The B Team Podcast

Ep. 104 - Layoff to Brewery: Dan Clous's Journey to Natural State Beer Company

• The B-Team Podcast • Episode 104

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0:00 | 47:48

You can learn a lot about a place by what it drinks and how it builds community around it. We sit down with Dan Clous, co-founder of Natural State Beer Company in Bentonville, to trace the unlikely path from a vendor career to homebrewing in a basement to opening a brewery right off the trails at Village on the Creeks. Dan breaks down why Arkansas is “The Natural State,” why their taproom is built around a “brew with a view,” and why they intentionally bet on lagers when so much of craft beer chases IPAs.

Then we taste. We run a rating segment and work through a flight that hits multiple styles and moods: the Greenway light lager built for hot days, a hefeweizen with classic banana-clove notes, a Vienna lager that somehow pairs perfectly with pecan pie, a limited Irish red lager poured from a crowler, a schwarzbier that looks dark but drinks surprisingly light, and Arctic Juice, an 8.5% double India Pale Lager that brings the hop punch.

We also get practical beer education without the snobbery: lager vs ale yeast, why lagering takes longer, what makes beer color change, and why growlers vs crowlers affects freshness. The conversation takes a serious turn at the end as Dan shares Hub of Hope’s work supporting survivors of human trafficking in Northwest Arkansas and details on the April 30 event, with tickets at hubofhope.org. If you like craft beer, Bentonville business stories, and local impact, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review.

Welcome And New Season Changes

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I am your host, Josh Saffron, with my co-host, Matt Mars. And our permanent guest, Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bettonville, urban, and business. The B Team Podcast. Be here. Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Saffron, with my co-host, Matt Mars. And Jim. Jim Gorbin. That's right. Because we don't have a permanent guest today. That's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_02

So I don't even know that we have time to go in.

SPEAKER_03

No, no, because I have a new script that I have to follow. So we can't get into all that. We're here all um every Thursday for all things Bentonville Business and Bourbon.

SPEAKER_01

I'm all flustered. I'm flustered.

SPEAKER_03

You need your script. We are here every Thursday for all things Bentonville, Business and Bourbon. Okay. Um, a couple things for season three, though. There's a Jim has officially joined the team. He's on the low. I like that. It makes me look younger. I'm a fan. Younger, more handsome.

SPEAKER_02

I can't tell if you're looking at Bobby's ass there or like what's happening? Like what I'm giving the hay sign. You know, I'm like, you know, yeah, it's all good. I'm saying, hey, I'm here if you need me. All right. Well, and clearly, because Bobby today, today I'm needed. Well, you're needed all the time. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's more and more every week.

SPEAKER_01

More and more. I can see it, Tom, we'll be back to three logos on there, but Jim and Matt and myself will be three. I'm not sure who the fourth one would be that's gone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Be a sad day. Sad day. Anyway, so today we are focused on beer instead of bourbon. Our friend Dan Klaus is here today.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Co-founder of Natural State Beer.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So excited to have you. Matthew, we were going to kick off a new segment in season three called Bobby's Bourbon segment.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But you have to be here. So today's going to be Bobby's beer segment, which will actually be Matthew's beer segment.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

What we're going to do when we get into the beer is you we are going to be tasting them and you'll be rating them kind of like Dave Portnall in the pizza reviews. Oh, all right. There's a 1B that's dog shit. Oh, never say that. We're not going to say that. All the way up to a 5B, which is like incredible.

SPEAKER_02

Your presence here gets you a three. It's like it's like you just get a certain amount of points for assigning your name right on the SAT. There'll never be a one. Never going to be a one or something.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, three to be here, but I mean before we have to be here. Yeah, we we want to get to a five.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So there's going to be a lot of pressure on you to fill it in.

SPEAKER_02

But I feel very confident that uh you've had enough beer in your lifetime to have a good beer or bad beer. But before we dig into the beer, I gotta ask about the

Shorter Show Script And Segments

SPEAKER_02

script. Did we get feedback? Are we are we not hitting certain marks? Like what is the feedback is a gift.

SPEAKER_01

And so what they've told us along the way is that we, probably myself, are a little too verbose. Oh. For the folks at home that don't know means too wordy. And we have to cut the podcast back to 30 to 35 minutes and have firm segments. And so therefore firm segments. Firm segments. So Bobby's bourbon. She loved it. She loved it. Loved it quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. So there's a lot of pressure today, which is why I couldn't get the Welcome to the B team podcast out, which you know I could do in my sleep. So, all right. Well, so let's get ready to natural state beer. Let's get going. We're getting into time. Natural state beer. Arkansas, by the way, is the natural state. I'm guessing that's natural state beer. The natural state. Excellent. So I do want to say thank you for inviting me to your first shortest podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Damn, we only have four minutes left. So we could bring the funnel.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we could do that or keg stands. So yeah. How do we want to approach this?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I mean, can you tell us how you got started? Because your background on LinkedIn, supplier, business community, all that other stuff. And then one day you decided that you and your co-founder are going to open a brewery.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. You got the story.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_02

It's that easy. No. So it's one of those odd things when you're a vendor and you find uh yourself laid off

From Layoff To Homebrewing Obsession

SPEAKER_02

and you've got some time. Uh, I can't sit at home and do nothing. And so uh the habit that I started creating was brewing beer. Or I just looked it up and said, hey, let's let's do something fun, something that I can benefit from too. And uh uh found a passion for doing something outside of the norm, which most people do, IPAs or ales, they're fast. You can you can get a quick return on your uh investment. And if you studying category of calling on uh the world's largest retailer, uh you know that 70% of the beer that's consumed in America is loggers. So you've got your your main I did not you've got your lights, yeah, Bud Miller Tours, yeah, uh Budweiser, Miller, yeah. And so all of those are loggers and uh not as hoppy. And and so why doesn't craft beer have that? And when I started visiting some of the local breweries, I'm seeing a lot of IPAs and whatnot. So could we specialize and do something logger-esque? And uh and I to I found my partner at a uh craft brewing um uh Ozark Ozark Zimmergists is the uh name of the craft brewing club here. Uh shout out to them. Shout out. And we uh we tried uh I I tested my metal and it was getting recognized by my partner, his wife, who that's all they did was loggers. So you were doing the brewing yourself? Yes. Oh wow, yeah. And I really took I my ex uh I think you guys had second wife's club, something you guys were talking about. It wasn't episode. Uh this wasn't the reason, but uh, but uh I think I drew her baddie because I was probably brewing twice a week in my basement. And so I had these steel shelves racked with beer. Uh I probably had anywhere from 10 to 15 vessels at any given moment that were brewing five gallons each and um testing it out with all my neighbors, giving away free beer, and people were drinking it. And of course, they're really complimentary at first, but when you get better at it, then you get the wows. So that feedback is a gift, as you said. Feedback is a gift. So uh choose to open it. So entered it in a competition. My partner went head to head with me. We both did an Oktoberfest, and that's kind of where we forged our bonds in creating uh the plans. And then we both stepped back and said, We're good at this. Let's let's put a business together. Who won between you and your partner in that Oktoberfest show down?

SPEAKER_01

He's not not that not like he's gonna see this podcast.

SPEAKER_02

It'll get back to him. That's it. So what I found out was I lost, but smart answer.

SPEAKER_03

He switched the signs on the uh oh there's a no-lose in this. That's smart. I like that though. That's a good answer. Clever. I like that. I like that.

SPEAKER_02

So um, yeah, between both of us, we had a uh equally comparable good good beer.

SPEAKER_03

Now, have either of you been in natural state before?

SPEAKER_02

I think I have.

SPEAKER_03

It's the one over in Village on the Creeks, right? Yeah, no, then yes, I've been there several times. Very cool. It's like this is a really nice setting.

SPEAKER_01

I gotta give you feedback on so there's a lot of good breweries in town. We've been to many of them, but like when you go to Village on the Creek, back behind where the YMCA used to be, it's like right on the water. There's food trucks out front. It's a super cool vibe. You sit outside on the bench.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's a really cool spot. Agreed. The outer seating there is great and it's it's unique versus a lot of the other breweries almost seem industrial compared to there's a nice place to sit back, have relax, and have a pine note on the deck. Yes. We drafted a DNA that said we wanted to be unique, be different from everybody else. That location really brought it to life. We call it the brewer with a view there. It's a brew with a view. I like that. Well, and they so going back to you making beer, I we I have a few friends that do it too, but uh what they find is it's hard to like duplicate, like they'll make something really good and they'll be like, I don't know how to make that there's a science and an alert to it. Yeah, they were like, there's a lot more to it than so it's pretty neat that you guys I didn't even realize there was a club that where you guys everyone kind of gets together and then rates their club for everything, yeah. There's there's two outstanding clubs here. Ozark Zimmer just switches kind of the north northwestern Arkansas and then south uh northwest Arkansas is flops. Okay, fellow lovers of uh suds or something. Yeah, yeah. Pure suds.

SPEAKER_03

How do we not know about that? So can we just go and hang out at the one of the clubs?

SPEAKER_02

You can probably hang out. They'll they'll definitely ask for your feedback. Feedback is a gift. Yeah, this one tastes like shit. I'll be invited back. I think uh in in laws have changed since uh the time of COVID, where they can now meet within some of the breweries where before there weren't allowing uh homebrew clubs to meet at the breweries, which is kind of their mecca. Yeah, they want to get that's where they aspire to be. Can we open and and try? Matthew's got to get ready for his big uh his big debut. All right. We're gonna we're gonna follow the Loveabond scale. Are you guys familiar with that? Absolutely not. So the Loveabond scale is what's it called? Loveabond, L-O-V-I-B-O-N-D. We're gonna educate you a little bit too. Okay. Loveabond. Loveabond, we you go it's light to dark scale, uh, that golden hues, the yellows, the golds, the browns, etc. And so the darker you get, you expect to have a darker palette, something a little bit heavier on your teeth. Russ would eat this up if you were here. It's kind of working your way up, a graduated scale. It's like starting on the bourbon from the low fireproof? And so start to finish, how long does it take you to brew? I guess each of these will be a different amount of time, or but definitely let's talk about that as we brew us. Now, do you and and also did you bring everything that you guys make, or do you just like how many different beers do you make right now? Yeah, I thought this is an hour show. Oh, we'll drag it longer. Just just to give Josh.

SPEAKER_03

We may be no, we may get two parts and maybe a two-parter.

SPEAKER_02

Mutual straight. Greenway. I love this name too. Greenway. Perfect. All right. So we'll start with the lightest. This is our light beer called the Greenway.

Why A Craft Brewery Bets On Lagers

SPEAKER_02

Now, do you want us to use the glasses? Sure. Chill themselves. Why not? I mean it's and you have this at your plates. We do. Absolutely. I think this is probably the one that I've had when I've been. It's one of our top sellers. And this is an homage to the runners, the bikers. Uh, we're right off the Green Wail Greenway Trail. It uh surrounds us on two sides. And during COVID, when we were shut down, it was the runners and the bikers that were coming and keeping us alive. Uh because we opened November 23rd, 2019, and COVID hit that following January, February. So many people with businesses that opened that we've we've interviewed open right then. Like you got you're probably like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_03

I had goodness, I got a lot of beer. I got bad news. Don't be come to my bar and have it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. This is it's like create, it's like it's it's refreshing. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is gonna be the largest beer that we have next to uh the one up is called the Hellas, and this is in a Hellas style. It's good, but uh we want to be an educational uh brewery as well. Okay. So when people come and order ours, uh Greenway is one of the few brand or few beers that we have that is named. Everything else goes by style. So natural state Hellas, natural state Vienna, natural state Schwarzbeer, etc. The reason we do that is so that you can go anywhere in the United States and order that style because you're gonna find crazy names like Unicorn Blood and Ninja. I don't know. I can't make up names that fast. Yeah. I was going there and I'm like, well, we'll keep it PC. You guys can go that way. So I I like I like like soda water and stuff, and this like tastes like a bubbly, refreshing, not heavy beer. Feels like this is gonna be the first of the beats. It's this is a good one for me. So you'd put it where like what Matt see Matt's very kind.

SPEAKER_03

See, he everything's gonna be a five with Matt. I know him well enough.

SPEAKER_02

Do we allow him to use decimals? Well, you can usually go five. I wanna I want to wait. Can I wait until the end to grade a sure? Have a mental poster note? Yeah, I'll wait until the end. All right.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, if you wanted Bush Light, I mean that's that that's his love language. I mean, right?

SPEAKER_02

I mean that's Bush Light?

SPEAKER_01

How's a Bush light guy?

SPEAKER_02

This does it it this does taste very like pure or clean. Like it doesn't taste like uh you know, like normal beer has kind of like a dust, like a dirty taste. Normal beer has a dirty taste. No, no, like I'm just saying like I'm just saying like your your Budweisers and all that. Most of the beers, especially when you when you stop drinking as much beer, and as I've gone to more bourbons, I go back to beer now and they're super heavy. Yeah. So this is not so in in that regard, like this is one that I would like, and like I said, I probably had it at your place, don't remember exactly, but this is the one I would have ordered because it would have said what's your like beer. Yeah. And we call that sessionable, which you can just sit down and drink all day, basically, without getting any after effects. Well, that was what I was gonna ask you, too. So so this is 3.6 alcohol. Is it is there like a target that you try to be at or for everything, or is it every different beer has its own I want to say yes. However, I'll get proven wrong. Uh the we don't think that you need to get drunk to have your beer. Uh so we target six percent or below. Okay. Most of our beers will fall into that. So we want people to stay, have a good time, not get reckless or anything like that. Keep your family, your family, keep your friends, your friends, no fighting. And so uh six percent of below really kind of is is that target. Okay. I like I yeah, I like that. It's yeah, because you can have these, like you said, you can have them all day.

SPEAKER_01

And also good for the bart, like, you know what, I can have three or four more, right?

SPEAKER_02

It's yeah, like right. It's like, oh, I'm not feeling like I'm not feeling good having a lot of people. Well, and like growing, we grew up in Colorado, and on Sundays it may have changed, but you could only buy three, two beer, but the rest of the week you could buy six oh. Oh so you would load up so yeah. So I think I'm sure it was a

Greenway Tasting And Sessionable ABV

SPEAKER_02

law how they got to be able to sell on Sundays, but I mean, I think this tastes amazing, and I kind of like the I like that it's not like nine percent where you have like one or two, and then you can't. No, I throw six of these in the cooler to go pick the teen holes and golf. You guys don't golf, but like I would take this out on the course, and you should use it on the cooler that you stole from me on our last podcast. What was that? I should have brought it in. You should have brought that cooler the rubber. I could have given you a cooler that I got here. I just didn't want Josh to get it.

SPEAKER_00

The crocodile's a whole other story. Crock cooler.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. We're gonna flee gears. All right, good job. He's like, I'm sick of listening to you guys. Oh, no, no, no. I I got a half hour. I gotta keep it moving. All right, so this is our half advice. Do you guys like wheat beers? Yes, I'm gonna like this. This is one of the very few that we do not lager. What is what do you mean you do not lager? Use a lager like it was a fair. Okay, great. Good job, Jim. Great. Yeah. You guys hired the right guy here. Uh so hired is aggressive, an aggressive interpretation. The the the the the fast, the the elevator pitch on this is there's two types of yeast. There's an ale yeast, and there is a lager yeast. Lager yeasts uh ferment the beer around 30 to to you know 45 degrees. It's very cold, cold temperatures. And so the lagering takes place at the bottom of the fermentation tank. Um, it's much slower, it's much more deliberate. And again, that's why it takes so long for us to create these beers. If you get if you're creating an ale, which this is an ale, it's a top fermenting uh yeast. So at the top of the vessel, and it's gonna be very aggressive, very fast. So it converts those sugars in the grains that we boil uh into the alcohol exceptionally fast. This is one of the fastest turnaround beers that we can do. Okay. And so that we do it is with a wheat versus a barley. And I'm not joining you guys.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm gonna tell you, I I I like this one. I like the first one better. Where's your at?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'm the same. I am the same as well. Good, nice. How do I pronounce how do you pronounce this again? Half of wizen. Natural state. Heffenweizen? Hef aweizen. Hefeweizen. That's why you would never order this one because you couldn't pronounce it. It'd slap me. Yeah, you just say half. Give me a half. Give me a half. So this is our wheat beer. Um, it's actually become our number one beer. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we're all off. Maybe. And uh, if you close your eyes and you're tasting this, you get some people get bananas, some people get butter gum bubble gum, and some get cloves. Yeah, I get the banana. Bet you do a little bit. Whoa. Yeah, everybody's taste, everybody's palate gets a kind of different what I miss over there. Be sure and add it to that or not. I said I get the banana. He's like, I bet you do.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, because he likes to go to the pro song. Sorry, the script, no double entendre.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry, Matt. Yeah, wasn't very nice. Sorry. All right, all right. Next one because we had to move off of that with fest. All right, this one's gonna be a little bit different. And uh going out of the plastic bag for this one. I went to the world's largest retailer. Uh oh. Oh, I don't know. Now you're talking about snacks. Nobody thinks of drinking a beer with their desserts. No, agreed. So I'm yeah. So we're gonna test this out and see if this works.

SPEAKER_01

He's brought more food to a beer pot test than most of our food vendors have done to a yeah.

SPEAKER_02

There you go.

SPEAKER_01

Individually wrapped forks for your section.

SPEAKER_02

This is a bad one. This is kind of high level. Yeah, I mean Vienna style. We're gonna have to go at least 40 minutes on this one.

SPEAKER_01

By the way, by the way, who would love that packaging of that last beer?

SPEAKER_02

Bobby. Because he would put it on his boat. Correct.

SPEAKER_01

Orange boy.

SPEAKER_00

All right.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so now I'm uh distributing a Vienna style. You actually log her, bottom fermenting. And this is going to give you what we hope is reminiscent of autumn flavors, fall, autumn flavors.

SPEAKER_01

So when do we do the that we do this first? Beer for what? However, you want to do it.

SPEAKER_02

How do you drop beer into the cup?

SPEAKER_01

You put the or pour the beer on top of the cup.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's so weird. I thought you guys wanted me on for politics and religion today, and here we are talking beer. That's the Wednesday episode. You might need the palette cleanse too, because you've just come off a half. But they say that at the Playboy Manager, the script, Josh. Stick to the script. We got a new rating. Yeah. We just want it lower. I can't speak to the quality of the pie, but I wanted some pecan sweetness in there and then chase it with uh a little bit of Vienna. Boy, that is good. So you can have pie and beer. There are other desserts that have it. It does correspond very well. I've never done that before. That's very good. Right. Where'd you put my beer at? Whoa, what? Sorry. He took your beer. I figured we'd leave a couple unopened.

SPEAKER_01

You looked at me as the problem chunk.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I was like, I was like the only person there. I brought a few extras for the biggest. No, I well, I had to take them. I know I know enough to know that Matt doesn't like to leave at the end of these empty-handed. If there's anything unopened, he's gonna want it. So like there he there you go. Yeah, I got you.

SPEAKER_03

I could already see how much how much can I take this glass one with me?

SPEAKER_02

I was already kind of eyeing his cooler, but I already have a couple like that one. I love I love that.

SPEAKER_03

He got the cooler glass, and he was supposed to share it with me in the divorce cell. I'm supposed to get it 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_02

I got that cooler at a golf house. That's where I got him too. At the Children's Miracle Network. Yes, they put her sticker on it. So you already had a cooler before you took the other cooler?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but now he's on your mind. It's just never enough. Never enough. Never enough. He's got to come back more often.

SPEAKER_02

It's never enough. Nothing. Ours is actually really nice. Where are we going with this? This one? Okay, so far. Here we go. I gotta go back and taste these because it changes. Oh, yeah, it's gonna change the entire time. And you can't that one won't pair with the piton pie. No. You know, the more you drink, the better they taste. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. This is exciting. This is the first time we're gonna have ratings on the show, Matthew.

SPEAKER_02

I so this is my number one now. Wow. Whoa. Just I'm I'm going one, two, three. Is it because of the pie? I just like I don't think so. I think I like it without I think the pie actually just pairs well with it, but I think it's fine with alcohols. You can have the pie. It has a nice full flavor. Yeah. It really does. It should sit on your tongue and and just yeah, fill your mouth with flavor. So what is it? Alcohol? Uh 5.2. Yeah, you read it. I brought these glasses because I'm getting old. Oh, I need I need them. I need them also. I just I'm holding whole knobs. He's going back in the bag, Jim. At the brewery, do you have like with mini pecan pies? If you're going for a drink after work, you can also order a slice of it. Oh that is. Is a wonderful idea. My wife makes the best pecan pie. Look at that big one. Empty cups. This is what we call a crowler. Everybody's tipped. Let's get this thing open.

Lager Vs Ale Explained Simply

SPEAKER_02

Now you can't give radiance until you had the big boy. So most breweries uh you know growing up or growing up. I would say something makes me sound like a drank as a kid, but um, what a color of that would use glass growlers, but what we found is they don't clean well, they don't hold the uh carbonation very well. And so this is our Irish Red Lager.

SPEAKER_03

I was waiting for that, bro.

SPEAKER_02

I was waiting to see what you said if you want a funnel. I I mean I've been known to do that before. Irish Red, we're launching this with uh I love Irish Red too. College Killians on the Mac Killians, that was my favorite.

SPEAKER_01

What the buck night at the in uh the down under in Delaware. What the buck? Dollar Killians and Dollar Wings.

SPEAKER_02

Well, Rouse on the Park up in Albany, New York, and on the park was aggressive, basically was across the sweep street from a swing set. But then they would have Friday nights, dime wings, and two dollar pictures of Killians Red. So I'd be able to walk in and put like eight dollars down, have 40 wings, two pictures, and leave a tip. And leave a tip. The best college experience ever. All right. So this is the red back to the schedule. All right, so so talk to us. What goes in? Is this simply a packaging difference? Could you do growlers in the other, or is this a specific beer that suits itself to the larger can? Yeah, typically what we're going to be doing is any of our staples are going to be in these 12-ounce cans. Uh sometimes we do 16-ounce cans, but this growler is for special brews. This Irish red lager that we're doing for St. Patrick's Day. Uh it's a one-time brew. This is actually the first time we've brewed it. It's good. It's really good. So do you sell it by the individual can or by the six-pack? Or how does it we love to sell it from the tap so that you can experience the beer? And it's let me pause there. Oh do you remember your first beer? Where were you?

SPEAKER_01

Oh gosh. It was uh it was the Bud Nips, like the little, you know, we'd have the in the woods behind friendlies when I was 15 years old in New Jersey. Of course I remember it.

SPEAKER_02

I stole uh a few bottles of Budweiser from my dad's stock. Met some friends, uh hid them outside. Oh, you'll appreciate this because of the bourbon experience from a few months back, but I hid them outside so that I could get away with it easier than trying to steal them from the inside of the house. But they were warm by the next day. Uh and we went into local uh reserve uh park area and drank warm beer at a bridge. How good. Terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. That's the worst one of the worst beers I've ever had.

SPEAKER_03

Matthew was six.

SPEAKER_02

He hasn't drank a beer until now. I don't remember what I don't remember mine. I think it was I think it was ice house or something that we had that we had an older gotten for us, huh? Not the ice house, no, no, no. Yeah. No, I'm gonna try a little bit. So it's it's important to uh good or you'll find that some people will drink a beer because of an experience that they've had. They'll remember where they were and what that's exactly what we're going for. This is not just we want to create good beer. We that's we truly do want to create good beer, but we want to create an experience. So back to your question, tap room. That's the best place to drink it. Uh if you want want to, have to, or you're visiting, take a crawler home. But it's not gonna last, and the quality over time uh just diminishes. Uh, but you'll notice this word here too. I love playing with words, and this is Matt. If you can do hef itwe and you can't get that one either saker in now in the Kelsey recannet.

SPEAKER_01

That's what you freaking call me. Kelsey recannet.

SPEAKER_02

So so you can go to the to your brewery and they'll just they just fill that with the tap and then they put the lid on it, right? Yeah, exactly that. If we don't have it in these cans, you can get it in that can. Yes. And then is it called a growler or crowler? C. Okayler. Okay. Glass is G. I've I've always thought I didn't I didn't ever know. That's I learned something.

SPEAKER_01

The glass ones are a growler. Yeah. I never saw one in the can. They call it a crowler.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. And so if people would bring in uh bad ones and they were dirty, we could have the beer. That's a bad experience. This assures them that it's clean. It's fun watching them do that too. They like fill it and they have this little machine that they're well, and you talked about experiences. Like I what I would say is I'm glad you brought the pie with the third one, because to me, if I get a craving for beer, it's usually because I'm I'm eating a slice of pizza or having a burger off the grill. There are certain things, foods, that trigger me to be like, hey, you know what? I'm not gonna do the bourbon today. Let me go grab beer beer, pizza. So now when Corey makes the pecan pie. Now I'm gonna want to beer. Right up the street. I know and you can you sell us packaged in the cans at like Guess Who in Walmart and all the other places? Uh there's there's a few places that we sell it off-site. Uh, we're very selective to who we sell it to. Um, you're not gonna find it at your local Walmart yet. Uh, we have limited production uh capacity, but at the same time, we've got partner business partners that we're uh selling to from a retail perspective. We support them and we'll advertise their businesses as well.

SPEAKER_01

I love the cans, the labels are incredible.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, really cool. Okay, this one just became my favorite now. Really? See, look at this. All of a sudden, greenway is sliding down on you. Wait, uh, are we in the four level, five level? That one's a five. All right, is it five? So Irish red logger got a five. That's good.

SPEAKER_01

First five ever.

SPEAKER_02

Now, uh calciana is a Finnish word. It means to go home, drink in your underwear.

SPEAKER_01

Don't have to learn that one. Somehow I'm gonna have to pull that up on Chat GPT and see if that's accurate. My guess is the answer is gonna be no calcericana.

SPEAKER_02

I think you're gonna find it is yes. Really?

SPEAKER_03

I like go home and drink in your underwear.

SPEAKER_02

Challenge accepted.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Uh, we're gonna go to the dark end of the spectrum here. Okay. I'm gonna really test this out.

SPEAKER_03

For Matthew's grading purposes, how many more do we have?

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. Well, I I like dark. You can put yours in a in an order so you'll remember. Otherwise, I have to know. No, I re I remember. I remember. I'll let you guys pour that. Yeah, Schwartzpear. May the Schwartz be with you. That is dark. That is one of my favorite movies, too.

Vienna Lager With Pecan Pie Pairing

SPEAKER_02

Baseball. Funny movie. I mean, I'd pour a full, but no, it's fine. We're testing it. It got quiet here real fast. That's tasty.

SPEAKER_01

I'm like the darker ones clean.

SPEAKER_02

So we called this one, we dubbed it the eclipse because it's a dark uh obscured by light flavors. So well, like it it really drinks like light flavor. Yeah, I was gonna say it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not real heavy. No. The aftertaste is a heavy. But it like has the taste of a dark beer, but it doesn't taste like you're drinking a milkshake like no most dark beers. No, and it's not any of the flavors that we have. Maybe there's some coffee notes in there or anything like that. That's not overwhelming. So help us out. What's the difference between a dark beer and like a stout? Ooh. Uh putting Dan out the spot. Yeah. Uh no pressure, Dan, but there's a 17 people listening. Um well, a stout is a style and a dark is a color. So yeah, I mean, you could have darks. This is a what would qualify as a dark beer, but a stout is going to have a thicker, maltier base to it. It's gonna be a little bit heavier in your mouth feel. This this is not going to give you that. So we we want people that go, I actually the best compliment we get there is wow, this is doesn't drink like a dark beer, and yet it is. That is exactly the compliment. So what you guys probably all know this, but what what makes it this color versus the the light really light? If you drink coffee, it's the roast. It's the roast of the malts and the grains. So the darker, the more they roast it, the darker the grains get, and that kind of comes out in the color of the room. And that's what makes it have like that coffee or kind of a roasted toast note. Yes. So when you get to the hiena, there's a little bit of toasted. This is more of roasted. Okay. Yeah. You're gonna have a hard time re-reikonnizing. No, no, I'm not. Two two more beers. Uh Dave's gonna go from toasted to roasted, I think. This one and the uh I was gonna say this is your favorite, isn't it? Well, these two, these two are my favorite so far. Look at that. We've gotten through five beers already. Well, I Well, I mean, we had a timeline.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you're a little bit more time. They're gonna start yanking us out. No, no, I we can go as long as we need to, because we just cut out half the stuff that Jim said. We'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02

Cut out cut out every oh yeah. So you still the new guy? Whoa! 8.5. This is the the heavy hitter. I say Arctic Juice. Yes, it's called Arctic Juice. It was named by our brewer. Uh, we just kind of had a naming competition. This is called a double IPL. I instead of an IPA, we do IPLs again, focusing on laggers, India Pale Lager. And uh, yeah, this is the the big bomb. So why is it called India pale? Like, what is India? That's over my pay grade. Okay.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

It's a country. It does not. How did they get the name? Danielle, that's what I eight point. Well, I was expecting this to be dark. U yeah, no, this is a lighter beer, but it's going to punch you in the face with my hops. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And so that was the other thing that we noticed. Punch you in the face. Yeah, right. Punch you in the face. Uh it's aggressive with hops.

SPEAKER_03

Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_02

Smells kind of that's really IPA. It smells kind of fruity, too. So you used to not like these? Yeah, I know. I used to not like IPA at all. But I I I could this smells like I'm already gonna like it. This is your pizza beer. That's very good. That's wow.

SPEAKER_01

That's my favorite. Really? Not even not even a shadow of doubt.

SPEAKER_02

Holy moly, it's good.

SPEAKER_01

That's really because of the 8.5, I could only have one and be drunk and save all my money.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's that is why he would get it. It packed, it packs with flavor. Yeah, it does. That is really incredible. We had to fine-tune that one a couple times, but I was super pleased with uh what we came up with.

SPEAKER_03

There's so much flavor happening on this thing.

SPEAKER_02

You like this one? I do. My favorite, listen, I'm a wuss. My favorite's still the greenway. I thought that one was great. Um I'm gonna stop by and pick up a well and the green the greenway is a nice one because you can have it anytime. Like especially in the summer at 90 some odd degrees out, sitting by the pool, like yeah, fill up the cool with greenways, and I'm gonna be a happy camper. As the lat Romans say, T. Gristubus non discutentum. No one taught Josh how to pour beer. That's how much he drinks. Well, look at and look at the mess you guys made over there. Our side of the table is much. That is all that's all here. The wine is right here.

SPEAKER_03

Josh, Paul Matt.

SPEAKER_02

No, honestly, there are people that deliberately pour to get that much head. The reason is you don't want to have the gas in your stomach. That's exactly why I did that. Thank you. Come on, anytime. I'm here for you, Dry. Anytime. He's eating the pecan pie. Pecan pie's good. All right. All right, Matt. He's good.

SPEAKER_01

We're in we're in the segment of the show. That's what put a lot of pressure on you here. Yeah, we're that was it. Because next time we've done a ranking.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, we're one to five. One. But but Jim said one to you never could be a one. Yeah, no, I know, but that's what we have. One is one B. Yeah. All the way up to five Bs are blah-buh-buh buh-buh-buh. So five being the best. Five being the best. Okay. So I've got start at the bottom. Start at the bottom? Yeah, let's do your worst. Let's see

Crowlers Growlers And Irish Red Release

SPEAKER_02

your. You can't say worse. What's your least favorite? What's crazy is my America's favorite is probably my least favorite. That I would give a four to you. Okay. Would be the Hefan. What I hear is you like lagers. I guess. And then so hold on.

SPEAKER_01

I thought that was gonna be my favorite too, and that was also the one I liked the least. Yeah. I I I really thought about you. Maybe it's because I'm mad at Bobby and the orange. Maybe it kind of just threw me off when you saw the orange layup.

SPEAKER_02

Well, because you're mad at it. Yeah, maybe that just like you couldn't let it wait. Same though. Like if I was if I were in reverse order, I'd go two. Then to me, um Well, whoa, we're gonna get the second one then. Hold on. Hold on. This is my this is my grading scale. I I just I invited you guys, but but I have to do it first. No, go ahead. Not a heart. So this first one gets how many ends? So this I think this this one I'm gonna give a four. Okay. It's it's good still. It's just not it's not my favorite.

SPEAKER_03

And also, in fairness, you wouldn't order it because you can't pronounce it.

SPEAKER_02

That too. That's all I'm part of the problem. But you would drink it if someone bought it for you with the code. Oh, I would I did. I did. So this one, I I'm gonna give a five because I think uh I think what's so good about this is any time of the day, like you're it's hot out and you want to go grab a beer. 100%. This is it's like refreshing. Oh wow. That's a big deal. Whoa. You give a five to the greenway, we give you a greenway hat. Okay, so that was set up. Pre-planned, look at that. That's exciting to know. Had you done a four-five, you wouldn't have gotten a hat. He's gonna give the other three fives to get the hat. Of course, he's gonna be like, good job. Everyone gets a five. You get a five, you get a five. Like, where are my hats? So, so this one, well, and it's like you say, all of them have different, I think, different times that you're gonna drink them anyway. None of them were bad. No, no. Um, but I would say my least favorite was this. This is amazing with dessert. It was I thought it was good without dessert. Yeah, also the Vienna was good. Um the red, five also? Yeah, five. All of the rest get fives. And then and then so what my listening better. You get nothing.

SPEAKER_03

I get them all sixes.

SPEAKER_02

Let me take my socks off. Here, good job. That's a good look. I mean, this this means I'm four out for all of them. That's oh yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah. But I mean, I and the other thing that I love is I I love I love the names. But uh it's it's weird though that all three of us, our our least favorite was your most popular name.

SPEAKER_01

So which one was your favorite favorite? If you didn't pick, I know you gave them all fives because you're mad. You like to cause conflict, but which one, if you said I'm gonna go right now and order a beer, which one are you ordering?

SPEAKER_02

I would probably get uh this one just because the 8.5? Is that the Arctic one? No, this is the uh Irish one. This is the one where you go home. I would too. The reason I would be yours too, and and the reason I would is I I like it, and it's limited, so it's not gonna be whatever. Bingo. James, uh my favorite one to get. My one is is Greenway for sure. My second would be the red. Trusting. So Greenway all day. Greenway all day for me. So I think I think Corey would want you to have there it is. I think Corey would want you to have this one. Which one? The the heavy alcohol one? No. The the Irish, it's five percent. So I'm back in your dream. Drinking your underwear. You know what? Corey.

SPEAKER_01

All four of I do like this one. Um I think something about this Arctic one, I I there the flavor was incredible.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I would if I'm going to natural state and I'm going to have a beer, that would I would start with that one. Start with this one. Because I want to drink myself sober. Yeah. You know, that it's that's heavy. That's eight and a half percent alcohol. So good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm a big fan. I also like for us in the Shadow Valley, like this is right here, you know. It's very close. Everybody downtown is very sexy, you know, everybody wants to be downtown. There's so many things going on right now, which is great. We spend time there, but we can get on the bike and just ride over there. Yeah, have a few of the non-8.5s and drive home. With us has an 19 toll recently. That's right.

SPEAKER_03

The 19 tall. Yeah, because you're right right by Pinnacle, right by Shadow Valley.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's super easy to get to us. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03

Jim will take a bike ride over there?

SPEAKER_02

Sold. I know you've been in the in the in the biking uh huge. Huge. I'm I'm shredding. You got a you got a bike? I did. He did get a bike. He's been riding it a bunch. Electric. Like we got.

SPEAKER_03

I got an e-bike. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's one of those like that you see with like three kids on the back riding. Uh, yes, I have a lot of kids, but no, they're out on this bike, but it doesn't.

SPEAKER_02

Once we get the uh the green look path hooked up to Shadow Valley, we can hop over there and and quick quick order. I love that. Well, I think whatever when you two met, you guys definitely oh, these these beers are so good. You and your partner. I think what we could do is just do a podcast over there. Why we want to start new. Let's do that. Make it mobile. Let me see if that's a good idea. Is it about script allowed? Is it allowed? Mobile podcasts.

Dark Beer Myths And Hop Bomb IPL

SPEAKER_02

Let's do mobile podcasts.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. We can do them this year.

SPEAKER_01

It's right here. It's in the new rule book.

SPEAKER_02

Is there anything in the script where we can do a shout out to a nonprofit that we can do?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yes. Let's talk about your nonprofit.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Yes, please. Appreciate that. Yes. So I I I do want to out of time.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_02

It's cut.

SPEAKER_03

No, no, let's cut the mic. I just kind of needed to do that because it was funny. But let's know. I want to hear about it. I know what you're working on. And it's incredible.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's a lot of work that's going into this and and from multiple people. But uh we've got an amazing uh celebration that's taking place on April 30th over at the Barn at the Springs. Tickets will go on sale very fairly soon at hubofope.org. So www.hubofope.org. Uh we are celebrating uh eight different survivors of human trafficking from the Northwest Arkansas area. Well and when I found out how prolific it really was, a jaws hit the floor, right? So it's just amazing what Hub of Hope is doing. And Hope is an acronym. Um it's it's really focused on uh providing humanitarian uh well they're they're they're they're helping the uh the women, they're providing opportunities for um supporting these women and then uh education. Um we've got I didn't even get the note the the all the letters there. You can tell I've been drinking. So we should not off. Screw up that. No, but uh so we've got Jennifer Baummaur, who is uh amazing woman. I've been a friend of mine for quite some time. Uh just I used to call on her when I worked at Phillips and I got laid off and started doing beer. Gotcha. Uh but she is amazing. And when I reached out to her, she was just like immediately, yeah, I'll do it. That's great. Uh Wit Cook, who I works, uh she leads the uh Walmart Connect. And I worked alongside her when I was over at Walmart Plus for uh a year and a half. Tyler Lear stepped up. He's going to be uh a co-chair as well. That's your guy, right? Tyler was just at the uh action support center all in. Yeah, Tyler's very charitable great support. So uh amazing people, amazing support. Those are our chairs, and then what we've done unique to this this year is we've created eight ambassadors. So uh Jennifer and Witt are going to be ambassadors, and then we've got uh six others. Queenie B, who was on your Queenie B, shout out. Yeah, yeah. Uh Katura White, Shannon West from Sudar Group, who's uh in real estate, uh Sandra Bobo uh from the vault. Uh McKenzie holds clothes on KNWA, uh who's recently moved to Georgia. So, but she's still using her clout and Alicia uh Watkins, who's uh a co-founder of Paradox Marketing. There are ambassadors.

SPEAKER_01

No, she's left, and we need Matthew to fill in.

SPEAKER_02

He's always very charitable. How do you look at a dress? It's exactly a dress would look great. Yeah, we'd have to push that on to Carrie. Yes. Shout out to Kerry. So is it a is it like an event that people can buy tickets to or yeah, so you we'll have tickets on on sale uh shortly. There's a limited number of tickets. Uh it it is really a celebration of the stories of survivalhood. And so we're gonna share eight stories from eight women. Uh, these ambassadors that I mentioned are going to represent those stories. And you'll see in social media over the next couple weeks these stories start coming to life. Uh, the whole goal is really to uh reach more people with what's happening in the area, what the nonprofit is doing to support uh the needs of these women. Uh, we're providing uh transportation, uh a hand up uh when they're coming out of their circumstances. They have no friends, uh, they need guidance from a legal. Perspective. There's just a whole uh security. Uh, they may have somebody that's after them. And so we are providing them secure housing, et cetera. So great, great

Final Ratings And Hub Of Hope Event

SPEAKER_02

uh nonprofit. There's a lot of clandestine work that's going behind the scenes. We're working with uh the uh the police and and you know uh the local sheriff. Uh we're working with the education systems and and providing what are the signs uh when you can see this kind of stuff. Some of this stuff is happening, uh it doesn't mean you're kidnapped. It can actually happen right here. And and even the victims sometimes don't even know. So there's a lot of things that we can help educate uh the public on. Yeah, what's the website for people to go in and find this? www.hub.hub of hope.org. Uh and the dates April 30th. April 30th. Uh they're going up soon. I I'm not in control of when they go on to the website. So there's like there's a certain cadence that we're launching certain stories, but it will be within the next month.

SPEAKER_01

Now it's highly likely that Jim and Rob will buy VIP tickets because that's what they do. Highly likely I will backdoor my way into a regular ticket and then ask Jim to help me get in for VIP, and it's highly likely Matt will be out of town.

SPEAKER_02

Set's gonna be wearing a dress, he's gonna be one of the investors. No, I'd I I I would want to go to that one. That's a that's a good it's kind of it's just like yours. Like it's it's a thing where most all of us in Northwest Arkansas think we're in a bubble with no problems and we don't realize what's going on. Yeah, you're right. You know we're not doing silent auctions. Everybody does silent auctions. So we're really just doing the celebration that night. It's it's really about just having some food, telling some stories, and that's it. You're not gonna go there. We're not gonna be you know hitting you hard up. It's hopefully by then we will have it in our numbers from a fundraising standpoint. Well, you're super impressive. I mean, I've got a chance to spend a little bit of time with you, some of the events in town, and like between the business and more importantly, the charitable nature.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, a lot of people are just kind of not into those types of things, and you got you do a great job with that. I know you support just about everything that you possibly can. We do a lot. The fact that you're doing this again speaks about who you are. I mean, it's easy to not give back. It's harder to spend the time to do so. So a big shout out to you. Thank you for coming in today.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for all the beer. We're so good to be. What's the social media for the for your charity and your social media? He wants the websites. Oh, yes. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, all of it. So, yeah, I mean, hub of hope.org is going to be the the nonprofit uh with natural state beer. It's naturalstate beard uh company.com. So it's okay. So you you go on Google, you type our name in Natural State Beer Company, not uh brewery or anything like that. So delicious. Thank you for coming in today. Appreciate you guys gifting Matt with more free stuff. He's very, very happy. Uh I love it. Very excited. Yeah. And when does this episode come out? Uh we will get this out. Yeah, we're gonna get this out awesome. Awesome quicker, quickly or quicker. It's gonna have to be next week. Yeah, next week, yeah, we'll get it moving. We'll move fast. We appreciate you guys. Thank you. I like the fact that Rob looked right at you saying, Josh, get to editing tonight. You mean Mass. I I got called I'm called Rob is Rob because he didn't. You know, I've had a lot of beer to be. Thank you, sir. Thank you. No, you're beer is amazing. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I am your host, Josh Saffron, with my co host, Pat Mars, and our permanent guest, Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bettonville, urban, and business. The B Team Podcast. Be here.