SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome back to another episode of ISM Radio. I'm your host, Gage. I am here at our first executive networking event at Ohica Castle, and I have the pleasure of sitting here tonight with Ralph Mandarino from the necromanticbrew.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Is that Necromantic Bruco.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Bruco. Yep. Okay. So that's where you guys go to check him out because this is going to be a fun one. You better get your seat belts on for this one. This one's going to go up and down and all around because, man, does he have a seriously fun facility for you guys to check out? And I checked it out, and the pictures and stuff were absolutely amazing. You know, it's like really cool what you're doing. I'm glad you like it. And well, I like it because it has that originality to it, that a lot of hard work went into this because doing what you do takes a lot of planning and a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

There was thought involved, I promise.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So you started this back in 2018. Tell people how this started and what you do because this is a brewery that makes a very specific type of brew. There's a serious beer here. This is not your average beer.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So uh back in 2018, uh I had been halfway through, let's say, my gluten-free journey. I was uh I lived 30 years of my life, I had no idea that I had uh celiac. So uh one day I just woke up and I could no longer digest food. Uh that that you know, food that I knew of. So you know, bagels, pasta, you know, pizza, hot dogs, all the wonderful things that make us New Yorkers. Uh uh, you know, so luckily through a friend, I was able to figure out that it was celiac that I wound up having. So uh a buddy of mine had come over to my house. As I said, I was now, you know, maybe uh five years into this journey of being gluten-free. And uh he came over and I I made him dinner and he was it was indiscernible to him. The uh it was either clam sauce or scampi or something like that. You know, I had made a a really good gluten-free meal, and uh with that, he just uh, you know, he said, Hey man, I can't tell the difference between this and a regular gluten-free meal, so um why don't we why don't we make some beer just like that?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

And that's how it started at home.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

And and that's how it started. It kind of snowballed from there. And you know, being in Farmingdale, I grew up in Farmingdale, I went to Northside down the block, and it was really fun to be able to come home and put something that was special to me and special to a lot of people that have you know gluten intolerance or celiac. Um and then and unbeknownst to me, I realized that we were serving a couple of underserved communities, you know, and that gets back to the horror theme of of the place.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, which is incredible. The theme is is really cool, and we'll get into the theme in a little bit, but the naturally gluten-free, the ancient grains that you use, describe that process. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So traditional beer and alcohol, you know, like uh whiskeys and scotch, rye, you know, bourbon has rye. Uh so uh, you know, buck uh regular wheat and rye and um is wheat, rye, and barley are are like the bad things for for me to have that I just can't digest them. So we use buckwheat, no relation, and we use millet, roasted rice, flaked quinoa, and blue organic corn. And I use a combination of those grains to make the styles that everybody is accustomed to. So we do the same types of you know, hazy IPAs, regular IPAs, West Coast IPAs, we do Belgians, um you know, we have Saisons, pale ales, blonde ales, you know, we have uh an apple pie flavored blonde. Right now I'm working on a uh creamsicle blonde over the summer.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

So you guys get creative in there. Now you do this all within the same facility that you serve it correctly.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So everything is done in the facility. We've got 2,700 square feet, 1700 square foot tap room, and a thousand in the back for the brew room. We got 18 foot ceilings, so I have no problem accessing my tanks and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Right, right, right. So now let's get into some of the events that you have there. Because when I saw them online, I mean there's an event every week, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Isn't it like just about every day we have something going on? So right now, today being Tuesday, Tuesdays we do um double features for movies. So I have uh an umbrella license to play films. Um so every month generally has a theme to it. So this is Animation April. So for Animation April, tonight we're playing the uh haunted world of El Superbisto from Rob Zombie and uh a German film. Um help me, I could never uh pronounce it correctly, but it's uh it's a pretty funny film with uh cats.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

And then the theme, the theme this weekend, you guys are gonna go into the halfway to Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

That's right, being the end of April now. So this would be you know the weekend for the end of April. So we're gonna have a halfway to Halloween party, which is basically a full-blown Halloween party in April.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Okay, so that's this weekend, the 26th, that's going down. That's right, and that's in Farmingdale.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yep. I even brewed a fresh batch of pumpkin beer, which is for the event. For the event, which is insane.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I mean, that's a creative, that's what I'm saying. People don't realize the work that went into the planning of all this because that's how now give me an idea of what it takes. So, like you have the event this weekend, yep. When you thought of this event and you said, Okay, we're gonna serve pumpkin, how long did it take you to actually create from scratch pumpkin brew?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Sure. So basically, I actually have four recipes, four different types of pumpkin beers. Uh, but again, everything is always determined on time. So, you know, on a on a general brew, I would say it would take anywhere between a week and a half to two weeks. Um, you know, unless I want to get a lager or something like that, that takes, you know, maybe uh so some do take a little longer than others. Yeah, dependent upon the style. Sometimes it's got to sit a month and stuff like that. You really want everything to I mean, generally, honestly, everything should sit because when things sit and settle, everything tastes better. Okay. You know, but sometimes when you're in a a pinch or a crunch, you know, supply chains are still a thing here. I I'm really surprised that I have problems with that still, but it's true. So I was waiting for enzymes, which is again one of the um unfortunateness of having gluten-free beer. Yeah. The enzymes are not built into the grains, right? Naturally, naturally gluten-free. My enzymes in the uh starches, so I want to turn starch to sugar. I can't do it without this enzyme, which's a regular enzyme, it's uh glucoamy, but uh see, wheat has that built in, rye has that built in, barley has that built in. So for a regular brewery, you hit it at a certain temperature and it just secretes and you get your starch inevitably into sugar, and then the yeast eats the sugar and you got alcohol. So for us, we just have the extra step of adding that uh that chemical, which is the uh amylase.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Did you guys write that recipe down because he just gave away the secrets? Now you can't get that enzyme in like stop and shop, right? It's not happening. You can't run out and grab a bag and just fill up and that's it. Gotta get it from the lab. Now, are there different strengths to the beer? Like alcohol?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Absolutely. So uh we run a gamut here. So we have things that are you know four percent, four and a half percent, but you know, my customers they like to drink. So generally mine are on on the higher side.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

They're strong, they're stronger.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah, seven and a half, eight and a half, nine and a half, ten percent. What's the highest? Is it 12 and a half? I've done. Um, at home I've done 14.5, which is basically right under the limit for legality purposes. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

It's like moonshine. Once you hit 15, you're wine. That's a whole different license. Okay, so right, that's a different licensing than the brewery. And so we touched on some of the events, but there's so many more. When I saw the calendar of events, so yeah, I couldn't even write them all down to rattle them off for you here tonight on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I couldn't do it. There were so many. I'll do my best. So for the month to month, we do a paint and sip, which is a traditional. We have uh actually my wife is a is an artist, and she comes and she instructs step by step. We supply the um, you know, the canvases, the paints, um, everything that you need, and the beer. So it's a paint and sip. Right. You get a ticket on Eventbrite for that. Then we do once a month. I have a psychic who is incredibly good. Um, but of course, it's for entertainment purposes only, but it is she is very, very good at what she does. And uh so that's a ticketed event. We do these on Wednesdays generally, and then of course, the the really big event that people love is Drag Queen Bingo. Drag Queen Bingo, we sell out almost every month. Um yeah, that was one of the pictures that I saw. That's a big one, and and they are really good at um why are they always so tall?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

How come they're always so tall? Is it the heels that we're just not in heels? It's they're only six foot five in there.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Six's five and well put together. They're all right. They're good.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

It's so true, it really is. That's unbelievable. Now, you started in 2018, you took a little break with COVID, and then you got back into it just three years ago now. So this is fairly new to you.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

It is. So in 2018, we were coming up with recipes, we were shopping properties, you know, we wound up settling. I shouldn't say settling, we you know, we were trying to get into Main Street and Farmingdale, but you know, it's um Slim Pickens unless you know, most most things are are taken, um or leased rather. So we were fortunate to be able to make a deal with uh the property owner at the time, and uh, of course, it was so fortuitous that we signed that lease on uh March 20th, and then it was only a few days later that uh everything got shut down, and then you were saddled with infinite uh delays, but that actually worked out to our benefit uh to a degree, so not financially so much, but we were able to really fine-tune recipes and almost retool recipes because the what we were doing at home was nowhere near what we're doing now. I mean, I was really into what they call extract brewing, which is um syrups and honeys and and stuff like that. And the flavor profiles were great, but it's really the grain that gives you what makes a beer a beer. Okay. So, like if if you were to say, like you swirl the beer, you see the uh the lacing on the glass, or you got that nice amount of head that just sits on that thing, you know, that doesn't dissipate so quickly. And then of course the mouth feels nice and rounded when it should be. You know, my um my darker stuff, of course. A lot of people like the like the Guinness style, the um, you know, those dark ones, browns and porters and stouts, and you know, it's gotta be thick and syrupy, but because of there's no gluten, it doesn't sit heavy. Right. So it doesn't expand your stomach, so you don't feel that bloating this so much. So it's uh that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

That's the ancient greens. That's the ancient grains. So you need to know about the ancient greens, and there's only one way to find out about it, and that's everybody head over to Farmingdale. But you've also, because it's kind of like a science project, and you get into the brewery and all this that you're getting the recipes that you're telling us and stuff. Did you have any batches that came out that may have been and now you make some amazing ones, I've heard about the great ones.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Have you had any that you come out and it's like, uh-oh. Absolutely. So absolutely, and you know what the funny thing is? Um, it's probably happened more times than I would want to admit, but I've been fortunate in when I make a recipe and I have a plan, I'm really the only one that knows that. So by the time it comes out, if something is not the way that I wanted it to, I could quote, fix it or change it, or you know, use it in some other capacity. And therefore, by the time I present it to you, whomever comes, no, this was you know, it's a plan the whole time. So I've been I've been fortunate that uh truthfully, you know, maybe we've had three bad batches, and the irony to that is it's probably been, you know, over the last uh I would say six to eight months. Okay. So it was recent.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

It was only because you're you're spanning out and trying new things, and that's when things are gonna go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, like one very specifically. I was uh last summer, let's say maybe it was a little after the summer, but I wanted to do like um like a hard tea. So I wanted to make like a southern tea, a peach sweet tea, but with alcohol. And uh, you know, I just didn't approach it correctly, so it never really got off the ground. I mean, the tea version of it without the alcohol was delicious, but I just couldn't uh I didn't get it to ferment properly, so it was non-alcoholic at that point. It was just sweet tea. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Now you said that you're really the only one that knows. So are you the scientist? Are you the guy behind the entire brewing operation that you're putting all these different extracts and grains and the things that you do put together? You're the one that makes the recipe.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, right now it's currently uh it's a one-man show, really. I I have a couple of people that help me out from time to time, but uh for the most part, you know, it's a lot of hours, but it's it's very rewarding.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, you're definitely putting in the work now. Is this something that could grow to be canned and sold and wholesaled?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Is this so we have a canning machine on premises which we use? Um we get our cans locally from Deer Park. Um, and we basically for every batch of beer, and for me, a batch of beer is roughly six and a half half kegs. So I take five and a half of those kegs and put them in the basement for everybody to come and enjoy for the tap room. And that one half keg I can. So that's roughly uh 140 cans, and then we have a refrigerator like uh 7 Eleven in the front. Okay, and you just pop on and you know, some people just come and pick up to go. So people could just come in and grab a couple of cans and and and sit put them at their house for a party and the fun thing is I consistently rotate the menu.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Gotcha. So it's never there's it's never the same stuff. When you come in in, it's always going to be different because you're making all these different flavors. Like now you have a pumpkin one for this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

So if they can come in, there's a half a keg available for pumpkin, you can grab that now if you you know, if that's what you exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And then we have the same thing that most breweries have, like a crowler machine, if you've ever seen that. So it's a 32-ounce can that you can make on demand. So if for whatever reason the cans, you know, the 16-ounce cans are sold out and somebody sees tastes something they like, I'll just take it right off the page.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So you can take it out of the keg, right out of the tap. Yep, that's in the brewery, yep, in the tap room. Correct. Put it in the can and make it to go right then and there. Shine it got seal it up and send you home. That's really cool. I want to see that process. Look forward to showing you. And I'm sure you guys want to see the process too. So maybe that'll be the next step as we grow um with Ralph here and with the business. We'll go check it out and show you guys some really cool videos. But he is, I mean, you guys check out the Instagram page because you click on website and it takes you right to the Instagram page.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

I had to do it because with there's so much action going on there. I want to show everybody the community that we're building and fostering and the great people that we have coming in.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Do you go live at any times on like TikTok or any of that stuff because you have these type of events that you absolutely could show live on social media?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

We love to do it because this, you know, it shows you stuff, you know, we're not stagnant, you know, we have people coming in.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Well, there's a lot of work. You put a lot of work into this, not only being the scientist behind the recipes and the ancient grains with the naturally gluten-free brew. That's right. That's a tongue twisted roll on its own. But planning these events and theming the events to the brewery and to the beer in the tap room is gotta be, you know, it is a challenge. It's a lot more than 40 hours a week, and I could tell you.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

It is, it is, but you know what? It's rewarding because, like I said, people come in there, and for me, for all intents and purposes, when we designed the brewery, you know, it was supposed to be like my buddy and I, we we were hanging out in my house. So it's supposed to be an extension of my house. Right. So you come in there and you think, you know, back to when you were younger, you go to your cousin's basement or your best friend's basement or whatever it is, you go in, you're hanging out, you have to having a couple of drinks, you're looking at the stuff on the wall, you're like, wow, I remember that when. And that's it. And then you have a conversation, and that's the beauty of it. You know, a lot of places these days, you go to have a conversation, you know, at a bar or something like that. People think you get the wrong idea. Here, everybody just wants to chit-chat. Doesn't matter if it's about the movie or the event or whatever it is, people just they want that connection.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Well, it's pretty appropriate that you said that going to your brewery is like sitting in your home because right now we're at Ohica Castle. That's right. We're at the first ISM executive networking event, and you're sitting in Gary's home. It's like you're here in a guy's home, you know, and it's like it doesn't get any more realistic than that and keeping it pretty uh, you know. It's on theme. It's right on theme, right on point. Well, guys, I I can't believe I knew this was gonna be a fun episode for sure because Ralph brings so much to the table. He really, you're very passionate about what you do. And we we get that. We feel even in the tie tonight. He's totally even themed up when he came here. And Dean said to me, Look at his tie, you'll know exactly who he was. And I knew right away who it was. And uh, we're really excited that you came here and joined us tonight. This is pretty cool. Um, let people know where they can go to check out your website and the Instagram page.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Give them your handling. Sure. So if you go on Instagram, it's at Necromantic Brewco. If you're on Facebook, it's Necromantic Brew. Uh, if you're going to the website, you can go there too for some general quick info. That's www.necromanticbrewco.com. That's N-E-C-R-O-M-A-N-T-I-C B-R-E-W C O dot com.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

There you go, guys. No reason not to go check it out. It's absolutely awesome. He's got a halfway to Halloween party going down this Saturday. And if it's blowing out there and I'm not on the boat, guess what? I might just put a pirate costume on and surprise you. That's it. All right, but it wins the first place. It looks like that's right. There's gonna be a costume contest this weekend, guys. So check it out on social media. If you're looking to do something different, Ralph definitely has something different for all of us to do, so go check it out. And I think that's gonna wrap up our episode here. I think what better way than to uh sign off with Gage and Ralph. We'll see you guys soon. Thanks for tuning in. Take care. Thanks for listening to ISM Radio. Join us for our invitation only executive networking event at the legendary Ohica Castle. For more information, visit idextreamarketing.com.