Brewbound Podcast: An Exit Interview with Naomi Neville of Allagash Brewing

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before The Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with The Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head The Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch The Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Next on The Brewbound Podcast, an exit interview with Naomi Neville from Allagash. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:48] Jessen Fonte: I'm Jessen Fonte. And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:52] Justin Kendall: And this week, we are going to conduct an exit interview with Allagash Brewing Director of Sales, Naomi Neville. She's leaving the company after 14 years. We'll discuss her time at the Portland, Maine Headquartered Craft Brewery, the future of craft and what she's looking for next. So stick around for that. But first, let's catch up a little bit. How y'all doing?

[00:01:16] Jessen Fonte: I'm doing great. I had a Hannah Montana versus Miley Cyrus spin class this morning. Stop it.

[00:01:22] Naomi Neville: That's amazing.

[00:01:23] Jessen Fonte: Yeah.

[00:01:24] Naomi Neville: Wow. Some excellent songs on that playlist.

[00:01:28] Justin Kendall: Conversations I did not think I would have when I woke up this morning.

[00:01:32] Naomi Neville: I feel like Justin has never heard these words in the same place in his life.

[00:01:37] Justin Kendall: No. And I don't even know how you would have like a versus spin class.

[00:01:44] Jessen Fonte: You have your playlist for spin class, right? Your songs that need to motivate you to go spin to a certain beat. And it was all songs by either Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus, who yes, are the same person, but very different musical styles.

[00:02:04] Justin Kendall: And which one is more motivating for you, Zoe?

[00:02:07] Jessen Fonte: Oh, Hannah Montana, definitely. A lot of throwbacks, a lot of songs I had not heard in at least a decade.

[00:02:14] Justin Kendall: You and me both. That's awesome.

[00:02:16] Jessen Fonte: Have you listened to a single Hannah Montana song?

[00:02:20] Justin Kendall: I couldn't name one off the top of my head. And it was actually news to me when you said that Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana.

[00:02:30] Jessen Fonte: Breaking this news that broke, I don't know how many years ago at this point, but. Yes, they are the same person. They made a whole movie about the conundrum of her being this, I mean, TV show and then movie about them being the same person.

[00:02:46] Naomi Neville: I was a big fan of Lizzie McGuire. I would go to that spin class if one exists. What I really wanted to do for my bachelorette party was get like a custom spin class and have it be all like Bruce songs and we could call it like Bruce Spinstein, but we didn't do that.

[00:03:04] Justin Kendall: What is the most motivating Bruce Springsteen spin class song?

[00:03:09] Naomi Neville: I don't know. I've never been in a spin class where they play him.

[00:03:12] Justin Kendall: Hmm.

[00:03:13] Naomi Neville: I also haven't spun in probably about a year. I feel like this time last year I was finally starting to get too big for that. But yeah, man, like I feel like maybe like Badlands would be a good one.

[00:03:23] Justin Kendall: Yeah, definitely Badlands. Or Night. Night's short. I mean, Dancing in the Dark. I could get into that. It's a nice flat road. Yeah.

[00:03:33] Jessen Fonte: It gets some themes in there with like the lighting of the room too, you know?

[00:03:37] Naomi Neville: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. The only dedicated Bruce playlist I have lately is Cora's Nap Jams with a Z, in which the most played song is Racing in the Street, because that's what my weirdo baby falls asleep best to. But lately she does not stay asleep. So that's why I look like this.

[00:03:57] Justin Kendall: Yeah. You got to take what you can get. I mean, we have a song that plays on repeat all night, every night that I just know is Moon's song.

[00:04:07] Naomi Neville: Yeah, but it has a name, which you told us the other day and I forgot.

[00:04:10] Justin Kendall: I did. And I forgot it too, but I hope that artist is getting some major royalties off of Sophie.

[00:04:16] Naomi Neville: I mean, Sophie must be in, like, the top 0.0001% of listeners.

[00:04:22] Justin Kendall: Without question, this artist has to be like, wait a second, like, why am I spiking in this, like, small Iowa town? Yoto player. It's great. Got a big fan. Big fan of Lil Sophie. Yeah. Well, anything out of the weekend that really grabbed you in the Bev Alc space? Did you track the... the big beer ads during the football games, like our friend Sean McNulty from the weekend newsletter. Did you avoid the games? Anything stand out to you coming out of the weekend?

[00:04:56] Naomi Neville: So yes, I did watch the game for a little bit. I believe it was the second of the games. And what struck me was that there were no beer ads, but I saw a million, like, Ozempic and McGovey ads. So I know, you know, I know we had Trevor and Nadine from Bernstein to talk about this on the pod a couple months ago. it by and large sounds like these weight loss drugs might not be an issue for beer based on, you know, who they target demographically, more of an issue for say, like a buttery chard maker, but a lot of ads for that stuff. And I didn't see any beer commercials, but I was also doing bath time and bedtime and not entirely watching.

[00:05:40] Justin Kendall: Bill Nuland's outright scoffed at the notion that there was an issue with any of these weight loss drugs, but I don't know. It's something that we keep seeing in analyst reports and something I guess we'll watch for now, but I missed the Chill Train ad. I never saw it, so I have no idea what the teaser even was for that.

[00:06:01] Naomi Neville: So I was texting with Sean about that, actually, and he told me it was very like, if you are not in the know in the manner that we are, you would have no idea. Yeah. Like made some veiled references to like mountain refreshment. no it was very like veiled train references but again i don't know that there are legions of chill train fans out there who are just waiting and you know they hear these like little easter eggs and are like ah the train it's coming like i don't think that's gonna happen and i feel like chill train might be overshadowed by the return of the geico cavemen that i also saw this weekend

[00:06:43] Jessen Fonte: So apparently nostalgia continues to be a theme. And I think more people are going to be noticing the cavemen than the children. My personal opinion.

[00:06:53] Naomi Neville: Isn't it a bit nostalgic for the Goyco cavemen? You remember when they had a TV show? Like, come on. What stage of capitalism is that? They had like a network sitcom.

[00:07:04] Justin Kendall: I do remember.

[00:07:05] Naomi Neville: It didn't last. I think they got like maybe half a season. This is not a real Stanley Cup. Don't think I'm fancy.

[00:07:12] Justin Kendall: You're not drinking lead?

[00:07:13] Naomi Neville: I mean, this is a knockoff from Nordstrom Rack, so probably half the lead.

[00:07:18] Justin Kendall: Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. Well, let's get into the news of the week. And, you know, we'll talk a little bit about AB Super Bowl ads later. One of the things that came out last week was the AB taproom closures. They shut down the Sacramento outpost of Golden Road, and they also shut down the Wynwood Brewing location in Miami, but they're transferring or combining operations with Beza Sur. I believe you covered it, Zoe. So what is exactly going on here?

[00:07:52] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, so it seems like, I mean, we've seen AB kind of shifting around its craft stuff quite significantly over the past year. And this is just another step in doing that, where they're looking, this is the same thing that they did with Platform, kind of, right? Very similar, where they are kind of getting rid of the physical presence of this brand, but they're moving it to another facility that they own. So this is moving to Vezasir. It's still going to be like, this is where you could go and get a Wynwood beer. So that still is going to have some sort of physical presence, but platform, we know just moved solely to production of the three beers. And that's the only way that that brand exists now. But yeah, they're definitely consolidating a lot with their craft brands. I mean, we saw them get rid of eight total, seven of them beer brands last year, as seldom to Tilray, so this is another step in that. And as we also found out that Bezos Sur location, this future is also unknown, that has been listed. We don't know what will happen. I believe they still have a contract for the location. So if it does, so they can still work out of it.

[00:09:07] Justin Kendall: Yeah. If you have $8 million, you can own the VASA served building and you can charge AB rent. I believe it increases about 3% annually and they have a lease until if I'm remembering right, July, 2028. So they still have. a good chunk of time left on that lease and there's an option on renewal. I went down the real estate rabbit hole, as you can tell from my knowledge of this. But this has been a question that we had when the CBA Anheuser-Busch deal went down, when Anheuser-Busch bought out the remaining stake in CBA, and they took on all these crap brands. And now Wynwood is one of the last ones from the CBA portfolio standing. Of course, they have Kona on the mainland, but I think they're down to four, right? It's Kona, Wynwood, Omission, and Cisco. And they've divested of Widmer and Redhook,

[00:10:07] Naomi Neville: Yeah, well, because when, you know, AB did finally complete its acquisition of CBA, there was a lot of duplicative brands, like they had a lot of geographic overlap. So it does seem to me like, you know, the AB craft portfolio finally kind of has what they've wanted all along, which I think is one player in each region. So we broke this down when we were chatting about this news last week, but for the Northeast, they've got Cisco, for the Mid-Atlantic, they've got Devil's Backbone in Virginia, but that brand is doing a lot of RTDs. So it'd be interesting to see what happens there if they keep going that way. The Southeast, they've got Wicked Weed. I know back in the spring, right before I went out on leave when Cora was born, they had sold Appalachian Mountain back to its founders, so that was one way to get rid of like the CBA duplicates. Florida now it's just Vasa Sur. Wynwood is kind of around in name. Texas has Carbach. Midwest has Goose Island. Southwest has Four Peaks. California Shauna Golden Road. And the Pac Northwest has Elysian. So Yeah, there you go. One craft brand for all major markets. I remember back in my old life, you know, the category management team would always point out to those of us in marketing how, not always, but it was discussed. You know, ideally, AB would be able to have this like plug and play ideal draft setup or shelf set where they've got their core brands, their import brands and swap in and out their local craft player. And now they've got a tidy little way to do that.

[00:11:46] Justin Kendall: And in my history of covering Craft Brew Alliance, With the Wynwood brand, I remember Andy Thomas talking about La Rubia Blondel being sort of a brand that they thought could break out. And I think that they still might see that potential there, maybe not to the level that they once did, but Andy is running craft for Anheuser-Busch. So I can see why that brand lives on at least, you know, through Vezaser or he's found a way to keep it going.

[00:12:19] Naomi Neville: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what Boston Beard did with Concrete Beach. They had their Havana lager. So when they shut down Concrete Beach, they said that this will continue on in distro. And maybe we should follow up on that because I'd be interested to see, but just an interesting lesson in like the Miami craft scene. But when would a past Brewbond Pitchland winner know?

[00:12:39] Justin Kendall: Yep, absolutely. And then you pointed out the Boston beer connection with Concrete Beach. And while you were digging around on real estate, you figured out, discovered whatever that that location that was Concrete Beach and then became a Dogfish Head taproom is still vacant.

[00:12:58] Naomi Neville: Yeah. So that's, you know, what, that's how we found the Veza Sur listing was, you know, we, and we'll get into this story next, but you know, rent's been an issue for a lot of craft brewers and it's not just the small ones, it's the big ones too. And in what, September of 22, Boston Beer said they were closing down Dogfish Miami, and that is well over a year ago now. So I just thought to myself, hey, I wonder if anything went into that spot. Did we have a hermit crabbing? Googled the address only to find that it's still listed for rent for like, 1.13 million dollars a year. Yeah. But I find that personally annoying that like I'm going to date myself here, but like back when I was, you know, Zoe's age and younger in downtown Boston, we had this bar called the Purple Shamrock, like right on that row of bars next to Faneuil Hall, which was a great place to hang out. I believe I was invited to leave once on my birthday. And look, I was wearing heels that were too high and I am clumsy. It is not that I was overstirred, but I can see how the bouncer would think that. But they, you know, their rent got increased a lot and they had to close and they were closed for so long, like years. And it was just like, this is such a waste of like real estate right in the central business district. It's just like, I think you should have to pay like some kind of agreed tax. If you raise the rent, force out a tenant, and then you're dealing with like a vacant spot forever. Yeah, it should be punished.

[00:14:17] Jessen Fonte: We talked about this when the Dogfish News came out, too, that Wynwood has had like that area in Miami has had significant issues with like it became the hip new area with like lots of new fresh businesses, lots of kind of luxury condos. And it turned into a place where the rent went up and then no one could afford to be there. So that whole area is I think even if AB wasn't doing as much activity with its craft brands as it is right now, that space would definitely still be in question.

[00:14:52] Naomi Neville: Yeah, the Miami craft scene is interesting because you've seen like a few brands that like were propped up by bigger players that just kind of were invented.

[00:15:01] Justin Kendall: Is it Sir?

[00:15:03] Naomi Neville: of Vasa Sur, exactly. I mean, Vasa Sur was sued a few years ago, and I believe this case got dismissed, but some consumers sued Anheuser-Busch because they said they felt they were misled. They thought that this was a small craft brand founded by Hispanic founders, which was not the case. I feel like you've seen a few things pop up here that do have a bit of a Latin flair to them that are not founded by Latino or Latina entrepreneurs. They're founded by these major companies like Concrete Peach.

[00:15:32] Justin Kendall: But Wynwood is one of those authentic brands.

[00:15:35] Naomi Neville: Exactly. And look at them now.

[00:15:37] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And the writing was essentially on the wall. AB was never going to maintain like two craft breweries, you know, within what, 10 minutes of each other? Not even that?

[00:15:48] Naomi Neville: If that. Yeah. If that. And then I know there's like La Tropicale, which is propped up by Heineken, but that is like a brand that like dates back to Cuba, like of a century ago.

[00:15:59] Justin Kendall: Right.

[00:16:00] Naomi Neville: So interesting.

[00:16:02] Justin Kendall: Well, you talked about rent. Let's talk about rent. Oh boy. Let's talk about rent. We got to fill our New Jersey quotient. This is a very interesting story. Yeah. A serious problem. And you know, Boardwalk Brewing was essentially forced out by its landlord. It's filed for bankruptcy. And tell me what's going on here because you talked to Jamie Quelly, the founder.

[00:16:26] Naomi Neville: I did. So Forgotten Boardwalk is a brewery in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which is like right across the river from Philly. And they're almost 10 years old. Like they opened in 2014. Like that's as far as New Jersey craft brewers go, that's old and established. They're like an elder stateswoman of the New Jersey craft beer industry. And a few weeks ago, Forgotten Boardwalk posted on social, emailed their newsletter subscribers and said, hey, you know, we are closing. February 29th is the last day. Our landlord, they had some pretty serious words for their landlord. I'm going to quote them because I thought they were pretty. pretty powerful, but basically saying their landlord forced them out. And Jamie described to me a situation that sounded pretty awful. Like, you know, she was trying to renegotiate her lease. She was up for renewal and, you know, wasn't really getting anywhere with the landlord. And then one day, you know, she's there in an industrial building with one neighbor also in the same building. And people from that neighbor came in and were like taking measurements and like looking all around and saying like, Hey, like we're, we're moving in here and we need to renovate. She said, what are you talking about? Like, this is where my business lives. And that was in September. But by December, landlord told her deal was done and, you know, they were giving her space over to this neighbor. But but the the words that Forgotten Boardwalk had for their fans was we quote, we have vigorously tried to sign a lease extension with our landlord to no avail as our next door neighbor has leased out the space from underneath us. We are extremely disappointed and quite frankly, appalled at the actions of both companies and their adamant refusals to negotiate with us. you. So, you know, I talked to Jamie and she, she's bummed, but she is, you know, had even put out in her notice that they were closing to fans said, Hey, if you have any business opportunities for us, let us know. So she's hearing from all sorts of people about all sorts of things. But I asked her, what would she like to do next? And she had some great ideas. She said she would love to open a fully liquor licensed brew pub. That is not like fork and knife sit down restaurant, but it focuses on boardwalk inspired snacks. like butterfly fries and funnel cake and like basically like the best foods in the world. And she would like to have, you know, like musicians come in and maybe she could open in the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City. It was like, Jamie, like, I think you got something here and I think this is what you should do. But all of that's easier said than done, particularly from, you know, somebody like me who's never owned and operated a business. But I even said to her, I was like, hey, you know, like New Jersey just overturned its ridiculously draconian taproom restrictions. Does that mean anything? And she said, no. She called that a step out of the stone age, but even the new laws wouldn't have been enough to save them from where they are. She could continue to contract through the brand and self-distribute, but she said that's her least favorite option. Doesn't have a lot of heart for that avenue. So we'll see, but you know, they're hardly alone. up here in Massachusetts. Bone Up Brewing in Everett, similar situation. They closed their doors on December 31st, could not reach an agreement with the landlord. They'd been trying to expand within their spot for years, and that never worked out for them. I just pulled up a couple quick references, you know, in Pittsburgh, New York, near Rochester, seven story. shut down in June 2023. Their landlord elected not to renew their lease and they even noted in their farewell message like tough pill to swallow because you know we've had five years of growth and our best year yet is on the horizon. It just sucks. If you don't own your space, you're at the mercy of someone else, but there's a lot of benefits to not owning your space. And I think that's why we see things like what we saw with Treehouse, where, you know, Treehouse co-owners started a real estate company to buy real estate and lease it back to Treehouse. And that's a fairly common arrangement.

[00:20:15] Justin Kendall: second chance in San Diego, another case of, you know, rent going up and not reaching a deal. So it happens. And then you have a case that isn't necessarily the same as these, which is in Houston, which is Buffalo Brew, which has had a number of issues, but apparently has defaulted on its lease.

[00:20:37] Naomi Neville: Yeah, that was a tough one. Buffalo Bayou Brewing in Houston, we've covered them and their financial issues before. They used crowdfunding to raise a million dollars to build out their space in this new, you know, fancy high-end development. Crown funded a million dollars. They defaulted on what they owed to investors there, their landlord. basically said that he was tired of the game stories and rabbits being pulled out of hats and was moving to evict them as of last week. But it sounds like they knew it was coming because, you know, somebody who had spoken to the local Houston outlet that we were referencing said employees knew they got their last paychecks. A lot of them had new jobs lined up. So we'll see. I mean, I think what we're seeing here is a lot of plans that were made pre-COVID and, you know, the landscape looks different and it's hard to run the numbers and see that they don't match up anymore. But that's where we are, you know, it's tough out there.

[00:21:39] Jessen Fonte: It's like extra unfortunate seeing the leasing problems happen to the breweries that are still finding like growth and success in like the craft market that it is right now. And so even if you are able to pass that pretty difficult threshold, you could still can't do anything about something like their landlord telling you, no, you can't be here anymore. So it's just like an added barrier for some of these craft breweries to just find success right now. I think it was very appropriate that Forgotten Boardwalk has a new beer out as well for anybody before they shut down. That is called Apparently Our Landlord Sucks. It's a Paris saison. So good on them for being a little petty before the end.

[00:22:26] Naomi Neville: Extremely petty. We love to see it.

[00:22:28] Jessen Fonte: Yeah.

[00:22:29] Allagash Brewing: I mean, I don't hate it. I kind of love that. This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at craftbrewersconference.com.

[00:22:53] Justin Kendall: We can talk about the issues that the industry has and rent is one of them. Another Round is, you know, the price of beer is going up and it went up. Let's see, 3.6% year over year last year, the average case price for craft beer was $42 and 41 cents. And that 3.6% is the craft price increase year over year. So that's $4.35 more than it was in 2020 when it was $38.06 a case, and it was $1.49 more than 2022 at $40.92. So I don't know, man. It seems like the pricing is out of whack, especially when it compares to Wine and Spirits, that's something that RBC Capital analyst Nick Moody put out in his latest analyst report, which said that the beer industry needs to change its narrative. And he's essentially saying that it's gotta be about the brands. Strong brands and strong marketing are the way to turning around these soft beer industry trends. And a lot of the issues he sees are trickling down from the top players. And he mentions a few that buck those trends. And of course, it's the Constellation Brands portfolio, New Belgium, AB's Kona Big Wave, which is still growing. He points out Blue Moon, which has had a little rockier time of late. But I thought that that was a pretty deft reading of where we are at as an industry and how things have sort of shifted over the last, well, where they haven't shifted enough over the last 20 years. And it's led us to this point where there's a perception that beer is a poor or bad category.

[00:24:59] Naomi Neville: Yeah, Nick had some really great points, especially how like you got to think about what is your responsibility as the category leader, you know, and the category leader has had quite a destabilizing year. So I don't know what exactly else could be expected, but clearly, like you said, they do have some brands that are doing well. But I feel like the past couple of years, the narrative coming through the industry is, The way that it's getting put together in my head is going to come out and be slightly offensive, but I feel like there's a lot of victim mentality going on a little bit, you know? And like, yeah, beer does have a lot of headwinds and a lot of things have been really difficult, but do spirits producers have these same gripes? I don't know. I don't mean for this to sound mean, and I'm sorry, but at the Beer Industry Summit a couple of weeks ago, we sat down and interviewed with Diageo Beer Company President, Rodney Williams, who has worked in beer, wine, and spirits. And I'm going to paraphrase Rodney, because I don't really exactly remember what he said exactly, but I mean, Zoe, you were there too. He basically said something about how like, we don't talk about this beer versus spirit situation over there in spirits. This is not something that occurs to us. The Mets hate the Yankees and the Yankees don't give a fig. Like, I wonder if that's what's happening. Maybe collectively beer needs to puff itself up a little bit.

[00:26:28] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, it's a lot of pointing fingers that like, oh, hey, spirits is taking away a lot of our consumers and a lot of our dollars and not being like, hey, look at what we have an industry have been doing to ourselves a little bit or not been doing and how that impacts the segment or the category or whatever. It's especially I think, you know, we see a lot on the craft side, the conversations about how we collectively can improve. But like overall beard, there's the coming together to be against spirits possibly but less I think of like okay let's work on this like messaging or let's work on like how how is beer even being perceived by people right now.

[00:27:10] Naomi Neville: Right it's like what can you do to win those drinkers back?

[00:27:14] Justin Kendall: You know what? I don't think there's one consumer who gives one shit about beer versus spirits or beer versus wine. They do not give one shit about it. And there's a lot of talking about it by trade organizations and the consumer didn't really care. or doesn't care at this point about like the, are you craft or are you not craft? They just don't care anymore. Like they had like that period where they cared too much about it and now it's just worn thin on them. And this conversation, you know, about beer versus spirits is an internal thing. And I get why. they have that conversation, but there's such an overfocus on it to the point where it takes the eye off of the category overall needing to better market itself to consumers.

[00:28:07] Naomi Neville: Yeah. Well, and like, if you look at like this newly legal generation of drinkers, what's different about them a lot, like when beer was riding high 20, 30 years ago, they didn't really need to worry about appealing to women or to drinkers of color. And now that's part of the equation, like Gen Z is far more diverse. And, you know, our friend, Riccardo Rabobank had that study a couple of years ago now that from 21 to 25 women now edge out men as the majority. It's a very slim majority, but there are now more female drinkers than male. So what has beer been doing to appeal to any of these people? by and large, I'd say not a whole lot. So complaining about tax equivalencies and stuff like that is, you know, you're able to get some legislative wins and that's great. But explaining that to a consumer, like immediately the eyes glaze over because I've been doing that for years. In fact, my friends wish I would shut the fuck up about it. It's just not something that's going to get you drinkers. It's tough. I get it. There's a lot. This is a difficult industry because you've got a lot of audiences. And if you're a supplier, your biggest audience, your biggest customer is your distributor. That is who you far and away, number one, need to be appealing to. And that can be tough because look at what that group of people looks like. So you've got to make sure that you are explaining, you know, newer marketing trends to some of the more old guard members of the middle tier in a way that's appealing. Like I remember when Truly was new and Erika Taylor, who was on Truly then and is now in charge of Twisted Tea, had to explain influencers at ABPs. She did a great job, but like, it was tough. Cause like these guys had no idea what an influencer was. Right. So you've got a few things. You've got to appease the distributors. You've got to make sure you've got something that's going to work at retail. And you also need to be talking to consumers at the same time. And a lot of these messages can be different. And that's hard because they all need to ladder up to the same goal. And this is why I was a terrible mere marketer because it's very difficult.

[00:30:19] Justin Kendall: And I can't remember how many years ago, but it was Corngate, which came out of the Super Bowl. It blew up the last category awareness, you know, unity effort, which Molson Coors pulled out of. And there was a whole, a whole mess and a lawsuit and everything in between. So I just thought that that was something that, you know, was worth talking about because there is definitely a relevance issue that, you know, you're bucking the trends on and, It takes those larger companies to sort of do the heavy lifting marketing toward consumers. And I guess, you know, we're talking about chill trains and stuff like that, you know, and will that resonate with the new consumers? It probably has a better chance of resonating with the core, like 55 plus consumers, but I don't know.

[00:31:13] Naomi Neville: But I'm just glad that if Coors Light's going back into the, you know, backlog of its marketing, we're going with the train and not the twins.

[00:31:20] Justin Kendall: There's going to be a very angry twin out there.

[00:31:23] Naomi Neville: Well, fight me in my email.

[00:31:27] Justin Kendall: All right, let's play Another Round of Tabbing Out. We're going to stick with the Super Bowl commercial theme, at least for this week in the marketing. Anheuser-Busch has released several teaser trailers for its ads. It's going to focus on Bud Light, Nickelodeon Ultra, and Budweiser this year. No other brands. Two and a half minutes of ad time, which is supposedly the most of any Bev Alk supplier out there. And they're leaning on some big names. And one of the ads features Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso himself. They are investing a lot. They're pulling in a lot of celebrities. Are you buying Another Round that Ted Lasso, the Clydesdales, Dan Marino, Lionel Messi, a soccer playing dog, and whoever else they, or whatever else they dig up in the next few weeks, can help AB turn around its image? Or are you Tabbing Out that these efforts are going to appeal to folks who are sort of digging their heels in?

[00:32:28] Naomi Neville: I feel like if there's anybody that can thread the needle between the two Americas, it's probably Ted Lasso, right?

[00:32:36] Jessen Fonte: Potentially. Yeah. He does have the Southern charm, but with some more kumbaya.

[00:32:47] Justin Kendall: I believe the most streamed show last year was Ted Lasso.

[00:32:52] Jessen Fonte: I don't know, I'm just so sick of talking about AB's attempts to fix whatever situations it has going on. And I don't think consumers really care as much as we might think they do about these things anymore, like about like Super Bowl ads or marketing, at least on television. It just doesn't seem to stand out as much anymore. and that sponsorships potentially do or collaborations with influencers as we've seen do like those things that can kind of be more of a part of your day-to-day life that you're seeing all the time but I just I don't know I don't think I might be a pessimist about this but I just don't see it having any significant impact and I'm greatly looking forward to when we get to stop talking about this because I'm afraid

[00:33:50] Justin Kendall: Pop Quiz, who was in last year's Bud Light Super Bowl ad?

[00:33:54] Jessen Fonte: Did they even have one last year?

[00:33:55] Justin Kendall: They did.

[00:33:57] Jessen Fonte: Couldn't tell you.

[00:33:58] Justin Kendall: He was a very popular actor at the time. They were on hold. His girlfriend was in the ad.

[00:34:08] Jessen Fonte: Oh, that guy. What's his name? Miles Teller. And his girlfriend, who honestly, they should have brought that back because Miles Teller's wife, who's in that commercial, is very close friends with Taylor Swift and has been in the box several times at Kansas City Games. And they could have totally capitalized on all the momentum that that is getting. And they kind of failed there.

[00:34:32] Naomi Neville: I mean, I feel like the people who are mad at Bud Light are also probably mad about Taylor Swift.

[00:34:37] Jessen Fonte: Yes, there's the whole liberal agenda conspiracy going on about that as well.

[00:34:43] Naomi Neville: AB is spending a ton of money and they have to, you know?

[00:34:48] Allagash White: Mm hmm.

[00:34:49] Naomi Neville: It'll be interesting to see what happens. I will, you know, Justin, when you named all of these people and also animals who are part of these ads, there was one thing that stood out to me, and I don't know that this is a problem for AB to fix right now, but it felt extremely male. So far, definitely.

[00:35:10] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. Extremely male, intentionally or not, also during a year when there might be a significant uptick in female watchers at the Super Bowl.

[00:35:20] Justin Kendall: But is Taylor Swift going to make it to the Super Bowl in time from her concert in Japan?

[00:35:26] Jessen Fonte: I think they've done the math and said yes. We know she's no stranger to private jets, so I think it might happen.

[00:35:34] Naomi Neville: Have you guys heard the theory that the whole reason she started dating Travis Kelce was so that because he had a game at the Jets coming up and it was if she goes to the game when you Google Taylor Swift Jets, that's what you get instead of her private jet. Have you heard this? I did see that.

[00:35:50] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:35:51] Naomi Neville: Conspiracy.

[00:35:52] Justin Kendall: I was going to say, get your flight trackers out.

[00:35:54] Naomi Neville: Yeah, well, and in the same vein, apparently the reason that the Disney movie Frozen is named as such was to get the SEO off being, you know, Walt Disney and his frozen head. No way.

[00:36:06] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. So if you search Disney Frozen, it's not going to be frozen Disney.

[00:36:14] Naomi Neville: Yeah. Wild times. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we'll see. Like, I always enjoy watching Super Bowl commercials more so than watching the actual Super Bowl. I have not watched any football to get a glimpse of Taylor. You know, I went to see her movie. I know what she looks like. I don't need to see her on the TV, but I do ask my husband, have you seen Taylor yet? And he will tell me yes or no. We'll see what happens. I don't know. I mean, AB needed to do something big and it sounds like they're trying, but.

[00:36:39] Justin Kendall: I mean, this is what Nick is talking about, right?

[00:36:42] Jessen Fonte: It feels so like old school strategy. And I just don't think that works. Which is fine. That worked 20 years ago. Right.

[00:36:53] Justin Kendall: It definitely is part of the old playbook of injecting humor, leaning on celebrity sports stars. I haven't thought about Dan Marino since maybe Ace Ventura.

[00:37:06] Naomi Neville: I hadn't thought about Ace Ventura and then it was on a couple of weeks ago and we watched a little bit and it was honestly traumatizing because it just like put me right back in middle school where every boy in my class was just quoting him nonstop for like years. Like I grew up with dudes who built their whole personality on imitating Ace Ventura. It was terrible. Wolf.

[00:37:25] Justin Kendall: My skin is crawling. So with that, thanks for listening, everyone.

[00:37:31] Naomi Neville: Okay, let's get to our featured interview with Allagash Brewing's very own Naomi Neville. Today we're joined by Allagash Director of Sales, Naomi Neville, who has recently announced that she'll be moving on from everyone's favorite Maine-based Belgian-inspired craft brewery after 14 years spreading the gospel of Allagash White. Naomi, first of all, it's always lovely to see you. How are you doing, buddy?

[00:37:58] The Brewbound: I'm good, Jess. Always good to see you too.

[00:38:02] Naomi Neville: Yeah, so I'm excited for the continuation of your adventures, but before we started recording this podcast, you and our technical director and, you know, audiovisual wizard, Joshua Pratt, were discussing our collective shared history, which long predates my time The Brewbound. So why don't you tell us and our listeners a little bit about the history The Brewbound and Alligash have together?

[00:38:29] The Brewbound: Yeah, it is. It's a long time. We should have asked Josh how many years ago it actually was that this happened. But I guess day one The Brewbound was a like a bus tour, like a coach. Bunch of people came up from Boston. I believe they went to Harpoon first. Then they came up to Allagash White they went to Shipyard and gritty with duffs, and then got back on the bus and went back to Boston is how I think it happened. There was a musician on the bus who played, I think, on the bus and then definitely played a couple of songs at Allagash White was way before we had like a proper tea studio, so we had like this basically tiny little closety area with a couple of taps. And it was on a Saturday, so we weren't really open. I just came in, or Sunday, I just came in to show them around. And I think, you know, just to mention, he has a photograph of me with a big sort of loud hailer microphone thing. That was because it was a whole, the whole bus was packed of people. So it was like 40 odd people, just me, trying to corral everybody around and show them around the brewery and basically yell at them through this like, loud hailer kind of thing. But yeah, and I wanted to give Josh's wife a shout out because I still own my brew baron coaster. Look at that nice sport coaster. That is made to last because I have used that on a daily basis since.

[00:39:49] Naomi Neville: Oh my God. So Josh just sent me a note to say all this went down in March of 2010. To put this in some context, in March of 2010, I was still writing for a newspaper at the Jersey Shore. Justin was maybe in Kansas City, maybe in Iowa. Yeah, maybe. And Zoe was in middle school.

[00:40:08] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, I was in seventh grade.

[00:40:12] Naomi Neville: So we've all come so far, but based on my count, you were also pretty new at Allagash White that time, right?

[00:40:18] The Brewbound: Yeah, if it was March of 2010, I was just about a year in.

[00:40:24] Naomi Neville: Okay, wow. So you've been in Allagash for 14, 15 years. That's the equivalent of several lifetimes in craft beer. Yes. In that time, Allagash has become a powerhouse. What has the ride been like from your perspective? Because we hear this story about the rise of Allagash from founder Rob Todd's perspective a lot, but I want to hear it from what it's been like from your vantage point.

[00:40:47] The Brewbound: Okay, yes, you're probably going to say very similar things to Rob, but when I first started in 2009, I was the first salesperson to start that Allagash White. Before that, we were using brokerage firms around the country. And so I was the first person in sales. Up until then, like Rob would travel around and he would talk to the brokers and work with them all across the country. So I joined on and did Half kind of sales analysis with my time and then a half sales in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. When I say sales analysis, this is when distributors used to, I'm going to say really old right now, but they used to fax us depletion reports. And then we would take these depletion reports, and we would basically enter them in Excel spreadsheets to see our trends. So this is, you know, before the advent of VIP and all the good stuff that we just flip our keys on now. This was very manual entry. And before I got here it really wasn't happening. So there was just folders ring binders full of these faxes that I had to go back a few years to try and figure out a where I was going where I was being sold how quickly it was getting sold and just try and get a handle on what was happening because at the time I think we were in like 26 states and we were spread really really far and wide without any official sales teams. You know our view was in places that probably shouldn't have been at that time and you know places that it was getting old and at the same time we couldn't keep up locally with the demand so I would go out up to Northern Maine Have a really great sales day, come back, and we're like, we don't have a beer. And so, you know, from 2009 to 2011, you know, I was talking with Rahul, I'm like, we can't keep doing this because we're shorting people where we have the sale, where it could be fresh, where we could support it, but then sending our beer to states where it just wasn't making any sense, and we were paying for the shipping to those places. 2009 to 2011, we did start pulling back from territories and in not so scientific way, really. We basically took a pen and drew a line, the Mendoza line of like, if you sell enough, you make it and we'll keep shipping to you. But if you don't, then we'll just part ways for now. The only exception to that was New Hampshire, which actually fell below the line at the time very far below the line, and it was like we can't not sold in New Hampshire you got to drive through it gets Massachusetts so. we still sold to them. And that's kind of how we ended up with this, what you might call a pretty bizarre distribution program at the time with California, Illinois, and Maine to Georgia. So it was definitely not exactly how most people would do it, but we were selling so much in some of these urban markets that we just couldn't put a lot of California, we couldn't put a lot of Illinois, because the brand was really resonating.

[00:43:48] Justin Kendall: This is something Rob has talked about is, you know, it was a lesson in going deep rather than going wide, but it still ends up in a unique way, as you pointed out, is there are these major metropolitan areas that you're still selling quite a bit of beer in. I mean, obviously Santa Monica is one of our favorites. Shea Jay, you know, the draft account there is just invaluable to us. But talk to us a little bit about, you know, the realization that it was better to go deep than wide at a time where everybody's sort of shotgunning everywhere.

[00:44:23] The Brewbound: Yeah. One of the sort of awakening moments for me was going, we got invited to a Whole Foods event in Austin, Texas, and we didn't have sales reps. So I went down and I did the event and we pulled samples from a distributor at the time there. And it was just all beer, nothing against them, a great wholesaler, but we didn't have the support down there. And we were just one of many brands sat in their warehouse. And I pulled all samples for that event. you know, we didn't win. It was like a star tasting event because one reason the beer was really old, but that just like brought it home. Like we're shipping beer to these places and it's sitting and it's getting old. And if we can't keep supplying local markets where it's fresh and people are really, it's really resonating, then it just doesn't make financial sense. And, you know, you're probably aware how much shipping Cost now, back in the day, I mean, it wasn't as expensive, but to just send a truck to somewhere like Texas or Oregon, I mean, it is a considerable cost on top of the beer. We just couldn't support it.

[00:45:30] Naomi Neville: And it's not easy. I remember right, it was like right before COVID shut everything down, but Rob was giving the keynote address at the New England Craft Brew Summit. So like February, March, 2020, and he'd showed a slide and I had gotten those images. I used those images to make a story. And that picture pops up on the internet a lot. It's two side-by-side maps. And in one of them is Allagash's sales map in 2005. So before your time, but distributing to 26 states, and only selling 5,000 barrels. And then by 2020, which was when Rob made the neighboring map, it was Allagash's current map at the time was maybe 17 states selling 100,000 barrels. So in 2022, according to BA data that I just pulled, Allagash produced almost 120,000 barrels sold in 20 states. You know, and some of them have only been added in the last few years. So you talked about retrenching. What was it like to go back to those states that you began to re-add in the last couple of years? What were those conversations with wholesalers like to say like, hey, we want to come back and here's our plan? How did that go?

[00:46:37] The Brewbound: So great question. Thank you. I think which states we've done this in. So Wisconsin happened during the pandemic. We were with a Sheehan house up there, Beachwood. So we've got a really good relationship with the Sheehan organization. So this was a very sort of COVID game time decision of like, hey, like, we need to sell some beer during this very tumultuous time where 70% of our business had gone away. So we opened that in COVID. Again, it's like, don't ever open anything in COVID. We also opened Florida in COVID, but during the time that we had pulled out and going back in again, the distributor that we had had sold. or close, I believe. Quite honestly, if we were going to go back to a lot of the states that we pulled out of, that would be the case in a lot of them. We were with very small craft distributors that have since sold to a large one or closed or merged with someone. That was a very different experience because that was meeting with distributors and analyzing the market and actually having the freedom to go back with whoever we wanted to in that state. Wisconsin, and then Western New York, we went back in with the Sheehan Network five, six years ago now. And then Western Pennsylvania, we opened pretty much as COVID happened. We actually hired someone who ended up not coming to the brewery to train for two years because we hired him like two days before the world shut down. Big shout out to Alan, he's awesome. It was great when you actually met him in person two years after you'd actually hired someone. So yeah, going back in is a mixture because the market's changed so much and the distributor networks have changed unbelievably.

[00:48:26] Naomi Neville: So I mean, what's the difference between working with like the Sheehan's and Reyes's of the world versus like the smaller craft guys? What's the experience like on both levels? Because I'm sure a few people have had the experience of working with both of them, but what's that been like for you? You know, what do you do with one versus what do you do with the other?

[00:48:45] The Brewbound: Yeah, it's definitely very different, even within She and Trey, it's very different. Every distributor has their pros and cons. So you go in when you're trying to evaluate a market that you want to go into, You go to retailer A, they'll rave by one distributor, and then you go to retailer B and they'll rave by the next distributor. I don't think we've ever gone into a state and it's been unanimously, you've got to go with distributor A. There is always pros and cons. People like their reps. Sometimes delivery days don't work for them, minimums don't work for them. So there's all these things to weigh up. Really, when we find that we go from a smaller craft-focused distributor to a bigger one, SKUs are rationalized. It makes sense. They have to be productive. They have to be as efficient as possible. Selling any kind of sort of specialty beer gets a lot harder. That's why your Allagash White changing to a real sort of old school seasonal program next year, which is different for us. But very much understood within the industry. So it's just a different mindset. They might not be as excited about craft beer and that's, you know, that's your job as a supplier to get them excited, to tell them why they should be selling your beer.

[00:50:00] Jessen Fonte: Speaking of skews and rationalizing things, not only has Allagash done the wholesale business a little bit differently in where you distribute, but also innovation a little bit differently. We've seen that Allagash has been a little bit more hesitant to put out some trendy styles. We didn't see an IPA come out from you in that core lineup till most recently, and really sticking true to those Belgian-inspired beers that Allagash White so good at. How does that come up from your side when you're talking potentially on like these sales calls or people asking you like, hey, can you please come out with some of these other things? Are you having to defend that approach? What is people's responses to that strategy?

[00:50:45] The Brewbound: I think that's a really interesting question. And also the answer has changed over the years. I think, you know, maybe even five or six years ago, we got a lot more of Am I with this come over that why are you doing this line extend why do this do that. And now I think in the last couple of years it's been like we are so glad that you stuck with it and you're putting all the resources behind that you make it easier for us to sell you know when. You go in and distribute a network and they've just picked up 20 brands from a sale. We go in and just be like, just sell out a white beard. You have it in these package sizes and these two draft sizes. Here's the tab handle, go. When you don't have something that is that powerful a brand, I think it makes it very hard to gain mind share. It has flipped. Every year we do the Tamron survey and that's always a question. You can put these individual questions in and that's always a question that we ask because we're always interested to see, and we have done some things that have been brought up from that survey, 19.2s, IPA. So we always want to see what our distributor network wants from us. But I would say it's started to be like, just focus on white, focus on white. Keep it simple.

[00:52:01] Justin Kendall: So with that strategy and having such a powerful brand that still isn't in some markets, namely one with a lot of corn, What is the runway that you see still for Allagash White ahead?

[00:52:17] The Brewbound: I do think it would be possible to be a national brand with Allagash White. We are biting at the heels of ShopTop right now, and that's a national brand, and we're in 19 states and DC, so we've got a strong selling story. It wouldn't surprise me if we're bigger than ShopTop next year in the off-premise scan data, but fingers crossed. I do think that a brand like Allagash White is relevant everywhere across the country. I mean, you see the success of Blue Moon over the years. They've done a great job with their marketing. They've done a fantastic job of telling people that drinking cloudy wheat beer is a good thing and they will enjoy it. And we benefited a lot from that because back in the day in 1995, nobody wanted to drink that style of beer. you know, Blue Moon, Millicore, they invested and they taught people about it. So I think it's a very relevant style. I think the taste of Allagash White as well, it's not your average beer taste. I feel like it can, now as people come into beer from other categories, like Fruited Punches and Salsas, you know, it can appeal to people that that kind of flavor forward, it's not too hoppy. I think it's a very approachable style. So I still think it's possible. I still think it's possible to have a national brand with one brand. Maybe not the whole portfolio. I think that's a stretch these days, but I do think one brand is doable.

[00:53:44] Justin Kendall: I think you're right. I think there is opportunities for some brands and like you said, one brand in a portfolio to make that play.

[00:53:54] The Brewbound: Yeah. Yeah. Keeping it as simple as possible for distributors right now. I just, I think that's my advice for anyone in the craft beer industry right now, like get behind it, get a selling story, get data behind it and use that to help your distributors sell your beer.

[00:54:12] Naomi Neville: I mean, I think if you wanted to open Iowa, somebody else in Massachusetts wouldn't have to mail your beer there for somebody else's birthday every year.

[00:54:21] Jessen Fonte: Co-op missions to ship some Allagash.

[00:54:25] Justin Kendall: It does make it easy to know what to send.

[00:54:29] Naomi Neville: I don't know who's doing that. It's certainly, you know, not a law-abiding citizen. No, it would not go through UPS or USPS. Definitely not. Never. So Naomi, this next question, I struggled with because I feel like it's a little cliche, but I think we do still need to talk about this stuff because You know, I spent part of my morning on a 100-person Zoom call of women in the beverage industry, and it was clearly something everybody wanted to do and something we need. So you've been a really highly visible woman in the male-dominated world of beer sales. How do you think this has affected your approach to sales calls, and how has it made you different as a leader?

[00:55:10] The Brewbound: Well, when I started as a sales rep on the streets, I don't think Main wholesalers had one woman on the sales team, you know, and they were wine and beer houses. So it was very unusual at the time in this area, even as far down as Massachusetts and, you know, in areas like Philadelphia, it was just more advanced. But it's definitely over the years, you know, definitely opened up. There's a lot more women in the industry. It gives you another perspective. Like, I think if you don't have women in your company, if you don't have women in leadership in your company, you're missing out on, you know, what is it, 51% of the drinking population right now on a pot that's growing. So I think you absolutely need to have women, you know, on your board or at the executive level, as well as all throughout your company. It needs to be a mix.

[00:56:03] Naomi Neville: I mean, like, how is it if, like, change your approach to sales calls? And how does it inform your leadership style?

[00:56:09] The Brewbound: Sales calls, honestly, there are still people that if you walk in with a mail, will look at the mail thinking that they're the one that's in charge. And I don't know if that's ever going to change. So you have to be, you know, strong in your sales calls and strong in your knowledge. And you have to be prepared to be like, no, I'm the one talking to you right now. Again, it's just a different perspective. I work with so many great male leaders. I've seen them all throughout the industry and I've seen some really great female leaders too. It helps to get different perspectives. I have really enjoyed leading a team here. I think it's encouraged more of a diverse applicant pool and I don't know if it makes me a different leader. A lot of people are like, don't make her angry. But if I get angry, I'm really angry, so don't make me angry. But I don't know if I'm any different to how a male would lead, I guess. I have a lot of compassion for people, but I've met male leaders exactly like that, too. And I'm always excited when someone on my team excels or someone moves on and gets a sales director job somewhere else or sales management. It's really nice to see people growing within an organization and then forming their own careers and paths after that.

[00:57:31] Justin Kendall: I want to rewind a little bit to the start with you. When Rob met you and pitched you on joining Allagash White was that pitch? Because I imagine in 2009, there was a lot of education that still needed to go into telling people what a craft brewery was. But you know, as far as a job goes, what was his pitch to you on joining the brewery? How did he sell it?

[00:57:58] The Brewbound: I absolutely love that question, Justin, because Rob definitely did not pitch me. I pitched Rob for probably about two years on me joining his company. So that probably involves my sales stylist. I wanted to work for Algash. I saw a company that wasn't young at that stage and we've been around for a while, but was making phenomenal beer and was struggling to fulfill orders at the time. And that was affecting the chain of bars that I was working with at the time. And I knew that all the pieces were in the right place to be a crazy success and to see growth. needed some organization, I guess. And that's, I was like, Oh, I would really love to work for Rob and Jason, our brewmaster. They used to come into the trade about that I work with a lot. And you know, they're just such nice people. I was like, I would love to do this, a local main company, I see a ton of potential. And so I pitched him over a couple of years. And then eventually, he said yes. So I don't know if he had to talk me into it. I think it was like, you want to drop that? Okay.

[00:59:06] Justin Kendall: What was the winning pitch? What turned the tide?

[00:59:09] The Brewbound: I honestly think it was what I said to him, like, you've just lost a draft line in a really great Irish bar down in New Hampshire because your distributor did not get back to that account in the appropriate amount of time and did not follow up. Like people want your beer, you got to get it to them. And I think maybe that was the winning pitch. I don't know. Maybe I just wore him down. He's like, stop bothering me. But yeah, it was a very different company at the time. I think it was 13, 14 of us, and we all sat around the break room table on Fridays and drank beer together. So yeah, very, very different, very small company. And that was very appealing to me at the time.

[00:59:53] Jessen Fonte: Well, since then, you've now grown that sales team to 35 reps now. Yes. Yeah. That's a lot. And that's a lot of like growth in that. And when you were looking for those people that you wanted to bring on and join that team, what were you looking for? What were the characteristics that fit into somebody who would be a good sales rep for Allagash? And did that change at all as the strategy for Allagash adapted over the years?

[01:00:21] The Brewbound: Yeah, I mean, you always want to work with people that are hardworking, passionate, but you know, what they're passionate about, it used to be back in the day, everyone wanted someone that was passionate about craft beer, and now you just want someone that's passionate, you know, someone that like, can work hard, so you know, is really caring, can do the job well, is reliable, like, If they can sell something else, that's good too. I don't think coming in with this craft beer, love and passion is as important as it was. I think you have to learn to... Sales reps have to take a lot of rejection and you have to be okay with hearing no and saying, okay then. I'll come back next week. How about this? And so it's always worried me when we've hired people from our tasting room that really want to get into sales because people come to the tasting room because they want to taste your beer. And when you move people out into the trade without that support system, and they hear no five times a day and they can't shake it off and they can't pull through it, like that can be soul-destroying for people. So you got to make sure that the person you're hiring is prepared for that and can fight against it and will come back positively the next day. And we've had some really awesome success stories of promoting people from the tasting room too, of people that have like, nope, I get how hard this could be, but I want to do it. And we've had, I mean, All five, six people from our tasting room join our sales team over the years and it's been very successful. But it's not for everybody. Being rejected is not for everybody.

[01:02:00] Jessen Fonte: That would not be for me. I'm going to pass on that one.

[01:02:05] The Brewbound: I can do it face-to-face, but I could not call people up and get rejected. That would be the best job ever. Face-to-face, I feel like I can shake it off a bit more.

[01:02:17] Naomi Neville: I am one of those tasting room tour center to full-time job people. And that pipeline, like you said, it's not very populated, but I would still do Saturdays at the tour center when I had my marketing job. And whenever we would talk about styles or whatever, I would be like, oh, well, we had this beer on and people really liked it this weekend, or somebody came in for a tour and they said this, and they really like our brand. And occasionally somebody would have to be like, hey, Jess, these are self-selecting people. They're coming to our brewery because they already like us. the learnings here aren't what you think they are.

[01:02:49] The Brewbound: It's a really good point. Yeah. They are the superfan because they have come and they have sought you out and they have spent hours on your premises tasting your beer. Yeah. It's not how everybody treats you.

[01:03:02] Naomi Neville: No. And that was like one of my biggest learning curves was to be like, what? Not everybody loves Boston lager with a burning, fiery passion. Like what?

[01:03:14] Justin Kendall: It was a rough day.

[01:03:16] Naomi Neville: It was like finding out the truth about the Easter Bunny. So Naomi, we've talked, I don't know, we just talked about your leadership style. I mean, like you've led this team through some really challenging years in beer and, you know, Allagash and particularly your HR director, Celine, has been really, really like open about like mental health struggles. You know, you guys allotted company funds to allow anybody that wanted to go for counseling to go get some therapy nearby. Like, that's great. But what have you learned leading a team of very social people during a really challenging time for that. And what advice would you have for other leaders of people going through similar situations?

[01:03:55] The Brewbound: Yeah, I mean, the immediacy of the shutdown of COVID was pretty tough for people. Like you just said, these are social people, they like to be out, they thrive on interaction and to go from like 100 to zero overnight was really tough. We just try as hard as possible to keep in communication with everybody because it's so easy in an outside sales rep job to feel like you're on an island and it's only you. if you lose that connection to the brewery or anything that you sell in an outside role. That's when bad things happen. You really want to keep people as connected as possible. Try and do as much team interaction as possible. We have full sales calls. We have in-person, again, full company meetings where the sales team fly in from all over the country. So we get to hang out with them for a week and we do some training and then just a lot of it's about interacting with different departments, going to see a hop yard or going to see a moth house and going downtown Portland and grabbing beers and just like really creating a sort of like a community when they come back in to make sure that they are felt supported by us. But it has been hard and honestly the mental health resources that Allagash has provided have definitely been used and definitely been appreciated. I think you know as a One of my friends left a brewery up here recently and started his own mental health in the beverage industry sort of help I sort of classes. I was like, that's great because there is so much sort of need out there for that kind of thing, especially right now. But just try to keep people as connected as possible in varied ways. It's just, it's been a challenge, but it's also a really fun challenge to be like, oh, we got the sales team coming in. What are we going to do this time? you know, give them these experiences that they wouldn't get if they didn't work for Allagash. So that's always the fun part.

[01:05:51] Justin Kendall: That's fantastic. So we know craft has been challenged. It's no surprise to anybody. The last couple of years have been really challenging, but I'm going to steal something from NBWA chief economist, Lester Jones, and ask you this question. If you were a life coach for the craft beer industry, What would your advice be for it on coming out of this challenging period?

[01:06:20] The Brewbound: It may not be the same advice that anyone else would give, maybe, but mine would be keep it simple. I think that we have made craft beer incredibly complicated over the last 15 years that I've really been involved in it. Every time I go to different countries, I'm made more aware of that. So craft beer exploded, flavor exploded, and we went off into a million different tangents, and then a million different pieces of innovation, and then innovation building on innovation. And it has gotten very complicated. And I think that the best thing we can do is simplify, like create styles that people want to drink, that you can have more than one of. And just really keep your portfolio streamlined. That's going to help you. It's going to help your distributors. It's going to help the retailers. Like, let's give the retailers brands that are going to sell and pull through. And let's not try to force 15 other brands on them that aren't going to do that. Like, I think that would probably be my... That does sound like a life coaching, right? Keep things simple. I feel like that's good.

[01:07:21] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Absolutely.

[01:07:22] The Brewbound: Get some exercise.

[01:07:25] Justin Kendall: Stay focused.

[01:07:28] Jessen Fonte: Definitely. This might be a little contradictory to what you just said, but, you know, we talked about how Allagash White super disciplined with their approach to innovation. Was there any styles or any particular trends that you had like FOMO about that you wished there was an Allagash version just for your own personal pleasure?

[01:07:49] The Brewbound: Ooh, it's still a trend, but I would love a non-alcoholic Allagash White for sure. So my brother doesn't drink anymore and I want to be able to like have allagash beer with him. And I, I think, yeah, I would, I would love that.

[01:08:06] Naomi Neville: I would love that too. I would have loved that a year ago.

[01:08:09] The Brewbound: Now you need the alcohol, Jess.

[01:08:15] Naomi Neville: Now, now we need it. So one thing that's always interesting to me about craft is that we can say that, like, generally by and large, the trends start out West and move East. But our little corner of the world in New England has started some trends of its own lately. But, you know, how has being in Maine shaped your view of craft beer?

[01:08:36] The Brewbound: You know what? Maine is a really friendly craft beer. state. I know that's not always true. I travel around a lot for work so I know it's not always the case but I have really been lucky that I grew up in Craft Beer in Maine because it's so supportive and it's a great group of people and people are really friendly here to each other and want to see everybody succeed. It's been interesting, honestly, the effect on tourism that craft beer has had. I mean, I don't know the current stats on this, but it's a huge part of our economy. It's a huge part of why people come to Maine. And then obviously you have the New England IPA trend. So that's not a beer style that I particularly like, but it's a hazy beer and we do a hazy beer. So it's interesting to see what develops where and why it does. doesn't necessarily seem any primal reason why New England has that style. But it is a really exciting state for craft beer. I mean, I don't know if last time anyone came to bathe, but like, you're in like a little country road and you're like, that's another brewery opening. And you're like, in the middle of nowhere. And like, how is this possible? But yet it is and they keep opening. So there's a lot going on here still.

[01:09:55] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, it's exciting. I'm very happy that it's so close to us so we can have our little escape to Maine. You can never get to all the breweries in just one trip. It has to be multiple trips.

[01:10:07] The Brewbound: There's no way. There's breweries in East Portland, Maine, which is the most eastern part of the US, and Lubeck, Maine. Places in the middle of nowhere, really. It takes you five and a half hours to get to from Portland, and they're everywhere. It's amazing.

[01:10:22] Justin Kendall: I'd just be happy to get a buttered lobster roll at Eventide in Portland.

[01:10:28] The Brewbound: Should we send you that? We can send you that.

[01:10:30] Justin Kendall: I don't know. Does it travel very well?

[01:10:32] The Brewbound: Yeah. How well does that hold up? That could be a new birthday gift for Justin. A whole ballet lobster roll.

[01:10:38] Justin Kendall: That's a good idea.

[01:10:39] Naomi Neville: File this away, Zoe.

[01:10:41] Jessen Fonte: Okay.

[01:10:42] The Brewbound: Noted. This is like an advert for Eventide.

[01:10:47] Justin Kendall: So it's been, you know, a nice career at Allagash White is your favorite memory, I guess, over the last 14 years that you're kind of going to walk away with?

[01:11:00] The Brewbound: Oh, you know what? This is a question that I was like, I should probably think about this. I was like, there's too many memories.

[01:11:11] Naomi Neville: Oh, I mean, if it's the day The Brewbound visited you, none of us will be sad.

[01:11:15] The Brewbound: Yeah. Maybe it's my The Brewbound conference that I went to, which was very, very fun.

[01:11:20] Naomi Neville: Well, now we're going to cry.

[01:11:23] Justin Kendall: Well, hopefully it's not your The Brewbound conference.

[01:11:27] The Brewbound: That's right. That's right. Yeah. Last one with Allagash White guess. But I don't know. I mean, probably the first time the sales team came back into town after COVID, because we didn't do all company meetings for a couple of years. We were pretty safe. But I just remember that first time of like, God, I've seen you in like little tiny boxes for two years. And like, over the years, like you become close to people, you know, you watch them get married, have kids, send their kids to school, you know, and then it's like, to finally see them after two years, there was, you know, there was a lot of hugging. So that's probably one of my favorite memories.

[01:12:06] Justin Kendall: So now that you're stepping away from that, and you're going to have some time to breathe and maybe some time to figure out what's next. What are you sort of interested in? Or, you know, what do you sort of want next for life for this next chapter?

[01:12:21] The Brewbound: Well, I'd love to write for Blue Band and do their podcast. Just kidding.

[01:12:27] Justin Kendall: I mean, we could talk.

[01:12:30] Naomi Neville: I'll retire.

[01:12:33] The Brewbound: Honestly, talking to people about this, it's been 15 years. There were some jobs 15 years ago that don't exist anymore, and then a whole bunch of jobs that weren't around 15 years ago that now exist. I haven't thought about another job. I haven't thought about what I want to do. I'm going to take some time to figure it out. you know, maybe got another 15 years left in me work-wise. So, you know, what's next for the next 15 years? But yeah, I'd like to stay somewhat connected to the industry. I was in bars and restaurants before, so hopefully the hospitality, beer, beverage, I'd be very interested to stay, you know, that's what I love is, you know, this side of the industry. So yeah, it'll be something like that, but who knows?

[01:13:19] Justin Kendall: Awesome. Well, we're glad you're going to be sticking around, it sounds like, in some manner.

[01:13:24] Naomi Neville: Yeah. And, like, geographically, where do you want to be? You're hanging out in Maine.

[01:13:28] The Brewbound: I'm hanging out in Maine. Yeah, that was another question I get asked a lot, but it was like, this is where I live. And that's the other thing, it's like, you know, it might have to be more of a remote job because, you know, Maine has only a few jobs in certain industries. But yeah, I am sticking around in Maine. We'll see in the next election cycle, but I plan to stay in America. So we'll see. what happens.

[01:13:50] Naomi Neville: Fair, fair. So we can meet for beers and oysters somewhere in New Hampshire. Yes. So final final, what's your favorite alligash beer after 15 years?

[01:14:02] The Brewbound: Oh, I'm going to answer this one like Rob Todd. It's Allagash White, of course. When I first started, I was trying everything. All the stouts we made, I was obsessed with everything. And over the years, it's gotten more and more and more to white. I like some of our stouts. I love our Haunted House, releasing again this year, and our North Sky stout. But day to day, Allagash White, hands down.

[01:14:32] Naomi Neville: I had a feeling that's what you were going to go with.

[01:14:34] The Brewbound: Naomi, this has been a pleasure.

[01:14:41] Naomi Neville: It's like I said at the beginning, it's always a delight to see you. And we're so thrilled that you join us for like your exit interview. But we can't wait to see what's next. We hope you stay close. And we've just loved getting to know you and, you know, hanging out with you and stuff and drinking Allagash White, of course.

[01:14:58] The Brewbound: Well, thank you so much. It's been great getting to know you all too, and thanks for conducting my accident interview.

[01:15:05] Naomi Neville: Oh, of course.

[01:15:08] Justin Kendall: We'll just pass this over to Rob Todd.

[01:15:10] The Brewbound: Yeah, yeah, just let us say Todd. We'll be good.

[01:15:15] Naomi Neville: So that is our show for this week. We are so thankful to Naomi for joining us and so thankful to Ali Gash for introducing her to this world for all of us to get to know. Justin, Zoe, you guys are the best co-hosts anyone could ask for. Joshua Pratt, our technical wizard, where would we be without you? Absolutely nowhere. Also big shout out to our tech buddies, Joe and Ryan. And that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed the podcast. Let us know, podcast The Brewbound.com. and we will catch you next week with another fresh episode.