[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on The Brewbound Podcast, handing over the reins of Oxbow. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:18] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata. Look at us, guys.
[00:00:23] Justin Kendall: Yeah, we're all in the same place.
[00:00:24] Jessica Infante: For a really long time. Yeah, a really long time, most of which has been my fault. I apologize. It's good to be together.
[00:00:31] Justin Kendall: Yeah, we've all been traveling. We've got other issues that have prevented us from being here, but we're here now. Speaking of travel, how was the New England Craft Brew Summit?
[00:00:43] Jessica Infante: It was great. Zoe and I had a great time up in Portland, thanks to our friends at the Maine Brewers Guild, particularly Executive Director Sarah Bryan. Zoe, what stood out to you from our trip up I-95?
[00:00:57] Zoe Licata: It's always a nice conference that we go every year. The content is always pretty strong. I think this year in particular, it just felt very, I don't know if lively is the right word. It was very like, there was high energy at the conference this year. It seemed like people were really excited to be there, really excited to be with each other. I mean, it's not just folks from Maine that go, it's folks from all over New England and even had a visit from some Californians with the Russian River folks. stopping over. So yeah, it just felt, and some folks called this out too, after the welcome party, which was held at Allagash last Thursday. Some people were saying it kind of felt like old times, like the kind of peak craft, just excitement, buzzy type of energy, which was cool. It's not always the case these days. So yeah, it was overall very positive.
[00:01:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I would agree. That was a great party. And just a huge thank you to the Allagash crew. Literally every person who works there is so nice. They're all just so nice. But I, because I'm annoying, brought up this beer that they sometimes make, used to make, called Little Sal, which is the name of a character in one of my daughter's favorite books, Blueberries for Sal. It's a blueberry beer. And I knew the beer before I knew the book. And now I have to read the book like four nights a week. So I mentioned this to like every allagash employee that I encountered at the party. And then Emily Wallace, the director of hospitality, went and found me two bottles of it to take home because she is just so dang nice. The nicest. Delicious beer.
[00:02:34] Justin Kendall: They are not beating those allegations.
[00:02:37] Zoe Licata: No, not at all. And the party was held inside of their cellar house space, which is where Rob Todd was telling us is where he originally opened up the space. So that was really cool to be in that building. I hadn't been in that building before. Packed with folks.
[00:02:53] Jessica Infante: Great time. Best beer you had. Tough one. I mean, so, you know, Natalie Trillerzo was the keynote speaker. She and Vinny came out from Russian River. And at this party, they were pouring a special collaboration between Russian River and Allagash that started like six years ago. They had a collaboration beer right before COVID. And then obviously we all know what happened and that beer got a six year barrel nap. And then they blended it with a few other things to make what they were calling the wild friendship blend. It was really good. Really good barrel aged sour, which is some of my favorite kinds of beers.
[00:03:33] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Natalie and Vinny also brewed a special batch of Pliny. They kind of brought it back off season for the folks in New England. So that was cool too, to have some fresh Pliny made especially or specifically for attendees.
[00:03:49] Justin Kendall: Sounds like a great event.
[00:03:50] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Another group of very nice people.
[00:03:53] Jessica Infante: Right? I kept the party going and went to Maine Beer up in Freeport on Saturday with my friends. Another group of really nice people and some of the best pizza I have ever had. Oh, high price. Maybe I was just really hungry, but I don't think so. I think it was just really good pizza.
[00:04:10] Justin Kendall: What style pizza?
[00:04:11] Jessica Infante: Neapolitan, like super hot oven, nice and like bubbly crust. Really good. And we spoke to a lot of people. You're going to hear later in this podcast, we talked to Oxbow co-founder, Tim Adams, and new president, Bri Warner. That was our first stop. Zoe and I both drove up, met at Oxbow, ran in, chatted with them, beautiful brewery, Lupulo, their Italian pills, delicious. Really good. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry for giving you a FOMO. I'm so jealous. And then we recorded other interviews that you'll hear probably next week. Jen Lever, president of Baxter. And you talked to Abe Firth from Orono, right Zoe?
[00:04:56] Zoe Licata: Yep. The co-founder of Orono, him and Jen are also part of the board of directors for the Maine Brewers Guild. So got to chat about a lot of great stuff with them.
[00:05:07] Jessica Infante: Great trip. I hosted a panel conversation about the changing relevance of earned media in the age of AI, which sounds a little scary, but it wasn't that scary. with our friends, Michelle Diamandis and Suzanne Pace, who co-founded True Craft Communications, Andy Crouch from All About Beer and Rob Day from Barrel One Collective. So really nice chat.
[00:05:28] Justin Kendall: Does that live anywhere online or was that just for the Summit attendees? I think it was just for Summit attendees.
[00:05:36] Zoe Licata: Yes, but you might get a little blurb or something in the Brewpound newsletter.
[00:05:40] Justin Kendall: Oh, stay tuned for that. Become an insider today.
[00:05:43] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Right. And next week we'll do it all again when I go to the New York Brewers Association Conference in Albany.
[00:05:51] Justin Kendall: Yeah. You'll be flying solo there, but you'll be repping us.
[00:05:55] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Excited to get to that one. It's new for us.
[00:05:59] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Well, we're excited to get back to the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia coming up. Well, we'll be there April 19th and you should be too because we're going to do a little networking party at Love City from 5 to 7 p.m.
[00:06:15] Zoe Licata: Breaking news. Breaking news.
[00:06:18] Justin Kendall: Join us. Yeah, we'll have sign up soon on Brewbound.com. It's going to be a free event, just a place where y'all can come and chill. And we may have a little bit of extra for you.
[00:06:30] Zoe Licata: Yeah, ease right into everything happening at the conference right before things get all crazy.
[00:06:37] Jessica Infante: Yeah, because we will be doing the Brewbound podcast on location once again. If you want to arrange a time to come Say hi, sit down, get on the mic, shoot us a note at podcast at brewbond.com.
[00:06:50] Justin Kendall: You should absolutely do that if you're interested, or just swing by when we have a booth number, we'll give it to you. We'll be there. We'll be in the sessions. We'll be all over the place. And speaking of being all over the place, we'll be at Brewbound Live in December. Yeah, it's feeling early to promote this, but we got to get it out there. It's December 9th and 10th. Mark your calendars, get your tickets now. We'll have speaker announcements soon. We're working on one-to-one conversations again, and we'll have a whole lot more. Stay tuned.
[00:07:19] Jessica Infante: I mean, you say it's early, but there are people already signed up.
[00:07:22] Zoe Licata: Yeah, lots of people signed up. And we've said this a couple of times on the pod, we've kind of planned this out in these next couple months. So if you are someone who's told us before, hey, like I really want to have this conversation or hey, you should have this person. Now is the time to do that so we can fit them in there.
[00:07:41] Justin Kendall: Yeah. It's better to know now than November that you were interested.
[00:07:45] Zoe Licata: Yeah. A little too late at that part.
[00:07:47] Justin Kendall: Because that happens. It does more than we'd like to admit. And then, uh, if you're out there and you're looking for a job, hit up our job board. We are always posting new jobs. We throw them in the brew bound insider newsletter and the outsider newsletter every day that we have it. So go find your next job through brew bound. All right, let's get to some news. And, uh, Jess, are you going to buy four loco?
[00:08:14] Jessica Infante: I, you know what? I'm out on that.
[00:08:15] Justin Kendall: I'm sorry. I'm going to scratch you off my list of potential 4LOCO buyers. I mean, I can offer you $20 and two empty Utopias bottles. I think JP Morgan Chase is asking for $400 million. Good for them. Somewhere in that neighborhood. Zoe, are you out?
[00:08:35] Zoe Licata: Yeah, no. Maybe when my student loans are done, but that's going to be in like 20 years. So I don't know how much 4LOCO is going to be worth at that point.
[00:08:42] Justin Kendall: Hey, you might be the next owner after the next owner.
[00:08:46] Zoe Licata: After whoever's next. Maybe. Maybe. If I do acquire it, though, I am bringing back old For Loco.
[00:08:53] Justin Kendall: I'm going to be a bit irresponsible with it. I feel like now is the time to really shoot for the stars on deregulation. Maybe the FDA wouldn't be so quick to send those warning letters out nowadays. We're talking about the Reuters story that Fusion Projects is shopping for 4LOCO and they have tapped JP Morgan to shop it around. And yes, the valuation is 400 million. I do not have any potential buyers in mind, but Molson Coors is looking to fill some white space out there. And I mean, they're neighbors, right? They're both in Chicago.
[00:09:34] Jessica Infante: I don't really think of 4LOCO as having a home.
[00:09:36] Zoe Licata: I know. It's just kind of an entity that exists out there in the world.
[00:09:41] Jessica Infante: So do you know how I came to hear of For Loco for the very first time? I was just about to start grad school at our shared alma mater, Emerson College, and the Department of Public Safety sent an email to all students warning them against the dangers of the original formula For Loco. And I was like, what even is that?
[00:09:58] Zoe Licata: That's amazing. I don't even know how I discovered it.
[00:10:02] Justin Kendall: I was working at an Alt Weekly in Kansas City and one of my colleagues decided that he was going to drink Four Loko that night. And like the downhill slide from there, and this was old, old school Four Loko, the downhill slide was, it was fast.
[00:10:21] Jessica Infante: I mean, like, how did they tout it like five cups of coffee and four beers or something crazy?
[00:10:25] Zoe Licata: There was something ridiculous like that. I mean, my knowledge of it at the time was just like that sort of kind of over-exaggerated descriptions of it. And you would see it sometimes in stores and be like, oh my gosh, it's for Loco. More often than not, you would see it in our small town of Northfield, like a can on the side of the road. Quite often, actually, now that I think about it.
[00:10:49] Jessica Infante: Well, congrats to whoever is the eventual lucky new owner.
[00:10:53] Zoe Licata: I feel like Four Loko could come back and have a moment. I feel like there are a lot of aspects about it that could connect with modern day products. I mean, it exists.
[00:11:04] Jessica Infante: It's out there. It's a top beer category vendor.
[00:11:08] Justin Kendall: It was up in the data that we saw. Four Loko USA, very popular. What a moment. USA 250, just get your Four Loko USA. Why not? Well, if you're not going to buy for local, we're going to move on.
[00:11:24] Zoe Licata: Sorry, everyone.
[00:11:27] Justin Kendall: Let's talk about Reyes because we found out on Friday, I believe it was that they will now acquire a little bit more of RNDC's business. They're going to take Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. In addition to Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, DC. That's a lot of business.
[00:11:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yes. But one is missing, right?
[00:11:54] Justin Kendall: Well, Illinois is out.
[00:11:56] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Right. So that was previously announced with some of those other states and now is no longer a part of the deal.
[00:12:02] Jessica Infante: This is like the Chicago themed news episode or something. That's where Ray is. It's interesting to me that they were taking it, now they're not. But I wonder if there's some sort of market force at play there where they would have too much of it.
[00:12:17] Justin Kendall: Yeah. This could be a not at this time type of thing, but I don't know, when you're backfilling with Texas, that's a pretty hefty state to pick up in addition.
[00:12:30] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and these are new markets for Reyes.
[00:12:34] Justin Kendall: I think, what, four or five?
[00:12:36] Jessica Infante: Yeah. The original announcement was all states where they currently operate, but Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, those are not their current footprint.
[00:12:47] Justin Kendall: And they're targeting the end of May to get this done. What do you think the end game is here? Is Rhea is going to be a 50 state distributor in the next five, 10 years? I don't think so. You think that that's what their end game is? Because they're not in as many states as you think that they're in.
[00:13:04] Jessica Infante: No, they're not. And I feel like there's a lot of states that don't really make sense for them to bother with. I don't want to offend any states by naming them, but I think states that are like really big, but sparsely populated. Yeah. states that already have pretty well entrenched other conglomerate wholesalers. When I think about rates acquiring new distributors and entering new markets, I think they like to go to places where they already have something that's pretty well stood up. Like they don't really want to start from scratch. And I don't think they want to go piecemeal. I don't really think they want to enter like these small Northeast states with independent distributors all over the place. Like that's really not what they're about. But you know, I could be wrong. I'm wrong all the time.
[00:13:47] Justin Kendall: And there's some Midwestern states that they probably don't want to bother with too that you can guess on.
[00:13:53] Jessica Infante: Like I don't see them wanting to go to like Montana. No offense to Montana.
[00:13:58] Justin Kendall: North Dakota.
[00:13:59] Jessica Infante: Yeah.
[00:14:00] Justin Kendall: Anyway, all that speculation, but yes. Reyes is on the move and they are getting bigger and we will see if this deal closes at the end of May. Let's talk about BrewDog because they got the other piece of this business done. They talked about Australia and the U.S. and the U.S. is still not done but Australia is.
[00:14:21] Jessica Infante: Yeah, so literally exactly a week after Tillery Brands announced that it was acquiring BrewDog's Scottish business, they came right back this past Monday and announced they had acquired BrewDog's Australia business. So much smaller piece than what they picked up last week in the UK. Last week in the UK is their major production brewery in Ellen, a distribution hub, 11 pubs, but also global brand rights and intellectual property. That was all bought for 33 million pounds, about $44.1 million. This week's news was Down Under. They acquired BrewDog's Brisbane Brewery, as well as two BrewDog-owned pubs in Brisbane, and then three licensed pubs in other parts of Australia. The license situation has been an interesting part of BrewDog's business model because when you look at their website, it looks like they have 90 pubs. but they don't, some of them are licensed to other operators. And Tilray Brand CEO Irwin Simon has been very clear that he did not think that that was the way to go and he is not interested in running a ton of pubs all over the globe. So they're coming into these markets, they're picking up what they want and not taking what they don't want, but they did take all of the Australia pubs. Now, the Australia Brewery is about 30,000 hectoliters in annual capacity, which I believe shakes up to almost 26,000 barrels, which is not nothing, but it's not huge. And another theme that came up in this week's announcement was that they are really interested in using this brewery to not only produce BrewDog beers, but also other Tilray brands like Montauk, Sweetwater, Shocktop, maybe 10 Barrel, who knows? And this also gives them a much easier logistical route to get to markets like Japan.
[00:16:06] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that was a really interesting part of this story was that it's not necessarily that they're just interested in, you know, adding another brand to their lineup. They're looking to find these international avenues for the very large portfolio they already have.
[00:16:22] Jessica Infante: Yeah, no news yet on what's happening with the US. We'll see what happens here. The brewery in Canal Manchester, Ohio is really big, much bigger than the brewery in Brisbane. But we do know that Tilray has acquired a ton of breweries, both brands and physical breweries, so much so that they have actually been paring down their herd of breweries. So we'll see, but they've got that deal to produce Carlsberg coming online domestically. So maybe they do need the space. That's a lot of stuff.
[00:16:53] Zoe Licata: That's a lot of stuff.
[00:16:54] Jessica Infante: So stay tuned for more.
[00:16:55] Zoe Licata: Just trying to remember, when was like the first time we even heard about Tillery?
[00:16:58] Jessica Infante: It was 23. Because I was on maternity leave. Yeah, three years ago. And that was the first time I texted you guys to be like, what the fuck?
[00:17:04] Zoe Licata: It was three years ago. We didn't even know who Tillery was. I think the first news was that it was like Alfreya was what they were going by, right? And they switched to, or they merged to become Tillery. And then Sweetwater was the first kind of big deal in that. And then it just has, Snowballed feels too small to say. It has just expanded so much in that three year period. It's wild to look back on.
[00:17:32] Jessica Infante: Yeah, man, that Sweetwater deal was November of 2020.
[00:17:36] Justin Kendall: They've got so much stuff.
[00:17:39] Jessica Infante: So much stuff. But then they also keep creating brands of their own. Yeah. Runner's High, Liquid Love.
[00:17:47] Justin Kendall: Just wait till they own Four Loko and Uncle Nearest.
[00:17:52] Jessica Infante: I think that's where we're going.
[00:17:54] Justin Kendall: Let's talk a little bit about George Clooney, Randy Garber, and Mike Mellman's non-alcoholic craft beer. It's official. It was probably the worst kept secret in the beer industry over the last year that they were going to launch this thing. It's called Crazy Mountain. There's still a Colorado brewery called Crazy Mountain. Take that for what it's worth. And then there's the Crazy Mountain Ranch, which Marlboro owner Philip Morris used to own and shepherd some of their best smokers out there to hang out.
[00:18:27] Jessica Infante: I had never heard of that. I learned of that from your story. So thank you for that bit of cancer causing news. We can say it about tobacco.
[00:18:38] Justin Kendall: Well, Crazy Mountain. not a cigarette company, not an alcoholic beer company, gonna be in 25 states. I chatted with Steve Fetchheimer, who used to be at New Belgium running that as CEO and a former Beam Suntory executive. And he told me that this is the founder's story to tell, but he's the one that's been behind the scenes building this thing. And I would guess he knows a little bit more about the beer business than the three of them.
[00:19:09] Jessica Infante: I mean, they did successfully build and sell a tequila brand.
[00:19:12] Justin Kendall: But that's true.
[00:19:13] Jessica Infante: Those are different businesses. So I guess what I'm saying here is, is Steve, if this really is the founder's story, then I would like for Mr. Clooney to join us at Brewbound Live.
[00:19:22] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Clooney can ride in on a horse. Yes. Yes. I love this.
[00:19:28] Justin Kendall: There's our pitch.
[00:19:30] Zoe Licata: They really traded in the motorcycle riding through agave fields for cowboy lifestyle, but without the alcohol. It's an interesting switch up. It's just as dramatic.
[00:19:44] Jessica Infante: Very dramatic. That packaging image is quite something.
[00:19:49] Justin Kendall: There's nothing quite like it right now, right?
[00:19:53] Jessica Infante: No. So two flavors, right? Original and lime. Original and lime.
[00:19:58] Justin Kendall: Big distributors taking it, Reyes, Andrews, Columbia, Southern, Crescent Crown. Not messing around. Are we at peak non-alcoholic beer celebrity owner, founder?
[00:20:12] Jessica Infante: No.
[00:20:13] Justin Kendall: Is this peak of that?
[00:20:14] Jessica Infante: I don't think so. No. I think there's going to be more. There's going to be more?
[00:20:17] Zoe Licata: If Clooney's just getting in now, then we're going to see so many other slightly less than Clooney folks get in. I mean, I feel like Clooney kicked off the celebrity tequila wave. Yeah, exactly.
[00:20:30] Justin Kendall: What about Tom Holland and Zendaya?
[00:20:34] Jessica Infante: I believe it's Zendaya. Zoe, are they married yet? They are. Yes. Good for them. I mean, maybe Tom Holland is to non-alcoholic beer what Clooney was to tequila. Yeah. Because I think Tom Holland was the first first, and then we saw other involvement like Charlie Sheen and comedian man whose name is Escaping Me.
[00:20:55] Justin Kendall: John Mulvaney with years.
[00:20:57] Jessica Infante: Yeah, which I haven't heard of that one in a while. I don't know that he's an owner on that, right? He might just be a spokesperson. I don't know.
[00:21:05] Zoe Licata: But yeah, it feels like we are not yet near the end of this.
[00:21:11] Jessica Infante: There could always be more.
[00:21:12] Zoe Licata: Just thinking about how many when it comes to tequila or some other Alcoholic how many celebrities folks people there are it's just not all cuz probably just scratched the surface
[00:21:26] Jessica Infante: It is interesting to me that the celebrities did spirits and now they're doing non-alcohol beer, but they've never really done traditional beer.
[00:21:34] Zoe Licata: No. I think what has been something slightly different about the ones for non-alcohol is that so many of these celebrities are trying to tie their personal stories in or try to... It seems like they're trying to have even more involvement in the brand story than usual for some sort of celebrity endorsement of any sort of CPG product. I mean, I guess there's not much you can say about a tequila brand that you're like, I am really passionate about the agave plant or something, but non-alcoholic, it's been tied so much to lifestyle that it's become a key point for a lot of these folks.
[00:22:12] Jessica Infante: It's obviously not the case for the Crazy Mountain Trio because we do know that they do imbibe, but it is part of the story for Biro and Tom Holland. You know, Charlie Sheen's beer that is produced in collaboration with Barrel One, you know, both of them are famously sober, but they also, I mean, look, when you talk to the bureau leadership team, they always say, we fully recognize that the vast majority of non-alcoholic drinkers also drink alcohol.
[00:22:39] Justin Kendall: It's like 90%.
[00:22:40] Jessica Infante: Close to that, yeah.
[00:22:43] Justin Kendall: I think you also have to wonder what the long-term plan is for this brand, which is totally fine if they are building this to sell, which we've seen in other industries. And it took them, what, four years to turn Casamigos into, what, a billion dollars or more from Diageo?
[00:23:03] Zoe Licata: And here's to see how the segment in general shakes out. Because quality now is pretty much up to par for everybody. How are you really distinguishing yourself? Most folks have pretty similar styles, I feel like, for their beer offerings. At the end of the day, is it just the packaging? Like, is it just the kind of mood board of the brand that's going to make you choose it or not? It very well could be. I haven't quite figured out what is going to start making folks really decide what non-alcoholic brands they're going to be loyal to.
[00:23:40] Jessica Infante: And I think when you think about acquisitions, you've got to think about who needs to buy this. You know, AB has some of the leading NA brands on the market. You know, they've got a real home run with McUltra Zero. Constellation does as well with, you know, Corona. I guess that leaves Molson Corey's, but are they interested? I don't know. We'll find out. We will find out.
[00:24:04] Justin Kendall: We got time. We'll see. We'll give it a shot. I haven't even had this yet. You can get it online. I think it's about 30 some bucks for two, six packs, 32 bucks, 33 bucks, somewhere in there shipped. It's a lot of money. Yeah.
[00:24:20] Jessica Infante: In this economy. Yeah. Well, let's get to our featured interview with Tim and Bri from Oxbow. Hello and welcome back to another edition of the Brewbound Podcast On Location. It's your co-host, Jessica Infante, joined by Zoe Licata, who is manning the mobile recording device because we are on the road. I love when we get to get out and about, and I am thrilled to be in one of my absolute favorite cities right now. We are here in Portland, Maine for the New England Craft Brew Summit, but we have stopped at Oxbow Brewing and Blending.
[00:24:52] Speaker 1: Oxbow Blending and Bottling.
[00:24:54] Jessica Infante: Bah, rats! I knew it was going to be one of those. But the voice you just heard is Oxbow founder Tim Adams. Tim, thanks for joining us. How are you doing?
[00:25:03] Speaker 1: Absolutely. I'm doing great. Hello, everybody. Thanks for having me.
[00:25:05] Jessica Infante: Thank you guys for having us. And we are joined by your new partner in crime. Hey, I'm Bri Warner, president of Oxbow. Bree, welcome to Beer. You're a couple months in now, right?
[00:25:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm about two months in officially. Literally a couple. Yeah. And you were joining us from Atlantic Sea Farms, correct? That's right. Yep. The national food industry in general have been working in it for about 10 years now and really excited to be joining the beer industry, especially on this team.
[00:25:32] Jessica Infante: As we're sitting in the tap room, it's gorgeous. There are barrels upon barrels, beautiful murals on the wall. Just a lovely, welcoming, homey space. What made you want to join Craft Beer?
[00:25:43] Speaker 2: You know, I would say that it was less being excited about joining Craft Beer specifically and more about joining this team and the Oxbone Rising Tide teams that we have. It's, you know, there are very few businesses out there that I could get really excited about people just doing really creative, interesting work and that really keep craft and value at the center of what they do with passion and love for what they're building every day. And that is exactly what this team is. And so I had been working with Tim for a few months on consulting on some different business ideas as things were coming into play. And it was really obvious to both of us pretty quickly that this was the right team to join for me. And I couldn't be more excited to be here. Beer is something that I have Loved for a long time, lived in Belgium for a long time, was excited about coming to Maine about 16 years ago where the craft brewing scene was just kind of up and coming and really a center of the craft beer industry as it was growing. To me, Oxbow has always been the emblem of this really high quality craft beer as it really came into America after spreading through Europe in a lot of different ways. So very excited to be part of this industry, but most excitedly to be part of this team.
[00:26:57] Jessica Infante: Amazing. We're going to get back to Belgium when we're done recording, because I would love to talk about that. Tim, what made Bre the right fit?
[00:27:02] Speaker 1: We've known each other for some years now, not nearly as well as we know each other now. We've been spending tons of time together. It's been absolutely amazing. But Bree's track record speaks for itself and what she's done on a professional and business level. But, you know, with bringing Bree onto the team the same way that I and we have brought everybody else onto the team, it was very much an energy and a personality and a vibe, if you will, kind of thing, just like the perspective on the world, on our business, on where the opportunities are. We've just really been aligned since the conversations began. And yeah, I just have been so fortunate over these past, jeez, almost 16 years now with the people that have come into my orbit and have joined our team. I really do feel like it's just I don't know. There's been these folks. It's been just like a cosmic occurrence that, oh my God, now you're part of our life and you're down to do this. Join the team. Let's go. And we've, we've built our whole team like that. And we've really just have the most incredible collection of humans that are Oxbow Brewing Company and now Rising Tide Brewing Company as well. We actually purchased that brewery at the beginning of 2025. So our amazing team has, has grown in size, but yeah, that's the best part of all of this is the people and really excited about this, this new, very important one sitting next to me.
[00:28:19] Jessica Infante: A very important one. Let's get into Rising Tide because that's huge news. And that's something that Zoe and I see in our, you know, day-to-day reporting on craft beer across the country. Breweries are kind of noticing that there's strength in numbers and there's a lot of, you know, when their synergies are there between, you know, your team's beliefs and your brewery's mission, like you can really be quite successful. So how has it been the past year plus that you've had Rising Tide on board?
[00:28:43] Speaker 1: It's been wonderful. Yeah, it's been a huge change, obviously. But as you mentioned, synergies, we've certainly have found plenty of those behind the scenes. I mean, it's, you know, each brewery has their own separate needs and bills and leases and all that stuff. And it turns out when you've got two of them, you can find some synergies there and some efficiencies. And, you know, one of the You know, one example that I like to give that was a big one when we, you know, before we joined forces with Rising Tide, each of us had a storage warehouse that was really expensive and about half full. And now we have one. It's still really expensive, but it's full and we only have one. So it's things like that. You know, we each had our own box truck. Now we're sharing one. There's just a lot, a lot of things where we could, could find some efficiencies and then, You know, beyond that, we're really jazzed about that brand. You know, they've been around even longer than Oxbow. They started in 2010. We were 2011. But since they began, I've always been a big fan of their beers. They've always made really high quality beers and a nice approachable portfolio. A lot of beer styles that we don't produce at Oxbow as well. So there hasn't been really any competition between the two. It's more just been this diversification of our beer portfolio. And it's really been wonderful. And again, you know, with the people, their team is super duper talented as is the Oxbow team, but we're, you know, we're different, different brands that were started by different people. And each business, each brand had their strengths and weaknesses. And it turned out there was a lot of just complimentary nature there, where some of the things that we're best at are maybe some of the things where they could use improvement and vice versa. And I probably should stop saying they, cause it's, It's us now, but you know, I've been running Oxbow for almost 16 years now, and this is still a brand new thing with Rising Tide just within this past year, but it's been wonderful. It's been really exciting. The community has really been in support of it as well. Just kind of seeing two small businesses join forces to, you know, better endure what have been challenging times for the industry. Nobody's going to deny that, but this has been an incredible way for us to not just weather the storm, but find ways to thrive. And it's really been happening already. Awesome.
[00:30:52] Jessica Infante: What has it been like integrating on the distributor front?
[00:30:55] Speaker 1: It's been mixed. We have an area of Maine where we share a wholesaler, and that is definitely kind of ideal. You know, we can go out there, work with the same reps, the same brand manager, the same folks within the distributor organization. And then on the sales front, we can go out and have both portfolios. And as anybody in beer sales knows, it's all about right beer for the right account. And now we have all the beers to cover it. So pretty much any account that we go into, we've got the beer for them. And Oxbow is a more specialized brand in terms of what we produce. For the first few years, it was exclusively farmhouse ales and mixed fermentation Belgian stuff. And then we added lagers to the portfolio quite early on. And still to this day, it's just farmhouse ales and lagers. We're one of those few breweries that doesn't make an IPA. And, you know, a lot of accounts want an IPA. So, yeah, it's been great to have Rising Tide, awesome IPAs and other styles to sell alongside Oxbow's maybe more specialized offerings.
[00:31:55] Jessica Infante: I think you couldn't find a better portfolio mate than that. Like, that's amazing. And also, like, I could probably just drink your beers for the rest of my life and be totally satisfied.
[00:32:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I feel the same way.
[00:32:08] Jessica Infante: Well, so what's up for Oxbow's 15th year this year? You guys got any big celebrations planned?
[00:32:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, we got some fun stuff. I'll hand it over to Bree to answer this one. She's been planning out some great stuff with our sales team. What do we got going on, Bree?
[00:32:20] Speaker 2: We have a lot going on for our 15-year. What's so neat about the different styles of beer that Oxbow has made is that we'll be coming out with three specialty 15-year beers. And they're going to be limited release, released sort of one after another in succession. So people will be able to try those. We actually just did our first 15 years, 15 beers parties, but we're going to be adding to that 15 cities. So stay tuned for that. That is so fun. I think that people are going to be really delighted on how we're doing these beers. And I think also with our 15 year, you know, me taking over as president, us thinking about Rising Tide and integrating it all, I think what we're seeing is these first 15 years is a great way to celebrate where we have been and where we are headed in the next 15. very similar way as far as authenticity, but a very new way to with these integration of the two companies. So it's, it's a very exciting year for us. And the sales team has been hitting the road with all of this excitement.
[00:33:16] Jessica Infante: Tim, you alluded to this, and Zoe and I live this data every day, but 2025 was really rough for Kraft. And I think everybody felt like when the page turned to 2026, I think we all kind of breathed a collective sigh of relief that like, oh, thank God that's behind us. So I love that you're able to have these celebrations and reasons to bring people together and you're making unique beers to celebrate something when I think people were kind of feeling a little downtrodden.
[00:33:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm new to the industry, so I'll certainly be interested to see what Tim says on this. But one of the things that really also attracted me to Oxbow is because of the authenticity that Oxbow has always stuck with and the way that it's been very focused on, you know, quality over mass accounts. We've weathered the storm a lot better than I think a lot of other brands are seeing. We're not over leveraged, we're not over invested, and we're really true to who we've always been. And that is starting to pay dividends. And I'm sure at times in the past five years, it's been easy to go in a different direction and you haven't. And I think that that has been a really winning recipe for Oxbow. And now that we're bringing Rising Tide into the fold, to Tim's point earlier, any tool you want in the toolbox is there. There's no account that's not a Rising Tide or an Oxbow account. And that is making for a very exciting look forward to the next 15.
[00:34:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't have said it better myself. We're psyched for what lies ahead.
[00:34:35] Jessica Infante: So, Tim, we've seen this happen a few times at a few different breweries. You know, founders reach a point where they realize it's time to bring in somebody else with fresh eyes and hand the reins over. What was that experience like for you?
[00:34:45] Speaker 1: You know, it was a big deal, obviously. But I'm just so excited for what Bree brings to the table and, you know, feel like a strength of mine is being able to recognize my weaknesses. And there are plenty of them, you know, I've got my strengths. But, you know, Bree just brings a level of organization, of discipline, of experience, both professionally and in terms of the education. that she has gotten, formal education that I haven't. I feel like I've done a great job alongside our amazing team of getting us to where we are right now and a lot of just flying by the seat of my pants and bootstrapping and learning on the fly, but especially with bringing Rising Tide on board and the place that we've gotten to and just the importance of really excelling on the business front. Admit we've been very much focused on the art and the beauty and the flavors and all that has been priority number one for a long long time but in order for us to be in this for the long term we got a you know tighten things up behind the scenes on the biz front and Brie just is an absolute just master at doing that and it's been super helpful and it's just to be able to help bring these different ideas to life in a really, you know, positive and financially responsible way. And all that is just super helpful. You know, this is the support that I needed, and the team is absolutely psyched on it. And, you know, Bree brings just kind of more structure into the organization. And it's just, we're You know, we're performing better than we ever have before internally. And that's not something that people see, but it's just been an incredible feeling for me to just, you know, have this element added to our business that just, you know, I haven't been able to provide myself and now we've got it and we're just that much more powerful as a result. So thanks, Bri.
[00:36:34] Speaker 2: I mean, I would just add to that, too. There's no better person out in the field than Tim. And we have four locations. We have two brands. We have a lot of beers. There's a lot to manage internally. And what that does is it keeps Tim from being out on the road. And I think probably the most power of this is the fact that we get to free him to do the work to continue to grow the brand in a really great and passionate way. And I think that You see a lot of breweries and a lot of people in the industry that are having a hard time bridging that gap. And hopefully, this move will allow that to do that. And I think being able to see like, hey, behind my desk, more than I'm out, is not a place for a founder. And it's certainly not a place for Tim where he could be out selling beer. And that's what we're really excited about. And in fact, the past few months, he's been out at a hut in the middle of Oxford, Maine, where we have this incredible restaurant with great pizza, all oxbow beer, some Rising Tide beer as well. And then about 90 acres, right? Almost 100 acres of ski trails. Wow. And It's amazing to see the love that he and his partner in life and partner in crime, Birch, are able to put into this property. And it has been such an incredible way to talk about the Oxbow brand by having people come in for this experience. skiing about a mile back and all of a sudden there's this super vibey hut with cool music and like great beer and Tim and Birch are back there serving the beer and it's something that is like truly experienced anytime I talk about it to people like oh my god you're at Oxbow have you been to the hut and it's just such a neat way to be able to see this business evolving where Tim's able to be free to do the things that really build our business on an external side.
[00:38:23] Jessica Infante: That's amazing. And it sounds like almost enough for me to get my clumsy ass back on skis for the first time in like 12 years.
[00:38:30] Speaker 1: So yeah, come on back and see us. But no, it's just the, you know, the relationships are so important. You know, the ones that we have with our customers and being able to interact with them directly on the weekends like that is just the best. And then, you know, with you on board, I'm now able to spend time with all these people around the state, the country and the world that have spent the past 15 years building relationships with and just, you know, really happy to do it. And I think it's very important to success in this day and age is just, you know, really being actively engaged with your, with your community from, from buyers to drinkers.
[00:39:03] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Well guys, Tim, I know you've, you've got a jet, but thank you so much for, for chatting with us and for welcoming us here. And I feel like we just did the end of your like new hire probationary period job interview here. So, There's a joint interview together, I think. Oh, I'm so happy. I could be part of it. This is true.
[00:39:18] Speaker 1: It's official now. Bri Warner, welcome to the team.
[00:39:21] Jessica Infante: Thank you, guys. And that's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. The Brewbound Podcast is a production of BevNET CPG. Our audio engineer for the Brewbound Podcast is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski. Our designer is Amanda Huang. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and friends and review us on your listening platform of choice. You can find our work at Brewbound.com. And we also welcome feedback and suggestions at podcastatbrewbound.com. On behalf of the entire Brewbound podcast team, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.
