BeerWise Podcast
The BeerWise Podcast, hosted by Mark DeNote, editor of Florida Beer News, delves into the dynamic world of craft beer, offering listeners a comprehensive look at industry trends, news, and in-depth interviews with key figures shaping the beer landscape.
Each episode explores the past, present, and future of brewing, providing insights into the evolution of beer styles, brewing techniques, and the stories behind renowned breweries. Whether you're a seasoned beer enthusiast or new to the craft beer scene, BeerWise serves as an engaging platform to expand your knowledge and appreciation for the art of brewing and craft beer culture.
BeerWise Podcast
Ep. 48: The New Reality of Beer Hunting with Jimmy DeFrank of Lueken's Liquors
What happens when rare treasures become everyday finds? Jimmy DeFrank, beer buyer for Lukens Liquors since 2001, takes us on a journey through craft beer's evolution from obscurity to mainstream and beyond.
When Jimmy convinced his boss to let him stock $9.99 Belgian beers in 2001, skepticism quickly turned to amazement as weekend beer sales surpassed typical weekly numbers. Those early days—when Sierra Nevada Pale Ale constituted a "good beer section" and outdated bottle laws prevented European imports—feel almost unrecognizable compared to today's saturated market.
The conversation explores watershed moments that transformed Tampa Bay from a craft beer backwater to a destination—particularly Cigar City Brewing's launch and the explosion of local breweries that followed. Jimmy paints a vivid picture of the symbiotic relationship between retailers, breweries, and passionate consumers that fueled craft beer's growth. Perhaps most fascinating is his perspective on beer hunting culture's decline: "There was a time where I would post on Facebook that we had Prairie Bomb, and I would walk up to my cashiers and say, 'Hey, 11 or 12 people are going to come in looking for this beer. I'm just going to put it behind the counter and give one per person.' And then it's hard to pinpoint at what point that just stopped, but it just stopped."
Today's reality presents new challenges as beer competes with THC beverages, ready-to-drink cocktails, and bourbon for consumer attention. Yet Jimmy remains adaptable, carefully curating selections across eight locations while staying attuned to neighborhood preferences. His greatest lesson from 24 years in beer? "You've got to roll with the tides. You can't be stuck in your own ways."
Whether you're nostalgic for craft beer's heyday or curious about where the industry is heading next, this conversation offers invaluable perspective from someone who's witnessed every twist and turn. What's your take on craft beer's journey? Subscribe and share your thoughts!
Hello and welcome back to the BeerWise podcast. This is the podcast that looks at what's going on in the world beer-wise. Hello and welcome back to the BeerWise podcast. I'm your host, mark Denote, and I'm the editor of Florida Beer News. This episode I'm joined by Jimmy DeFrank, the beer buyer for Lukens Liquors. Lukens Liquors started out as a single-store business in Dunedin, florida, and now operates eight locations throughout Tampa Bay. Jimmy talks about his start as a beer buyer and making a deal with his boss, hank Luken, and how he differentiated the store by his faith in craft beer before many others.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to 2025, and Jimmy joined me to talk about the new realities of beer hunting and bringing some reality to all of the news on how craft beer is changing around retail shelves. But before we go to the interview, I need to thank Coppertail Brewing for their sponsorship. Coppertail Brewing has been making Florida-inspired and Tampa-brewed beers since 2014. Enjoy a free dive IPA, unholy triple cloud-dweller, hazy IPA or night swim porter in distribution throughout Florida. Thank you also to Barrel-Aged Media and Events. Barrel-aged Media and Events hosts beer tours, curated tastings and other beer events wherever beer can be enjoyed, from in-home tastings with friends to a special beer stay party or even a corporate retreat or dinner. Visit BarrelAgeMediacom for more information on how we can add more to your next event with craft beer.
Speaker 1:Now here's my conversation with Jimmy DeFrank of Lukens Liquors. Jimmy, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me about beer, about Lukens and how the beer industry has kind of changed over the years. Hello everyone, jimmy, so how long have you been the beer buyer for Lukens? Since 2001. Long time, really. Yes, wow. So that's what? 24 years, mm-hmm. Quarter of a century next year? Yes, this reminded me what was it like when you first started as a beer buyer, 2001?
Speaker 2:Yeah, back then that was like the dark days of craft beer there really was no craft beer in Florida, especially If we had Newcastle Guinness Killian's. Then we had a good beer section compared to most grocery stores in this area, maybe Sierra Nevada Pale. We did have Dunedin Bre brewery back then they packaged, um, we had, uh, the owner's daughter, talia, used to come in and package up uh, three, I think, 22 ounce bottles in a package and we had a whole door of that. So we, we had the first local door in florida, okay, and then, uh, maybe we had some Rogue, if I'm thinking Okay, and that was about it.
Speaker 2:And then this is going back a ways, but there is a law back then called the Bottle Law, and I'll be familiar with it. I only am vaguely familiar with it because I had just started in the business back then and didn't know any better. Okay, but basically, the Bottle Law, from what I understand, if I remember correctly correctly, it was an old anheuser-busch lobbyist law that would keep out uh, uh, like 7.7 ounce bottles, 11.2 ounce bottles, maybe even 22 ounce bottles, 25.4 ounce bottles, were all illegal, right, they tricked the, our very smart government that, uh, that it was because of the size bigger the 40s and that's why we want to keep those sizes out. We want to keep it uh, so that 8, 16, 12, the basic, but really we pull the curtain behind and then it's uh.
Speaker 1:To keep competition out was really why they did it so my I always heard that that was the Miller killer bill.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was.
Speaker 1:Miller, it could have been.
Speaker 1:It just sounds like some Anheuser-Busch would do so I just assume no, so it was Anheuser-Busch that did it, because Miller was going to build a brewery in Tallahassee and the state offered them all of these incentives and at the end of the day they went to Perry I forget where, in Georgia instead they they went to perry, or I forget, we're in georgia instead. And so the bud lobbyist, the legislature, was all mad and the the lobbyist went to them and said you know, let's really get them. And so what they did was they made the stubbies illegal. That was like seven ounces, and so all of that, just to make that one, just to tighten the screws on them, is that one little bit? And then that's because it made 11.2 is illegal. Yep, yep. So all the Belgians and Germans, instantly, overnight, were illegal.
Speaker 2:All the bombers Because they were like 25.4, I think, was the exact size, so those were all illegal. So I don't again. This is going back a ways. I don't remember what changed the law. Maybe it just died and no one revived it. Or maybe one of the homebrew groups or distributor groups maybe back then fought it and then got it to get changed I don't remember, but yeah, but uh yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So basically that law changed and then, uh, it was a microman distributing was around back then they all they they sold me done eating brewery, okay, and they came to me and they said, hey, you know, you got a big store here, the the beers we do so well here do really well in your, your location. Um, we only had one store back then. Yeah, um, there's a law that just changed and explained me about the bottle, like we're gonna get a lot of different beers in here, just like if you want to carry them, it could be something you could carry and be unique compared to everybody else. And I was like, okay, so I had to convince the original owner, hank lukin, to let me spend money on beer. Now hank was old school, almost ready retire. He looked at beer like the same way like he looked at soda and gum and candy in the store. It wasn't a moneymaker, it was a throwaway category, it was something we sold for value and that was it. So I went to him. I was like, hey, you know this, this law is changing. If you give me an opportunity, I think I can make you money on beer for the first time ever. I I go, we can have something neat that people maybe will come from farther away to come visit our store. And he said, okay, go ahead. And uh, I started bringing in delirium chame, different unibrews, um, doable, yeah. Uh, some of the 22 ounce bombers of rogue started coming in and just started building it. Building it. I mean the look on his face when I'm like you're going to sell a beer for $9.99? I'm like, or one beer? I'm like, yes, I go, people will come get it.
Speaker 2:Yep, about two weeks go by and one morning, one Monday morning, I pull up to work and he's standing outside. I'm like, oh, oh, jesus, what did I do? Yeah, he's waiting and there's a long, big parking lot, if you remember the old location. Yeah, I'm walking across the parking lot thinking what's this guy? What did I do? And he reaches his hand out, shakes my hand, he goes congratulations. He goes. We made more buddy and beer this weekend than we do in a normal week. He goes keep doing what you're doing. I'll give you more space if you need it. And then, wow, the rest is history. Just went to town from there and just tried to bring in as many beers as possible and have us separate us from everybody else, and that was, that was the start of beer. Again, it was still not a local scene, yet it was still just an in brewery. Tape of a brewing was around but they weren't packaging. We're long years away from packaging. Right, maybe for the beer company, maybe contracting some stuff?
Speaker 1:I think got labor gold, maybe it was still around, wow, and then uh, so those were the brands that made, those were the brands that did a better weekend than yeah wow, yeah, we were selling.
Speaker 2:It was those belgian bombers back then. People were loving those and, uh, and some of the 22 ounce uh, uh, american craft beers were doing really well too, and and then, little by little, six pack started coming in your Lagunitas and I'm trying to think of what else? Sierra Nevada it made the brands that were here bring even more stuff in because they didn't want to lose shelf space. So Sierra Nevada gave us more stuff, rogo gave us more stuff. New Belgium was still years away from coming here, so Adams would kind of send some more things that would start presenting Utopia and stuff like that. So, yeah, then it kind of went from there and then, I would say, years down the road, then a couple more distributors started opening, like, let's see, there was Microman and there was Unique Beverage from.
Speaker 1:Tom. May he rest in peace.
Speaker 2:OVP Tom was brought like Dogfish Head and, I think, shipyard and Left Hand Okay, some Oma Gang was because of his he ended up selling at some point. Wow, you know, a few years go by but the sales are ramping up. You know they're doing great and then fast forward to like, maybe when Cigar City opened, then that just blew the doors off. That was a massive change in the industry in this area.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes was that the first beer that you? What was the first beer brewery you remember, kind of changing your job or making it, making it different than it had been? Was it cigar city?
Speaker 2:that was that yeah, probably, yeah, okay that and then the things that followed, like immediately right after, because then people just got introduced to a local scene that we never had before. So Tampa started way behind a local beer of places like Portland and Nashville and Boston, colorado, and then after them and then a bunch of breweries pop up right after that. Then I think we surpassed some of those places maybe Then maybe got into like a top 10 beer destination in the United States. But yeah, they were definitely the reason we sold their beer online, so we kind of helped spread the love around the United States. The laws were a little bit more lax back then and, yeah, it was a big business for us and, okay, more relaxed back then and uh, yeah, it was a big business for us and uh, okay. So then we dunnean brewery I think had stopped packaging that, that point.
Speaker 2:So then me and uh justin clark made another local beer door which is maybe the first local beer section. I think it was maybe one or two doors, it was their stuff. And then, uh, the florida beer stuff and uh, I'm trying to think of who else. Maybe there's one or two other little local breweries that had a had beer at the time. Okay, and then jj taylor, their distributor, actually came and took pictures of it, did a powerpoint presentation for the rest of their salesmen said, hey, this, these need to be in your stores. You know you can do this. So, yeah, I didn't make up that. I mean, I saw that in other states and I would go travel and be like, oh, I'm gonna have this, yeah well it.
Speaker 1:It kind of helped bring about that in in other places, because other now a local door is almost, uh, you have to have one, yeah, um, because the locals locals, that's a whole nother discussion. I think in in local because local makes a whole local is a whole discussion on what makes a local beer, but that's how I looked at local beer back then.
Speaker 2:This is my younger days, when I would visit these local breweries. Quite often is that, uh, it was a we're a partnership, you know. So I would go hang out at their brewery, uh, kind of see what's new, see what. They would ask me what people are looking for. We would bring in what they made. Um, we would, you know, have their beer at our store. So people then want to go visit their brewery. People that visited their brewery would go, hey, where can I get this? I want to drink at home? They would say lucas.
Speaker 2:So that was a working partnership with all of the first run of local beers that were in the tampa bay area uh, dunedin mainly, of course, at first with dunedin Brewery and 7th Sun, and then you had like Barley Mo and Paradise and stuff like that and of course Cigar City and Tampa, but a lot of them kind of started over here. I think Dunedin Brewery started packaging again. They did a couple of different variations of packaging and then that also helped. And then, yeah, people, we were drawing people from like Orlando, people from Orlando, because remember, orlando and Miami were way behind local beer.
Speaker 2:Tampa who is behind the rest of the country, right? Yeah, so there would be people. I would always see them on Saturday. They would just I could just almost tell them, tell who they were when they walked in. They'd just be sitting there looking at every single beer and I would kind of go up to them like you from, you from tampa or orlando, or yes, how'd you know? I'm like, oh, okay, I just tell him, like you're going to dunning brewery and seven cent after this, yeah, and then back to cigar city. I'm like, yep, so us four like worked in, like we just shared customers, sure, and it was great, which?
Speaker 1:is, which is so ironic, because I mean, cigar city is not close. No, it's not.
Speaker 2:It's a good half, but it's on your way back to like the airport, or to orlando if you're coming from over there. So they hit this first and kind of worked out, or they're or they maybe got a.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I remember that circuit in cigar city sending people to seventh sun, back when there were a dozen breweries, yeah, and now there's yeah, I used to know every single brewery who worked there.
Speaker 2:When they come out with new beers, they would know me. No, no, there's way too many now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it's, I don't even. I think we're close to 100 in the five counties of Tampa Bay. Yeah, so it's. Yeah, it's physically impossible. When I wrote my book, there were 92 breweries in the state and I could say at one point, for a few weeks I had visited every single one of them. And then another open one closed, something changed, you know, um. So then what? So from that point, cigar city launches and cigar city changes the, the nature of selling beer. What was? Where do you go from there? Do you? Do you bring it now? Can you bring in every brewery, can you no?
Speaker 2:definitely. I still try to give every local brewery a chance.
Speaker 1:Okay, but now there's 10,000 breweries in the country, and so I mean shelf space has gotten even more competitive.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, well, the good thing is I don't really have to make that decision because distributors smartened up before that and was like and even now they're like, hey, we can't bring in everything, we kind of just gotta you know when, when, uh, like sun king and deschutes come and they just kind of sell at just a normal pace, nothing special, not going crazy. If they had come 10 years earlier I couldn't have kept either one of those breweries on the shelf, right, but that's a sign we're like okay, people had. They're kind of they're in their craft beer that they want either local where they want. They're not really looking to experiment anymore. Even we used to have a really big single section to make your own six-pack and then we kind of smartened up over the last four or five years and there's not a necessity for that anymore because people know what they like. The main reason to have a make-your-own-six-pack section is because people want to try certain brands for the first time and figure out what they like and then go for there. The next time they go and they buy a six-pack or a four-pack or something. Yeah, now you can get craft beer everywhere for the most part, and uh, and there's no, no need for it anymore.
Speaker 2:So that was actually one of my, one of my goals when I first got into beer, once I started like seeing that the craft beer could be a thing and could be a career for me. Um, when I was younger, uh, I like sports and I like live music. Okay, so what I hated when I would go to, like the Buck stadium or go to Janice or go to, you know, uh, any of the concert venues, and then my choices were bud cores yingling rolling rock, and then my choices were Bud Coors Yingling Rolling Rock, and it's like, ah man, come on, what are we doing? So one of my goals and again, I was not alone in accomplishing this, there was lots of people helping me. But as you see how all of our stores are set up, you know Bud Miller Coors is basically hidden in the store. It's in a walk-in beer cave.
Speaker 2:Local beers are front and center, american Craft is after that, imports after that, and then Bud Miller Coors is like a secondary thing. We carry it, but you've got to kind of ask for where it is. Almost at all of our locations we do that on purpose. I want it to be a norm to go to the Buck Stadium and get a Re donkey or a highlight, or go to janice and be able to get, you know, some good beer. You know, while I'm having a good time, I don't want to drink. Uh yeah, bad, yeah, bad beer, yeah or or mainstream beer, let's say mainstream yeah, it's not bad okay, yeah, um, but then so are you there.
Speaker 1:Did you get the beers that you want into those places?
Speaker 2:of course, yeah, I mean, I didn't personally get them in there, but I think I was part of the, the psycho or the puzzle people that help make those beers more mainstream. So I mean, uh, I mean obviously, this, this store and this company, um, uh, tampa bay beer week people, the homebrew people, the local breweries Getting that stuff just selling People like money. That's true, that was the way to do it. Get it selling fast enough to where your competitors see you selling a lot. Then they're going to bring it in and then the venues see it and they're like, okay, we've got to carry this, you've just got to create a calling for it. So, uh, again, we were part of the, the process of that happening, but we weren't the only people, it was a bunch of us, sure, sure when did um, when?
Speaker 1:when was the? When was the point where you couldn't? Where did you not when? When was it get a sentence out? When was it that you couldn't take any more? You had to kind of gatekeep the, the beer selection a little bit more. So when I think this, I think Erie Brewing Company. I remember when they launched a brewery in Erie, pa, and all of a sudden, and then they were here and they weren't, because they were kind of at that era when we realized, holy crap, there's more breweries than there is shelf space.
Speaker 2:I mean it didn't happen overnight, but it did happen fast. I think it's a combo Bourbon craze, seltzer craze, rtd craze which is like ready to drink stuff. Sure, now THC is a thing, the drinks Others the thing too, but that all kind of just is like pre-COVID and during COVID all kind of hit us at once and we even had to like make some major changes to our locations on trying to oblige to people wanting those things. What made people leave beer and people wanting those things, what made people leave beer and go to those things I don't have?
Speaker 1:uh, an exact answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah I have some theories um made pricing. Uh, that doesn't help. Uh, people getting away from traditional beer and going for more sugary stuff or extreme hoppy stuff or extreme fruity stuff that runs a number on your taste buds after a while. Then it's hard to go back. It's hard to go back to reds, ambers, stouts, porters, you know, and and then the younger generation of people that would maybe be getting into beer.
Speaker 2:I started with belgian beer. I can't talk a 21 year old person to come in here and spend 30 on a four pack of Chimay or something like that, because why would you start with that? It's a big risk to us. I might not like this. I don't want to spend $30. Yeah, um, and it's not Chimay's fault. I mean, it's the way the world is for stuff like that. So that takes a whole demographic of people that would maybe have got into Belgian beer, would open up their mind to other beers. They can't now, so they're going for you know the things that I just mentioned. Um, so it's a combo of a lot of things. Will it go back? It could, um, will belgian beer become more accessible.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, yeah, yeah well what.
Speaker 2:What has to change it is people at the local breweries gotta just hand sell traditional beers again to people. And you know they may be there for, you know, lucky charms, sour. But maybe you gotta give them a duchess and say, hey, just try this or make a version of that and see if they like it. And uh, yes, you know they may be there for a double orange juice ipa. But you know, have your bartenders be like, hey, try this, it's a west coast ipa, it's a nelson. Okay, it's a citra ipa. It's got a little bit of citrus, but it doesn't have a gallon of orange juice in it. You know you may be able to drink this for years instead of getting tired of it after one. Yeah, six months, you know, yeah. So we're to the point now.
Speaker 2:Like there was a. There was a point where I would just bring in everything and even high-end stuff, and I still even me, knowing how the business is, I have to still temper myself. Like I got a list of other half beers today. Other half is a great brewery, they make great beers, but the list was 15 beers so I had to pick. I can't bring in all 15 beers anymore. They're all over $25. I just kind of got to pick and choose and hope the ones I pick or the ones I know of that my customers will like and they'll go with that. But if I put them all on the shelf half of them are going to go out of date. So that's something we got to definitely watch. That's a good one, because that'll turn people off too, if you got to add IPAs on your shelf.
Speaker 2:So that's which I'm not saying we don't ever get that. Every store does OK, you've got eight locations, my competitor's got even more locations. It's almost impossible to handle it all the way, but you can do the best you can. How do you handle situations?
Speaker 2:like that you put a lot of trust in the distributors. You put a lot of trust in the brewery reps. You just kind of keep an eye on inventories and stuff like that. We have a pretty good rule for most of the locations that only have a small dedicated shelf for higher-end IPAs and then just leave it with that Again. Sometimes your eyes, you see them and you're like man, I want to bring all these in. Yeah, I know I can't. Gosh, do you remember when? And told me what I've been sold it in a couple of days, but that's not the way it is right now.
Speaker 1:Well, do you remember when McKellar did? It was like a single hop series. Oh yeah, single hop series.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, 30, I know 30 single ipas yeah, yeah, and they were supposed to bring them all in and but there was a point where we could have that's, that's the hard part of the business. There was a point where I could have brought them all in and sold them all within days, sometimes minutes, and so I, so we talked about this a little bit, a little bit before, do you?
Speaker 1:um, are there still truck chasers? Are there still people who will be here on release day or around?
Speaker 2:then, uh, no, not really, not anymore. Yeah, we definitely used to have that. I mean, one of my favorite things, events I used to do was, uh, during tempabay beer, we used to do the uh, the lucan cellar release series. That was always like my favorite day.
Speaker 2:I felt like santa claus that day like I would just have a table of all these one-off beers Cantillon, utopia, hopslam, barrel, age, cool, something CCB made for me and slid under me under the table. Yeah, something Cool 7th Son would make for me. We would give these breweries barrels from the bourbon. Companies, because bourbon wasn't a thing back then. Okay, and yeah, companies, because bourbon wasn't a thing back then. Okay, and uh, yeah, we let people just stay. We'd stand in line. We'd have line wrapped around the corner. People would. They'd go and pick like two things off the table. It was, it was like it was like christmas and that, uh, you know that just kind of went away at some point. A lot of those people went to bourbon and then the same crew of people were doing the same thing for the hard to get bourbons, which was out of my field, so so I kind of just watched from afar as they dealt with it.
Speaker 1:Remember me yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I and I we just kind of the crowd of beer just changed. It was a more younger crowd and they wanted different things. So I just try to carry, carry what they want. They're not looking for rare things, they're looking for just drinkable beers. Some of them some high ABV stuff has been popular lately Sours it's definitely not sours I grew up on or you grew up on. It's way different, but there are people like it so I try to oblige, that's true?
Speaker 1:Well, if you just brought in the beers that you liked, it would be there'd be some dust back there, Some some old timers coming in.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Look what you got.
Speaker 1:So making me feel old. I told you the story, but I was walking down the aisle the other day and I noticed Cancion on the shelf, and that was. And the reason why I wanted to interview you and think about this was is this the new reality of beer hunting? Because I can never imagine a day when a Cancion was St Lambinus and Rosita Gambrinus, we had some Irish I may have sold out.
Speaker 1:Sold out, yeah that was one of my faves. They were all, but they were just sitting there on the shelf and I walked by and if I had no idea what it was I would have just passed it by, and the price point was what can't be on is in the states. But I mean, I remember, I remember just thinking in as somebody who used to have to be right at the right place, right time with a lightning strike to get that beer. Now it's just a shelf beer, yeah it was a.
Speaker 2:It's a gradual thing how it happened. I mean there was a time where, uh, prairie bomb, I I would post on facebook or even myspace back then. Now we had prairie bomb and I would walk up to my cashiers and be like, hey, 11, 11 or 12 people are going to come in looking for this beer. I'm just going to put it behind the counter and just give one per person. And then it's hard to pinpoint at some point when that just stopped, but it just stopped. Now.
Speaker 2:Cantillon does do well when it comes in. Trillium does really well when it comes in. If we advertise that we had that stuff, it would probably sell even faster. Trillium maybe last two weeks, can't dion same thing. So some of our former hard to get stuff will last about two weeks, but we just don't tell anyone that we had it. If you happen to come in and see it. And a lot of people aren't going to buy more than one because they can't afford to buy right, right, right. It's truly, I'm sort of almost thirty dollars a four pack. Most people don't want more than one.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:And in Cantillon, like I said, the sour is still a big thing. But if I ask a 22-year-old kid what their favorite sour is, I say, well, I have Cantillon around the corner. They're going to be like what Is there marshmallows in it? No, there's not. Yes. Yes, no, there is not, there is to kill each other for this beer back in the day.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, and that's, and that's so interesting. Are there still beers, that people that you have to limit, that you have to do a one per person or that you have to regulate on?
Speaker 2:I like to pretend that there is sometimes utopia kind of, but no one ever wants to buy more than one utopia. But we put it up front and not on the shelf and make a make a post about it and stuff. But yeah, like I said, they sell, they sell through, but it just it's not like before, not the same from when you started in 01 until now.
Speaker 1:How has your thought on beer and the ideas of how much to bring in? How has that changed? Do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you just got to let the customers decide that. So whenever I see them, that's one thing why I've kept this job for so long and why beer and Lukens has always been successful. You just got to turn with the trends okay and know, get a vibe what your customers like and and oblige to what they want. Um, their beer is down across the united states, yes, but not here. I mean every time a you know boston beer comes in, has a meeting with me, or sierra nevada or um tampa paper. Even the local guy's like oh, you're up so much more percent. That's awesome, it's an anomaly. And why it? I listen to my customers. I try to give the best prices I can. Um, most of our stores have somebody that's really interested in beer at them so they can kind of hand sell stuff and have conversations with people. That's how we started doing it a long time ago. Before it was just making awareness of craft beer in general and of local beer in general. Now it's just to point people in the right direction.
Speaker 1:So the consumer has definitely changed in those years.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, there's a. Yeah, there's lots of beers that we sell that I probably wouldn't personally bring home, but I know what they're looking for and I can piece what they're looking for with what I have. Okay, that's the one thing that I think I've always been good with. Even back in the day it's like oh, you like this, well, I can give you this, and I got three other kinds that just like it, even if I don't really like it myself. Okay, usually I do of see, and I see what consumer is going to like it, and then steer them down that path. I still do try to get people. Every time they ask me for a sour, I'm like, well, let me bring you around the corner and show you this over here. Some you know Castile or you know Saison de Ponte and then it's like, oh well, maybe next time. Sometimes I try it, sometimes I like it.
Speaker 1:Well, so that brings my next question is there, how do you do? Is there a line? And if so, do you hold it where you gotta have them some of the classics, or is are you having to surrender those classics in order to get to bring in the new and the well?
Speaker 2:marshmallows. No good thing about us is all of our beer sections are pretty big, okay so. And sours age for a long time, stouts age for a long time. Uh, belgian beers, triples, that kind of stuff ages for a long time. So I don't mind bringing extra that stuff and pairing it with the other things and merging it together. Ipa's, I just gotta it's the tricky one. So you can't um, you can't bring in too much. You can see what sells. You've really got to base it on sales. Even if it's great, even if I love it personally, I'm like I can't. I'm sorry, I love it myself, but I can't because my customers don't.
Speaker 1:So I was just going to ask then are you? So are you Then?
Speaker 2:I tell them you have to get this stuff in bars and breweries more often and then get people to drink it that way if you want this to sell again. That's that's the grassroots is where people try it when they're out and about at restaurants bars, breweries.
Speaker 1:Have you come to the realization that you are not the average beer consumer?
Speaker 2:then because anymore, I know I realized never happened when I was in my I, even before I turned 21, I was the weird kid at the keg party that brought unibrew and I made a career out of it.
Speaker 2:People used to make fun of me and I'm like why aren't you drinking out of the keg? I'm like, well, because I don't want to be pissed. You know, I want to drink this 9%. I'm going to need three of them. I'll probably give one away and I'll be fine, and I don't have to wait in line. My beer is going. It was just my way always. And then there was a point where, yeah, I drank the same beer as everybody else and it was like me drinking with the customers downtown in Dunedin and having a great time and all of us liking the same beer. Now it's just kind of listening to the customers and seeing what they like, looking at my sales and then kind of just giving them what they want.
Speaker 1:I do like some of the new beers, but not like I used to Across. You said eight locations now, yes, three counties, um, I think, just two, I wasn't sure. And hernando, I wasn't sure. Pasco was tarpon.
Speaker 2:Nope, that's okay right on the border. Okay, just pinellas and uh and a hernando. So how?
Speaker 1:does that then. Do you talking about local and local beer? Do you specialize and centralize, or is like if a beer is local in Tarbin, it's local in Tampa too? Where do those circles kind of exclude each other?
Speaker 2:Well, the one good thing is we're not technically a chain, we're family owned, so we're not. I always try to give my beer buyers and managers of the locations freedom. Okay, to a point. Sure, they can't just bring in whatever they want and however much they want. There's some quarters, but, uh, I'm not naive enough to not to know that. You know, greek beer is going to sell in tarpon more than here, so it doesn't mean I have to carry it, doesn't mean they can't carry it. Um, we have a good german beer crowd that's in around my old smart store and that's only 15 minutes from here. Okay, but then my seminal store can't sell german beer to save their lives. They sell more just commercial, domestic stuff. Um, and then, uh, here here's a mix, because dundee has always been a mix, because dundee is pretty much the home I like to think of.
Speaker 2:Dundee is the home of crap here in florida, kind of the epicenter where it started and kind of exploded from there. Sure, you know. You know, with us and the Dunning Brewery, yes, we had Cigar City but there was like the Dunning Home Brewers Club, which were big. We used to do a lot of the Tampa Bay Beer Weeks around this area before there ever was any beer in Tampa, so this was kind of always like the place. So I've been lucky enough to base myself on this location, where my customers still buy a pretty wide range of stuff. But yeah, it's definitely not like that at the other locations, but the way I like them, just they're allowed to carry what their customers want. So that's a big thing with us.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I mean you're talking about a few miles between here and Oldsmar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:And it's just a different.
Speaker 2:It's not much of a drive and it's just a different.
Speaker 1:It's not much of a drive, no, so then we were talking about this. One last thing in bourbon, and how, excuse me, some of the beer crowd might have transferred to bourbon. Do you see that as kind of a right of as folks age on out of beer, or is that something? Is that a different crowd? Is there a blend?
Speaker 2:Well, partly that and then part of the I want what I can't get crowd. That's big, okay, um, with bourbon and with beer there was only. There's only so much of I want what I can't get. There's only so many barrel aged stouts you can get. They're great, but after a while I'm you. I've probably been to many bottle shares with you. Yes, you know, they started tasting the same. After a while, they're all trying to make the second hunafu. You, you know, they started just tasting the same. After a while they're all trying to make the second Hunafu. You know, and I don't blame them, hunafu is a cash cow, yeah, but you know and you know, orange juicy IPAs. There's only so many of those you can drink.
Speaker 2:So I think I really do believe a part of that getting so saturated is what made people just move on from beer in general, because once you start down that path it's hard to go back to. True, I just want to see your Nevada pale. Some people can. I like to think I did. Yeah, I pretty much myself drink Founders all day Reef, donkey, headbanger, that's my tank home beers if I drink at home or if I'm going out to Escape, if I'm at a bar, you can get highlight, escape, reef, donkey, pretty much everywhere. Those three, I only need to look at a menu. I know I can get those three everywhere sporting event, restaurant, bar, um. But uh, as far as I'm just like I'm moving to the bourbon and then I kind of starting to notice them being that way towards bourbon.
Speaker 2:So what? The next big thing is? I'm not sure. The thc drinks are the fastest growing category in the store right now. Okay, but the? Uh, there's no science and there's no creativity behind those. They're great. I mean, I've definitely tried my handful of some. They you don't get a hangover and they're uh, they're not social drinks, it's something they make you sleep good, um, but I mean with beer, I mean there's to get all the different variations of beer. There's barrel aging, there's different yeast or different hops. It's like a scientific experiment to make a beer, I mean to make the THC drinks. It's, I think lemonade would be good.
Speaker 1:You know, I think a root beer would be good.
Speaker 2:Throw some THC there and and that's it. You really can't do much more than that, and maybe someone will figure that out one day and make themselves a million dollars. That could be the next category. What other than that? I'm not sure where where it's going, yet it'll happen. It'll happen all of a sudden, though. That's how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah is is thc the biggest I don't want to say threat, but the biggest thing that's taking from beer in terms of shelf space and in terms of um.
Speaker 2:Buyers attention, if, if people that carry thc are paying attention to it. It's actually not taking from beer at all, it's taking more from wine and spirits, a little bit okay. Um, our clientele so far it's still. That category is not even close to peak yet people are still discovering it. Right now it's your, your typical soccer mom, anywhere from really late 40s to late 60s and then really elderly that's who I'm seeing buying it. So those are wine drinkers. Those are people that want the same type of buzz Want to sleep good and not be hungover and not get tons of sugar. Most of those are pretty sugarless.
Speaker 1:There are some with lots of sugar.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, but that's the crowd it's pulling from now. Now a lot of them are carried by beer distributors, right. So hopefully other markets out there, other retail establishments, aren't just automatically pulling from their beer sections, hopefully, hopefully beer distributors smart enough to tell them that that's not where it's coming from and we, we had not pulled anything really from beer. Maybe some display space. That's about it okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So then okay, that's. That's interesting, what is pulling from beer.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, nas is a huge thing, which I did talk a lot of local people into making nas and some of them have, but in the end result, I mean, if those people just stop drinking, then d are you. Yeah, you're hurting your own self by that. I don't know. That's a question we still haven't answered yet.
Speaker 1:Well, and the NA craze is an interesting one because I know, in terms of our generation, I haven't found many folks from our demographic that really favor the NAs. Yeah, except maybe for health reasons, where alcohol is an issue.
Speaker 1:That would be the yes, but to those folks. I have three children, and my oldest is about to turn 21 and she's interested. My middle son wants nothing to do, nothing at all to do with anything alcohol related, and so that's two out of three. And the other one doesn't even think about it. But two out of three, so that's one third that is interested in beer and the other third wants nothing to do with it to do with that.
Speaker 2:So I think pricing is something also that's taken because of um for years and years and years. Whether it needed to or not, beer would go up every september, right if you're in the industry, you just knew it.
Speaker 2:Yes, september, all beers would go up, mainly commercial, domestic. So your buttermiller cores, uh, mainstream imports corona, corona, guinness, heineken, crack, where he's didn't follow along for years until the price are getting close to theirs and they kind of had to fall along. But now we're in a time where they actually have to go up because of tariffs or shipping or shortages of aluminum or whatever, yeah, and now it's like well, no, you actually have to. Now you're going up even higher. So I think the typical consumer maybe sees a beer that costs $12, $13 for a six-pack and then looks at maybe an RTD, a Surfside, a Cutwater, a High Noon, something with a higher alcohol, higher ABV, easy drinking, and maybe go that route. I think that maybe cuts into beer more than thc does.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's that category, okay so with and then with everything being cyclical, dcv are coming back around um, I hope so.
Speaker 2:I think that it is like I said we haven't gone, we aren't. Yourselves haven't suffered yet we're not going up like they used to go, but they're not going backwards either. There's a lot of craft breweries making better priced options for lagers, so that's kind of making a comeback. Double IPAs, and it's just going to be strange, but double up IPA. Single cans is a big thing, and gas stations and Walmarts and here Now that's getting a crowd that you would never think would ever try. Craft beer, yes, but they're drinking double IPAs for the buzz.
Speaker 2:So what happens? How I got into IPAs? I think a lot of people get into IPAs. I didn't like them at first. Right when I first tried them this was a long time ago, maybe I just wasn't having good ones. I just wasn't having good ones, but I think it was. The Dunning Brewery had an IPA fest yes, do you remember this one? Yes, I do. And they had the blind test, yep. So I was determined to try all these, try to guess which one was right. And again, I wasn't a big IPA fan. And after that night something clicked and then I was just like bam, I love IPAs now. So maybe that happens to them and you got a whole crowd.
Speaker 2:You never thought before we would now graduate to buying six packs ipas or buying 12 packs. That wouldn't touch them before. It wouldn't even touch craft beer before. Yeah, so that's another avenue. Um, so there's ways. Um, the lightly fruited lagers still do. Okay, that's kind of getting away from traditional beer, but at least it's beer. But reds and browns and ambers and stuff like that. I don't know if that's coming back. They got to again. It's got to be. It can only be done at the grassroots. Yeah, like I said, we helped get beer going a long time ago, but I can't help beer come back. Only the breweries and bars and restaurants can do that, because that's where people are drinking their stuff at. I know their numbers are down right now because of how it is, but that's where it has to start.
Speaker 1:Okay, I understood and a good place to go. I like to respect your time, but I also like to finish every interview with six quick questions. So, if you're game, I got six quick questions. All right, six pack. First question what is your current favorite beer? Oh, man, every beer person's favorite question let me see.
Speaker 2:I don't want to, I'm just trying to think of like things I've had recently. I guess magnanimous juice Lord is probably a good Founders all day. It's not a new beer, but it's something. I continuously go back to, always. It's just one of my favorites. It's something just like the name. You can drink it all day and be fine.
Speaker 1:Next question If you could only drink one style, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Low ABV IPAs probably. That's probably my favorite. Uh, I like the low alcohol but tastes like it has a lot of hops. It's not easy to do. Only some breweries can do it. Um, tip of a brewery does it good with reef donkey? Uh, I don't know if they still make it because they don't get out much, but seven sun time bomb was always one of my faves. Yeah, classic, only like four percent, that was. Uh, I can need to Drink Something All Night and Still Make it Home. Beer, and I still love that one. Yeah, and then Founders All Day. Yeah, those would be some of my favorites, okay.
Speaker 1:What's the last beer you had that changed your mind?
Speaker 2:Zool PB&J Mixtape. Okay, so that one is one that I didn't love it, but I saw the appeal for it. I could find myself drinking a couple of them. So that one is not one I had to limit to customers, but that's one of the few beers recently that I've had to buy extra of to maintain demand. I don't have to do that as much lately as I used to do in the past. Okay, so that one. I have to think two steps ahead. Keep a stash in the back, fill it to the shelf, because they're not keeping enough at the distributors, so I got to stay one step ahead. Gotcha, so it tastes like peanut butter and jelly, which I hated as a kid. Strangely so it tastes like peanut butter and jelly, which.
Speaker 1:I hated as a kid strangely.
Speaker 2:But as a beer, yeah, and as a beer it was great. I guess I tasted more of the jelly and it just was good. But yeah, surprised me, I saw so many people going crazy over. I'm like, ok, I got to try this. And then when my salesman gave me one, I brought it home and tried it. I was like, oh wow, ok, I can get into this. Not my normal cup of tea, but I dug it.
Speaker 1:Very cool. When it comes to beer, what do you wish? You really understood.
Speaker 2:Oh man, why people still drink the mainstream, commercial, domestic stuff and even sometimes if they go to craft, they go back. I could, I like again. I I'm coming from a different angle. I started with universe again. I was, uh, I worked for, uh, a family and their their son was the universe rep back then and I and I used to get. He used to give me samples and I wasn't going to have a drink. So I'm okay, well, I'm gonna try these because this is all I can get and I just loved it.
Speaker 2:I remember trying. Like you know, you take sips of your dad's Bud Light when you're a kid or whatever. But when I tried, like ordering Bud Light at the bar, I was like I can't even finish this, you know, and not the bad mouth, but like I was calling for it. We have a good working in the past. We do now, uh, but yeah, I just don't uh understand. It's like food and sometimes I would talk to people like this back when I used to truck, back when you're in the, convincing people to leave that beer and go to craft beer days, I would say, dude, do you drink? Do you eat the same food every day? Like no, no, yeah, no, why do you drink the same beer every day? There's so many to choose from. It's like a different meal, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah it's yeah, yeah, I get people to look at it from different angles, sure, sure, and uh, yeah, so I guess that's still uh puzzles me a little bit. I get the calling, I get the appeal for the, the marshmallow sours and stuff like that and the pancake stouts. It's not my thing, but I see the appeal for it so I'm not surprised by it. People like sugar. That's true, sugar rules our country so, and they like that alcohol just goes along right with it, you know yep, yep.
Speaker 1:What do you wish you? What do you wish people knew about your, about your business?
Speaker 2:um, that we're family owned. We try to put the customers first. We try to do what's best for them. We try to keep the best prices as much as possible. We're very pro-local, local everything. So even you know there's local wineries and there's local liquors. Now, never has even touched the local beer scene. They've tried but they can't quite get there. That's our number one thing with all of our stores is pushing local brands for beer anyway, and we always want to keep it that way.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then finally, what's the greatest lesson you've learned in the beer industry?
Speaker 2:You've got to roll with the tides, man. You've got to go with the times. You can't be stuck in your own ways. You got to be willing to change. You got to be willing to change quick if you have to. And yeah, just, people say sponges. People say sponges change. Your clientele changes. You got to change with it or you'll fall behind.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you very much, jimmy. It's been a very enlightening conversation. Always great to talk to you all right? Thanks, mark cheers. That was my conversation with jimmy defranc of lucan's liquors. My thanks to jimmy and his team for carving out time to speak with me about his history in beer and what he sees happening around the beer industry. Thank you again to coppertail brewing for their sponsorship. Coppertail brewing has been making Florida-inspired and Tampa-brewed beers since 2014. Enjoy a free dive IPA, unholy triple cloud-dweller hazy IPA or night swim porter in their tasting room across from Tampa's IKEA just outside Ybor City. Thank you also to Barrel Age Media and Events. Barrel Age Media and Events hosts beer tours, curated tastings and beer events throughout the Tampa Bay area. Thank you.
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