Episode 2: Jeff Kraft, Head Brewmaster of Titletown Brewing

Join me for an exclusive conversation with Jeff Kraft, Head Brewer at Titletown Brewing Company in downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin. Discover how this beloved brewery saved a historic train depot from demolition 30 years ago and transformed it into one of Wisconsin's premier craft beer destinations.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey everyone, today I'm talking with Jeff Kraft, the head brewer at Tettletown Brewing Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Jeff shares his journey from athletic trainer to the brewmaster. He talks about their award-winning laggers and cocktail-inspired sours and why this place is the ultimate gathering spot for Packers fans or just the local community in general. Don't have to be a Packers fan. Anyway, let's get to it. Hey Jeff, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I'm doing well. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Appreciate it. Yeah. So just to fill you in a little bit more about what we're doing here. Um so we created a website called Midwest Microbrew. And we just got a whole bunch of breweries listed on there right now, just around the Midwest. Something for people to find. And we figured what better way to you know put the breweries out there than get an interview with uh the people working there.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

So yeah, absolutely. Um very cool.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, so I can just jump right into it real quick. Um if you want to tell me a little bit about yourself and uh just what you do there.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, so I'm the head brewer at Tidletown. Um this is my uh fourth year here now. Um so I started out as an athletic trainer. Uh oh really I went to school for. Yeah, me too, actually. Um no way. That's all you still working as one?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

No, no, no. I well, I started to go to school as one. I didn't actually end up going into that field, but that's what I went this way.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

The first very cool. I've met one other person in the brewing industry that wasn't athletic trainer before. So not many of us. Uh but yeah, so I was doing that for a while and I was home brewing at the time. Um, so I you know fell in love with it and uh after doing it for a while, enrolled myself in the American Brewers Guild and went through that whole program. Uh and then I ended that with uh internship over at Hinterland in Green Bay, and that turned into a full-time gig. Uh, and then position opened up here at Tidal Town and moved on over here, and here I've been since.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Nice, nice, yeah. Well, that's good to hear. Uh fancy meeting another uh athletic trainer. That's wild. Um pretty wild. So tell me a little bit about the origin story about Tidal Town brewing. What uh inspired you to start brewing here specifically?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, so Titletown's been around for uh it'll be 30 years next year. Um so I obviously haven't been here that whole time. Um, but it started out uh we're we're across the street from where we started out. Um we used to be in a train depot over there. And from what I've been told, the city was planning on turning that into this whole block actually into a Walmart. Uh and yeah, uh Brent Wiker, he's the guy that that started Tidal Town. Um, he's still one of the partial owners today. Uh he yeah, worked it out where they were able to get the building from the city and start a brewery there. So that was 30 years ago. Um and then in 2014, uh they moved to across the street. So they had the the train depot that they were in, and then they moved the whole production facility across the street, got a much bigger brewery. From what I've been told, it's it was a pretty tight space in there, and they were at full capacity for quite some time. So expanded over here, uh, got a rooftop bar over here, some event space. Um, and then uh it was actually during COVID, they actually closed the restaurant portion of Tidal Town. Um, so across the street now is a separate restaurant that's not affiliated with us anymore. Uh, so now we're just in this building. We've got a tap room, Sky Lounge upstairs. Um still doing food, not the full full service menu that we had at the train depot. But um, yeah, so that's kind of where we are today. Um, you know, I had been here, I grew up in the Green Bay area, uh, moved away for a while and came back. And I just remember coming back. This is one of the places we would always go to with my family. Um love to be here always, and opportunity presented itself, and yeah, like let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, yeah. Green Bay is a nice place for that. Yeah. Um, how would you describe your brewery in one sentence to someone who's never been there before?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

One sentence. Uh or two, you know. Um, you know, I think the the biggest thing that you know, we always like to talk about uh part of downtown Green Bay and the best view in town. Like you won't find a better view uh in all of Green Bay from our Sky Lounge and and and great beer on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Gotta mention that.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Um, so you said that you uh Tidal Town had to move to a bigger location and stuff, so you must have a lot a decent amount of people coming in. Um do you have any regulars? Uh what kind of people are they and what draws them there?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, we've had people that have been here, you know, coming since the brewery opened, you know, almost 30 years ago. Um, so we we see those people all the time. We also get a lot of football team or football fans coming out of state whenever the Packers have have a home game. Um, you know, we've got the Donald Driver statue out front, um called Tidal Town. So you'll get a lot of people coming in on like Green Bay people and just out-of-town people coming in for home home packer games, which is always cool to see. It's funny. We get we get a real busy because we're not like right by the stadium, right? We're downtown, so we get real busy before during the game. Everyone's down at Lambo, and then afterwards it builds up again. Uh so uh, you know, we have a farmers market every Wednesday on Broadway, which is the street that we're on. So we get a lot of um probably like a little younger crowd that comes in for that one. Yeah, um, we also have pinball machines, so we get a little bit of a pinball crowd uh every week. We have that, and then a big tournament. I think it's like every month or something.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Oh wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, quite a mixed people for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, I was wondering what it'd be like having a a brewery in Green Bay, just because I mean it's not like it's not that big of a city, but that I mean they've got a dedicated sports, a dedicated football team right there, and I mean people love it. So yeah, imagine that draws complete crowds.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

That's where the inspiration for the name came from, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Um, so how uh family friendly is your space? And do you make accommodations for different age groups, or uh is it more just 21 and up?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

No, it's pretty family friendly. I've actually uh I'm a new dad, I've got a almost a nine-month-old now. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, thank you. We we'll bring her here too. Uh you know, we we see kids run around, but it's a big space, right? We have two two tap rooms, one on the ground floor, and then the sky lounge upstairs. So lots of space. We've got some games um that that kids can play. So yeah, big tables, couches, all that stuff. Um, we like weekends for sure. We'll see a good amount of families coming out here.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Nice. You mentioned uh the pinball and all that. Do you guys have like regular events with that kind of stuff or events that bring the community over to you guys?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah, we definitely do lots of events. Um besides just pinball. Pinball, they do, I think it's every other week is the pinball league. And then there's like a big tournament every month or every couple of months or something like that. So there's like prizes, cash prizes uh awarded to the winners of that. So um yeah, that's that's a regular thing that we're doing. Um let's see, what else do we have? We uh we do we've got like our summer bash we do every every summer where we get some bands out here and um some fun events going on for the day. Uh our Oktoberfest is coming up on what's September 27th, not this week, then two weeks from now. Um you know, farmers market is every Wednesday in the summertime, so we'll get some live music for that. We do flight nights um for beer, and then our GM has also been putting together different types of uh cocktail flights like mule flights, margarita flights. We do a bourbon night uh, I think once a month that goes on. Um and some other random events too. Uh, we did some speed dating for the first time a few months ago. I think we're gonna be bringing that back. That was a lot of fun. Um yeah, what else? Uh there's other events, but yeah, we try to keep it uh pretty busy every every week. Yeah, make sure we got a lot going on.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

That's good to hear. Was that speed dating a big hit? If that was uh the first time doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

I mean, it wasn't like crazy first time doing it. You know, it usually it takes time to build events up, uh, but it was pretty solid for for the first one. Um, you know, so you get one under your belt and then kind of learn from it and go from there and make adjustments. So uh that's something I'm definitely hoping to grow uh as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Nice. Um, so kind of following the uh the events category here. Do you guys have a policy on like large groups or private events? Um, if someone was trying to have a special occasion at Titletown?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Uh yeah, so we actually that's probably a big portion of our businesses, those private events or semi-private events. Um, you know, so if it's like a private event, there's usually some type of room fee associated with it. Um, there may be a minimum drink spend. Um I'm not super keen on all those details, uh, a little outside of my scope, but I know we do uh uh private events, and then we'll have semi-private events where people can kind of like rope off a little area uh so they don't have to pay for a room fee. And obviously the public is still welcome in, but still enough space to um, you know, do whatever they need to do there. Um, and you know, like I said, we have two big tap rooms, so it's yeah, something that we focus on a lot is trying to drive as many events as possible to to fill up that space. Two tap rooms can be a lot to fill up with just you know, general public.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Absolutely.

unknown 10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

All right. So on to uh the brewing question, since uh you're the brewmaster. Throw some. Yeah. Um, so what's your uh for lack of a better word, like your brewing philosophy? Like what drives your your uh beer making decisions?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, so you know, I think at the heart of it, uh I'm always trying to look for kind of like the newer stuff. Um, you know, especially when it comes like hot products and stuff. I love experimenting with uh all the new hot products that are coming out, but I'm also uh you know, I obsessed over like those tiny little details, especially when it comes to the lager side of brewing. Uh and all beers too, but like laggers especially are beers where you know there's there's a thousand little details and they all add up to make a great beer, right? Um, so I'm more of the philosophy of you know, we're gonna take our time and do the slow process through this, try not to take any shortcuts, um, and just always looking for improvement. You know, even if we have a beer that is selling great, won awards, whatever, like there's always little things you can be tweaking to try to keep improving on the beer. So that's something that uh I like to focus on on a lot. And you know, when it comes to uh you know designing beers, you know, recipe's only gonna take you so far, right? That's that process that drives a lot of the flavor um and the final outcome of that beer. So really, really honing in on those just small little details throughout the process.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah, secret ingredient is love, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

That's right. Yeah, like we we have a brewing system that was not designed for like decoction mashing, right? Uh, but uh something for a lager that we did a while back, you know, it's like it's a long day to do it. But yeah, you know, if we think it makes a difference, we'll we'll put in the time for it.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, that's good to hear. Yeah. Um, so a little bit more about your beer. Uh just walk me through your core lineup. Like what kind of styles do you always have available? And uh, why are those the the heavy hitters?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah, so uh some of them have been around since the beginning. Um, so our 400 honey blonde ale, that's the oldest recipe we have. I I think that was there when they first opened the brewery, if I'm correct. Um, so that's just it's a blonde ale made with some local Wisconsin honey that we'll add into it um at the end to kind of sweeten it up, give it a little bit more flavor. Uh Johnny Blood Red is our Irish style red arrow. That's another one that's been around for a long time. Um I believe that was a GABF medal winner back in the day as well. Um so yeah, that one's that one's still probably our number two selling beer overall. Uh green 19 is our biggest selling beer. That's our West Coast style IPA. Um that was started back sometime in like the mid 20s 2010s, I believe, is when that one started. Um that's our biggest seller, West Coast IPA. Uh, and then Boathouse is our Czech style Pilsner. That one's been around for a while. Also a GABF winner. We don't make as much of that one, that's more uh in-house. And then Tundra Tropics, that's one of our newer ones. That's a hazy IPA. Um, that one we started about four years ago with that one. Okay. Um, so yeah, those are those are kind of the the five cores that we always have on tap. And then outside of that, we kind of try to keep it moving as much as possible. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Sounds like you got some uh some good ones. That honey one sounds really interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, no, it's it's a good spread. You know, we got light, dark uh pilsner, and then a couple of different IPAs. But yeah, if you if you like honey, um it's it's a really light beer, got a little bit of sweetness to it, real easy drinking. We always tell people, you know, you get like craft or non-craft beer drinkers coming in and asking for you know what's the closest thing to uh Bud Light or something like that. Yeah. Um, and not that honey tastes that much like Bud Light, but it's so easy on the palate and so easy drinking. Um, that's that's the one that people usually go towards.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, it's a good one to gravitate to. So tell me about that uh the GABF awards. Is that uh is that Brewfest?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Is that uh Yeah, the Great American Beer Festival. Um so those were I don't remember the year that was before my time when they uh entered those in. But yeah, the Boathouse, uh, I think that one was a silver, and then Johnny Blood Red was a bronze, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Nice, yeah. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, no, Boathouse is one of my favorite beers. I I love that one.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Gotcha. Um, what's the most unique or experimental beer that you've created? And then what inspired that?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Well, let's see. I think uh the most I feel like we can go two ways. So, like experimental, I think the most experimenting we've done kind of like process-wise and brew house-wise, um, we did a Mexican style light lager with blue corn that we got that was grown locally. The corn wasn't malted or anything, so we had to take that into the brew house and kind of devise a way to um get that through the mash and actually get conversion on it. Um, so from a brewing standpoint, we had to reverse engineer basically like uh a decoction mash to get that one through the brew house. Smelled like tortilla chips during the mash. It was awesome. Uh that one's called Gridiron Glory. Um, so yeah, that one from uh experimental side, we you know we weren't quite sure how it was all gonna go through. It was our first time doing something like that, uh reverse engineering it, and it turned out really great. Um as far as unique ones go, I I think we may be the only ones in town that are doing uh barrel-aged sours. Um so we've been taking inspiration from cocktails for those. Um so this the first one we did uh kind of had like a whiskey sour in mind. We took a passion fruit peach sour that we had made and then threw that in some Jay Henry bourbon barrels. Um, but that's it for about six months. And yeah, bourbon comes through great and it's got that tartness to it. So the the cocktail definitely came through pretty nicely on that. The newest one that we've got that we just took out of barrels last week, so we'll be getting on tap shortly. Uh, same kind of concept. This one we were going more for like a tequila sunrise. So we had a tangerine, pineapple, vanilla sour that we had out, and threw that one in some tequila barrels. So yeah, that one. If you like tequila, uh it came through really nicely on that one.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, I don't know if I've ever had one with uh tequila. That's um that's interesting. I I'm a tequila fan.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, yeah. It's good. No, and like I used to live out in Oregon, uh, one of my favorite breweries out there, Il Song. Uh, all they do is barrel aged beers and tons of sours, stouts, all that stuff. But a lot of their uh inspiration came from cocktails, and I think that's a great place to look uh to get some unique, fun flavors in beer. So that's that's kind of where all that came from.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Oh, that's interesting. You're in the inspiration behind that. Yeah. Nice. Um, do you have any? I mean, Oktoberfest is coming up, right? Do you have any like seasonal or limited releases um for just any of the seasons, really?

SPEAKER_01 18:30

But yeah, so our our Oktoberfest, uh Bent Tuba, that one's already out on store shelves. Um, that's definitely by far and away our biggest seasonal that we do. Uh that's one of our most popular beers. Uh, some stuff we got coming out. We have um an Australian Pilsner or Hoppy Lager, I guess. Uh that that one just came out. Uh so that one was all Australian malt, Australian hops, fruit it up like a pilsner. Um, and then dry hopped it with the Australian hops as well. So just a little bit more like a fruity kind of pilsner. Um got a fresh hop beer in the tanks right now that I'm super excited about. All Wisconsin grown. Uh went and picked up the fresh hops from a farm in Roshults, Wisconsin, about an hour and a half away. Um, so we got fresh Vista. We threw that into the whirlpool. And then we got Wisconsin-grown Vista pellets and Wisconsin-grown Vista or Wisconsin-grown cashmere pellets um for the dry hop on that one off to the Wisconsin hop exchange. So we just got done with the dry hop additions last week. So it's got a couple weeks of sit and cold, and then we'll get that one packaged out. That'll get out on store shelves too. Uh, really cool can design on that one, too. Uh, so that one's that one's tasting really good right now. It's like uh a can of pineapple juice right now.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Uh so I'm a big fan of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, we'll see. Still a couple more weeks to go. We'll see how it finishes, but tasting good right now. Uh, and then we got a coffee dark lager. We did that one last year called Hallowed Grounds, doing that one again. Uh that one was pretty popular last year. Um, we worked with uh Coffee Wizards, which is a local coffee roaster here in Green Bay, makes awesome coffee. Um, we so we get their beans and throw that into the dark lager. Um get that all packaged up uh probably second week of October. I think that one should be ready. Uh, and then we got a hoppy red lager that's gonna get made in about a month. And then I think we're finishing the year on a kind of rattler style beer. Um, one of our brewers here is she's the president of the Wisconsin Pink Boots chapter, and this should be her last year as present. So doing something to commemorate that. So we're going for like a uh prickly pear mule is our inspiration. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Um, so we're we're partnering up with Deadbird Brewing in Milwaukee. They're gonna make the soda, uh ginger lime soda, and then we'll blend that with our uh I think we're gonna do a blonde with that, and then add some hibiscus to make it pink and some prickly pear.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, so prickly pear's got a good flavor.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, no, prickly pear is a great flavor. Um, so excited to see how that one turns out. But that's that's what's coming for the rest of the year. Maybe we'll get another. We might be doing a big pastry stout too. We're still working out the details of that one.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

So interesting. Nice. Yeah. Um, so for someone new to craft beer, what would you recommend as like an introduction? I know that you said the uh the honey one would be good as like introduction. Kind of people gravitate towards that, but is there anything else that's a good introductory beer?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, I mean uh Gridiron Glory, our Mexican lager, to me, that's if if you like light beers, that's definitely the one that tastes the most like a light beer. Um, you know, if you like something on a little bit more sweeter side, then honey would be the way to go for that. Um, you know, personally, I think we've we've got some hazy's that the bitterness is low. I think the biggest thing coming into craft beer is that bitterness sometimes can be a bit much if you're not used to it. So jumping on a West Coast style IPA, probably not the best bet, but um uh tundra tropics. We've been dialing that bitterness down pretty low on that one. Um, we just had a New Zealand hazy come out that's got like no bitterness, it's just like drinking juice. Um, so those are those are always good ones to to start in on craft beer.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Oh, yeah. And juice flavored beer, it's good stuff, right? Um, so kind of moving to some behind the scenes type of questions. Uh, what's something about your brewery that most visitors should know, but probably don't?

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Uh so I guess a couple things. Um we have in our basement, we have a beer blur. So if you take a tour, you get to go down to the basement and drink from the beer blur. Uh really. It's always fun. Yeah. Um, we got a Lucre faucet on uh just recently to pour our uh boathouse, our Czech style uh pilsner. Um, so I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that it's what they pour beer in the Czech Republic out of, and it gives you a lot of control over the foam in the beer, and then also you pour the beer under the foam, which is kind of the opposite of how most tap handles are here, where um, you know, when you're pouring, you're going into the foam and down into the glass. So with this one, you like create a bunch of foam on top, and then you put the beer underneath it. Uh, it just helps kind of keep away from the oxygen and all that. And it's it it creates the creamiest, densest, tiny little bubbles, like it completely changes the mouthfeel of the drink. It it's it's awesome. I love it. Um, and we do it in a couple different pores too, so you can do it uh like kind of the normal pour, which is you know, about a couple fingers of foam on top, and then beer, do half foam, half beer, and then there's something called the Milko pour, which is just a small glass full of foam. Um so some people like that stuff. It's kind of a fun thing to take a shot of.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah, you think more people would have something like that. That's that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, yeah. Um, so that's that's uh that's some fun stuff that we have that I don't think everyone knows about. Um, you know, behind the scenes, uh you know, I think the biggest thing is just all the the machines and technology that that goes into it. Um, you know, like uh getting that beer into cans is a it's a whole process and kegs is a whole process. So uh the machine work that goes on, the it's probably the thing most people don't understand at a brewery, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Yeah, it's probably more complex than most people think. Um could you tell me a little bit about your brewing equipment, like any interesting stories that you have about your setup or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Um, yeah, so we have a 30-barrel brew house. Um I think the couple cool things on our brew house. Um, we have an external calandry on the kettle so we can boil beer or boil wort pretty quickly on that, which is nice. Um, we've also got a heat exchanger in between the kettle and the whirlpool. So that's really nice when we're doing hoppy beers. Um, when we're adding whirlpool hops into the beer, it allows us to keep the bitterness down. The lower the temperature, the less bitterness you're gonna extract out of those hops. And then it also keeps more of the volatile aromas in solution. Whereas if it's you know 90, not everything is in Celsius here. Uh 99 C, you know, you're you're volatilizing a lot of those delicate aromas. You're gonna still be creating bitterness. Um, so that's a cool little feature of the brew house. Um, kind of semi-automated, which is nice. Um, you know, and the rest is uh pretty standard. Uh, I think the other cool thing we have is a hop cannon for dry hopping beers, which really helps keep oxygen levels uh at nothing when we're dry hopping. We don't have to open up the top of the tank. We can we have this little tank that we can purge, fill up with our hops, purge some more, and then shoot them right up into the top of the tank. Um, so that's a nice little piece of equipment we got. Um, yeah, then you know we got a uh a filter for filtering beers, um 90 barrel tanks, mostly a couple 60s and one 15. So we try to keep everything uh that's going in-house as much as we can in that 15-barrel fermenter just to keep things fresh and rotating as as much as possible.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Gotcha. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

And our kegger is like this crazy German machine that uh I mean, this there's no oxygen that goes in these kegs. It's it's pretty amazing. Like we do sensory uh once a week. Uh, and one of the things we're always looking at is the shelf life of our beer. We can you know, compare cans versus kegs, all that. And I'm blown away all the time when we'll we'll pull out some beer that uh is we've had back in storage for like over a year, hook it up and try it from the keg, and I'm saying, oh my god, this I don't taste any oxidation. This is wild. Um so yeah, pretty cool keg here.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Yeah, that's awesome. And then I think you already you might have mentioned this, but um, you guys do tours, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Was that uh yep, yeah, we do uh tours are by appointment for the most part. Um, so we have a couple different people that'll give tours and it'll be uh tour the full facility, get to drink from the beer blur at the end of it, and then uh it includes a flight flight or a pint. Uh I forget everything that goes along with a bit. You get some beer along with the tour as well. I know that.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yeah. Um then this is kind of circling back to some of our other questions from earlier, but how would you describe the Green Bay craft beer scene and kind of what makes that so special? You know, I I know, of course, the Packers.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, it's honestly it's it's it's unique. Um, I've lived out on the East Coast and I've lived out on the West Coast. Um, and you know, you kind of go to the coast, you get a lot of uh a lot of hoppy stuff and a lot of like lighter kind of laggers. Uh coming back to the Midwest, there's still some of that old school stuff going on here. Uh, you know, when it comes like West Coast IPAs, they have more like the Carmen malt in them, uh, more multi-styles, just in general, you know, like uh our Irish Red is one of our biggest selling beers. That's that's a style that was you know popular a long time ago, right? You don't see a lot of breweries making that stuff. Same thing with the Blonde Ale. Um, so you it's this really interesting mix because then you definitely have you know newer stuff coming into the area, uh, more trendier stuff that comes in, but it still has kind of this more traditional backbone to it um that I don't think you really see as much um in other parts of this country.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Interesting. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned uh kind of like newer, trendier beers. What what trends are you seeing in craft beer? And then uh how do you guys respond to that?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously trying to do as much stuff to stay relevant as possible. I think you know, one of the biggest things that that we see in drinkers in general is overall, what I've been seeing, people aren't necessarily drinking less overall, they're drinking more variety of stuff, right? So um, you know, our big focus lately has been trying to expand what we're doing instead of just beer. Um, you know, we got THC products now that we're doing out on the market. Um, we're working on getting some cider out there. Um, you know, or maybe we'll look into like some half water, some seltzer. I don't know if those are gonna come, but uh just trying to be as uh inclusive as possible. We've had a big focus on creating cocktails. You know, we have a full bar. Um so our our GM has done a great job of uh building that cocktail menu up, like I mentioned earlier, running a bourbon night, just trying to hit as wide of an audience as possible because uh yeah, people are drinking a lot more, a lot a lot more different stuff these days, um, and trying to just stay on top of all that, you know. As far as what like seeing in the the craft beer itself, um, you know, you still hear talks of like loggers, loggers are coming, loggers are coming. Um, you know, I still I don't know if we're quite there here in Green Bay yet. Um, I think I see more of that stuff like out on the coast. Um, but you know, trying to do some hybrid stuff, you know, we did cold IPAs for a little bit, um, which were pretty good. Um, we've been doing some more, we did like a West Coast um Pilsner. Yeah, I got this Australian one. So trying to blend like the hops with the lagers, um, getting like more crossover going with with styles. Um, and you know, as far as like obviously hazy stuff is still king. So using all the new products that are coming out, experimenting with that stuff, just getting them as juicy as possible. Um yeah, that's that's kind of what we're seeing and where we're focusing on.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. So uh kind of to wrap things up here, I got a few closing questions for you. Um if someone could only try three things at your brewery, what would you recommend for this?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Oh, three things. Um so I think you know, you gotta try Green 19 because that's our our biggest beer. Um, I think that that's a good one to try. Um you know, right now, Bentuba, our Oktoberfest, I'd recommend trying that one. Um, that one is that one's been around for a while. And like I said before, that's our biggest seasonal beer that we do during the year. I think that's a really solid example of that style. Um and then, you know, I think if you're looking for something more unique, barrel aged sours are fun. Um else any of the new hazies we have coming on, I think are always good to try.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Can't go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

And then uh what's the best way for people to stay connected with what you guys are doing?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Um, so we have uh social media, uh Instagram, Facebook, um, obviously on our website. Uh we do have uh and sign up for a brews letter that goes out, I think, monthly. Um and connecting through uh toast. Actually, just switched over to that uh for our POS. Um, I think if you sign up, you can get some text and email updates with things that are going on in the brewery as well. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah, I'll include that. So I'll be turning this into kind of like a article as well, which I'll share with you. So I'll make sure to include all your socials and everything and yeah, get that out there too. Um do you have any final thoughts or messages for people who might be considering a visit?

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think biggest thing, uh we're the best view in Green Bay up on the Sky Lounge. It's a great spot downtown. You can walk around right on the water. Um, great selection of beer. You know, come on down, check it out. If you're into pinball, we got pinball too. Absolutely. Um, yeah, and and like I said, you know, branching out into some other things. Uh obviously the THC market is a growing, growing market. So um, you know, any anyone that's looking for that kind of stuff, we've we've just recently got it on tap as well as cans to go. So you can actually sit down and enjoy a glass of it in the brewery.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Nice. Well, that's good to hear.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

All right. Um, well, thank you, Jeff, for taking the time to meet with me. It's been very insightful. Uh, absolutely. I'll take the update and I'll I'll I'll post this and send it your way. Okay, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah, thank you.

unknown 34:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

All right, you have a good one.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

All right, yeah, you too. Talk to you later. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

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.