Brewbound Podcast: 2023 Award Winners – Maui Brewing’s Garrett Marrero and the National Black Brewers Association’s Kevin Asato

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Next on the Brewbound Podcast, we hear from more of our 2023 Brewbound Award winners. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall, the editor of Brewbound Award this is a special holiday week episode of the Brewbound Podcast. Jess, Zoe, and I are taking time off, but we're going to bring you a pair of interviews with some of our 2023 Brewbound Award winners. You're going to hear from Garrett Marrero from Maui Brewing Company, who was named our person of the year. And you'll also hear from Kevin Asato, the executive director of the National Black Brewers Association. The NB2As founding members were named our Beer Champions of 2023. So let's get to those interviews.

[00:01:28] Brewbound Podcast: I am here with someone who is quite familiar to any of our Brewbound readers or listeners, someone who's been on stage at our events and who we've covered all his work on quite a bit these past few years. But our Brewbound Person of the Year this year is Garrett Marrero, who is the co-founder and CEO of Craft Ohana. You may also know him from all the stuff we covered last year with Maui Brewing and Modern Times. Congratulations and welcome, Garrett.

[00:02:01] Brewbound Award: Thank you and aloha. Thanks for having me. It's quite an honor. You know, I think earlier we were saying how it's not the reason you do things, but it's nice to get that pat on the back. So, you know, thank you to everyone who, you know, voted to select me. Thank you.

[00:02:19] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I was mentioning earlier before we started that I think this was one of the quickest and easiest decisions we made for the awards this year. And most of that has to do with the work that you did following the fires, the wildfires in Maui. And I think almost as soon as we were seeing the reports about the fires, we were seeing reports or updates from you on Instagram or in emails and updates about what you were doing. Why was it so important for you to kind of stop everything and focus on helping the community right away?

[00:02:53] Brewbound Award: Yeah, well, this is the community that birthed Maui Brewing and that has supported my dream for the last almost 19 years. Ultimately, it's the The idea that you just have to help if you can, I think that's our duty as humans to, you know, where, where we can help it, we must tell. And, um, you know, beer has that, I think, you know, just threaded through its entire fabric. And, you know, for us being successful here, we were able to help a lot and, you know, certainly it's important to point out that everything that, you know, that I did was the work of many and. You know, I had many of my teammates that were brewing beer packaging, you know, even, you know, ran into one of our guys in the warehouse when I was speeding through grabbing a generator, that kind of stuff. I said, Hey, I really wish we could be doing more to help the community. Like, but I, you know, between work and this, I said, no, like you doing your job at the brewery. gives me the peace that I can go do these things. So you're working through my hands. And I think that's really important. I'd want my team to hear that in an interview like this, because it is how I approached everything. And, you know, the community pulled together instantly, dare I say, even before government realized what a problem there was. And it was just great to see the community come together to support each other in its time of need. But I guess to put it simply, I'm just a guy that when I see a need that I can fill and when I see people suffering and our community especially, I'm going to be right there to fight for it and to support it.

[00:04:38] Brewbound Podcast: And when you're talking about your community, I mean, this is, it was impacting your, the backyard of your brewery as well. Like this was very closely connected to like the people that you're working with on a daily basis. Right.

[00:04:51] Brewbound Award: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we, we were up, you know, that morning, so around one 30, you know, dealing with a fire behind the brewery that was made it within about two miles of the brewery. Uh, and we finally felt comfortable leaving to go home, get some rest. By that point, Lahaina was well gone already, and it was get some rest, get up, and then get back right to work. But yeah, I mean, even while I was driving to the west side that first morning after the fires, I was still coordinating with our team to get fire hoses in place behind the brewery. So now we own full, you know, setups for fire hoses, fire hydrant wrenches, nozzles, spare nozzles even. And then had the fire department come out and train us how to use them because this won't be the last fire. And for us to be able to, even if it's throw a hose in the back of my truck and drive over somewhere or fight the fire from behind the brewery, we'll be there to do that. That's the kind of people we are.

[00:05:51] Brewbound Podcast: You guys also set up donation centers to help. What were some of the things that you were making sure people got? What did people need? What were those helping out with?

[00:06:02] Brewbound Award: Yeah, I think it was anything and everything. Morning one was, you know, what do we have in the cupboards? And it was just, you know, whether it be canned soup, ramen, anything that didn't need, like, energy necessarily outside of maybe a camp stove to prepare. A lot of protein shakes. We, of course, can't forget our Ohana that are furry little Ohana, our pets, if you will. Mine's who's slumbering away over here. you know, we wanted to make sure that we had pet food and pet medications as well. So we really, we just said, we put up the call for any donations and the rally point was the brewery. And every morning we'd, you know, divvy stuff up. We'd load trucks. I'd coordinate with the Maui Police Department. Good friends of mine there, the captain, I probably should leave him out, but the captains who coordinated our permission to go to the West side because it was heavily restricted. And we would run as a caravan. I mean, we really had like 10 trucks in a row one day, just, I'm like, stay on my bumper. Don't let anybody in between us, you know, that kind of thing. And, uh, we'd run our missions and then we'd get back. Um, I flew some missions too, as well as a pilot. Uh, I was able to get access from the FAA. to land at the West Maui airport, which is typically restricted to commercial part 135 only. But one of my friends from high school, her husband works at the FAA in Texas, and was able to get us to be able to land. So we flew in the first four days between myself and my instructor, we flew individually missions, and there was 87 missions. And we moved over 100,000 pounds of goods into the entire general aviation private community. There was a GoFundMe set up to pay for pilots' fuel too, so we were able to reimburse every pilot in the state that flew missions, was able to get their fuel paid for as well.

[00:07:52] Brewbound Podcast: The fuel situation was kind of crazy too. I remember seeing some of the videos that you posted of people lining up just to get gas. It's impacting every single aspect of people's day-to-day.

[00:08:05] Brewbound Award: Yeah. No power, no fuel, right? And there was no power on the west side for quite a while. So we were able to help get fuel up and running at one of my buddy's own Minute Stop. And he called me and he's like, hey, I heard my gas station blew up. And I was like, no, man, I'm literally driving by right now. It's fine. And I pulled over, ran around the building, took a video for him. Uh, and then we got him a generator set up so he could pump fuel and he was giving away like $25 of fuel per car that would come through. Uh, and then once fuel supply started again, then he kind of shifted back towards operating it as a fuel center. Uh, but yeah, it is the things you don't think about like that. You just don't realize. And, you know, it's not just even refrigeration for food. It's, you know, refrigeration for medication. And, um, you know, we got a generator hauled over to our, on a poly site, which I picked up and drove over. Um, we ran a bunch of stuff from the base yard that we have, like our coils of electrical wire and that kind of stuff out. So we could have temp power, took all the freezer food out of Kahana, which was shut down at the time. Moved all that, what we could into Kahana Poly, which was very little. And then we just literally drove around communities, handing them out, like literally you know, 20, 30 pound bricks of ground beef, uh, you know, 20 pound boxes of steaks, 20 pound boxes of chicken and handing it out to the community. Cause people were literally out barbecuing in the streets and we're like, well, here's your food. Do you need buns? Do you need, you know, it was, it was crazy. It was, um, you know, basically we just passed out about $50,000 worth of food from our freezer and fridge in the first two days after the fires.

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[00:10:00] Brewbound Podcast: You also set up this beer collaboration project, the Kukua project. What does that look like right now? How many brewers are participating? What is the impact of that?

[00:10:11] Brewbound Award: Yeah, so Kukua is great. We had done Kukua back in 2018 to help Kauai flood victims. Very limited production, but we do what we can. We knew we wanted to revive it for this, uh, disaster to, to try and, you know, bring as much relief to Maui as possible. And we were, my team was already talking about it and I would like interject when I could, but I was, like I said, driving and flying missions. Um, so, you know, Trent, Marsha, KVT specifically, we're working on that, um, with our brew team. And, uh, while I, while I was running a mission in West Maui, I got a call from Terrence Sullivan at Sierra Nevada. And he says, Hey, I know you're really busy. I'm surprised you even answered, but just know that the entire Sierra team is behind you. We learned a lot with our resilience project and however we can help count us in. And so they were really helpful in guiding us to make it even bigger from what it was in the past was one brewery us doing it. There now are over 720 breweries around the entire world. that have brewed or Maui Brewing kukua in any form they like. For us, it was, here's a potential session IPA recipe what we're going to do, but you do you, do what you do well. No restrictions on recipe, just donate some or all of the proceeds to these three different local charities here on Maui that we can promise the money will go to the community as opposed to OpEx for large charitable organizations. So yeah, I'm pretty impressed with that. I know what I've seen so far is somewhere around $250,000 raised. I expect by the time everybody's donations and the proceeds are in, that'll probably top a million dollars and that's going to go to support rebuilding houses, helping the un- or underinsured in terms of their deductibles for rebuilding, and really overall just trying to focus on that medium to long-term impact so we can rebuild our community, which it's going to be a long road. So keeping the light on Lahaina right now is really important.

[00:12:18] Brewbound Podcast: What is the status of the community right now? What is it looking like now?

[00:12:23] Brewbound Award: Well, I like to say that the chaos has settled for now. Are we going to survive? You know, is there food? Is all of those things, those, you know, I think everybody had a knee-jerk reaction to, Oh my God, this is COVID all over again. And the ports are going to be closed and all this. And it really wasn't. I mean, I think, you know, Maui, Maui is small, West Maui is even smaller. Right. And so the rest of the island was largely unimpacted other than the Kula fires, of course, which were a substantial damage that our charity will of course help Kula as well. But. you know, the long-term road ahead is kind of starting to materialize. And I think that's starting to, rightfully so, bring a high level of fear and uncertainty back into the community. And what I mean by that is the realization that, you know, you may not be able to stay on Maui Brewing this rebuilding process because of the lack of housing. I think we have largely, universally, the island feels forgotten by government. You know, I think even as early as the President's visit here, that was already a feeling. And it's only continued to grow in our community because we see what we're doing for the rest of the world, but not what we're doing for our own country. And being that we're an island, it's very different than a situation on the mainland. Not that there aren't horrible disasters on the mainland, but You know, most people could say, Hey, you know, so I got to commute two hours to find a house right now. That's, you know, livable in the near term. Can't do that here in Hawaii. You can't drive anywhere in a straight line for two hours, unless you, unless your car turns into a boat, you know, there's nowhere to go. And, uh, you know, I think that's something that really has, uh, been at the forefront of the realizations today. And that's, it's kind of sad because we know line is never going to look the same. Um, I, I like to think that it's positive that we can rise, uh, even better. Um, you know, but I think we do need to focus on community first at this point on how we rebuild.

[00:14:29] Brewbound Podcast: How about Maui Brewing itself? What, like, how have you guys been able to tackle and continue on through this? Well, I mean, you're focusing on just helping the community at large still have a business. So how is that working?

[00:14:43] Brewbound Award: Yeah, again, I think one thing that I've done very well is build a great team and kudos to them because there was definitely a period of time where I was not running the business. I was focused on our community and the needs that needed to be addressed every day. I was putting my steel toes on every morning and going to battle. And, you know, the team took care of the business. And that gave me a lot of peace to seeing that that's possible. You know, I've always had a lot of trust in them, but even more so now, you know, last year was tough enough. You know, anytime you acquire a company that is needing of a turnaround, like Modern Times desperately needed, as we all know, you know, that that that's all been well publicized. That was hard enough. And then now you have Lahaina where our brewery was born and we have the deepest concentration of tap handles and sales in the entire state. And all of those accounts are gone, like not coming back in a year, right? That represented about 15% of our Hawaii state volume, just that one zip code. And then you look at the corresponding decline in tourism because of all this BS, you know, celebrities who weren't even here saying, don't come to Hawaii. You know, we're taking resources away from people, wholly inaccurate. And anybody that says don't come to Hawaii right now is just vastly misinformed and doesn't understand the negative impact that that has on the economy. So that was challenging enough, but fortunately our team, as I mentioned earlier, we refocused. And we were growing anywhere from 35 to 48% a month on the mainland with Maui Brewing. And modern times is starting to really chug along and we're past all the equipment issues we had from all the neglect, the years of neglect and equipment there prior. So things are looking good. I think we're going to finish the year in the green, which is good. But it's been much more of a challenge than I really signed up for, I think. But it was definitely a year that I was tested. And I know 2024 is going to be a bang up year as we were set up for good success.

[00:16:56] Brewbound Podcast: I hope there is some form of relaxation in your plans in this coming year to tackle all of that. My final question for you, because you have so much going on, but is there anything that you think is really important for people, specifically the people that are in the beer industry watching right now, that they should know if they want to continue to help or any misconceptions that you want to break right now about the status of Hawaii and what people need to know right now.

[00:17:27] Brewbound Award: Yeah, I would say, you know, Kukua is still open, you know, as much as it might not be as formal as a, you know, period of time. If you want to brew a beer and donate some of the money to Maui, if you want to hold a pint night and, you know, feel free to reach out to me, I can coordinate with our sales team, we can do some collaborative pint nights if we you know, or even your individual breweries, if you want to donate to any charity here. We have three in particular that we're focused on here in Maui, and that's the NBC Fire Fund through the Global Empowerment Mission. That's our primary, that's where we're trying to raise the most money. After that is Legacy of Aloha, which essentially helps the Maui Brewing and the TS Restaurant teams, 200 of which individuals lost housing because of the fire. So you can imagine, and we've already distributed through that charity about $1.7 million directly to those 200 impacted families. And then the third one would be the Makai Foundation. So, and they're all listed on the Kukua website, which is Maui Brewing.com. But yeah, that'd be the best way, honestly. And I think just keeping us in light, you know, that, you know, the news is all now, you know, Palestine, Gaza, Israel, rightfully so, we understand the atrocities that occurred there. But then before that, it was Ukraine. But we can't forget that our own country is hurting. know, more than just in Maui, but I think that's something we need to take to the polls and something that we can hopefully, you know, shine a light back on our country to have our leaders help America first, because we're not doing great. And I think that's, that's a message I'd like to get out as well.

[00:19:15] Brewbound Podcast: I think anyone in leadership can probably take some notes from you. So it's we really appreciate you being so vocal about everything that you've been doing and continuing those efforts. And we can't wait to see what else you guys do and what a further impact that you have. So congrats again. And thank you. Collective thank you from I think everyone in your communities and anyone else you've impacted. It's greatly, greatly appreciated.

[00:19:43] Brewbound Award: Well, thank you so much. I, like I said, I do what I do because I believe it's the right thing to do and not, not for the kudos, but, uh, you know, being named, uh, you know, person of the year, uh, by brew bound is, you know, uh, you know, frankly, just kind of like, still don't even know how to process that. But, uh, I'll just say I'm stoked to accept that and to be, uh, even considered. So, um, I'll keep doing what I do. for those reasons, but I really appreciate the old pat on the back and look forward to having a beer and a cookie with you soon.

[00:20:18] Garrett Marrero: I am Brew Bad Managing Editor, Jessica Infante, and with me today is Kevin Asato, the Inaugural Executive Director of the National Black Brewers Association, or the NB2A. Kevin, welcome. How are you?

[00:20:30] National Black: Fantastic. Yes. So good, good, good, good to be here. Man, that was quite the intro. I'll tell you, I like that.

[00:20:37] Garrett Marrero: Well, thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm thrilled that you're here. So, you know, we are so excited to share that the NB2A and its founding members are Brewbound's Beer Champions of the Year. The Beer Champions Award started in 2020 to celebrate individuals and groups who work to improve conditions across the industry. And the MB2A is the first ever trade organization to support African-American brewers and brewery owners with their needs and issues, which can differ from those of the industry at large. So to me, this was a no brainer. I am so excited to be honoring you guys with this award and just congratulations.

[00:21:16] National Black: Thank you so much. I mean, it's quite the honor to actually be bestowed this. award and this recognition, make no mistake there. We don't think that we're doing anything that someone else wouldn't have done in the future. We're just the lucky ones to actually bring it together today. So make no mistake, we are thrilled to pieces that you recognize the work that's being done, not just by this organization, but our entire community that's making up this organization there. So thank you so much for the recognition. This is huge that the Bruin community at large recognizes the impact and how powerful and how important this is. So thank you so much.

[00:21:54] Garrett Marrero: It's so important. I mean, and I pulled this from your website, but less than 1% of craft breweries in the U.S. are owned by African-Americans and there's no single entity to help them. So why don't you tell us, rather than me quoting your website to you, tell us a little bit about the initial goals for the organization in its first year, because I'm sure they'll evolve and change over time. But for right now, what are you hoping to accomplish in year one?

[00:22:21] National Black: As you can hear, the reason why we started, right, there's just such a gap between whether it be the current drinking population of African-Americans that represent about 8% of the drinking population. And then if you look at perhaps the total demographic of Blacks in the U.S., it's about 13%. Just to have less than one half of 1% just seemed like such a disparity. We don't know what the right number of brewery ownership should be today, but suffice to say, I think it's something north of where we're at today. And that's what our efforts are here to do. That's the benchmark that we'll measure ourselves on. Can we increase the number of black brewery owners in the U.S.? But beyond that, you know, we're definitely looking to celebrate the history and the legacy and the accomplishments of black brewers in the beer community. And that's a key, key factor. You know, we didn't just happen upon this business. We've been in this business for quite some time. So that's a very important piece. The other piece is we also want to be a clearinghouse of resources. So as organizations, companies, well-wishers, or even supporters of any sort say, hey, I want to be able to support and provide some tools, or I want to be able to tap into a community of Black brewers because either I have a resource or I have opportunities for them, we want to be that definitive resource for not just our Black brewers, but for all those that are interested in supporting what we do. So that's another key component there. And then a significant piece is going to be supporting legislative acts, whether it be activities that the Brewers Association is working on. We'll essentially kind of pick up where they leave off or things that are specific to our community. We'll definitely drive home some legislative practices that make sense for our community as well. So lots going on.

[00:24:02] Garrett Marrero: Yeah. Well, I mean, beer is so different from other industries because of that regulatory component. And it's not easy to get into as an industry in general. And there's many things that make it hard. So I'm so glad that you guys have come together to help this really important and very necessary group of people enter into the ranks of brewery ownership. So that said, there are plenty of members of your founding class who are dear friends of Brewbound, like the crew at Crowns and Hops, who is I don't think I'm breaking any news here. It should all be public knowledge by the time this airs, but Benny and Tia are one of our rising stars for the year. You've got a lot of members in California, which is where we'll be for the conference, but what other parts of the country are your members strongest in?

[00:24:48] National Black: Oh my goodness, it's surprising. We have great presence in so many locations, New York, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio. It's bizarre how some of these places just have just a concentration. When they're so spread out, you don't know that there's a concentration of Black brewers in that space there. So it's not until you actually have these conversations where you pull some of them in together, you start realizing, wow, wow, hey, I'm not only here in this state, I'm only just a few miles away, or this portion of the country. Don't get me wrong, while we don't have Black breweries in every portion of the US, that still is our opportunity, and maybe that's something that we can correct moving forward. But the major cities, the major metropolitans, You know, what I love about this is not that it's limited to only major cities and metropolitans. This is actually how craft beer really resonates best with that community, right? If you're in an outlying area, a real rural local area, you become that community center of sorts there, that community meeting place. And that's precisely where some of our breweries are thriving. where I'm seeing the success. And that's where I'm seeing really those color lines really starting to get blurred there. You know, if you are in some of these remote areas, our breweries are being supported by all walks of life. And that's the beautiful component there. So we have some work to do, but we do have definitely a couple of hotspots.

[00:26:17] Garrett Marrero: Awesome. I mean, craft beer is certainly at its finest when, you know, breweries can act as community gathering places. And that's, you know, one of my favorite things about the industry for sure. And the industry really is, you know, there may be almost 10,000 breweries, but it is still very small for the most part in that it's very tight knit and everybody kind of knows each other. So, you know, what kind of support have you received from the broader craft beer industry so far since your introduction in the spring?

[00:26:44] National Black: Great question, first of all. Let me start with the one big, big supporter. When you think of Craft Beer, I'm sure you can go down to the actual breweries, and so I'll hold that one for a quick second, but then let me just go to a fellow association, and that's the Brewers Association, right? You know, they are the total umbrella for all craft beer, and you know, Bob Peace and his team have not only welcomed their, you know, us into open arms there, but have supported us Tremendously, whether it be presence and getting us into the great American beer festival presence at their annual conference there. These are significant presence and partnerships in addition to so many other resources that just too many lists at this point, but. you know, they see the value of what we're doing and they see the natural brotherhood or fraternal order that can live and how these two organizations can mutually coexist while still being independent of each other there. So, you know, our brewers are part of the larger Brewer community, we may just have some systemic challenges that are unique to our organization or our membership. And that's why we can still benefit from all the work that the Brewers have done. So the Brewers Association, absolutely well received there. From a larger standpoint, I cannot be more proud of the partnership that the Boston Beer Company has Right out of the gates, they were the 1st and foremost partner from an actual brand and producer standpoint. So, thank you Boston beer company and the entire team behind that. They have not just provided money. They have provided just tremendous amount of educational resources and additional. connectivity to lend their resources to our community, whether it be hosting our board meeting or you name it. There are so many tools that they've made available and could not be prouder with that. And I do think that it actually helped spur some of the dialogue and perhaps, you know, move the needle to get partners like my goodness, the Molson Coors, Diageo. These are, you know, alligators that came out and openly said, hey, we want to support what you're doing, but more importantly, we believe in what you're doing. So we absolutely appreciate, you know, the Boston Beer Company with their initial effort, but absolutely also appreciate all of our existing business council members there, including, you know, Because as we talked about, this is a highly regulatory environment. And now we even have that three-tier system. And having the National Beer Wholesalers Network support us and outwardly inviting us to their conference there has been just well received. And I think the piece that continues to shock me, and I say shock only because there has not been any negativity. There's just this growing circle of influence and people that are saying, wow, yeah, I'm on board. So, you know, when we start talking to more and more people about what we're doing and we're getting more press and as that dialogue and these circles start expanding, this is when we start, you know, there's a group called Care Solace that's around mental health. And when you think about, you know, brewery ownership or just, you know, some of the challenges that are uniquely black, well, clearly there's some benefits to have some, you know, mental health supports there. And that organization came through to support us. And then any of the allied trade partners that we've seen come on board, you know, there's just been such an outpouring, whether it's a line cleaning service or, you know, distribution services there, you know, freight forwarders. We are so, so, so pleased so far with the acceptance from all walks, you know, even suppliers, you know, hop suppliers and whatnot there. So early on, and I know it's still very early on, we've aren't even at a year at, technically, and we've had great, great, great public acceptance.

[00:30:40] Garrett Marrero: That's amazing. Now, how long has this organization been a dream or an idea? How long has this been in planning?

[00:30:49] National Black: In planning that, I don't know. I will say, though, December of 2022 is when the Articles of Incorporation came into effect. And then building all the infrastructure needed to actually build an organization to make it credible, reputable, sustainable. Those are all things that kind of carried us into, you know, they had their first board meeting in February, and then they brought me on board to actually do the nuts and bolts of actually standing up the organization. And that started in May. So, you know, the work started in December prior to that. I get the impression, and I only say I get the impression because I wasn't part of all the dialogue that took place, but there had been several attempts of bringing this group of people together, and it just for whatever reason, just never, you know, kind of had, you know, the staying power or couldn't get together there. So I do really appreciate the efforts of Kevin Johnson. And maybe it's his background in political, you know, in being a former mayor, or maybe being a team leader. And of course, you know, the relationships that have him, you know, bring some resources to the table here. All of that really, this organization really needed someone with that vision, with the level of resources, and quite frankly, that charisma, if you will, to galvanize everybody to come together and say, all right, this is legit. This is for real. This isn't just one of those things that happened in the past. No, we're doing this. And so Kevin Johnson was pretty instrumental on really bringing this to life. So hats off to you, KJ. Appreciate it.

[00:32:19] Garrett Marrero: Absolutely a force. So that makes so much sense to me. So for other people throughout the industry who maybe haven't gotten involved yet, how can they do that? What support do you need from the rest of the beer industry to continue moving forward?

[00:32:35] National Black: Great, another great question there, Jess. First thing is, become a member. I think that's the one thing that people always kind of get surprised at. When I tell them, I go, yes, this is the National Black Brewers Association, but you can be a member. We are an inclusive organization there. And so you don't have to be black and you don't have to be a black brewer to boot. You could just simply be a supporter of what we're doing or a supporter of the cause that we're trying to realize there. And that said, that allows anybody from any walk of life to be a member there. And you can go to our website, nb2a.org, and on the top right corner has a very clear Join Now button there, and it's a very simple prompt to join. But even if it's not membership, I talked about being perhaps that clearinghouse of resources, to give an avenue to organizations or individuals that say, you know something, I have time, I have services, I have other stuff that I could provide beyond financial resources. I'd like you to go to someone, you know, that's from your community. We can absolutely facilitate that. We've been very fortunate to have a partner in Triumph Brewing that had some brewing equipment, didn't know exactly what he wanted to do with it, donated a 10 barrel brew house. We were able to source alongside with the Michael James Jackson Foundation, find a healthy recipient and bring that to life. And the MB2A helped facilitate the cost and whatnot. So that's a perfect example of being able to take some equipment, find a worthy recipient, and our organization can help facilitate the cost or ultimately the implementation. But that is, you know, what I'll go back to. Maybe it's accounting services. Maybe it's, you know, graphic design services. There have been really, you know, pleased to hear that there are people that are, you know, maybe on the sideline of not producing beer, but have supportive services. And we can absolutely find those, you know, uses and benefits there. So it can come in any form, you know, any way, just raise your hand and shoot an email our way.

[00:34:33] Garrett Marrero: Awesome. Triumph is one of the first craft breweries I ever went to. Oh, wow. Yeah.

[00:34:38] National Black: That's right. You're in the Northeast. So yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:40] Garrett Marrero: Yeah. Yeah. Funny. I grew up in New Jersey and they have been a New Jersey craft beer institution forever.

[00:34:50] National Black: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we appreciate Adam Reschnitz and his help with donating that equipment there. That's huge kudos.

[00:34:59] Garrett Marrero: Great. Well, what can we expect from the MB2A in 2024?

[00:35:03] National Black: My goodness.

[00:35:05] Garrett Marrero: So much, I know, right?

[00:35:06] National Black: Yeah. I mean, the workload is about yay big. The time is about this big. Kevin Johnson said this almost jokingly when the entire team was reaching out to me and I was interviewing for this. He's like, hey, we're going to do three years worth of work in one. And I'm like, sure, everybody says that, no problem. The pace by which this is moving and the things that we're doing, that is 100% true. I think, you know, some of the key things that you'll see us moving forward is our priority is to continue to grow membership, right? We want to make sure that we have a definitive list of all the Black breweries that are out there, right? You know, there's some that still haven't recognized themselves or been identified, but also, you know, building that membership is still continuing to be the priority. But as I talked about growing the image and supporting the legacy in history, we do that by doing events like focusing on October 10th and getting National Black Brewers Day. This year, we set out with a goal of hitting 10 jurisdictions that were recognized October 10th. And the significance of October 10th, that is the day that the first African-American brewery was opened. Ted Mack Sr. in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, opened up the very first black-owned brewery. So we want to make sure that we continue to pay homage to that particular date. And we do that, like I said, by having jurisdictions recognize October 10th as National Black Brewers Day. Well, we started off with a goal of 10. We blew through that goal and hit 18 just in year one. With that 18 and the recognition and the press that we got, we now have partnered with the National Black Caucus of State Legislators to make this a federal piece. What we were just working and hoping for from a local piece ended up being a federal effort there. So we're going to make this a true federal national holiday. And then the other key things that you'll see is we're going to continue with Black is Beautiful. We had so much success in the first few years, but the collaboration efforts there created by Marcus Baskerville out of Weathered Souls, in which the proceeds at the first time went to a local social injustice cause of your choice, but it garnered or collected 1,600 breweries to brew this beer and put those proceeds back towards a social injustice cause of your choice. We're evolving that program to still having, you know, we changed the recipe this year. It's a hazy IPA, and we're going to push that piece out there in which the proceeds are now coming back to the NB2A. But some of the things that we're doing, we have some partners in the way of, you know, partners like Whole Foods that have said, hey, look, I like what you're doing with this thing. I want to make sure that we're a big supporter and have this product available in a national retail chain. And so you're going to continue to see a lot of what you saw this year, but just exploded much bigger and broader.

[00:37:51] Garrett Marrero: Awesome. Did we just make a little news here? I don't think I knew about Black is Beautiful 2.0, so you and I are going to talk a little bit more about that.

[00:37:59] National Black: We have some more to talk about.

[00:38:00] Garrett Marrero: All of that sounds incredible, and I am exhausted on your behalf personally because three years of work in one year sounds like a lot, but it's been six months and I feel like you guys have already done three years worth of work. The dedication is impressive. Yeah, we're so excited for you guys. You're so needed. So we're just thrilled that you're able to join us both for this video, but also at the conference and all the things that I know we've collaborated on together already. Thank you so much. And congratulations from all of us to all of you.

[00:38:36] National Black: Thank you, Jess. Thank you, Brew Brown. I really appreciate all the support. And yeah, let's take a minute to celebrate what we're doing, and then we'll get right back to working and getting it done. So thank you so much.

[00:38:49] Justin Kendall: And that's our show for this week. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for all they do. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.