[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on the Brewbound Podcast, Bob Pease from the Brewers Association on his retirement. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:21] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:25] Justin Kendall: And this week we will have a conversation with Brewers Association President and CEO, Bob Pease, discussing his planned retirement in 2025. But before we do that, please like, rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast. And join us in Marina Del Rey, California in December for Brewbound Live. So that's December 11th and 12th. We're working on the program now. We've announced About almost a dozen speakers so far. We'll be announcing conversations in about a month or so. We'll announce that. But more speakers to come. We'll also have one-on-ones with retailers. We've got Whole Foods already signed up. We'll have at least, I would say, two more. So stay tuned for that. Brewbound Live coming up very fast.
[00:01:17] Speaker 1: Very exciting. Those one-to-ones are going to be a huge opportunity if you're at all interested in meeting with retailers. So be there, be square. Guys, I feel like we are reconvening after an enormous week of beer news. So where do you want to jump in?
[00:01:30] Justin Kendall: Do we want to jump in with the news or do we want to just see how Zoe's doing after a very long weekend? I think we should do that first. Absolutely.
[00:01:38] Jessica Infante: Yes, I'm alive. I made it. And my sister is married. Yay! It's very exciting. I am very tired, but we made it happen. They got married outside of my grandfather's house where my parents also got married. We basically had to do everything ourselves. So it was a very long week, but we got it done. And yeah.
[00:02:01] Speaker 1: D.I. weddings are fun though. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of had half a one so I know how tired you are. You know we can't let you talk about a social gathering of mostly Gen Z people without asking you what people were drinking.
[00:02:15] Jessica Infante: Yes. It's a little bit skewed because I was in charge of bringing most of the beer products. So I had to kind of cater to an array of folks. So we had Modellos, McUltras, Allagash White, of course, some founders, All Day IPAs. My dad is apparently into hams right now, so those made their way into the cooler. And then they also had two signature cocktails, one with gin and one with bourbon, which were very popular. And it wouldn't be a Northfield wedding without additional BYOB because folks will drink whatever they want to drink. So there were some coolers hidden under everybody's tables with, I think I saw some high noons. I saw some, there was a lot of like, I don't know what they were just like mysterious things, but I think they were mostly canned cocktails. So I think folks are just like trying local, whatever they want. Local's really big in Northfield, so. whatever people are making within a 20 minute drive, they're gonna bring a lot of cider too. Cool. Yeah. Good time? It was a good time. Lawrence had a great time. Lawrence consumed a lot of those products. I don't think I finished my first beer until like eight o'clock after speeches. Were you the maid of honor? Yeah. Did you give a toast? I did have to give a toast. How was it? People said it was good. Good. I'm sure it was great. It was very nerve-wracking, and I did not want to do it. And I finished my speech within a few hours before the ceremony started, because I rewrote it several times, either because I would start crying while I was writing it, or because I was like, no, I don't. This is too cheesy, and I need to redo all this. But I think it went well.
[00:04:09] Speaker 1: Good. Well, congrats to the happy couple.
[00:04:11] Jessica Infante: Yes, so exciting, MadNet Alexa. Yay.
[00:04:15] Justin Kendall: That's awesome. Well, let's get into a bit of that news that we were talking about. And we're just going to briefly touch on the big news out of last week was Brewers Association President and CEO Bob Pease announced that in 2025, he's going to retire. They've started a search for his successor. And this is really The second big change announced this year for the Brewer's Association, we know that Nancy Johnson, who has led the Brewer's Association's events, is retiring as well. And her successor is expected to come on a lot sooner than Bob's, obviously, because Bob's is pretty fresh news. But that's a big sea change for the Brewer's Association because they've each got, what, 30 years a piece between?
[00:05:05] Speaker 1: decades and decades of institutional knowledge.
[00:05:08] Justin Kendall: Like you said, a lot of institutional knowledge. And this is going to be a lot of change. And there's going to be, obviously, a lot of eyes on some internal candidates. And we'll be looking to see what the search firm comes up with, because this is a search firm that is dedicated to placing executives at nonprofit organizations.
[00:05:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens because Bob's role is really important and you do a lot. You do so many different things. There's the lobbying, there's the member relations, there's the services for members. There's so much that goes into this. I think we would all agree that the BA is a different animal than the other beer industry trade orgs like the Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Just by dint of their membership, they've got many, many, many, many small and independent brewers. It's a very different situation. Something that the BA does, I think they focus on a little bit more than the other groups is public facing outreach as a way to develop the market for craft beer drinkers. So they have been more public facing than the other two, which has been interesting for them because I think conversations kind of vary. The craft beer drinkers watch what the BA does and says a lot more closely than other drinkers do of the other trade groups.
[00:06:33] Justin Kendall: Oh, 100%. BA is a big tent party. You're appealing to brewers that are making a million barrels and also double-digit- 200. Yeah, or triple-digit barrels as well.
[00:06:49] Speaker 1: Plus, they're also the arbiter of what is craft beer.
[00:06:52] Justin Kendall: Right. And that has been one of the... sticky points, I would say, of Bob's career, his tenure, and his legacy as Brewers Association President and CEO. And now we're going to look to the future and whether that candidate comes from internally. And I think that there will be a lot of eyes on Brewers Association Chief economist and VP of strategy, Bart Watson. I feel like there's a lot of talk around him. And after that, I think it's a lot of question marks.
[00:07:33] Speaker 1: I'd be interested to see who internally is interested in the role. I think there's a lot of different ways it could go.
[00:07:39] Justin Kendall: Exactly. I throw Bart's name out there, but we've all got different goals in life and ambitions and whether that's his or not, we don't know. So maybe it's unfair to throw him out there, but who knows?
[00:07:55] Jessica Infante: It's definitely you're not the only person to say so. But that role is also someone who's supposed to be kind of like the like cheerleader or craft beer, too. So it's going to be interesting to see what direction they go there, because it needs to be someone who crappers will like listen to, especially in a very interesting time of a lot of question marks for that industry. Bart would be someone they listen to, but yeah, he's also someone who will give you a reality check.
[00:08:27] Speaker 1: But he's also really well liked, like universally liked. You know of anybody that doesn't like Bart? I don't.
[00:08:34] Justin Kendall: I don't know of anyone personally, but you know, we've all got our enemies out there. To the point of his popularity, his talks at CBC are always the most attended or at least the most must-see, I feel like, because people want to know what's actually happening out there. And Bart has always been able to sort of walk that line.
[00:08:56] Speaker 1: Bart's really good at delivering tough love.
[00:08:59] Jessica Infante: Yeah, he also likes to add context to potentially scary data bits and things to be like, actually, you know, we can pull some, some positives out of this, or like, it's not as extreme as you might think it is, he likes to, to really ground a lot of his data points in reality, which could be helpful.
[00:09:19] Justin Kendall: I think that's a great segue to get into the other portion of our news. And that's the reveal of the results of the Harris Poll that the BA had recently conducted.
[00:09:31] Speaker 1: Yeah. And there was a lot of tough love that went into that. So every year, the Brewers Association commissions the Harris Poll, which is a poll of thousands of mostly craft beer drinkers, but just drinkers of beverage alcohol. And BART now has BA staff economist, Matt Gasyuk, who two economists on this data set, I think was a lot. This was some very impressive parsing of the data, and it was the most jam-packed hour I have listened to in a while. Honestly, when the webinar ended on Thursday, I kind of just had to sit down for 10 minutes and just let my brain kind of quiet. I think we did a decent job at pulling out some of the most important data points. You can read it all in my story at Brewbound.com, and I think we'll revisit this well a couple more times in the next few weeks, because there is so much. But the headline that I personally took away from this is that while there are more people who consider themselves to be craft drinkers, they are drinking craft beer less frequently. And that is, I think, a pretty stark point that craft brewers really need to spend some time with. Every year in this poll, they ask the respondents, are you drinking more craft beer than you were a year ago? Or are you drinking less craft beer than you were a year ago? Last year, Zoe, I went through your reporting because I was in baby land at this time, and last year was the first year that those two figures were in equilibrium. The same amount of people were drinking more, the same amount of people were drinking less. This year, the pendulum swung just so slightly the other way, where 26% of respondents said they were drinking less craft beer than they were a year ago, while 25% said they are drinking more. A lot of other things went into this. Something that I also found really interesting is that craft beer drinkers are the most omnibibulous of all beverage alcohol drinkers, which means they drink everything. Wine drinkers tend to stick to wine. Spirits drinkers tend to stick to spirits. And beer drinkers, but particularly craft beer drinkers, drink everything that's out there. So that was really interesting.
[00:11:35] Justin Kendall: That gets to the most frequent answer of, why are you drinking less craft beer? It always appears to be, I'm drinking more of other alcoholic beverages.
[00:11:48] Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's not just beer. It's canned cocktails. It's hard seltzer. It's cider. The three areas of beverage alcohol that craft beer drinkers drink a little bit less than everything else was wine spirits and FMBs, which was interesting. But there's so much, so much, so much data.
[00:12:08] Justin Kendall: You can read all of it at Brewbound.com, but one of the, let's see. Well, we don't have to tell you that craft is very white.
[00:12:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, that was another thing that was interesting to me. So the whole of the United States population is about 60% people who are white and 40% people who are not. Every other tree of beverage alcohol drinkers are 70% white and 30% not, so a little bit whiter than the population. Craft beer, 80% white, 20% not, so even whiter.
[00:12:43] Justin Kendall: And one of the other points that came out of this was non craft beer drinkers said that they don't like the flavor as they're cruising or not. Not drinking craft beer right think that's a look in the mirror moment for a lot of people and another look in the mirror moment for a lot of people, I think, is. the survey of consumers who were asked whether they are satisfied with the number of offerings on the shelf. And basically coming out of that, Bart said it wasn't the answer that craft brewers would want to hear.
[00:13:21] Speaker 1: No, and Bart, as we just said about Bart, he likes to keep things usually pretty even keeled. And this was something that he said should be slightly alarming, is that drinkers are saying, no, I feel like there's enough out there when there's actually less craft beer and there's less alcoholic beverages available than there were in recent years. So there are fewer things on shelves, but people are saying this is enough for me. Justin, to your point about flavor, I think that's a really interesting conversation because craft beer is so not a monolith. Even though Scandata will show you it's majority IPAs, even within IPAs there are so many different flavors. I think there's a few different things at play here. One could be that craft brewers are not brewing things that the broader population likes to drink, maybe. the broader population is not finding the cornucopia of flavors that can be found in craft beer. So there's the topic of education should come up. And I don't know how you do that in a media landscape that's as fragmented as this is, but a lot of work to do to get more people into the craft beer tent.
[00:14:31] Justin Kendall: And another point that came out of this was brewery visitors are less likely to purchase beer after a visit. And that number is on the rise.
[00:14:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, that one was, I found that alarming. In the 10 years this survey has been fielded, they also always ask people, after you visit a brewery, are you more likely or less likely to purchase beer from that brewery? And in the beginnings of the survey, the overwhelming response was always people are more likely. And this year, one of the things that Bart parsed out was that since the survey has been fielded, the number of people who are less likely to purchase a beer from a brewery after visiting it has increased 19% over 10 years. So over time, but there's a few things that could be at play here. And maybe it's that you visited a brewery that you know their beer isn't available anywhere else. So of course your answer to that is no, because I know I can't find it anywhere. Or maybe you drank some beer at a brewery and didn't really love it. Who knows?
[00:15:29] Justin Kendall: And survey responses are always... You got to take them with a little bit of a grain of salt too. An enormous grain of salt because people are... Liars.
[00:15:38] Speaker 1: Humans are an interesting bunch.
[00:15:42] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Speaker 1: And that sounds like a great place to pause it. And welcome our guest, Bob Pease. How are you doing?
[00:15:47] Speaker 2: Morning, Brewbound team.
[00:15:49] Justin Kendall: Well, we're happy to have you back, but you dropped a big bomb on us last week and we gotta know, you know, why is this the right time to retire?
[00:15:59] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I know you, you referenced that I've been CEO since 2014 and that's true that, you know, I've had the title since 2014, but in reality, you know, it's really been my voice internally that the staff has been hearing Since 2009 and really back to 2005, when the association was formed through the merger of the Association of Brewers and Brewers Association of America, Charlie had the title of CEO up until 2014, but his style was certainly one to allow me to lead the organization. And he kind of focused on visionary type efforts. So my point being that It's been my voice that the board has been hearing and the staff has been hearing for close to 20 years. And that's a long time for a senior executive or a leadership executive. It's kind of like when you're the coach of a sports team. After a while, the players, no matter what the record, they sometimes want to tune out the voice of the leader and want to hear it from somebody else. And I've played sports all my life. led a bunch of teams. And so I respect that. And I do think that it's time for a new voice to emerge.
[00:17:23] Jessica Infante: Are you saying that you are Bill Belichick?
[00:17:26] Speaker 2: I figured we were going to get to that. I've been called worse. I prefer Mike Shanahan. But it comes with being in a leadership position. So I'm very comfortable with that. You know, I know you guys wrote that it was kind of unexpected, and while I think unexpected maybe to the external world, but internally, this is not unexpected. And really, I've been in discussions with the board as far back as 2019, to when would be a good time for me to exit and to retire. You know, in that interest from the board coming from 2019, is a reflection of they wanted to make sure that we had a smooth transition when it was time for me to leave. And that, you know, they had recognized that my voice was the primary leadership voice at that point for almost 15 years. Along came COVID. So those conversations back in the desk drawer somewhere, but they reemerged early 2022 and had been working with the board on when would be a good time for the association for me to retire. and then working with my wife and my family about when would be a good time personally for me to retire. And, you know, we settled on the age of 63 and a half, seemed like a nice round number. And that's what I'll be June of 2025. And so, you know, about over a year ago, you know, the board and I settled on a date of June 30th, 2025.
[00:19:05] Justin Kendall: feel like you've been dropping maybe some hints in casual conversation too. So maybe not as unexpected as we wrote, but definitely unexpected for when it hit last week.
[00:19:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, and I've been working the phrase into a lot of my conversations and interviews and public speaking is like that I'm much closer to the end of my career than I am to the beginning of my career. So, but yeah, I mean, I've been at the association 32 years, which I never thought would be possible. Super grateful for the opportunities that Charlie gave me in the early days. Before I worked at the association, I worked four years at a small ski area outside of Boulder as the director of lodge operations where I ran food, beverage, retail, and tickets. So I've been going hard for 36 years. I'm ready to hit the exit ramp. I don't blame you.
[00:20:02] Speaker 1: I'm tired thinking about this. 32 years is so long to say anywhere. Nobody really does that anymore.
[00:20:07] Speaker 2: Nobody does that.
[00:20:08] Speaker 1: You know what, Bob? I don't think for all the conversations we've had and all the years I've been doing this, I don't know that I know your BA origin story. So what brought you to the organization to begin with? Because it was not the BA back then, right?
[00:20:20] Speaker 2: No, it was the Association of Brewers. And I was hired in June of 1993 as the customer service manager. And the reason I took that job is because I had kind of come to a crossroads as my career in the ski industry. I'd been successful at this small ski area called Eldora Mountain Resort, which is still there. Taught my daughter to ski there, ski there in the winter. And ski industry work is hard. I mean, people in the association world think they work hard. Working at a ski area is like doing the Great American Beer Festival every day. for a whole ski season. But the upside is, yeah, you only have six months of that, and then you have six months off. But at that point, it was either continue in the ski industry, but probably move. My opportunity was with Vail Associates to move up to the Vail Valley and work there. I'd met a woman at that time who went on to become my wife, and she didn't want to leave Boulder. I didn't really want to leave Boulder. So I left the ski industry and started looking for work and had known a few people who had worked at the Association of Brewers and knew of their work. And so I answered an ad in a local newspaper one day, got hired and worked my way up.
[00:21:45] Speaker 1: And what was your first job like? What does that role entail?
[00:21:50] Speaker 2: Chaos, to put it mildly. It was 1993. The association of brewers at that time, we had about 40 employees, customer service department had seven full-time employees, I think, no systems whatsoever. And when I started in 1993, the primary revenue source and revenue stream was from the American Home Brewers Association, not the professional side. That's interesting. The micro brewers conference was a money losing proposition at that time. The Great American Beer Festival was run, if you can believe this, at that time, out of house by all contract staff, because it was seen as too big for the existing staff. And so we had, in 1993, we had 25,000 members of the American Homebrewers Association, and we had about a million dollars in reserves, which at that time made us fairly healthy. You fast forward six years, and for a variety of reasons, some internal, some external, some by bad decisions we made, some by things that we couldn't control. By 1999, membership in the AHA was down to 9,000, and that million dollars in reserves was gone, and we had over $400,000 in accounts payable, all past 90 days due. The association was teetering by a thread. And that's when I got the offer to assume the role of vice president, which kind of really was CEO. And I was young and dumb, and I was like, sure, whatever. I was unemployed when I took this job. What the heck? But it was touch and go. But through the great work of people like Nancy Johnson, Paul Goetz, Stephanie Johnson Martin, we were able to turn the ship around, to right the ship. And by 2001, we were profitable again.
[00:24:11] Speaker 1: What do you think contributed to that?
[00:24:15] Speaker 2: The great work of people that I just mentioned, consolidated a bunch of positions. We were fat staff wise. combined, you know, we had separate editors for Zymergy and the New Brewer. I put Ray Daniels in charge of editing both magazines. Ray also went on to lead Brewer's publications for us during, in the next couple of years. Moved different people around, consolidated jobs. And the best thing I did was promoted Nancy Johnson to director of events. And we brought the Great American Beer Festival, our single biggest property, inside back into her and my direction. And needless to say, we were able to identify some areas that were not as efficient as they could have been from the cost side. And we were able to turn that quickly into a major surplus profit center for us.
[00:25:17] Justin Kendall: This is going to be a lot of change all at once. So you mentioned Nancy and she's also retiring. And I imagine that her position is going to be filled obviously before yours. At least that's how it would appear outwardly. But yeah, that's a lot of just mentioned this earlier in the show. That's a lot of institutional knowledge to lose all at once.
[00:25:41] Speaker 2: Yep.
[00:25:42] Justin Kendall: but it sounds like succession plans have been in process for a while to sort of make sure that there's going to be a smooth transition.
[00:25:55] Speaker 2: Absolutely agree. A lot of, you know, big change, but change in this environment, I would say is going to be a positive, right? One of the, I think the great assets of the association is the longevity of many of our senior staff and many of our junior staff. But that can cut both ways, right? So it's going to be good to get new voice, new vision in senior leadership. For respect for the events director job, filling that is one of my priorities before I exit. And my objective is to have somebody in place by the Great American Beer Festival this year. We have a tremendous internal staff. in the, within the events department that Nancy has built, you know, our competition director, Chris Williams, Tara Forster, our senior event manager, Joe Damgard, Millie Schomburg. Nancy has done a tremendous job of delegating, delegating and pushing responsibilities down to those four. And we're going to find a tremendous candidate to lead that department. We're looking at both internal candidates and external candidates. One of the things I think I have done well in my tenure at the association is put together a great team. That's one thing I pride myself on. I can hire well. I'm not afraid to surround myself with people smarter than me, pretty big pool. And yeah, we're gonna have somebody great in place by October 1st. I think that's gonna go for, The interest in being the event director at the association is massive. So, I mean, I think we're probably up to over 300 resumes now that we've received. Are you done taking resumes?
[00:27:50] Justin Kendall: It's still open. Why? You want to apply? No. God, no. I don't need that pressure in my life.
[00:27:59] Jessica Infante: I mean, that's interesting that there's like that is a position where we've talked about several times, like beer events right now is also in a transition period as well as craft overall. So big time to see that much interest in it is. Well, my heart, the people aren't too scared of it, scared of the challenge.
[00:28:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and that's what we're, you know, through the interview process and, you know, as for as for sifting through all the resumes and, you know, doing phone screens and then in-person interviews. You know, we're looking for a candidate that can maintain what we have, but also what's their vision for change and vision for evolution of our existing events, or perhaps creating new events that could, you know, protect and maybe grow that revenue stream, which has really been, you know, unique for us as an association. Not many not-for-profit trade associations have the luxury of having two world-class events in the Craft Brewers Conference and the Great American Beer Festival.
[00:29:05] Justin Kendall: So for you, is this a retirement retirement or is there a next chapter?
[00:29:10] Speaker 2: You know, I will set up an LLC. I'll put my name out there to consult, travel, speak, but I have no plans to go back to the Monday through Friday, eight to five work week. How many ski days do you think you're going to get in a whole hell of a lot more than I was able to get the last 20. That's for sure. The number of powder days, midweek powder days. I gave up because of some meeting, uh, that I couldn't felt like I couldn't miss hurts me. So one of my best favorite places in the world is the back bowls of veil on a powder day. You know, I got maybe three great ones last year, but triple that for next year would be an immediate goal.
[00:29:59] Speaker 1: I love this for you. And I hope it happens.
[00:30:01] Speaker 2: I'll keep my Epic pass. I was talking with Rob Todd the other day about, I was able to last winter go out on a ski cat tour and steamboat in the back country office, not on the, not on the ski area, but way in the back country and do a group called steamboat powder cats. And Rob and I are going to try to do that this winter.
[00:30:21] Speaker 1: you going to learn how to surf with Rob too? Because that would be fun.
[00:30:25] Speaker 2: My daughter lives in San Francisco. She is slaying at surfing. I have tried with her, but so far unsuccessfully. I love the water, but that move to get up has proven to be elusive.
[00:30:41] Jessica Infante: A lot of balance and core strength required for that.
[00:30:43] Speaker 2: Yeah. And I certainly have the balance. It's probably the core strength that's lacking.
[00:30:49] Jessica Infante: You mentioned, Bob, finding the replacement for Nancy is one of your top priorities and what you're still heavily involved in. But for finding the next CEO, how involved do you expect to be in that process? I know you guys have hired an external company to help as well.
[00:31:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, I think, to be determined, Zoe. I will be as involved or uninvolved as the board or Kittleman wants. So I'm not quite sure yet. I'm sure every Association thinks filling their CEO position is super unique, but I bet you there's some commonalities. And I think Kittleman and the board will, like we've seen for the events director job, get amazing interest from internal and external candidates.
[00:31:37] Jessica Infante: Are there certain leadership characteristics or things that you've learned from your time that you think are pretty vital to someone in that position?
[00:31:46] Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. What would those be? You need to be a good listener, need to be a good communicator, need to be able to make a decision, financial acumen. It's like I'm more of an association executive than I am really a beer person. I'm running a 22, $23 million trade association, which has similarities to our members, business models, but a lot of differences as well. So finding that balance, like I love beer, and I love going to breweries, I love drinking beer, and what's really motivated me, and this sounds corny, but it's true, over the last 20 some years is working with and thinking that somehow we are helping, however small, these men and women who are totally true entrepreneurs, small business owners, and to put it in many cases, man, it's all on the line for them. They've got personal guarantees on their equipment. So that's really what gets me going. And I would hope that whoever my successor is feels the same.
[00:33:07] Speaker 1: So when you look back at your years leading the BA, what do you see as being the key to your legacy with the association? because there's a lot that you've done.
[00:33:19] Speaker 2: You know, I'm proud of the work that I and my colleagues have done. You know, the press release covered a lot of the key achievements. You know, one thing we didn't mention was, you know, when I was leading the organization in the 2000s and in the time of the merger, there were some really powerful personalities. on our board of directors at that time, who I had the pleasure of working with and learning from. So I'm thinking, you know, Kim Jordan, Steve Hindi, Nick Matt, Ken Grossman, Sam Calagione, you know, Vinny Salerzo, Jim Cook. And that was, you know, a different time, you know, and our board's a lot different now, and that was by design. Our board, that's, those pioneers, That was their vision that the board today would look how it looks, be more representative of the brewing community. So I think about that. Another thing that I think about is when the merger happened, the new board of the Brewers Association wanted the BA to be the equal to the Beer Institute, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. That was really, really important to them. And I think that's because a lot of those people who I just mentioned, a lot of them were involved with the Brewers Association of America, and all's the BAA did, and it was a lot, but all they focused on was government affairs and government relations. So they wanted their CEO of the new trade association, the Brewers Association, be on equal footing with MBWA and the BI. And they wanted us to have a seat at the table with those associations and with members of Congress and with regulators in DC. And I feel like we've accomplished that. So that would be one thing that really stands out for me as something that I was charged with and I was able to accomplish. Another thing that we did that really we didn't get put in the press release would be when I started the association in 93 and 15 years prior to that, and for another 11 years after that, we were leasing a space on West Pearl Street in Boulder. I don't think any of you guys ever had the privilege of visiting our offices there. But to say we were shoehorned in there and living on top of each other would be an understatement. My office literally was right across the hall from the bathroom on the downstairs floor. So to go into the bathroom, you basically had to say hi to me, which was kind of weird. So the board says, Bob, this is not what we envisioned for our trade association. Your space is not acceptable to us. We appreciate you wanting to be frugal and cost-conscious, but we want an office that reflects our vision for our association. So I led the search to leave our rented property on West Pearl. I was able to work with a real estate agent. I know in Boulder, we found a three-story office building in downtown Boulder that in 2014, we were able to purchase and we were able to pay cash for that. And we spent a year remodeling it, making it look like we call BA-ifying it. And we moved in in 2015. So now we have a beautiful office building in downtown Boulder that does nothing but appreciate. And so it's another asset on our books. Really, really proud of being able to do that as long as all the other stuff that's in the press release.
[00:37:31] Speaker 1: That's huge. Like not a lot of nonprofits can say that. What's the office bar like at the BA?
[00:37:39] Speaker 2: Freaking sweet. Micromatic, incredible, you know, piece of wood on the bar from, you know, a tree that was struck by lightning. You know, it's all like reclaimed wood. I mean, it's beautiful.
[00:37:55] Jessica Infante: Are they still going to let you have access after you retire?
[00:37:59] Speaker 2: I hope so. I've got to start thinking about what I need to negotiate. But yeah, I've got four beers on tap. Uh, always, uh, you know, beautiful system, you know, beer style, appropriate glassware. Yeah. We present and treat the beer how it's supposed to be treated and presented.
[00:38:18] Justin Kendall: So zeroing in on a potential replacement, what do you think is going to be the biggest issue that they're going to face going forward from we'll say July, 2025 on?
[00:38:31] Speaker 2: I think the biggest challenge is. trying to find ways to breathe growth back into the community. Craft beer is not going anywhere. It's too big. It's 22 million barrels of annual production. It's 13% of the beer volume in the United States. So but we all know that it's not been growing and it's actually, Kraft has even had some dips. Trying to get that back to growth, I think is the biggest thing, what's kept me up at night, you know, why can't we do that? And, you know, there's forces out there that are bigger than an association can control, obviously. And I think you have to recognize that consumer trends can be cyclical. So I do think that beer is going to have and craft beer is going to have its day in the sun again. But that is the biggest challenge, I think, facing not just the new CEO, but the entire staff of the organization. How can we breed that growth back into the segment and into the community?
[00:39:50] Speaker 1: Something that always strikes me about the difference between the BA and the BI is that your members are so different. They have different business models, they're different sizes, they have different needs, and I'm sure that's kind of a challenge. So with such a broad membership base, what's the key to meeting everyone's needs?
[00:40:07] Speaker 2: Listening, first and foremost. Getting into and visiting as many breweries as you possibly can. recognizing that you're probably not going to be able to meet everyone's needs, but finding what is that common ground for the biggest segment. And we've tried to do a lot of that with our work around the resources we provide in the technical space, thinking everybody needs to know how to run a safe brewery. Everybody needs to know how to run a clean brewery. everybody needs to know how to recognize off flavors, resources like that, that are universal no matter what size or what your business model is. And that will continue to be a focus for us, for the association long after I'm gone.
[00:41:05] Speaker 1: How many breweries do you think you get to in an average year?
[00:41:07] Speaker 2: A few hundred.
[00:41:09] Speaker: Wow.
[00:41:10] Speaker 1: That's impressive.
[00:41:11] Speaker 2: But not as many as I would like.
[00:41:13] Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's a universal desire among our crew, so.
[00:41:20] Jessica Infante: Yeah. The position also requires you to do a lot of consumer-facing and public-facing work. We were talking about how just when we did this intro about, so us, at least our perception is the BA is a lot more focused on creating that narrative of what consumers think craft beer is. Is there advice that you plan to give whoever takes this next position of how they can best balance doing that consumer facing work with also listening to the industry members themselves? How do you thread that needle of those two messages?
[00:41:56] Speaker 2: Great question. I think my answer will not be as good as your question. You know, one of the things we say internally always is we work for our members. So that is primary for us. And when we're looking at a big, maybe not any expenditure or spending decision, another litmus test we have is, is that a good use of our members' money? So it really is, I think Zoe, more focused first on what is best for the members and their businesses, but then there's that intersection or how that intertwines with the beer drinking public. or the consumer. One lesson I've learned from Julia over the years, and Kim Jordan was also a great teacher of this, and that's around the importance of language. And one of the things I take away from her is don't say industry, say community, because that separates us from many other consumer packaged goods or segments. Don't say consumer, say beer drinker. And so when you get into and you get to visit the breweries, that's when I get the most value from interacting with the beer drinker, because then you see, you know, what their habits are, what their behaviors are. And yeah, right now it's, it's challenging out there. You know, I was just in Baltimore over the weekend catching a couple of games with the Orioles versus the Yankees. It didn't work out too well for my Orioles, but but I got into a couple of breweries, you're watching people and then going out to just bars, craft beer is not as ubiquitous as it was five, 10 years ago. There's a lot of canned cocktails being enjoyed by what I would look at as beer drinkers. So finding what makes them tick, I think is really, really important moving forward, not just for the BA, but for our members and for the community.
[00:44:09] Speaker 1: And one thing that really struck me from Bart's webinar last week on the Harris Poll was how craft beer drinkers, despite I think some effort from both the association and people in the industry, are still really white and male. And I'm sure if I put my head to it, I could think of things that could be done to change that, but what's your best estimation of why this really is and why it seems unchanging almost?
[00:44:37] Speaker 2: Well, I think it's going to take a generation. I don't think it's going to take generations. I think roughly 20 years. So I'm excited about the work of the National Black Brewers Association. And we're doing everything we can to support NB2A. And I work with Kevin Asato pretty closely. We do a call once a month. And I think there is an opportunity there to, I think that's one of the biggest thing, opportunities that I see that excites me is let's get more people of color drinking craft beer. Right. And I think we all have to look inward as to, well, why hasn't that been the case? You know, if you, if you listen to Dr. J's presentations, you know, You got to create an environment that is welcoming to people that don't look like you or look like all of us on this call, right? Now, I think we've seen quite a bit of progress with female drinkers at the association. We've seen a ton of progress with female leadership. I mean, it used to be on our board of directors, it used to be Kim Jordan and 14 white dudes. You know, we're still primarily white, but the representation of females in leadership at the Brewers Association has changed significantly since 2005. And I am optimistic that, you know, we come back here 20 years from now, Lord willing, I'm still able to be on your show and that the craft beer community will look a lot different because that's what, that's what we want. That's what the leadership wants. We think that's what the beer drinker wants. You know, we just have to continuing to, you know, one step, one foot in front of the other, keep trying to do the right things, make sure that sign is loud and proud that says, you know, we welcome everyone. And I'm optimistic that in 20 years, it'll look a lot different, but it's not going to happen overnight and you can't get discouraged.
[00:46:46] Jessica Infante: We've talked about the things that you accomplished at the VA, Bob. We've talked about how the VA has evolved. But when you look back, you have like a highlight reel that plays when you walk out of the VA office for your last day. What are the memories that that stick out to you from your time there?
[00:47:05] Speaker 2: Well, the the people that I've worked with. You know, I've mentioned a bunch of them, and that's, you know, not just my colleagues here at the association, but the members that I've worked with. all of the people that have been on the BA board of directors, the respect I have for those people who give of themselves, right? They're volunteering their time to move the community forward. That is a huge highlight. The tax bill certainly stands out. I mean, I started that effort in 2009. when we were working on the Small Brew Act. This was well before there was anything before the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act had even been conceived. We spent, I spent a decade trying to move the Small Brew Act forward. And we recognized early on that even if that bill never passed, it served as a vehicle for the association to reach that goal of being on equal footing with the BI and the MBWA, because we were able to use that piece of legislation to energize, invigorate, and get our members engaged in the political process. When I first started in 2009, to ask people to come to Washington, D.C., to brewery owners to come to D.C. and advocate for that legislation, typical response was like, Bob, come on. You want me to go talk to the man? I'm not gonna do that. Find somebody else. Seriously. And over time, we were able to change that perception. And once we saw brewery owners come in and meet with members of Congress, tell their story, how they got started, how many employees they had, how much their business was worth, and then saw that light going on with the legislators, and then witnessed legislators coming into small breweries, man, it was like, wow, we've got magic in a bottle here, because that was small business, quintessential small business, the member of Congress would come in and see all of the stainless steel, all the people, and they were like, wow, we want to help. And that was, you know, a watershed moment for me, for sure. And really helped us, you know, again, reach that objective of, you know, being a force in D.C. And, you know, some of the leaders of the early B.A. board were like, you know, you either need to have a seat at the table or you're gonna be on the menu. And the early pioneers of the association, they were tired of being on the menu and getting the short end of the stick, federally or at the state level on, be it legislation or regulatory matters. So to be able to move the needle some amount in that direction has been something that will make me smile as I walk out the door.
[00:50:39] Justin Kendall: Well, we really appreciate all the time you've taken, Bob. I know this isn't gonna be the last time that we talk to you and we'll probably have you back on at least once more before you're gone. And I'm sure we'll be talking after the fact as well, but thanks for doing this.
[00:50:57] Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to chat with you guys. Love your work. Appreciate the thoroughness and your professionalism, how you cover our community.
[00:51:05] Justin Kendall: Well, congratulations on the retirement and that's our show for this week. Thanks to Bob Pease for joining us. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for all they do. Thanks to our AV team and thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.
