Ep 38 - New Product Development - Gareth Moore - DEYA Brewing

Innovation and NPD in Beer 🍻

New Product Development - Something DEYA are industry leading in without question!

When brewers from outside the UK ask me ‘which UK brewery should I try’ I nearly always say DEYA. 

Why? Because I know, whatever the style that person loves, DEYA will nail it.

That, in my opinion, is world class NPD.

In this episode, I sit down with Gareth Moore from DEYA to dive deep into their NPD process and what’s coming up in 2025.

We talk hop selection, relationships with suppliers and customer feedback loops.

Gareth’s insights are an absolute goldmine not just for brewers, but anyone involved in the NPD process.

My favourite topics Gareth covered:
•⁠ ⁠The key elements of a killer NPD process
•⁠ ⁠How DEYA approaches innovation without losing what makes them unique
•⁠ ⁠The role of customer feedback in shaping new beers
•⁠ ⁠Lessons learned from brewing failures (and how to avoid them)
•⁠ ⁠Trends that are shaping the future of craft beer

Check it out and let me know your thoughts!

Simpsons Malt - Show sponsors have just released their 2024 Sustainability report, your chance to make a sustainable malt supplier! Read here -> https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Simpsons-Malt-Sustainability-Report-2024-Digital.pdf

My LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/chris-lewington

DEYA Brewing - https://www.deyabrewing.com/collections/deya-brewery-taproom

Transcript

0:13

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast with me, your host, Chris Lewington. So a few months back I actually wrote down a list of my dream guests and episodes. I picked my favourite breweries, what I love most about them, and then the right person to speak to about that subject. And this is one I have been super excited to record. To me, DEYA are one, if not, THE shining light of the UK brewing scene. From top to bottom, outside and in, this brewery seemingly nails everything. Their branding is outstanding, they did this like, really cool collab with a a clothing company called Service Works, like everything that just looked amazing. They really look after their people, they're big into their local community, and importantly for this episode, they are continually making absolutely exceptional beer. I get asked a lot by brewers and friends outside the UK, which brewery do you recommend I try when I'm over in the UK? I literally always answer DEYA and not because I necessarily believe they have the single best beer on the market, but because I know whatever style is, your favorite, they will nail it. And that's exactly why I wanted to talk to them about new product development. I've led NPD for brewers before, but I have never had anywhere near the continued success of DEYA. Both from brewers and from the outside market who just seem to love the products that they make. So quite selfishly, I wanted to learn more how to nail NPD. So, I reached out to Gareth, head brewer of DEYA. I know Gareth and we talk a lot about sustainability when we're together And we've actually never really talked about NPD So I'm actually really, really excited for this But, before, for my UK listeners, a short message Beer X is coming up quick 19th and 20th of March And I have some exciting news I'll actually be co hosting an after party at Love Lane Brewery with friends of the podcast and my friends Numatech and Murphy and Sons. There'll of course be beer, food, and some great chats about sustainability as always. So there is a bit of a limited space going on. Uh, if you do want a ticket to come to Lovelane on the 19th after BeerX, please either come find me at the trade show or just e mail Murphys in advance. They're actually in control of all of the tickets. So best just go speak to a Murphys rep and see if you can come down and have some free beer, and some free food, and some free, Chats about sustainability, But before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to talk about friends of the podcast Simpsons Malt, the largest family owned malting company in the world. Their 160 year passion for quality has given them global respect amongst both the brewing and distilling communities. Regular listeners will know I am a huge champion of sustainability. And Simpsons Malt's 2024 Sustainability Report highlights the company's outstanding commitment to people and the planet. One of the biggest takeaways from the report, for me, was actually the vertical integration of their supply chain. This incredibly unique approach to malting means they forge long term relationships with their malting barley suppliers by working directly with them, shortening the traditional malting supply chain to simply farmers, maltster, brewers. I mean, having long term relationships with their farmers makes total sense, right? It means Simpsons Malt has total control over the barley that enters their molting sites and also enables them to work with farmers to drive sustainability throughout the supply chain. I'm going to link the sustainability report in my show notes. Please check it out and remember, choosing suppliers who are reducing their emission in turn reduces yours. Okay, so here we go. We're about to learn about NPD new product development from in my humble opinion one of the country's most consistently great breweries I'm so excited to finally be able to get this episode across to you. So without any further ado welcome to the show, Gareth Moore. Hi, everybody. Lovely to be here. Yes, Gareth, thank you so much for coming on. I know you've got such a super busy schedule down at DEYA. And I said this right at the start, but it's, this is an episode I've really been wanting to do for a while. Like, I'm really excited to get you, to get you on, listen to your story. And of course, hear how DEYA approaches NPD. Um, you know, for me, probably the best brewery in the country at NPD. I just think your beers you make are exceptional. So really excited to, uh, sort of pick your brains on that over the course of this episode. Thanks very much. It's our pleasure to do this with you, with you guys. yeah, you know, there's gonna be a lot of people listen to this really, you know, excited to hear, uh, just how you've, how you've managed to approach it over the years. Uh, but before we get into it, you want to just tell us a little bit about your journey into brewing and, and of course how you became a part of DEYA. Um, yeah, sure. So my, my journey into brewing, um, I guess like a lot of people's has a few sideways steps. Um, I didn't I didn't want to be a brewer from since I was a little lad. Um, yeah, so it's sort of unintentional and, um, I had some, I had some really lucky breaks and some serendipity as well that I'm, I'm eternally grateful for. Um, so in 2012, I started studying for a PhD, uh, in Krakow in Poland, nothing to do with beer. I was actually dissecting fruit fly brains, um, analyzing proteins in there. That's, uh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, I found it very boring, um, and I quit after a year. And, uh, it was a funded PhD as well. So my family were pretty annoyed with me. Uh, so I came home and, uh, carpet bombed the local area with my CV cause I needed a job, I needed some money. And, um, uh, there's a town down the road from Cheltenham called Gloucester. And there's a brewery at Gloucester called Gloucester Brewery. And they offered me a job and it was not a brewing job. It was doing sales and being a little bit of a dog's body around the brewery. Um, helping clean up and that sort of stuff. Um, 2013 and, um, I showed, oh, I was, I was quite interested in beer. I, I, I've always liked drinking beer. Um, my dad sort of was into, into real ales and that sort of stuff and more, more traditional sort of things. Um, yeah, so I've, I've been interested in drinking beer since I've been drinking alcohol. And, um, so getting a job in a brewery was quite exciting in of itself. Um, I got an opportunity while I was there to help out a little bit more, do some CIPs, and then one of the brewers actually left, so I got a chance to be, I guess, a brewer's assistant, you'd call it, but, you know, in a really small, um, setup, everyone doing a little bit of everything, um, and then sometime after that, actually, the other brewer left, and I got a chance to be in charge of brewing, um, so I wasn't doing, I wasn't doing, I wasn't All of all of the brewing, but I was doing most of the manual work to do with brewing and the owner and a couple of other employees. It was all sort of mucking in to help out. Um, yeah, I was. Yeah, that was that was a great opportunity for me that that brewery Gloucester Brewery. They do. They did a while. They still do a balance between traditional things and more, um, more modern styles of beer. Um, so they were making lots of cask beer, but also they're Well, not very much. They were making cask beer, like a high proportion of cask beer, but also a fair bit of, uh, keg beer that was dry hopped with American hops, Australian hops. So that's why I sort of first, um, came across, uh, those sorts of, those sorts of styles and, and flavor profiles. Uh, then, uh, Uh, in 2015, um, well, I, I was living in Cheltenham at the time and I was actually living between an excellent pub and an excellent independent bottle shop, um, which was pretty, pretty good. Um, and the owner of the, uh, the bottle shop's called Favorite Beers, shout out. And, um, then owner Lee, um, he told me that he'd been, um, contacted by someone who's opening a brewery and who wants to open a brewery around Cheltenham. Um, and. So that person was was Theo and the owner of day in case people don't know. And, um, so I passed my, my contact onto him through the bottle shop and say, you know, welcome to the neighborhood. Let's let's go have a beer. And yeah, so, uh, met Theo. Very interesting guy. He had, um, um, a lot of ideas for beers he wanted to make that I had really not much ideas what he was talking about, to be honest, um, in terms of styles, like the New England style, the East Coast style. I was, I was completely naive of that, to be honest. Um, and then he invited me to go to, uh, BrewDogs, um, Annual General Mayhem Festival, uh, that would have been, yeah, that was in 20, that was early 2016, I think, yeah. And, um, so he drove us up and we were nattering all the way up there, drank a lot of beer on the weekend, nattering all the way back, and I was thinking, this guy's got a really strong vision. I should see if he needs a brewer. And I asked him if he needed a brewer, and he said, yes, I need a brewer. And, uh, That's how I got into the brewing industry in a, in a nutshell, and how I, how I ended up at DEYA. All That's really fascinating. It's a, I mean, Theo's a really interesting guy. I've actually only met him a couple of times. I think the first time I met him was right near the start of when, uh, DEYA was opening. But yeah, he's a really interesting guy and definitely like I, I can see that he'd had a strong vision since the start. Um, it's also quite interesting. We had a similar sort of entrance into the craft beer world, actually, when you, when I was hearing that back, uh, like, you know, sort of carpet bombing, local brewers trying to get a, or local businesses trying to get a job. Um, I also started out in sales for a little bit and then someone left the brewery and I got the job in the brewery as well. So it's quite funny actually. right. Um, yeah, I didn't do the whole, wasn't the whole, like went through all the university degrees or anything. I was quite similar to you, sort of like just needed a job, got a job and then loved the industry. Yeah. As I said, I'll be eternally grateful for those bits of good luck along the way. Absolutely. Do you find that anything to do with your former life as dissecting fruit fly brains passes over into what you do now, or is it, do you think they're just two different parts of your life? Um, I studied in the UK before I went, went to Krakow in Poland. So, um, I did a, I did a genetics degree and a master's. So I think having, having a scientific background has been helpful, but I don't think, don't know, people often say, you know, Brewing. Is it an art, is it a science? It's obviously that's a bit of a, well, I think that's a bit of a silly question. Um, so I think having, having a bit of a scientific background has been helpful, but that definitely wouldn't be a barrier to people if they don't have that. I don't think it's, um, maybe me, it meant that my note taking was good. I don't know. Uh, the discipline of writing as many things down as you can so you can refer to them later. I think that's probably helpful. Um, and maybe a slightly inquisitive nature from a scientific point of view, but that's, you know, that's, yeah, that's not exclusive to people who, uh, have a scientific persuasion. Um, so I don't know, a bit, yes. That's a bit of a fluffy answer. No, I, you know, I think it's hard to, hard to actually truly say that this was, like, directly helping me with this sometimes. But yeah, I mean, I also think that is it art or science is a silly question as well. Um, but, you know, for DEYA, like, if we just go like, you know, high level, like, what does the typical process look like when You're developing a new product at day And I guess we can look at where that gets started at Yeah. That's an interesting point. You, you, you highlighted at the end of your question saying, how'd you do it now? And comparing it to how we used to do it because how we, how we make, how we go about making new beers now is different. Uh, the, the process is a bit different compared to when we were much smaller, much younger. Something that's, that's really important for DEYA is the relationship we have with our suppliers. So like principally in terms of the beer styles that we make, uh, hop suppliers. So having that really good relationship with, with our hop suppliers is very important to make sure that we have our fingers on the pulse in terms of new hop varieties or new hop products that are coming out, um, as well as different process, um, parameters we can, we can play around with. Um, it also Our NPD and our development of beers is I'm sort of, I guess I'm jumping around a bit on timeframe wise, but, um, as you know, the brewing industry is very collaborative and, um, people share. I'm very happy to share information and techniques and things that work and things that don't. And so early on, we were, I guess, like lots of other breweries, we were all coming up together and trying to, between us, between a group of us, trying to sort of figure out the best way of doing things. Um, now, what we, we, take, if we're developing a new beer recipe, We have to break the have to break the recipe down into constituent parts in terms of so on one level the water profile The specialty grain we're using or all the grain we're using but the specialty grain we're using especially the hop varieties that we're using Bitterness that we're targeting the bitterness. We're a bit You could say bitterness, people who make New England style beers, bitterness doesn't matter, but, you know, some bitterness is important. So, um, so yeah, all the, all the different ingredients, uh, need to be considered on their own. But then we also, because we're now a reasonable size, we need to, um, we need to design a beer to, Work in certain markets that maybe we we had to we didn't have to pay so much attention to when we were smaller That's maybe a bit of a bit of a boring answer. That's a bit square, isn't it? so we need to make sure that Everyone and I guess all the departments understand the beer So it's it's reasonably easy to write a beer recipe a bit more difficult to write good beer recipe But it also needs to make sense for the marketing team the sales team You All the other customer facing teams like the taproom team. Um, so I still not quite answered your question. I guess now, um, our, our approach to NPD is that we have, we have some skeleton, uh, building blocks for recipes and we need to figure out the best way of stitching those together because, you know, you can't just take hop variety A and hop variety B, put them together. They'll work and then put that with malt variety X. Like it doesn't, it doesn't quite work like that. So the, um, the way the, the, the process works before it even gets to recipe stage is that the, you know, the owner, he gets, you know, the ultimate say on, what beers we're going to make. He takes input from, from me, uh, from, from sales, from marketing. Other departments as well, um, but it needs to be, um, all, all the beers need to be, um, you know, we can't shoot from the hip so much that they need to, they need to be carefully considered from the top down. Um, so yeah, it'll, it'll usually start with a conversation. Either between me and Theo or Theo and head of sales or all three of us. Um, yeah, and then we'll sort of map out a sort of blueprint for what we want to do. We've actually, we've got a, we've got quite a solid plan for this year. Each year we try and, um, improve and learn lessons from the previous year and try and be, um, a bit more focused. So this year we're trying to be a bit more, we're putting a lot of emphasis on being a bit more focused in our stylistic output. So you already have like a determined list of what you're going to be making this year And are there any surprises that normally come along the way? Um, I guess, well, yeah, well, that being what I just said, being more focused, that being said, this year's our 10th anniversary. So we've got some, um, weird and, uh, wacky things coming out. Um, certainly for us, although, um, the industry is a bit of a crazy place sometimes, so, um, um, yeah, so we're, we're, um, we, we need to have a solid plan for the year and things change, but we usually plan production like three months out and then recipes, uh, new recipes, uh, Need to be finalized like at least a month out any beers that are returning will get an update to like a refresh We we rebrew we rebrew lots of things as well as bringing out new beers But it's important to make sure that we don't just take what we did last time and repeat it we need to you know, refresh it update it make sure that we're Yeah brought things up to date and getting the best out of getting the best out of the recipe Mm. And you talked before about having like skeleton blocks that you then put together to sort of build a recipe. What, what examples of those skeleton blocks can you give us? so for for example, um, the water profile that we use for for our pale ales, we've got a couple of pale ale water profiles. So steady rolling man has a certain water profile. Um, high chloride, low sulfate. Probably not surprising to hear a couple of other little things as well. Um, but then, um, Magazine cover, which is a lower ABV pale ale, a little bit drier, still juicy, but a little bit dry. That's got a different water profile. So, those would be sort of 2 pale ale water profiles that we would use quite commonly. Into the Haze and other IPAs have a certain water profile, even heavier chloride. Dark beers, which we hardly ever brew have a different water profile. Double IPAs have a different water profile. So, um, that's, that's interesting because it, I mean, you could argue that each single recipe deserves its own water profile, um, But that's quite a lot of work and it's, it's quite difficult to optimize that, however, however good your, your technology is for keeping your water consistent. So, yeah, we've got like half a dozen or so water profiles that, um, we'll put into the recipe at the early stage and then, you know, some things we will want to be a bit more nuanced so we can, we can tweak it, tweak it, um, from there. mm Does that make sense? yeah. Absolutely. And you, how do you, do you treat your water incoming? Do you have like a blank base to start with? Or are you working with, with, with water that already has elements of chloride and sulfate in Hmm. Yeah, so we use, we use mains water and, um, where we are, it's, um. It's it's a little bit hard, but it's not too bad. So it's perfectly fine for perfectly fine for brewing with as is. We've got a water treatment unit, which is produced by a company called Voltaire, and that works by capacitive deionization. So the water runs through some columns that have electric charge, and then some of the some of the plates in the column are positively charged and the negative. ions in the water get stuck to those. And there's some negatively charged plates. The positively charged ions get stuck to those. So and you can, you can change the capacitance of it. So you can basically tune your water up or down so you can remove more or less of the ionic content. Um, so that's handy for us. So we want to trim the hardness, the overall ionic content down a bit. Um, But the biggest benefit of that unit is that it keeps it consistent, so we can target a, uh, microsiemens output and it will maintain that, which is very handy because our water does change quite a lot. Um, or sorry, it changes fairly often with, and it doesn't change. It doesn't seem to change particularly gradually. Uh, it swings around a bit. Yeah, having having that is, um, I think that's been a big part of our, um, our consistency is having that, um, having that known, um, having that variable removed, I guess. When, when you're starting. Yeah, and it's tough. I know I've, you know, I brewed in London without any sort of water treatment and it can be pretty tough. You know, you've got, especially some, some workplaces you get like really high levels of like chloride, for example. So then you have to, you know, balancing that out and then trying to make lag and stuff can be quite challenging as well. So water is always such a key thing. It's really interesting that you have like completely different water profiles. Different water profiles for, for, you know, each individual style that you would just like plug in. I think that's, that's, that's a really cool thing to have. I guess that takes quite a lot of time Yeah. those out. Yeah. But it's um, that system is quite, um, hands off. It's pretty good. You just need like a daily check to make sure it's doing what it says it's doing. Um, I find it odd. I've said it to quite a few people that I don't know why it's not more common in the brewing industry. Um, it was, um, shout out to Bates at Duration. He, uh, he told me about it some years ago. Um, so yeah, I, And I keep trying to tell as many breweries as possible because it's a really good option. And there's a lot less white water waste than there is with compared to traditional reverse osmosis, Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so it's got that advantage as well. Yeah. Big one. Um, so when you. Let's say, you know, we've sort of talked about who's involved and maybe the, you have that visionary and then it comes through and then you're talking amongst yourselves, like, do you do test recipes? I mean, I guess with the skeleton system that you have, that block system that you have, you have, do you have like enough confidence to go ahead with just brewing a full batch or do you do any sort of trial batches on smaller kits and scale them up? And that's if we do not have a pilot kit. Um, so, uh, our batch size, well, our, our sort of standard batch size would be 4, 000 liters, so 40 heck. Uh, we can brew significantly less than that. We can brew like a bit, a bit over 2, 000 liters and we don't get any damage. Work quality that we can detect. Um, however, once you've gone to the effort of brewing two and a bit thousand liters, it's sort of like you may as well brew 4000 liters. Um, so that's something that is, yeah, that's always a little bit nerve wracking. We've done lots of different recipes, and so we do have quite a high degree of confidence. However, if we're using something, a variety that we've not used before, or a technique, sorry, a hot variety we've not used before, or a processed technique we've not used before, um, yeah, or yeast we've not used before, um, that's, um, we're a bit blind to that, to be honest. Um, Yeah, scaling recipes is quite tricky. We've done, as you know, like you can't just double a recipe and it'll necessarily work. Um, we've done, um, we've done a few things, uh, other places. So I did a, I did a test brewer, um, at Gloucester brewery. Actually, they've got a little pilot kit. So when we were in the very early stages of designing a Radler, um, I did a little 300 liter brew there. Um, but no, we, we, we just have to sort of go for it. Um, yeah, which, which is, which is a bit nerve wracking. Um, yeah. So yeah, that's, um, that puts a bit of extra pressure. Um, yeah, we haven't messed up too many times, I think. I mean that's great. Has that changed at all over the years? Did you used to do more trial batches right at the very start? Obviously compared to where you do now where you're not doing too many. Do you think that's something that when you're right at the start of the journey that trial batches and test batches make more sense? Or do you think it's, do you think generally, you know, if you have good control over your process like I'm sure you do, then that mitigates the risk itself? Yeah, a little bit, but it's, um, Yeah, what, what, yeah, definitely when you're, well, I don't want to speak for everyone. When we were, uh, much younger and much, much smaller, we, we were trying to figure out how to make Theo's head a reality. So, Steady Rolling Man. And, um, so, there were quite a few batches that we, we chucked away. Um, because they weren't, they weren't tasting how they should. Um, so I think just trying to, trying to, and that's always a sad thing to do. Uh, we haven't had to do it recently. Um, but yeah, making sure that you learn, learn the lessons I think is really important. Like understanding, getting to the bottom of what went wrong as far as you can, I think is, um, is, is, is really important. But, um, yeah, as to, yeah, if, if a beer is not right, The answer is always to get rid of it, right? Not to release it. Um, but then as you When it was just me and Theo doing all the production relief, that was like a really easy call. Whereas, whereas now that becomes a more difficult call, it's still the right call to, to make, um, but it's more difficult because it involves, there are more stakeholders in that decision, I guess. And the risk is far greater now, you know, you've got like core customers expecting things, um, but then you are the other side, you've got a brand reputation and, and everything is so difficult. And as, as you scale up, that gets definitely way more challenging. Doesn't it? I mean, I, I totally agree. And I've been, it's can sometimes be a difficult call. And then I always find it quite interesting. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but. There was always the case of can we save this beer? I've had that conversation many times, you know, it just hasn't quite worked out And you're like this isn't right and then someone goes well Let's try this and we can try save the beer we can add this hop we can do this We can change this we can blend it with this What are your thoughts on that and and and do you think that can create a good product and have you ever had done that? with success um, yeah, that's, I think that's quite, um, you get into a bit sort of sketchy territory there because if you know something's not right, you, you know it's not right, I mean, I guess it depends the nature of what's gone wrong. So a really easy one might be. You've dry hopped a beer, you've got it to that stage and you're about to transfer it to your packaging tank. If the aroma is not quite there, you could save the beer by dry hopping it again to boost the aroma. That's probably got a reasonable chance of working. Um, but if you have, uh, a janky fermentation profile and weird yeast flavors, um, Or the beer is not in spec ABV wise, or it's not in spec, um, finishing gravity wise. I think trying to save a beer is, I mean, how do you save a beer? You need to either put more ingredients into it, or I don't know, put another beer into it when, which case you've got more volume or yeah. So you're, I think you're somewhat kicking the can down the road. Um, so I'm very grateful that We haven't had to have those conversations. I've not had pressure to, I've never, I've never had any pressure put on me to bring a beer back from the DEYAd, Yeah, um, it does throw up some interesting, like technical points, I guess. Um, yeah, you, you wouldn't believe how creative people can get. this Uh, but yeah, it's A good sign of why you have good NPD is that you know that sort of thing doesn't get doesn't get challenged upon you Um, there'll be plenty of brewers listening to this who go I get that regularly of like how can we save this and what can we do to patch this up and uh, yeah, it's a Potentially one of the the key takeaways of this whole thing is just like that persistence of quality I mean, that everyone's in a different position, right? we're, we're, we're we're, we're also lucky that, you know, from a commercial point of view, there's never been that pressure to do that. So I guess some, some people are more up against it, but, but hopefully, Well, yeah, if, if I can, yeah, if that's a good piece of advice of people, I mean, so it's, it's not going to do you any good in the long run, Mmm. I mean, yeah, totally agree. Uh, one question I have, because I, you know, I recently had one of your non ALK beers, um, which was, I mean, it was exceptional as I expected, but, you know, I, I get that you have those blocks and you have your process and you're taking these, I say the risk, but a calculated risk to brew something full size. Was that the same with non alc? Because for me, like, making a non alc when you're a full alcohol production brewery is like, a challenge that is almost completely different to any other just making a different beer style. It's because there's so many additional, you know, micro concerns. It's a completely different fermentation and flavor. You're not even having a fermentation in some cases. So you don't have that flavor profile. You're so used to like, how did you find that? And did you manage, like, how was that process for you? Yeah. I think that that's something that we've had to do, I think. Um, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's interesting in the, as you alluded to, there's loads of, we can talk about them, um, in more detail, but yeah, there's, it's, it's like, it's like making a different drink really. Uh, it, it is in my, in my sort of, from my perspective, it is, is a different sort of drink because you're having to use. Maybe not completely different ingredients, but the men that using them in very different ratios that you would usually use, um, bitterness. Yeah, the micro contamination risk. Even if you're good, you need to be much better than good enough. Um, and yes, and the lack of body from alcohol that the alcohol would normally bring. Yes, all that stuff. I think it's sort of we sort of approached it as making a different sort of. Yeah. a different sort of drink. Um, it's interesting. I found it really, I found it really stressful, even having quite a bit of experience of designing new beers. I think I put it down to the fact that when we were much younger, I didn't know what I didn't know, or I knew less about what I didn't know, if that makes sense. Not that we were blase, but yeah, we'd come up against fewer problems because we had had less experience. Whereas once you, I guess once you get a better appreciation of, Um, what goes into, uh, designing recipes and, and executing them. Um, yeah, making a non alcoholic beer is a scary biscuit. For me, there's also an added sort of challenge in that, um, that there's more people who would usually drink alcoholic beverages, who are deciding to drink non alcoholic or low alcoholic beverages, um, but then I guess there's also a customer base. I don't know. I've no ideas how big it is of people who, who, you know, Who choose not to drink alcohol and then trying to understand their expectations of what this thing should should taste like because they've got some agency in what it should taste like right they're part of the market and um that's that's sort of two different things people who would like a beer to taste like a beer but not have the alcohol and then people who aren't really interested in or who are less interested in the bearing the beeriness of that drink um that's a bit of a challenge as well. But, um, we Oh, a huge amount of our success to people buying into or buying our beers, putting their hand in their pocket and buying our beers. Um, especially when times are hard, we're especially grateful. But having, um, we feel that we've always had a good connection with our with our customer base, and that's a big priority to try and maintain that because we know when we've made a good beer, we know Ourselves when we've made an exceptional beer, but that only matters to a certain point that customers need to enjoy as well. So it's critical that it's critical that we take our customers perception of our beers into into account. so there's, there's a few, there's a few things we do. Um, a pretty obvious one is seeing how the beer lands on untapped, seeing what sort of reviews it gets on, on there. Um, that's, um, that's one way of doing it. It's not for us particularly precise. Although, well, sorry, I think it's very obvious if a beer has gone down really well. Um, and it's very obvious if a beer is panned, but, um, trying to sort of separate like more minor points in. in the quality or the attributes of the beer is more difficult in that. Um, we have, we, but that's a very useful marker for us because it's pretty democratic. Um, and you have, yeah, you have people from all sorts of walks of life and all different levels of experience. Um, that makes it a bit, a bit easier. Data a bit noisy. Um, we also get, um, we have local sales reps. So for different areas of the UK. So getting sales feedback is really important. Um, there are certain, we prioritize working with independent, Accounts and traders. So listen to them and getting their feedback. And, um, that's really important. We don't, we don't have, we probably should have a bit more of a formal process of doing that. But it's, you know, just taking them taking the measure of things. Um, local sales rep talking to their local key accounts. Um, then, you know, there's, we're lucky enough to have on site tap room. And it's a, it's a big space, so we can fit lots of people in there. Um, and as, as we've grown as a business, we found our tap room initially was a den for being nerds, I guess. Um, although everyone is welcome. Um, but it's now a little bit more, um, bit more of a, it's a place to go and drink nice beer. So there's lots of people who go there, who have different tastes, um, Yeah, different preferences. And so there's a lot of people who come through the taproom. So, making sure that the taproom team feedback, uh, good, bad, or medium feedback on the beers is, is, is really important. Um, that's, they're, they're sort of, they're the first, I guess they're one of the first groups of people who will show our beer to our customers. Um, so yeah, that's, that's critical. Um, we also, I, I, Mentioned sort of earlier that we, we know if we've made a good beer and we know if we've made a very good beer. Um, I don't want to sound like to, um, up ourselves, but, um, yeah, you, once you've got, uh, yeah, we, we, we thought we know if it is good, but that doesn't necessarily translate to how well it does in the marketplace. Measuring how successful. It's tricky, like, for example, the sort of cliche, um, brewing lagers is more difficult than brewing ales. And, um, when we first started brewing lagers regularly, you know, we were respectful and we thought, yeah, you know, lagers are more difficult to make, they're more nuanced, they're more subtle. Um, you know, I'm pretty sure we can do it. Then it took us basically two years to get to a point where we were happy with them. Um, Yeah, so a bit of hubris there. I think, um, not a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting on the, uh, on Untapped as well. I was really I think it was one of the I was thinking about this when we were talking about doing this, this episode, and I was thinking about what I want to ask, and I did want to actually specifically ask about Untapped, because I know during my time I was pretty blasé about it. Thinking that, you know, I, yeah, not proud of it, but you know, you're just thinking like, well, uh, do they have the same sensory analysis that I do? Blah, blah, blah. And we had a sensory panel and I relied on that so much, but actually it's like, it really is. So it, if you take it with a course with many, many pinches of salt, it is actually a really good resource to see just what beers do well. And as you said, like, okay, I wouldn't look at the individual reviews, but if the average is really high or average is really low, then you kind of know if you've hit success or not. Exactly. You, um, yeah, it is tricky because you don't want to be the per Yeah, but your beers need to have appeal in the marketplace. Otherwise, what's the point? Um, yeah, I mean, also another thing that's quite important for us that we use as a measure is, is how quickly something sells out. And, um, I think when we, when we were smaller, younger, less experienced business, things would sell out every week because we were making not very much beer. Um, you know, maybe we were patting ourselves on the back, like, yeah, we sold 1000 liters of double IPA. Ooh, which is obviously. a nice thing to do. Um, yes, it's now seeing how seeing how quickly how quickly things are selling is very useful indicator, with with our customer base, who I guess we're trying. We sort of tread between. We need to have beers that are consistent our core range, but then our customers also want something new, uh, constantly. So trying to satisfy both those things is, um, Can be a bit tricky and measure and yeah, looking at how quickly things sold is, um, that's also a good measure that we use. yeah, it's a really good one. Actually, uh, Raider sales is a good one. I'm sure the sales people are all over that. Um, and that's why it's really nice to have within that NPD team. As I think you said it before, like, you know, the head brewer, head of sales, you know, the owner, whoever's got that vision as well, um, sees all the parts marketing, like, I think it's really cool when all of those groups come together and to sort of decide on, on what it is. And that's really like. Then that's what determines that success of that of that beer really and then your job as the Brewers is definitely to nail the quality Of it, which which is also not easy But yeah, you know I said it earlier Gareth from that and I was thinking about it like from the outside Looking in obviously, I'm not a part of day But I I always see you champion and checking out and visiting different suppliers farmers growers hot providers I even saw you recently You're always on my timeline actually at these different places. And I saw he recently visited Coleman agriculture in, in Oregon. Like I just, a, I'm like of all the breweries I've seen, I feel like you guys have the best relationships with suppliers. You're always actively there. They're always actively wanting you to be the face of, of their latest, uh, you know, hop or their latest product, whatever it is. Uh, I mean, you, you mentioned how important those relationships are, but What are your sort of key relationships with farmers and growers? And what, what has that led to you? What, like directly, has that led you in NPD? so we use a few main hop suppliers, um, fairly obvious ones. Um, and we're, we're very lucky that speaking about hops specifically, um, we're, we're very lucky that all of our suppliers foster and encourage. Okay. Us having communication with, with the farms and with the growers, um, and that's a, that's a, it's, it's very obviously a genuine, um, a genuine desire to encourage that communication. It's not, it's not just lip service that our suppliers like, we get brewers to talk to farmers just so they can say that. It's, it's, um. It's genuine. And, um, so talking about hops, of course, that helps keep us on the front foot, um, because as a UK brewery making juicy beers, featuring lots of American hops, we're a few years behind, although maybe, Not so many years now behind what's happening in the States. But obviously lots of having that, having that relationship with the, with the growers and the farmers, but also the people involved in the, in the supply chain, um, means that we can get a better understanding of what's, of what's coming through and we can keep our, keep our eyes peeled, um, for things that are coming through. I think it's also important. It's really important from a, just a point of view of principle. So I'm saying I'm, I'm like sat at a desk, clicking different boxes, Get a recipe, try to get a beer to work that's, that's not even a beer yet, but the months and months and years of work that's already gone in at the hop farm in getting a successful crop, there's a, there's a disproportionate amount of work in, in those two things. I'm definitely not working as hard as a, as a hop grower. So, um, meeting them, hopefully face to face, which we try and do as much of as possible and talking to them. listening to what their challenges are and what their perspectives are on different parts of the industry is, is It's 100 percent critical because although we have, we have a really good relationship with our suppliers, um, the information we get directly from them is, is gotta be somewhat filtered, right? Because they've got every supplier's got their own way of working and not agenda, but they've got their own, their own take on things and their own priorities. And so having that direct communication with, with the people further up the supply chain, down the supply chain, up the supply chain, not sure which direction. Yeah. Um, It's critical. Um, and it's, it's really, it's, that's a great pleasure to be, to have that opportunity. So on, on my last trip out to the Pacific Northwest, um, went out quite early and, um, spent some time with, with indie hops in Portland. that's, um, the steady rolling strata project that's now an annual thing is a, yeah, that's only, that's only possible from working directly with, uh, with the hop, not just the hop supplies, but going a stage further than that. Um, cause we need to get the hops over here in like super jig time. Um, yeah. Yeah, I also spent, um, every time we go out, we spend quite a lot of time with, with Yakima Chief Hots, and this, September just gone, so the last visit, um, I was lucky enough to spend some time in their R& D. Lab and speak to their head of R and D, which was very, very cool. Um, he actually, um, guy called Pat shout out to Patrick and Lupe for showing me all the, all the cool stuff behind the curtain. Um, they've got some really cool stuff coming out. Um, In terms of liquid products, I probably shouldn't say too much, but, uh, they actually sent us a sample of, uh, not even yet trial liquid product, which is going into a beer, which we're releasing next week. Yeah. Ooh, Which one? Let me just, uh, let me just double check when that's coming out. you can't grow concrete. Watch out for that one. That's got a super top secret, not allowed to say anything else. Trial product in it. Okay, that's sick. I'm gonna definitely be purchasing a can of that 100%. I hope I haven't said too much. yeah. And that, you know, that's the sort of thing that we're, um, that just simply wouldn't be possible if you having that relationship. But, um, but we're very fortunate to be to have be given the chance to build that relationship. As I said, our hop suppliers encourage that. Um, so yeah, we're always grateful for those opportunities. Um, yeah, the common agriculture, that's a really interesting one for us. So we do hop selection blind. Um, Um, I don't want to assume knowledge, but so for people who don't know how hop selection usually works is you usually go into a room and you get given, say you're choosing mosaic, uh, you get given a few batches of mosaic on a table and they've just got a code. Well, most people choose to do it blind. So all you see is a code number. So you don't know where the hops specifically were grown. You don't know what their alphas are, what their oil content is, etc. Um, so yeah, we, I don't, have you ever heard of breweries doing it not blind? I think so. Yeah, Right. I think so. Uh, we, we, we always do our selection blind anyway. And, um, Makes yeah. Uh, we seem to have a very strong unconscious bias to their hops. So like the last three years we've chosen their lots of mosaic. Okay. Uh, which is a critical hop for us, uh, being the principal hop in Steady Rolling Man. Um, we've also chosen batches of their Simcoe, uh, Citra, Strata, uh, and, and Amarillo and others. Like, we, we, over the last, like, five, six years, we've consistently chosen, happened to choose lots that they grew. Um, So that, I think that's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, this year's, um, Steady Rolling Man cast release, all the mosaic in that is a specific Coleman lot, um, one of their choice lots. They hold a few lots back each year, uh, their, their favourite ones, and, um, they keep them for, for collaborations. So yeah, I said, um, Please, may we have one of those? And they were, uh, very gracious and said yes. So, um, Yeah, that's another one. I've plugged two of our beers. Excellent. Yeah Marketing is going to get a big tick box from you. That's great. Um, that's so cool. I mean, it's actually there's some really really good examples of What having a good relationship with your suppliers can do? Uh in terms of getting new things to trial with I mean you still have to make Good quality beer that you know, a new hop isn't going to change everything But still that's like such a cool thing to be able to play with and use and and like a really good relationship to build The way that you build relationships with suppliers and farmers, has that been easier since you've grown in size, or has that always been there since sort of day one? Um, yeah. Um, that's interesting. I think when we were, when we were brewing on the, on the smaller brut, um, so we had a 10 HEC brew kit and that was when, um, I think that was when, yeah, we'd started and I think Yakima chief had only started coming into Europe recently, at least for smaller, for smaller customers. Um. I think used to have to be really big contract customer to DEYAl with them. Um, so they had a sort of smaller microbrewery sales arm. Um, and I think, yeah, we were, we were really keen to work with them. Um, I think just looking at, um. Looking online at what breweries that we were looking up to basically and breweries we were trying to, um, uh, plagiarize, maybe, uh, um, yeah, breweries that we respected over there, but, um, we were, we were looking at the hop supplies that they were using and, you know, we, so Yakima Chief was one of them, um, Yeah, Barfast was another. Um, IndieHops, it took us a little bit longer to get onto them. The thing is, they're a slightly smaller operation. So, yeah, that just took a bit more time. But, um, hand, it was easier. But I think we got a little bit lucky with our timing. I would say we were putting out good beer. Um, and maybe Yakima Chief, taking them as an example, saw that and were happy to, you know, take a chance on us. Hopefully they didn't see it as too big a chance. And, um, Yeah, I think we've mutually benefited definitely from that relationship. um, um, and then the second, now we have, um, we've got more buying power, but things need to be done further in advance. Right? So we, we, we can't just say, Okay. Next week we want this hop necessarily. We could say that, but maybe that wouldn't be practical. Uh, so we've got to, we've got to have a lot more forethought. Even, even with things out of con So we contracted a significant amount, but there's lots of things that we know we won't contract, but we know we want. So we still have to plan, um, how we will get hold of them and, uh, when we will get hold of them. Um, so yeah, um, like what, yeah, still trying to maintain those relationships and Work closely with hop supplies, even if we don't have a lot of contract, uh, tonnage with them is, is really important. So no, I don't think it's, it's not more difficult now. Um, we've got a much nicer, shinier brewery and a much bigger tap room and loads more beers we can show them when they come and visit. Yeah, and you've got a really really well established brand name, you know so That always helps is I just you know It was it was kind of half loaded basically the question because I was curious if you're a small brewery listening to this Would you be thinking that's great when you got the brand name like DEYA? But how how could I do that as you know brewery x but then that's why I kind of wanted to see how you did It from the first out and if it was in there since day one, which it sounds like it basically was which is really I think I can't speak for other people's situation, but it's I think if you if you hopefully if you go to your supplier with a, you know, if you if you want to work more closely with them, if you have like a solid solid ideas of how, you know, it could be mutually beneficial. Um, I think it was well, a few years ago, I think there was a, there was a, there was a bit of, um. There's a bit of a mess in the in the hot contract in hot contracts, right? Because of something called Cove it, um, that messed a lot of people up, and I think it left it left quite a bad feeling in both directions, which is which was a shame by that's a that's a symptom of everyone sort of trying to look out for their own ends first. Um, Yeah, hopefully some of those some of those wounds have healed. Um, yeah, but it's it's tricky. We got we did get, um, we did get like a bit of a lucky break when we were when we were starting. Um, and it's got the whole industry has got a lot more competitive now. Um, I think. Yeah. Um, I would say. If my advice is worth anything, like go to as many trade shows as you can, like, um, they'll, loads of the, almost all the hop supplies will have reps at all the, all the trade shows. If they don't, that's a bit weird. Um, and they're all really friendly people. And, um, in my experience, they're not like, they're not just, they don't just say yes when they mean maybe, um, you know, sometimes we ask for things and they're like, No, you can't have that. We don't. That's not possible. So that's fine. I think I'd say, like, don't be afraid of asking the question. But, um, in our experience that, yeah, they don't just say no, because you're a small brewery, you know, we're a small brewery compared to other bigger breweries. There's always someone larger there's always a bigger fish. Always someone larger Yeah, that's really interesting. And yeah good advice as well. I think trade shows and turning up to you know Learning events community events whatever it is when the brewing industry really helps just that collaboration aspect that you talked about right at the start as well um, I you know, I love this question and you talked about Learning from failures probably even more than success. Um You know, what, have you got any, uh, have you got any concepts that simply didn't work from an NPD perspective? we've got some clangers, you mean, uh, Yeah, have you got some clangers? I know I've got some clangers in my, uh, in my locker. yeah, well, one that I can directly attribute to myself. Um, We, um, we're playing around with double IPA recipes, and our house yeast that we use, well it's actually two yeasts, uh, two English yeasts, and pretty juicy, lovely, it's great, uh, but it's not very alcohol tolerant, so it's quite prone to stress flavors. Um, It sort of starts struggling around 7. 5%, which when you're making an 8 percent beer is not that helpful. Um, yeah, we were trying to think of ways of making double IPAs, but, um, but cleaning up the fermentation profile, basically, or Making it more of a sure thing that we would have a clean fermentation profile. So, I wanted to try fermenting them with a Kohl's yeast, uh, and, um, I did check the, the ABV tolerance of this yeast and it was fine. Um, but we fermented that beer and, um, we dry hopped it. And we got it to the packaging tank and, um, the bitterness was through the roof. Um, it was like, I mean, we make juicy beers. I like bitter beers as well. I quite like bitter things and I couldn't drink it. It was, it was, it was not nice. Um, so we ditched it. And the reason, the reason it didn't work is that, um, we don't play around with lots of yeast. Um, and so our, our recipe calculators didn't work. sort of based around our house yeast. So we know that, uh, house yeast hoovers up a lot of bitterness during fermentation. So different yeast do it to different levels. Um, so that yeast clearly doesn't pull out much, much bitterness. So, um, yeah, uh, the bitterness levels were crazy. Um, So like, actually, yeah, that's an interesting point. I quite like saying this, like steady rolling man, the, the word IBU is 55. Yeah. Which is not low, um, but the, the, the finishing beer is usually 25 to 30 IBU, so in that range, um, so our yeast pulls out a lot, um, our yeast, don't know which one, um, so yeah, that didn't work, um, That was, that was 100 percent my fault. Um, what other ones? We did, um, We did a pale ale, and um, called the Swedish Octopus. Um, and yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna drop him in it. Our, uh, our head of sales uh, wanted to use uh, oat milk. Which was, um, a, a bit of a, a bit of a thing for a while, using oat milk in, in pale ales, um, to make them oaty. Uh, I don't, well, it's partly my fault because I should have just said, we'll just use oats, like we, like we normally do. Um, but we used, um, we used a lot of oat milk and we also used, uh, some sea buckthorn, um, Uh, Sea Buckthorn is a delicious, pretty tart, bright, citrusy, orangey, yeah, it's like a pretty crazy flavor, but um, really nice flavor, and um, yeah, that beer was, uh, pretty horrible, um, we did actually release that, and then we, um, uh, we brought it back, because, uh, it was, uh, it was not good, um, it was like, it was, it was fine, like, straight after we packaged it, but, um, I don't know exactly why. I shouldn't, I shouldn't really say I don't know why, but I don't know why, but, um, it developed this really strong astringency. Um, I don't know if there's something in the sea buckthorn was interacting something in the oats or the oat milk. I don't know. I know sea buckthorn's got quite high lipid content. Um, Yeah, I don't know. It was, uh, that was not nice. Um, Hmm. yeah. Um, another one. Uh, shouldn't say too many, should I? Um, These are good. yeah, there's, uh, we had a series of beers. Um, when did we start doing this? I think it was, I think we started the series in 2019 called something good. And the ideas that it was a very loose series in terms of, there wasn't a theme so much. It was just trying something different and we'd have something good one, something good two, et cetera. We got up to like. 12 or 13 or something. Um, and yeah, it was, it was, um, we were trying different things. So, um, we did like a sort of like a pseudo rice lager for one of them. Um, another one. We, what do we do? We use some different hot products. Um, yeah, we tried lots of different things. Um, But something good too, we decided to go really hard on UK hops for a dry hop and, um, just as a preface, I'm absolutely not, um, disrespecting UK hop varieties. We really like using them and we're actually going to try and use more of them this year. Um, but back then when we didn't know so much how to handle them, um, we did a, we did a, And we dry hopped it to a sort of a borderline irresponsible level, uh, with this relatively new UK hot variety. And, um, it was not nice. Um, yeah, yeah, that was, um, that was, that was a lesson in, Don't, don't be too confident and just don't just follow it. Don't just follow your process. Um, especially if you're changing a major ingredient. Um, yeah. Um, well, so as well, like something that's maybe a bit more subtle is we've, um, we've brewed a few batches of Radler and trying to, um, we, we can't, um, we don't have a pasteurizer. So we can't make a traditional Radler as in make a lager or make a beer. Cut it back with lemonade, package it and pasteurize it. So we've had to try and get around that. So using, um, citrus zest and, um, making basically a lower alcohol beer, like a low, low alcohol table beer. using citrus zest and then artificial sweetener, is not usually our sort of thing using artificial ingredients. But, um, that was, that could be sort of a bit of a success and a bit of a failure because it was deemed a success from the point of view of the brewery. But, um, it didn't quite land in terms of the market. People were saying, you know, like, didn't taste like a Radler, wasn't as good as Schofferhofer, like, yeah, of course it's not. Um, so yeah, that, that, that sort of sort of going back to how you, you Measure success. I think that's that's important. So it's not it's you could have something that's potentially a success for one entity within the brewery, but not not a universal success. Um, Hmm. I prefer talking when you were telling us how great we were rather than me pointing out the things the mistakes we've made. I mean, look, let's be honest, everyone loves, it's more fun to listen to people's mistakes. Uh, I mean, I think I think that's it. That's an important question to having these Chris because it's, you know, everyone makes mistakes. So, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, and, um, yeah, The worst they are, sometimes the funnier they are, up to a point, I guess. up to, up to a point, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know, obviously I can't say the name because, uh, but I know of a brewery who put glitter in their beer and, um, that a year later they were still finding bits of glitter coming out the filler, Wow. which is, yeah, yeah, that's one of those mistakes you go, oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like, have you ever tried to get glitter off your pillow or something if you wake up? Or off like, you know, off clothes? Like, it doesn't come off. Like, this stuff is like, What's the worst that could happen? Yeah, what's the worst that could happen? It's like a year later, still finding them in like microplates. You're like, ah, yep. Yep, that's the worst. That is the worst thing that could happen. Yep. Yeah, coffee stout, and um, we'd source this really nice coffee from a local roastery, got it roasted extra light, so like, just for us, to make this beer, and um, I mean, they were really excited, like, just, like, looking in the kettle, waiting for the countdown to the time, correct time that we put the coffee in, into the whirlpool, poured the coffee in, and then both looked at each other and realized that, you know, we should have put it in a bag, so we had just ground, ground, ground coffee in the whirlpool, and it sort of whirlpooled, but definitely not properly, and that knockout took forever because the heat exchanger just kept getting blinded by coffee grouts. that's really good. I could I'll share This is a good This is my own person. This is completely my fault, but When I was first working at, uh, Thornbridge Hall, I don't know if I've shared this one on the podcast before, actually, but it was the first time I was working at Thornbridge Hall, which was like by myself in their small brewery, and we were doing this first recipe, and I can't remember the exact recipe, it was a brown ale, and it had brown sugar in it, and I'd never used brown sugar in brewing in my life, and, um, I was like looking at this bag going, where should I add this? Should I add this into the mash? Like into the, into the grist case? Or should I add it into the, well, into, like, into the kettle? And for some reason I didn't ask. I think I was just too afraid. So I decided to put it in at the start of the grist case, and then load all of the grist on top of it, and then opened up the mash hydrator, and obviously just instantly it blocked, because it was just, you know, 25 kilos of brown sugar just turned into like one big clump and then for like five minutes I was like Yep So I then had to dig back out the whole grist case back into the bags and then dig that out and put that in And I was like, oh, yep won't make that mistake again that was really stupid And then like I remember dumb and rubber like why are you taking like I didn't get back to like seven o'clock at night They're like, why were you there for so long? I was like, oh, no reason Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. It's all fine. What you need to know is it's all sold now. you don't need the details. Yeah, you don't need the details. All you need to know is it's all good. Yeah, I guess it wasn't the beer was fine. I mean, You haven't started the beer. we hadn't even started the beer so actually it could have been a lot worse really and I'd probably only like coagulated about 500 grams of this brown sugar that really, I mean, that stuff turned into You know, It was really impressive. Uh, um, I, Gareth, I mean, I don't know what, how much you can share with this, I guess, but talking about what you said, you already have kind of what's coming up and day is calendar over the next year of NPD. Can you share some of this stuff? Cause I think, you know, I'm really interested. I'm sure the listeners are interested in what your sort of perception is of, of what craft beer trends are coming up in 2025. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. so I think for us, we're, um, we're gonna go quite hard on liquid hot products. Um, I know they've been around for, well, they've been around for a long time. Good ones have been around for a few years. Um, and Once again, release date, but like, it seems that all the suppliers now have good options in terms of liquid products. So I think, um, yeah, we will be exploring those a lot more. Um, as well as like the obvious ones, like, you know, if a cool new hop variety gets launched, we're going to try our darkest to get hold of it and use it obviously. Um, yeah, but I think I was, when, when we first started using liquid hops, I was a liquid hot product. Sorry. I was a little bit skeptical. Maybe. Bye. Ego, I don't know. Um, but yeah, they're, um, I'm converted. Um, yeah, that some of the newer liquid hot products are really, really good. And they're very precise and very true to type, very specific. So, um, There's lots of different points of application if you want to like explore that in terms of nuance So yeah, we're definitely going to be doing that. Um, we are Going to be releasing a few bright beers this year um, so this is not something that you know, it's not new but um, sort of the pacific northwest bright pale uh, we've like Every time we've been over, especially around Portland, um, so not talking California, not talking West Coast, um, yeah, the Pacific Northwest, um, those breweries using, using like Cali Ale yeast, but still promoting, uh, juicy tropical and citrus hot flavors. Those beers are really cool. That's, um, Yeah, so, so definitely not West Coast, not, not really bitter, like still pretty soft bitterness, high chloride, a cleaner, cleaner yeast profile, and, um, yeah, like, I guess, yeah, cleaner yeast profile, so the, the hop character is a bit more, uh, succinct, a bit more obvious, um, that's a really nice point of difference for us, because obviously we've got, our, our main thing is making hazy, juicy pails, um, In terms of other trends, I, um, last week I was at, um, an AromaFest that was hosted by Charles Farrum, so showing, showcasing, uh, new UK hot varieties that are coming out of the breeding program. And honestly, some of them are amazing. They're, we smelt like 16 different, um, Uh, varieties. Some of them haven't even got numbers yet. They've just got a grid reference. Um, so it's very early days, but um, I think there was like, out of 16, two were like, fine. Almost all the others had something pretty great about them, like, much more intense than what I usually associate with UK hot varieties. And, um, yeah, like some of those hallmark aromas and flavours, like really bright citrus, bright tropical fruit. So, um, um, yeah. That might take a little while to trickle through into like acreage that is going to be sort of useful from a commercial brewing point of view. But that was, that was really exciting to see. What else? Other trends, I think, because of a lot of the good work you've done, more breweries, as they should be, are paying more attention to their resource use. Um, so that's, um, I don't know. I was going to say that's something that's less grammable, but maybe it's not. Maybe it shouldn't be. Um, I think that's, that's, that's, that's really important. Um, what else in terms of, yeah, I'm going to try and get more of that top secret liquid hot product as well. I think that's, uh, that stuff's pretty great. Um, yeah, I think our focus has always been and will always be on, um, exploring hop aroma and flavor to start. Sorry if that's a bit of a boring answer, but just trying to get into the nitty gritty and, um, yeah, try and make sure that we're delivering, um, Intense, juicy, hoppy beers. Yeah, and that's you know what you're so known for so it makes perfect sense Uh to like double down on that Uh, so Gareth, I love doing this now at the end of my podcast. So can I ask you, uh, what your top three pieces of advice for a brewery looking to better the NPD is? If possible, do a side by side. If you're talking about planning a specific thing, it's not always possible. It's sometimes not practical, but even if it's quite impractical, I would thoroughly advise doing a direct side by side. So if you're trying a new process or a new ingredient, try and have it say two products are in parallel, uh, in production, try and remove as many variables as possible. I'd say, um, we've got quite a sort of extensive, um, post pack sensory program, and that is an enormous amount of work to keep the momentum going, um, to make sure participation stays high and collating all the results. So I think, set out a decent amount of time to actually, consider the results like. If that's immediately post pack or after a week or two or a month, whatever in market, we used to have a fairly knee jerk reaction. And we're trying to not do that. Try and give yourself, give yourself enough time. Um, I know it can be tricky because everyone's very busy, especially breweries, small breweries in particular. But, um, Yeah, try and block out some time so you can actually have a quiet moment or more than a moment and sit down either if it's if it's on your own or with your team or your manager or however, however, that's that's work to actually formally discuss how you feel you've succeeded. Because just, just going off, just going off the sales, for example, is one side of it. I think trying to be honest with yourselves and if you've actually, how well you think you've succeeded, um, rather than being like, all right, done that next thing, done that next thing. We're a bit guilty of that. maybe this is for people who are not brewery owners, um, or who are maybe not team leaders. But if you've, if you've got a good ideas. your team leader, your manager, push the business owner, get an ideas together that's, you know, start to finish ideas. And like challenge them, push them to say, I really think we should be doing this because of, because of these reasons. Because I think, um, everybody has, um, Like people only have a certain amount of time for different things and maybe just because, um, like if you feel it could be more, more new product development in the bit brewery that you work in, it's not necessarily because people don't want it. It's just, you know, they've got a certain amount of time to focus on, on, on their, on their, their main job. So, yeah, I'd say, yeah, like. Push it a bit. Love that. Thank you for those. I hope they didn't sound evangelical. Not at all, man. That's gonna make some good stuff for people. It's like, you know, People always listen to the, to the full length, but sometimes people just like to hear the top three. So that, that's, uh, that's awesome. Uh, Gareth, you got anything else you want to, you want to talk about NPD on the pod? I guess. Um, uh, thank you to all our suppliers and industry friends who helped us get to this point, uh, in terms of in terms of new product development and, um, sharing advice, tips, sharing contacts, sharing successes and failures. And also, yeah, again, thank you to all our customers who helped us build the business. Yeah, I love that. And I, I write it a lot in the end of my sustainability articles and stuff, but I feel like the collaboration aspect of this industry is its most powerful strength. And it's, you know, I, I, I really appreciate that you come on and talk about NPD. I think honestly you speak to people who are like well outside this industry and if you were to tell them you've got like the best people in the country, in my opinion, who do NPD willing to share how they do it with people, they're like, what? That's like some hot, normally like secret guarded process, but ultimately, you know, we're all here to make the UK grow. Brewing scene and beyond better quality and, and we wouldn't have got to where we are now without collaboration and we can only get further with it. So I, I like, you know, I just really, really appreciate coming on and, and saying, and saying the things you have and sharing the wisdom that you've, you've done. And this being so open, success is failures. Like, uh, yeah, it's really great to hear, man. said at the top, it's our pleasure. It's always, always nice to do these things. Yeah, and you know, you've been on a good journey so far and you've got a long, you know, a long way to go on the journey as well. But it's really cool to, uh, to be able to talk to you at this point where, you know, I think you're one of the most established brands. I think it's really cool. And I remember like meeting Theo all the way back in the day when I think it was, it was still pretty new. So it's really cool to see, uh, what you all, everyone in that team has done. I think it's Thanks very much. Um, and that's everything for today. So thank you so much, Gareth, again, I know how busy you are with everything and, and nailing this NPD isn't, isn't easy. So, uh, I really appreciate you taking some time out your diary to, to come on the pod and share your wisdom with the Yeah, my pleasure. I'm very happy to. And, uh, thanks for listening everyone. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I'll catch you soon. I mean, are you going to Yeah. I'll be there. Excellent. Well, I'll see you at BRX then, and it's only going to be a few weeks away from now, which is crazy because like, I swear it was only literally a few months ago that I was there this last year. I'll see you there. Um, take care, Thanks Chris. Well, that was absolutely fascinating. Honestly, that's something I've been wanting to listen to for so long. I love when I'm in the podcast and I'm just like learning as I'm going, like trying to think, how would I be in that situation? what a great guy. Again, it's so cool for them to take time out of their day to share that with the rest of the industry. Something I, I really, really appreciate. If you guys, if anyone really enjoyed this episode, please don't hesitate to share it around. Talking about collaboration, I would love to have this podcast reach as many people as possible who would find it useful. So if there's anyone in your vicinity, work colleagues or friends, or brewers from all around the world who you think might benefit, please share the podcast with them. That would mean a lot to me. So thank you everyone for listening and I will catch you on the next episode of The Modern Brewer Podcast