From NASA to Award-Winning Brewer: How Soul Mega Won Samuel Adams' Brewing the American Dream

What happens when a NASA budget officer trades spreadsheets for beer? Elliott Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Soul Mega, shares how a homebrewing hobby evolved into one of the Mid-Atlantic's fastest-growing craft beer brands.

In this episode, Elliott discusses leaving a successful government career to pursue entrepreneurship, building a brand that celebrates culture, creativity, and community, and what it meant for Soul Mega to win the prestigious 2026 Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Experienceship. Along the way, we taste Soul Mega's award-winning Worldwide American Pale Ale and Metropolis IPA, talk food pairings, bust common beer myths, and explore why craft beer is about so much more than what's in the glass.

In This Episode

•  Elliott's journey from NASA budget officer to full-time craft beer entrepreneur 
•  The story behind the name "Soul Mega" and its mission to blend beer, culture, and community 
• How Soul Mega won the 2026 Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Experienceship 
• How an independent brewery lands shelf space at retailers like Whole Foods and Total Wine 
•  The biggest misconceptions about craft beer, including IPAs and proper serving temperature 

Beers Tasted

Soul Mega Worldwide Pale Ale

Soul Mega Metropolis IPA

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:26)
Well, you know what tastes great on a hot day? An ice cold beer. And this week on the sipping point, we're going into the beer realm, and we're gonna talk to the CEO and co-founder of Soul Mega, a Washington, D.C. based craft beer company. But before I introduce Elliot into the show, I think there's a few tickets left for my July 10th wine comedy show.

At the room at Cedar Grove, just go to the winecoach.com, click events, you can get all the information, the link for the tickets. I'd love to meet you live in person for some laughs, some wine, and some great food. And while you're out there on my website, you can sign up for my email newsletter so you get all the information about upcoming events, wine tours, and of course the podcasts.

All right, Elliot Johnson is the CEO and co-founder of Soul Mega, a Washington, D.C. based craft beer company that's redefining what a beer brand can be by blending culture, creativity, and community. A graduate of Howard University and a former NASA budget officer, Elliot spent more than 15 years in public service before taking the leap into entrepreneurship full time.

Since launching commercially in 2019, Soul Mega has become one of the fastest growing independent craft beer brands in the mid Atlantic with distribution across DC, Maryland, and Delaware.

Recently, Elliot and Soul Mega earned national recognition as the winners of the prestigious Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Competition. It's an honor celebrating innovative entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of Kraft Beer. Through Soul Mega, Elliot is proving that beer is more than just a beverage. It's a powerful platform for storytelling, representation, connection, and community.

Laurie Forster (02:17)
Elliot, welcome to the sipping point.

Elliott Johnson (02:20)
Laurie, how's it going? Good afternoon.

Laurie Forster (02:21)
Awesome. Well, we're switching gears. I do a lot of segments one wine but I love to mix in my craft beer makers when I can as well. So I was thrilled when you agreed to come on the show. And I love your background and I love getting people who create businesses like yours to talk a little bit about their story. Now, I know in 2011 you started doing home brewing while you were working at NASA, which is a dream for a lot of people as well. What

Elliott Johnson (02:45)
Yeah, right.

Laurie Forster (02:49)
Was it that made you take it from this homebrew fun project to a full fledged business?

Elliott Johnson (02:56)
Well, you know, that that's a great question. And and and the journey wasn't so quick, right? So I started off homebrewing just because I had a financial role in my early career and I was looking kind of for like for a creative outlet and a way to kind of like express myself. I was a science fair nerd growing up. I was in like all the science fair so I was like in seventh grade. And so at the time I think

Maybe beer went from like six ninety nine a six pack like eight ninety nine and I was like, you know what? I can make my own. which I thought was gonna be cheaper. It definitely was not cheaper. it cost way more than I thought it was. But you know, just experimenting with those four ingredients, water, hops, yeast, and grain, and just kind of falling in love with all the different flavors you can make from there. bought a kit, made a really bunch of really bad batches, and we started getting better. We we bought an all-grain system like two years later.

And then I started bringing my little tasting bottles around to my friends. And you know, around 2014, 15, everyone's like, dude, this is pretty good. Like, you should sell it. And I always wanted my own company, so I figured I would start with something that I was passionate about. That you it's and that's beer. I love beer. I still love beer. and so yeah, we started doing little pop-up events, little like tasting events where I would walk people through how to like enjoy craft beer.

And then we came up with the name and the brand Soul Mega in twenty seventeen, incorporated the company in eighteen, and we've been selling beer commercially since September of two thousand nineteen.

Laurie Forster (04:16)
And tell me about the name Soul Mega. Where does that come from? What was the inspiration for the name?

Elliott Johnson (04:22)
You know, so we were we we throw around a bunch of names. I I think when we landed on we wanted a a brand name that was not limited to one geographic location, but also bigger than beer. So Soul Mega's more of a lifestyle brand. And the concept behind it is we're celebrating like creative culture and the pursuit of passion. So we were trying to to design a brand that could build a community around people who are interested in something and have drive and and are curious. So

It's kind of like soul magnified. It's like it's pretty cool. So we we wanted something a little bit different. And I like the way it sounds.

Laurie Forster (04:54)
Yeah, and

and I do love the way it sounds. And how do how do you I was struck by that, you know, you have culture, creativity, community. How do you roll that into the brand and keep people engaged in those in those three areas?

Elliott Johnson (05:08)
Yeah well, you know, it's really about kinda incorporating our brand ethos and everything we do. Like we talk about celebrating creative culture and you know, for us, like you know, people look at craft beer a lot of different ways. You got it marketed as like a sports drink and like there's a community social aspect of it. But also like there's the science piece of it of making beer, but the brewers are creatives in their own right. Just like someone who can compose music or create a painting. So

All of our cans have local graffiti artists on them. So every time we do a different beer, we collaborate with the local artists on the kind of there we go. This is our flagship worldwide here. And you know, we when it comes to the music is part of our brand ethos, we we do a lot of stuff with DJs, a lot of DJ sets. we have Mega Fest, which is a big block party we do. It'll be our fourth one coming up and that's kind of like us merging block party culture with beer fest culture. And then we have the active lifestyle piece. So

Laurie Forster (05:44)
Yeah.

Elliott Johnson (06:01)
You know, I like to ski, I drive my bike, we sponsor a run club, I play golf, we have a golf tournament. So it's kind of just like designing kind of messaging and activities around things that bring people together and can create communities in those subcategories.

Laurie Forster (06:14)
Well, since you invoked the name of the worldwide pale ale, I think maybe it's a good time to take a little sip and talk a little bit more about this. I have two of your brews, the other one being the one I believe that you entered in the Samuel Adams American, the great American dream experience contest. That's a mouthful. but let's start with the pale ale, because I think this is the flagship, this is the original that you

Elliott Johnson (06:21)
Yeah, true.

Laurie Forster (06:40)
Homebrewed, but this was the one that everybody loved, right?

Elliott Johnson (06:44)
Yep, this is the one that people kept asking about. And so this is like your everyday drinker, it's five and a half percent. And the goal behind the beer, well, it's got a lot of things, right? So it's called worldwide because it takes some European inspiration with the ingredients and kind of merges it in with a North American craft beer. So you've got grain, a grain bill that kind of starts off as like a German wheat a little bit, and then it's hot like an American, like an IPA, but not as bitter. And it has bitter orange in it. So it's like a nice refreshing

Laurie Forster (07:09)
Yeah.

Elliott Johnson (07:12)
Get a little bit of like citrus, a little bit of honey. It's like a nice air all year round, easy drinker.

Laurie Forster (07:16)
Mm-hmm. And it's very hot today, as you know. So this is quite refreshing. And you know, sometimes some of the pale ales can get overly hopped, but I think what you're saying is this is kind of like a balance between the bitter and the fruit together. So it really can appeal to a wide audience.

Elliott Johnson (07:19)
It's very

In some main worldwide, mass appeal, right? So we were playing around with so many different ways to do it. But yeah, this we designed this beer to be a like a nice approachable craft beverage for the you know hardcore craft beer people that st that want that little bit of bitterness you get from the pale ale but also a little bit of softer malt palate for maybe some people who are used to drinking lagers or the ones that just think beer is like the big the big guys, you know.

Laurie Forster (07:59)
Yes. have you seen the movie Step Brothers. So this the minute I heard worldwide, I was thinking about, you know, the company that they entertainment company they were putting together the the worldwide. So it makes me giggle. And there are so many festivals and events people do do with themed drinks around that movie because it's kind of a cult classic. So I don't know if you've looked into that, but I could see a place for your beer in that.

Elliott Johnson (08:01)
Yeah. I was talking about the movie yesterday actually.

It's funny because the distributor we use for Maryland and DC and a little bit of Delaware, they're called Prestige Ledroit. And so when we first signed with them, we were saying Prestige Worldwide. And so ⁓ Yeah.

Laurie Forster (08:38)
Yes, that's right. That was the name. That's

so cool. Well, speaking of worldwide, you've just won an amazing competition. the Samuel Adams, Brewing the American Dream, and you competed against a lot of other craft brewers. Tell me how did the competition work? and then let's talk about how you placed in the competition.

Elliott Johnson (08:58)
Okay. yeah, so it was a application you had to apply to be a finalist. So you go through a series of questions and we submit our application. We got selected as one of six finalists and we had to compete in what they called the Crafting Dreams beer bash in Dumbo in in Brooklyn, New York, about I want to say it was June 11th, so about three weeks ago. and so essentially what you had was like

Kind of like a mini beer festival where they had the six finalists in their different stations and then the guests and the media people and influencers and some of the I guess corporate people who were there, they had ballots and they would go around and you would interact with like different waves of people and everyone's station was gonna represent their brand in whatever way they chose. So we were we were it was us, a company called Intermission out of Richmond, Florian East out of Detroit area.

Immigrant Sun in Cleveland, Oak Park in Sacramento, and pilot brewing in Charlotte, North Carolina. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. And it was it was fun. It was hot that day too. But they had they also had some of the food vendors who so the the Brewing American Dream is one of Sam Adams like flagship programs that supports food and beverage entrepreneurs. So they also have a food segment and they support, you know, small local chefs and bakers and all that type of stuff. So they had different food options there.

Laurie Forster (09:51)
Wow.

Elliott Johnson (10:12)
In a DJ, they had us with the beer.

Laurie Forster (10:15)
that's great. And I believe the metropolis IPA is the beer that you presented at the competition, correct?

Elliott Johnson (10:15)
Okay.

Yeah,

this is this is our this is our newest our our our new our new number one seller here. So this is a metropolis IPA. This is a six percent kind of West Coast inspired IPA and the artwork was done by a mural artist named Cryomatic and the inspiration for this was to kind of tie in all the metro rails from the cities that we're from. So you got a combination of like D C, New York, Chicago, and LA kinda wrapped around in here. so it's cool.

Laurie Forster (10:47)
that's very cool. I didn't I didn't realize.

Yeah, really, really cool. What do you think in in, you know, interacting with people during that day of the competition, what was it that connected with them, with your metropolis, the beer, the brand? What do you think resonated with them? and ultimately led to you winning the competition?

Elliott Johnson (10:49)
Kind of futuristic.

Hmm, well, you know, this is a really good beer. I'm s and I there's a lot of good beer there, but I think I think that people's reaction to the beer, and you know, it's an IPA, so s the the it's number one beer in America, but people always have these apprehensions about like the bitterness of an IPA or what it tastes like. So I think getting some of the non beer drinkers to you know, it's it's it's not very bitter. It's got a nice tropical fruit.

flavor and aromatic. So people really like the beer and it's clean and it's not very boozy. but also I think it was our story. I think a lot of people resonated with just, you know, guys who are passionate about something and who didn't quit and are kind of following their dreams. you know, I I was working in NASA. I was in NASA for sixteen years. I left recently to do this full time. So I was doing both at one point. And so I noticed a lot of people in the the interacted with us also had things going on the side and like

Laurie Forster (11:41)
Mm.

Elliott Johnson (12:01)
They were thinking about pursuing kind of their dreams. And so I think maybe we were a little bit inspirational, but also maybe relatable to a lot of people. So yeah, that was it was pretty cool. It was and it was cool to get everyone's feedback in real time. And not everybody liked the beer, but I think they still respected like the artwork and like kind of like the brand story. So I'm happy we won. Yeah, it's gonna be a very exciting opportunity.

Laurie Forster (12:08)
Yes.

Love that.

Yeah, so other than just being getting the bragging rights of being the winner of the competition, what you win is a collaboration with Samuel Adams Brewery, correct? Tell me how is this gonna work?

Elliott Johnson (12:32)
Yeah.

Okay, so it's it's a little multi-layered. So Brew the American Dream was started, I want to say around fifteen years ago. And I think the the real the meat of it is to provide coaching to young entrepreneurs and budding people in the food and beverage industry. So one of the main benefits of winning the competition is that we're gonna be receiving we're gonna be going to Boston for a week. And then when we get there, we'll spend we'll do a brew collab with them.

We'll get a chance to spend time with the CEO, Jim Koch and then we'll be able to meet with different leaders in their functional areas of the business to kind of get one on one coaching. And so I'm excited about that part because that's kinda my way for me to not only educate the Sam Adams team about kind of my vision and how I've been kind of building the brand from the ground up, but also get a chance to learn about some of the things that made them one of the, you know, number one craft breweries in the country. So yeah.

I'm excited. And we're also going to Great American Beer Festival with them in October. So that beer Yep in Colorado. It's October tenth and eleventh.

Laurie Forster (13:26)
That's great. And that's in Denver, Colorado?

Perfect. All right. So we we talked a little bit about the artwork, of course, on the Metropolis IPA, but I'm gonna taste it now. So tell me a little bit about more about how you crafted this and how this is maybe different from other IPAs that are out there.

Elliott Johnson (13:45)
Okay, so so this is the Metropolis IPA. again, it's more of a West Coast style, but you're really gonna get a nice clean dry finish. And so the the main thing about our all of our Soul mega beers is we wanna take traditional beer styles and just put a little bit of remix on them. So all of our beers are approachable. They're you know, right now they're around this is six percent. We haven't really made anything over

Laurie Forster (13:56)
Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (14:10)
I wanna say eight or nine. We did Imperial Stout in two thousand twenty-one it was a collab with three stars. That was nine, but that was like our booziest beer. And so approachable beers, they're light in body and they finish clean is our our approach. This one I think is different than most IPAs because of you know, this is not very it doesn't have that bite. It's more of like it finishes yeah, it finishes clean.

Laurie Forster (14:29)
Right.

'Cause most of time with the IPAs I'm I'm like, yeah, I got a sip, but it's just too overwhelming for me. So I would lean towards the pale ale if I had to choose. But this is not what not like hitting you over the head like I was expecting.

Elliott Johnson (14:44)
Thank you. Thank you.

Laurie Forster (14:45)
Yeah. And for those of us who maybe don't know, tell me what West Coast style means for an IPA.

Elliott Johnson (14:51)
And then I I was I I'm shooting myself in the foot by calling it that because I the beer savants will be like, wait a minute, how many you know, but ⁓ I I like so you basically have like, you know, you have to to me, I put IPAs in three categories really. And you basically have your New England style, like your super hazy, like big tropical fruit, kind of juicy beers. You've got what I call like

Laurie Forster (14:58)
Ha ha

Elliott Johnson (15:16)
American or traditional IPAs, like think about like Bell's Two Hearted or some IPAs that are more to me like malt forward, but still have like the pine kind of like hop approach to it. And then you have the West Coast style, which can go f far literally left and can be super like hoppy and like super in your face. But to me, it this one's kind of a balance between both. You get the aromatics of a hazy.

But you get a little bit of that bite and a little bit of that that citrus note you would get on the west coast.

Laurie Forster (15:46)
You really do. And you get you get the finish. You know, when we taste wine, we talk about the finish. Like after I take the sip, I really get the finish of that hop flavor, but none of the, you know, sort of hit you over the head as I think of it. Bitterness that I expect from that when I when I hit that flavor, I expect it's gonna be like, whoa, I'm I'm bracing. But you don't get that with this. I really I love this style. And

Elliott Johnson (16:11)
Thank you. Thank you. Yes,

that's a problem.

Laurie Forster (16:13)
Maybe because I like hazy's.

So I'm like, okay, this is giving me the best of both worlds here. you now, as a craft, you know, small craft brewery, it's certainly a huge honor when you land your beer in some of the larger retailers like Whole Foods and Total Wine, which you have done. what have you learned if there's any inspiring breweries or wineries out there? What have you learned through the process of getting your product?

placed in those larger retailers.

Elliott Johnson (16:42)
yeah, so that whole journey for us was I don't want to say daunting, but a little bit of backstory. We do have a distributor now, we've been with them for almost three years, but our company is technically almost seven years old. So for the first four years, we were doing self distribution. So I was delivering beer to all the accounts, collecting invoicing. I was doing I was basically doing the process in the end.

Laurie Forster (17:03)
Wow.

Elliott Johnson (17:05)
And so it took us two years to get in our first chain, which was Trader Joe's at the time. And I mean, I would say just consistency, like I thought it was gonna be as easy as like just going into one of the stores and saying like doing my pitch like I would do into a restaurant or something, but

They've got like centralized divisions and everything goes down from corporate and they have planograms and there's certain times of the year you can get in. but for us to get in Trader Joe's, I was doing everything. I was I found out who the buyer was from like LinkedIn or something. And I would just email him like every quarter, like pictures of our parties, like the can, just dropping in, saying what's up, you know, like just updating them. After two years, he was finally like, Hey, can you send us a sample? So I think just being consistent.

⁓ then once we got our distributor, it was a little bit easier because they already had some of those accounts. So getting in the grocery store kinda depends on who they're buying from too, because we were in Trader Joe's and then when they consolidated their distributors.

Laurie Forster (17:48)
Okay.

Elliott Johnson (18:03)
They looked at us and was like, okay, well, you're small compared to some of the bigger guys, so we're gonna just buy from them. And we weren't with those guys, so they we we we lost one. Hopefully we'll get it back one day. Maybe we'll maybe soon. but yeah, I would say And make and be strategic about if you're going to have a distributor or if this is for food and beverage, figuring out if they have relationship with those chains already, because if they don't.

Laurie Forster (18:15)
Right. So be persistent, it sounds like and

Elliott Johnson (18:28)
it's gonna be very hard for you to get in because you're essentially trying to get them in for you 'cause they would have to buy from the distro, not the supplier.

Laurie Forster (18:35)
Mm.

Gotcha.

So one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, and I ask all my winery people as well, there's a lot of misconceptions out there in the marketplace around wine, around craft beers. and you know, what would be the biggest thing that you would want to dispel that people might assume about your brand or your beers that you just want to set the record straight?

Elliott Johnson (19:00)
Okay, well,

I will say this. I mean, I think we just touched on one of about like IPAs being bitter, like, you know, I think that's there are some that are, but there also some that aren't. ⁓ I also wanna say this is gonna be a hot take, but beers like beer is better when it's ice cold. And

Laurie Forster (19:11)
Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (19:18)
You know, there's a there's a bar called Church Key in DC. It's you know, really famous. You know, shout out to those guys. and they have different serving temperatures for different types of beer because you know, I think some ales like especially with the worldwide around forty eight degrees or like around f like low fifties, those that that honey notes and some of that stuff kinda opens up. Whereas like I feel like

Laurie Forster (19:39)
Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (19:40)
Well, we're we're tar like you needed ice cold beer because like you know, no knock to like coors light and bud light, but some of those lower quality beers have to be served cold because they're just not good when they get warm. So I think that like the hot take is that an ice cold beer is refreshing, but there are certain beers that taste better when they they warm up a bit. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (19:50)
Right.

I agree. And that that goes for wine as well. Serving temperature matters a lot. And I always say, you know, if you have if it's an inferior, sort of your cheaper wines, those bars that serve those are going to keep it right on the ice because it's going to taste so much better, or you're actually not really going to taste it when it's icy cold. Once it warms up to proper temperature, then the flavors start coming out. and I actually used to work at a wine store in New York City.

Elliott Johnson (20:03)
Okay.

Laurie Forster (20:27)
And there were buyers that would taste the wine that people would bring in. They'd want to taste even the white wines warm because they're like, I can tell if it's inferior. don't want an ice cold taste because that's kind of not giving me the full picture. And you can tell a really good wine is gonna ta still taste good warm. It'll taste better at the right chill, but a wine that's not good warm.

Is gonna really kind of stand out. So for your 2 here is 48 about where you like it.

Elliott Johnson (20:59)
I would bump up I would bump the IPA up to probably mid fifties and I would take the the pale ale down a little bit. Yeah. And high forties. I think that's pretty I mean, kinda like your like your British like pub ale basically. I think worldwide. Like I just had one on the beach yesterday and it was it was outside. I was like kept drinking, I was like, like what is this? It it tasted more sweet or something. It was good. I liked it. It was cool. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (21:06)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah,

that's awesome. And with these, either the IPA or the pale ale, do you have any specific because we talk a lot about pairings with wine? You know, like this food is so great with this wine. are there any foods or dishes that you love with one or the other? You know, what what would you, if you're sitting down and enjoying, what would you put with the pale ale and what would you put with the IPA?

Elliott Johnson (21:45)
Okay, so I've been playing around with this and I've got okay, so I will say this. like a like a s like a steak taco with a little bit of like the spicy salsa on it, the green salsa in the pale ale is really good. Like like a like a smoked like a meat or something on a taco with a little bit of the green salsa verde in the pale ale, really good. surprisingly, like Thai or Vietnamese food, like a noodle dish, or

Laurie Forster (21:56)
Okay.

Elliott Johnson (22:08)
Something with a little bit of like curry or I c I'm trying to pronounce I can s I can taste it in my mouth, but I can't describe the flavor. Not lemongrass, but but the IPA like like a like a coconut milk lime kind of like spice combo is really good with that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (22:23)
Nice. That sounds delicious. Well, it seems in wine

and beer, I think people are really craving experiences these days more than anything else. And I know that's what you're trying to bring together with your brand, with the community and events. You mentioned Mega Fests, I believe. So tell me a little bit more about what is Mega Fests, when is it going to be? and how can people find out about these pop-up cool events that you guys are doing?

Elliott Johnson (22:50)
Okay. Yeah. so the it was very important for us to kind of find a way to bring people together really early on because we don't have a physical brick and mortar. And so where there's advantages, people like meeting up in the tap room, we don't really have that. So we were trying to find cool things to bring folks together and I think music is like what that's like one beer and music is like our number one connector. So the concept behind Mega Fest originally was inspired by

The Hyde Park Brew Fest. I'm from Chicago originally and there was this like house music beer thing in a parking lot back in my grandma's old neighborhood. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was just a block party basically, but they had beer vendors. And I know that, you know, we have we do beer fest the beer community does beer festivals really well, but it just never really like a dance party. It's more people just kinda going around and drinking. And so ⁓ Mega Fest started off celebrating our anniversary. It's supposed to be our anniversary party. And so

Laurie Forster (23:36)
Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (23:41)
We basically do it the end of summer and we pick these kind of obscure locations. Like two thousand twenty-two was our first one. We had it like in the an abandoned parking lot of Walter Reed Military Hospital, which is not a dope, it's a whole new community. But my my inspiration was like Rick's prison in The Walking Dead. I wanted to find like a collegiate, kind of like dystopian college, like tailgate vibe. the second year we did on the water, right across from Nat's Park in Anacostia, which is historically black neighborhood in DC.

Laurie Forster (23:54)
Wow.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (24:09)
And we had it Sandlot. and so last year we had it at Anthem Row in front of the Apple store downtown with and this is the f that was the first year DC government kinda got involved to help us out. So we're aiming for the end of September this year. and it's gonna be still in downtowns. What I hope we we have two venues in mind, but I'm juggling trying to figure out which one to pull the trigger on who we can get the most support from. But yeah, the concept is basically taking

making a dance party and making beer culture and bringing folks together that way. So last year we had like nine DJs. I think that was a little bit too much, but it was basically like seven hours of dance straight, like straight. And it people loved it. It rained so we didn't get the right the exact turnout we wanted last year. But the best thing about it is people didn't leave. So we had people like dancing in the rain and stuff. If you want to learn more about any of our Soul Mega events, I we post a lot on Instagram we're at soulmega.us that's

Laurie Forster (24:41)
Yeah.

Elliott Johnson (25:01)
S-O-U-L-M-E-G-A dotus. And also on our website, soulmega.com, we post our events there. In the events section, you can see some of the recaps of our of our prior ones. And you can also join our mailing list from our website or Instagram page and get the information before everybody else does.

Laurie Forster (25:07)
Perfect.

Very cool. So now that you've kind of accomplished so much already with the business and won this amazing going to get this coaching from the Samuel Adams Brewery. What do you see the next five years for the brewery? What are your goals for where you want to be in five years from now?

Elliott Johnson (25:18)
Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I'm super excited to get to to work with Sam Adams. I think number one, getting selected for this competition kind of validates our brand in kind of like the the crap beer industry. that's something I've been working on since I first started. for us in the next five years, I definitely see us growing along the East Coast in all the major metropolitan markets. I think that's that's my goal. I wanted to be regionally recognized.

Laurie Forster (25:59)
Mm-hmm.

Elliott Johnson (26:01)
and have our beer, you know, as north as Massachusetts and s maybe south of Georgia, maybe Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole East Coast.

Laurie Forster (26:06)
Yeah, there you go. I love it. Big goals, big goals.

Really great. Well, it sounds like you're on your way. And and I was just wondering, you know, because I have so many people listening that may be, you know, hardcore into wine, but maybe have never had an IPA or don't drink beer on the regular. So if you were gonna introduce a wine drinker, a wine lover to craft beers like the two we've been tasting, how would you do it?

Where would you tell them to start?

Elliott Johnson (26:36)
Okay. So if I was gonna take a wine drinker and put them on one of ours first, and I just did this actually at a tasting in Baltimore on Friday. There was there was the the wine sommelier there, like refused to come to my table and try the beer. but she liked the pale ale and I think she liked the hints of orange and some of the sweetness that she gets from some of the I guess orange wines that she drank. but I would say if you're a red drinker,

Laurie Forster (26:58)
⁓

Elliott Johnson (27:00)
And you like that more kind of like a little bit of astringency and a little bit more like full body, I would say maybe start with a stout, an Irish stout, or maybe a red ale, something that's a little bit more malt for it. If you're a white drinker and we don't sell this, but I'm gonna promote it anyway, I would maybe start with a sour beer or like a mixed fermentation beer, like a lambic or like

Something with like a wild and then a fruit. Yeah, it's to to get more of like the fruit catch, a little bit more of the the sourness. if you're right down the middle, I would say I would start with our Metropolis IPA because you're gonna get a lot of the fruit aromatics. I think that's complimentary to maybe a rose, if you will, or and I'm not the the wine guy, but I'm like I like Cabs

Laurie Forster (27:27)
Fruit. Yeah.

That's okay.

Elliott Johnson (27:49)
I

think I think the orange wine and rose kinda like or like maybe like is isn't like Chardonnay kinda buttery. I think that's the right word. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (27:55)
Yes, it can

be, yes.

Elliott Johnson (27:56)
Yeah,

so I think I think playing along those like those areas would be good match for the IPA. If you want to step go go crazy and you're used to like maybe like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Blanc or something like that, I would I would try a sour. And if you like something super mellow and kinda like you wanna just pour nice glass and vibe out, I would say go Imperial Stout. Do do the do the barrel age one, ten percent or something. Yeah.

Laurie Forster (28:10)
Nice.

Love that. Well, I know you're gonna do this collab with Samuel Adams Brewery. Is the beer that you're collabing, will that be for sale? Will people get to taste that?

Elliott Johnson (28:29)
Yes, it will be for sale. we just had our meeting this week about our planning for it. I believe it'll be available, if not nationally, definitely regionally. And so we roll the product out, we'll have a whole campaign and I got a bunch of ideas for like storytelling and content we're gonna put together for it. But for sure, we're gonna have a bunch of release events in different markets.

Laurie Forster (28:51)
Well, great. Well, keep us posted so I can let my listeners know when it's available and where it's available because I know we're all gonna want to try that. but these two are d both delicious. I have to say the IPA is the biggest sort of mind blown for me today. Cause usually I'm not digging the IPAs because they're just overly bitter, and yours is not. So I'm super excited to have found one that I like. So thank you.

Elliott Johnson (29:16)
Convergency, boom,

job done.

Laurie Forster (29:18)
It converted. But Elliot,

thank you so much for coming on the sipping point. And I can't wait to see what you guys come out with next.

Elliott Johnson (29:25)
Awesome, Laurie thank you having me. It's it's been a pleasure and and really fun time.

Laurie Forster (29:28)
Awesome. Cheers.

Laurie Forster (29:29)
Well, this might just be the first time I ever found an IPA that I loved. Check out Elliot, his beers, and so much more at soulmega.com. I'll put all the links on my show page, as well as a link to see if you can snag one of the last few tickets to my wine comedy show, Something to Wine About, at the room at Cedar Grove in Lewis, Delaware on Friday, July 10th.

Go to thewinecoach.com, click on events, or sign up for my email newsletter so you can find out about other events, tours, and so much more. As always, I am so thankful for you tuning in. Thank you for listening. And if you know another wine or beer lover that you want to introduce the show to, please pass it along. All right, until next week. Cheers!