Brewbound Podcast: A Field Report From the Great American Beer Festival

[00:00:00] Zoe Licata: Up next on The Brewbound Podcast, we do a field report from the Great American Beer Festival. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Kendall. I'm joined by my co-host, Zoe Licata. What's up, Zoe?

[00:00:24] Jessica Infante: Hello.

[00:00:25] Zoe Licata: And we are joined by our co-host, who's probably going to be doing most of the interviewing this episode, Jessica Infante. What's up, Jess?

[00:00:34] Jessica Infante: Hello. Oh, I'm so excited to ask you guys questions. That'll be fun.

[00:00:39] Zoe Licata: And we're terrified.

[00:00:41] Jessica Infante: No, don't. It'll be fine.

[00:00:44] Zoe Licata: It's going to be fine. And this week's episode is going to have a featured conversation from Brew Talks in Denver. just before the Great American Beer Festival. Now you get to listen to everything you may not have heard already. We're going to talk National Draft Health with Dogfish Head, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Tamarron Consulting, so stay tuned for that. Also, if you liked Brew Talks've got Brewbound Live coming up December 6th and 7th, and Marina Del Rey, I almost said Santa Monica. We are not in Santa Monica. We are in Marina Del Rey. And we're excited because we're going to be talking all about beer business.

[00:01:27] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we're going to be chatting about the hot topics that we've had many combos about basically all year and much more. It's always a good time, lots of networking and drinking lots of cool, interesting things. You're going to see our Pitch Slam, which the applications for that are closing at the end of this month. So if you want to participate in that and you haven't yet, get those in soon. It's one of my favorite times of the year. Zoe, I feel like the pitch land was the perfect segue into this week's conversation because there's a delightful Chicago-based little bridge here in our friends from Funkytown. I know. Who you both saw out in Denver. So before I start peppering you with questions about the fest itself, Why don't you tell us about the circumstances in which you ran into those guys? Yeah, we got to see all three of the co-founders of Funky Town Brewing from Chicago. Greg, Zach, and Rich were all out there being celebrated. And because as we previously talked about a month ago now, they were the winners of the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Experience Ship. And so Sam Adams has this little media brunch every year at GABF and this year they got to focus some of that on celebrating Funky Town winning that and Funky Town guys got to talk about what they're up to. So you can see our coverage on our website now. Chatted with them a little bit earlier this year before GABF and they have some big plans in the works. So always really awesome to see those guys. I love seeing them. Our Pitchland winners from 2020. Yeah, 2021 at this point. So in the two years, they've done a lot. So it's been very exciting to witness. Yeah, a whole lot. That Brewing the American Dream experience ship has been in existence for probably over a decade now, which is crazy. But a lot of really impressive alums from that group. There's Chula Vista in California. Rock up in Rochester, my friend Chris Spinelli is one of the first experience ship winners. So if you're ever up in central New York, absolutely check them out. Woods Brewing in San Francisco, the list goes on and on. So huge kudos to Funky Town for joining that group. a pretty cool program. I know I'm sure we've talked about in this space, but you get access to obviously capital, but if you're the winner of the experience ship, you basically have a direct line into anybody at Boston beer that you want to ask business advice of. So very cool. I've in my old life was able to coach a few business owners to the program, which was always really fun. Yeah, Jim Cook spoke at that same event this past weekend about the things that he really wished he had when he was starting Samuel Adams. And the biggest thing was just solid business advice. And the Funky Town guys were saying similar things. They're like, you know, we're two years in now. We've gotten a lot of support, a lot of face-to-face time with consumers. Now we really need to know kind of the ins and outs of everything that's business related here so we can get to the next level of things, so. This is definitely going to help out a lot with that.

[00:04:43] Zoe Licata: It was funny hearing Sam Calagione's observations of the Funky Town guys, too, where he saw one of them would go up and eat while the other two did work. And then they'd rotate. So you could just see the fluidity and cohesiveness of their total unit.

[00:05:00] Jessica Infante: They're a well-oiled machine. I mean, they've been friends since like elementary school, middle school. So he was saying they don't even need to communicate or talk about what they're doing. They just kind of do it with just knowing what the other person's going to do. So they're a good team over there.

[00:05:18] Zoe Licata: That was the Boston Beer Media Brunch. It's an annual rite of passage. I mean, we've done it every year.

[00:05:26] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Last year, Zoe had her first Boston Lager.

[00:05:30] Zoe Licata: wild.

[00:05:31] Jessica Infante: And on the same day that she also tried Utopias. That was a big day. A big day.

[00:05:38] Zoe Licata: And they served Utopias again, as they always do. And there were no references this year to the Polar Express, thankfully.

[00:05:45] Jessica Infante: That was a little sad. I liked that ramble. That was a new one.

[00:05:50] Zoe Licata: That was a little somber. Like this year, I mean, we'll get into it when we talk about GABF, but this year it was a little more upbeat. Everything seemed a little more, I don't know, just cheery. Yeah. And maybe that's just, you know, two years removed from the pandemic shutdowns and everything. Maybe we're a little more, you know, normal to say the least.

[00:06:17] Jessica Infante: Maybe. You're just used to it. Yeah.

[00:06:21] Zoe Licata: All right, let's get into some other news of the week. And since Jess is back and it's all New Jersey all the time now, we've got some big news coming out of New Jersey. And it was something Zoe and I started to hear about the night before the official announcement came. Here it is. Cape May is selling their distribution rights to four Molson Coors wholesalers in the Garden State, and they're shutting down their self-distribution business, Cape Beverage, which they distributed for themselves, as well as a few other brands.

[00:06:52] Jessica Infante: Yeah, interesting that you say that you guys were hearing rumblings about it before, because when I was like, oh, big news, you were both like, yeah, we know. So yeah, interesting. I mean, this to me has shadows of 2021, where we saw this exact same thing play out the exact same time of year to with night shift up here. But you know, Cape May is New Jersey's biggest craft brewer by volume. And they seem to be pretty satisfied and really proud of the work they'd done with Cape Beverage. But when you need to make some money and you have a valuable brand, that's a good way to do it. So they're going to be using the money that they're getting from the sale of the distribution rights to their own products to advance their brewing capacity, invest in new brewing equipment, which they thought they were getting right before, you know, I went out on maternity leave with the acquisition of Flying Fish, which you guys covered the unwinding of if either one of you wants to hit the highlights on that situation. Yeah, it just kind of seemed like financially things were not originally what they seemed like when the deal was first started happening. Yeah, I mean, I was looking back by rumblings of us hearing this was like 9 p.m. Mountain Time the night before. So this was not a too much pre-preparedness for this news.

[00:08:16] Zoe Licata: No, no real prepared. But the rumors were already swirling about.

[00:08:21] Jessica Infante: All right. Off record, you're going to tell me where you heard it from. But yeah, I mean, it feels super similar to what we saw happen with Night Shift.

[00:08:29] Zoe Licata: And there's a big overarching story here, which is, this is the second crap-focused wholesaler that has been sold in the state, I guess this month, same month, Hunter Dahn, she and family company's crap-focused wholesaler, is being sold off to Anheuser-Busch Wholesalers in the state. It's network, it's independent, right?

[00:08:54] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, yeah. And I mean, you know, distribution is hard. It's really cash and labor intensive. So it's hard work. And we've seen Shein do that elsewhere throughout their network. I think they've ceased their craft operations elsewhere in New England. So that's not surprising. The Cape May, Cape Beverage news shouldn't be all that surprising either. There's reasons for both of these things. So, you know, if you're about to get a little worried and think the sky is falling, it's not. But, you know, the craft scene in New Jersey has really been through the ringer in the past year with all of their taproom restrictions with what they can and cannot do. And To the best of my knowledge, the bill that is passed through the state house has not yet been signed to grant them broader freedoms, which is why a lot of New Jersey brewers have gotten together to create a beer called Sign the Bill Phil, which is delicious. The last update, I think, was two weeks ago where the governor was saying he was going to send it back for further adjustments. So I don't think anything official has been said, but that was the rumors swirling around. Yeah. the understanding that the Guild had and things like that. Yeah. Complicated situation in New Jersey. I promise I will try to be a less, I will try to make my personality significantly less New Jersey. There are other interesting things about me that I will work on holding.

[00:10:14] Zoe Licata: You couldn't if you tried.

[00:10:16] Jessica Infante: No. Oh God. Thank you.

[00:10:21] Zoe Licata: You're welcome. All right, well, let's turn it over to you. You've got questions, and I don't know that we have answers, but we'll tell you all about our experience at the Great American Beer Festival.

[00:10:32] Jessica Infante: All right. So, you know, as we talked about last week, it was my first week back from maternity leave. I scheduled, you know, this time fully expecting that I would start working with you guys last Monday and then hop on a plane with Zoe on Wednesday to go to Denver. And I just, you just don't know what you don't know. A lot like, you know, just needing people to ask nuts and bolts fitness advice, questions of that's typically the first year of parenting is like, you don't know what you don't know. Justin, expect a bazillion questions from me about what it's like to be in charge of a tiny human, but one of the things you cannot do is fly many hours away from them the first week you start working. But you know what, I've been to GABF before. I've been to five GABFs. There'll be more GABFs. There'll be plenty of GABF time in my future. So it's not the end of the world. But only one session sold out this year, which was the Saturday afternoon members only session. Neither of you went to that, but you both went Thursday night. Zoe, you also went Friday night. How did the crowd compare to last year in terms of size? Did the hall feel full? Like, did you feel like you were amongst a bunch of people or, you know, was there like elbow room? There was a little bit of elbow room, but it definitely felt full. A Friday session felt a lot busier than Thursday. It wasn't too dissimilar from last year, I don't think. I mean, the setup felt very similar. The amount of people felt pretty similar. I don't know. What did you think, Justin?

[00:12:00] Zoe Licata: I thought this setup felt a little more spacious, not from a lack of people, but maybe there was added space. I don't know if there was or not, but it just felt like there was more room to sort of roam about.

[00:12:13] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So last year it was in a different area because part of the hall was under construction. Were you in the same spot last year or could you not tell? Because being in that building is like going into a time warp. I think it was the same space. I'm pretty positive, but I don't know for sure.

[00:12:32] Zoe Licata: I can't remember.

[00:12:33] Jessica Infante: Yeah, it felt like the same floor. I think it was. OK, well, Zoe, last year you were like by far the youngest person in attendance. What was the demographics of the crowd this year? What would you guys notice? I noticed a bit younger this year, like the younger millennials, the people who are maybe only a few years older than me or the same age as me. I know for a fact that I wasn't the youngest.

[00:12:59] Zoe Licata: That was made clear by our friend Paul Gatza from the Brewers Association, who said, Zoe, this year, for sure, you are not the youngest person here because my 22-year-old daughter is here for the third time.

[00:13:13] Jessica Infante: calling you out, wow. How is a 22 year old there for the third time?

[00:13:18] Zoe Licata: She went as zero.

[00:13:20] Jessica Infante: As an infant. Sam Calagione's son, also Sam, also attended GABF for the first time this year. So he's also a little younger than me. So we're starting to get some fresh blood in there. Okay. I mean, like men, women, what did you notice there? I thought there was more women than last year. I don't know about previous years. I don't have others to compare to, but the big signifier for me, which most, I think most other women in beer would also use, is that there were lines for the women's bathroom every time I went over there. Usually beer events, very few lines. So that was a big difference. Yeah. Usually the ladies room, you're a quick in and out, which is rare. Yeah. All right, so we've talked a little bit about brewers booths, so less intricate, less involved than in the past. Of the booths that you saw, who had the coolest, who was going for an understated appearance? And does any of that matter to drinkers? One of the ones that stood out the most was, I think, the Melvin Roadhouse setup. They had their usual camper thing. They had a DJ going on on Friday that was pretty popular. And they were a little separated from everyone else. They stood out a little bit more. So that was definitely one of the most elaborate setups.

[00:14:46] Zoe Licata: That's the perfect example of a repeat. There seems to be a lot of, let's talk about sustainability because there seems to be a lot of reuse going on here. I think Dogfish Head, Firestone Walker, Weldworks, Sierra Nevada. Everyone with sort of like the big booth, they all seem like repeats. And I remember when it used to be a thing where people really invested in new spaces for this event and it had really a circus like appearance in the past. And I don't know if there's just new space for it or people aren't putting out the investment post COVID because they're like, well, what are you really getting out of, you know, making a splash with your booth? Because. What's it really matter at this point? We're just spending money to spend money, or is there any real marketing boost coming from that?

[00:15:41] Jessica Infante: Yeah, they definitely drew some attention by people wanting to check them out. Howdybeard had a mechanical bowl going on, that type of stuff. But I don't think it made significant difference where people were making beelines for them or hanging around those areas more because of it.

[00:16:00] Zoe Licata: No, because some of the longer lines that we saw, Russian River, and they didn't do anything. The Lost Abbey, Tommy didn't do anything special. Bottle Logic, I don't think they did anything special. Now, Weldworks, they had a huge line and they had a huge booth, but they always do. And there are other reasons for that.

[00:16:21] Jessica Infante: Any of those guys you just mentioned, were they end caps or were they all middle of the rows?

[00:16:25] Zoe Licata: Tommy was an end cap.

[00:16:27] Jessica Infante: Yeah, all the rest of them. Weldworks had their own separate space. Tommy was an end cap, and then I think all the rest of those were just normal in the middle spots. Yep. Yeah. Like the Sam Adams booth, I know, you know, was ordered and built in 2015 for about $40,000. But that's been used year after year after year. And it goes to other places too. I mean, it hangs out. In my day, it lived in a warehouse, I believe in Ohio and a team, you know, brings it out and builds it and whatever. And it's very useful.

[00:16:59] Zoe Licata: It's the same one.

[00:17:01] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I saw the pics. Well, we've also talked a little bit before about how like festivals themselves have been in a different spot this year. There's not as many happening or a lot have been postponed. I'm sure most of these breweries are rarely using these setups or wouldn't use them anywhere else anyway. So it wouldn't make a lot of sense for just one event now when there's so many other financial things going on with breweries to dedicate that much to something like this. Yeah, the most important thing, obviously booths and whatever, that's important just because it's an indicator of all sorts of different things. But what the drinkers who are there really care about is the beers. And surprising to nobody, IPAs absolutely ruled the taps. Again, the BA listed 358 IPAs on the GBF site plus 52. I don't know why these are broken out separately because there are three strange fellows to be lumped together, but there's 52 beers in there. Fresh Hot Beer, Imperial IPA, and Imperial Red Ale. I assume a lot of those 358 IPAs are also imperial doubles, but you know, this is up to barista categories on their own, but knowing what I know about both of your palettes, what percentage of samples would you say you each dedicated to IPAs? And did you get bored of the IPAs at all? I probably did like five, 10%. Anytime there was any kind of logger, I was immediately doing that. I think I maybe had two or three total IPAs. Oh my God. But I was purposely doing that. I wasn't giving them a chance. But I also, it wasn't like I was sampling from every single place. So if it didn't have something that it would typically fit my palate, I wasn't sampling it. Yeah. Justin, what percentage of your samples were IPAs?

[00:18:50] Zoe Licata: What are you at a 50% maybe?

[00:18:52] Jessica Infante: Okay. That's what I would have bet for you.

[00:18:55] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I remember I had the West Coast IPA and the Hazy IPA from Crowns and Hops, Hoppy Hops from Russian River, and then I'm sure there were others. I had Trail Pass IPA from Sierra Nevada, their new non-ALK.

[00:19:14] Jessica Infante: How's that?

[00:19:15] Zoe Licata: Pretty good.

[00:19:16] Jessica Infante: Okay. I mean, how much non-ALK stuff did you guys have?

[00:19:20] Zoe Licata: more than I thought well I mean not more than I thought because I thought I'd have a lot but probably less than I thought actually.

[00:19:27] Jessica Infante: Yeah I had maybe three different ones but the non-elk space it was weirdly kind of mixed in but also they had a non-elk dedicated section and we'll talk about the different sections in a second but it was all the way far off in the corner in all volunteers, and it wasn't very standout-ish. So we weren't over there very much. And then I had a couple of samples that grew because they were more actually inside with all the other breweries from the same region, which were pretty delicious. So basically, if my pregnant self is not there with you guys, like I was last year, dragging you around to all the NA options, you're not really seeking them out.

[00:20:09] Zoe Licata: No, I think I would have more. It was just. It's not exactly like a one to one comparison to say that it was like in the cooler, you know, in the back or whatever, but it was kind of like that sort of treatment. Yeah, with a few non out breweries like sprinkled in. Yeah, they got to double dip a little bit because they had like the dedicated area. And then a lot of them had booth space. But it's not what I expected when I heard that there were going to be all these taproom spaces.

[00:20:42] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I definitely drank more non-elks last year, not just from being with you, but because when we were going to the different brewery stations, a lot of them had a non-elk option instead of just having one non-elk dedicated area. Gotcha. So you've brought up the tavern, so let's get into that. I wrote that BA really made an effort this year to create themed areas because when you look at their website, it looks like this is a big deal and it's integral to this event. There's like areas of the fest floor that were dedicated obviously to NA beer, state guilds, gluten-free beers, past medal winners, the National Black Brewers Association, the Pro-Am collaborations. Did you guys visit these areas and what were they like? But Justin, I know you've got thoughts on this.

[00:21:24] Zoe Licata: I think this is a me problem. I'll preface it with that because I think my expectations when I heard tap rooms was the BA is going to try to accentuate one of the best features of craft brewing, which is the tap room experience. And I did not see that really recreated. It was more a homogenous space. If it's like the non-ALC section, you know, it's like a booth with volunteers pouring, you know, the import sort of the same, you know, the Pro-Am sort of the same, like the National Black Brewers Association was there. They had like five breweries pouring, but it was sort of an area where they put all the black brewers together. But, you know, it didn't feel like a taproom, you know, when you say taproom experiences, I'm expecting a taproom experience, you know, something that sort of visually recreates that experience.

[00:22:24] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So this sounds like a semantics problem. Yeah, well, if you didn't look up and see that there was a National Black Brewers Association banner, you would just think you're at any other of the normal stations. And some of those ones, like the imported one, they're set up like in years past, they've had the like, wish you were here section or something. Yeah, and they had that this year too. Yeah, they're set up exactly the same. The other sections are set up just like that. That doesn't stand out at all. And especially the National Black Brewers one definitely stood out the most is like this doesn't feel like it's different at all. Should also note that everything was organized by region this year instead of alphabetically. There used to be regions in the past. I feel like alphabetically was kind of a new thing last year. Yeah. I don't know what I prefer. I think there's pros and cons to both.

[00:23:16] Zoe Licata: I think what sort of stands out in my memory is like the Jameson cask mates area, Buffalo Wild Wings area that they had there in the years past where they had TVs and wings and, you know, it's an investment. I get that, you know, and that's a company coming in sponsorship, but they had a Southwest Airlines area that. You probably wouldn't realize you were in, you know, it was like almost like having a park bench, to be honest with you.

[00:23:48] Jessica Infante: It was random. It was like three chairs on a little bit of carpet with a like metal wall that had some snacks on it. But it was very small. I mean, it was probably like what, like a six by six area next to the karaoke stage. Did you have to line up in order to get in? No, no, it's just an open spot. So if it was basically, if you need a place to sit down and charge your phone, that's where you could go. All right. Well, I mean, that helps. I see Snyder's was there with pretzels. How was that? Don't know. Didn't really check it out.

[00:24:22] Great American: All right.

[00:24:23] Jessica Infante: They had the chocolates there, which was basically just a little stand with some chocolate covered marshmallow from, what is it? Russell something. Russell Stover. Yeah, I feel like last year, it felt like there was a lot of like sponsorship partners around. And like, I know, I mean, Justin, like, I mean, I was there for the B-dubs year and all of that. And you hear some rumbling among the festgoers, but it's like, look, like the BA bringing in these big corporate partners is what keeps your ticket down. So your ticket price down. So let's con. And also, weren't they giving out free chicken?

[00:24:53] Zoe Licata: They were giving away free wings.

[00:24:55] Jessica Infante: Who's mad about that?

[00:24:57] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that was pre-pandemic. That was the pre-pandemic time. I totally understand that. And Beer Festival has had to, you know, deal with a lot of economic turmoil in the last couple of years, years off, years back on, you know, Colorado Convention Center under construction, less space, all of that still, I think, That's one of the cool things about GABF was there's an experience within an experience. And they maintain some of the things like the silent disco. People are interested in it. You know, it's hard to get down on it when you see a line for that thing. But I feel like some of those sponsor activations could be a little more or even just, you know, this is not meant as a knock on the BA. But I mean, if you're saying something is a tap room, you know, accentuate that it's a tap room, you know, give me that experience. That's one of the huge selling points is like going to the at the brewery experience, you know, give me that within Beer Festival.

[00:26:04] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like that would have been cool. What was the best thing that you tried? What was the... Mary Guyver from Whole Foods brought us over to the import section and she... Brodenbach. Yes. Oh. And she had us try Brodenbach, like their original one and then their like cherry one. She said it was like the first beer that got her into craft beer. It probably helped that we were given the presentation basically from Mary Guyver about this beer. Dame Mary Guyver. By Dame, yes, Dame Mary Guyver. She's a big fucking deal in Belgium, guys. Who is also like rocking teeth jewels and like looked like the coolest person in the building. She's always the coolest person in the building. Yeah. Telling us about this beer and it was really delicious. That is one of my faves. Also had a pretty good New Zealand pilsner from Cricket Stave that I liked. Pretty solid. What made it New Zealand? Hops? Yeah.

[00:26:59] Zoe Licata: So the best thing I tried was the Lost Abbey's 2012 Angel Share. Excellent. wouldn't expect anything else. And then I also thought that the Hazy and the West Coast IPA from Crowns and Hops were on point. And then Zoe and I went over to Weldworks and tried two of the, you know, crazier styles. I don't even know if you could call them styles. What was the one you had, the crab, well, non-crab Rangoon?

[00:27:32] Jessica Infante: Cream cheese Rangoon Goza, which was made with cream cheese and sweet and sour sauce and apparently also the little like... Wonton wrappers. Wonton, yeah, crisps. So, I mean, it tasted as advertised. It was definitely the craziest one that I had. That's creative. Yeah, World of Works always has funky ones.

[00:27:55] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And then I had the strawberry cheesecake pastry beer.

[00:28:00] Jessica Infante: How's that?

[00:28:02] Zoe Licata: I mean, it tasted like strawberry cheesecake. They are very good with flavors. Yeah. I will say that with Weldworks is if they say it tastes like something, it generally is on point.

[00:28:17] Jessica Infante: Cause that's hard to do. Yeah. I mean, I would like weirdly drink it again just to like experience it because it felt so crazy. Like I felt like I should be eating it. That's crazy. I'm glad there was no crab. I'm glad that that got left out. Yeah. Zoe, how many pickle beers did you have? I only got two out of the, I think there was five that were supposed to be there. They were very popular. We got diverted from my mission thanks to good old Don Dixill. but I tried them from Martin House and from Distil. Distil I'd had before. It's that one I think still remains my number one pickle beer, but Martin House was very good. Their pickle beer, like basically their flagship. Yeah, it was delicious based in Texas. They also had a Bloody Mary one that I wanted to try, but didn't get to. So got some interesting stuff. Shorts from Michigan in the past is done. They do, let's say you used to like for GABF, they'd roll up with a lot of cocktail inspired beers and they've brought a Bloody Mary beer before, which is interesting. All right, so that was inside the hall. Outside the hall, what were the vibes? What was Denver like this week? Like, did you know it was GABF week? I feel like I heard mixed things from both of you before the week really got going. It was very quiet. There were not any banners outside. Didn't really even see, like, very many people, unless you were kind of right up next to the convention center, that you could point out and be like, oh, they're definitely here for GABF. I saw more people for other conferences, I think, than for GABF. That's so weird. Even our Uber driver, the first day we were there, was like, I had to double check and people didn't believe me that it was even this weekend because they're, you, can't really tell that it's happening. That's wild. So you guys had a great Brew Talks. I watched it from home. Your panels were both great, but that was probably one of the bigger gatherings of industry people outside the fest hall. What was the vibe among them? Like, were people excited to be back for another year?

[00:30:21] Zoe Licata: Generally.

[00:30:22] Jessica Infante: Yeah, people seem happy to I mean, usually any sort of industry type thing, people are happy to see each other and catch up with each other. And it was definitely a positive vibe, even though our conversations were talking about a part of beer that has been not as positive. Sometimes it's it was definitely happy environment in there, I think.

[00:30:46] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we heard quite a few people say, you know, this is what we're dealing with as far as draft challenges. And this has been a great help to, you know, be able to put it out there in the open and talk about it. So I think overall, that was positive. There seemed to be a positive feeling at the Turn It Up Media Colorado Brewers Guild. What would you call it? Happy hour?

[00:31:14] Jessica Infante: Medium mixer.

[00:31:15] Zoe Licata: Medium mixer.

[00:31:16] Jessica Infante: They doubled their attendance this year, I think they said. So they were really excited and there were some rallying speeches at the end. So that was definitely positive. Good spot. Glad to hear it.

[00:31:30] Zoe Licata: I like that Brewtox has become sort of like a safe haven before all this madness for industry folks to come to Amanda Huang out, have a few beers, maybe get some food and just chat before the actual event starts.

[00:31:46] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Before tens of thousands of drinkers are asking you, what's your haziest IPA and what has the most alcohol? Yeah. Yeah. Rinse, repeat for four sessions in a row. I don't even know what we served for food, I'll be honest. I didn't even get to look over there.

[00:32:04] Zoe Licata: Couldn't tell you either. That's why we had tacos after.

[00:32:06] Jessica Infante: Delicious. Well, I'm glad you guys had a good time. My FOMO was, you know, moderate to severe at times, but I survived.

[00:32:14] Zoe Licata: I'm glad you made it. I'm glad to have a designated survivor.

[00:32:20] Jessica Infante: designated survivor. That's my my new title. I mean, check back in with us in a week or two time and see how we're feeling. Who knows after these events? You didn't miss too much. I think you made the right decision. Yeah.

[00:32:37] Zoe Licata: You didn't have to spend a whole weekend trying to like recover.

[00:32:41] Jessica Infante: No.

[00:32:42] Zoe Licata: On top of like being back home with a an infant.

[00:32:45] Jessica Infante: Right. I live in recovery mode. The other day, Ryan was like, you're walking like you're like 70. I was like, I don't know what to tell you. Whenever I'm like down on the floor playing with Cora and have to stand back up, I'm always like, I can't imagine like, we spend all the time at my mom's house. And my mom is great, like down on the floor with her, playing with her with her toys and stuff. And she's like, got way older knees than I do. So what must that be like? I suppose there's pros to having children before you're 38. Yeah.

[00:33:18] Zoe Licata: I don't know what that would be like. All I can speak to is getting back home. It's eight o'clock. Somebody is not going to bed. And then she gets way too excited because you're home. And then you're going outside to look at the moon at least 50 times.

[00:33:32] Jessica Infante: Oh, that must be so nice though.

[00:33:35] Zoe Licata: It is nice because like it's a full body squeal and shiver, you know, like of excitement to see the moon.

[00:33:43] Jessica Infante: Not to see her dad, to see the moon.

[00:33:45] Zoe Licata: To see the moon. Yeah. I mean, she was happy, but you know, she was a little more happy about the moon.

[00:33:53] Jessica Infante: The moon is pretty cool. To your credit, she sees you just about every single day.

[00:33:58] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:33:59] Jessica Infante: But there's a whole week every month where the moon's just gone.

[00:34:02] Zoe Licata: True. And then she says, hide and seek or peekaboo. All right, well, let's get to one of those conversations that we just talked about at Brew Talks, our national draft conversation with Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, Lori Scheiffler from Tamarron Consulting, and Jason Murphy from Buffalo Wild Wings. So we've heard for years that brands are built in the on-premise. So what happens when the on-premise is struggling, draft is struggling. So draft has historically been an important piece of the business for craft brewers. It accounts for about 30% of distributed draft. It serves as a brand building theater, it has in the past. But draft has been on a slide since the mid 2010s, and it's not returned to pre-pandemic levels. That's from Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson. Watson has estimated that 2023 distributed draft volume is 2 million barrels below historic trends. So through the halfway point of 2023, distributed draft volumes are down around 30% year over year. It stalled at about the same place that it was in 2021. I'm not trying to depress you people, I'm sorry, but you know, that's the state of the situation. We can all point to a variety of reasons for why this is happening. Consumers are going out less. They're ordering other things. They're ordering seltzers, spirits, wine, F&Bs. They're not drinking at all, some of them, or they're drinking non-alcoholic products. cans have become a much bigger part of the industry. Just look around here. I mean, we're serving cans too at this event. That's just the state of the situation right now. And the number of beer drinking accounts that have permanently closed is pretty high coming out of the pandemic. And finally, consumers are getting priced out. So let's talk about what's going on with draft and hit on some strategies for maybe turning it around that are, you know, more than a, So, joining me on stage right now is Dogfish Head co-founder, Sam Calagione. Thanks for being here, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Psyched to be here with you guys. We also have Buffalo Wild Wings Director of Beverage Strategy and Innovation, Jason Murphy. Thanks for being here, Jason. Appreciate the uplifting intro. And Tamarron Consulting co-founder and president, Lori Scheiffler. Thanks for being here, Lori.

[00:36:38] Great American: Thank you for having me.

[00:36:41] Zoe Licata: We'll start with you, Jason. What does draft mean to Buffalo Wild Wings business? Why is it so core to your business model?

[00:36:48] Beer Festival: I mean, it's everything for us. We're a huge draft place. We're a sports bar, right? So inherently, it makes sense that we're going to pour a lot of draft beer. But it's in our DNA. We really pride ourselves in pouring a good draft beer for every guest that comes in. If you look at our beer sales, 93% of our beer mix is draft. 7% of that is package, and half of that 7% comes from one brand. We rely on draft in everything that we do. And if draft beer fails, then our Bev-Al program is a total fails.

[00:37:21] Zoe Licata: How often are you tapping a new keg?

[00:37:23] Beer Festival: Oh, I had this stat, I knew that, I think it's something like every 30 seconds we'd have a new keg. I think it was 32, but you're close. Thank you for fact-checking me, I appreciate it.

[00:37:34] Zoe Licata: So, Sam, how big of a piece of the business is draft for Dogfish Head how big is it for Boston beer, and how have you adjusted your mix as it's become more challenging?

[00:37:45] Brew Talks: Yeah, so before I answer, I just want to make sure I get my thank yous in. So, you know, we've been proud to be doing this with you guys for a number of years now and always look forward to learning from each other. I do want to thank all of our co-workers, especially Matt, who put a lot of hours into setting this up with Team Brewbound and with Cervantes Masterpiece. I also want to, you know, take a moment to say I'm proudly double fisting right now, because my buddy Dave from SCA is in the house, and he's class of 95 as well. We've been doing this over half our lives. Dave, where are you, buddy? I'm proud of you, wherever you are, brother. Excited to hear your guys panel. So, for us, our drop was not that dramatic, like I looked at it before this, and 10-15 years ago we were about 25% draft as brand Dogfish Head now we're about 20% draft, 23% on-prem Dogfish business, of which that 23%, 20% is And that's, I think, because we kind of came up as a brand that focused on higher ABV beers, even in the era of, you know, 750 mils, bigger packages that were more wine-like in their presentation. So as a mix, we didn't feel it as much. But, you know, as you referenced, you know, BART stat, this is not a pandemic problem. It's a generational problem. You know, we're now in almost a decade of the declines for beer. So, you know, we have felt that a little bit. And honestly, for For us, you know, we'll talk a little bit about ways that we're trying to reinvigorate excitement into our draft offerings with the success of Citrus Squall. You know, I also think, you know, we have some great craft distributors in the building today. Shouts to Terry. We're going to hear from one of her co-workers on the next panel. But I think overall, and this isn't like saying there aren't other things our distributor partners have been amazing at, particularly during, COVID, but I do think while the draft challenge has not been COVID-related, it's more generational, I do think when the world had to shift to a focus on off-prem, our distributors were there for that moment beautifully and helped to get the drinks to the consumers. But I feel like there's been a little bit more of a hole for bringing the resources back from the average distributor to the focus on on-prem post-pandemic. That is something that I think would really help move the needle. And then I'd say for our Sam brand, it's even a higher ratio of draft than Dogfish Head particularly not our core logger. We basically chose to focus on on our seasonal program and keeping a dynamic line with one handle that we mix really well. I know, Jason, you guys are doing an awesome job with Oktoberfest. So overall, down for both brands a little bit, but excited about the moment we have in front of us.

[00:40:35] Zoe Licata: So Lori, Sam referenced that big shift in prioritization for wholesalers to package during the pandemic, which is obvious, but what's the mindset you're hearing now from distributors on prioritization of package versus draft?

[00:40:52] Great American: You know I wanted to just first start with kind of setting the context a little bit so when we first had this discussion I reached out to the NBWA because I work with them a lot and we'll talk about a lot of the tools that they're developing not only for distributors but also for every industry member. And their economist is Lester Jones. I'm sure many of you have heard of Lester and he's equally as awesome as Bart is. So I certainly don't want to be up here and try to pretend like I'm as knowledgeable as they are because I certainly am not. But one of the things that Lester sent me was a spreadsheet and I'm gonna kind of be looking over at it as I talk about it. And this is all like January through June this year. And what he talked about is that the total industry is down by 5%. So draft has come back to be 9% of that industry volume where it used to be about 10% pre-pandemic. But when you think about what that means, so you've got even cans are down, bottles are down, draft is down, but the size of the pie is so much smaller. So that just makes it... such that everybody, every package is struggling. And I think that really shows that it's more of a systemic issue as opposed to any one specific tier. And we see that a lot of venues have shifted to that large format can. which is a loss of a lot of draft opportunities. And so while we work through that supply chain, all of the cans that are still in the industry and the pricing that goes along with it, I think you'll see some shifts going back and forth. But at this point, the distributors are prioritizing draft to the extent that their suppliers are asking them to do that from what I've been told.

[00:42:56] Zoe Licata: Jason, what are you hearing about wholesaler level of engagement from your operators?

[00:43:06] Beer Festival: I think we have seen a little bit of a dip in engagement from a lot of our wholesalers. A lot of the prioritization is still going to off-prem, specifically C-Store. C-Store seems to be the priority from all of the conversations we have, and we know the reasons why. The 19.2 format is just blowing trends out of the water. That's where the consumer is going. But we're not seeing the same level of engagement that we used to pre-pandemic with the support that we would like to see folks coming in and doing samplings or pint nights or things like that. We're just not getting the same level of support that we had in the past.

[00:43:45] Zoe Licata: So sticking with you for a second, what's the appetite then like for package placement in your accounts, you know, as draft sort of struggles?

[00:43:55] Beer Festival: Yeah, I mean, I think I set the tone earlier. We're a draft house and we always want to be a draft house. Package is going to play a role for us in certain spots, but we have 30 tap handles. I pride myself on the fact that we can offer a wide variety of styles of ABVs, of different breweries and brands, of different locales for what we say, every guest for every occasion. And I can do that with 30 draft handles. What I used my package cooler for is to maybe pulse in some things that haven't really earned their way to a draft spot yet, but everything in the package cooler is like trying to figure out, can this earn its way up to a draft spot? Draft is always going to be the most important part of our business for us. We really pride ourselves on making sure that our servers and bartenders know how to pour a good quality draft beer, and I don't think we'd want to do it any other way other than that.

[00:44:50] Brew Talks: I got a question there. Of the different beer categories you guys sell, does Kraft do better on draft than in cans compared to, say, light domestic or Mexican? You didn't prep me for this question, Sam.

[00:45:03] Beer Festival: I don't know. If I was to be honest, I would say Kraft probably does a little bit worse in package. I think Kraft does better for us on draft. We have a great prominent section of great Kraft brands on draft. My opinion of Kraft on draft is that if you can't find what you're looking for with one of our 30 handles, you probably didn't want to drink a beer anyway. But to the point of what we use package for, it's to add incrementality to our program for something that we probably wouldn't put on draft. And that's talking like, We're probably not going to, at a Buffalo Wild Wings, we're not going to put a 14% ABV, triple IPA on draft. But there's the guest who wants that. That's a package placement. So we really want to focus on what we can move the most velocity on with the things on draft. And you can probably find that in all of our craft brands.

[00:45:49] Zoe Licata: Sam, it seems you have a success story, though, that is both in draft and in a 19-two ounce single serve can. Can you talk a little bit about the strategy behind citrus squall and how that sort of, you know, ridden both of those rails?

[00:46:07] Brew Talks: Yeah, so I mean, we started brewing that maybe three or four years ago as Tupilia. We wanted to phonetically suggest it wasn't a cocktail. And we opened our brewery 28 years ago, our distillery 21 years ago. So we've been playing around with different fermentable sugars to make bases to distill, including agave, for almost that long. And as we were coming out of the pandemic, and we know that the draft sales shrinking, We're pre-pandemic, but we're definitely accelerated by the pandemic. But that kind of crossed also the line of a lot of these younger drinkers moving out of beer towards seltzers and towards cocktails, both foolproof cocktails with the rise of tequila and canned cocktails. So like, all right, well, that's in our wheelhouse, too. What can we do beer-wise that could be a draft focus that's intentionally more of a Trojan horse, basically saying the average 21 to 31 year old that walks in a bar, they're likely going to gravitate towards a seltzer cocktail first. What can we do to turn them on to craft beer for the first time by making that beer have a lot of the cocktail DNA in it? So for us citrus squalls, primarily fermented from sugars from barley, but double digit fermentation sugars come from both agave and grapefruit juice. So it has real Paloma vibes and DNA. It splits the difference in ABV, kind of a traditional cocktail of beer at eight. And we intentionally priced it, line priced it with our core beers to try and make it an attractive offering, profitable offering for our partners. And we talked about, should I have a special garnish? Should I have a cocktail centric glass? But we're like, you know, our partners right now don't want another glass. They don't want another giant grapefruit in their stall of fruit for garnishes. But we did say, let's go for it, make a really distinct standout tap handle, bright fluorescent pink, and spent extra money on that. And it really has kind of paid dividends. And so, yeah, with Citrus Squall, it's our fastest growing release that we've done as a core beer in the last five years.

[00:48:14] Zoe Licata: Jason, following up on the distributor engagement question, how is the engagement post-COVID from suppliers?

[00:48:24] Beer Festival: I think we've seen the same level of engagement, same level of interest. I think the area where we would like to see some improvement, and we talked about this a little bit on our pre-call, We seem to have lost a bit of the fun in the on premise and it feels to me like a lot of those fun engaging events has started to move to own premise. Which is great and I think everyone who is operating out of their own taproom should make sure they have those events that are driving. consumers into their own taprooms, but it seems to have been at the expense of the on-premise, and maybe this is unpopular opinion. But I don't know the last time... Do people care about Firkins anymore? Someone told me they didn't. But I don't know the last time I saw a Firkin tapping at a taproom or a bar. I mean, I would love to see some of that kind of stuff come back. I used to feel like I saw, you'd go out to sports bars and you'd see trivia nights hosted by a Dogfish Head or a football bingo hosted by Creature Comforts, things like that. That's kind of stuff I don't feel like has come back. Since pre-COVID, I feel like a lot of that stuff has moved to on-premise. And I think for on-premise for bars, sports bars, restaurants, tap rooms, to start to claw some of that draft business back, we have to make the on-premise fun again. And I think it's lost a little bit of that in the last few years.

[00:49:45] Great American: I was just going to say that when we get to it, some of the on-premise activation kits that we've been working with Boston Beer and the NBWA, they're designed to be exactly that. So it's designed to be, you know, music is better with beer and how can you make music fun? Games are better with beer. So, if you're having a trivia night, how can you incorporate beer? So, we've got some tools that we think would be really helpful, and they're available to everyone in the industry. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that.

[00:50:18] Zoe Licata: Yeah, and you can see some of the point of sale items out there. There are table tents. There are signs. I think you've got a table over there. So, we'll talk about that in a minute. But one thing I wanted to ask you, Lori, is month over month, we keep seeing the consumer price index for beer. uptick for at-home pricing as far as that goes. How much of that is a factor going on with what we're seeing in the on-premise with draft? Are consumers being priced out?

[00:50:49] Great American: So I can't speak to that certainly as well as somebody like Lester can. I know that we have worked over the years with John Lane from Winking Lizard and some of you may know John. He has a chain of restaurants in Ohio. He's very passionate about draft beer, very passionate about quality of draft beer. And he did express that concern to me about six months ago that, you know, he's looking at the price of draft and it's making it almost harder for him to sell draft versus the price of package. And that was a real concern to him because he feels that, you know, as many of us do, that draft is beer's big advantage. It's something that Wine and Spirits don't have and the presentation of draft and the quality of draft. So I do know that there are concerns about that. I can't speak fully on the price index.

[00:51:53] Zoe Licata: I was obviously going to ask you, so go for it.

[00:51:55] Beer Festival: I mean, it's an issue. It's something we're paying a lot of attention to. There's a major craft brand who, in my head, over the last five, six years, maybe even longer, their half barrel was always around kind of that $140, $150 price. And I got a note back from our supply chain team the other day saying that we're paying an average of $180 for that same half barrel that we were buying, what felt like for just a couple of years ago, $140. And we've got to figure out, can we take price and pass that on to the consumer, or are we going to take a hit to our profits, and neither are a good solution. The pricing seems like it's gone up. pretty out of control in the last couple years, and we've got to figure out what we can do to make that back for the consumer. And then something that is very concerning that we're keeping a very close eye on is student loan repayments restarting next month, and we're very concerned on what's going to happen to what choices consumers have to make. an establishment like mine where the main occasion drivers are sports and wings. We need to turn beer into a third main occasion driver but right now sports and wings. They're going to come in for sports that you don't have to pay for that. You're going to get your wings. What you might sacrifice on is you were going to have two 60 minutes and now you have one or you were going to have a 60 minute and now you've traded to whatever we have on special for four bucks. So That's something that is really concerning me that we'll see what happens in the next few months.

[00:53:28] Zoe Licata: Do you have a beers per check stat that you can share?

[00:53:32] Beer Festival: Yeah, I haven't updated it in the last couple months, but tracking since 2019, similar to kind of, you know, Lester's overview of on-premise being in decline over the last decade. Our drinks per check overall are down since 2019. Down fairly consistently across the board for every kind of beer style that we have across craft, domestic, and import. But even though Average beers per check are down. Our drinks per check for beer are down lower than anything else that we have. So spirits is maintained a little bit, wine is maintained a little bit, but beer we're seeing going lower. I will say the one bright side to that is if you look at units per 100 checks, we're down a significant percentage across all categories. If you look at sales per 100 checks, we're up quite a bit. And we're up more than the price that we've took over that same time period. So what that tells me is even though consumers are drinking less when they come into our bars, they're trading up and they're drinking better. So we were getting 2.5 drinks per check, now we're getting two, but that guest is spending more on the beers that they are getting when they come in.

[00:54:46] Zoe Licata: Sam, how do you see Craft Brewers sort of playing the balancing act in this moment when Pricing is what it is. The inflationary environment is what it is. But craft has been, you know, a premium item. So how do craft brewers sort of strike that balance?

[00:55:06] Brew Talks: I think at this moment, it's a different story for the tap room brewery that's going direct to consumer. And I think that's one of the great gems of the trajectory of draft is I think they've definitely done a great job in general of appealing to younger drinker. And it's a little scary, frankly, I think that it's kind of a tale of two cities where it's like, you know, the four pack direct to consumer from the, from the brewery is something that you see more in younger drinkers, like social feeds, more so than the 12 pack at a big chain store that they bought. And the other thing that I think we haven't talked too much about, I think you did on the pricing thing, which is, you know, venue sales count as on-prem sales for us. And I do think this is one place where legal marijuana has had a really big impact, because I do think, you know, it's funny, Three nights ago I was with Rob Todd in Maine and I traded him a six pack of, actually a four pack of Allie Ave stout for a 55 pound bag of organic barley. I got fucking ripped off in that deal. That's not the type of bag I thought you were going to say that you were getting. Behind the dumpster in Portland, Maine. And he was saying, shit, I can't take up price fast enough. I'm a draft-oriented brewery. I can't take price up fast enough to keep up with my increase in costs. And then last night I was with John Lane at an event in Ohio, and he was saying, brewers are on a precipice where they're pricing themselves out irrelevant. So you can see the tension is really there for smaller producers and the entrepreneurs, you know, on premise. So I want to make that point, but I forget what your question was.

[00:56:51] Zoe Licata: I forgot, too, at this point. We nailed it, Justin. Yeah, let's just say that.

[00:56:56] Brew Talks: Somebody is asking something that, you know, you and I... Can I finish up on that one? So we have an example in our home state, which is kind of the Bonnaroo of the Mid-Atlantic called Firefly Festival. And in essence, you know, when 19.2s and 24s go up to $18.22, definitely the supplier's not getting the gain of that exorbitant pricing. And I don't know, like, here at Red Rocks what that looks like for craft breweries or the other great... venues, but it definitely does accelerate that choice to maybe have an edible and one drink instead of enjoy a whole night of drinking. And we got to figure that out with the younger consumer, not just the younger drinker, the consumers of good times.

[00:57:34] Beer Festival: To that point, it might have been in your publication that I read it in, but there was a study that came out recently talking about Gen Z drinkers. And of LDA Gen Z drinkers, 34% of them say they don't drink alcohol of any kind. And of that, what they're turning to are edibles to marijuana. And so that is a huge percentage of an upcoming generation that, as of now, we just don't have access to.

[00:58:00] Zoe Licata: You just can't wait to get edibles into Buffalo Wild Wings, right?

[00:58:04] Beer Festival: Boneless and on the wing.

[00:58:06] Zoe Licata: It's the next LTO sauce. So you mentioned bringing fun back, and the things that were fun when some of us were coming up in craft in the mid-2010s probably aren't appealing to consumers today. When was the last beer dinner still a thing that are driving some traffic, or tap takeovers, or release theme nights, the meat the brewer events. I mean, I feel like we may be past that, but is that something that needs revisiting? Can it appeal to a younger consumer? Are we just, you know?

[00:58:49] Brew Talks: Well, I'm looking forward, Lori's been an awesome catalyst at bringing together different groups that care about bringing draft back from Stainless Keg Association, MBWA, BI, and I'm looking forward to hear what you say about that, because creative ways to engage with younger customers is something that you're thinking about every day. But yeah, for us, let's face it, you know, the average consumer that's coming into beverage now grew up with 60-Minute, Sam Adams, Sierra Pale Ale in their parents' fridge to steal. And you don't necessarily want to drink what your parents drink. And that's reality. And show up at a beer, six-hour beer dinner to meet some guy who started a brewery 30 years ago. It's just like, who gives a fuck? 10,000 people started a brewery, you know? I don't need to meet the person. Everybody starts a brewery, right? So that might have mattered a lot, meeting the founder. You know, but to Jason's point, come up with creative ways to make it about your brand, but not necessarily try to engage with someone who'd rather be on TikTok for one minute for a four-course beer dinner. Do something experiential, engaging. You know, last night, Megan and Devin and I did a really fun event at our Cincy Tap Room all about sustainability and talking about the different, whether it's regenerative grains, organic, unmalted barley, skipping the step of a malting house, and talking with people that don't just care about beer, but care about, you know, climate change. John Lane mentioned that one of his most successful nights in the last five years was an old-school vertical tasting of three Floyds, you know, Dark Lord. You know, Nick Floyd wasn't in the room, but he made sure that they got that in every one of their accounts and could execute, you know, excitement for it on social, which drew a younger drinker. So I think you can get more creative and more experiential, but you should not give up on making something special come to life on prem. We need it now more than ever.

[01:00:37] Zoe Licata: Laurie, can you talk a little bit more about that, about making things an occasion or special? Because you've been working with the NBWA on the Beer First Fridays agenda, which it doesn't have to be a Friday. But can you talk a little bit about that and maybe some success stories that have come out of that, the lift that accounts have seen from doing that?

[01:01:00] Great American: Yeah, for sure. So we started the Beer First umbrella. And first, let me explain what that means. It means that we're trying to sell the category of beer first. So it's always starting with, you know, what does beer mean to this account? How does beer deliver profitability? And Bring traffic into the account and then we can segue into you know this is the brand this is the beer that I'm representing today. But we want to always prop up the category first so that's what beer first means we decided to start these on premise activation nights and. one of the distributors coined them Beer First Fridays. And we always say, it doesn't have to be a Friday. It doesn't have to be the first Friday of the month. It can be any day of the week. But what it's designed to do is just bring some more fun back into the account. So we started with last year, we decided, let's do some kits. Like, let's just make it really easy for people to implement these programs. And it doesn't have to be a distributor. And it's better if it's a distributor and a supplier, a brewer partnering together to really sponsor their brands. So we have a series that we call Better With Beer. So we started with, I believe we started with music as better with beer. So if you're in an account that is like this one that features music or has music trivia nights or a DJ or a band one night of the week, there's some tools that just make it fun to be part of that. For Music is Better with Beer, we've got some napkins that can also be just printed out on a piece of paper that are Mad Libs. you get to write your own song and it mentions beer in it. So you can mention your beer style or your beer brand and you come up with a song. So that's fun. I think there's a country, there's a blues song and a rap song that you can write. So you could make that into a contest if you wanted, but just fun. Then there's others that are just table tents that say, hey, what brand do you pair with a certain song? So I'm going to put Sam on the spot here, because we're up here drinking some dogfish beers. What would you pair? Pick one of your brands, a song to pair with.

[01:03:26] Brew Talks: So we got 60 Minute on tap. So I would do a ridiculously long. So I'd do, Bill Dispel does a cover of Neil Young's Pocahontas song. So I would do that, because it goes on for almost 60 minutes. So you could sip. 460 minutes while the song goes on. And there you go.

[01:03:48] Zoe Licata: I thought you were going to say the painkillers. The pain relievers. Pain relievers, sorry.

[01:03:52] Brew Talks: IP infringement. I thought I was close. IP infringement. Yeah. Yeah. No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't voice that on my worst enemy. We won't make you rap.

[01:04:00] Great American: All right, well, well done, Sam. That's exactly how you'd pair a beer with a song. So I love that. And let's see, we have games are better with beer. So if you're having retro game night or trivia nights, we can have different ways to pair beers with that. And then the last one is food is better with beer. And that's such an opportunity to really focus on how we can suggest more beer with food for accounts, and so we've got some ways to just have consumers vote on which beer went best with which foods or having the waitstaff be recommending beer with food, because one of the biggest ways that consumers decide what beer they're going to order is by waitstaff recommendation. really important to engage the wait staff when you're trying to make sure that consumers buy beer in an account. So one of the biggest success stories, I'm going to lean back on John Lane. We had a beer first Friday at his account with Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland. And by featuring, and one of the key learnings that John had was to make sure that you do choose specific brands to feature with your Beer First Friday. By doing that and really focusing on a couple of the Great Lakes brands, he was able to see a 10 percent lift that night by doing a Beer First Friday. So they had a lot of giveaways. They gave away some koozies and I'm trying to think what else, but he felt it was really successful in driving business for his account.

[01:05:44] Zoe Licata: Jason, you recently put out a 2024 RFP to your partners. You've got a pretty specific message to them. What was that?

[01:05:55] Beer Festival: That beer is losing. at Buffalo Wild Wings, but in the on-premise. It's been losing for a while, and we've got to come up with some fun ways to bring that back. So interestingly enough, we just went out and did a big BevElk research study to understand kind of what consumers wanted out of the Buffalo Wild Wings beer program. I shouldn't say beer, out of our Bev-Alc program. And I look over all of beverage now, not just beer anymore. To be honest, I had a slight slant to like, okay, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna do this study, and I'm gonna get some really great ideas for spirits and cocktails to come back on this. And we recruited 1,500 people, we did focus groups, we went out and dined with people, and the overwhelming response that we got was like, You guys are a beer place. You went on TV for 10 years saying Wings Beer Sports. That's what I know you for. Yet we found out that people stopped coming to us because they don't think we have the beers that they want. And that's the beers that all of you in this room brew. They think that we have nothing but domestic light lagers and imports. And I don't want to talk badly about any of our domestic or import partners. They do great business for us. But there's this huge section of people who don't come to Buffalo Wild Wings. because they don't think we have the craft beers we want. And I'll use one example. I was talking to this lady in California and she said, God, I just, I would like to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. You guys just don't have the selection of local crafts that we want. I'm like, well, that's interesting. I built the menu in California. I know we've got a decent selection. So I poked her a little bit, and I said, what do you actually want? What does local mean to you? And she brings up, she's like, I just want beers from Modern Times, or Alesmith, or Firestone Walker. And she starts rattling off these breweries. I'm going crazy out of my fucking mind, because I've got all of those beers on tap. What is she thinking about? And I show her the menu, and she's like, oh my god, you have these. I'm going to go into Buffalo Wild Wings tonight, and I'm going to get these beers. We've got this huge awareness problem, and I don't think it's an issue with us. I think it's an issue with a lot of casual dine, a lot of on-premise. And one thing we asked in RFP is like, we need the help of our brewery partners to let people know, let your fans know, that we've got your beer. And I'm going to single out the folks from Holidayly who are in the room. Holidayly has done a really great job at going onto their socials and being like, hey, our beer's on at Buffalo Wild Wings. You want to go get Great Wings and our beer? Go check out a B-Dubs. But that happens with one out of every 100 of our partners. We've got to make that happen more often. You've got to help their on-premise partners. Let people know you've got fans out there who want to go drink your beer when they go out. They just don't know where to go get it. And so on top of all of the beer first Friday stuff that we should be participating in, and I think sports is better with beer too. We can have some fun toolkit stuff there. But I think there's a lot of things that we can do with our partners to really let people know like we've got your, let the consumers know we've got your beer on tap. And like Buffalo Wild Wings is a cool place to come drink a craft beer too.

[01:09:01] Great American: You know, I should say that we have tons of social assets as well on the portal, so use those to advertise all of that. And this year it was awesome because the BA allowed us to access all of their library of images. So we're able to really, in my mind, upgrade substantially with what those social assets look like because they're true photos and the beer looks really good. And so it's portrayed the way it should be. So use those to advertise. I mean, that's just an easy download for you. And there's a sheet in the back that will tell you how to access all of that. So please use them.

[01:09:44] Beer Festival: Can I add one last thing? I'll be quick.

[01:09:47] Zoe Licata: Nobody's here to hear me talk. They're here to hear from you guys.

[01:09:50] Beer Festival: I would like to see some interesting product innovation too. And I'm hearing that from a few other folks. I don't need another hazy IPA. I know that's what drives a lot of the traffic in the own premise, but I need two, maybe three hazy IPAs. What I think is really interesting are the breweries who are doing really great innovation with flavors. I see Justin from Station 26 in the room. That tangerine cream, that's an awesome beer and that showcases flavors that people are going for. And honestly, it's the flavors that people got out of White Claw and High Noon and Truly that as they start to come back into beer, that's the flavors that they want in a beer. There's a mix pack that you guys are doing with the Sam brand, right? What's the name on that one? Yeah, no, the epic squeeze is this great Sam Adams mix pack that is just full of flavor. And you're like, holy cow, I wouldn't expect this in a beer. And that's where consumers are going to spirits and cocktails are things that are really full punch you in the mouth flavor. And I would like to see a little bit more of that come from beer.

[01:10:55] Zoe Licata: So I've got one more question. And I've got a ton of questions here that I'll do like lightning round at the end. But What is the risk of inaction? Because Bart Watson, and I referenced him at the top, put it out there that this is really sort of an existential crisis, potentially, because if bars and restaurants don't invest in draft systems, then it becomes a much larger problem. And you mentioned that it was a generational issue that we're seeing here. So I want to hear from each of you as far as if Team Beer isn't able to sort of turn the tide on draft. What are the risks here?

[01:11:36] Brew Talks: So yeah, I think it's a critical moment. Shani mentioned the great work that the Guild's doing here in this state for sampling opportunities. And that's for one or two hours at an off-premise opportunity is, I think, what that change evolution legislation would mean. But every day, every minute that a restaurant is open is an affordable sampling opportunity to try a new craft beer. buy the pint before you commit to buying it off premise for a six pack or a case. I really feel like this inflection point is very similar to the one, you know, 15, I don't know how many years ago, when liquor brands were allowed to advertise again, like on TV and magazines, et cetera. I feel like it kind of, it caught the beer industry, you know, on the heel of our feet, like, oh, we're already gaining, you know, we're already bigger than them. They're not going to gain share on us. And they did a great job of marketing to younger consumers. And I feel like the moment coming out of COVID was the right moment for us as an industry of beer. People say, oh my gosh, our occasion is back, getting people out in bars, enjoying pints together. And I feel like we're a little late to come together collectively as the restaurateurs, the distributors and the brewers to right that ship and get the trajectory back. But I don't think the trains left the station. I think, you know, in the next year or two, we got to really focus on it. The last thing I'll say about that is The BA is in an interesting position for this because the vast majority of our members and the vast majority of the 10,000 Indie Craft Breweries of America don't need to frankly worry about the three-tier system and is beer gaining share in that as long as they're growing revenue, profits, jobs, great things in their local community at their own local store. So, you know, honestly, this is an issue that affects our whole industry, but Right now, it's being felt more by the distributing breweries, I feel, than the taproom-oriented breweries.

[01:13:35] Beer Festival: Yeah, I mean, I brought up earlier asking brewery partners for help, you know, getting the message out that your beer's on tap at our place. We're going to do a better job of that too. So to Sam's point, you know, the next year or two is going to be how do we let people know that we're, Wings Beer Sports doesn't mean Wings Domestic Beer Sports, we're Wings All Beer Sports. But there's going to be an inflection point soon where Those handles are going to go to wine. They're going to go to batched cocktails. I might put on a nitro cold brew line. And I used to be a place that had 20 handles available to our brewery partners in each restaurant. Now I have 10. Sorry, 30 handles. Now I have 20, because the other 10 are going to RTDs and things like that. So it's a decision we're already talking about and a decision we're going to have to make soon.

[01:14:22] Great American: Yeah, and I think I mentioned, I mean, I think draft is such a point of difference for beer and it's something that we should celebrate. And it's better if we band together as an industry to address some of the challenges than if we kind of divide and think that we can each tier can do it on their own. It's just important to work together instead of against one another. So I think the opportunities here, we definitely want to drive the beer category and to drive draft beer because it showcases what is so great about beer.

[01:15:01] Zoe Licata: So I'll go lightning round. We got to go through these pretty quick. We got a couple of minutes. Have you considered whether service is a factor in some of the on-premise declines, Jason?

[01:15:14] Beer Festival: Absolutely, yeah. Specifically for us, I go back to being known as a domestic place. Our servers need to be doing a better job of saying, instead of saying, hey, this is what's on discount today, it's, hey, we just tapped this fresh keg of 60-minute. It's so fresh, you got to try it. That's going to be a huge driver for us in 2024 in figuring out how to grow Draft Beer again.

[01:15:36] Zoe Licata: How much of the price issue is being driven by suppliers versus distributors?

[01:15:43] Brew Talks: I think it's both. Yeah, I'd say it's, I don't know, I'm not a distributor, but I'd say we know we're facing increased prices to a degree that's made it challenging for us to hold price.

[01:15:58] Zoe Licata: And you mentioned social is one way people can support. Are there other ways that are sort of in your mind that you can get direct support?

[01:16:05] Beer Festival: Social, email, anything that's coming out from your channels to talk to your fans. Like I said, we're going to try to do the same. I've already brought it up. Would love to start talking about sports bar toolkits. Let's do pigskin bingo on Monday Night Football. Let's do live trivia. Let's bring that stuff back. Shit, let's do karaoke at Buffalo Wild Wings. I'd do it.

[01:16:25] Brew Talks: We got the screens. We got the screens.

[01:16:27] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that'd be great. All right. Well, give it up for Lori, Jason, and Sam. Thanks to them. And that's our show for this week. Thanks to Zoe and Jess 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.