variety pack.
• 36:31
  Where is that balance for you as far as where you want to
• 36:35
  distribute some of these beers because your reach, can you talk
• 36:38
  a little bit about your reach as far as like where you can get
• 36:43
  the Mill Creek brand in this particular area, other areas as
• 36:47
  well? Yeah, So our reach changed a
• 36:51
  little bit when Bounty and Ajax merged.
• 36:55
  So that's, we lost a couple of counties when that happened.
• 36:59
  So we're no longer in Sumner County, but I mean there's still
• 37:03
  6 counties in and around Nashville all the way out to
• 37:07
  Columbia, Lebanon, all the way down into Murfreesboro,
• 37:12
  Eagleville Grocery. I mean all as far South.
• 37:14
  Is that as far north as maybe Dixon?
• 37:18
  I we don't go super far north. That ended up being kind of in
• 37:21
  a, in a different, in a different county.
• 37:22
  But I mean, it's a, it's a pretty widespread bed breach
• 37:25
  here in Middle Tennessee. But how cool is it though, when
• 37:29
  I don't know if you're here when you hear this, but I'm sure the
• 37:32
  folks that work here where they say, hey, I was at this package
• 37:35
  store and I had to get here and try it on tap.
• 37:38
  It has to be pretty satisfying. And I'm sure you you all
• 37:42
  probably hear that at times. We definitely hear that or I
• 37:46
  mean people do travel with our beard too.
• 37:49
  I know we used to distribute out in Knoxville.
• 37:52
  My cousin out there and her husband have been really big in
• 37:56
  the beer community out there working with a couple, casual
• 37:59
  appliance and stuff. And I frequently hear, hey, will
• 38:02
  you bring me some Mill Creek? Like can I get, can we get some
• 38:04
  Mill Creek? And I'll give them some samples
• 38:06
  when I when I go home for Christmas and things like that.
• 38:08
  So if you know, yeah, the reach is, is really great.
• 38:12
  And even yesterday I was at a festival and I was talking to a
• 38:16
  guy from Aaron, Tennessee. And he was like, I yeah, he's
• 38:20
  like, I'd love to have this Hellas logger out there.
• 38:22
  So I was like, here's a sample. I can't quite come and see you.
• 38:26
  That's a little far for my. It's a little far for my driving
• 38:30
  distance. But let your Ajax Rep know there
• 38:32
  you. Go Yeah, great at demand.
• 38:33
  Yes, exactly. But he was like, yeah, this is
• 38:35
  fantastic. Yeah, and the Hellas is actually
• 38:37
  one that as I'm looking again, you all have on tap right now.
• 38:41
  The Hellas, as a matter of fact, when we ran into you at Cabin
• 38:44
  Fever Beer Fest in February, which was a beautiful day, I
• 38:48
  still think back on that and like it was.
• 38:49
  Literally a. Beautiful day in February, which
• 38:51
  was awesome. And you had introduced us at
• 38:54
  that time to the Hellis. You guys had the Hellis there
• 38:56
  and you had the West Coast Diesel there at the same time.
• 39:00
  Brand new beers for you at that time, right?
• 39:02
  And I mean, it's still new for you now, but awesome beers.
• 39:06
  That festival was literally the first day that either of those
• 39:08
  beers had ever come out of this happened.
• 39:09
  OK, that was that was day. One, OK, so we got them day one
• 39:13
  then because I got both of them. That was a little bit of
• 39:16
  experiment, I think on my part. I, I signed this up last minute
• 39:21
  for the Cabin Fever Beer Festival.
• 39:23
  And it was, you know, front and center in my mind to really
• 39:26
  feature those beers and let's let's get some feedback before
• 39:29
  they do, you know, fully launch into distribution.
• 39:33
  And so that was kind of the goal of that festival where people
• 39:35
  seem to love them. They were good.
• 39:37
  Now. Had you guys done a West Coast
• 39:39
  IPA before? We have neon days.
• 39:41
  Neon. Oh, OK, OK.
• 39:42
  Gotcha. We have neon days.
• 39:43
  That beer is always in the Tavern here.
• 39:46
  And then as far as being out and about in the public, we do a lot
• 39:49
  of 16 ounce cans of that. It's at the Sound Stadium.
• 39:53
  Things like. So it's, it's mostly in venues,
• 39:55
  OK. Well, yeah, and we'll try to
• 39:58
  replicate the conversation we had before we turned on the the
• 40:01
  old banking camera here. But I had said I have West Coast
• 40:04
  diesel just two nights ago. I was at Mr. Peruse in Smyrna
• 40:08
  and I didn't have it at the the Mill Creek Festival or, I'm
• 40:12
  sorry, at the Cabin Fever Festival.
• 40:14
  Bad me, I should not. But when I had it on two nights
• 40:18
  ago on a flight, what did I tell you?
• 40:21
  That you wish you would had more.
• 40:23
  Yeah, exactly. I think that's what everybody is
• 40:26
  saying right now is that they wish they had more 'cause it's
• 40:29
  it went quickly, yeah. Yeah.
• 40:31
  You know, you've talked about many times certain beers are
• 40:33
  good on a flight you like. You only want four or five oz?
• 40:36
  That's one. You want 16 ounces.
• 40:37
  Oh. My gosh, yeah, absolutely.
• 40:39
  And you had talked about, you know what, American IPA and
• 40:42
  stuff like that, the pininess of it.
• 40:44
  And I said, well, I didn't get that as much as I got more of
• 40:48
  the hops, but also just the overall taste of it that I
• 40:51
  thought was really, really good from that particular style brand
• 40:55
  a beer. Yeah, I mean, we, we kind of
• 40:57
  touched on it a little bit before of, you know, like
• 41:00
  listening like what what are the consumers looking for?
• 41:03
  We talked about again with little Darlin this unfiltered
• 41:06
  juicy bomb that it is now and again 40 times a week, I'm
• 41:10
  asking the question, what are you looking for?
• 41:12
  And a big one this time was West Coast IP as and I thought to
• 41:17
  myself, you know, even from chat room experience, the Westies
• 41:20
  making a comeback. I'm here for it.
• 41:23
  Yeah, You know, I love a good hazy IPA, but man, there is
• 41:26
  nothing like a good tiny, just resinous West Coast.
• 41:30
  And we had done a small run of diesel here in the tap room
• 41:35
  around Christmas time and huge response to it.
• 41:39
  And I was like, OK, guys, am I going to get any to take out
• 41:43
  into the market? And we're only brewing at 10
• 41:45
  batches, 10 barrels at a time. So very, very small.
• 41:49
  But that's also the objective. I mean, we're here.
• 41:51
  It's to keep it small. It's kind of a little project
• 41:53
  that we're working on me and the sales and marketing world.
• 41:57
  I'm hoping that it's going to become the next if you know, you
• 41:59
  know, drop out there. We'll see if that happens.
• 42:02
  But yeah, we had just a small amount of it.
• 42:05
  We put it out into the world. So if you find it, it's kind of
• 42:08
  a bit of a a rarity out there. So definitely grab it.
• 42:11
  You need a West Coast diesel Day A.
• 42:14
  Diesel day, that was. A diesel day?
• 42:16
  Yeah, it would. Be lined up out the door out.
• 42:17
  There I am here for it, but one of the things in that is keeping
• 42:23
  it small batch. We we want to definitely be in
• 42:25
  control of that flavor. So again, we're we're only going
• 42:29
  to brew it 1010 barrels at a time.
• 42:31
  The next one is it, it's actually in the tank back there
• 42:34
  right now. And we're looking for second
• 42:37
  week, maybe even first week of June when we'll get some more of
• 42:40
  it. But I already have tap rooms
• 42:44
  already asking me when's it coming back, when's it coming
• 42:47
  back? People I know out, you know, in
• 42:50
  certain tap rooms, people were bringing growlers to fill them
• 42:54
  up and, you know, just to make sure they could get it.
• 42:57
  So that was that. Again, talk about reach, like
• 42:59
  this was in Columbia, TN, right? Like, that was a great, you
• 43:02
  know, story to hear. For for perspective on that
• 43:05
  Columbia almost an hour away from here, you know, Yeah.
• 43:09
  That's great to hear in this day and age, just with beer, like
• 43:11
  people, there's a demand for something and you know there are
• 43:15
  people excited about it. Can't get it, can't wait for the
• 43:17
  next time it comes out. We're standing in line for it.
• 43:19
  You know, the pre ordering or whatever.
• 43:21
  It's it's great to hear just in the way beer is right now.
• 43:24
  The the concept of it kind of like came to me with I don't you
• 43:29
  guys may remember, but when, when Barique was first starting
• 43:32
  out, right, like I remember Joel would post like random drop
• 43:41
  here. It'd be like at filling station
• 43:42
  and people would be like running.
• 43:45
  How do I get that brief fear? And you know, I just thought
• 43:48
  that was like one of the coolest things ever where it was kind of
• 43:50
  like, and if you know, you know, a search and find it again.
• 43:53
  My cousins in in my cousin in Knoxville would be like,
• 43:57
  actually, I saw this on Instagram.
• 43:58
  Can you go get this for me? I'm like, it's 6 bottles Katie,
• 44:01
  like I'm not that special. Like you're going to get it like
• 44:07
  everybody else does. Exactly, exactly.
• 44:10
  And so that just like little bit of like marketing technique that
• 44:13
  they did when they were first starting out.
• 44:15
  I just kind of thought that that was genius.
• 44:17
  And I kind of that's, you know, a little bit of the perspective
• 44:20
  that I took with with our diesel.
• 44:21
  I think it's just again, it is so good.
• 44:23
  It is so smooth, tiny, resinous on the nose, smooth, smooth to
• 44:27
  the taste. I mean, I don't even have IPA.
• 44:31
  People who don't drink Ipas who are like, this is phenomenal.
• 44:35
  Even Marty, you're talking about getting in at Mr. Brews.
• 44:38
  Marty was like, I'm not a big IPA guy, but holy cow, this is
• 44:42
  in fact he. Was talking the other night, I
• 44:44
  mean I talked to Marty because we had had them on a podcast
• 44:47
  recently and I talked to Marty and I said man I got it, I got
• 44:50
  the diesel and he was mentioning you and in very flattering terms
• 44:54
  other the other IPA brand that you have.
• 44:56
  And I was making sure before we came here and we tried to do
• 44:59
  that market research for our podcast, make sure we have
• 45:02
  everything and I hope. Breaking the beer.
• 45:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beer.
• 45:06
  The beer. The beer, Steve.
• 45:07
  Look, you guys are living my dream.
• 45:09
  I told you research I got. This No, I got it.
• 45:12
  I got it. So you know, we're sitting there
• 45:14
  the other day and I go to the grocery store and I'm like, I'm
• 45:17
  sitting where I go. Kroger, Publix, wherever in my
• 45:20
  area, I can usually see something.
• 45:23
  Mill Creek, right? And we talked about the Mexican
• 45:26
  lagers being a big deal, the Sound of the year, the other
• 45:29
  brand that you have on Mix pack, then I I think it's fantastic.
• 45:33
  You know where I'm going with this is the mixed pack of Easy
• 45:36
  Days, Neon Days, and the Juicy Days Ipas.
• 45:41
  Yes. Do you have some of you got some
• 45:43
  show and tell cans over there? Do you have some of those there
• 45:45
  just so we can see someone playing in the packaging?
• 45:47
  No, I'm going to I will say one thing about the mixed pack.
• 45:49
  The mixed packs, we do have the the Day's Craze series.
• 45:53
  That is one of the only ways to get easy days.
• 45:57
  We talked about low ABB beers being a thing right now and that
• 46:01
  is a delicious IPA at 4 1/2% right there and it is 4/4 and
• 46:07
  1/2 percent. It is packed full of hops.
• 46:09
  So if you see that day's craze pack out there, that's, you
• 46:12
  know, one of the best ways that you can get the easy days.
• 46:15
  And then I'll take a moment for juicy days because it is another
• 46:18
  one of those beers like we talked about here with Darlin,
• 46:21
  where our Brewer kind of put a little bit of love and effort
• 46:26
  into that beer is, you know, also now a little bit softer
• 46:30
  than it used to be. I just actually created a, a
• 46:33
  poster to put it up in a restaurant for juicy days.
• 46:36
  And it says soft crushable on the poster.
• 46:39
  And I was in the, I was in the establishment and they were
• 46:42
  like, what does that mean? And I was like, well, let's just
• 46:44
  try it. And they tasted it and they're
• 46:45
  like, and it, it helps bring through some of that or just a
• 46:49
  little bit more tangerine, I guess, rather than orange
• 46:52
  flavored, which is a little bit different than some of the
• 46:54
  hazies that you'll see kind of in the market.
• 46:56
  It's now a little bit softer than it used to be and just
• 46:59
  something that Aaron was kind of working on bringing in a little
• 47:03
  more true to style like hazy brewing method to get that out
• 47:06
  of it. So.
• 47:07
  I feel like I remember when that whole Haze series came out and
• 47:11
  it was almost like when maybe when when KP bought into the
• 47:14
  place when it just seems like it was kind of right after that,
• 47:17
  that whole series kind of came out.
• 47:18
  It seemed like it was a game changer for you guys.
• 47:20
  Like it's bright labels, you know, on the on the shelves.
• 47:24
  And it's like, Oh my God, these all these like this whole series
• 47:26
  is. Great.
• 47:27
  Yeah. The bright labels on those, I
• 47:29
  mean are absolutely phenomenal. But I'm going to use that as a
• 47:32
  way to check out some of these labels that we've that we've
• 47:35
  got, please. Yes.
• 47:36
  So again, we've recently rebranded.
• 47:39
  I'll take one down. Pass it around.
• 47:41
  That's the one I was just drinking as a matter of.
• 47:43
  Fact. Yeah, the Chuck Pilsner.
• 47:44
  Yes, look at that can art. It's just simple.
• 47:48
  It's it's it's. Very cool.
• 47:50
  It's easy and that's what I liked about it.
• 47:52
  It's eclectic. When I saw it for the first
• 47:54
  time, I came into the brewery and I was like, what is that?
• 47:56
  That looks amazing. And you know, just kind of
• 47:58
  talking about it from that perspective.
• 48:01
  It looks like there's a classy beer in this can 100% and there
• 48:04
  is a classy beer in this. I love.
• 48:06
  It, I love it. That's what I really like about
• 48:08
  it. But that one, that was our
• 48:09
  current seasonal. It's going to be moving out in
• 48:11
  about two weeks. Yep, for the next one, I mean
• 48:14
  the German Pilsner again with a little bit of the German style
• 48:17
  flag going on there. The German Pilsner will be our
• 48:20
  next seasonal. And then, yeah, again, we
• 48:23
  mentioned the Dunkle, the Dunkle Lager beer, See.
• 48:26
  Those are cool as hell. I really love that.
• 48:28
  Packaging. Packaging is so good it's easy.
• 48:31
  And it really does. You're right.
• 48:33
  It does kind of tell you what that kind of that, what that
• 48:36
  beer is based on the style of the font and stuff.
• 48:38
  It is very German like with the font.
• 48:41
  I love it. It's great.
• 48:42
  Yeah. Clean and eclectic.
• 48:45
  The next seasonal I that we're coming out with too that'll
• 48:47
  launch with the German Pilsner is actually an ESB.
• 48:52
  Nice. So bringing it back, I love a
• 48:54
  good ESBI feel like it's kind of been a thing of the past.
• 48:58
  So and in talking to Aaron, it's it's his favorite style of beer
• 49:03
  too. So when he got the chance to
• 49:05
  make it and it's actually going to go out into distribution,
• 49:08
  that's really exciting for him and for us as well.
• 49:12
  I love that I I people get not turned off, but they get scared
• 49:15
  of Esbs when they see what it's just just what the name stands
• 49:18
  for, you know, extra special bitters and people like bitter,
• 49:20
  like, no, it's not that at all. No, they're fantastic.
• 49:24
  Beers it's just a light, smooth, malty, biscuity beer and I love
• 49:28
  I mean I love it it's. Typically lower Abbs, yeah.
• 49:30
  Lower ABB. So yeah, like I said, I think
• 49:35
  the the logger, the Dunkle logger here is going to probably
• 49:38
  remain tap room only. These three are going to be into
• 49:42
  distribution. But we even kind of took some
• 49:44
  fun take. I brought a couple of our fun
• 49:46
  ones that are also tap room exclusive.
• 49:48
  I mean, we had to jump on the peanut butter and Jelly
• 49:50
  bandwagon, right? So that's a nice little picnic
• 49:52
  peanut butter and Jelly sandwich going on there.
• 49:55
  And then another tap room exclusive that a lot of people
• 49:57
  don't know about is that we have a 10% milk and cookies.
• 50:01
  Yep, Robert just had that, I think.
• 50:03
  Yeah. It's pretty solid.
• 50:04
  I drink that a lot of Christmas time.
• 50:05
  It might be too warm now, but at Christmas time that was
• 50:09
  fantastic. But so, yeah, new, new
• 50:12
  packaging. I love that looks good time at
• 50:15
  milk. Yeah, it looks good like you
• 50:16
  like. Fresh takes on some of the old
• 50:18
  stuff as well. You know some of the some of the
• 50:21
  foundation Fresh takes on the foundation as well.
• 50:23
  Well, kind of goes into what we talked about in the beginning of
• 50:27
  finding the brewery experience for people that are going to
• 50:30
  come in. You know, you want, you want
• 50:32
  people to leave and go, man, I got the hellish, I got the
• 50:36
  Bohemian. Oh wait, I got those cookies and
• 50:38
  creams. I mean, everybody is talking
• 50:40
  about something different and they're talking to their
• 50:42
  friends. And then next thing you know,
• 50:45
  you know, people are coming in. Next thing you know, we're doing
• 50:47
  a podcast here. Kevin that runs the kitchen has
• 50:49
  been helping me do some tastings out there and we did one at
• 50:52
  sinkers on Friday and we were just kind of talking about the
• 50:55
  busyness of the tap room and he was like, it's he's like, it's
• 50:58
  so busy. I don't think that is great,
• 51:00
  great news. I mean, even in again, if at the
• 51:03
  cabin fever beer festival, I was like, you know, let's let's
• 51:05
  feature some things that people don't normally get.
• 51:07
  Let's let's drive them back to the tap room.
• 51:09
  Brew at the Zoo is coming up. We're going to have the peanut
• 51:12
  butter and Jelly. This is technically a sour beer.
• 51:15
  It's a Berliner vice. So it's not gluten free like the
• 51:19
  other one? Right.
• 51:21
  That's my biggest concern. When I send that out there, I'm
• 51:23
  like, it's not gluten. Free, but again, that's really
• 51:26
  perfect for an event like that. Yes.
• 51:27
  So yeah, just featuring that beer at Brew at the Zoo, and I'm
• 51:32
  sure we'll have the Hellas and and Darling as well.
• 51:35
  It's cool that you did a different spin on the PB and J,
• 51:37
  just in a different style. I think it's a nice little, you
• 51:39
  know, it's still PB and J, but it's it's got a different twist
• 51:42
  to it. There's a different style.
• 51:44
  It is a little, it is a different style.
• 51:45
  It's a little bit heavier to be honest.
• 51:47
  I mean, it's not going to be as, as, as the the mix tape and
• 51:53
  again, not gluten free, but I think it still holds.
• 51:56
  I mean, it's very peanut butter on the nose, which is kind of
• 51:59
  crazy. And then it it follows it's very
• 52:01
  Concord break. You really get that Concord
• 52:03
  grape out of it. Nice, nice.
• 52:06
  I was at Deep South Growler's yesterday and was and they
• 52:09
  didn't talk about it. Well, they did a little bit, but
• 52:11
  I'd seen a post they had created a day or two ago.
• 52:14
  There's an event coming up that they're going to have and you
• 52:17
  guys are involved in it. I'll let you kind of spill the
• 52:19
  beans on and and and tell us kind of how it came to be,
• 52:22
  because it sounds pretty frigging cool.
• 52:24
  Yeah, so again, we keep coming back to Cabin Fever.
• 52:27
  Apparently that was a pivotal moment history, especially this
• 52:30
  year. Yeah, Cabin Fever Beer Festival.
• 52:33
  I sat down with Josh from Yazoo Brewing Company and Cameron from
• 52:40
  New Heights Brewing Company. Probably 2 of my best friends in
• 52:42
  the world again. I would I was a buyer for 10
• 52:44
  years. I know all these guys, all of
• 52:46
  them are really good friends of mine typically, but the three of
• 52:50
  us were sitting there talking, having a beer.
• 52:51
  We've, we've packed up, we're, we're hot.
• 52:53
  It was warm that day in February and we were like, you know what,
• 52:58
  what, what is something that we can do as a, as a beer
• 53:01
  community. I feel like for me personally,
• 53:04
  in my tap room experience, that was one thing that I always
• 53:07
  wanted to drive was beers community.
• 53:10
  Like a lot of great things happen, businesses are created
• 53:13
  over a pint of beer. Some of the best conversations
• 53:15
  in the world happen over a pint of beer.
• 53:17
  And a lot of that is also created through collaboration
• 53:20
  and growth of just the industry as a whole.
• 53:23
  And so the three of us put together what we're calling
• 53:26
  Battle of the Beers. We have a pretty solid logo.
• 53:29
  We have a pretty solid little poster that we put together for
• 53:32
  places. And it's just a fun night where
• 53:36
  a restaurant or bar tap room can feature beer from each of the
• 53:40
  three breweries. The three of us show up, you
• 53:43
  know, hand selling beer, talking to people about beer, handing
• 53:46
  out swag. And then at the end of the day,
• 53:49
  you get to vote for which one is your, which one is your
• 53:52
  favorite? And this will be our second one
• 53:55
  coming up at Deep South Growlers.
• 53:57
  It's on May 27th. We did our first one at Old
• 54:01
  Hickory Pizza and Pub last month.
• 54:03
  And it was, you know, butts and seats for beer for four hours
• 54:07
  straight, which, you know, is exciting to see is people coming
• 54:10
  out wanting to try beers, craft beers.
• 54:15
  Beer Community Unite. Yeah, so beer.
• 54:17
  Community unite I you know, we're our objective right now
• 54:21
  is, you know, 1A1A month that whoever, wherever will have us.
• 54:27
  But our first one was fun. Really looking forward to this
• 54:30
  one at Deep South growlers on the 27th and I hope it grows
• 54:35
  from there. And this one in particular is
• 54:38
  going to be called Battle of the loggers.
• 54:39
  So we'll each put up a logger that people will get to vote
• 54:42
  for. But the possibilities are
• 54:44
  endless. You know, battle of the beers
• 54:46
  just in general battle of the stays on.
• 54:48
  Who wants to see that? I know Battle of the Westies,
• 54:52
  right? I know.
• 54:53
  I mean, like you said, it's unlimited.
• 54:55
  You could go forever with this thing and just change it up.
• 54:57
  It's awesome. Yeah.
• 54:57
  It wouldn't really be anything. I pulled up the Deep South
• 55:00
  Growler post and it's got that poster on there and it's really
• 55:02
  cool. It's got all three logos on
• 55:04
  there, really colorful and it's going to be awesome.
• 55:06
  I I'm pretty. I'll be there.
• 55:07
  I was. Going to say you.
• 55:09
  Live. I live right behind it.
• 55:10
  Literally. You don't have a choice.
• 55:12
  I'm having to get over there. Too.
• 55:13
  We'll be like, where the hell is he at?
• 55:15
  Yeah, we're not here. Well, that's exciting.
• 55:17
  And I don't know that I've ever been a part of anything like
• 55:19
  that. So that'd be kind of neat to see
• 55:20
  that. Yeah, we took like a battle of
• 55:21
  the bands kind of theme on it. So there is no music
• 55:25
  unfortunately. I mean unless Josh gets up there
• 55:27
  and wants to sing, you know, we took like a little battle of the
• 55:29
  bands theme on it and yeah, people will get to vote for the
• 55:33
  best 1 Funny story. We had this like handmade trophy
• 55:36
  that that I made from Hobby Lobby the day of the event that
• 55:40
  we had the last time and actually the Mill Creek Helles
• 55:42
  Logger won the first ever battle of the logger and I broke the
• 55:47
  trophy in the 1st 5 seconds that I had it.
• 55:51
  Can't have everything nice, can this?
• 55:52
  Is why we can't have nice things.
• 55:54
  We're currently working on getting a plastic trophy made so
• 55:58
  it cannot be broken because the other one was glass.
• 56:01
  Is that something you'll trade between each other as they went,
• 56:03
  as you win or whatever? OK.
• 56:04
  It was funny. We, KP and I went out into the
• 56:08
  market. We went into the airport to do
• 56:10
  some kind of just hand out some T-shirts and support those
• 56:13
  accounts. And KP, as we're walking out of
• 56:15
  the airport, KP is like, you know, you should bring that
• 56:17
  trophy to the tap room so we can put it up.
• 56:19
  And I was like, I can't, that's all I.
• 56:22
  Said that's funny. That's.
• 56:23
  All I said. You're like, I hope they don't
• 56:25
  ask about it. Yeah, he goes well, why not?
• 56:29
  I said. Well, because it's in 1000.
• 56:30
  Pieces of glass on the old. Hey, before we get out of here
• 56:35
  with you, is there anything else that you wanted to mention today
• 56:38
  that we haven't or anything else that Scott needs to add?
• 56:42
  We have story time with Scott coming up on a on a trip that he
• 56:46
  took recently. We want you to stick around for
• 56:48
  because you like going to beer cities.
• 56:50
  But anything else that we want to conclude here with Ashley on
• 56:54
  Mill Creek? I do want to say I was going to
• 56:56
  ask, you know, a question about community, but you just
• 56:59
  literally told us about you and, you know, Yazoo and and New
• 57:02
  Heights getting together. I think that's awesome.
• 57:04
  I think Nashville, we've talked about this many times.
• 57:06
  Nashville is one of those beer cities that that seems to happen
• 57:10
  a lot like like breweries kind of helping breweries, whether
• 57:12
  it's, you know, borrowing some hops or some grains or, you
• 57:15
  know, somebody told us that their their keg washer was
• 57:18
  broken and they borrowed a part from someone and had to run it
• 57:21
  back, you know, the next day, like stuff like that.
• 57:23
  So that's another example right there of just getting together.
• 57:27
  Hey, we're selling beer against each other, but we're not
• 57:29
  enemies. No, I mean, again, if if
• 57:30
  Cameron's, if Cameron's Gold Skull Mexican Lager is doing
• 57:34
  well, chances are Delray is going to do well too.
• 57:36
  You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we're working
• 57:39
  together is one of the biggest things that I've really enjoyed
• 57:42
  from this job and getting, you know, getting to work alongside
• 57:45
  my friends now has been classic. I saw, I love the show Bar
• 57:49
  Rescue and there's a place in Nolensville recently that was on
• 57:53
  Bar Rescue and it wasn't you guys.
• 57:55
  You guys are from, it wasn't you guys.
• 57:57
  However, they do. There's a, there's a segment in
• 57:59
  Bar Rescue where they always take the owners and they take
• 58:01
  them off site. They kind of have an interview
• 58:03
  and get to know them. They did that and they came here
• 58:06
  in Mill Creek. I saw it and I was yeah.
• 58:07
  And it just, it's just a little thing.
• 58:09
  I, I was watching it and I go, yeah, you know, just kind of
• 58:11
  one-on-one and with John Tafford and, and I go, they're in Mill
• 58:14
  Creek. But the background was bad.
• 58:16
  I was like, all right, Mill Creek.
• 58:18
  Jon Taffer to Mill Creek. Yeah, that's really.
• 58:21
  Cool. Yeah, it was kind of just kind
• 58:22
  of a neat thing I saw watching watching the episode.
• 58:24
  So one other thing I want to ask is do you guys self distribute?
• 58:29
  We are Ajax is our distributor partner.
• 58:32
  You didn't mention Ajax. OK, that's right.
• 58:35
  Yeah, they have been fantastic. So, so the trucks that I see,
• 58:39
  the Mill Creek trucks, they're probably just labeled for Mill
• 58:42
  Creek. But Ajax.
• 58:44
  Yeah. I think there's, you know, when
• 58:45
  you sign up with a distributor, I think there's a certain amount
• 58:48
  of advertising that comes along with that and that's that's
• 58:50
  where those trucks are coming from.
• 58:51
  That's correct. And we see, I see them over.
• 58:53
  I saw one at Main St. Liquors on Thursday.
• 58:56
  Over at East Nashville, yeah, there's, I think there's there's
• 58:59
  one big one, OK. And then there's a little van as
• 59:01
  well that I know of that I've seen kind of out and.
• 59:03
  About maybe that's what it was like the van or something.
• 59:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have one more thing that I
• 59:09
  kind of want to touch on a little bit.
• 59:11
  Take all the time coming kind of back to this.
• 59:13
  The hell is lager? It's going to be it's going to
• 59:15
  be a new core beer for us. I think it's one of the one of
• 59:19
  Aaron's favorite things that he's ever brewed.
• 59:21
  He's very, very passionate about it.
• 59:23
  So I want to I want to give it its its moment here when he was
• 59:27
  kind of revamping these recipes and really getting back to like
• 59:30
  some true to style brewing methods for whatever style of
• 59:33
  beer this beer came up. And in that he had a little bit
• 59:38
  of a mentor. His name is Fred Schrier or
• 59:41
  Scheer, Fred Scheer, but he is a German brewmaster and he's a
• 59:44
  malt specialist. He's done a lot with packaging
• 59:47
  and things like that. But he helped make this beer and
• 59:50
  he brewed it with us the first couple of times.
• 59:52
  And so, I mean, it's about as German as you can get without
• 59:56
  crossing the pond. It's clean, it's crisp, it's
• 59:59
  refreshing. We're we're really I'm really
• 1:00:02
  excited to have it now and in My Portfolio to have it on tap
• 1:00:06
  here. But it's it's light, it's
• 1:00:07
  crushable, it's clean, it's a little bit sweet.
• 1:00:10
  Got that nice malt to it. So yeah, just kind of want to
• 1:00:13
  give the hell is it's it's shout out and time of day.
• 1:00:16
  I'm glad you did. And we love loggers.
• 1:00:18
  We talked about, we talked about loggers here.
• 1:00:19
  We showed a bunch of them. I mean, your menu's got several
• 1:00:22
  loggers on it. I mean, love, love to see that.
• 1:00:25
  And probably not something I would have recognized from Mill
• 1:00:28
  Creek years ago, but now it's like, man, this is awesome to
• 1:00:31
  see. Yeah.
• 1:00:31
  That's been a big push. Like, again, a lot of the new
• 1:00:33
  beers are loggers. And it's really funny.
• 1:00:36
  When I saw this can, it says, like, traditionally crafted,
• 1:00:40
  patiently loggered on it. Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  So a lot of people don't even know how.
• 1:00:44
  There was no patience for me. We did a small run of this fear
• 1:00:48
  during Oktoberfest last year, and it was so good.
• 1:00:50
  I was like, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, I've had to market, let's go.
• 1:00:53
  And we had a little bit of a thing where we had to close down
• 1:00:56
  a little bit. We did a whole refresh, cleaning
• 1:00:58
  equipment, all that stuff at the beginning of the year and it
• 1:01:00
  delayed me getting this by about 3 weeks.
• 1:01:04
  And so every week I was like. Is that always like the battle
• 1:01:07
  between Brewers and salespeople? Kind of like we want it out
• 1:01:11
  there. It's not ready yet.
• 1:01:12
  Even the diesel, I'm like, Aaron, come on.
• 1:01:16
  Absolutely. People are asking let's let's
• 1:01:18
  go. But so it says patiently
• 1:01:20
  loggered and it was patiently loggered and handcrafted by
• 1:01:23
  Aaron and Fred. It was not patiently loggered by
• 1:01:25
  Ashley. It was not patiently distributed
• 1:01:27
  by Ashley. Give me the damn thing.
• 1:01:29
  That's OK, you can still slam involve it by talking about it.
• 1:01:34
  But it is out now and it will be out for forever.
• 1:01:37
  As long as the consumers will have it, it'll be out.
• 1:01:40
  There you go. Good.
• 1:01:41
  And that'll be everywhere. Grocery stores and whatnot.
• 1:01:43
  Grocery. All major liquor stores, bars.
• 1:01:47
  One thing I'm gonna do next time I go to the grocery store is
• 1:01:49
  literally hunt for that stuff on the shelf to see your labeling
• 1:01:52
  of the grocery store. Again, The day series I could
• 1:01:54
  pick up easily because of the colorful stuff.
• 1:01:56
  This is going to be cool to see on shelves it.
• 1:01:59
  Does look really great on a shelf.
• 1:02:00
  Set. Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it.
• 1:02:02
  Yeah. It's really cool.
• 1:02:03
  Anything else, Ashley, that we didn't cover that you'd like to
• 1:02:05
  talk about or no, Yeah. No thanks guys.
• 1:02:08
  Well, thanks for joining us. It was, it was a quick hour.
• 1:02:10
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:02:11
  It's been an hour, maybe a little, maybe like, OK.
• 1:02:15
  Well, if you don't mind, stick around for a second because you
• 1:02:18
  had mentioned about going to beer cities and Scott just
• 1:02:21
  recently went to Asheville. He took a beer big beer trip
• 1:02:25
  there. And my, my question is, Scott,
• 1:02:27
  do you know, can you impress us how many breweries you went
• 1:02:31
  there? I went to 20 breweries in 3 1/2
• 1:02:36
  days, 18 different breweries. And when I say that I went to
• 1:02:39
  burial 3 * 4 times, but I went to two locations.
• 1:02:43
  So one the downtown location I went to three times on different
• 1:02:46
  days, 18 different locate or to 18 different breweries in 3 1/2
• 1:02:50
  days, nine of which were new for me, 9 breweries for me.
• 1:02:54
  Like I always got to go to Bury all I've been before to White
• 1:02:59
  Labs was awesome. I tried was awesome.
• 1:03:02
  New places I hadn't been to whistle hop amazing.
• 1:03:07
  Oh really it's so good. They were so friendly to us.
• 1:03:09
  They were they were friendly to us before we even got there.
• 1:03:11
  Just just train cars, you know, kind of make up.
• 1:03:14
  They're it's so cool. And the beer was really good
• 1:03:16
  too. And they had like a whole
• 1:03:18
  they're very family. They had like a miniature golf
• 1:03:20
  course out front and all that stuff.
• 1:03:24
  An amazing trip. It's one I won't forget probably
• 1:03:26
  ever. And I'm kind of jealous of you
• 1:03:28
  going on, you know, your your journey out there because.
• 1:03:31
  If you log how many beers you drive, I have. 56 beers. 56 new
• 1:03:34
  beers while I was there. That's not counting the ones I
• 1:03:37
  may have had had before. And most of them were not
• 1:03:40
  flights. A lot of times I go places and
• 1:03:41
  get flights and, you know, you rack your numbers up.
• 1:03:44
  Most of these were fights. So it's we, we literally started
• 1:03:48
  somewhere every day at 11:00 and then we'd go to, you know, they
• 1:03:50
  close every single day. So we packed in quite a bit in 3
• 1:03:54
  1/2 days. Ashfield's great.
• 1:03:57
  Have you been? Oh.
• 1:03:58
  I've been, I've been, I'm from East Tennessee, so you know,
• 1:04:01
  it's just a hop over the mountain.
• 1:04:03
  Love Asheville, phenomenal beer city.
• 1:04:06
  I am very impressed by the amount of fights that you
• 1:04:10
  consume. We will go on our beer vacations
• 1:04:15
  and people will be like, did you guys do anything else?
• 1:04:19
  You must be wasted. And I'm like, no, no, no, no,
• 1:04:22
  no, no, no. Like we we have mastered the art
• 1:04:26
  of the sheriff light or the half fight.
• 1:04:29
  Sure. So that's that's kind of how we
• 1:04:30
  do it. But we'll go to 20 in a day.
• 1:04:33
  Yeah. And people will be like, how did
• 1:04:35
  you, how? Last year we took a trip up Ohio
• 1:04:39
  seven days, I think it was 7 or 8 days.
• 1:04:42
  We went from Cincinnati to Cleveland.
• 1:04:44
  We'd hit Akron, Hop and Frog. We'd hit Great Lakes.
• 1:04:48
  We came back and we. Back through the Columbus.
• 1:04:50
  We hit a brewery that apparently I can I say it, Yeah.
• 1:04:54
  OK, so when I say who farted and laughed about that one now?
• 1:05:00
  So we went. To the ground swell, and this
• 1:05:02
  whole who farted? I created the ground swell,
• 1:05:03
  right? Who farted?
• 1:05:04
  Yeah. There's a couple people who love
• 1:05:06
  that. No, man, we did that.
• 1:05:09
  And it was kind of like, you get up, you have some breakfast, you
• 1:05:13
  have a good base, start out about noon, you know, just just
• 1:05:17
  pace yourself throughout the day.
• 1:05:19
  Next day you get up and you go. You do it all over again.
• 1:05:21
  And do it. Yeah, that's my favorite
• 1:05:23
  vacation. Yeah, it's fun.
• 1:05:25
  I once took a trip to Savannah, GA by myself.
• 1:05:28
  Yeah. And I, you know, we have one
• 1:05:31
  here. We have that hop.
• 1:05:32
  Not the not the bruh hop, but the green hop on hop off
• 1:05:35
  trolley. Yeah, you don't like the Music
• 1:05:38
  City, bruh, Hop that one. No, no.
• 1:05:39
  No, the different one, OK, specific one, the tourist
• 1:05:42
  specific. One.
• 1:05:42
  Yes, I've seen that one. Nationwide or at least SE
• 1:05:45
  company, OK. And I, I went up and I got their
• 1:05:49
  map and I was like, these are all the places that it goes to.
• 1:05:55
  And I'm like, this is like a $50 designated driver for the day.
• 1:05:59
  And I took that map and I was like, well, this brewery is
• 1:06:01
  right here off this stop and this brewery is off this stop.
• 1:06:03
  So I just used the little tourist trolley as my
• 1:06:06
  designated, why not for the day. Went to like 10 breweries that
• 1:06:10
  were off the stop and it was, it was fantastic.
• 1:06:13
  I I, it's, and when you're with the person or the people and
• 1:06:17
  they're there for the same reason, you know, I mean, hey,
• 1:06:19
  we went into this thing like this is going to be a brewery
• 1:06:21
  trip. It's literally, I don't care
• 1:06:23
  about eating. I don't care about fancy
• 1:06:25
  restaurants at the end of the day, you know, so they got food
• 1:06:27
  along the way. Great.
• 1:06:28
  But it's going to be brewery after brewery after brewery and
• 1:06:30
  everybody had the same mentality.
• 1:06:32
  And it was, it was, it was no issue.
• 1:06:33
  Like, OK, what are we doing today?
• 1:06:35
  Which breweries are we going to today?
• 1:06:36
  Yes, that's exactly it. You know, Asheville's got good
• 1:06:39
  food and stuff too. We didn't care about any of
• 1:06:40
  that, which is like beer, beer, beer and.
• 1:06:44
  And that's the best. I mean, city, what, there's like
• 1:06:46
  seven on one block. Right.
• 1:06:47
  Yeah, right there downtown down at.
• 1:06:49
  The top there, Green Man, and just work your way all the way
• 1:06:52
  around. It's just so many and you look
• 1:06:54
  up and we didn't go to as many as we, we maybe thought or
• 1:06:58
  thought we would, But that's, you know, literally put
• 1:06:59
  something on paper and then you're like, oh, we can do this,
• 1:07:02
  this. You get to a place and we do it
• 1:07:03
  everywhere you go and you stay longer than you thought you
• 1:07:05
  might have stayed because it's like this place is better than I
• 1:07:07
  thought or I need to get that beer next or so.
• 1:07:09
  You end up staying longer and not doing sometimes so.
• 1:07:12
  Connect with the bar staff or. Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  I mean, we've been known to, like, get adopted by locals who
• 1:07:17
  will take us. Yeah, like, crazy places too.
• 1:07:20
  Like, hey, do you know about this place?
• 1:07:21
  We're like, no, but wherever the local says we should go, that's
• 1:07:23
  where. We should.
• 1:07:24
  We've had that before going out. Like I said, the beer community,
• 1:07:28
  we've got to the point that especially up in like Cincinnati
• 1:07:32
  and we've made friends up there and you're like, when you're
• 1:07:34
  coming, let us know. We want to come hang out and,
• 1:07:38
  you know, share the beer experience and even Nashville,
• 1:07:40
  too. Yeah, the beer experience is
• 1:07:42
  phenomenal even in this area too.
• 1:07:44
  I mean, I've, I've gone to Sierra Nevada before out in, in
• 1:07:49
  Asheville and, you know, my brewery reps here have gotten us
• 1:07:52
  beer tours and, you know, like brewery reps even here put in
• 1:07:56
  like words at various places. And that's just been so cool
• 1:08:00
  that, you know, to see that stretch.
• 1:08:02
  And then you get a little bit of special treatment.
• 1:08:04
  You get some of the things that just going in as a tourist, you
• 1:08:06
  wouldn't, you wouldn't get some inside scoops.
• 1:08:08
  So that's always been fun as well.
• 1:08:10
  Yeah, we had that at White Labs. You know, they've got a kitchen
• 1:08:12
  and they got a brewery in there. And then of course it's the
• 1:08:14
  yeast company and we got a private tour from Pablo who had
• 1:08:19
  we had him on the other day because he kind of knew where we
• 1:08:22
  were coming and said, hey, which is I'll take you around and show
• 1:08:24
  you the place and in the back. So that stuff is cool.
• 1:08:26
  Like you said, it's like, you know.
• 1:08:28
  The beer community is great. Yeah, all the.
• 1:08:30
  Time. Yeah, I do want to give a shout
• 1:08:32
  out to the people that came with me on the trip.
• 1:08:34
  I'd be remiss if I didn't. So And you know a lot of these
• 1:08:36
  people. So I've got Keith from Porsche
• 1:08:38
  Beers USA. He was there.
• 1:08:39
  The mayor, Yeah, the. Mayor, he's out of Delaware, by
• 1:08:42
  the by the way, he lives in Delaware.
• 1:08:44
  Yeah. Nick and Ashley Rd.
• 1:08:45
  Truck. The the first couple of the beer
• 1:08:48
  community, they FaceTime me when they were there.
• 1:08:50
  That's right. Actually loves my who farted,
• 1:08:53
  she says. Like 10 out of 10.
• 1:08:55
  That's my humor. She loves it.
• 1:08:57
  I'm like, hey, you know, I just try.
• 1:08:59
  I just tried to be funny, you know?
• 1:09:00
  Yep, Bird dude and Brudette West Virginia.
• 1:09:04
  And then of course, Nicks got the Hopping We're Drinking
• 1:09:06
  podcast with Joe of that. And then we also met up with the
• 1:09:09
  guy out of Knoxville beer community that we we collab
• 1:09:13
  with, not collab with, but we communicate with like through
• 1:09:16
  Instagram and stuff. 2112 craft Scott Hinshaw.
• 1:09:20
  So we've communicated with him many times.
• 1:09:22
  We actually got to meet him. He went to Knoxville and met us
• 1:09:24
  out there for a couple days and then yeah.
• 1:09:26
  And then another couple that we met through Instagram, it just
• 1:09:32
  communicated. They heard we were going to
• 1:09:34
  Asheville and they live in North Carolina about an hour and a
• 1:09:36
  half outside of Asheville. And they said we want to join
• 1:09:38
  you too. So we got to meet up with some
• 1:09:39
  other people, Cody's Beard Ventures, Cody and Tabitha.
• 1:09:43
  So they they met up with us too. So it turned to be turned out to
• 1:09:46
  be this, this big thing. We're all just kind of got
• 1:09:48
  together and hung out and it was a great 3 1/2 days.
• 1:09:51
  It's again, when you're with the right people and everybody's
• 1:09:54
  doing the same thing, It's like we're not, you know, you're not
• 1:09:58
  splintering off and doing it. We all, look, we're going here
• 1:10:01
  next. We're going here.
• 1:10:01
  Next. Yeah, we did that in Milwaukee
• 1:10:03
  last summer with some friends. I've been to Milwaukee 100
• 1:10:06
  times. But I was like, hey, I'm telling
• 1:10:08
  you right now, we're hitting these breweries.
• 1:10:10
  This is where we're going. Yep.
• 1:10:11
  And they were like, all right, we're just a long process.
• 1:10:15
  I, I have two questions for Ashley.
• 1:10:16
  First off, have you enjoyed this podcast?
• 1:10:18
  This has been fantastic. Thank you guys.
• 1:10:20
  And will you come on with us again sometime of.
• 1:10:22
  Course awesome, I can talk beer anytime.
• 1:10:24
  Yes, yes. No, this has been great.
• 1:10:26
  Yes, thank you very much. It's been fantastic.
• 1:10:29
  So I'm out of here, but let's raise our glasses to Mill Creek.
• 1:10:33
  I've been nursing this last little bit because I was about
• 1:10:35
  to be out. Ashley Gibson, real sales
• 1:10:37
  Manager from Mill Creek Brewing. Thank you today from Mill Creek
• 1:10:41
  for joining us on the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 1:10:44
  Yes, cheers.