Episode 21: Michael Williams, Brand Development Manager at Great Lakes Brewing Company

In this episode of Midwest Microbrew, host sits down with Michael Williams, Brand Development Manager at Great Lakes Brewing Company, for their second conversation — and this time the focus shifts from the beer to the people who love it.
We dig into how Great Lakes Brewing Company has cultivated one of the most loyal craft beer communities in the Midwest, what it takes to grow a craft beer brand in today's competitive market, and the strategies behind turning first-time visitors into lifelong fans.
If you're a craft beer enthusiast, a brewery owner, or someone interested in beverage brand development — this episode is packed with insight.
🎙️ What we cover:

How Great Lakes Brewing Company builds and retains customer loyalty
Brand development strategies in the craft beer industry
Growing a craft beer audience in the Midwest market
What makes the Great Lakes community unique

📍 Great Lakes Brewing Company | Cleveland, Ohio
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey everybody, welcome back to Midwest Microbrew, the Kraft Beer Discovery Podcast, sharing stories, interviews, and guides to breweries across the Midwest. I'm back today with Michael Williams, the brand development manager at Great Lakes Brewing Company for round two. In our first conversation, we explored the brewery and the beers that put them on the map. If you haven't heard that one yet, go check it out right now. But today we're going deeper, talking about the loyal community that they've built, what keeps customers coming back, and the strategies behind growing a craft beer brand in an increasingly competitive market. Whether you're a craft beer fan, a brewery owner, or just curious about what drives brand loyalty in the beverage world, this one's for you. Let's get into it. Hey Michael, welcome back to uh Midwest Microbrew. I'm Henry Nosek. It's good to have you back on again.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Thanks, Henry. Thanks for having us back. Chris Chab is great. This one's gonna be awesome too.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah. So for those of you who didn't check out our first episode, make sure to go back and check it out with Michael. Uh we had him on previously and thought we'd have him back. He's got uh a lot more questions that we could answer. That's right. So, first of all, you are the brand development manager over at uh Great Lakes Brewing, correct? That is, yes. That's my fancy title. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Perfect. All right. So um which I actually like it this time. I've got other titles where I'm like, I don't know what this means. Uh this one makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, it's it's a little more clear, I guess. Oh yeah, it's good. So the first question I had was how do you define your brand identity early on and has it shifted at all since opening?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah, totally. And for those of you who are viewing out there, I'm on the marketing team. So I'm and I'm by no means the marketing director, but I I have a having been at Great Lakes for 14 years, 14 years this October, um I got a pretty good grasp on on the whole thing. So um, and especially because I've kind of done a bunch of different roles here at Great Lakes, and like whether you're a server, bartender, tour guide, running a sampling team, which is what I do today, my main function in my role along with some other marketing stuff, there's like that element of when we talk about brand brand identity. I mean, really, it's almost redundant. It's like identity of the company, right? It's like who we are, right? So it's fun that I've been able to communicate that in different ways to people throughout the years. And now we do it virtually on podcasts and all that stuff, too. So the way that Great Lakes has the way we defined our brand identity, first of all, it goes back to our founders in Pat and Dan and Conway, who started the company in 1988. When they were, you know, context, when they were opening their brewery, it was very different scene from what we have today, where you know 9,500 breweries in the country and all that. There is basically, well, literally in the city of Cleveland where we're located, Cleveland, Ohio, there was no brewing going on, even in the entire state. So we kind of claim to be the first craft brewery in not just Cleveland, but in Ohio. So that early context when the guys were thinking about what they they knew they wanted the good, the fresh, full flavored beer, right? That's the easy part. But then, like, how do you communicate that to people? And something that's always made sense for craft beer is locality, right? So we wanted to be, uh, we were the first, which is nice. But we always also wanted to be the premier, if you will, Cleveland Brewer. Same for uh eventually to be a premier brewer throughout the Great Lakes region. So when the brothers chose the name of their brewery, they obviously had some sort of regional aspiration going on, right? Since it's called Great Lakes, could have been Cleveland Brewing Company.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

But you know, the the name Great Lakes itself indicated that they had aspirations to provide beer, obviously for the city of Cleveland, but also for the whole region. So which at that time was kind of wild because this whole thing was brand new. Um, and even, you know, I mean, in 1988, but Boston Beer, Sierra, Nevada, these brewers that are giant now, way bigger than us, they still weren't that big or anything like that. So that brand identity is very focused. The our original and it's still even 38 years later, our identity is as Cleveland's original and premier craft brewer, I would argue. And still one of the premier brewers within the Great Lakes. So that's the core, right? And then how does it express itself? So the way it expresses itself is through the individual beers, right? You got the broad brewery name. Okay, cool, I get it. We then kind of like enrich and give greater authenticity to that identity of being one of the premier brewers, well, again, the premier Cleveland brewer, and then one of the premier brewers in the Great Lakes region through the beer names. And for those of you who are listening out there, if you're familiar with our we call them our legacy brands today, you probably already know that a lot of those beers have names that are related to the city of Cleveland or they're related to the broader region. So there's this direct infusion of that core identity into the actual beers, too, right? So, for example, um, there's the Elliott Ness Amber Lager, which if you if you listen to the first episode, you probably have a little bit of this in your head already. Cool with a little bit of review. And for the new viewers, yep. Elliot Ness Amber Lager, uh, one of the first two beers we ever brewed at Great Lakes. Um, Elliott Ness was the public safety director in Cleveland for a number of years. He drank beer at our main the bar that is now the main tap room of our brew pub in the Ohio City neighborhood in downtown Cleveland. And he's famous because he busted El Capone, a bunch of bootleggers in Chicago. He was obviously a well-known figure here because he was public safety director. So, and basically this rumor he was shot at in our main bar space. Um pretty sure he didn't do any of the shooting because the the co-owners, their mother was his stenographer. Um, Margaret Conway was so she had you know direct antidotes, anecdotes from Ness's life and attested he didn't carry a gun off did he. Whatever this the truth of the story is, is we know Nessa's associated with the space, the story resonated with people. They would come to they and still do come to the brew pub and kind of like look at where the bullet hole is. There's a little bang flag, they drink some beer and go on, right? So, like that's a cool story about the city of Cleveland. It actually very directly relates to us. That I think that's another key, too, is that like oftentimes these stories are directly raised to related to the people, right? Like Ban Man's mom knew Elliot Nath, the Edmund Fitzgerald, tragedy that happened in Lake Superior, 29 crew members, many of whom were from Cleveland, a sunken Lake Superior, apparently like a rock star, right? Like this ship. So like if you're into ships, this is like your whatever, you know, oh yeah, rock and roll hall of fame first ballad, that kind of stuff, right? So um, you know, some people might see that name and think that's weird. Why would you name the beer after a tragedy? Well, Pat and Dan were friends with the son, and are friends with the son of the first mate from the Edmund Fitzgerald. And when they were brewing the reporter, they kind of imagined what the the waves on Lake Superior would have been like on that stormy day. Wanted to pay tribute to the ship and the crew. So they asked their friend if that was okay. They asked for his blessing, and he said, I think my father would be honored, right? So we've got some stories that are key to Cleveland, key to the region, and we have a personal connection with them too, and they are the identity of those beers, right? So that just really establishes us as like okay, like, yeah, that's this is Cleveland right here. This is Cleveland beer, this is Great Lakes region beer and all that stuff. So it gives us that authenticity. There's the obvious natural appeal, people like stuff from their we're human, right? We like stuff that's familiar to us, and it's a point of differentiation, I think. Like I can't, I can't say for sure, but I can't recall at the top of my head what other breweries were naming their beers. There's this really thought out and consistent identity amongst the beers, whereas other brewers might have been like, it's my this is my amber, right? It's ex-brewery amber. And it's like, okay. So those are that's the early brand identity, and that's kind of like why it's important.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really great answer to that question. Kind of like you were saying, with especially when it comes down to like the naming and everything. A lot of breweries, you know, they make they make great beer and it it tastes delicious and everything, but I mean, like you were describing, you pack so much identity into these beers with like how they come to be, it makes it a lot more more personal. I think that's a great touch. Yeah. Absolutely. For sure. And uh I guess kind of getting into the the next question here, what what marketing channels have like kind of moved the needle for you? Whether it's like socials or events or the tap room experience, what what do you find is the best way to push that that message that you were just describing to me?

SPEAKER_02 9:03

For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's really it it is everything, all those things. Now, like, obviously, like majority of the brewers in the country are much smaller. So I'm sure other guys you talk to focus big time on the events and tap room and all that stuff. And that stuff's totally important for us as a larger packaging regional brewer. The more you say social, I can expand that to just general communications, right? Is really, really big for us, right? So um a large portion of our company's annual revenue is coming from outside the campus. A tenth of the revenues from the campus or something like that. Well, so stuff like social obviously is huge, or newsletter, much of brew, traditional PR sending out press releases that are picked up by websites, trade publications, all that kind of stuff, local media and all that is a much larger focus for us, especially those, I think, traditional forms of of uh marketing. Much um, much bigger focus for us than most of our brethren who are a little bit smaller. Um, we've even done in recent years some of what I call the big boy stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So, like uh billboards in Cleveland, and it's like, whoa, Great Lakes billboard, right? Like little, you know, oh Cleveland craft brewery, you got a billboard.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

So just doing stuff like that, commercials. We filmed a full full-length commercial for Midwest IPA. So we do all of that stuff too. Um, it's just the nature of like where's the revenue coming from, right? So, like if you are selling all of your beer over your own taproom bar, you know, you don't have to do that much, especially once you have the established following, right? You don't have to do as much. If you're out there and your beer is one of 200 different brands on the store shelf, then you gotta do some more stuff to to make your product stand out, right? Yeah, even if there's a s a dedicated following, because all those other breweries have dedicated followings too.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Um the same the sampling program I've been leading the past year plus, that's also an important part of the overall marketing machine, if you will, you know, because you do all those communications, right? And like you gotta let people know about the product in the first place, but then you have to actually get liquid to lips and stuff like that too. So uh Yeah, and that's I mean that's great for getting it out there as well.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

You know Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

You were just talking about your sampling program. You'd finished talking about the sampling?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah. We'll figure it out. Yeah, that's that's close enough. So the sampling program has been, it's not like it doesn't fit square relating to social or whatever, right? But like that's kind of the last piece of the puzzle. Yeah. Someone sees billboard of like cold rush or light beer, which we've done a lot of out of home for they're driving to work or maybe even better, they're driving home from work, right? And they see it and like, oh, interesting beer. Oh, new beer, cold rush. Oh, Great Lakes, huh? And then like, you know, scrolling on the phone and then show up in the Instagram feed and they see it there.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Oh, yeah, yeah, that.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

And then they're shopping at the local grocery store, and there's a friendly rep there is like, hey, wouldn't you like to try our new light beer cold rush? And they're like, Oh, yeah, that's a thing I saw. I was like, Yeah, let me try it. Oh, that's good. 4% hundred calories. Oh, yeah, Cleveland's light beer, all that stuff, right? And then we hate to always beat the drum these days about uh the situation, but it's true is that people are drinking a little bit less beer overall. There's still so many options out there, and there are so many alternative beverages out there that are competing for attention. People have their you know real or perceived Titan wallets and all that stuff, right? So being able to get that sample in front of people might be that last that last push that then just done to actually buy the beer. So yeah, the the tap room is super important too.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Absolutely. And it's kind of like what you're describing is uh the more ways that you can get it in front of in front of their head, you know, they might not buy it the first time they see an advertisement or something, but like, you know, they they get a little taste test, they get uh they get a few different ads, and it starts they start becoming familiar with it, and then that's that's a great way to just kind of drive that. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. 360, right? 360 marketing. Yeah, absolutely. So you guys, you guys are on social media. How has that been working for you and what's kind of your strategy behind posting on social media?

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Yeah, um, and my my close coworkers on Mark on the marketing team, they run the show for that. It's all in-house for us, Lily, who will surely reshare this episode uh on our on our channels at some point after it goes live, runs social for us. Marissa helps too. Marissa helps a lot more with the the PR stuff, but Lily's on vacation, Marissa will jump in and all that. So it's in-house. Yeah. My teammates. You know, it's I would say it's probably somewhat typical. I think there probably is kind of a playbook for social, right? So like planning out content well ahead of time, you know, aligning posts that are coming up with planned releases, right? We usually have a couple new, maybe one or two corner releases a year, a couple new seasonals, all that stuff. I believe the goal is like I want to say it's a daily post on each platform. Instagram, primarily, Facebook, probably second. Obviously, taking time each day to hop on. You know, someone on the team hops on and responds to comments. Um it shows interaction, actual engagement, addressing concerns, all that stuff, right? And it's a lot of posting about beer. Just let's get those beautiful product shots out there in front of people and like, oh yeah, that looks good.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I do want to drink a beer, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Absolutely. Primarily for the new stuff, right? People know those established brands that I that we already talked about, but making sure that Midwest IPA, Midwest Tazy IPA are getting in front of people. The Cold Rush, the light beer I mentioned, new seasonal releases. You know, people know our seasonals. I think we're gonna get to seasonal a little bit, right? I'll see.

unknown 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Well, it's steal thunder from that question, right? Oh, we can definitely we can definitely talk more about seasonal. I know that that was one of the things that we touched on in the last interview, but we're in a different season now. Yeah, we'll sort, you know, repetition's good too.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

So so yeah, but it's all just uh driving awareness trial of those new brands returning seasonals. And then we do have uh a dedicated Instagram account for the brew pub too. Yeah, because you got different audiences, right? I mean the the the the guy in Wisconsin probably isn't directly interested in the event that's happening at the brew pub. So he's following GLBC underscore Cleveland, uh, and he's gonna get stuff about package releases that are gonna show up in the Wisconsin market. GLBC brew pub, you know, that's for the the local Clevelanders who want to find out when we're tapping X beer at the brew pub. So making sure the content's relevant for the people who are actually viewing the viewing the content, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that's a that's a great strategy. Got to make sure it's in front of the right people for sure. Yeah. Um, how important is storytelling to your marketing? What's kind of like the uh the why behind a lot of your beers? I know that you you touched on some of it in in our first question there.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

For sure, yeah. And it does link back to that, but then I think there's a good opportunity to bring up the kind of other half and tie that to some of the brands that some of the newer brands. So the why for us at Great Lakes continues to be that we're Ohio, Cleveland and Ohio's original craft brewery. We've been around since 1988. We're independent. Um, you know, we're still owned by our original co-founders. Uh and also very importantly, of course, we make fresh, flavorful, and innovative products that are of high quality, right? Um we're first, but it's also very good beer, right? And you just see that stuff, like you go to our message is it's direct and it's also indirect, too. So like you look at the Instagram bio, the Facebook bio, it's Ohio's original craft brewery since 88. Independent, the PR footer, the footer that's uh on all our press releases is Great Lake Spring Cobert is Ohio's original craft brewery founded in 1988 by Pat and Dan Conway, etc. etc. Right. Like that's the that's that's kind of and then after that, the award-winning portfolio of fresh, full-flavored, and innovative crafted beverages. So that's the why, right? Yeah, really. And it's important to bring up and emphasize it was very explicitly um driven home in those legacy brands, but it's still the why today, too. So if you if you're you're you're a listener and you follow us on social or you see our newer beers out on the market, you notice they look different. They kind of sound different, but there's still, especially for the big ones, there's still that direct connection to who we are as Cleveland and Ohio's premiere craft brewer. So just for example, uh the Midwest IPAs, regular Midwest IPA in the blue can, the Midwest hazy and the orange can. That's those are the names. That's not a story, right? That's not a story about the Great Lakes region or anything like that. Um it's not Cleveland specific, but it's still, you know, the Great Lakes is like that's a solid chunk of the Midwest, right? So it's a brand that um still feeds directly into our core identity. But the the key is like because of where the beer is sold and how the beer is sold today for us, primarily, like those older stories, although cool, don't necessarily make sense to a guy who's in uh upstate New York, right? Like a story about someone sitting at a bar in Ohio City doesn't make sense to that person. And also if that person is under 50, they probably don't know who Elliott Ness is and all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Um unless you're a history appreciator and you shouldn't be if you're not, but yeah. And then you get a pretty good fan of the beer right away. Whereas Midwest, if you're from the Midwest, whether you're still living in the Midwest or you're you know a transplant living on the East Coast where we distribute, you see Midwest, you're like, I like the Midwest. I'm from the Midwest. Like, we're just proud to be Midwesterners, right? Yeah. I'm sure you experienced that with your other guests too. So like it's still a broader name, it's not a story or anything like that, but it's still feeding into that core identity of the name our nature is uh atop Cleveland and Great Lakes region brewery. Even Cold Rush, Cold Rush, the name itself explicitly is not Cleveland, but if you it is it's cold, right? It's a light beer, so it's cold. But just fun little tip for anyone when he was listening to this in Cleveland. If you get your hands on the beer, which you should, it's got this kind of like upside-down arrow pattern on it. It's kind of simple and feels retro and stuff, but it's also a nod to the the guardians of transportation statues that these Art Deco statues that are on the Lorraine Carnegie Bridge going over the Cuyahoga River. Oh, and they said the baseball team's name for those statues. So it's actually so it's a it's a little, there's still even sometimes, especially for a brand that's only sold in Cleveland, a little nod to Cleveland itself. So that's still it's still a theme throughout our beers. One way or the other, though, all our beers have that little Great Lakes logo on them, except for Cold Rush, ironically. Um, which it will sometime soon. Uh so even the the broad beers like the orange honey wheat that just came out, it's just talking about the beer, but you know it's gonna be good, you know, it's gonna be quality because it's got that Great Lakes logo on it, right? Yeah. It's got your stamp, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

So it's still got the Y. Yeah. Quality brew. Absolutely. No, that makes total sense. I like that they all kind of have like some kind of little nod or something in there, like cold rush, that's cool. Yeah. That's uh that's something that maybe I as an Iowa probably wouldn't pick out, but uh people in the area, they that's that's a great nod. Yeah. Especially yeah. So kind of getting into the seasonal stuff. I know that we touched on it last time, but now that that was back in the winter, now that we're in spring, are there any seasonal or limited releases coming out that people should be uh aware of and get excited about? For sure.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Yeah. Um and so when I was kind of thinking about this one, the idea is kind of like marketing those seasonal releases and then like we obviously want to drum 'em up. Um, yeah, the word uh I I was thinking about the word overpromising, uh, that was sent sent over. And I think I don't know if this is what you were tapping into, but like it's really easy to hype up a limited release, right? Um Especially if you're a smaller brewer. Like, dude, and I I'm all about this. I'm a pastry stout guy. So I'm all about the line of you know 100 people out the door to try to get uh one of 500 bottles, right? Of this like really cool adjuncted barrel aid stout and all that stuff. Um we're a little different because something that's nice for us for our seasonal releases is that we're so well established as a seasonal brewer. Like it's kind of hard for us to overhype because people are already doing that for us. You know what I mean? And they're not overhyping. What I'm saying, what I'm saying is they're already excited. Like we don't have to get them excited, right? Uh they know it's coming. People know Christmas Christmas Ale, obviously, it creates enough excitement to sustain us for a good portion of the year, right? So um, although we need even more excitement for the rest of the year. Oktoberfest, commies Irish ale, you know, people are already expecting those beers to come out. This is the the chunk right now. Um it's April right now. So for spring, this is the one area where we don't have as established of a brand, although the Mexican Lager with Lyme, um, it's been on the market for about five years now, maybe even six. Yeah, maybe over five years. So it's smaller than Conway's Oktoberfest. Obviously, it's smaller than Christmas Alex because Christmas Sale is our number one seller, despite only being out for 10 weeks. But uh, because of our track record in the other three seasons of the year, people are like, oh, okay, Grey Lake seasonal beer is gonna be good because and then you know they drink it and it is good. It's a very well-crafted Mexican lager, real lime peel, real lime puree in there. It has a very intense amount of we've been using flavorings to boost a bunch of our other flavored beers, especially fruit beers, but like this is all real lime, and it's like I had two yesterday, and then like later on, I was like, I still taste that lime. Man, yeah. So it's kind of nice, like when it comes to the actual marketing of these products, because there's for us, there's already that established like demand for the seasonal product, you know what I mean? And even when we do limited rare stuff, it's like okay, barrelage Christmas sale. It's like we're like building off of an established brand. The barrelage blackouts did that we've been doing for so long, so we're maybe different from some of the smaller guys, where you know, and there's not as much crazy super duper hype over like super duper limited drops like there once was. But um, you know, that could still be like see, I could that could still be a concern. But in any case, what's kind of cool is that excitement for seasonal, the individual seasonal, can then kind of extend to other things too. So like um last year we extended off of Conway's Irish Stout. Sorry, the ale, the red ale, we extended with the Conway's Irish Stout.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And then this year that went the idea went well enough that we then added an Irish lager. So you kind of had your Guinness, your Semitics, and your Harp, if you will. Yeah. And uh we did a seasonal variety pack that had all three of them in there, and people that was gone real fast. So uh we're doing that for each one of the quarters this year. Here in the spring, it's a sunshine party pack. So that's got the aforementioned Mexican lager that's kind of like the anchor seasonal. It has our rally drum lemon shandy in it. That's our baseball beer. It runs through the summer. We have the brand new Orange Honey Wheat, which is kind of uh an everyday general it's fruit fruit wheat beer, but it's not like the in your phase total fruit balm, kind of like a sour. It's the everyday sip and wheat beer. It's got good balance between the orange and the honey. That's also a standalone year-round product in six packs. And the key for these seasonal variety packs is well, one of the keys is that it's got a limited beer that you can only get inside the pack. So that's an orange lime shandy. Kind of has a margarita vibe to it. So each one of the the Irish lager was exclusive to the party pack. We've got, you know, one come for the fall, one that'll be out for the holidays. So yeah. And uh, you know, out there doing samplings, sure enough, those dead things that things that make sense.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yep. Orange shandy sounds great to too. Like that's especially delicious right now. Gotta buy that variety pack to get it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um so that's uh so kind of getting into the tap room a little bit. I know we touched on this, but what what role does the tap room play as a a marketing asset beyond just selling the pints?

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Um, and it totally is a like it is a source of some revenue for us for sure, but like probably for us a little bit more, well, definitely for us a little bit more than other breweries. Like it is also very and I'm always very clear, like when I'm doing trainings with PubStaff, like it is its own separate business unit that is valuable in and of itself, right? But also it's a great marketing tool for the overall company, right? So I just want to stress it's not just a marketing tool, right? Right, yeah, yeah. It's a legitimate business on its own. So I start in the pub, so I know that firsthand and all that. But the tap room for us, you know, for again, most of the brewers out there, there's when they're selling most of their beer over the at in their tap room, that is the source of revenue, right? For us, it's maybe a tenth or something like that. But what's very important is that the brew pub is where it all started. And our brew pub is in exactly the same buildings that it's been in since the very beginning. We've had some additions, but the core or the brew pub is the same. And so it's still very much the beating, I we call it the beating heart of the company 38 years in, right? Um for locals, for people in Cleveland, it continues to be a uh an important gathering space. So we've got regulars who have been coming to the brew pub literally since day one, um, or since very, very early on in the company, and they're still coming here today. Um all sorts of fun. Yeah, yeah, totally it is. Yeah, I mean, that's a long time of time, 40 years. And oh yeah, you know, if you're 21 in 1988, that means you're you're pushing 60 right now. So that's a pretty impactful run being um a trusted place for people to go for so long. They become a part of their lives at that point. That's exactly bringing their kids in, maybe their kids' kids. Um so the impact of that, you know, and then they're sharing the love they have for Great Lakes via because in large part because of the love of the taper and they're sharing that with their friends, they're bringing the beer to family gatherings, all that kind of stuff. So, like, you know, we're hosting local community organizations, host events, all that kind of stuff. So it's huge. And then for the out-of-towners, that's like the pilgrimage spot, right? I know when I go out of town, and if I let's say um this just came up in conversation in another podcast earlier in the week. I was in, we had a family with wedding in LA, and we had some time to kill before going out of LAX, and Firestone Walker has a tap room at Venice Beach. I'm like, we're going there. Because it's like, it's not the original brewery in Pasarobas, but it's like you gotta go, like, especially for these long-running, larger distributing like breweries. You buy a six-pack of the beer, like I have a pint of Union Jack in New York City, it's like, I gotta try it, try it from the brewery, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

So, you know, for others who don't work at Great Lakes and aren't here all the time, like, oh man, Fitzgerald, you know, my favorite beer, like, I gotta try it. Or I love that new Midwest IEPA, it's gotta taste even better. And it tastes better because it's fresher, but also because you're in the space where it all happened. And maybe as as important as the quality of the beer in the history is the people, right? Yeah. So you have the people who work in the tap room. And just like we've had people who have been patronizing the brew pub for almost 40 years, we also have staff who have been with us for 25, 30 plus years as well. So production guys, uh, yes, but also people we have a couple bartenders who've been goodness, they might be almost 35 years, considering we're gonna be at 38 years. So they're almost probably almost 35 years with the company. Wow. So it's not it's both sides of the bar, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, yeah, and that's another good sign too, when you got your bartenders and people sticking around that long.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yep. So that's that's the sign of a great company culture and all that, right? It's uh we talk I talk about the friendly nature of the Midwest IP, it's the beers themselves, but that obviously also applies for the people too, right? So like it's a very friendly group, very Midwestern. You see the passion that employees have for the company, you see the passion that the co-founders and co-owners have for the company because they're still around all the time. So yeah, you definitely know it's a special place considering all that stuff. And so because of that, you go there, you're probably gonna fall in love with Great Lakes in a different way, right? So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

And it's like, I mean, if they're already fans of the beer, this is the way it's like, you know, as you were describing earlier, it's kind of like the puzzle, right? The missing piece of the puzzle is the full experience of enjoying the beer in the place where it was, you know, crafted. So that's that's awesome. The impact is huge for sure. Oh yeah. Um getting into the the Midwest identity identity part that we talked about earlier. How have you leaned into the Midwest identity as part of the brand?

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah. So some of that we've we've hit with the names and the stories and all that stuff. And we we touched generally on Midwest IPA, but like, you know, IPA is being the number one craft beer category, right? 50% of dollars sold in craft beer IPA. Yeah. It's no surprise that we leaned into the Midwest identity for our relatively new duo of flagship IPAs, Midwest IPA and Midwest Hazy IPA. So that's really um, you know, we lean into it in the ways that Vari kind of mentioned, but then big time with this this new duo, this we call it the Midwest IPA family, this new duo of lead IPAs that we think are gonna kind of help drive that next 30 years of revenue for us as a brewery. So you see in the beers themselves, especially the the original Midwest IPA, that's kind of like your clear IPA. It's American IPA, right? But it's got this distinctly Midwest twist to it. So we leaned into it with the beer itself. It's kind of got the the bet, I forget we might have touched on this in the first episode a little bit, but it's got the best of most coasts clarity and the drinkability of a West Coast. It's got the aroma and the low bitterness of a New England IPA, and those kind of mean the middle, right? So where's the middle between those two is the Midwest. That low bitterness and the drinkability of the beer make it a very approachable and friendly IPA. So again, approachable, friendly, that's about as Midwest as it gets, right? So the beer itself reflects our Midwest identity, and then also the way we talk about the beer. Uh you know, we nickname it the unofficial IPA of Midwest nice because of the sensory aspects, the way that we describe it and marketing copy that's on the package and on the website, you know, a sensible amount of hops, meeting a mild mattered finish, so very Midwestern feeling and all that. Even the food pairings we suggest kalbasa, pierogi, corn, all that stuff. It's just, you know, you gotta throw a corn reference in there for uh for Midwest. Um, but then even like with the brew pub, like we try to do you know local ingredient sourcing for the food. Um the uh you know, one of the burgers is the Midwest luxury burger. It's got I I unfortunately cannot name uh off the top of my head everything that's on it, but it's got some sort of like Midwest IPA ALE-you know or jam or something like that on it. Uh so on package beer we lean into the Midwest thing. Um, certainly for at least the IPAs. Definitely doing in the pub as well, um, with the food. And I'm sure we've done some public exclusive beers that are, you know. Dingus Day is a big thing in in Cleveland. I don't know if it is where you are. Not as much, probably. He's brewed, he's brewed some sort of Polish beer for that before. Yeah. It's Midwest, you know, Midwest. I think Chicago probably does it. Let's this Midwest too. So definitely do it for the for the way we talk about the beers, the beers themselves, food, events happening into Midwest cultural phenomena and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yeah, yeah. People like uh like a good local story like that for sure. Yep. So kind of getting into the the marketing questions again. What's the marketing swing that you guys took and maybe didn't work out and what did you learn from it?

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah, for that one, the thing that came to mind for me was so thankfully I can't think of and again, like I do a lot of like direct customer interaction stuff. If I had asked the crew running social, they might have been able to point to something. But also, I feel like if we had like something that truly was a total whiff, and like especially if it was like an oopsie, like a faux pas or something like that, I would remember, you know what I mean? Like, so I don't we've never had anything entirely tragic that like you know is a total mark on our record. Well, that's good. It's good. So we tend to be relatively conservative, you know, when approaching stuff like that. We're not doing big brash, you know, yeah, things like that. But you know, not everything we've done as a company has succeeded. And I would the thing that came to mind for me is like some of the product lines that we've tried. And it's good because you have to try, right? When there's all this new stuff, there's the bifurcation of the consumer, not just bifurcation, many furcations, right? Um and from just drinking craft beer to craft beer and ready to drink cocktails and seltzers and THC beverages and all that stuff, right? So we tried to pursue some of these alternative lanes because beer alone probably isn't gonna well, beer alone isn't going to provide the revenue we need to succeed as the company of this the size and scale that we are, right? It's just we kind of went into stuff and it's tough, it's tough, tagging's tough because things move so quickly, but we kind of went into stuff where maybe there's already like enough established players to like the chances of success, you know. Certainly we know in hindsight the chances of success were not uh not as high as we initially hoped. So we tried like a ranch water salt sort of thing. Um we tried a hard tea, and generally theoretically, you think a good idea, but when like twisted everyone's drinking twisted tea, it's kind of like, are we really gonna break through that? You know what I mean? Yeah. But um, so a good example like right now, it's a lot of people ask about an N an NA beer from us. But um, first of all, we don't have the equipment to make it, but even like our partners, we sell primarily to distributors and all that, and they sell it to retailers. They're kind of like saying, we're good with a number of NA brands that are out there. They think there's more growth within those brands, but so there's growth in NA, but it's not because of bringing in new NA brands, it's growing the ones already there.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

So that's an area we're not pursuing right now because I think we've probably learned a little bit. First of all, again, we can't make it in-house, but I'm gonna guess there might be some learnings uh from some previous launches. On the other hand, this whole THC beverage world, there's not an established player, right? So, like that's an area that makes sense to kind of explore and maybe reach out into because you know there's you know, so yeah. But again, you gotta try and sometimes better to swing and miss than to not swing at all. Dude, you never want to get called out on strikes, right? But at least go down and swinging. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

No, that's a really good way to answer that question, actually. Especially with like that is something that I've noticed is a lot of people have been mentioning NA beers recently as like kind of a way to um kind of combat the the drop that we're seeing in people drinking beers across the board. But it's like if everyone's doing that, it's gonna become like an oversaturated thing. It's just it's better to focus on what's what you guys are like already good at and already known for for sure. Yeah, and then venturing into spaces where it truly makes sense. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Like you said, the uh the THC beer, not an established player really yet. Why why not you guys? Yeah, that'd be great. So kind of getting into one of our last questions on the the marketing brand development side of things. How do you think about customer loyalty? And uh do you guys have any like regulars first programs or perks?

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah, for sure. That kind of bounced back a little bit to what we were talking about with the importance of those regulars throughout the years, too, right? So like loyalty, and in many ways, I guess with employees too, right? Loyalty is a really big thing at Great Lake. So it's huge for you guys. So ironically, you know, these regulars who have been with us since day one and have helped build our brewery by being brand ambassadors themselves, right? And again, like I kind of mentioned, bringing their friends down to the brew pub, and then once we started packaging the beer, bringing the beer to family gathering, all that stuff, right? Ironically enough, I am not aware that we do anything.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Well, the beer is enough to bring them back.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

They don't do anything officially, I'm sure that their tabs may be slightly lower at the end of the day than someone who had the same number of beers sitting next to them, if you know what I mean. But we do have and surely we've encouraged our regular long-time regulars to sign up for a loyalty program. We do have a loyalty program. It's one of those things where like you earn X number of points based on the dollar spent. And it's nice because employees can totally sign up for that program as well. And you know, this guy gets a solid amount of uh packaged beer from the gift shop. So I've gotten at least one free hoodie from the gift shop. I want to say multiple, but I got myself a nice comfy Christmas ale hoodie this past season because I had the point, I had the loyalty points built up, and I'm like, I'm gonna get myself a Christmas present. So gotta have it. Yeah, um, and I assume, you know, I'm I'm not down there like I once was, but if I'm doing it and coming back in, I'm sure there are other people who are doing it too, you know. Um we've done a birthday gift, so there's a fun little thing. I used to uh write our newsletter, the Muchaboo newsletter, and we would do a birthday email. We still do a birthday email. So the month of your birthday, you receive, you know, hey, happy birthday, all that stuff. It's celebrating you, all that kind of thing. And then we were doing like a free pint, but I believe they switched to do it like this custom design koozie that like only people who I'm assuming people only people who are on the list and receive the email get the birthday koozie. So that's kind of fun. Yeah um, but then you know, even just like I was just I was thinking about this, and it's like one way or the other, like you know, there there's just there's the general loyalty programs and all that stuff, but like I think that whole thing about even just the good relationships that customers have because we have good people here, like they're no it we do the base I mean uh it's easy to take the basics for granted, but we do the basics like our bartenders know regulars by name and call them by name and all that stuff, right? And all that that little stuff goes a long way. So there's actual, you know, monetary loyalty programs, but there's just a the relationship too that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

So yeah, and just the fact that you've got regular customers that have been coming in for the last like forty forty years or something, that speaks for itself. I mean uh loyalty scene there is it that's crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Gotta love it. Good people, good beer.

SPEAKER_04 43:41

Yeah. Great Lakes. Absolutely. The slogan.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

So kind of getting into the uh the final questions here, how can people keep up with you guys? I know that we we mentioned socials and I'll I'll for sure link those, but uh how can people keep up with the new and exciting over at Great Lakes? For sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah. You guys can take in all of our wonderful marketing efforts that we talked about today. Facebook should be, I think Facebook is Great Lakes Brewing Co. Uh Instagram, the general Instagram is GLBC underscore Cleveland. Brew pub Instagram is GLBC Cleveland. No underscore in that one. No, no, sorry. GLBC Brewpub. No underscore in that one. Those are the big ones. We're on there too. Look it up. I forget what the thing is on that. We're on LinkedIn. And sometimes like we'll post so we'll post certain types of content on different channels. So like I think our first one of these, I think we posted that on LinkedIn. So like follow us on all of them and get all the content together. Yeah. Right? Sign up for much of brew. If you go to the website, Great Lakes website, it's there's a way. There'll be a pop-up if you haven't been to the website before. Um and there's a form somewhere on the website too to sign up for that. So sometimes we'll do you know the little uh tease announcement for something on the newsletter. So if you want to be first, sign up for the newsletter. Um that's the big stuff, and then come down and visit us. If you're in Cleveland, go to a store, meet the sampling team, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. GreatLakes Brewing.com is the website, by the way. Shouldn't be hard to find. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

The Google is pretty good too. Yeah. And for everyone listening, I'll make sure to link those in the uh the description and everything for you guys. Um so, Michael, any uh final thoughts or messages for people who would be considering a visit?

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Come on down. It's friendly people, it's great beer, it's Midwest. You know, we're proud to continue to carry on the legacy of being Cleveland's original brewer, being the first brewery in Ohio, and uh continuing to be one of the premier brewers of the Great Lakes friends. So and then if you're not in Cleveland, go out to your local store, pick up a six-pack, and you can experience the the Great Lakes uh good stuff that way. Absolutely. Also just as good as coming down to the pub.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Still tasty. Indeed. All right. Well, thank you so much, Michael. Uh, we appreciate having you on again. Got it, brother. Thanks, Henry.

SPEAKER_04 46:17

Thanks for inviting us back. It was a good time. Alrighty.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

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.