Jackie O's 

So I guess I just should start it. We don't know where this is going to go. Well, so far we've talked about our boxes and being topless in Columbus. So both on my side. Yep. Yep. Get your shit together, Rachael. No. You need to join in the fun. I am, I'm making fun of you. You're making the jokes, and I'm supposed to do them. Truth or dare, Krystyn dare I? Yeah. Anything you dare me can't. It's going to be unprofessional. That's not true. That's not true This is fun. It is. So I was thinking. I think we should record in other places. I'm digging the change in scenery. Yeah, I do too. I also want to do what you're talking about. I just realize on your video, I have my skirt up and I'm like, whoa, I'll pull that. Now, who's showing their box? It's me, it's you. It's me talking about Rachel's. Kristen's just showing hers. Well, well, we're gonna welcome. We got it. Welcome. So, we have a guest today. I. Welcome to you, too. Thank you. Uh, we have a very special guest today, and it's actually our first guest ever. Not the fly that Rachael is trying to. It's a fruit fly. Sorry. You know, we're in a brewery. I like it here. Welcome, art, to to two mystic mamas. Yay! We glad to be here. Thank you. We're in Columbus at Jackie O's brewery on fourth. Yes, and it's Andrew Arthur. Oh, strike! Oh, strike! Okay, that actually, we get that pronunciation a lot easier than it looked. Yeah, yeah, but you go by art, you go by your middle name. I've been going by art since a family vacation in Australia in 2003. I hadn't seen my sister nor my parents in a while. I was living with my brother. We're both teaching English in South Korea, and maybe there were beverages involved. And late at night and ode to our grandparents, we were going to switch to our middle names because each of us has a middle name that's from our grandparents, Arthur, which is my mother's father, who passed in before I never met him, 1972. And then, um, my brother's middle name is Wilfred, which is my oldest son's first name. And then my sister. Both of my grandmothers had the name Irene somewhere in their name. So. Katie. Irene. Oh, strike. So she was supposed to go by Renae from that moment forward. My brother by Wilf Welford, whatever rendition you want to take and art for me and. But at that time I was about to move back to Athens, Ohio, and I had been teaching in South Korea for three years. I had bought in a business with my great friends Lenny and Megan. And called Bagel Street Deli in Athens. And so I bought that before I moved home. And kind of funny in my I also applied for graduate school at O.u to be a teaching assistant in linguistics. So my two of my three letters of recommendation urged them to call me art, even though I lived in Athens for seven years before that, and people knew me as Andy or O strike and all that stuff, and, you know, art was born. So I love that now. So your sister does not go by Rini, I take it. Not a chance. And does your brother go by Wolf once in a while? I call him Wilfred or Wilf. But now that Wilfred, my oldest. Yes. Then that's kind of gone, by the way. Wayside. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. But we talk about it whenever we're together, for sure. But yeah. So family is something that is like really important to Rachael and I and Blake. One of the reasons that we initially reached out to you is once we started to learn like, more about your story, we knew that it was just like very aligned with who we are and what we believe in. And so I would just love to kind of dive into exactly what brought us here. Yeah. Yeah. And just talk about the story of like you talk about the story. Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Let's start into so we had never heard of Jackie O's or your beer Mystic Mama, and a dear friend of ours who we consider chosen family. I don't know if you've ever heard this term where it's like you have given family and you have chosen family. Um, and so he was traveling for work. And he had gone to a restaurant. This was in West Virginia, like down by Charleston, and he went to a bar and they had Mystic Mama on draft. And so then he ordered two drafts and sent us a picture. And he's like, look, two mystic mamas! Haha, whatever. And I was like, wait, is that for real? The name of the beer. And long story short, he said yes. And I was like, oh my God. And he brought us back a six pack. And he, you know, naturally, Christine can't have any because she's got a little gluten thing, but I was yeah, it is bullshit. Super bullshit. She was real mad last night too, when I had cool beans and she was like, I smelled it. And I was like, this is doubly bullshit. And we said to. We were like, um, I think he has some, uh, gluten options for you. And he was like, I don't know what they are. Maybe they're out of his personal stash. There's some peak here somewhere. But, um, and so it was, oh my God it was right around the eclipse and the energy was fucking bananas. And I, we had all of these like, I don't want to say catastrophic, but like really fucked up things happen at the house, like one after another, to the point where my husband at one point was like, what did I do? Like what exactly did I do in a past life that, like, this weird stuff's happening? And I was like, oh, it's me. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm just bringing the energy. So sorry. And so the one night when all this flooding was happening, I cracked the Mystic Mama and I was like, oh, this makes everything so much better. And I still hadn't looked anything up. Nothing. Right? I was like, this is a good fucking beer. And, um, shortly thereafter, Krystyn and I were just brainstorming the one day where we had admin days and we were talking about, like, partnerships and guests and like where we see the, you know, the vision of where we see the podcast going. And I got dropped an idea right in my brain that was like, you should look into J'accuse. So I pulled up your website and I just started reading about your story and to Kristen's point. The vibe. Just you can read stuff and immediately know there's a vibe there like that. You know, things just translate, right? And I was like, I'm just going to completely cold pitch them and see if it sticks because I just feel something and you go with your gut. Nine times out of ten and it it works, right? So, um, yeah. And then we had our zoom. Zoom was set up. We had some correspondence prior to that. And there was great energy on the zoom. And so here we are recording in your second location in Columbus, not in Athens. Um, first location in Columbus, oh, new location in Columbus first and only at the moment the location. The location. There we go. Um, and it's such a cool space and vibe and all the things. And I'll let you kind of intersect here. I don't want to. I don't want to talk the whole time. No, it's okay. We want to hear from you. We're here to talk to you. So I want to hear what? And we're just going to, like, dive right in. What does Mystic mama. Mean to you. So the love of your mother. Okay. The the passion that drives us. The thing that the elusive thing to me today. Right? Like the sense of, you know, if anyone's lost a parent, you get it. You're like, okay, well, you're, you know, mom died at 57 and it's like, you know, that's bullshit. It's bullshit. Cancer sucks. Very healthy, individual, non-smoker. And like, you know, you're always looking for that love again. You know, it's out there. It's mystical in my brain. Right. That's where that's at. So you know, and every day you're like Jackie O's pub and brewery. When you answer the telephone, you know, it's like this funny thing that goes on every day within, you know, these 4 or 5 different establishments depending on the day that we're open. Right, that these things are always happening and always being said. So it's started off as a very different scenario or scene. You know, when this when this thing got the name changed to Jackie O's in 2007, you know, but it's always been an homage to her and that welcoming home that she created for us when we are children. Welcome. Doors are open. Everybody's welcome. Good day, bad day, whatever. Be nice to people. Come on in. Yeah, I love that. It is a very maternal thing to do. I think the sense of community too. Um, and like you said, like just welcoming in people into your home. You know, that is a learned trait. That's something that you you know, it is. It's such a beautiful homage to her in so many ways. And it keeps her spirit so present. Oh, yeah. You know, which is so great. Yeah. Pretty wild. I told her on Mother's Day oh six, I was like, I'm going to name this thing Jackie O's pub and brewery. She's like a bar. I was like, it's going to be a lot more than a fucking bar, mom. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah. I love that so much. Was she a big spiritual person? Was she into the mystic at all? A little bit, I mean, I don't think she knew she was, but yes, I believe was the answer. Her sister Pam, who was a year and a half, my Aunt Pam was a year and a half younger than than Jackie. Plus or minus a month or two was much more spiritual than her, you know, outwardly, but I think I think it was in there. I just never I never asked the right questions. Maybe. Well, Rachael and I have talked about this where I feel like we don't necessarily know that we're spiritual or have these gifts. Right. And it's like a muscle, right? It's something you have to, to use and work on. And so I think especially people from like previous generations. Sometimes you just don't know how fucking magical they are, right? And then it's when they're gone that we can. The people around them really, like, lift them up in spirit. Well, yeah. Well put. Because like, that's a, that's a very real thing that that was the center of a, you know, large group of people, individuals, community. Right. And didn't necessarily know that at the time. But then in that absence, we've all gotten so much closer because of that absence. Yeah, yeah. The matriarch. And it's interesting to like when a matriarch passes, you know, if there's someone there to a single person to step up and kind of, again, not replace, but just like take control of the situation and make sure or it's a group that comes together as a community to support and bring back that. Because that feeling that, you know, you touched on art where it's like once they're gone, there is like a gap and a hole and it's like, how do you get back to having that that feeling, that love that that sense of like camaraderie and community and just that energy? Well, and to take it a step further, you know, when you do create that, how do you honor yourself while you're running a business in the same way that you're honoring your mom? Well, that's a heck of a question. I mean, you, you know. Yeah. Like, I got to rephrase this question. How do you honor that every day? I think it's by trudging forward and and continuing the mission. Right. You have good days. You have bad days. But, you know, holistically, continue to invest in community, be a pillar in the community and be a place or a person who invites that in, you know, be it in your walls, in your heart and your brain and your pocketbook. Sometimes, like whatever it may be. What was your mom's middle name? Carolyn. Carolyn. Okay, I'm just thinking about Jacqueline. Carol. Oh, strike. And my sister and I argue whether it was Carolyn or Carol. Okay, that's a good that's email us. That's a good argument to I'd like to come on your podcast and discuss her middle name please. She would love that. I'm sure we could get her on the phone if we wanted. That's amazing. It's gonna be great. Mhm. Mhm mhm. I mean I think that building a business and building and something that's honoring your mom is, has to be steeped in ritual for you. Right. Like the process of brewing beer. Right. All of that. And so I think that's something that kind of everybody can understand and feel in their own lives. Right. It's like how are you creating ritual around honoring these people and creating your life, right? Yep. Because otherwise you're just like here. They're everywhere. And that's not what builds a life or business. Well, that's like we're finally doing a Kipling trip. So it was Jackie Kipling. It was her maiden name. We're finally doing this trip. And so they and Pam, who I just referenced, she passed many years ago, too. And so but it's the well, my brother's not coming, but my. Sorry. So, um, it's Katie and Aaron, and then me and the boys in 1 in 1 spot, and then my cousins, Alison and Emily, their husbands. And then Alison has two boys as well. Same age as mine. Are very close. And we're all going to OBCs in two weeks. Like the first trip that we're really doing. Yes, a group of us. And so I think that's it begins. It's beautiful down there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love road tripping. So you know, throw those two in the car. Do you have a beer. Do you, uh, like RV or an Airstream or. I know you said you had a truck. I will take my truck. There's a condo down there. There is an Airstream that is in need of some serious love. That's in my life. Um, so not yet on that. But that's that's a that's fun. Oh, someone's down there. Hello. Hey. Great house. Keep it down. What? You heard me. Hi. It's me right now. What's up? Yeah. That's amazing. Um, we should have him cameo and come talk about barley wine. Um, yeah. Unbelievable. Um, is the noise down there going to jack everything up in our audio or. No, I don't think so. I think we'll be okay. I mean, we we like to live authentically. So even if there is a little bit of noise in the background, I think that that's fine. It just serves to what we're doing here. So me telling great House to shut the f up was saying, no, I said that, yeah, we're not gonna we're not gonna edit that. I might cut a lot of shit, but that's perfect. I had a feeling. All right, so I, I think your mom. I don't think your mom would definitely be proud of that list that you have expanded upon so much more than just a fucking bar. Holy cow. Right. Um, and I think to Kristen's point where we were, um about the alchemy and the chemistry and everything that goes into brewing, when you had the idea with your two other friends to buy that bagel shop and turn it into something, was a brewery always on that list? The idea of buying buying a bar was on a list. Um, now, mom grew up in England. Okay, so Newcastle Brown Ale was just living in my fridge. Okay. Right. And she barely. She didn't drink much beer, but as soon as I was like 15 or 16 Sunday, you know, we had dinner together every day, right? Like that's the Sunday roast, right? Well, every day, let alone Sundays and Sundays, a lot of times her. Her family would come over. Somebody would be over a lot of times on Sundays. But, um, we were just we would. She'd be like, you want to. You want to split a new castle with me? I'm like, sure, you know, very European. I'm very, you know. Yep. I'm down. Yeah. So make sure. Yeah, let's do it. So that's where my beer world started. Was with, you know, not American yellow beer. Um, which was great. I it's funny, but growing up, we played a lot of soccer. My brother, all three of us had a lot of soccer. So I junior and senior year in high school, my brother had these games. Indoor soccer was like three weeks long the season and the games were an hour away, and my brother needed to be there an hour before the game started and the game was an hour. So if you do that math, there's four hours of freedom that I would have. And the games that started eight, 9 or 10:00 on Friday nights. So of course, me being who I am, I just invited all my friends over every single Friday. For those four hours and kind of had a party and then would do everything I could to clean up the house before they got back home multiple times. Brian and or Katie, then in middle school, would like find a beer on the mantel and get rid of the beer right? And so get it. Destroy the evidence. Right. And then I'd always play with some of my best friends that the three of us would be over, but it was like a continual habitual thing. Mhm. Two years in a row. And my siblings didn't get away with that because I, you know, I did. Right. The idea of I think having and hosting parties started then. Yeah I think that's like what I like to do. Yeah. And um you know so the idea of like buying a bar. Was always there. Okay? Okay. I lived in South Korea for a couple of years teaching English before moving back to the States as art. And, um, the, uh, it's always comical. I feel like that's. But that's so true to when you go and you kind of discover yourself and you come back a new person, regardless of the name, but you still come back shaped differently than when you left. And the funny thing is, they're like, what was different? And I was like, well, no, no, no, I was different. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And um, what was different about South Korea? Like, no, nothing. I mean yeah, whatever. Yeah. Everybody poops. Right? Everybody eats. Yep. Everybody. You know that we're humans. Um, wanted to buy a bar. Athens, Ohio was a big party town. You know, it's always been historically known as that. And one with a defunct brewery was for sale. And so, you know, kind of attacked that mission. Thankfully, Jimmy Prouty, R.I.P., did not want to sell to the people who owned most of the bars in Athens. Okay, so that was the end. That worked out. And the you know, thankfully, the SBA again, this is I'm sitting in SBA project number three maybe for, you know, under our watch and, uh, yeah. And what is SBA? The Small Business Administration okay. Yeah. The funding vehicle. Okay. Through my partners at the bank, at the local bank in Athens, you know, they've funded most of the projects to date, including this crazy one. There's a there's a brewery in there. And my really great friend Brad Clarke, we had done some home brews together at Brad was an avid home brewer, and he had worked at Olise, which is now Jackie O's original location, and boom Boom Boom got the keys in December, December 12th, oh five and um, spent six, seven months making that brewery more functional than what it was. It needed a lot of love. It needed some TLC. The entire facility did, and kind of jumped in and did that full bore mom was diagnosed like three weeks later, though, so then it was all a bit kind of a whirlwind situation there. And she passed in June of oh six, so brewed the first beer. In June of oh six after kind of putting that facility back together. And, you know, it was a bar, full service, full tilt bar, wine, spirits, beer. Got rid of macros almost immediately. Um, other than Guinness trudged at it okay. And grew every 3 or 4 years. Seemed like we added another building. The first one was right next door to the the original location. So that's where kind of our restaurant is today, you know, and just kind of kept going, going in that direction. Yeah. Very lucky that one of the first, you know, what makes a business successful. You get these questions all the time. It's like, well, luck is in the top three. There's a couple of real lucky moves happened in those early years. Well you know who you can attribute that to. Sure. Here we go. Never too far away. Right, right. So if luck is on the top three, what are the other two? I mean, hard work. Yeah. Hard work. Yeah. Grit. Attacking. Attacking. I think opportunity is up there. Like just having the opportunity. Having the ability to like, think. Oh, well, let's just do it yourself. Let's just go do it. And I mean, being able to wear many hats, you've got to be able to be nimble and agile. It doesn't seem like this thing as nimble and agile today, but most of them are. You can kind of switch things up and and run in different directions. And I think it's so important that you have that ability to be able to mentally pivot and say, all right, that idea is not going to fucking work. Yep. Okay, move this way. And I'm stubborn. Yeah, I'm stubborn, but you have to know that it's the dollars and the feelings. To communicate. So. Yeah, well, I think when something's built on passion and not just dollars, it's a lot easier to be adaptable and flexible to the things that are happening around you, because it's not just about the money at that point. No. And I think too, with any business, you know, it's kind of listening to that intuition and that feeling because people naturally make decisions based on how they feel. And, you know, if you're driving that and you are driving it from a place that is like in your soul, you know, the energy follows that too. You can't, you can't, you can't have a successful restaurant and brewery without grit and hard work, though. There's no fucking way you have to work. Yeah, like, I mean, I speak it. Okay, so Athens, Ohio is a college town. Yeah, right. I end up speaking all the time and these random weird places, right? I'm like, save your money and keep your day job. And you're like, what are you talking about? I mean, I would I have to work for 70 hours a week. I'm like minimum. You're right. Yeah, that's what I did. I gave up, you know, after running around like a loose cannon for a number of years, as soon as I got home and open up that that location, I was married to that. Yep. That's what I was doing, you know, for a long time. Wake up, teach and get and start managing. Yeah. You know, just run it that way and just keep going. Do you make space regularly for, like, the creative process to take place on to like, what beers you're thinking of? Because, I mean, when you look at the repertoire of beers that you actually have made over the years, it's a lot. When I looked, it was like 14 pages of beers. There's like beer, wine, mead, all that stuff. And I was like, Jesus Christ, like, where do you. Like, how do you do that? Like, how do you come up with that process of like, do you sit down with is Brad still you're. No, Brad is I'm out in California today. Okay. In 18 or 19, Brad moved to Santa Cruz with his fiancee. But we have my team is incredible. Yeah, okay. And I didn't let's talk about the team. Yeah, let's talk about team. I'm not here without the team. Yeah, okay. There's no doubt about it. That original facility, there were 5 or 6 of us working there the first year. A couple of years. You're not here without the team, okay? You need the team. I believe that the best thing you can do for your team is empower your team. Okay, so my team currently has over 100 years brewing experience. Yeah. Okay. For who's on the team, I trust them. Yes. Right. Yeah. At our R&D facility, our original location. They can do whatever they want. Yeah. Okay. You just run, okay? Play with it. Like we will eat that beer via draft lines here or in Athens. No problem. Right. If it tastes like garbage, will you dump it? Yeah. Okay. Right. That rarely happens. And you have to play. You have to practice. You got to try new stuff. And Cool Beans was born at the brewpub. Yeah. Right. And so you made. We've been talking about cool beans all morning and like, that started the brewpub and that was Liam's baby. And Liam, who still brews uptown, kept pushing. And you know, we did cannon one one year. Yeah. And that's a it's a cool thing and it's empowering to the team to be able to have that creative expression. And I get questions no problem. And I all I can do is take the information in and act upon it and ask the questions to our distributor and ask questions to different, you know, in the market. And Johnny's out there asking questions in that way and all the different stuff. You're like pulling in all this information to make an educated decision on what you're going to do in 2025, right? Yeah. So, so like the planning, the planning. So right now we're working on our release calendar for 2025. And it's the funny games because you don't know what's coming at you. You don't know what's happening. And you're thinking about this so far in advance. The new woodcut that we just got is a black bear with a warbler on its nose looking at the sun. Okay? And it's just like a funny. It's just funny because we know we need the artwork and it takes seven, eight, nine months to go from the woodcut to print. It can. Oh, yeah, we should talk about that. So it's just a funny that the whole thing and how it works. And so you start with your calendar, but you have to work backwards and forward based on what products you've been playing with, what the market, what they're saying down there, what the customer is screaming with their money, with their with their choices. Hey, I want this. Yeah, I want this. And so, you know, you have all this data, it's a matter of using it and moving forward with it in the right way. Well, and that's such a beautiful way of doing business, right. You're taking data and you are combining that with giving people freedom. Right. And like when you're talking about you don't know what's going to come next, right? You don't know what's going to happen in 2025. It's those blind spots that the growth like really occurs. And you're allowing that to happen with planning and preparation, but also freedom of expression and creativity so that the people around you feel included, right? They feel like what they're doing matters. And I feel like that really speaks to the vibe of this place. Because when we came in here last night, every single employee that you had was vibing. They were they were all wonderful. And you could just tell how you run your business based on how your employees were and before they ever knew who we were even either. Right. Like, that was, you know, before they knew we were here to to talk to you like the vibes were so good. Yeah. And also, we loved that you have cocktails on draft called. It's called manifest. It's called manifest. So I was like that drink is our drink. That's what we did was amazing. Listen. And you mentioned Australia a little bit ago. The last time I had a really good Pimms drink was when I was in South Australia. And so I was like, oh, this is even more magical. Yes. It was very nice. It was well, it's funny. So, you know, you take this data, okay. And you just you're you're going for it, right? You don't necessarily know we have a this year. The push was for 12 packs, right? So you look at the data, you look at who else you know, and it's been the beers that have been on a slow decline since really a fast decline since 2019. And I looked at the top 20 beer sold and craft sections of Ohio. Okay, so when you're talking about national brands but you know who's where and we're sitting 15, 14, 15, 16 depending on time of year, place and stuff like that, were the only ones that didn't have a 12 pack, like a value added 12 pack. We're still only with six packs. And so 12 packs launched this February. Yeah. And we're seeing growth. Yes. Okay. And then, you know, I was complaining about packaging issues, um, for a new product that is coming out this week in collaboration with Ohio University. You know, who's in our backyard and Ohio University and Joe Burrow and Jackie O's are kind of near the top of the list for what gets what came from Athens, Ohio. Yeah, right. Degrees and some beer and Mr. Burrow and what she was on the Browns. So, um, we're not going to talk football, are we? I don't think so. I don't think we should go almost for a different hat. But let me just interject. I grew up in Baltimore. What? Wait. Well, we didn't. You know, that's the original Browns, bro. Yeah. So when I lived. When I lived there, we didn't even have a football team. And the Colts. You had the Colts? They were already gone. Oh, yeah. Okay, so when I was growing up, you know, it was Washington, right? That was the only thereafter, though, you know, I think the Colts went to Indianapolis in the 70s. Yeah. Right. Let's just go to 81. Google that shit. But you know, this rivalry is is intense especially I mean you have the Browns and the Steelers obviously, but also the Ravens and the Steelers. And so I that's the OG. That's why everyone says that the Browns now like no one gives a shit because it's I have an elementary school friends would send me holiday cards with like Steelers suck. Let's go Ravens written all over the outside of the envelope. I'm like a mailman is. Yep. My favorite story is Jeff was at a game and there was a couple and they were walking down and it was a brown. I don't know if she was wearing it or he was wearing it and a Steeler. And somebody was like, it's never gonna work. Like yelling at them. I actually have a funny story. Before I started dating my husband, I went on a date with a guy and he was like, oh, I'm gonna take you to a Steelers game. And he's like, yeah, I have like this, you know, box with my employer and and you know, it's in Cleveland. And so he picks me up and we go there and we get in the box and he takes his jacket off and to the box. Yeah. Back to the box. He has all Browns gear on. And I was like, I've been deceived. Like I had no clue. So many relationships can either start it didn't last or end at a football game. Let me tell you, I left a football game with my now husband on our second date and was so drunk I told him that I wanted him to be the daddy of my babies. Oh, there we go That worked. Let's just jump right in. Yeah, that's called manifesting. Yeah, that's called manifesting. In 1984, the Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis. I'll see. There you go. 1996 12 years later, the Browns moved to Baltimore. So that's an I 12 years. Yeah, I left in that time. So no football when I was there. Yeah. You went you win Krystyn you win. It's not about winning. All right. So anyways back to um let's and that's enough sports talk unless we want to talk soccer. Um, but we're talking about your awesome employees in the community and empowering people, which I think is so true. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a boss was, I will teach you how to do my job, not so you can take it, but that you are capable of knowing all the things to level the fuck up. And I think that that is true in parenting. I think that's true in being a good manager. Right? And just because when you get that like. That power, you know, and it's it's power. But it's like, how do you diversify? How do you give it away? Right. Because it's not all for you. Because we all know what happens if if you take all of it. Right? You that's that never ends well. You might make a lot of money, but you'll be fucking miserable. You crash and burn. Yeah. So, like, I think that is such sound advice is to empower people, employees, children and anybody you meet, you know and encourage and love and all of that. It's very simple. I think it's very simple. I've said this a lot of times. I just trained myself out of a job. Okay, this place opened 14 months ago, 15 months ago, and total chaos, total shit show. You know, it's a great job, but total shit job. Yeah, yeah. And you know, but it's it's really coming into its own I think I would say right now it's 12 or 13 years old. Yeah. Um, working its way towards being 24 or something this time next year. Yeah. And at that point it's, it's kind of knows how to, you know, make, make, uh, grilled cheeses and, you know, survive. And it could get by without your parents around for a little bit and that kind of thing. So, you know, always be training out of a job. It's kind of like one thing I've. Yep. We were, um, when we were doing the tour yesterday, we were walking around and, um, we had gone into the, the, the section that is kind of not utilized right now. And you guys are like figuring out, like if you're going to use what's in there or what have you. But I noticed that all of what are those boards called that you write on. Like whiteboards? No, not whiteboards, but the ones that you you can, like, rip the papers off of a big post-its. That's. That's right. Okay, suppose that's the big post-its, and I, we noticed that, um, and her name is going to escape me. Alyssa. Alyssa. Thank you. I knew it started with an a holy I mean, naturally, we didn't meet her, but, like, you could just tell her how her brain operates in her craft. Like, I was like, what? What are all these recipes? And I was like, oh, my God, you guys should frame these. Like, that's so, like just the creative process of, like, you can see it in action, right? Like in how she also empowers her cocktail staff to come in and be like, hey, make me a cocktail. We'll figure it out. We'll craft it. If it if this doesn't work, maybe this works. And the alchemy and chemistry that goes into what creates a great cocktail, right? It's not just, you know, throw a bunch of shit in with ice. Like there's. Yeah, yeah, the heart, the passion. I love that it's funny, those those post-its, um how Alyssa uses them are very different from how I use them. Okay. That's like how it works. And my dad was a drywall finisher. Union drywall finisher. He had 7 or 8 guys working for him my whole life. And so I I'm pretty dangerous on a construction site. And because I was there sanding drywall lots of times and my teenage years, and every time we're on a construction site, usually I'm seeing it in Athens Or if not here, I didn't do that. But big post-it and just tiny little words lists upon lists of shit that needs to get done and who's tackling it? Okay, all that stuff. Yeah, I have talked for years that these should be framed, but they're just a big shit show mess of my brain on a paper. I know, but that's artwork. That is what we capture, though, you know? Right. I think there's something. Because the other thing is to when you look at, like the beginning of a project where you can see that chaos, you can feel that chaos, even when you go back and read it, you know, it's there, it's captured. And there's something very real about writing stuff down. Like, I know notes. You're such a good note taker on iPhone. I suck at it. I'm like, voice to text, and then I go back. I'm like, I don't know what that means. What did that mean? You know? But I think there is something about the progression of a project and like seeing and capturing that and then looking back and seeing where you were like where you're going to be 20 years from now. And looking back at the birth and the development of this space and of your, your brain, I mean, I think it's cool. I think it's cool shit. Yeah, yeah. And I bet there's two little boys. That whole thing as cool as shit to. Yeah, maybe one of them for sure. The other one. I'm not sure yet. The jury's still out. Well, that jury changes from time to time. I can tell as they develop and change your leg. Yeah. What? Yeah. What happened with that? No. Children are so great. All right. So. I have other questions. Well, hold on, let me go back. So yes, we are looking at growth okay. Yeah. Let's talk time to grow right. Let's talk about we put we put mystic and Seafoam blast from the past. I saw it down there around her. And that hit 12 packs as well right out the gate. So you wanted to have two? Well, Ricky is coming this week. The cartons, the final piece of our puzzle, are getting picked up by my team today. And we will be packaging Ricky into 12 packs starting tomorrow morning, bright and early. And a lot of them are coming off the line this week. And, you know, again, you go through these different phases, you go through these different phases and you're like, all right, do we want to grow again? How do we want to do that? How's that going to work? And what's 2025 look like? Well, the idea of getting 12 packs really gives us a 2 or 3 year runway on how we're going to grow, because we're going to keep getting more and more product into those. And you know, this can that we're looking at on the table is great, but it's a pretty small, um, billboard. The 12 packs get a lot bigger. Okay. And the way how you can showcase this beautiful artwork that Burns done and all these things and that, you know, Brandon, the design team have done over the years. Yeah. Um, it's just the billboard just got a lot bigger, which is pretty sweet. So. Yeah. I mean, if we're going to talk about growth, I want to talk about the mindset behind it, because, you know, when you think about growth mindset, if we are putting ourselves in a category and you're saying I'm a business owner or I'm an entrepreneur or I'm a brewer or what whatever terminology we use, we really are diminishing all of the things that we are. Right. So I listen to another podcast and they were talking about this and the psychology behind it. And so when you have somebody who's a CEO there, right. This is how I am identifying myself. I'm a CEO, this is what I do. And then the company comes through and they no longer have a job and they feel lost because they view themselves as a CEO. They didn't view themselves as a person who was building connections between people or in your case, like you are a person that can very easily take raw materials and transform it into a finished product. And create stunning visuals that are tactile, right? When if you look at your wall over here that you've, you know, designed with all these amazing collectibles and pieces of of art. You know, to what you're physically doing with beer. And I think that that's so important. And and something to recognize is that you have this amazing ability to do more than just be a business owner. Mhm. You know, how much, how much of that do you feel like came from, from your upbringing, from your mom of like your ability to create and cultivate and see yourself as something more than just a bar owner. Sure. So. Well, it comes from both parents, right? I saw my dad working, you know, your normal workday, but then also running the business between 7 and 9 p.m. every night, right. And so he'd get home from work at 330, 4:00, and he wouldn't work till seven, but at seven, he was back on it Sunday night through Thursday night, unless there was a soccer game of one of hers to attend or something like that. That's kind of what he was doing. And I just think about, you know, he had his office, but also his like Rumer, he was on the phone pacing around on the phone like I do today, but he had a whiteboard in there. It's also the family, the laundry room. Okay. But it was like set up for him to work in and he could shut the door and be, you know, that kind of thing. And so there's that part of it, like physically boots on the ground, running it and communicating with the people, be the jobs he's got to go to or the humans who got to go work at those jobs he's got to go to. Then there's mom on the other side who is who ran the household when my sister when Katie got I think when Katie went to middle school, mom got her license to drive a school bus because she just wanted to be around little kids. And so as soon as Katie, I think it was seventh grade, mom started that job at the next school district over. And because Katie didn't need her to get to school at that point. Right. And she's like, well, I'm. Yep, moving forward. Right. But I want to do. And so between the two of them, you know, you're getting all these different pieces and parts that then make you right. And so that empathetic side of mom, I think really hit home. And then the ability to utilize and and use resources came from both of them. And then the entrepreneurial this doesn't stop drive comes from dad. Right. So the way you work in there. But then. You know, between people on my team, Heather and Laura and Seth, Ryan Cornelius at the upper levels of the company today, you know, giving them the freedom to let Chris and Liam and J.T. and whomever run their respective arenas is a big, big deal. You know, so that all, again, plays into it. Where I don't know. I think that's more mom allowing the delegation, you know, like trusting that they're going to get it and do it. Even if you think maybe you could do it better yourself. We kind of alluded to this earlier where how that all jives together and swims together to get where you're supposed to be, to get you to the point. Right, right. But I think, too, the one thing that your team, I will just go out on a limb and say has probably learned really well from you is the art of communication. And, you know, being transparent and bringing that forth, that you can also trust that if something goes sideways or haywire and they need you, you are available. So it's not like they're yes, they're running their areas, but there's always tethered lines to other people to be like, hey, I need support. Hey, I need help. Like, you know, because life happens to where it's, you know, you do have to take a step back from time to time and focus on whatever it is that takes place. And it's really great if you have a team that can also support you while you're doing that. Well, you have to. I've always said I'm best in the crisis moments, right? Where it's like, oh, that's when you've got to be your call must come and sit down and take care of it. I was standing there the other day and this is hilarious. I'm on a total tangent, but I want to come back. To, um, to this and like the team, right. Because they don't they don't think I could do it even though I did it. And we'll come back to that thought. But me and the boys are walking up to the taproom. Well, they're on their scooters and I'm on. I'm on foot and the taproom slamming busy. And the boys are both like, what's going on over there? I'm like, I don't know, it's busy. It's the same place we always go to. Just scoot on in there and go play scooters where they need to be. Yeah. You know, it's real busy. And I was like, all right, I'm going to grab a 24 beers and to sell them for cash in the middle of this line, because we're slamming the lines 22 people deep. I'm like, we can't, we gotta. Yeah, like, makes me stressful. I'm palpitating. Yeah. And I'm like, hey, you two come with me or go play with me on campus, I don't care. They come with me and Wilfred's got a real loose tooth, and the first one went down his digestive track and he was really worried about it. Okay. Yeah. I told my kid that happened with him. I was like, well, you can't tooth fairy. Sorry, it's in your poop now. And they were so mad. Yeah So then I'm standing there, right? And it's all happening. And like, Wilfred's been, like, really worried about it. He was like making food choices. So he didn't lose his tooth and all these things. And I don't know if I said the wrong thing or what happened, but he was like really worried about it. And so I'm in the middle. I've sold like 6 or 8 cans of beer. And he looks at me, he's like, dad, and he's holding something. Of course, we all know what it is with my story, but I reached out and got nothing, and I just continue moving forward. And like two minutes later, he's like, hey dad, do you have my tooth? And I was like. Oh, fuck. And I immediately stopped selling. Okay. I was like, crisis. I got a crisis of impending crisis, and I just stop what I'm doing. I was like, hey, you people got to hold on. And I sit in the ground and I'm like, all right, talk to me. And I get real calm, right? Yeah. And I'm like, focused because I'm like, this is the moment. Yes, this is the moment. And I'm like, we found it. I thank God it's just on the floor over there, you know? But at that moment, you got to be the calmest you can be, right? Right. Something happens in the brewery, something the wrong label. Run on the right beer and the right right beer. Got the wrong label. And you know. All right, well, we have to be transparent, and we have to talk about this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The hardest part about communication, though, is that sometimes you don't know the plan. And you're formulating, working on your unknown 2025. Okay. There's a demographic today and I employ several of them. They don't like when I'm doing something they don't know about it. But then as soon as I open up and I'm like, hey, here's all the shit we're doing, or I'm working on, like, well, how are you going to do all that? I'm like, I don't know yet. It's not time for you to know yet. Yeah, okay. Like, yeah. Huh? He's off. Yeah. You know what happened? You let it happen. You know, when we when you need to know, I'm going to tell you. And I can tell you all the stuff, but that's just going to you're not going to be able to focus on what you want to be focusing on to get your shit done. If you're stuck worrying about what I'm doing. Yes, because only 10% of what I'm doing is 30% is going to actually happen. Yeah, but isn't that so true of life? It's like we spend so much time and energy worrying about potentially what other people are doing and stuff we can't control. Right. 100%. I mean, control what you can control. Totally. Yeah. And I think a lot of times it's when people get in their ego and they start freaking out because they're worried about something that's not even it's not even existent. You get to this point and you're like. All right. Well, something there's a crisis somewhere. And I'm like, well, I'll just go do it. Like. Well, yeah, but you don't know how. I was like, yeah, I do. I used to do this. I'm like, I don't know the password to that, okay. But I know the gist of it. And you have also trained your team. So I'm going to roll in and they're going to be like, oh man, Archer, what's going on? And I'm going to be like, all right, who can log into this and who can do this? Because we got to do that. And you're like, oh yeah. And your team knows how to do it. Like, I don't care who I've mentioned or haven't mentioned in the microphone today, but like they've taught their team how to do these things. Right. You know. And I know what you have to do. I know the premise of it. Right? Yes. There's a lot of things I haven't done in a long time, but I know how to do that. I mean, on a micro level, there's only so much you can hold in your brain all the time when you need to totally make space for other things, and especially when you're creating and you're creating big things, it's those details. You can come back to them at any time and relearn that, you know. Yep Niche information. Totally. And it all it comes back to communication too. And if you're good at asking questions, you'll be just fine in figuring out how the fuck to get whatever it is done. Then. Some people don't think I'm good at communication, but I think in the past three years, through personal experiences and personal things in my life that I've, I've been like, you know what? Well, parenting you, if you don't communicate clearly, it's not going to work. You it has to be out there clear as a bell to a three year old. Oh, bless it all. I just had this argument. We're packing for Colorado, and I was telling my oldest, who was 11, I was like, just make sure you like layer pack some sweatshirts. And she's like, or I said, pack some hoodies. And she's like, you said, sweatshirts. And I was like, yeah, long sleeve. Like, can't we just encompass everything together? Like, why do I have to be so specific that it has to be a hoodie or a sweatshirt? I was like, just pack a long sleeve. It's fine. Like, I get so annoyed sometimes. Like Graham, he was loading the dishwasher and I was like, I must have said, I'm going to hand the silverware to you. But instead I set it on the counter right in front of the dishwasher on top of it, and I was like, um, are you going to put it in the dishwasher? And he's like, you said you were going to hand it to me. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm like, just put it in the dishwasher. Anyway. It's unbelievable. Sometimes I'm talking with children. I'm like, okay, yes, I will try to be more specific with what you need. The linguist in me. I'm on a mission to destroy the double negative. I don't disagree with you. It's like my pet peeve right now. It's like, you know how that is like the easiest way to be negatively passive aggressive or something. It's like, I agree with you. It's like, oh, delightful. Yeah, maybe we should try it this way, but I agree with you. Yes. Even if there's a butt in there. I don't disagree however, is like negative all over the place. This is like when people say irregardless and it makes me want to pull my hair out. Or literally. I'm glad you said that one. Yeah, regardless, I don't know, art. I might I might really trigger you from time to time because Rachael is whoa. I make her own language. I make up shit, and you should study her language well. So language linguistics is up to the. The language is how you want to use it. Okay. That's a that is your it's yours. Your language is yours and yours is yours. And it's how we enter Co-mingle with those we call them Rachael isms because I just, I just make shit up. And then I have definitions for shit. Like the one time on the podcast, I was like, no, there's a there's a polar vortex in, in Tulum. And Krystyn was like, oh, there's not. No there's not. It's definitely not a polar vortex. And I was like, maybe Vancouver. I was like, she went so hard to just like. Mhm. And I was like, maybe it's in Sedona. No, no. Also not in fucking Sedona. Anyway it's fine. Okay. I'll take leave. Yeah yeah, yeah. Anyways, yeah, I make shit up all the time. I do have a question about like, you have so many collaborations, which I think is cool. You have collaboration with camp right now. We do, which is super cool. I love them. Um, they they were kind of born in Athens or. They've I've known them for years. We haven't all known them for years. Like they went to OU and. Yeah. So they've been around. That helps a bunch. This collaboration is like years in the making. That's even more epic. Yeah. So when you are like collaborating and coming up with something like this, what's the process like for you? So it starts off with a personal relationship Almost always you meet somebody at a beer fest or wherever, and you strike up a conversation or they come to visit you or whatever may happen. It could be via email or whatever. And you make friends. And you keep communicating. And I'm not the best at keeping in communication with people. I'm not the best at that. But that's where it all starts. And so you're traveling, you're going to go visit some place. You're like, hey, I'm going to I'm rolling through, you know, and you just developed this relationship. Yeah. Right. And then the next thing you know, you're inviting them or they're inviting you and, and you're, you're off doing things and that could be another brewery or brewer or it could be a band or it could be a university. Like what we're up to, you know, and you're doing these different things where you're co-mingling in a different way with that, with said organization. You know, this is where I think the world is going in this direction. It's going to continue going this way. And the brewing community. Let's go back six years in time, we were all on a singular mission to just get market share from the big guys. Mhm. Okay. And so it didn't really matter. We weren't really ever in in competition with each other. Maybe that's changed. Or maybe it's the fact that beer is just on a slow decline, or has been on a slow decline for a couple of years. We're all like wanting to collaborate. We're all just real humans. Yeah, building something and doing something. You know, bigger money has come into the space though a lot in these past five years. And, you know, that's I think changed the landscape a little bit. But, you know, we're all still going at it that way. And then a lot of times, if it's a brewery to brewery collaboration, you're, you know, brewing at our place and then brewing at their place, and then we're each releasing that beer in a different way. Um, a lot of times in Athens now we're brewing a long beer, meaning it goes into barrel aged. It's a barrel aged stout or barley wine at the production site, and then a short beer, you know, some sort of pilsner or hazy IPA or some other product is up and at the brew pub, you know, that we can then write and put out there. So in some breweries we've done every couple of years, we do it again kind of thing. It's just it's just all depends on what's going on. I think that's beautiful. I think that there's like there's there's something healthy about having like a good competition, but it's not it's not met with like disdain or, you know, it's like, how do we lift each other up? How do we support each other? Um, how do we bring people together on the regional nature of what we're doing is a lot of times in the past, at least in the heyday, it was you're not even in the same geographical territory as them. Sure. So you're brewing one there and they get a piece of Jackie O's there. Yeah. And you were brewing one here. And you know that brewery shows up on the shelves of Ohio. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. I think home brewing just lends itself to that too. Like that culture has really transformed over like the last decade because I know Pittsburgh also has a very like large home brewing. You know, game going on there and then and then all of so many homebrewers grew to craft brewers. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's the. Well, I had two questions I had one. You mentioned Newcastle. I love that story. But that beer I'm like yeah yeah yeah it had its time. It had its time. Yeah. Um, but in that same vein, like, who inspired you to continue and not get burned out? Like, was there anybody that was a mentor in this space or that you also leaned upon or learned from outside of Jackie O's brewing? I think it's the collective group. You know, you go to these events or you go and you're on the Ohio Craft Brewers Association. You know, we started the thing. There's a plaque on the wall over here. There were eight of us who started the Ohio Craft Brewers Association alongside Mary and that whole game. I was the young person on that group back then and then learning and from all of them, I mean, Dick Stevens. Yeah, the guy who owned the brewery. That's right here. Yes. Okay. And ran this building as well. Yeah. Was also on that board. Okay. Okay. Like the people that you've met along the way. Yeah. You know, you have all these contacts in your phone and you're, you're reaching out here and there for different advice and different ideas at any given time. And everybody's done something or another akin to what you're up to. Yeah. And so you can just go and a couple of years ago at the side project and it was just like walking home and just walking and talking with somebody who has the same role as me in their situation. And it was just unbelievable. How wonderful and comfortable those conversations can be. Yeah. You know, and you can just, like, jump in multiple tangents and run. So it makes me think about the art of storytelling, too, which I think is so intrinsically a part of community two and family and keeping legacies alive and telling stories and and how do we. Yeah, it's so secular. It's so secular. And that's so great too, that you have that community too, like there's all these like little tiny pockets of community. So that's super that's super great. Is your team ever physically like in the same space, like once a year or anything where you guys have an opportunity to connect physically? We do some holiday parties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we there's also times I mean each entity is together, each and that entity each like a facility. Yeah. Establishment and you know intertwines together. And then we had the holiday party here last year and it was in July. And we're going to go back to, I don't know, it's hard to facilitate a party for 175 people in Athens. Okay, the bowling alley closed and we ran the bowling alley as our holiday party venue for five, six, seven, eight years pre-COVID and grew in to fill that space up pretty well. But I don't even know if we could go with this 50 or so people added into it. It's just there's funny games for how to do that. But I'm off topic again. But maybe you should buy the bowling alley. They wanted me to buy it, but they want way too much money for it. Well, maybe they'll come back to the table, I hope so. The problem is, it would be fun. The problem is that land values worth more as an apartment or a condo than it is for that. This is the problem. Yeah. Because like, there's yeah, people want to save that place and I need more of that shit. Yeah. No, there's a lot. Yeah. It's funny again I'm going to go down a tangent here. But this past weekend we went to the South Park wave pool which is been around. For decades and decades. And I was saying to my girlfriend that we went with and our kids. I was like, these facilities and these types of things, they need to be saved because they're all going away. And like, who needs another development? Nobody. But we have to go and visit and patronize them or it's going to go a juggle. They can SeaWorld. I grew up one mile from Juggle Lake and SeaWorld. I was there all the time in the summers. I like, learned my social well-being. Yeah, at Joga Lake. Yeah. You know, and it's not there. No, it's not there. I know it's not there. Yeah. And, well, that's what I said to her, too. I was like, I will happily give my money to these guys. You have to pay $7 a raft, but then you get a dollar back if you take the raft back. So the kids went around and took all the they gathered up all the rafts and. Yeah, but yeah. And it you know it. If you don't put your energy and your time into something, it's like, yeah, it's like anything else. We had just we had a random conversation last night in the hotel room talking about MLMs and oh yeah, and, you know, multi-level marketing like Mary Kay. Yeah. And so we were talking about Mary Kay, and she was like, man, it's just been around forever. And I was like, yeah, but are they doing anything to cultivate like the younger generation right now? Because all of these people are going to essentially die off. They continue to use this product. So to your point, like how do you continue to reinvent and get people to come and patronize establishments, you know, as like you're talking about, you know, maybe beers on the decline or, you know, different things are happening within our world. Like, that's a that's a whole full time job in itself. 20 somethings, college kids aren't drinking. Like we drink. I've heard this. And I also wanted to ask this earlier. And I'm glad that we're talking about this now, because there are a few when we there are few breweries that are making non it's like hot water. And I got to be honest, from time to time I love myself a good hop water if I'm trying to like curb how much I'm drinking and you know or we're out with the kids and that it's super refreshing. Some are better than others. I've had a few different varieties, but I've heard that too, that they're not drinking as much. They're also like there's a lot of things that are interesting to watch the trends of what's up and coming. They want to be socially drinking something, right? And maybe it's hop waters, maybe it's CBD, maybe it's THC, maybe it's just a seltzer. Mocktails, okay. It's mocktails. It's all that stuff. Right? You know, so we're usually later to the game to stuff, but we're going to do it right when we do it. We don't have that plan just yet. Historically speaking, we cultivated fans of Jackie O's through Ohio University. Right. Well, of course, it's easy to blame Covid for everything, but we're starting to see college return a little bit to some normalcy. And oh, you ditched its outdated marketing and outreach to students. They ditched their 1980s plan for a new age one very recently, and we've had three straight years of record enrollment, including the one that's about to start. So. This is where the bowling alley is not going to work because we need more places to live. For people who live in Athens as well as the students. But we created fans through there. And then the opening line of the business plan for this location where I'm sitting in Columbus, is there a more Ohio University graduate and more Ohio University alumni living in Greater Columbus? And there are humans of drinking age in Athens County. Yeah, so massive statement there. Yeah, we it seemed that the kids who were 22 to 24 today weren't really drinking, but they are also deep Covid shit. Yeah, right. Their college years were jacked by Covid. And so they're starting to go out though. We're seeing them go out now. Right. And as Columbus is exploding, it's the only city in the in the Midwest that's growing. And there are I don't know, slated. There's 8000 people living in downtown Columbus three years ago. There's 13,000 today. And they're saying it's going to go to 40. Yeah, that's like there's a construction all around us. Yes. You know, so like we'll be in a great spot if that were to have that happens. Yeah. But it's a funny game for how do you cultivate that when you give them you know, what do you do. Because they're not going to drink eight beers anymore. They're going to have two, right? And it's a working through how to how to capture that isn't it. Thing. Yeah. Right. Because it comes down to service two right. At that point the experience. Exactly. This place is an experience. So that helps. It is it's such a great yeah. There's a lot of good energy here. There's so much good energy and so many great little pockets of, um, you know, places to to have friends and host people and talk to people. And, you know, it's not just a busy bar, right? No, that was by design, the architect. We're almost at another location over there and had Matt Totty, kind of the main architect for this facility, came down to Athens and checked out all the rooms and all the stuff and all the things, and went out to the farm, and there's a bunch of random stuff there, like those street lamps that used to be on Court Street, which is the main dragon in Athens. They're just like laying at the farm, you know, and it was like, oh, let's just get all this bullshit that you've collected. Repurpose it. Yeah, it's all over. Yeah. That's like part of our mantra. Yeah. And then be creating unique spaces, um, within the bigger space. Yeah. It was another main piece of all, all of that. So. And outside getting people outside and making a green oasis in the middle of. Yeah. Well, you've done a fantastic job. I was. When we were walking through, I was like, oh, is this blah blah blah. And Mario was like, I don't know. But then he did show us all of his plants on his. He was like, I'm a plant guy. Oh yeah, of course he did. I was like, wow, I'm so excited. I'm like, okay, now we're connecting Mario. These pothos just went up like two weeks ago. That's what he said. He said, you showed up with a box truck. Yeah. And like, full of you and your scissor lift to get up here. That's right. Well, these ones are all off a ladder. But this place, hopefully we were working on, like, a kind of a. Well, you know, they're a canopy. Yeah. Well they're in they're fantastic for the oxygen. Oh yeah. Yeah I mean they're great. Yeah. That's going to be so cool when it fills in. Yeah yeah yeah it'll take a while but it's a go. That's all right. You got, you got. Yeah. Yeah you got time. You got time. Yeah. All right. So have you ever watched, uh, Stephen Colbert where they do the 15 questions I have, I have I'm going to get there's going to be some questions like you're going to ask me certain questions and I'm going to be like, pass. Okay, wait I have one question. Okay. Before you get into your questions, I actually don't know what her questions are. Great. So maybe we'll just ask Krystyn the questions then. Chemistry for both of us. If I pass you, you have to answer him. Oh, there you go. Fuck. Okay. This is fun. This is great. Yeah, I'm just gonna. It has anything to do with TV. I'm just gonna be like. Is there one habit that you do daily that you feel like makes you who you are? Talk to my family and walking solid love and getting the energy out. Yeah, people always give me shit because my parents, I talk to them every day. Your dad FaceTimed us while we were in the car waiting for you. I know, I know, and he was like, oh my bad, I forgot. All right, call me, call me. Let me know how it goes. Good luck. I was like, thanks, dad. Good luck. How are you? This is also the same man that Tony told me on our on our thing. It says it's fucking funny. And my dad's like, you need to. You need to check. You need to take that f word out. You cannot put that in there. I was like, dad. I was like, I have to. I'm living authentically. It's unprofessional. Thank you Michael. Anyways, how do you like what do you use to communicate with your family or your text or FaceTime or phone call? Email? It depends if the kids are not email. I wish it was a smoke signal. There's this horn somewhere that I could blow. They can't hear it. I bought it with them though, in this funny spot. Dude. Um, text. You got some time? Give me a ring kind of thing. Or phone calls. I love that your sister texted you while we were on here saying, I'm driving. Give me a call because I love to talk when I'm also driving. That's like the only time I really like to talk on the phone. I like to text, otherwise I will FaceTime. You know, I think FaceTime is better if you have the the space and the time. Yeah, I like FaceTime. I also have started using more audio messages to send to people. Those are those kind of fun new thing. It's been happening a lot. Yeah, I just enjoy that. I feel like it's it's a little bit more authentic and it can't be construed as a text message. Oh, God, isn't that the worst, right? Have you ever seen that? Well, no, I know you haven't. So I'm just going to stop there. But we did. There's another. Do you know the comedians Key and Peele? Oh, fuck. All right. Whatever. I'll just stop there. But there's pass a video. Neither do I pass. Nevermind. All right, here we go. If you establish these rules already, it's going to pass. You had one superpower. What would it be to fly? Ah. Let's see. Yeah. Solid. He didn't say pass. So you don't get to answer that. Um, no. Go ahead if you want to answer that. No, no. I'll wait. I'll wait for the time. Best sandwich. Carol's Southfield branch. From the 90s in Athens at. That's the name of the sandwich. Carol's Southfield branch, number 46, I think. And it was at Zachary's, which is gone for some reason. There's a chicken salad. Real thick bacon is like a Dijon mustard with lettuce and tomato on like a nice piece of bread. What was the title of it again? Carol's Southfield branch. Or is it Carol? We don't know. Carol. Carolyn. Caroline I think it was Carol. Okay. Carol. Southfield. Brunch. Uh, what is one thing you should say? Bullshit. Sorry it didn't pass. I'm not supposed to speak. Yeah. All right. What is one thing you really should throw out? Throw out? I also answered all of these for myself. A third of the shit that I've hoarded. Okay. Like furniture, decor? Yes. All of the above. I just said some bras. You know, I have like, I have like I hoard shit and I have too many spaces that I could put yet. So a third of it needs to go away. Okay. Probably two thirds, but a third would be a good start. Um, flat or sparkling? Sparkling? Oh, no. No. Like water? Oh. Definitely flat. What else did you think we were talking about? What else did I want? I was thinking still sparkling flat or sparkling, like boring or not. I was like, sparkles. Do you have a flat personality or a sparkling personality? Please glitter me. It's just not here. Or any of my locations. Yeah. Nope. But no Stillwater. Okay. I'm a big star sparkling in life. Okay, good to know. Um. All right. Favorite smell? Well, I think this is the question that you were going to skip, but I'm going to ask you anyways. Or pass. What do you think happens when we die? We turn in the trees. We feed the trees. We feed the trees. We are trees. We are part of the ethos. The thing. Yeah, yeah. What about our spirit? It lives on in all of us. Okay. I feel like we're quoting movies now. Um, I would agree with that, though, to a point. Apples or oranges? Oranges. Oranges? No. No. Apples. Have we talked about my orange shower? What? This is a grounding. It's a grounding exercise. I'm going to give you both to do so. Next time you have a stressful day. I want you to go home. I want you to get a nice, hot, steamy shower. I wanted you to take an orange into the shower with you. Peel the orange and let the peels fall in the bottom of the shower and eat the orange. And just literally let all of your worries go down the drain. Because the aromatherapy of the orange peel and the hot water hitting it while you're eating the like, juicy cold orange is fucking amazing. How often are you doing this Um, I wouldn't say with super regularity I should incorporate it more. Yeah, cool, I like this. I would say, like, you know, right now, maybe I get to do it once a month. I've never heard I've heard about, like, bringing, like, eucalyptus into the shower and stuff like that. Right. This is like incorporating more than one scent. Yeah. Sense. Sense senses some sense. I love that. I've never done that I have. Okay, yeah, I'm done with that. Um, favorite action movie, star Wars count? Sure. Indiana Jones. Any of them? Any of them. Okay. All right. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the best one. But, yeah, that's that's a pretty twisted one, but. Yeah. Yeah. My kids asked the one where he, like, puts his hand in the guy's chest and oh, that's oh, that's temple dude. Raiders of the Lost Ark is where they basically has the Nazis. Yeah, their faces melt off. I mean, it's that's when he goes Indiana. That's pretty great. That one's good, too. Um. Scariest animal, uh, a hippo. They are fucking scary. Yeah, I put a what I put oh, a mama grizzly bear. Oh, that'd be pretty scary. That would be terrifying. Have you ever asked anyone for their autograph? If for sure, it would have started with the Cleveland force back in the 80s? Probably. Keith. Keith Furphy, first one. But yes, lots of lots of Indian or lots of, um, Cleveland icons. Yeah. Okay. Like sports? Sports. Okay. Has anyone asked you for your autograph? Yes. Yes. Okay. So cans some weird, you know. Yeah. I think we should start a tradition. And the box that our guest Mike is in, having people sign it, so. Oh, nice. Maybe you'll be using that box, though. Ladies, it's where the mike goes. Keep bringing up the fucking box and sign our box. Okay. Um. All right. Um. Exercise. Is it worth it? Yeah, yeah, I don't do enough of it, but I'm walking a lot. Yeah, yeah. I played pickleball yesterday. For the first time, though. I think I'm going to get into pickleball. Okay, here we go. All right. I brought my pickleball paddles. We're I don't know, there's got to be. Are you just gonna, like, walk around? What? Yeah. Okay. Well, I know the beauty of the pickleball, I think, is you can just, like, knock the ball around anywhere, you know? Right. Oh, so my family is big into disc golf, but we really haven't had time to get out and play disc golf. And just recently, we we picked up pickleball. Nice. It's so much fun. Well, I've known I've been having ping pong for forever. Like my. Yes, we've been playing ping pong for a long time. Like myself, friends, lots of people. And I knew I was going to really like pickleball and. Yeah, yeah, it's good. I think it's gonna be good. Now. I need to play. I've never played. You gotta stretch. Make sure you stretch. All these people that are definitely older than our are we are are just jacking knees and ankles left and right and rotator cuff and rotator cuffs. Exactly. They're falling and smash. Yeah. Yep. It's a thing. Maybe I won't. Okay. Yeah. Stretch. Just stretch. All right. If you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? Yeah. Pass. I did write down a song. Did you? Yeah, but I feel like any song would. After a while, the music here last night was on point. I was digging it. I think I would go with more a, like, Native American flute type situation rather than one song. Okay, I take something from the Beatles. I'd pick something from the Beatles, some historical. So as well. Mine was the song, man. Yeah. All right. Um, what's the most used app on your phone message? iMessage. Okay. And the last question is describe the rest of your life in five words. Fun. Loving, good times. Always. Okay, I don't know if you have any tattoos, but that should be one of. If you ever get a tattoo, that should be it. Yeah. Do you have tattoos? I do not. You look like someone who I know. This is funny. We talk about my siblings. None of us. So I'm shocked. Yeah. It's funny. I need to make sure I remember I'm sure. Fun loving. Good times. Well, we have it recorded. Yeah, we got it. You can come back and revisit this anytime you want. This has been great. It has been. I never talked about Selma, Alabama. Nope. We should do that. Yeah, we need to. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You did not want to ask, like, do you feel like you talked to spirit guides or, you know, something like that, but I, I think that this feeds into what you're going to talk about. So I tell mom I'm going to name this thing Jackie is Pup and Brewery a bar, you know, fuck off. Um, my brother, like, literally same day is like, hey, mom, I'm going to climb Mount Everest. Oh, okay. And so you go for it, honey. She says like what? Brian is an avid endurance athlete. Okay, okay. He's top ten in the country for ultra marathoning today in his age bracket. Okay. Which typically that age bracket is winning a lot of the races anyways. Okay. So he's upper echelon. He sells altitude. You know he says I want to climb Mount Everest. Right. And so all of us kind of set forth on a on a journey to kind of help with that. Jackie O's made a beer to support that. And that's where the beer came from. And naturally, it's a brown ale. Okay. Yeah. Um, it was going to be an IPA, but yeah, that style just didn't fit okay. In that that story. And again, this this journey starts, sets forth the idea was the climate without oxygen and to raise money for lung cancer awareness. Yeah, yeah. Um, longevity is a lung cancer research organization that a lot of that awareness got put forth towards. And so some of lung ma means goddess mother of the earth or saga Martha. Um, Tibetan and Mandarin. So the idea is like to raise money for awareness, to climb this mountain, to do this thing. That's this impossible journey, right? Used very little, um, Sherpa support. Justin Hewitt and my brother are the two who climbed. Um, Katie was very much very involved and may or may not have, um, went higher than you're supposed to. And you're helping of people get up this mountain. I'll put it that way. My dad and my Uncle John were also at base camp for a little while. Um, and I was, but I was in Athens. Um, I honestly, when Brian summited, I knew he was summiting. Yeah okay. I had. Altitude issues at 650ft in Athens, Ohio. Throughout that entire journey, and I knew when he started coming back down. Very strange. That is so great. Mythical. Yeah. Things going on there. Um, you know, happening at four in the morning is that's about when some it was something to that effect and just crazy. So like the beard means a lot to us. Um, the woodcuts down there somewhere. But on the can there's a silhouette or there is the Mount Everest is on the can. There's a Yeti. Yes. With a gap in his teeth. Um, who's wearing a rucksack that says BWA for Brian Wilfred Österreich. Um, and there's a Tibetan prayer flag in the Yeti's hand, and it just kind of fits the whole bill. So, like, that story is a great story. Yes. And you know, that beer is a wonderful beer. Um, unfortunately, brown ales are not hot in the marketplace today, and we're working on how this beer lives on within our worlds. Yeah. Beyond the printed can. Sure that the whole story and the whole thing and everything we did all those early years, there's a lot of it behind that. Yeah. Um, and so but on May 23rd, 2007, Brian, um, summited, um, put a picture of he and mom, uh, inside a little. I'm going to say pagoda. It's not the right word. Instead of a little box that's up at the summit. Yeah. Um, you know, an homage to her and and that, that whole thing. But they did use oxygen at about 28,000ft because they had, you know, cans with them. Um, those cans did make it all the way back down. Um, they're not up there somewhere. You know, there's a lot of in the news, a lot of cleaning up of Everest that's happening today. And, um, just like a really epic, full on journey that we all went through in the in the whole story and the and that that was very instrumental in those early years. Right. Lots of different fundraisers and things like that. And we've kind of tried to do more fundraisers. Um, as we move forward. We've had multiple years, um, to support that and that sort of thing. And I, I believe that we'll be moving it to a half year celebration very soon. Yeah. Um, in the Midwest, having a release of a brown ale on November 23rd makes a lot more sense than on May 23rd. I'll put it that way. It's getting hot here. I'm getting hot here. Have this malty beer hot thing on this hot day that's getting hotter every year, it feels like. So, you know, that's kind of the direction for where we want to go with that. And that's like right around Thanksgiving. It's right around the time of year. Perfect. That that that would be ideal. So around a fire yes. All that stuff. So you know there's that's the story of Chumbawamba said in an odd way, I feel like I didn't, you know, I say it differently every time, but that's kind of the gist of that. But like really surrounded us those years after mom passed. Well, and again, it goes back to like, that's still it's a storytelling moment. It's able to continue to honor and to bring forth that energy in those moments. Right. Like, because I'm sure you can take yourself right back to that day when they were summoning and naturally, they can take themselves back because it's like a once in a lifetime. I mean, I can't even, I cannot I also have no literally no desire. But like I give I've watched those documentaries and it is unbelievable. And it's not just the physical part of it, it's the mental part of it. It's. Yeah. The. Yeah, my, my daughters actually mentioned wanting to climb Everest before and I'm like, all right. Well, you know, it's crazy because like they, you know, they're playing Yahtzee. You got a lot of you got a lot of downtime. You're sitting at base camp and they're playing Yahtzee like crazy and like literally they they they covered a person who they played Yahtzee with, you know, two days before they put a flag over their their body. Yeah, right. You know, days later and, like, left the body, they're like, you can't you're not. Yeah. It's just a wild well and there's something about that that like you have to kind of go into it knowing that you're also going to be faced with death, whether it's your death or it's someone else's death. And like, there is I mean and you have to like. Yeah, and that can probably fuck people up pretty good too, because, you know, we talk a lot about grief and what that looks like and what that feels like. And I feel like as a society, we need to do better to celebrate and love and support people through grief. Not just, yes, there is sorrow and there is and there is like a lower frequency feelings that are associated with having to walk that path. But there are so many amazing, beautiful, wonderful things that come out of death, and death is inevitable, right? So it's like those things where it's like it's uncomfortable to talk about it. But yet the more we talk about it, the more comfortable we get, because we are all going to be faced with it, whether it's our own, our parents, our siblings. You know, last week I celebrate every June, July 3rd, my cousin, um, Nate, it's his birthday, but he passed on July 5th, and it was the 11th anniversary of it or the 12th anniversary of it. Um, and we get donuts on his birthday. Donuts for Nate. And we just honor him. I mean, he was a kid when he passed, and it was a tragic accident and it was really tough and it still is. But like my kids never met Nate, so they're asking questions about him. They want to know about him. And he was such a cool kid and he was so great. And that still lives on that that does not die. Right. And so I think to with there's so much symbolism in your mom's passing, but then your brother honoring her by doing Everest like God. There's so much symbolism there, tons, you know, and having that beer to continue to always bring back that story. I think that's great. I think that that's life. You know, that is so beautiful and so wonderful. And I love that so hard. I think that's some of the most sacred parts of life too, right? The ones that we like hold so close to us, and we don't necessarily go beyond the surface level to reach those and share those and communicate those with the people. So your willingness to do that and be like really raw and vulnerable and vulnerable with all of that, I think is so cool. I do too. I really do, because there's a lot of people that probably will be listening to this that will find. A release and something that they're holding on to that is on that same path. And that's what our hope is for this podcast, is to always, every episode, bring something to somebody that helps them move forward and grow in a really beautiful way. Yeah. Love it. Yeah, love. Well, we love you. Love you. I mean, this is just been so great. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Are we going to see your beer in Pittsburgh soon? Well, yeah, there's some funny questions around that one. I'm going to press pass. Got it. Got it. Pass. Ideally, yes. There's no doubt. Um, we will be doing an event, um, in in Boardman at Vintage Estates. Um, first weekend in August. It's coming very soon. Um, maybe second, but, uh, we aspire to we aspire to, um. The laws are a little funny. I was just going to say the timing is a little funny. We're not ready for Pennsylvania's a large beer drinking state. Just like Ohio's. Yes. So we want to be ready when it's time. Totally. Yeah. So pretty hilarious. Yeah. I love that. Well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Taking your time. Do you have any parting, uh, parting words for our listeners? Go, brownies. Oh, man. You had asked that question, didn't you? You know, I was hoping. I was hoping it wasn't going to go there. Pardon me. It's like it's going to be super fun. Steelers. Steelers, right. Yeah. Six. Yeah it's fine. Steelers have you won some Super Bowls in your lifetime. I mean it's fine. Fuck off. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Also I don't know if our listeners really are like the strongest. I mean, maybe there's some people out there. Yeah. You know. All right. I think we're going to wrap it up, guys. All right. Well, cheers. Yeah. Cheers. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a blast. I agree. All right. Go drink some beer. Jackie O's. Yeah. All right. Bye bye. Hey