Is British Columbia's Craft Beer Industry Entering a New Era?

In December of 2023, Adam Henderson (Superflux Beer Company), Sam Payne (The Parkside Brewery, Rewind Beer Co.), and Nick Black (Strange Fellows Brewing) joined me to discuss the (seemingly dire) state of the beer industry. Now, just over a year later, the trio of local brewery pros have returned to drink a few beers and discuss the changes, adaptations and growth the industry has seen since we last spoke. Tune into an insightful, humorous, and overall fun-filled episode all about a possible new era for B.C.'s craft beer industry.

The Great Craft Beer Reckoning is Here - The Growler

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email at trackandfoodpod@gmail.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Coming up, an update on the beer industry with Adam, Sam, and Nick. That's coming up next. Today's episode of Trackin' Food is brought to you by Scout Magazine. If you're wanting to learn more about Vancouver's food and cultural sphere with regards to community news, new restaurant openings, essential guides to some of the city's best offerings as well as who's hiring, Scout is where you should go. You can find them at scalpmagazine.ca. That's scoutmagazine.ca. Uh back in December of 2023, I was lucky enough to have Adam Henderson from Superflux Brewing, uh, Nick Black from Strange Fellows, and Sam Payne from Rewind and Parkside Brewing to jump on the podcast with me to discuss what was going on with the beer industry at the time. At the time, I'd been reading a lot of literature and reports that have been coming from various news sources about how the beer industry was going through kind of a bit of a crisis. So I felt the need to kind of speak to a couple friends who are close with me, who I've worked with, who I have relationships with, who are obviously very prominent brewers, and get them on the pod, talk about what they're seeing, what they're feeling, and what they're navigating at the moment. And uh that episode seemed to resonate with a lot of you because it ended up becoming my biggest episode by quite a large margin. And it's been 14 months since we recorded that. And I wanted to come back to the episode, but also come back to them and talk to them again about also kind of like a lot of the things we presented in that episode about the idea of oversaturation, you know, market costs, inflation. I wanted to see if some of the stuff that we'd spoken about had come true, if it hadn't, what changes they'd noticed, what things that they see on the horizon, and just kind of an update from that episode. So I called them all up again a couple weeks ago. I said, hey, would you guys be interested in kind of revisiting this episode? Jump jump in on the pod with me again, and you know, let's let's have another frank discussion about this industry. And at first they were a little bit reluctant. I think they felt a little bit like, hey, do we have more to offer here? But I presented some topic ideas that I felt that we definitely could address and talk about. And so all three of them were excited to jump back on. And uh, we just had a nice conversation, and I think it's really nice to speak with individuals who are really at the core and at the center of this market of a really changing landscape a little bit for this industry. I think there was a lot of a lot of excitement and growth starting around around 2013 when the BC government decided to loosen up the kind of the restrictions that the industry had been under when it came to tasty rooms. And once that kind of flourished, we saw a massive amount of interest and exploration in in this province, upwards of 240 breweries. And with all that happening, I think now we're at a time where it's been you know 12 years since around that time. We've seen some changes, some consolidation, some closures, unfortunately, and uh we're starting to see the industry kind of like find its footing in a kind of a second wave, second era. So, you know, it's always nice to chat with these gentlemen about this. I always want to present for you, the listeners, maybe some entertainment, but also I want you to learn some stuff and get a kind of an inside look at specific topics and narratives. So this one's all about beer, an industry that I have a lot of respect for and uh obviously care about. Always grateful to talk with uh Sam, Nick, and Adam. So without further ado, here are the three gentlemen to talk about the industry that they love, and I'll bring on the boys. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me again. It's nice to see your faces. We're all sitting here in person drinking some lovely, delicious beers. How are you all?

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Good. Yeah, good. Great, thanks. Nice to be back.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Awesome, thank you. You guys came on with me about 13, 14 months ago. We talked about kind of this industry, and I I thought it'd be fun to talk to you guys again about where things are, where you guys are, what's going on. I always like to kind of do like a kind of a pulse test. And obviously, with me taking over the beer program over at the Fairmont, I've developed a bigger interest in this industry. And I find a lot of things that are nuanced. I sent you guys a huge amount of notes, but I'm gonna start with you, Nick, first. How are you? What's going on? What's new in your world these days?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I'm good. Thank you for asking.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I don't know where to start with the answer to that question. There's always a lot going on.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

The first question, Nick, was how are you?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Didn't I say good? Oh, yeah, fair enough. You look handsome. I mean, you got that nice, nice soft face going on there. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

A face for radio, right? Yeah, there's lots going on. You're drinking our latest release, which is our Velvet Porter. Bring out this time of year, bourbon barrel-aged porter, pretty smooth, drinkable border. So we're selling that currently. Finally, uh have a full sales team again, which was great. Last year was full of a lot of tumultuousness as we're filling out our sales team, but I got a full team again. So I was out on the road with my newest rep yesterday, which was great. And just seeing what's going on in the world, and yeah, things are good.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I'm kind of curious about that because I mean, I've obviously dealt with all three of you and through sales and stuff. How big is how important is a big sales team or a good sales team when it comes to getting your product into the market? I mean, any one of you guys can answer this one. Is it? Incorrect. I mean, I I mean, Adam, speaking with just personal reference, I mean, I worked with Amy, who recently she messaged me recently, she's no longer with you. Right. We've made a lot of it. Which you can collaborate on if you want. But I mean, one thing I loved is I mean, she was awesome. She was so easy to work with. Obviously, when I deal with you, Sam and you, Nick, I mean, I deal with you guys personally. Is having that can person is it necessary when even when you guys already have strong brands to dealing with stuff in the market?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

I mean, yeah, 100%. I mean, Nick and I were talking about this the other day when we had some beers together, and it's like I mean, it's definitely changed a lot, and it depends where you're at in your life cycle, but where like the business and the industry is at in its life cycle, I think it's more important than ever. So you could probably come out right now and be new and cool and not sell anything, even if you're trying. Like, I think where I think I can speak from experience at six to eight years ago, that was not that hard. Ten years ago, I mean, and it it's all relative, like it was easier in a way, but you still had to work hard and you still had to have like put your shit together. You had to be a good person to deal with, but I think it's gotten way more competitive for sure. And so having a great sales team is critical. Like you actually have to sell, especially for all of us, like where we are and our size of our brand. Uh, if we're gonna grow, it's not just gonna be because people knock on our door. We are, I mean, speaking just for super flux, like we're fully through the knock on our door growth phase. So we had that for a while, but like, yeah, that's just not where things are at anymore.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

It's interesting because I mean when you talk about that, it's like you guys are all at the stages now where you guys have been around for 10 years, basically, almost for some of you. I mean, and so it's like for me, what I find interesting is it's like now it's like I don't know if it's the word is maintaining your your share or growing your pie, but it's like I get messages and emails from various breweries all the time that are looking to get on at the hotel. And I mean, I wish I could carry everyone. I can't. I only have so many slots and you know, also our consumer demand and what they're looking for. I have strong relationships with you three. I've carried you guys for a long time and I don't see that changing. But what I find fascinating is that like is I can only wonder what it's like to be some of those newer ones coming up right now and really trying to really just trying to get in there sometimes. It's like I wonder like how do you squeeze into those little new markets when maybe something's already really established, right? That was the thing that I dealt with when I first started working at the hotel in the sense that like all the beers we had on draft at the time were Molson, Stella, Peroni, Asahi, it was all the big bros. And so get even getting them off and moving to the local market was a huge headache. Yeah. And I'm I don't I don't know if you guys run into that still with dealing with like that competitiveness that they still want to possess and still own that market share, but I don't know, I think that's interesting. Anyways, we're getting ahead of things here a little bit. I haven't even asked you how you're doing. How you doing, Adam? I'm great.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 7:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Good. My head's spinning a little today. I had uh a couple Como martinis last night, so those go down real, real easy.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Did you do the 50-50 or were you doing the No, I did just the Como Martini. And the modeling gig he had early this morning was taxing.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, I sold the van today, which was nice. That's a little side hustle that entrepreneurs occasionally get to use car salesman. It was fantastic. Actually, it worked out pretty well and it wasn't as painful as I thought.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

What's this modeling thing? What's going on here?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

That's a joke. Yeah, because the handsome men are.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

When I first met you, though, I mean, that's what Ron Ron Oliver told me. He said he said handsome men.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

I'm crashing the handsome men's party with the three of you guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

You're a commercial member. You brought pizza, so that's really I mean you're delicious.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

We do have some AJ's pizza here. We should give a little shout out to them.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Man, I want AJ's to build another location. It's too small, and I'm not sure. I think they are doing it's didn't they announce it?

SPEAKER_04 8:30

It's all coming, man. AJ's is growing.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

That's what it's I mean. They're so busy. Everyone talks about it's the best pizza in the city, in it in their opinion. And like every time I go there, it's packed. I mean, I love it. I love that they're packed, but it's like I think they could have like five locations.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

I love it. I uh I sent a a review piece that I saw that they rated AJ's number one and they and they rated High Top Pizza from Rewind number two. And I was like, oh, it's great. And I sent it to all of our buddies because AJ's a buddy of mine from a long time. And then uh I never checked, but the author's name was Steve Payne. And so a bunch of people are calling me out that I was making reviews under an alias. And uh anyway, but yeah, uh AJ's is the bomb. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

You guys putting pizza in Rewind, I think it's just like it's like such a like when you go there, it's just like I want to just get more drunk and have more fun and just make my bike ride home even more insane, insiduous.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

And there's a lot of things there I can't score, but I'm also grateful for you. But I'm also grateful for you. Congratulations, Steve. Well done.

unknown 9:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Uh Steve Payne, pizza credit.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Sammy goes to you. How are you doing, buddy? I'm great.

SPEAKER_04 9:27

Things are great. Kids are great. Uh the wife is incredibly patient, business is okay. Yeah, health's good and perspective's good.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And I'm sitting here with you guys. Everything's pretty positive. So I threw some ideas at you guys, some things I want to talk about that I'm touchable. One of the things I've been curious about is this whole Trump stuff coming up. I mean, obviously, it's gonna affect pretty much everyone.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Going straight to the coming with the fire.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Coming with the fire. Got some invoices to enter.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

No, I mean the tariffs thing is is that get you guys thinking about the grain prices? Is that stuff gonna affect you guys?

SPEAKER_04 9:58

I don't know if that's I had to give up the idea that I knew anything about anything. I lost money on the election. Uh, I just I couldn't fucking believe it. So uh outside of that is I don't know, are tariffs gonna happen, not happen. I think it's all probably bullshit. But again, I must stress that I clearly don't know shit about shit.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

So I mean you I mean last time you said you get hops from a lot of hops from Washington. Is that an effect?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Will that hops are possibly a thing that could get so that would need to be us slapping sort of some retributive tariffs on? I mean, yeah, like Sam said though, I mean we're just not worrying about this because like who the hell knows? Who knows, right? Like honestly, it's uh it's yeah. Anyway, aluminum, I think, would be a big concern because that's happened, and there are like there's already US tariffs on Chinese aluminum. So like cans are one of our big input costs, and that's pretty much across the board for every brewery, is in cans. I think. Like, I mean, very few are exclusively in bottles. Why is the bottles got phased out because pricing? I mean a couple of reasons. I mean, they're expensive to ship, they're harder to work with, they're a little bit more expensive. They're not as good for beer. Yeah, the consumer seems to really like for the most part buying cans of most things. Generally, now most of the packaging equipment is cans. Kind of 473 mils have shaken out, I think, as like the sort of best mix of profitability for a brewery versus saleability. So like you can get a lot of volume and still make money on it. The more you go into like higher volume packs, like you know, six packs. 15 pack of laser light longer.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

15 pack of laser 110 calories. Yeah, so why why 15? For the whole pack? Well, why why should we?

SPEAKER_04 11:31

No, that's untrue.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Why why 15 and not 24? Isn't that isn't in like a is that like a it's just a size thing, or is that just like how does that work? I'm not strong enough to lift a 24 pack. Because I my my brain thinks like, you know, when you hold like a 24 pack or bottle of beers, is it just size-wise, it's easier to do 15? I don't know, or is it just more convenient for get or just obviously an easier way and something cheaper for people to buy?

SPEAKER_04 11:50

We just thought that was a good path. I mean, uh not a lot of 15 packs in our category specifically, and and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

But I mean, there would be an impact on like the again, the the more small packages you put in a package, the less money you make as a brewery, too. So there like if we were selling single cans everywhere and you could sell enough of them, most people would do that. And that's why we used to do 650 mil bottles. There was a really good profitability sweet point there where it was like pretty economical. And then the consumer said, Well, I don't want to buy 650 mils at a time, because like one, that doesn't fit in anyone's drinking glass. And then two, they're just like, Well, I can get better pricing if I buy a larger volume. So they traded up once they knew what they wanted. The more and more you do that, the less and less they expect to pay. So like a 12 pack will cost less per liter than a six-pack, and a 15 pack will be less than a 12. So we are the ones who eat that effectively.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

Except if you buy laser light logo, you can get you can get 15 for 12 currently at your best liquor stores.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

But that's a discount that you have to pay for. So again, if you go to 24, then you're competing against the brands that sell in 24 at that price. And then there might be like a profit discussion where it's not tenable for us as small brewers. So small brewers are always trying to figure out, and that anyway, to answer your initial question about the bottles, I think that's one of the reasons kind of landed in that sweet spot of like, okay, we can fill these, the price point's pretty good where it matches up with what the consumer wants to pay, and there's still enough money left over where it's worth doing.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

And you're not competing with bigger brands like the the Molsons and the Budweisers because they don't have those big bottles.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Exactly. And so it kind of stands out as like a category where the moment like we're drinking one of our beers in a you know 355mm 12 ounce can, you know, when we go to that price point, then we're benchmarking against like a whole other category as well. So it is a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

So yeah, because you're these smaller cans compete against different types of beers.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Generally, like I mean, if someone's talking about the cost of a six-pack and they buy six packs regularly, maybe they're thinking about the price of whatever the nearest macro one is they buy, or maybe they are also an occasional coors light drinker and they know what that costs, or they do some other like you know, large brand six-pack. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Even though I always find that pretty amazing, right? Where you go to a liquor store and it's not like a six-pack of Coors Light or a six-pack of Crohn or whatever is any cheaper than you know the equivalent volume of our beer. It's really interesting, right? I mean, that's brand power, that's a that's a longer, bigger conversation. Yeah. Well, yeah, some of those places.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

I mean, this is this is like a big thing that I've been trying to figure out with my hotel. And this is my own personal feelings. I like at my hotel, we saw it, we have 10 lines of beer, and they're all local except Guinness and Stella. And those are two that are Guinness won't just go anywhere. People love it. It's been with us since we opened. And Stella is a corporate thing, and uh it sells well. And you know, Stella's good beer. It's actually good, it's actually pretty, you know, it's a good beer. I don't drink that style of beer, but it's good and people love it. No problem with that. My thing is I feel like we have all these taps, we have these all these great local beers. My brain goes, why do we need bottles? Because right now we only we only sell we only have four Asahi, Proni, Corona, and Ultra. And then I have like I have cider cans and non oaks and stuff like this. Do you guys think people have a fascination with with bottles is necessary, or do you think people like draft more? And because like I brought this up to my couple of my guys in my work, I'm like, do you think I could get rid of bottles? And they're like, no, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I think there is. I think there's certain consumers that will always prefer a bottle. I know for myself, if I'm in a certain establishment that I would question how often they clean their lines, and I'm usually reaching for a bottle or a can in that moment. But I think there's a certain demographic that is always bottle?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I know, I was just wondering about that. I was like, man, I was like, I was like, could I do this? Could I get away with this? Could we just because I would like the idea of funneling more people to towards the local stuff. Yeah, because we have all these lines, but like, I don't know, what do you think?

SPEAKER_04 15:25

I think in your environment, specifically the pack rim and how nice that bar is and where your clients come from, I think that there is a combination. One is yes, you may have sort of a quasi-classy context to that bottle, maybe, but I think more so it's like something recognizable on a menu for people. I think people want to have confidence in what they're ordering. We touched on this last time we chatted, but ultimately people don't want to make a mistake. And if you're big time and you're at that hotel or you're staying at that hotel or visiting a hotel, shit, you can't go wrong with a bottle of something that's famous and fancy and that kind of thing. Great, I'll just do that.

unknown 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

As opposed to thinking, you know, having them, you know, try something local and be like, uh, what have I done? I'm not prepared for you know this deliciousness.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Okay, so I'm I'm gonna I'm probably gonna be in the minority here. I don't get the lure of Corona. I don't get it. I don't I'm everybody out there who probably listen to this, probably loves it. Everyone, I have everyone loves I don't get corona.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

I wasn't really talking about corona, I was talking about your green bottle stuff. No, no, I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I'm just curious like why, why, like, because I taste it. I'm like, I don't know. I think it's just it's so fascinating how strong marketing is.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

It's it it but yes, marketing is definitely a part of it. It's also a pretty inoffensive beer. Like, I don't know if you can drink a corona and and actively say it's bad. There's not a ton going on. At this point, who owns who owns Krona?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Do they own their own? Constellation owns how much how much money do you think they've spent on RD perfecting that recipe?

SPEAKER_02 16:52

It's probably like I'm gonna say in the last little while, probably not a lot, but I don't know. But they spent a lot on marketing.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

I they probably spend a bit on certain things, like they probably solve for like their RD. This is what usually happens at big breweries. And I should say I haven't worked at a big brewery, but if if you look at like all the literature of like brewing science, innovation for a big brewery is how to get more fermentable liquid out of less input. That's where they spend money. So, how can I buy a container or a truckload of barley and make 1.1 million liters instead of one?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Okay, you know, squeezing more out of less.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

So that's probably where they spend their money on innovation, I would imagine, as opposed to trying to improve the product. They just try to market it more. So to the next point, I mean, I actually think coronas are really fucking delicious. See, that's the thing is I'm in the but it has to have a lime.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

If it doesn't have a lime, I was hammered late night at a bowling alley recently. We had buckets of them, and everybody was happy.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I'm yeah, I'm in the fuck, I'm in the Monet Radio here. I I get made fun of by all my friends. When we go to the pack room in the summertime and we sit in the pool and I'm at the firm out there, and it's beautiful and it's hot out, and they come by and like you can get a bucket of beers, and all my friends are getting buckets of coronas, and I'm getting a bucket of Guinness. You know, it's just like I'm just I don't I've never understood it's just not my style of beer. And you know, I love Guinness. I I always like Guinness, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

And they're each their own super iconic drink, I think, too, which is you know, that's the thing with like a corona, is like you just know exactly what it's gonna taste like. I don't really think it's beer per se in that sense. Like it's not in the class of what I think about when I want a beer, but it's yeah, if you ever had a specific craving for a corona, that's a corona, and I don't know. It's like Tim Horton's double double is a delicious drink, but it's not coffee. Like, I don't know what that is, but it's it's fucking tasty.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

I think it's mostly sugar.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Like, you guys definitely no, it is definitely mostly sugar.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

But a small brew, you guys ever try to go like, you know what, we want to create our own version of a corona, like something that we can have that's local market type idea.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

One word they that lands with me a lot is escapism, right? Like the marketing. So it's just back to marketing, right? I mean, Corona's created an escapism for people that if they're drinking that, they're reminiscent of a time they've been away or reminiscent of being on holiday or something like that. Being on a beach. Yeah, that's right. So uh, you know, I think that's a marketing, a good example of great marketing.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

But also, wouldn't you be kind of insulted if someone came up to you and said, I need to have a lime because I think your beer is gross without it? Is that or would you be insulted if someone did that to you? Like if someone came up with you at a bell down and like, I need a lime with this?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

10, 12, 13, 14 years ago, definitely. 100%. Now, being in the industry as long as I have, I it's teach their own. I'm not really a judgmental person anymore.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

That's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Thanks so much. And you move on, and everybody feel great about it. I love it. That's that sounds delicious. Yeah, I don't know that I would be so certainly a younger version of myself, absolutely. I just want people to enjoy it the way they like to enjoy it. And if that's with a lime, if that's with salt on the rim, then sure. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Does Ian Hill put orange slices in his jongor?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

I haven't asked him that in a few years, but he's he certainly didn't used to.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

You don't ask a man a question. No, I wonder, like, there's definitely, I don't know if Ian's one of those, but there's a lot of brewers. You know, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't put they'd be like, you don't put fruit in my beer.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Ian's a curious. He'd he it would turn it on. Would Vernon do it? No, Vern and Ian are are kept from the same cloth. They would turn into a 20-minute conversation. Nah, sorry, it would turn into a 20-minute conversation with Ian Hill, bless his heart. Uh Vern would just look at you and go, go fuck yourself.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Well, yeah, I I you're not wrong about that. I but I think the conversation with Ian would be to explain that you know the acidic nature of the fruit is gonna kill the head and ultimately not gonna be a pleasurable experience.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Rather than don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah, it honestly won't make it better.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Education moment.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Whereas, you know, I do think there is a reason though, too, where like with Corona's, and I don't know how it started, actually. I've heard a bunch of rumors, but if you have a bunch of beers on a tray and they have limes in them versus a bunch of beers that don't, I think it's more of a conversation starter, right? It's a thing that walks across from so like Hogarten with their like giant fucking glasses that are still only 20 ounces that weigh a ton, and then they would put an orange slice on them. And this is like 20 years ago, and they had a big resurgence. People would see that and they're like, What is that hazy beer? It's got an orange on it, it's in a giant glass. I want one of those. And it looks delicious, and it is delicious, and then they have Caesar, if it's the weight of those and the weight of those glasses is fun.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Wasn't Blanche de Chambly like that too from Unabu? Yeah, didn't you put like a lemon with it or something?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Or I think they might have served it that way. I'm trying, I feel like again, it probably wasn't as coordinated a marketing campaign because like Hogarden at that time was sold by Labat or any what I can't remember what the relationship was at the time with Embev, Labat, but that was all it was part of their like line when they did like Stella, Lefa, and Ho Garden would kind of be like okay, Springs was part of that. Yeah, it might have been. And it was, but I remember that was right around the time I started getting more exposed to like you know, Belgian beers and what was going on. And when I moved to Vancouver, and you know, those were being they were on a lot of places, and that was still back like really like before there were many breweries here. This would have been early 2000s. So those would be at the like I worked at Milestones, and they had that at Milestones, and we'd be selling those.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Well, that was the same time that you order a grasshopper and it'd come with a lemon wedge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Oh man, grasshoppers were good. In Ontario I drink a big deal of grasshopper when they first came out.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, is it grasshopper that's uh big. Remember, it always came with the lemon wedge.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

I feel badly. I don't think Vern would have said, go fuck yourself. I think he would have said that's dumb.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

That's okay. We can edit that part out. No, that's standing. No, no, no. The apology. Edit the apology. It's like the sweetest guy.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Well, he might say that. I mean, he might be insulted. To me only. To others, he would say that's dumb, and here's why. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I don't know. I mean, I just I'm definitely obviously in the minority here. I just think that stuff is super interesting. But I mean, yeah, this is a good start here, boys. Okay, the other one I brought up was, and this one I briefly started talking to Nick about this before we went on the air. I sent you guys this column that was in the Growler. So Growlers, if anybody doesn't know, is like a basic BC run beer magazine online. It's awesome. They do some really good stuff if you want to stay current with what's going on in the industry. There was this column that was written by this author called Rob Manglesdorf. You know him, right? Do you guys know him? I don't think I do. I know the name. I don't think I've ever met him. Okay. Uh he wrote a column here back on October 4th called The Great Craft Beer Reckoning Is Here. Um, and I'll link it in the show notes. But it's basically just this big long list of like what's going on in the industry, what's, you know, where where where business is standing, what's going on. And he talks about this idea at one point that brewers have gotten boring and they've kind of lost their luster for being experimental and and that they need to kind of reinvest in their tasting rooms. I guess I don't know. I'm I'm assuming that all three of you guys read this. I'm hoping you guys all did. Yeah, I I heard two things there. So sort of brewers are boring or their tasting rooms are boring. Their beers are boring. They're not being very uh what did he say here? He said, um But I'm kind of curious when you guys Nick, you I brought this up to you first. I'll go with you first. What were your initial thoughts on this? And I the really reason I bring this up is I I don't know if I like this narrative being put out there that this industry is like it has this label that's at this, and I think you kind of agree with me as well that like there's this boring and that this because I think that you guys are putting out pretty awesome stuff. I think probably better than ever. But I was kind of curious what you guys thought as people who run these businesses. What do you think? What are your thoughts on someone writing a column like this? And do you agree with some of it or don't?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

There's parts of it that I don't necessarily disagree with it. There are definitely a fair few points that I do disagree with. The specifics about being boring, I don't know that I see that in the tasting rooms in the breweries that I visit. What I see amongst breweries, especially in Vancouver, because that's where I spend most of my time, is a lot of brewers that are, you know, we talked actually earlier, we talked a bit about how large the scene has gotten in the last few years, how many more breweries have opened up. And I feel like the more breweries they're being, there's people making better beer, and there's they're striving to make better beer because there's other people making better beer. You have to keep up. You're not gonna stay relevant if your beer is not good. So when I go into tasting rooms, when I go into other breweries, I see actually younger and younger brewers, which I'm kind of stoked, I'm really quite stoked to see. And they're all very aware of what the other breweries are doing, learning from those other breweries, and they're all competing with those other breweries to be like, oh, I really liked what they did there. I want to, I want to do that too. You know, whether it's us visiting Superflux and seeing something that they've done and be like, oh, we can make a play on that style of beer too, or us visiting Parkside or Rewind, you know, and vice versa. And I think it happens a lot. And it's cool to see, you know, I saw someone in from a brewery just up the street, not like two weeks ago, trying our beer and being like, oh, I want to make my version. Like we had a cream ale on tap recently, and he's like, Oh, I really like this creme ale. And I want to try and make this creme ale. So I don't agree with that. I feel like our local breweries are pushing each other probably more than ever.

SPEAKER_04 25:23

Do you remember Dave Varga's cream ale?

SPEAKER_00 25:25

I do, yeah. Of course.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

Oh man, that was one, yeah, top five all time grapefruit.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I loved his ESP that was on nitro.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Shout out Dave Varga.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Shout out Dave Varga Shakedown.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Cream L means you're putting lactic acid in there. Is that what it is? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Lactose is what lactose is. I think you mean, but also no. No. So yeah, that actually happens a lot. Lactic acid is like sour, like the stuff from yogurt. Lactose is like milk sugar. But cream L is sort of like a bastardized, not real thing. Like it, I feel like Sleeman is the first, they were the first cream ale in Canada, and they tried to do like a version, trying to remember even how that came out.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

And then Russell made a jet black one, and then it really got confusing for people. They didn't know what. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

I don't know what we mean. Essentially, it doesn't sell like cream. It's not a good idea. They don't sell it?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

No, Sleeman one is.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

It's a metal sleeman cream. Consumer doesn't know the hell it is. It's like it's like, what is this? So, yeah, I mean our cream ale, I've gotten that feedback from people, but then they try and really like it. Yeah, no, I'm not saying that it's not delicious. I'm just saying, no, no, no, no, of course. I but all I'm saying is that uh if I can explain or describe ours in really brief terms, it's it's kind of like a light lager, like a lagered ale. It's not a lager, it's an ale, but it's a very light, crushable, kind of like to be a lager ale.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah, I wonder if that was the genesis of it, if it was kind of like a colch-y thing, but then people were like, no one's gonna know what colch means, and then they sat around and they came up with a word that sounded appealing, and cream was that word? I don't I don't know. I feel like I should know this. 80s were a funny time, I guess. Yeah, I don't feel like this is an actual like categorized.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

They didn't even talk about it during the Ciceron exam, it just exists.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

No, I'm going back to my uh BJCP stuff, and it might be in there, but I forget a lot of that shit now.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

When you brought up when you brought up this idea of like all these young brewers and stuff. Is there some young brewer out there right now that you guys are like, man, we gotta keep an eye on this guy? This guy's doing some really cool shit right now. There's a bunch of them, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah, I don't know how old they are. So young might be like young brewers. Miguel at Changing Colors is doing some really cool stuff. I really like their just approach to what they're doing and their branding and stuff is cool. Shout out Miguel. I've been trying to get in touch and have a beer with him, and uh, we keep trying to do it on Fridays, and it's always right there. Oh my god, I'm gonna screw this up. They're brewing, I want to say they're brewing out of like tin house, and I might be wrong. I see that. Oh, that was a good one. Yeah. Audio engineer Steve Payne. That's your new name, by the way. Yeah, I yeah, I forget right now, and I'm uh I think I've got that backwards. So, but anyway, yeah. Uh, but it's so they don't have a brewery, but he's a brewer there, and he's that's his brand and label. So that's cool. Yeah, well, I mean, like, I got some stuff here.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So if we're gonna talk about this, so let's see here.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I I'm sorry, I don't mean to say there's anything wrong with old brewers. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

I'm just saying I'm just I'm just like, this is me just really like digging into what you guys are seeing and hearing. Like, if you guys are like, keep an eye out for this guy or this team or this.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yeah, well, what I mean to say is I I'd like to see that there's a younger generation that are excited about this and what we're doing, and I think that'll continue to move it forward, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, which is cool. One of the things I brought up was like, you know, like where is Twin City Brewing? They're in Port Albertney. Port Albert. Port Albertney. They won so at the BC Brewer Awards in October, they won the second year in a row, they won Best Brewery.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah, I tried to buy some today to bring it here, and I realized that I didn't know where I could buy it. So Brewery Creek needs to bring it in. Talked to Whitney on the phone today. So shout out Whitney at Brewery Creek, uh, who says she's gonna bring it in. So that's a lead for the city.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Oh, they don't even they don't even have it.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

That's a lead for the Twin City uh sales team right there. I don't know how widely distributed they are. I don't think they're a very large brewery. I think they're like a 10 heck brewery from what I understand. But I've actually never been there.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

My siblings in Port Albernie right now and then went and just said it was rad. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah, yeah. So I was I was gonna bring some of them. Have you had the beers? Yeah, it's great. Good, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Okay, Spro Lake right by Twin City Brewing is uh is the nicest, the best. Uh Port Albernie's a rad little area.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Nice. I mean, no. Um and then obviously, like I I mentioned Beva. Beva's doing some I know Grant. Yeah, they make great grand was a he was a contractor for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

He's the owner. Yeah, he's the owner. Okay, I met him at VC Beer Awards.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I think he was in construction for years, and he worked with my buddy Dan worked for him, and then all of a sudden he just decided to get out of it and open up a brewery. And I love the labeling. He's got like his cans are really cool. And sounds like they're doing really well.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

They're very Octavio, I feel is like part of that younger generation that's pushing that torch for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, I just asked him too. I remember asking him, I was like, so you just open decided to leave your industry. You've been very successful and open up a brewery. He's like, Yeah. And I was like, Did you know how to do any of this stuff? Do you know anything about beer? And he's like, No, but I just figured it out. And I was like, this is where I'm such a Taurus in the sense that I take no risks and I'm like so like I anybody who, I mean, you guys obviously all did that because you own businesses, but I'm like, I would just be so scared to do that, especially if I didn't know anything. But like you guys came from beer industries.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I mean, you're a journalist in 2025, so I feel like that's a fairly large risk. It's very true. I don't feel like that's the most like odds-on play. But I mean it's very true that's a good thing. No, no, no. No, but that's taking a risk. That's something you love to do. So I don't know that that's yeah, no, but not in a bad way.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I just thought it was really cool. I was like, I was like, man, kudos to you fucking doing that. And and he's like, yeah, and I saved a ton of money. He said I saved a ton of money because I was able to build my own brewery. I just built it myself because I know how to do all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

So I think I mean that really is how like a lot most people in North America who've got into beer are just like it's a total fucking right turn, and they're just like, We're whatever left turn. I don't know which direction, but they're just like uh yeah, they're like, Oh, I was going here, I had a really successful career. Nope. And they're like, now I'm gonna go do this.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

I mean, yeah, not for Vern and I. You guys were beer guys, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Um but we've been in it, but it's not that's not really ultra common either. And I mean, there's some of like the first wave, or I guess even like the second wave of like, you know, the Conrads, the Ians, those guys that Dave Varga, who like those guys had come up having like kind of career beer jobs, at least initially, and then they win the kind of I guess like third wave of because I I would say the first wave was like the initial craft breweries, right? Like, you know, Spinnakers and the John Mitchell Times and that kind of stuff. And then they'd be the second, and then the third would be like that resurgence where they're like, Oh shit, I should just own my brewery. It's like why do I have and then that's when there was lots of different things? Where's Phillips?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Where's Phillips and Driftwood in this?

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Phillips and Driftwood would be second wave? Yeah, second, I would guess. Like, and then you know, because Phillips is Driftwood, I should actually know, but they'd be like 15 years old. Like Phillips is 25 years old, 26 years old now. Phillips is that old? Yeah, crazy. And then a phenomenon. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember starting at Chowensing in 2009, Phillips was like always old. Like Blue Buck was massive. I mean, I would say and they're still huge.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

They're the biggest number one of them. Microbrewery, like so the government uses that term microbrewery, which is anybody under what do they say, 150,000 barrels a year? Yeah, yeah. And so that's a wild number that's so far away from our world, yeah. Yeah, but if effectively they're like the yeah, they're the biggest one of us. One of us, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, by a long shot. And then, you know, it's a pretty steep curve from like where we all sit, where we're all fairly similar size. Yeah, you guys are like, it jumps up very, very quickly. So here's a twenty sort of ten. Yeah. Ten. And then but from there it goes, you know, there's breweries that are 15, then there's breweries that are 25, and the 30s, these are thousands of hectares, yeah, code by you know, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

Sorry, but like for Tracy out there. Rankings in the province, we are all between 10 and 20. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Well, I mean we've got some I mean, we got some exciting news-wise. We got some size-wise. There's some exciting news this year. I mean, like outside of all the stuff that's been kind of like sounds like no, I mean that column, part of that column was the beginning of it because it was like doom and gloom, like brews are closing. We talked about this last year, and we've had some unfortunate consolidation a little bit. But there's been good stuff. Like, Yellow Dog is expanding to Penticton. I went to the Four Winds Southlands Jimmy.

SPEAKER_04 33:09

Beautiful. I was there.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

I was there a couple weeks ago, and it was man, that's a beautiful space. Yeah, it's awesome. So gorgeous. And like I couldn't imagine, I couldn't imagine what it's gonna be like to sit on the patio in the summertime. Like, it's just stunning. I mean, and how big is that brewery? That's probably a decent size. Like the amount of volume that takes out location, yeah. The amount of volume they can pump out of that thing.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

I actually think it's kind of small. Is that small? Yeah, I I think I thought maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was in like the 15 hectare range size of brew house, but maybe I'm wrong. I didn't actually go in.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

I don't think that's a really a production facility. I think that's a location experience play. Yeah, I mean, four wins itself is is similar to all of us. I'm a successful and a wonderful brewery. We just collabed with them. We're releasing a charity brew with them in a couple weeks. But that room itself is uh beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Oh man, that room is like stunning. Like sitting in that room, and like I was just like, wow, this is like I couldn't. I'm ashamed to say I haven't been yet, but I am excited to go. Yeah, it was nice. I was like, I was like, wow, this is really cool. And it's nice, it's nice to see the community like that. Like, that's such a hub. And that's one of the other things that touches on in that column is like basically seeing like you know, breweries. He suggests this. The author says this. He's like, you know, breweries need to find ways to invest more in their tasting rooms. I you know what I mean. One of the things I've asked you guys about that, you know, it's like you invested in rewind and you spent a lot of money and time on making sure that that tasting room had a feel and a vibe to it. The same with yours and as well as yours. I mean, you guys do a lot of you do art fairs at yours, you know, like a little stuff like that. So it's like is the tasting room the hub of where you guys need to focus your business, or is it still making sure that you need to get out to the BCLs?

SPEAKER_00 34:34

I mean, speaking for myself, I'd say it's a bit of both. I think the tasting room experience is incredibly important. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Is that where the best profit margin is for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Like to make the most money? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah. So like if you have a if your tasting room is 60% of your revenue, then that's a good thing, or do you want it to be that high? Or like a number of restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Well, yeah, and you want that in a sense, but it's also like depends on the the upper limit. Like if you're a brewery that's doing $10 million a year in sales, you're never gonna have a room that does six million. We don't live in a place that could do that. Uh there's just it's not a big enough, like you wouldn't have a big enough tap room or anything. But um, if you get 20%, that'd be good. If you're that big. So like if you want to grow beyond a certain size. So for all of us, like, and again, I don't know each of these guys' exact splits and financials, but know enough to like be able to say that most of our business is gonna be in the wholesale side. And like definitely speaking just for us, it'd be like 65 kind of bars, restaurants, liquor stores, what we call wholesale, and a little bit of that's like export, and then the rest would be on site. So that's a you know a really good split for us. But the like in a sense, the most profitable thing, like the most money that you keep from selling a product is draft over the counter. But that's also got a lot of expense to it. So the most money we've ever made was when you couldn't buy that and people were just buying cans. So April of 2021, when they shut down indoor dining again for like the second time after reopening it, we were super profitable and that was all in selling cans. So we make less money every time we sell a can, but if we're selling lots of cans, then we really have very low overhead and very low labor. Whereas, like, if you're gonna triple your you know, tap room business, you're maybe not gonna triple your labor, but you're gonna hire at least two times as many spirits. Your labor costs, like things are gonna go up. You're gonna go through twice as much toilet paper and twice as like all the you know, sparkling water charges are gonna start adding up. Uh I don't know what you guys yet either. It's gonna it's just it's a it's a trickle-down effect. And so yeah, well done. Thank you. So, but no, all that stuff kind of so it is very profitable on that one side, but it is one of those things, like again, when you look and you're like, oh, it only costs you X, but then it's like there's all this other stuff, and it's a lot and it adds up, right? But yeah, I mean it's it's critically important. It it and it is, I mean, one of the things in that article is Ken from the Brewers Guild talks about that, and I'm like, really, where we build our brands and connect with customers is in the tap room. And so where we can connect with a lot of other customers can be out there everywhere else. But it's like there needs to be in the sea of so many brands, so many beers, so much other like fierce competition. There has to be a reason why when you walk in a liquor store, you see superflux and you grab that. You see strange fellows or parkside and you grab that. Like you It's an association, and a lot of that could be built from something at a bar or something. But the easiest way to do it is they walk into your place, they're like, Holy shit, I had six different beers from these guys and like tasters or whatever. And I got connected with this brand and I love their beer. And so when I see any of their beer somewhere, I'll buy it.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

Positive lasting experiences, yeah. Yeah, too to give customers a positive lasting experience and have them have that resonate for future purchases.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Well, and when he talks about in that column, which I thought was interesting, he says like breweries need to get away from tasting rooms where it's just like they're offering pepperoni sticks and chips and stuff like this, and like offering a more meaningful, more unique, different type of experience. Do you think that was lost on some breweries for a while there? And they were all kind of don't have kitchens, also.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

No, no, and sorry, maybe some feedback for the author was like, we fucking knew that five, ten years ago. Like, we did know that. Yeah, and not just us, like everybody. And I think there really aren't that many people that think that that's what they need to be doing. Some of them are constricted to only being able to do that, but like, you know, we also fight for like what a lot of people don't know that we know is like all the struggles we have with zoning. When you open a brewery, like people talk about a tap room, and there's some places where you'll have a tap room, whatever tap room lounge. There's like the actual license is called a lounge endorsement. So when you get a lounge endorsement, it doesn't give you the right to open a restaurant. And the city doesn't know that, like when you open a brewery, you're zoned under the city as like an industrial thing, usually, depending on where you are. That doesn't mean you're allowed to have assembly use for a restaurant. So then you want to do a restaurant that's a whole different license. And then you want to put in a kitchen, then they're gonna be like, well, we need fire separation between this and that. But you don't need the fire separation, which means a wall and a certain you know thickness of wall. You don't need that if you're a lounge because it's an accessory use. And these are all like zoning and bureaucratic like architectural terms.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

If you want to exchange those into a food service area, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:10

There's lots of so you can do that, but then that comes at a huge expense. So years ago, when people would open, like 10 years ago, if you opened, frankly, I think you'd be an idiot to go to the trouble of putting in a kitchen. And so most people didn't do it because they didn't need to do it. They're like, 'cause it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it.

SPEAKER_04 39:25

There's not a ton of food trucks were fun then.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Food trucks would pull up in front of your house. Just park right up front and they would do the food for you. We don't need anything from you. Now food trucks are like, okay, we also need to make money, so we need guaranteed, which is their right, and they should do that. You know, it's so it's not the same. And it back in the day, like Brassneck was a great example. Like they make no food or they made no food at all. And they were on Main Street and there weren't a lot of breweries around, and it was a perfect time. And they were selling so many growlers where now people aren't carrying around growlers. I was talking about that.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I was talking about I was at Grassneck yesterday with a couple friends, and we were I was asking that because when we sat down, our water bottle that they leave on the table is a big growler. And I was like, I don't know anyone who does growlers anymore. And like I asked uh a friend of mine, and she was, I was like, Do you guys still do growlers like the one of the girls that works here? I was like, Do you still do? And she's like, Yeah, we still do growler fills, it's not as much. Like 33 doesn't do them anymore. Do you guys do growler fills? We do, yeah. You still do? Do you guys still do them? Technically, we do, but uh does anybody come in for growth? Does anybody come in for growlers anymore?

SPEAKER_04 40:19

It's a very small amount. How did that fall out of favor?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Why did that fall out of favor? What do you think there?

SPEAKER_00 40:24

I cans. Yeah, I yeah, I I mean there's a number of reasons, but I think one of the largest reasons was during the pandemic, people had to put their stuff in cans.

SPEAKER_05 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

And so whether that was mobile canning or investing in their own canning line, but they they had to get their stuff in cans because you couldn't get growlers.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Well, the other part with growlers is if you're going anywhere, you have to have a glass. And so sometimes people are just like traveling around. Amateur.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Amateur.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Well, we didn't do it. I don't know if we were the first, but like we were You never did it. We never did it. Um so when we opened, we specifically said that we weren't gonna do it. And you know, we didn't have any intent to shit on growlers, and we didn't, and you know, there were people who publicly did and they got some blowback, and that was part of their marketing choice, and that's fine. But like we just didn't do it because we put all this effort and energy into putting our hoppy beer into cans, and we spent a lot of time and energy and effort to make that to keep them fresh and free from oxygen. And when you do that in a growler, it's like all those things you just spend all that controlling, it's it's a lot harder to do. And for our beer, we felt like it really mattered, but also like there's a practical component. We saw that the sales were declining, and then there's energy that goes into it because like now I see breweries that are small breweries that are trying to do these orders of glassware for growlers. Like, if you do growers and you sell growers, and then you're like, okay, well, now we gotta have growers, so you gotta order them. Now less places are making them. So I see breweries that I know trying to get together on it, and it's just logistically, it's like a pain in the ass.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

We haven't ordered them in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Yeah, I mean, I have yeah, I have the Parkside Growller right there. That's the one. That's the beauty right there. So there's nothing wrong with them. We just kind of fell as like a young brand. I know, it's it's when you gave it to me, I was like, I was like, it was perfect. That's why I put it right there. That's amazing. She does look great. Yeah, and we just thought that it was antithetical to the rest of what we were trying to do. And I don't know, the number of times I got also have people bring me growlers and they're like, hey buddy, I know you love beer, and here's here's a beer I got last week in Port Moody, and it's a fucking half drank growler. That like it they don't know, like that's the same as giving me a half a can of beer that you drank last week and it tastes like shit. I think because it's been open and it's flat and crack it. That would happen.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

Crack a two-liter, have one beer, put it back in your fridge for three days, and you're disappointed, right? So there's not really a big benefit. Well, that was always my issue with them. Yeah, a big plus for a issue is you buy it, you open it, you gotta drink it.

unknown 42:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

So if I had a big one, I would be like, unless I was going to the beach and I was with a couple buddies or whatever, we're gonna be there all day. Yeah. If I bought it and I filled it, I was like, well, fuck, the minute I open, I gotta drink it. And so it's like, unless I'm gonna drink it all, uh, my brain was just like I'd rather the can thing makes more sense.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yeah, they're they're fucking like super cool and they have a really cool place in our history, right? Like, I mean, when brassneck, I can't remember if it was when brassneck opened or just before, but you weren't actually allowed to do grouer fill. So that kind of like had to come actually into being legal. I don't know. It's almost like they're like the VHS tape of our industry for a minute. They had this like, holy shit, this is fucking awesome. And everyone's like, well, there's cans too, and they're kind of like a better way. And you're like, yeah, okay, but like it made a huge impact on a team.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

You'd almost have to market an experience with it. Hey, come grab your like a deli putting together a picnic basket to go to the beach. You'd have to be a brewery that says, hey, grab a growler and go across the street and do this and do that, and like and tie it into something almost to encourage somebody to consume that growler as quickly as possible to be done with it, like to really make it an effective sales thing these days.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I think yeah, no, it's I thought I think it's super interesting. That I was thinking about that the other day.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

And breweries really do love them because they made really good money for breweries. Like you would make more money filling up a like a two liter growler than you would selling a four packet can. So that it was quite profitable as well to sell that draft like that. So it's it was very impactful. When I buy

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Kegs from you guys at the hotel. Do you guys are kegs profitable for you? If I buy two kegs a week, honestly, they're probably not really. I don't think so, right? I find it. It's more just like brand placement.

SPEAKER_04 44:08

I was uh Don Gordon, a legend in the business. He always said that you know, a keg a week account was the foundation of your house. Anything less than that was a shingle and could be replaced. There's certain accounts, obviously. There's uh value factor to the coolness factor and the pairings with the food and and the relationship with the bars and all that stuff. But yeah, I think draft is profitable if it if it's efficient.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

If it's efficient, okay. But at the end of the day, draft is more just it's brand placement. It's people seeing your beer. So it that way when they go to the BCL, they're like, I've tried that beer and I've had that beer many times, and I know that brand or I know that brand.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

I in my view, that's what I've seen.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Well, there's so much to it. I mean, between the kegs, between the delivery of it, between sales reps showing up and drinking beers and and spending money and supporting and that kind of thing, that yeah, it's uh because the average 50 liters want to get lost.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

The average 50 liters, what, 200 bucks?

SPEAKER_02 44:53

The average 180, maybe 180 to 20, depending on what kind of beer it is.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah. But I mean, like delivery costs, the guy you're paying to deliver it, how much is the actual keg itself? Those are not cheap. No, they're like 150 to 160 bucks.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

You can lose that keg or it disappears or somebody takes it home or it gets damaged.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

You probably lose how many a year, probably.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

And we don't really know. Yeah, some people would say like 10% a year. Well, uh, so I I've heard figures from like three to seven, but so we now work with keg share, and we always have, but they have a program now where we pay per fill, which is super helpful. So that's good. But so I've taken like recently, and I don't know, I'll say this because no one ever said this to me. We always thought we kind of made money on them. As I break down like our financials and what I now pay, and we have a lot of per like you know, our arrangement with Phillips, like we pay a much easier to determine set delivery price when they deliver our core keg. So I know exactly what that charges, I know exactly what I pay to rent the keg, I know exactly what the cost of the liquid is, and our cost of liquid's higher than some, but we actually charge a lot more for a keg. So like after I peel all that back and I ascribe like what it takes to you know run the brewery, and I say, okay, what percentage of that am I allotting? I really don't make any money on the keg. So the way that we kind of justify it is this is how I've done it, is there's no one like us or in beer, from us up to Phillips, which are the biggest next breweries, that's selling a lot of packaged beer that isn't selling draft beer. So with I can't prove the negative that is you don't have to sell draft beer to sell package beer. The only exception is Corona. And I'm not in the fucking same business as Corona. So that says to me you have to sell draft beer, even though it doesn't make money. And the reason you just kind of hinted at it is when I put a keg on tap, somewhere, at least a hundred people, and like a hundred different people, it's gonna hit their lips at some place that they love and we're a part of that. And I think that's worth something because you can't get that for no money anywhere else.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Like you drop 20 bucks for a pint of it at the pack rim, and then you find a four-pack for 17 bucks, you're like, what a steal. I get four of them now for the price of one.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Hey, there's something beautiful about coming to my hotel and paying $17.25 for a pint of superflux.

SPEAKER_04 46:57

Adam makes a great point. It's about predictability, right? So on these accounts that go through a keg or two or three or four a week, and it's a and it's a delivery that you understand, it's a delivery that you're sure that your delivery team can do efficiently. You get your empties back on time, you get your empties back in rotation to clean on time. Then now you're talking about efficiencies of business. These rotator taps that you drop one keg off here and two kegs off there. You don't hear from them for a month. You you got to go pick them up at an odd time where you're not actually delivering things, then the drafting becomes complicated.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Yeah, because you I mean you run a you run a distribution business. I mean, you you guys, you guys. That's right. Yeah, you I mean you understand the logistics of this. And you're you're partnering now with Philips for sales. Yeah, and distribution for our draft. Is that just a more they they can just handle the volume easier for you?

SPEAKER_02 47:45

So like on the sales side, the idea for us is that as I kind of hinted at before, we we have two very different businesses. Like we're in hospitality, and I'm like a neophyte on the hospitality side. Like I'm learning all the things that like restaurant owners have struggled with and had to learn and we have that excuse me in our like in the tap room to some degree. But our tap room economics are very different than the restaurant. It means new, new student. Uh but like so on the wholesale side, we're just like we finally got to a spot where we're big enough and we have you know some scale on our beer where we're like we have three brands we want to grow. If you asked me like 18 months ago and someone was like, I could just double these or triple these, would you want that? I'd probably have to say no because I don't think I could like hold on to that ride. I wouldn't be able to handle it. Where'cause you wouldn't be able to handle the volume. Yeah, all the things that come along with it. Like it's really hard. Like it's a logistical, like you guys know, like running and brew. It's like you have to start thinking, where am I gonna source that from? How am I gonna make money? How am I gonna brew enough of that? Which is one thing, but then how am I gonna distribute it? Where is it gonna go? Like, BC is a giant fucking province, and most of the people don't live in it. Like they live here, you know. And but you have to sell in Kelowna and you know, the island. But if you're not from the island, then how do you get it? You have to? If you want to be bigger and bigger and bigger, like next, like you so you don't have to, sorry, but if you want to continue to grow and you want to service the province. So we had anyway, our approach was we had to answer like how do we get everything.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

You decided a little while ago, I have three brands that I want to grow.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

I decided a while ago we want to have three to five, and we now have three, and we weren't specific on what they were, and then now we put them in a position where Phillips can come in and help us grow them and sell them. So we can just say, go sell them, sell as many as you want, go crazy.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Because you have that with Talisman, right? And Guardian. Are those are you those are the two ones you guys really grow? Yeah, we have four that we really grow. Four like you really want to grow, and like those are like the core difference. Yeah, is it ever like you guys ever worry that you like you're never gonna be able to meet the demand? Yeah. Is that ever an issue?

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Well, I mean, we've worried that most of our lives until now, and then like we're not fully, fully at capacity, but in the summer we are. So when I first started in the business, I met Ian Hill because I wanted to brew beer at his brewery when he was at Yale Town, and I met most of the brewers because I was knocking on everyone's door, wanted to be a contract brewer, and everyone very politely said fuck off. They didn't actually say that, but they said no, there's no way like we're at capacity. And almost every brewery that's been any good has been fully at capacity for like the last 10 years, and just now there's lots of capacity out there because people have overbuilt, the market's softened, there's breweries that aren't selling as much as we used to. We got so you can go find other places to brew beer, and we grew up contract brewing, so like I know that if if we hit the ceiling, so to speak, of like what we can produce, we'll just go talk to somebody else who isn't filled up for beer.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Well, I mean we got this triple threat collective coming here. Yeah, like that's that's a new thing that was announced a little while ago.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Well that's super cool because it's brand new.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah, they're taking over the old Andina space up on Powell and it's uh slow hand temporal artisan ales. I've never heard of that.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

You haven't heard of Temporal?

SPEAKER_01 50:56

No, I never have. Oh so I I I apologize to Temporal. Um sure they have great beers, but I mean it the three of them are basically going into the old Andina space and they're sharing it, which I thought was really cool. And I was like, it's a smart idea, it's a big space. And I don't know, do you like do you think more breweries should do that? Like the smaller ones, the ones that are like maybe we should just partner up and team up together. I think that I thought that was a really cool idea.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

I think some may not have a choice, but yeah, go ahead, next, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

Yeah, I I I think this is a unique situation that could really work out. It's gotta be a pretty harmonious relationship, which I feel like these three brands can have. They don't step on each other's toes. Kind of like super flex with Phillips, is it's they're not they're not competing really with each other. So I think this is a unique situation where they're there are three very different brands that aren't gonna compete with each other. So that that is certainly a situation that can that can work for sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Well, I mean, and Sammy, you just you picked up Slackwater recently. We did. What I love about it is that you guys are like, We're all we're all here, we're all business people, we want to sell good beer. Like, why not why can't we like you're working with Phillips? Why not work together? You know, we we mutually can benefit each other in some way here.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

And like like your reasoning for picking up Slackwater, were you friends with them, or is that just more like Yeah, I mean Li Liam's a good friend, and uh Saxon who who came with us in in the whole um Slackwater, by the way, is in Cologne.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

Penticton. In Penticton, sorry, my bad.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

Yeah, uh Saxon who also worked with them is a guy who we we're we're really close with. And and ultimately, I mean, that was a brand that was gonna just die. The building was for sale, the equipment was for sale, and and there was gonna it was gonna have no home. Liam deserved better than that, and Slackwater as a brand deserved better than that. So we were lucky enough to be able to pull that off.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

What's so what's you're gonna be they're still gonna be making their beer, you're just gonna be distributing it, is that how it's gonna work?

SPEAKER_04 52:36

No, we we make the beer. Kids made it rewind, and uh ultimately that's their new for Walt brewery-wise. And as far as sort of their distribution and their accounts and the interior in Vancouver, nothing changes. Right? You know, we took we took the recipes, we we make the beer, we get it to everybody, and and they're fortunately, timing-wise and everything, is that there's been no uh delays in service, there's been no blips, there's been no outages in any way.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

But is that is so that so that basically touches on what you were just saying, Adam, in the sense of like you guys obviously had some brewery space still to fill. Were you looking to fill that space? And that's why you're interested in the case.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

The rewind facility did, and I mean that speaks to a number of things that we've all touched on today about sort of the new age and new breweries and the struggle of small, little, independent breweries. And um, so there was room at Rewind. And uh that was a great opportunity for us to fill some space.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

That's a good thing. Absolutely. That's awesome. One of the things I was really interested in when I was looking through and wanting to speak with you guys, I was like, I see some good things. I see all these really good things with these with the market going on right now, and it's you know, it's not all like doom and gloom, as maybe I think it sounded like what we were talking about a year ago. Even though there has been some, and I'm sure I'm sure it, you know, January is probably the worst month for me to be talking to you guys. I probably should be talking to you guys in August when you guys are it's as you said, Sam, last time. What is it? Sun is the best marketer for beer.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

Sun Sun's the best beer rep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Yeah, sun's the best beer rep. So January is probably not the best beer rep, but you know, I think I think there's a lot of.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

January's been good. Uh I mean I I'm full of optimism. I mean, I'm also full of George Barrel Lord Barley corn bourbon barrel lager at 6.5%. I'm full of that too. Yeah, what is it?

SPEAKER_00 54:12

It's uh it's a bourbon barrel-aged lager.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

I went into the fridge. I was like, I could use light lager all drinking.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

We drank them, and then I'm like, oh we drank this, or at least I drank this on the last podcast. I remember you brought this up with this podcast. And it's so much it's it's even better now. It's delicious. It's the bourbon flavor is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

It's one of my favorites that we do every year. I get excited about it every year. And there's a brewer that works with us that says, Nick, I think you might like bourbon more than beer. And I think they might be. I think that might be true, Nick.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

You're good to Ron Oliver and he does love a lot of bourbon. It's a great percentage point of 6.5.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Yeah, I'm I'm actually surprised you're still calling it this, though, in light of Lord Barleycorn's uh past deeds that have come to light. Lord Barleycorn. You know about Lord Barleycorn. I did not as of yet been aware of it.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

1982 was really astonishing.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

That was a different Lord Barleycorn.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

It's not a Lord Barleycorn, it's just fictitious. What's interesting about this is we uh the beer awards were back in October, and strange falls, you guys won best of show with your cool ship Lambic. Did you bring that? Uh no, he's he didn't, he said he didn't have any.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

We just sold out very quickly after after that BC beer award. What's a Lambic? We call it Lambic style because I'm fairly certain you can only call it Lambic if it's within the region, correct?

SPEAKER_02 55:31

You can do whatever you want, but the people of Brussels will get mad at you. That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's what I mean. Or from Flanders.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

So it's a Lambic style, which is the the region in Belgium that makes that style of beer. It's a it's a sour beer. So this one we made with a cool ship, which is effectively a massive open vessel that will collect yeast from the air and flavor that way.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

Bugs and paint. No, for real though. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

So is that obviously that's a one you know, specialty beer. Is it something you guys continue to do? Are you gonna be doing that?

SPEAKER_00 56:04

We're gonna do the cool ship too. That's the working title. I don't know if that's the new one, but that I believe we're aiming for a spring release. But yeah, it's that's not really uh exactly imitatable beer.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

So, better question. I recently did an interview with this is a restaurant thing, but I recently did an interview with Bailey from Gary's. Lovely woman, one of the best young entreprene restaurateurs out there.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

Shout out Bailey, Bailey's amazing. Yeah, Bailey. That's my local, new local. That's the best one.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

Gary's the best. So I interviewed her recently and I was talking to her about what it was like to be the restaurant afterwards. What was the reception after you guys got your Michelin Bib Grimah? And she told me that after they got their Bib Grimah, they got over 500 reservation requests the next day. My curiosity is A, are the beer awards big here in BC? Do they affect you guys? So when Lambic won that, did you notice a big increase in sales?

SPEAKER_04 56:53

Nick's won so many that at this point, you know, he he doesn't know how to answer this because he wins you know dozens a year kind of thing. So yeah, it's tough. So put him on the spot again. Yeah, ask him again.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

It's gonna get a little squirrely. No, yeah, it's it's it's great. I mean, Sam and I have always joked that there should be a best rep category, really. But uh review ten years straight.

SPEAKER_04 57:14

Anthony Morelli would actually have knocked you off recently. He's the best, he's the best ever.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Um, but I'm I'm joking. Uh no, they're great. They are great. Uh I mean with that beer specifically with us this year, it was really cool to get. And uh, I was really proud specifically of of our brew team. You know, Carly, who's our head brewer. I was really stoked for her for that, because you know, she does a lot of great work, and I'm terrifically happy that she got recognized for that. With that beer specifically, it had already been out for about two or three months. So we only had much left over anyway. So we got a bunch of calls for it, and it went out the door very quickly. So you did get interest after that.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

Yeah, so that's good. We got calls about that beer.

SPEAKER_04 57:54

Let me help humble Nick, right? Because he's the most humble guy on earth. My opinion is that awards really help on the sales process, right? So in the sense of getting it on a shelf, hey, we just want a BC beer award, is really, really helpful, right? And and what your social media team does with it and what what it does for your brewers, Pride Factor, what it does for your tasting room, Pride Factor, is really, really beneficial. So from a just a straight, I don't think it's like Michelin Star, where Michelin gets awarded to a restaurant and you can't get a rezzo there for a couple months. I think it's a trickle-down effect in the sense that the the brew team's proud, the tasting room team's head high with a with the ability to talk to somebody over a counter and say, oh, by the way, this just did this, and our sales team being able to walk in and be like, by the way, you don't carry our bronze medal winning pale ale, which was our bronze medal winning pale ale.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

So, what fucking award is a Corona winning? Why the fuck are they still so popular? I'll never get it. I'm just I'm just being annoyed. Marketing again, they're not gonna win a lot of marketing. Exactly. Do you think if you guys had unlimited funds, you think you could outmarket brands? And you'd be like, let's say, let's say, prime example, let's say I give you uh two million dollars today, and I give you that just to market, you only on marketing, on the one beer you think would resonate the most with the with the BC community, and you get to spend two million dollars on marketing, ads, whatever the fuck you want to do, in BC for an entire year. Do you think that would drive a lot of sales?

SPEAKER_04 59:17

I'm not that smart. If somebody smarter than me was handed two million bucks, maybe. So, Nick and Adam, you guys go ahead and answer. You're both smarter than me. I guess I'm just saying, like, can you just buy your way to like making a really popular beer?

SPEAKER_01 59:27

Um probably, I think.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

Molson keeps trying with their madris and their this and that. So, like, no.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

It's still the beer still has to have some flavor. I gotta say, I did have one of those uh Madris at uh Canucks game recently, and I it was not as objectionable as I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 59:43

But it's still not, but it's still not on tap everywhere and crushing it in liquor stores and that's right.

SPEAKER_02 59:48

That Rogers Arena is a pretty good account, though. That would have been cool. We sell a lot of Dreamboat in there. We sell a lot of coverage. Who's on it, Rogers? You're there? All three. All three of you guys are.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Is Rogers a big account for you guys?

SPEAKER_02 59:58

It is actually our biggest account. It's your biggest account. And we're not even supposed to advertise that we're there. I hope I didn't just violate that.

unknown 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Superflux that Rogers. Adam's talking about it. Why you not allowed to official drank and then you tweet that? Why are you? It was great.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

Well, they have an arrangement with sort of it was no, it was it was Budweiser and Labat last year, and then it switched this season or year. Um, I think it started with the hockey season, obviously, but uh I noticed it with the hockey season and then uh your biggest account? Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, because they go through like single location. So like our biggest account would be like you know, Dimitri at I'm two kegs a week for you. That's what I do with you. You guys, you guys are one of our bigger draft accounts for sure, like with what you pump through and the consistency with what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

We're consistently two weeks, two kids a week.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

And but that's the other thing is that like we're permanent there. Whereas like, you know, Earl's would be one of our biggest accounts, like we're at all the Earls in in British Columbia. And so uh, but yeah, Rogers is great. Um, but one of the things that they do there is uh, and I didn't even know this, I don't even know how we got this, but like we they stock us in the boxes, so there'll be color and shape in the boxes, and they go through a ton of cans that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Like my my you know, my buddy calls me the day, and he's he's well off and far more well off than I am. But he invites us all down to the box and he opens the bigger.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

You're hanging for a coghill?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:18

No. No, I wasn't hanging with my coghill from Yellow Dog. That's a good one, though. I love that. But we were in the suite and the options were four macros or color and shape, and it was like that was easy for our group to better question. They were bringing extra Yeah, yeah, Madry all day, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

But you know when you you know when you walk into like because I I went to a Canucks game last week, got free tickets, and let's say you guys were you know when you walk along the concourse and you know all the where you buy all the cans of beers? Let's say laser light, color and shape, talisman are in there. How much volume would that increase on your sales if it was just never if you were in every single one of them? I would assume it would be a 100% increase on our draft sales.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

Oh yeah, we're a wild amount of it. We have three draft locations in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

But if you're in every single one.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:04

Oh, ridiculous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

But that's just like that's going back to what I said before, like my draft take on like liquid, it's liquid to lips, and you don't make that much money on it. Like, to prove why I think that's important to breweries, they're a huge global brewer and they're coming in there and they're saying, we're gonna pay you a fuck ton of money for the exclusive rights to do just that. They don't care about the volume, it's not the money they're making on that. They're just like all of these freaking people are saying only our beasting our shit. And if we want to launch Madri, that's how we're gonna do it. Whether it works or it makes it. Who makes Madri? It's Malson. Um, but whether it works or it doesn't, that's what so for them. I would imagine the net net of that is, I mean, they might make some money on it, but like, you know, they're really like they're super low margin businesses in the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:47

It's I'll have a what's that called? Madri. Oh yeah, Madri. Two Madri's over here. So if you guys are bill for two.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

If you all of a sudden go up to the Occalinis and go, here, I'll give you five million dollars. I want laser light in every fridge here at the Rogers Arena for the next five years. That would pay off in real quickly, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:04

I I I again these guys are smarter than me. I think that's an NHL contract, not uh I think that's an NHL contract. Well, I think they have town specific. I don't think if you go to Alberta, it's a Budweiser at the No, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

It's Arena. Yeah, it'd be arena.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:17

It's arena per arena?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Yeah, because the official NHL sponsors. Oh well, they could have that too. And maybe it's in Canada versus because they have like, you know, they'll have like, I don't even know what it is right now. They'll have like, I'm sure it uh whatever. At one point it's been Budweiser would be the official beer of I'll ask AI quietly over here. The NHL or NFL or something. But no, no, no, each arena will do its own deals for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

No, no, and that makes sense. I guess I just I just think that like I feel like it's an uneven playing field when you guys have to deal with that stuff because you're getting you're just getting bought up because you're getting bought up because they just have more money.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

But for example, like, you know, my my new colleagues at Phillips, they now have uh a relationship with uh Sabon Arena in Victoria. And I've actually never been to Sabon Arena, but I was like, I would have assumed you guys would have always been there, right? And they were just like, nope, that's new for us, and that's huge for them. Whereas like they had in, you know, they had to go in as like the local brand, again, competing in a you know smaller market against those big brands doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

Well, I mean, and if you think about it, right? You got what, probably 41 fucking games, home games a year, and that's 20,000 people per game. And concerts, yeah. You know, and concerts and everything. So it's like that's a lot of people seeing your brand.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

Perplexity. The main beer contracts in the NHL arena is very by team and location, often involving major breweries. Here's some key partnerships.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

Next, look up Lord Barley corn and his deeds or the worst.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

Can I tell a small cool ship story quickly, though? Like from uh so it's called the cool ship, like the the vessel that you brewed that beer. It's called the cool ship.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

Yeah, so we're very inventive with the name.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:45

I was in Chicago. We were we were doing a collab brewery with Mars brewing in Chicago, Vern and I went down there. Vern and I got hammered drunk. We had a great time. We we went everywhere, went to an amazing restaurant. Chicago's my favorite USC. It's very, very fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

Agreed.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:59

Long story short, is I've arranged the next day following this collab beer to go and visit some breweries that I'd seen before and that kind of thing. We go to Dovetail and they've got one of these. Vern is so hungover, bless his heart, that I've signed him up for this tour, and I assume the tour is going to be 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour. The tour is three hours long. Vern's just hung over, he's never been, and the first hour of it was somebody talking about differentiations between water. So, Vern, who's done eight billion tours in his life, is sitting there listening to like a 19-year-old kid talk about water and beer in the worst state he's ever been in, physically or mentally. Did he want to kill you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. But but you know, he got through it. But yeah, I put Vern through a lot on that trip. And uh, I just think I'll never forget because I I remember how cool it was and how cool that space was, and and and just how wonderful the beer was there. And it was really important that I showed Vern and just an hour of Vern just sweating and hating me. It was amazing. And just the water conversation, then two hours beyond that. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:59

Last thing I want to touch. I touched on briefly at the beginning, it's January. It's that month where people tend to not drink. And you sell nevertheless.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Do you guys have non-alk beers? Is that in the works for either one of you? We have one that we've made a very small amount of.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

One thing is non is huge. These guys are huge. Fucking, I tried again a zero the other day. It's fucking delicious. It's it's tastes almost almost the same. It's really good. Better question, a couple questions. What are we learning? How big do we think this pie is gonna be? Do you guys like this as brewers? As people who produce alcohol? And on the other glass ones, what are your brewers saying? Because like if you come to your brewer and be like, hey, we need to make an o because this are they stoked about this? I don't know. What are some of your thoughts about this whole this whole market? I mean, it's I mean you're in it. You've you make you make a very you make successful ones. We're in it. What's it been like for you guys to navigate this?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

Well, I'll be very honest, like we got we got very lucky with the timing, obviously. Ian had a trip to England where he did a collaboration with a brewery over there right before the pandemic, about a year before the pandemic. And he came back and he told me they had a really good non-alk beer. I think we should try and make a non-alk beer. And I thought, sure. I wasn't too excited, but I was like, sure, if you want to try it, great. But I I'd never really had a decent non-alk up until then. Um and that's when our journey started. So that was shoot, over five years ago now. You know, it's 2019, 2018, something like that. So we that's when we started, and we made them and made them and made them and and just tiny little test batches. And I'll try them and I'll get kind of a little bit more excited every time. I was like, actually, that does taste pretty good. You know, Ian had the benefit of being at that brewery and trying their beer and being like, this is really delicious. I think we can do it. I didn't have that benefit, so I was I was very skeptical, like, why are we putting all this time and effort into it? And then we made we found the recipe that eventually came, nevertheless, and it was it was great and it was delicious. And I that's when I finally got excited about it, which I think was about a two, two and a half year process. And yeah, nevertheless, our sales has been great for us. Yeah, it's been very well received, and and then we just came out with the the IPA about a year ago, and we're working on on the Pilsner now.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

So you might have you might have three. Wow. So I mean this so you're definitely investing in this more in this in this field. Yeah, it's been it's been well received.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:15

I mean strange pills did it better than most, pure straight simple. Like especially from a sort of a crafts brewer coolness factor, it's better than most.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Well, and also in the world. The athletics, the athletics and the nonnies, I mean, that's all they make. They make non-alcoholic. You guys are making real beer, and then you're going, you're making also additional non-alcoholic beers.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

So that's my thing is I'm like, is this well it's it to me, I think of it the same as we also make wine. We also make cider. We have a wine well, the lack of a better term, we have a wine spritzer coming out this spring, which we did a couple years ago, and I really, really lugged it. Essentially, it's a you know, a six, six and a half percent rose in a can. So I think what I'm trying to get at is that strange fellows, we're kind of just becoming more of a beverage company. We still love our beer and we still focus on our beer, but we're not limited to beer. We're open to So you're okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

So you like you you recognize that they're this non-alcoholic you know, growth. Absolutely. And you know what?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

I I mean I enjoy never less the most when I'm watching uh a stressful Canuck game because I tend to not always know what my right hand is doing when the Canucks are playing. So if I can sneak in and never less and then I don't feel as bad the next day, that's great. There you go. But I mean, Ian and I for right from the beginning always talked about the desire to have a distillery, and we haven't done that yet, and who knows, maybe we won't, but that that's still something I would love to do as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:43

Canucks are two for the last two, by the way. I should just point that out. The aquilines are uh paying the bills over here, so we need to make sure they know that the Canucks are they're on the upswing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

I I served Francesco the other day, so I mean he's yeah, yeah. She gets an idea lesson there. I had the capital, I had the capitals uh on one side of the bar, and he was sitting right there and he was chatting with Ovetskin.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

It was uh there were two for ten, though, shortly before that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:05

So Adam, what are your thoughts on non-ox?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

Yeah, well, it's like we've we've talked about it quite a bit. So we we made one, we've sold two. We did one two years ago, and then for whatever reason we didn't do one last January, which was the driest January of all time. I feel like everyone was doing dry January, every brewery had really low sales, liquor stores had low sales, and that was our highest month for January. And we well, I think it was it was one of the first, like people were like, what the where the fuck are we? What's going on? We're out of COVID, kind of like life's coming back. We're like, what have we been doing? So I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

Well, we've been drinking, and we need to not be acting the way we've been acting. We're just all of a sudden we were normal for a couple of years, and now we're there.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:48

So anyway, that so it's sorry, we we we brought it back this January. It sold out really quick and it was great. We want to do it again, but we we've talked about like we felt like we didn't have the capacity to do it and sell it. Like a lot of non-elk is grocery, and I don't know what that's like for you guys, but that's a whole different ball wax. And we were like, okay, like we don't have it, like we're not gonna be able to execute on that. Not that we couldn't possibly, but like we weren't set up. What do you mean by your pasteurization and we may require sorry, grocery being like the channel, like where you buy stores, right? Yeah, like if you buy, like, you know, the guys at Nani are doing great stuff, and like you can walk into Whole Foods and you see I've seen a selection of Nani there, but like I don't I don't know how Whole Foods works. Like, I just figured out how to go to London L D B works and I figured out how like you figured out, not figured out. That's fair. That's a good point. Yeah, I will I'll backtrack on that. But like I have enough of an understanding. Well, I have we have products in there, let's say it's not figured, it's not figured out. We have no no no, definitely. But like, you know, but grocery is a whole other ball of whack. So like selling into that. So anyway, so we decided though, like when we sell it here, like our the lowest month of sales for us is January. So when we sell that, people come in. We're like, well, how much should we make? Uh we should make a lot more because we sell it quick. And then so we're gonna do it again. We'll do it in February and we'll see what happens. And we, you know, we put some other non-elk beers in our fridge too to sell them to go. And we want to see, like, do people care about ours or do they just care about the category? And we outsold the other ones. So we're like, okay, well, like we're doing okay. Um, and then if we have you tried never the less in the fridge, we haven't put never the less in the fridge. No, no, no, we're not idiots. Fucking people won't even live in the house, but fuck it, we're going for that. We want to give ourselves a chance, Nick. You know, obviously, like you know, and in fairness to anyone else, like people are coming to Superflux to generally buy Superflux, but it doesn't compete. Whereas, like, we don't sell a lot on draft, like we put it on draft, like we sell lots of nannies, like we tend to stock those, and people buy lots of those when they're there. You know, I don't know what it is, it's a bunch of cases a week, but like so much nani at the hotel.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:51

Yeah, yeah. I bet you we sell of the pilsner, I bet you four flats a week. And probably four, probably three flats of the pill per week. Sometimes we sell six flats of pilsner a week just in the lounge. There was a point there where I was thinking, I was like, man, do I need to put the pilsner on draft?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

But see, we don't sell a lot on draft. You might because it's different. And if you had it on draft, whereas for us draft issues as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:15

Yeah, well, you have the draft issue, it'll it'll freeze in the line. Dr. Vernon's both talk for the same amount of time about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:21

That's actually a good point. Oh, because there's no alcohol. The point I actually really wanted to talk about was that. And when you said, like, what do the brewers think?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:29

So every time I talk to them, we always talk about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:31

Yeah, but like what what do the brewers think? It's like it's pretty complex. And so what what I think a lot of people don't know, and this kind of harkens back to like old fucking just basic info about beer, is beer solves a lot of uh microbiological problems, yeah, it kills everything. It basically like alcohol solves those problems. And so the reason why a lot of people made beer and fermented stuff was to create, you know, cleaner drinking stuff for you. And it happened to have some alcohol, but beers, when that was happening in England, was like very low alcohol during a time of cholera, and that would kind of just you boil it, purifies it, whatever, and then you could make it stable and it would last for a long time. When you make non-alcoholic or very low alcoholic beer with like medium to not low pH, you kind of introduce other concerns. You have to start thinking about other things. So if you want shelf stability, you've got to start thinking about other things, and that that's like a whole technical challenge. So everyone can solve that differently. But it we potentially could say we have a non-alcoholic beer, release it to a store, the store puts it on a shelf, dry, warm, and it referments because something got in there, and all of a sudden now it's alcoholic beer. Um that's right. And from a sale, sorry, it could happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:44

Oh I'm not saying what is a brand like Nani doing to prevent the? I mean, you probably would know this. What do you guys what do you do to prevent that?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Well, I have no idea what they're doing, and I know Ian is not secretive about a lot of things, but he's secretive about what they're doing, which is fair. But you would have to do something to prevent it from the So there's a couple things.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

So from a base sales standpoint, I'll I'll just jump in, sorry, for a sec, is that we're all worried about our beer turning over, basically. We want our beer turning over as quickly as possible, people are getting the freshest beer.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:13

But if it sits there for six months.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

Right. And and and then so you now you enter a different channel, you enter this grocery channel, these non-alcoholic stores channel. Now, not only have you increased the amount of places that your sales reps have to visit, right, but you're also really worried, extra worried about shelf placement and and making sure that it's consumed in a certain amount of time. And and this grocery channel, like there's a real chance that you know the things Adam's talking about, the science things, the refermentation, the but really from a sales standpoint, it might taste bad or it might blow up, or it might be dusty in a corner and just it just be a bad representation for your brand. So there's just more to consider there. Sorry to interject, but yeah, from a sales perspective, it's like that's one of the things that have kept us out of it, to be perfectly frank.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:58

And I mean, I remember I remember when I brought on Brassneck Passive Aggressive at the hotel. I sat down with Conrad and I was talking about this and I was like, I'd love to carry us. And he's like, I don't, he's like, I don't put my beer out in many places. And then he like put me through the gears. He's like, Okay, so how big is your how big is your cooler? If I send you beer, is it gonna immediately go down there or is it gonna be sitting upstairs for six hours and you're just getting pissed warm? He's like, How often do you guys rotate stuff? Like he was just like, he was very he was like, Because If I'm gonna sell you my beer, I want to make sure it still tastes pretty damn delicious when you get it there.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:27

Well, because otherwise you lose that benefit that again I was trying to say is the benefit is it touches all these people's lips. And if it's if it's not good and you didn't make money on selling that keg, it's not worth it for you. Well, you it's a huge loss. Yeah, actually. Exactly. And so it's like the my for you know, if your first uh approach to our brand is this thing, anyway. But so what in how they do it, so again, I don't know what Strange Fellows does. Well, we do. Um He's sitting right here. No, I don't care. Sorry, I don't look in right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:59

Give me the secret, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

Ian said to me, Yeah, I sell it, I don't make it. Ian said, I'm not very secretive about a lot of things, but I'm not gonna tell you. And I was like, all right. He said he wouldn't tell you? Yeah, no, he told you he totally did. No, he he's keeping it very, very close to his chest. That's fair. He likes it, and hey, that's cool. Um, yeah, but you know, most of us in the industry we share a lot. I'm I'm I'm teased like that. Like we oversorb a load of barley corn. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it it's an awesome thing. It's so what we do like we've used, there's a bunch of um is it one siren per episode? I feel like is it usually I was actually amazed the last one was only one. What we do is we use a yeast that's like a low attenuating yeast. Attenuating means like kind of how much it continues to eat through sugar.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:46

Thank you for defining that for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

Well, for the average listener, for me and me. Well, I made a yeah, I made a Tracy reference. You guys listen to Smartless, they always say for Tracy. I've done it okay. I love Smartless. Yeah, but so that's for Tracy. And so that's what we do. So the yeast is kind of supposed to stop. Now, in the absence of any other yeast, it would do that. But then for some other brands, like the big brands like Bex, which you can buy at like Safeway, would probably de-alcoholize their beer, which is a whole other process that requires like crazy expensive equipment. I don't know what other options there are, but I think like those are the. I'm pretty sure those are the only two. Yeah. But there's probably some other versions of that. And then, you know, people are using like to counter some of these issues, like stabilizers, pasteurizing, sure things that you kind of have to do because like again, those things aren't very popular in the you know, better for you organic kind of like craft world. But it's like if they don't have alcohol in them and they have anything else in them, like you wouldn't take like fruit juice and just put it dry on your shelf for a long time, open it up and like expect that it's gonna just be good. So you know, uh it it might become alcohol uh actually. So yeah, it's like that's that's it's one of the things it's challenging, but it's it's a super cool space. Like I think the you know, the capacity for it is potentially unlimited if you look at a company like Athletic Brewing, which owns a fucking staggering, I don't know what the number is today, but it's a staggering number of the market share for non-alcoholic beer. Is Athletic the biggest? For sure. Where are they from?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

Where are they from? They're from the state somewhere, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:14

Yeah, I think they might be out of California.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

Um I would like to know what their process is. Are they de-alcoholizing? I yeah, I actually don't know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:22

I guess the bet I guess the next question is are you guys like I guess I mean this is probably a unique question for me to ask you guys. Is it's interesting. I have three of you here who own breweries. You're in all in on the non-alcoholic, you're kind of sort of. And then Sam, you're you guys are just out. You're not you're not.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:38

We're out. Uh we we developed a bit of an agency model where we're selling things that don't conflict with what we make. Yeah. So we have a non-alcoholic brand in our sort of portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:49

Okay, so then you're just not gonna make something that's gonna kind of eat away the okay. So we have three different people, kind of three different visions here, but I guess the better question is do you like I mean, I I shouldn't say this. This is a bad way for me to say this. Not that I'm not against people going, I'm all for people making any whatever health decisions they want to make if they want to go non-alcoholic. I guess what I'm saying is as business owners who sell alcohol, how do you feel about this growth of this market? I mean, you're a part of it, so you're like, I'm gonna if it's growing, I'm gonna be a part of it. But do you guys care? Like Sam, do you care about how it's how people how this is trending?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:22

Like I guess clearly I care because we looked at bringing on a brand to represent, but overall, I'm I'm happy with the decisions people make. And I've got some non-alks in my fridge and and and it's all good, right? I'm what I what I have my personal opinion is that whether it be Strange Fellows or the Macro Brews are doing such a good job with it that I'm late to the game. And and the amount of energy that I can put into it isn't sufficient to get through who's really good at it now.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:54

Like the Guinness Zero is delicious, it's perfect. People love the Kronazero, and like the Krona Zero is very popular. I heard something you can only have like two or three of them, right? You get too much vitamin D. I heard. Well, I don't think anyone should have any Krona. I think Krona is just disgusting in every way.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

But I mean, just you know the like the non-elk again, I can't remember the numbers, but I was hearing from uh Darren who he used to work at Strathcona and he works for Diagio now, and he was saying that uh like the Guinness non-alk it was enormous for Diagio and especially in the UK. He said it was a massive, massive boost for their business. It's so good. Yeah, what and yeah, I mean that's like so it says something I think about how people and it might be a point in time thing, it might change, I don't know. Like, but there's you know tremendous like England's a incredible example of like a they have there's a huge culture of fatigue. Like people drink that beverage specifically as a social beverage, so it's difficult to say that like it's impossible to predict that some other non-alcoholic beverage could not have an impact on like the cultural aspect of like what we do and how people you know drink stuff. Like at our restaurant, we'll sell non-alcoholic cocktails. And I made a huge push for that when we went out for a staff party, and it happened to be it was actually not in January, I forget when it was, but it was like it was at a time where like and just a bunch of our staff were just selectively not drinking. And I'm like, Well, this is our team, and like our number one selling drink was actually margaritas at our place, and I'm like, but these people are not imbibing at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:28

So it's like, well, let's come up with like a non-alcoholic drink and have them promote and sell that because they're not drinking, and then there must be like they're not the only people in their 20s in Victoria that are not drinking, like there's clearly something happening here, so and I talked about that in my last episode in the sense of like, you know, I have probably 15 or 16 close, really you know, friends that I probably spend a lot of time with, and five of them who don't work in the industry are fully sober. Ten years ago, I I guarantee that answer probably would have been zero. And so, you know, I think people are more health conscious. I think people are looking at themselves and making good decisions, whether whatever decisions they're making towards their health. But yeah, no, it's it's an interesting thing. And I, you know, it's interesting for us to work in this hospitality sphere, and whether you're a person like myself who works in the restaurant part, or I'm a bartender, or you work at a place like Kiefer, or you run a brewery. You know, I think it's uh it's a work in unique times for the industry and it's transitioning. I don't know if it's a fad, I don't know if it's or if it's gonna continue to grow. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting. Last thing, I think I'm gonna end you guys here. I unfortunately did my rankings in my last episode of James and Jimmy. We did my best bars. Well, I did my I did my best. We did what we did is we did our our favorite or our top ten bars in BC.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:43

I listened to both, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:45

So I kind of I I I thought about this afterwards. I was like, I felt bad afterwards. I was like, I kind of like I never when I thought about bars, I kind of omitted breweries. And I was like, that's you guys essentially are like top tasting rooms are essentially you guys are bars. I mean, you guys offer drinks and there's food, and but the main reason people go there is to have a beverage. It's predominantly beer, but I mean it's you guys offer an amazing experience. So I want to give a shout out to all those amazing breweries out there who are fucking having kill and taste killer tasting rooms, you guys all included. Yeah, I just want to say that, you know, I think if I did make some changes there, uh I'd there'd probably definitely be a lot of breweries on my list as well. So, you know, and one of my favorite pastimes in the summertime is biking out to Port Moody and checking out your breweries and then coming back and stopping at yours and yours and yours. And you know, I love off the rail, love brass neck, you know. You know, sitting on the patio at 33 acres is great in the summertime. So it's like, you know, it's a unique thing to think about how you guys are bars in in a certain way, but you guys bring a great experience. So love the three of you. I appreciate you guys jumping jumping on the pod with me today. Anything else you guys want to talk about today? No, nothing. Cheers. No, cheers, boys. Cheers, yeah. That was nice. Yeah, it's good. Thanks, brother. Yeah, well, uh, everybody out there listening, um, this is uh Sam Payne and Adam Henderson and Nick Black from uh Strange Fellows, Superflux, Rewind, and Parksot. Do check out their beers, check out their tasting rooms. These gentlemen are lovely, and if you see them, make fun of them and say hello to them. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Everyone out there listening, and I hope everyone's doing really well. I'll I'll talk to you soon. And uh, this was Sam, Nick, and Adam, and I'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:15

Bye. Cheers, cheers, and then you can see that.