Episode 1: Sam Lewey, Toppling Goliath Brewery

Join me for an in-depth conversation with Sam Lewey, Marketing Director at Toppling Goliath Brewing Company in Decorah, Iowa. Discover the incredible story of how a simple Christmas homebrew kit in 2009 transformed into one of America's most acclaimed craft breweries.

The Toppling Goliath Story:
What began as a hobby in a family garage has evolved into a 100-barrel brewing powerhouse distributing to 36 states and 9 countries. Sam shares how his father's passion for hoppy beers led to opening a tiny half-barrel taproom, and how their legendary barrel-aged stouts between 2012-2015 put this small Iowa town on the craft beer map.

Flagship Beers & Must-Try Brews:

Pseudo Sue - The iconic pale ale that became their most popular beer, blending tropical hop character with approachable flavor
King Sue - Their award-winning double IPA, described as "the perfect liquid translation of hops"
Dorothy's Lager - The beer that started it all, named after Sam's grandmother
Dragon Fandango - A vibrant kettle sour that launched their entire fruited sour series
Barrel-Aged Stouts - World-renowned stouts aging 1-3 years in a dedicated barrel room with hundreds of barrels

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Hey everyone. Today I sat down with Sam Louie from Toppling Goliath Brewing in Decora, Iowa. So what started as a Christmas homebrew kit in 2009 has grown into a craft beer powerhouse known for barrel-age stouts and flagship IPAs like Sudosu. Let's get into it. Hello again, Sam. Hey, there we go. Perfect. All right. Yeah, I was I was just going through Teams and then I realized like there was no button to record at all when I was just setting up. So I appreciate you being flexible with me here.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

It's uh it's a nice tap room you're at. Where's that at? Uh it was just I think it's an AI generated thing. I just pulled it up on the uh but um yeah, no, I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I know uh you're probably a pretty busy guy. Um but I was actually up in Decora a couple weeks ago. I know we spoke on the phone, but I I had the chance to stop in at Toplin Goliath on like kind of like a family weekend trip, and it was kind of surprised me how big you guys were. Um I mean you got quite the location there for a smaller town like decorah. It was it was pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, that that was actually in one of the, I think it's gonna be one of the responses to one of the interview questions, but that that that's pretty surprising. It's one of the surprising things when people come and visit. Yeah. Um whether they're local or you know, just passing through, or or they sought us out. It's just kind of the scale of it, I think. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Well, if you don't mind, I can I can jump right into it. I won't keep you for too long, but um appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, sounds good. You so are you you gonna ask away? Or I yeah, I saw you. Thanks for sending uh the questions ahead of time. I I poked through the the highlighted ones.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

So yeah, yeah, no, I'll just I'll just start asking and then uh then you can just give me uh your your story here. So tell me a little bit about the origin story about Taplin Goliath. I know it's uh it's a smaller town, a bigger brewery. Um, and I'd love to look learn a little bit more about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah, you bet. So uh and just I'll give a little background on myself. Um so this is a family business for me. So my uh my parents started the brewery back in 2009. Um and how the origin of how that happened was is uh my mom had bought my dad uh a beer kit for Christmas. And when he jumps into hobbies, he jumps in with uh full force and and a lot of passion. Um so back in um early 2009, he was doing a lot of homebrewing, uh, got kicked out of our house, was doing homebrewing in the garage. Um and then I I think he had it in his head that um, you know, if if I get good enough at this, we can start a microbrewer in decora. Because another reason why I think he wanted to start it was he personally was getting into craft beer, but he there was no craft beer in northeast Iowa. You just couldn't find you you couldn't find it back in 2008 and beforehand. Um, or it was or it was extremely hard. So the beers that he was seeking out, he was having to drive to Rochester, Minnesota, or lacrosse, Wisconsin to try to find. Um and so he really liked hoppy beers, and that's and that's what he wanted to brew. Um, but then it was actually um our Dorothy's lager that he that he homebrewed, and his um his siblings all gave him feedback. They're all light beer drinkers, and they all gave him feedback like, hey, this is a good beer, you know, because it's a more easy-drinking lager, uh, much closer to all the light beers that basically was being drank for the most part in Northeast Iowa. So that beer in itself, homebrewing it and getting that feedback, it gave him confidence that, like, if I open this thing and I have a bunch of really hoppy beers on tap that no one's gonna like, like, at least I'll have this one beer that people, you know, can have and and resonate with. So um I don't know the exact date, but then, but then pretty quickly, like probably about six months into the homebrewing journey, he opened the doors with a um a small tap room brewing on a half-barrel system. And that original location, um it's now uh a craft beer bar called Dixie's Beer Garden. Um, so people people can still go to our original location. It's over by Luther College on the west side of Decora. Um, and now it's a great little craft beer bar. But that's um that's where it was started with that half barrel systems. You know, that's about that's as small of commercial, commercial system as you could have. Um and then uh within within a year to a year and a half, uh, you know, a brewmaster, our brewmaster Mike Sabo, um he started popping in as a regular, asking a lot of questions, and him and my dad hit it off. And and uh a very talented, he was a very talented young brewer back then and had a lot of passion, and him and him and my dad drive. So pretty quickly with him coming on board and brewing, my dad realized his talent for things and and desire and drive and and pretty quickly turned over the brewing reins to him essentially, so then so that my dad could focus on the business side of things. How do we grow? How do we expand? Um, and then um, so yeah, that's kind of the origin story in 2009. And then as some of our beers became very popular, um, we became known for our hobby beers. Um, back in the day, it was golden nugget. Now it's the beer everyone knows us for, which is sudo sue, um, our double IPAs. And then some of our uh a couple years in, 2012 to like 2015, started to get a lot of notoriety for our barrel age stouts that we were putting out that were very small, they were very small scale. Um and it started out not a lot of interest just because people didn't know about them. Um, but in the beer community, once enough, once enough ratings had gotten out there and people started talking, um, I think it was those barrel age stouts that kind of put put us on the map um and started people started to search out then and they're like, where's the, you know, as we showed up in the beer advocates and the rate beers, now it's untapped, you know, where a lot of people go for their ratings, you know. But um, back then we started to show up on those beer rating websites. I think people were trying to figure out where the heck is this brewery? We've never heard of this town in Iowa. Um, so I think that played off each other getting people to come visit our brewery back in the day for these the limited releases. I think that turned them on to, oh, they, you know, they they're making really good hoppy beers as well. And um just kind of a steady growth from there, we we moved up to a 10-barrel system. Um, and then uh as we expanded into a few more states, we moved to a 30-barrel system. Um, and then there was some there was some really rapid growth there where we still couldn't keep up with demand. Um and then for a for a brief stint, um, I don't know the exact time frame, but um we had a contract brewer who was helping us brew some of our core beers. Um, like Dorothy's pseudo-su would have been rover truck back in the day. Um, and that was so so our first beer in cans was made by a contract brewer. Um as we were trying to, you know, yeah, kind of take advantage of that. We have all that demand and we want to get our, we want to be able to keep expanding, but we can't keep up. And then and then now we're in this facility here. So what you visited um was built in 2017. We installed the brewery 2017, I think brewed our first beer right at the end of that year, and then early 2018, um the whole tap room and run the whole tap room opened. Um, and so since then, around that time, 2017, the contract brewing stopped, and then we we moved up to this hundred-barrel system. Um, so you know that's it's a very large system. That's most breweries of that scale. You're kind of like on the regional scale at that point. Um I'm kind of just I'm taking you really fast through the whole thing, but to show you where we're at now, we're in I think approximately um 36 states. Um we distribute to some countries as well. I around around nine countries or so um get our beer. Still very much, we're still very much Midwest focused. Um most the core of all of our beer sold, it's um Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin. Um, and being that we are right next to, as you've noticed, it's kind of hard to get to decor. And um, being that we're you know 20 minutes from Minnesota and and 45 minutes from Wisconsin, we very much have those like deep ties, connections, and and loyal customers from those three states. Yeah. Um but yeah, just yeah, bridging all bridging it all the way back. Uh started with a Christmas gift.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

It was a brewer's gift.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

That's a pretty incredible story. I didn't realize all that. Um for your for your customers, I bet you probably get them from all over uh I mean if it's only a 20-minute drive from Minnesota and all that, I bet you'd get a lot of people coming over just for that. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah, we yeah, we get um, like I say, we yeah, we get a lot of people, uh Rochester, Minnesota. Um, that's about an hour and 15 away. People, a lot of people come down from Minneapolis, Madison. Um, people will come up from Dubuque or Iowa City. A lot of people visit from Des Moines. Um, I think I kind of got into it looking at one of your answers about um, yeah, we can just visit it then. But um decor is also uh it's a popular destination. Like Top Lane Goliath as a brewery, we're a popular where I would consider ourselves a destination brewery. We get a lot of people traveling in. But decor itself, um, although we're very small, you said this massive breweries in a small town, we are a bit of a little bit of a destination people like to come and visit, so that kind of feeds off each other.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Yeah, I mean that was us. That's how I ended up there. Um, I guess my next question for you would be uh, how would you describe your brewery in one sentence for someone who's never been there?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, it was basically basically you hit it when you were talking about your personal experience, but I would describe it as we are a massive brewery and tap room that's located in the middle of a cornfield. That that basically sums it up because that's the number one thing I think that that people get when they come that's surprising. Um, even if they've been following us or you know, maybe see that our beer has a lot of distribution, or certain beers, you know, have different hype with people wanting them. Um that they're always just kind of amazed at the scale of it. And we are, you know, we used to be downtown Decora in the small tap room, and now um we're up on the hill, you know, east of town. Um so we're kind of just outside of Decora. You drive up and out of the valley. Um, and it's funny, we we were just talking about this this morning um with the marketing team, how um we're we're we we're a little commute. Um, most people it takes some 10 minutes max to get here from town. Um, but the fact that we are kind of like outside of town puts us, you know, yeah, we're right up and um I mean I just have to walk outside and look, and there's a cornfield right there, and it's kind of how we feel is that and if you were I can just imagine if you're coming and visiting, it's sudden all of a sudden you just pull up and it's it's just right there and there's not much around it.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Yeah, yeah. I remember the feeling of kind of like we we were driving out from downtown decora area, and it's like, well, you know, it's kind of they're kind of out here a little bit, and then it's like boom, big, big old brewery. But yeah, yeah, it's pretty nice. It's a good location for it. Um, so my next question would be uh you kind of hit on this already, but do you have a lot of regulars that come in, like people that kind of return visit, or is it a lot of uh people coming in once on like a visit to decora and maybe stopping by while they're there?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, it's it's definitely a mix. Um it was it's definitely a mix. So on the on the weekends, it it can really be any weekend, you know, throughout our busy season, especially, but probably any weekend this applies all year. Um any given Friday afternoon, Saturday, or Sunday, there could be more out-of-state license plates than in-state license plates in our parking lot. So that many people are coming and visiting for whatever reason, for whatever reason. Um, and even, you know, if it's and if it's Iowa, a lot of times it's it's people outside of our county. So, you know, it's people traveling in, whether you're out of state or out of county. Um, so we get a lot of that. And like I said, that's I think that's twofold. It's it's we're a destination people want to visit. We could also be just part of their bigger trip. They want to hit up other the the outdoor recreation things that Decora has to offer, you know, or they're coming through. Um, so in that aspect, uh a lot of our regulars on that are it's it's out of town people. Um, but we also do have um we're open seven days a week as a restaurant and and we're a family-friendly chap room. And so I I do see local families um that come up on a regular occurrence. Um, we have a um a pretty dedicated bingo following. So Tuesday, Tuesday bingo nights, uh uh people will come up. Um also I'd say some um some different men's and women's groups I'll see here on a regular occurrence. Um yeah, kind of like the instead of the uh the coffee shop uh get togethers, we'll we'll see them up here all having a drink and conversing. But yeah, so a pretty good mix for sure. Um the local people more during the week. Um, and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it's it's often people traveling in.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

That makes sense. That actually goes right into my next question, which was asking about like uh whether it's family friendly or what kind of events you have for like families that are coming in, maybe bringing their kids. Um you make different accommodations for age groups, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Um, you know, super family friendly tap room. Um, we have a lot of different games for the kids that they can play with. Our main attraction um in our tap room that you uh probably realize when you visited, and people like to take pictures in front of it, and also the kids love it, is our giant Lego T-Rex. Yep. Um, so that always draws in the kids. Um, and then because our because of how our tap room's set up, where you kind of just flow right into our merch store. Um, I mean, kids frequently like to go around and and they're grabbing the different merch items, and there's both kids toys we offer in there, um, and there's also like some uh like dinosaur dog toys and stuff where it just kind of attracts the kids over there. Um so I often see that. And then we have a really nice um you know outdoor space with our patio where during the summer parents can come up and um we'll have different games out, um, like bags and things like that. And it's a good space for kids to run around. Um and then we also um there's times definitely where we'll have uh we'll try to have like some kids-related events, like like this summer we uh we celebrated Sudo Sue's birthday. Um we do that in June, and so we had a a kids race where the kids raced uh someone in a blow-up T-Rex outfit. Um, so that that was really fun and um got a bunch of families up. So nice. Yeah, it's uh you know it seems like everyone loves dinosaurs, especially kids, so it kind of ties in with the theme of our of our beers and and what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Oh, that's pretty cool. I did notice that giant Lego dinosaur. That was nice touch. Um do you have any like regular events that you host for the community just to kind of come together? Or just events that happen within uh toppling Goliath?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yeah. Um, you know, we uh we obviously have um we have our big beer releases throughout the year that drives a bunch of people to decora. Um like I I know I know one time a couple years back, they you know, they did an like an economic impact study of you know when someone comes for toppling Goliath's assassin release or you know, whatever it is, and how it benefits all the like restaurants and hotels and all that stuff. And I don't remember the exact number, it was like over a million dollars of like impact to the community. So we have those our our big, big events um definitely are those ones that drive people in for our beer. Um, but yeah, we do try to um stay really uh engaged with the community. So I can think um we try to participate in in big community events like our uh um like our local Nordic fest. So we have uh it's uh a lot of Norwegian roots in Decora. Um I noticed that, yeah, a lot of flags flying. Yep, yep, a lot of Norwegian flags. We have a Nordic fest every year, they'll shut down um the main water street, and there's a big parade, and we always try to be, you know, we always try to bring our best float and and have a bunch of people walk in it and be one of those um kind of pillars of of the Nordic fest and um different other community things like uh we do this really cool um there's this cool event put on. Um I think the city of Decora helps with it, but it's called Holiday Lights. And uh we have a very fun campground in Decora right along the Upright River called Pulpit Rock Campground. And um during the winter they businesses pay and you can have light displays, and then people get to walk or drive through the campground, and then you offer up donations and it goes to our like local helping helping services, um helping the kids and families um in need. Um so that's always a fun thing, like we participate in. So we sponsor it, we'll have uh you know, dinosaurs that are lit up, and you know, as you're going through the campground, we're we're one of many businesses that support that. And then we'll volunteer um and like work one of the nights where like TG's the one getting the donation. So we try to stay engaged like with the big community type events. So then um, you know, thinking thinking of some events that that we would host that bring like our like decoral together, um going along with the Norwegian theme. So we we've partnered with um Vesterheim Museum. Um so that's down so that's downtown Decora. Um and they're a I'd say a you know a pretty big long-standing like pillar of the of the community, a really cool museum and and what they do to to maintain Norwegian culture. And we've started an event with them. We're probably on year, maybe coming up on year four in February. So we've maybe done it for three years, but we host a we host an event with them um at our tap room that brings in a lot of people in February. Um, it's called Kushli, um, which is like Norwegian for like warm and loving. Um, and they'll have a variety of things from us serving, you know, Norwegian-style food. They'll have like some demonstrations going on, like could be like Norwegian woodworking or something. Um last year was fun. They brought in our local um uh we have Nordic dancers, um, which are you know uh this this group of kids that kind of if you're on a Nordic dancer year, you you kind of stick with your Nordic dancer group, and and that's something they'll they'll go around and and and dance and everything. So we brought them in the tap room. That seems to be a big community event. Um, people like to come out and and and celebrate that. And then this year we did partner with them and we it was the it was a big celebration for them in the in the Norwegian world. It was the 250th anniversary of immigration to North America, so there's a lot of celebrations going on. And we actually we partnered with them and we put out a Kushlig stout, um, and then it was to commemorate um their big celebration. Um that's you know, them just being a long-standing like pillar of decorum, um, partnering with them always seems to bring the community together. Um and then we try to do you know smaller things as well. Um, we'll have a roundup campaign in our tab room where you know people can roundup and support various causes, and all of those are pretty hyper local. Um and then we'll try to piggyback and kind of use that as well. Like, okay, we're not just partnering by having our customers do a roundup, but um, can we partner with you with some sort of other event? So we just had one last Wednesday night. Um, it was our local Humane Society, and we hosted an adoption event. And it's very convenient for them there actually. Um If you drive if you pull off the highway and drive and drive past the brewery, um, it goes to a dead end here, which is the Humane Society. So they're actually right next to us. Um and they walk their dogs by all the time. But we hosted a very fun adoption event where we called it uh a doggy bachelor show. Um and and it uh it drew a lot of people from the community and they got um, I think they're up to four adoptions out of it. So it was a it was a very success, it was a very successful event. And we made it really fun by basically you can picture a dog being walked, you know, with a with a volunteer, and then us reading off like a dating profile and just and just kind of played off of that theme. And then once all the dogs kind of went through the runway, um, then it was just kind of free time for the dogs, puppies, they had some cats for for people to show up. But um, that was cool to see, you know, to see a lot of people come up and support that. And um, and for them, um, you know, they were thrilled because when you get them an environment like that where we can use our space to help you host an event, um, like for them, that that's way better than someone showing up and like an animal's in the kennel and stuff. So yeah, we um we're trying to do more of that. The you know, how can we help out? That's one of our one of our best assets we have here is the space. So if you noticed when we're here, um there's a lot of grass and a lot of open, just green space we have. So we we do have um that's something we can offer up to people like we did the Humane Society, is we have a lot of space, so we we can um uh we can partner with you to to help whatever like cause you're wanting.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Yeah, well I think that's great. You guys sound like a good neighbor, very active part of the community. I did notice the um the Humane Society out there. It's nice to have a neighbor.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah, we were we were talking, we want our event coordinator had a good idea, which is we see them walk their dogs by every single day. And it always looks like a fun job that people are walking the dogs, and and one guy like he'll run by with dogs that are a little more high energy, but we're like they're always looking for volunteers. So we're we're working to see maybe we get like a partner program or something with like TG employees. You have to go through some training to be able to, you know, um handle the dogs and volunteer. But yeah, it's it's we kind of just played off the proximity, but yeah, it's nice to support them and and uh and one of yeah, one of our it's kind of the talk of the brewery the next day because um two of our team members um who are who are dating and both work here, um they adopted a dog out of the event. So oh, excellent. That was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah, can't get much more local than that. That's awesome. No, you can't. Um let's see. So next questions are kind of similar here for for some earlier questions, actually. Um so for someone visiting from out of town, is there any like practical information that they should know besides that it's you know a little bit further away from the downtown area? Uh, but is there like parking issues, like when it gets full? Um, is there any kind of reservations that you have to make um or any payment methods that you don't accept?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Um yeah, so parking is parking is generally fine. Um we have a nice paved parking lot right in front of the tap room. And then um we have overflow parking, which would be on the west side of the brewery. Um that and that flows into a gravel lot there. Um so generally, unless it was one of those couple big release days, so that that would be the only thing I would say is um we have Kentucky Brunch, Brand Stout, Assassin, and Morning Delight. Those are our big three releases. Um just to look up those dates. Because if if you did happen to come, it would be that you know, there would be a lot of people. Um, but we also have side street parking as well. So on those really even the most massive days, you're gonna be able to get a parking spot. Um, we don't we don't have any sort of dinner reservations, um, but we do encourage people if you have a group over 15 plus to call the tap room, give us a heads up. Um, and then at least um we're able to prep our our uh serving staff and let the let the kitchen know there's gonna be you know a lot of orders coming in. Um and then if you were traveling and um camping, um a lot of I won't say a lot of people, but um pretty frequently throughout the throughout the camping months, um, people will stay overnight on our West parking lot. Um so we don't have like an official campsite, there's no hookups or anything. Um, but we do we do allow people to stay overnight at the brewery um with their camper. And that can either be through you can call our tap room, um, or we're actually we're set up this year on a webs with a website um in a search called Harvest Host. Um so that's you know, you can go on and see the map of different places in Harvest Host that allow this this type of overnight where it's not an official campground, but um, so you can either reserve through Harvest Host or call our tap room, but that'd be another thing. You know, a lot of people are coming by with their campers and it maybe maybe we're just one stop on a on a on a tour they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

So um that's pretty unique, actually, is being able to camp out at the brewery. Yeah, something that you guys charge for, or is that uh like um just a free of charge type thing?

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Um you know, yeah, I think it's I think it's just free of I think it's free of charge. Um I want to make sure like on the harvest host, I I don't know if there's a fee associated with that when you go through them. Um I'd want to confirm that, but yeah, we don't we don't charge like an overnight fee. You just have to conf you just have to confirm it with debris.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

That's pretty cool though. I've never heard of heard of something like that, but that's a good idea. Um and then I guess you already answered this one policy on uh large groups, but then do you guys do like private events for people that are coming in or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah, we yeah, we do offer we do offer private events. Um so a couple different spaces. Um we have one small private room on the first floor of our tap room. Um it's in the corner by our merchandise area, just kind of blends in. But that's a room that can fit up to you know, probably a dozen people if you wanted to have a small private event like downstairs. It looks into the brewery. Um, and then our whole upstairs tap room can be rented out. Um, and we've had you know everything from like reunions, holiday parties, there's been wedding, wedding receptions, things like that. Um so people like people like to rent out that upstairs space. Um there's a there's a TV up there if you if you need to project anything. We have a we have a bar up there and we can service you with food, have catering options. Um, if it's something you're looking to cater food, we we do that in-house. Um and I'd say, you know, the upstairs tap room that can fit up to you know, probably around like it can probably seat around like 125 people if you maxed it out. So it can it can get pretty big. Um, but yeah, we'll we'll freak frequently have groups rent that. Um bus businesses will do it for different conferences or or things like that. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Nice. Um all right, so next few questions are gonna circle back to uh kind of more the beer side of things. So walk me through your core lineup. What kind of styles do you always have available and uh and why would they be always available?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah, so you're always gonna have a lot you're always gonna have a lot of variety when you visit the tap room. Um, like I said, like the two things that um we're really known for are our hoppy beers and barrel-aged stouts. And so you're always gonna have those offerings. Um, so on the hoppy beer side of things, um, you're gonna have our core beers like pseudo-sue, uh Cyber Sioux, which is a new one added this year to the core lineup, uh King King Su, a lot of different like pseudo-dry hopped variants. Um, and then a host of other double IPAs that'll be available throughout the year. Um then we do have those barrel-age stout releases where people are coming and getting exclusive bottles, but we also have great um barrel edge stouts on tap for most of the year. Um, so there'll be different um different stouts. We have a we have a series called turmoil. Um, and our turmoil series of stouts are different adjuncted stouts. Um, so we'll normally always have at least a few of those on draft as well as well. So even if you visit and you weren't able to get your hands on like an assassin bottle or whatever, um, you can still try a great barrel age stout that's on tap. Um and then within the past couple years, we've really expanded into what we just kind of turned broadly as the like Bavarian series of beers. So um we have uh Pilsner on tap at all times. We have uh Hefeweizen called Munichweiss that's on tap and an Oktoberfest, um, which basically from the time that goes on tap to the time we run out of kegs is probably the most popular beer in the tap room. Um certainly among our employees. Um and then, you know, a few more within those lighter styles is our Dorothy's lager. Um, and we also have a light ale in A male that's like 3.6%. Um and then um, yeah, the other category I haven't touched on then would be our um our fruited sours. So we have a line of fruited sours, um, the the fandango series. Um, and so we'll always have a few of those on tap. I think right now we have our dragon fandango. Um let's see, dragon fandango, berry fandango, should have one more on tap. At least always a few of the fandangos on tap. And um that's nice as well, because that's a completely different style of beer. Um, those are very fruity. Some of them are more sour, some are more on the fruity side of things, but um it kind of helps um just yeah, having having all those different styles. So whether you want something like cleaner, crisper, the Bavarian series, something more hoppy, we have plenty of double IPAs in those, a stout or um for people, I I call it a little less beer-tasting beer, but you know, anything, anything fruitier, we have we have those sours, and we'll always kind of have I'd say those four buckets covered. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Yeah, I was gonna say I had a um, it was pretty unique. I had a uh, I think it might have been a stout, but it was banana of some kind when I was when I was over visiting you guys. That was that was really good.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out. Boy, we did do a banana assassin, but I don't know if you would have had that. Um yeah, but we have a lot of different adjust yeah, a lot of different adjuncted um from banana, vanilla, coconut, s'mores. Um it's interesting. You had a banana. Yeah. So we did do an assassin variant with banana, but I don't think that's been on tap. I better go pop over there after this and see which one you have.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Yeah, I'd be interested in know what I had. It's good stuff. Um all right, just uh what's the most like unique or experimental beer that you've created?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, I I think most unique, and it was an experiment at the time because we had never produced one, um, was our dragon fandango kettle sour. Um so I don't know from our brewmaster how much he had experimented with sours and kettles, kettle sours in the past, but dragon fandango, when we put it out, um, that was the first of its kind. Um and true to its name, it's it's loaded up with dragon fruit um and mango and passion fruit. And right off the bat, it's gonna be one of the most unique looking dark pink beers you've ever seen. It's just it's this very it's this very vibrant pink. Um and so right off the bat, the that the look is very unique. Um, it's gonna be a very strong fruity aromas. Um, and then just really a balance between the tartness in that sour and then all the all the fruit that's in there. Yeah, I know I know me personally, um, I don't like when it gets overly fruity, overly sugary. Um, but this one is you know extremely balanced with that tartness where it's just like and everything's kind of um it's like we squeezed every last drop of flavor out of it. Um and just hold on one sec. I need to grab my uh I need to grab my charger for a sec or else I'm gonna cut out on you. Oh yeah, no problem. Just pause real quick, I'm gonna run and grab that.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Back online. Um and just a heads up, we can we can start a second meeting in a little bit here, but it looks like uh on my plan of Zoom, it's gonna cut us off in about three minutes. So if you have if you have something else to do, then uh we can wrap it up. Otherwise, I could start a second meeting as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Yeah, we can yeah, we can do that, I think. Yeah. Okay. I'm probably good until uh four o'clock. Probably have to have a hard stop there, but another commitment. But yeah, good for another 19 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

All right, sounds good to me. Here, I'm gonna go ahead and stop this one and then I'll send you a second invite over email again.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Hey Sam, welcome back. Right, back at it. All right, round two. All right, I I forget where we were.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I think we're talking about uh I think I just got done talking about dragging fandango as uh probably probably our most unique and definitely at the time as experimental. And you know, that it got enough popularity, we you know, it kind of launched a whole line of sours. So we have now our fandango line um with many, many different variants. Um and we've become pretty well known um for that and making those sours. And at the time, we hadn't we hadn't made those sour sours before. I don't I don't think before we produced Dragon Fandango, we'd ever put a sour on tap. And we we launched that beer and it's done really well. Yeah, must have been a hit.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

That's pretty cool. Um so I guess my next question would be for someone new to craft beer, what would be like your top recommendation or top top like three that they should try when they're at your location?

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah. Um I'd say, you know, try our Dorothy's lager because uh you know, the story behind it, it it uh it was the beer that started the brewery. Um, it was the original homebrew beer that then kind of you know gave confidence to launch the brewery. And and I didn't say a part of that backstory and why it's called Dorothy's, um, is it was it was because it was it was named after uh the owner's grandma, Dorothy. Um so it had that tie to it with the name um where he was making a beer in her honor. Um so I'd I'd say start there with a nice, easy, crisp lager. Um, and then you know, probably for sure trying trying pseudo-su. Um I think one of the reasons why that has become our most popular beer is that um, you know, it it still to this day is very unique in a pale ale and it really is pushing the the boundaries of pale ales and and hoppiness. Um, you know, it it it's close, it's close, it's kind of blurred line between you know pale ales and IPA. So it's it's a really hop forward pale ale, 5.8%. Um, but I think what makes it so unique is it attracts people from all ends of the craft beer and like hoppy beer drinking spectrum, where I could offer it up to you know the biggest hop lover who loves really hoppy, you know, really hop forward and bitter beers. Um and they would, you know, they would love and appreciate sudo su. But it would also offer it up to someone who is newer to craft beer or newer to the hoppy beer style, as this is like an approachable, um, you're gonna get a ton of you know, tropical aroma and a ton of um hot forward taste when you try it. But it's it's just gonna have enough bitterness um to balance it out and it's gonna be approachable for someone new. So I think that's really unique to have a beer where you can say, like, I feel pretty confident offering this up to you. You haven't tried many hobby beers, but also someone who's been drinking it, drinking them for two decades, I'm gonna be confident that you're gonna really appreciate this beer as well. So um I'd say sudo su for sure, and that's our main flagship. Um and then third, if if we were going, if we were going drinks, um if you're in this if you're in the sour or fruitier beer category, I would try our dragon fandango because it's very unique. So try that one like we talked about. And if not, if you were if you were into the hopier beers, I would say king su. Um kingsu double IPA. Um it also folk it also uses uh purely citra hops like sudo su. Um and it's one of the best double IPAs we've made. Um, it's definitely our most award-winning beer in distribution, um, and it keeps routinely winning awards. And if you were to take a poll of people in the brewery, everyone that loves hops and loves to work here, um, you know, I'd say 80-90% of them. If you asked them what's what's your favorite double IPA, or if if you could only drink one double IPA from toppling glass, what would it be? The answer would probably be King Su. Um, just because it's yeah, you're it's it's like the it's like the perfect liquid translation of hops. Um, you're getting all that flavor and it's it's super smooth um for a double IPA, um, which could make it dangerous if you uh don't don't have too many of them because they're 7.8 per uh well yeah, 8.2%. But um that adds up quick. Yeah. So if you're into the hobby beers, um definitely try King Su double IPA.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Nice, yeah. I remember seeing that on the menu. Um all right. So this is kind of uh going back to some of our earlier questions. Um what's something about your brewery that most visitors should know but don't?

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Well, once you once you realize how big we are, whether you whether you take the tour or or just you're just stopping into the tap room and chatting with us, I think you should should know about our barrel aging program. So that's something that most people don't know about or don't know the scale that what we're what we're doing. Um so I said when you stop in, a lot of times you can have a barrel aged stout on tap. Um, but if you do take a tour, it's most people's favorite spot in the entire brewery um because we have a dedicated temperature and humidity controlled barrel aging room um with hundreds of barrels filled with barrel aged stout. Um so that the the smell right off the bat um gets people and just the scale at which how many barrels we have. Um and a lot of people that follow Toplin Goliath, they know of they at least know of those big three beers I talked about that we do releases for. Um two of those are barrel barrel aged. Morning delight actually isn't barrel aged. Um but they don't maybe don't realize the scale at which and all of the different projects we're doing. From the collaboration beers to the just the other limited release beers. Um, we do a lot of different assassin variants, playing off our assassin barrel edge stout. We have uh different barley wines in there. And um these these are all beers that a lot of them age for at minimum a year. Most of them age for two years, if not if not more. Some of them are double barrel or triple barrel where they've been in multiple barrels. And so there's just that's a whole lot, it's a whole lot of hard work and passion we put towards something that a lot of people don't see. Or once you see it, it's in a bottle release um down the road. But yeah, I would just say our whole barrel age, our whole barrel aging program. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Yeah, that's something I didn't know either. That's nice. Um, so just to be respectful of your time, I'll ask you a few closing questions and then uh that should be it. But sounds good. So are there any upcoming events that people should be excited about? New beers or uh events, expansions, anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah, we have uh we have a fun look uh local event. We have uh we have an Oktoberfest party coming up, um uh September 13th, I believe, mid-September. Um so that one's always fun. Um and then on the on the beer release front, um we have we have a couple fun uh we we just released uh a fun uh it's a it's a West Coast double IPA um called Dino Break, um as a as a dyno search uh catching a wave. Um and so that's fun. That's a you know, get getting into West Coast, that's a style we haven't traditionally brewed of IPAs, um, but we are see we are seeing a lot of people um shift more back to back to that style. You know, that's a long classic style in the IPA category. So we're we just put out a double with that. Um we have a couple of fun collabs coming up. So we'll have a double IPA collab with uh Boulevard Brewing that will come out this fall. And then what I think fans are really gonna get excited about um if you're in the if if you enjoy sours, is we're we're releasing um the end of the year a collaboration with Drecker Brewing, um, and uh who is just extremely well-known, you know, if not the most well-known, you know, maker of sours in the craft beer world. Um so they're one of the top, you know, well-known. Um, so it's really awesome to partner with them. And we've we've had our we've had some of our success with the Fandango Sours, and and to look what they've done, um, people go crazy about their sour. So that'll be a really fun one for for their fans, for our fans, people that follow both breweries, um, we'll we'll be putting out. Um we have our annual Kentucky Brunch brand style release in December. That's that's an annual one. So um folks should start to be seeing some information on that. There's always a lottery for that to try to try to get that. Um, so that's in December. And then there's some fun stout projects for sure that we'll be putting out um, you know, probably early next year, you know, in the coming months. Like we said, that some of the stout projects they're they're just aging and it takes time for those to be done. But we have some fun assassin variants, some barley wine projects, some things that'll be released from our bail room, if not this year, um, next year. This should be exciting for people.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Nice. Sounds like you guys got a lot going on.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:43

Um, just to finish up, what's the uh best way to stay connected with what you guys are doing out there?

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Yeah, you can um, you know, probably out outside of our our website, which you can visit. Um, you know, follow us on the main social medias on Facebook. That's Topwing Goliath Brewing Company. And then we also have a local account, which is Topwing Goliath Chaproom. And that's really more catered to the local events we have going on, you know, that keeps you up to date on all the different um food changes. Um, because we have pretty wide distribution um across the many states, we don't always want to, you know, we don't always update our main page with all the stuff that's happening local. Um, so you can follow that local taproom page if you're visiting um to see what's going on locally. Um on Instagram, we are toppling brews. Um, so I'd follow us on Instagram and then probably signing up for our newsletter. Um so if you go to our website, um tgbrews.com and scroll to the scroll to the bottom um and and sign up for our newsletter, that's where you're gonna get sneak peeks on what on what's coming. So oftentimes we we try to put a lot of value in those in those newsletters and and let people know ahead ahead of times what's coming up. So that could be that could be a new beer release or a new event that's coming up. Oftentimes the people on our newsletter are gonna get it first before social media. Um and then uh we also do some fun things with that newsletter as well. Like we have a um, it's a monthly newsletter, and we'll we'll put out a featured beer. Sometimes we'll have the brewers talking about it, we'll get a video from them talking about the beer, the creation of it. We have a TG history section, um, talking about some point in time in top lane glides history and trying to detail that. Um, so just a lot of different uh fun things on that newsletter. So yeah, if you if you want the most up-to-date on on what we're doing, uh the social media, but also the newsletter is a good spot. Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

All right, well, that does it for me. Anything else you wanted to share with the uh the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Yeah, I'll just I'll just say uh you know, Decor is a beautiful place. There's there's there's so much uh that I feel like our little community has to offer. Like I said before, a lot of it is is so many great different outdoor recreation experiences you can have when you visit. Um the downtown is is is really nice as well, but um you have so many opportunities for um it could be camping, fishing, kayaking. Um, we have multiple different waterfalls you could visit, hiking trails, mountain biking trails, paved biking trails. Um, so that's kind of I feel like that's woven into the fabric of decor is all that, and it drives a lot of people here. So we're I know that that's a big reason why why we love to live here. And um if that if that's interesting to you and and and draws you in, we uh toppling glass would love to be a part of your decor experience as well.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

Certainly, yeah. I did see uh when I was up there, I did see a lot of people camping and fishing. I tried fishing, I didn't catch anything, but everyone around me was catching stuff, which is making me sad.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

But where were you? Were you trout fishing? One of the was it one of the trout streams or the upright river?

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Uh trout streams closer to um uh what's it? There was like the the state park area, kind of just to the north of the river, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Yeah, yep. Yeah, and the thing with uh some of the trout streams are yeah, they gets um we're well known for the trout fishing. Um if you don't get off the beaten path, I think those trout see a lot of fishermen. So yeah, it it I think it it it can definitely be challenging for sure. A lot of people were having good luck next to me though, so it's possible.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

Yeah, it's yeah, there you go. You you saw it was possible. Yep. All right, Sam. Well, I appreciate you taking the time so much. Thank you for uh for doing this interview.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Yeah, Henry, hey, I appreciate it. That was that was a fun chat. Um let me know if you need anything else. If not, we'll I'll look forward to seeing uh seeing the article come out. Sounds good. All right, have a good one. All right, you too. See ya.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

Alrighty, guys. That's gonna do it for today. Be sure to check out some of our other exclusive interviews with the people from the best breweries in the Midwest. Bye now, but I'm gonna go.