Brewbound Podcast: Craft Beer Data Christmas is Here, Plus More Craft-on-Craft Deals

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on The Brewbound Podcast, another craft brewery buyback, all the volume numbers, and Zoe reviews the next wave of seltzers and cocktails. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound podcast. My name is Justin Kendall. I'm the editor The Brewbound Weekend I'm joined for one last time for at least a couple of months, Jessica Infante, the managing editor The Brewbound. Thanks for sticking it out right to the bitter end.

[00:00:37] Jessica Infante: Oh, yeah. So to be clear, if you have not listened to past episodes, I am not dying or retiring. I am about to have a baby, which is insane. I will be back, I promise, in September. The timing of this baby is pretty nice. I mean, not so much for me to be able to not work during the summer. I realize this is going to be a lot of work, but you know, like my husband's a teacher, so we'll be off together figuring out, you know, middle of the night feeds and why is this child crying and all that. So yeah.

[00:01:17] SPEAKER_??: Wow.

[00:01:18] Jessica Infante: I still can't believe this is happening.

[00:01:20] Justin Kendall: It's pretty exciting.

[00:01:22] Jessica Infante: I know. And it's all on purpose, too. It's not like this was a surprise. Anyway, let's introduce everybody else before I say anything else fucking weird.

[00:01:31] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Well, let's bring in Zoe Licata, Brewbound reporter extraordinaire who is not going on a couple month vacation or, you know, maternity leave.

[00:01:39] Zoe Licata: No, no, absolutely not. Also, by design and plan, there will be no children around here anytime soon. So I'm sticking around.

[00:01:49] Justin Kendall: That's right. I am canceling my own non-essential travel. It's all hands on deck at this point, which means we've got a special guest this week. And that's Sean McNulty, The Brewbound Insider Weekend Newsletter writer. Welcome, Sean.

[00:02:05] Sean McNulty: Good to see you guys. Happy to be the Thornton Mellon. Call me in. Zoe has no idea what that reference is, but she can Google it for me, so it's fine. Majesto, what's going to be the first beer? That's the question I need the answer to.

[00:02:18] Jessica Infante: Oh, what a great question. I have told Ryan that I would like some notch left of the dial in the recovery room.

[00:02:25] Sean McNulty: In the recovery room. Are you bringing stuff for the doctors and nurses, or is it just for you, or how is this all going to work?

[00:02:31] Jessica Infante: Oh, I haven't gotten that for you, but we can share.

[00:02:33] Sean McNulty: We can share. I think so. That'd be nice.

[00:02:35] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. There's some Prosecco in the fridge. It's going to come with us. Ryan, don't forget the bottles on the way to the hospital. But yeah. Yeah. It's been, it's been a long 39 weeks.

[00:02:48] The Brewbound: Yeah.

[00:02:48] Jessica Infante: What's funny was that like we, you know, before all of this had started, we had gone to a wedding and I had enjoyed the bar at said wedding a little too hard and was like, you know what? I'm going to take a break between now and GABF because it was like three weeks. And I was like, I just won't drink anything. And then I'll be like refreshed and recovered. And I'll be able to really enjoy all the beers at GABF. And two weeks after that or whatever it was, I discovered it was going to be a much longer break than I thought.

[00:03:18] Justin Kendall: The lesson, don't stop drinking.

[00:03:24] Jessica Infante: No, it was fine. It was worth it. And you know, when this happy, healthy baby arrives, I'm sure I will forget all about it. But I am looking forward to having one or two beers.

[00:03:36] Justin Kendall: Well deserved. Yeah. Are you keeping like a tab open with all the beers you want to try?

[00:03:41] Jessica Infante: No, I should have been doing that.

[00:03:44] Justin Kendall: Because I feel like every now and again, you're like, Oh, I really want to try that. Oh, I really want to try that.

[00:03:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I didn't really start until like probably the last like two months just because anything earlier than that felt like it was just too far away. But like, I mean, I know we just got press mailers of Bell's Lager of the Lakes. My Bell shipments go to my mom's house. So I already told her, I was like, put one of those in the fridge for me and hide it.

[00:04:09] Sean McNulty: I would wonder how many of those beers are still being made, though. If it's been a nine month period, there may be some discontinuities in there.

[00:04:16] Jessica Infante: That's another great point. What else was I excited about? Oh, the Bells Oberon variety pack. Vizzy, Creamsicle.

[00:04:24] Justin Kendall: Let's do this, not to give you homework, because that's the last thing you need. But why don't you keep track of some of the things that you try and then we can, you know, when we reconvene, whenever we reconvene in September, you can... At GABF. Yeah, you can just tell us all about it.

[00:04:42] Zoe Licata: We'll find out what was worth the wait.

[00:04:44] Sean McNulty: There you go. We've already branded it. I love it.

[00:04:47] Jessica Infante: Like the grown up version of my summer book reports.

[00:04:50] SPEAKER_??: Yeah.

[00:04:51] Justin Kendall: Well, we are going to do one little plug here, and that's for BrewTalks in Boston. That's July 12th in the afternoon. We're putting together the program now. Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head will be there. We're also going to have Adam Romanow from Castle Island. He's going to fill us in on everything that's going on in the Massachusetts craft beer scene. Tickets available now The Brewbound.com. Check that out. We'll see you there. We won't see Jess. Maybe we'll have an after party with the baby.

[00:05:24] Sean McNulty: Sounds great. There you go. Jess wasn't there last year either. I came all the way up from New York and she didn't remember that, Jess. You weren't there.

[00:05:31] Jessica Infante: I know, I was really sick though.

[00:05:32] Sean McNulty: Yeah, so.

[00:05:33] Jessica Infante: I swear I'm not doing this on purpose.

[00:05:35] Sean McNulty: Yeah, exactly. I think we get the hints about your July Root Talks references, Jess, all right? We get it.

[00:05:40] Jessica Infante: I mean, like, and if you, if you know the whole story, I know it looks suspicious, but I swear it's not.

[00:05:47] Sean McNulty: On the up and up.

[00:05:47] Zoe Licata: It was our trial run to see how it would go without you.

[00:05:51] Jessica Infante: And you guys are great.

[00:05:51] Zoe Licata: I watched from home.

[00:05:52] Jessica Infante: You were awesome.

[00:05:53] Justin Kendall: That was a curse. True bound Brutox though. I heard. Getting in late, not having a hotel room.

[00:06:02] Jessica Infante: Didn't the equipment overheat? Yep.

[00:06:04] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:06:04] Sean McNulty: It was a hot day.

[00:06:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I was in the hospital the day before. Yep.

[00:06:08] Sean McNulty: This year's going to be great though guys. Two thumbs up. Awesome.

[00:06:12] Zoe Licata: So come to Brutox Boston.

[00:06:15] Sean McNulty: See what happens this year.

[00:06:17] Justin Kendall: Well, let's get on to the news of the week, and it was a crushing news week. And wouldn't you know, a Friday news dump right on a holiday weekend.

[00:06:29] Jessica Infante: Always. Friday, Memorial Day weekend, there's always a news story, usually like, you know, like after 3 p.m. But Justin, what was that news story that we we thought we were done? And good thing none of us had gone very far.

[00:06:41] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Well, thanks to Constellation Brands for getting out of the craft beer business finally. Yeah. Seems like it may have been overdue, but yeah, they're finally out and they're selling the breweries that they bought back to their founders.

[00:06:57] Jessica Infante: Yeah, it just makes sense. So that's Funky Buddha and Four Corners. Constellation acquired three craft brands. These two often I think are the forgotten little siblings to Ballast Point, but there's so much that goes into that, that Constellation Ballast Point deal. Went down in 2015 for a billion dollars, a blockbuster deal. These other two breweries, not like that at all. you know, they kind of flew under the radar as far as being in the Constellation fam. So going back to their original owners, which is a theme we've seen in recent times, obviously the week before was Appalachian Mountain Brewery being sold back to their founders from AB. But I think this makes sense. Constellation really acknowledged that their heart was not in the craft game and everybody knew that. So this, I think, is the right thing to do.

[00:07:51] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I think it's a really good move. I've known Ryan and Casey since, and I'm excited for them to get their brewery back. I'm sure the owners of Four Corners are psyched to have that brewery back because you're right, they kind of languished in the portfolio there with Constellation. They received very little focus. I believe Funky Buddha had a bump last or the year before in 2021. And then their volume dropped back a little bit, but they were still in the, I think it was like 37,000 barrel range last year. And then Four Corners had fallen down to 5,000 barrels after being up to like 15,000 barrels.

[00:08:34] Jessica Infante: Yeah, teeny tiny. And you know, a few years ago, Constellation had even laid off their craft sales team. Like Constellation is obviously excellent at Mexican imports. They run those brands like a well-oiled machine. They know what they're doing. They know the playbook. The playbook for craft brands is completely different. So, you know, congrats to the founders. We'll see what happens.

[00:09:00] Sean McNulty: This is also after the platform AB thing, which was, you know, 20,000 barrels. You kind of see this, like, maybe it's a cutoff of what's worthwhile for a big beer to be in with craft, perhaps where, you know, the next smallest period AB is, you know, the devil's backbone and blue point both at 75,000, which all accounts going well or good businesses, but these kind of 35,000, 10,000, if they still have brewers that didn't grow at this point in the game, They're looking at it and saying, you know, maybe it's time to, you know, cut bait or make a deal or, you know, it seems like they're amenable to a deal, clearly. I mean, like, you know, the runner, if you talk to Casey and Ryan, Justin, but, you know, hey, do you want this back versus just shutting it down or, you know, getting rid of it? It's nice to see that that wasn't the option taken here. It was a conversation and Appalachian, same thing, Jasper, it was a conversation with the owners and everybody seems to be relatively content with the way this is working out.

[00:09:53] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and one thing that we actually didn't get into our Friday story is that the Tulane brand that Constellation had launched in partnership with Luke Bryan, who's a country singer, I think it was just kind of a light lager. I think there'd been some talk of a hard seltzer years ago, but never really got too far off The Brewbound. That's also going to be riding off into the sunset. And, you know, I was at the Constellation Gold Network Summit back in March in Las Vegas, where they got all their wholesalers together and, and in the trade activation room, you know, at the end where they have the happy hour, but they have giant booths, pavilions for each of their brands to show off new products and POS and all that stuff. Like Funky Buddha and Four Corners were nowhere to be found. Tulane, interestingly, did have a little Well, hey, come see us at the Tulane booth.

[00:10:46] Sean McNulty: If Luke Bryan wasn't there, then I'm not going.

[00:10:48] Jessica Infante: Luke Bryan was not there, but Eli Manning was.

[00:10:51] Justin Kendall: okay he's a corona guy oh okay i thought he was at the too late booth oh no sorry poor man's luke bryan that's for sure but i love eli but yeah different story well and this all comes to after constellation agreed to sell its galeville virginia production facility to new belgium and they were doing a lot of production of other type brands there that I think Tulane was produced there, but they were doing some of their, what, canned cocktails and, you know, progressive adult beverages there.

[00:11:24] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And they just didn't need it anymore.

[00:11:27] Justin Kendall: But New Belgium does. And we're going to talk about it here in a minute. Yeah. Really looking back to the last time we saw this happen was you said Appalachian Mountain brewery, but really this seemed to really get started with a Lynn Weaver and three weavers in Inglewood, California, buying that back from canarchy.

[00:11:50] Sean McNulty: That was a three, four years ago at this point, Justin, I guess it was, I think, right.

[00:11:54] Justin Kendall: Watch it be like a year ago.

[00:11:56] Jessica Infante: It was like six months before the sale to Monster.

[00:12:01] Justin Kendall: Yep. Right. Right.

[00:12:04] Jessica Infante: So now it's almost a year and a half ago.

[00:12:06] Sean McNulty: June 2021. Wow. Okay. There you go. But they're doing well. You know, it seems it's worked out for both parties, Justin. I think it's, you know, it's a good sign to people can make it work. I'm all for it, you know.

[00:12:18] Jessica Infante: Yeah, just like, you know, that's the way craft is going right now. Decentralized. I don't want to say local because yes and no.

[00:12:27] Zoe Licata: But yeah, more focused market, getting kind of back to your, your roots and your personality as a brand. Constellation is, has plenty on its plate with its Mexican imports, which are just doing pretty well right now. So I think it's just win-win for everybody. Excellently put, Zoe. You look kind of tan. I am. I went to the beach. I'm very excited about it.

[00:12:56] Justin Kendall: You know, words that have never been spoken to me. You look tan. is one of those phrases that I have never heard in my life. So with that, let's get on into our next big story, and that was Brewers Association volume data coming out in the May-June issue of the New Brewer Magazine. We all anxiously, eagerly await that issue every year, and it sounds like I'm lying, but I know the three of us actually look forward to this, and maybe four of us, with Sean.

[00:13:33] Jessica Infante: It is nerd Christmas. It's the best.

[00:13:35] Justin Kendall: I look forward to your coverage of it. Maybe that's the way I'll put it. I'll send you a copy. Don't tell Bob Pease.

[00:13:45] Jessica Infante: Like Santa Bart, you know, works all year to collect his data and then he, you know, comes into our inboxes with it. It's the best.

[00:13:53] Sean McNulty: anything surprise you about this that you I mean, I'm kind of curious, you know, I've seen the numbers come in trickling in, but you know, seem to be pretty much on brand for what Bart's been saying that all the conventions you've been seeing him at Zoe for the past few months here, but I do nothing I think struck you reading it and it's print final form.

[00:14:12] Zoe Licata: I feel like some of the big The breweries that posted some of the largest growth might have been a little surprising. They've been a little off the radar, which I can talk about in a second. So I did a dive into the kind of beyond the top 50 regional craft breweries and it should be expected what came out of that because Bart has been saying, these craft breweries are really struggling with getting any sort of growth, particularly with trying to combat those already high off-premise sales that are now kind of leveling out. The on-premise hasn't come back as much. So I mean, less than half of the regional craft breweries beyond the top 50 posted any sort of production growth last year. And a lot posted double-digit declines. When Jess did this coverage last year, there was five breweries that did double digits. This time there was, what, 20-something? Yeah. So it's a little depressing.

[00:15:10] Jessica Infante: Unexpected. It's a similar story among the top 52. And this also, you know, this speaks to why all of these acquired craft brands are going back to founders for more independent local control, you know? In 2021, there was like a majority of the top 50 grew their volume. But, you know, that's compared to 2020. And 2021 still saw some, you know, elevations in off-premise purchasing. But 2022 is a different story. 29 of the top 50 breweries declined in volume. And for the first time that I can see since 2018 at least, the top 50 accounted for less than 50% of craft volume. So that just shows the long tail is rising, which is interesting. But you know, the long tail is not really in all of the national chain accounts the way that the top 50 are.

[00:16:06] Justin Kendall: Yeah, looking at that top 50 list, some of the things, and we've already hit on these, but just seeing the growth of athletic brewing, seeing a non-alcoholic beer maker be able to post 63% year-over-year growth, 170,000 barrels last year, and be just, you know, within the top 15, probably knocking on the door of the top 10, that's kind of the feat. And then you see, you know, the growth of Fiddlehead Brewing in Vermont, just what they've been able to do. And that's up 38%. They're at 71,185 barrels. Just really impressive growth there too.

[00:16:47] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and the top 10 is going to look a little different next year because 2023, Stone is going to exit the BA data set. Stone was in at number seven this year, so that's going to give somebody else some room to eke up. The top five all lost a good amount of share. It's just been interesting. The one thing, unlike what Zoe found in the outside, the top 50 regionals, was that in the top 50, there weren't that many big double-digit declines. So I guess that's a silver lining here. There was a lot of single-digit declines. But some of the biggest declines we saw were, I mean, the biggest goes to Rogue at number 41, volume dropped by 24%. They finished the year at 67,000 barrels, followed by Canarchy, which is number eight. They dropped 13%, finishing the year just a hair under 375,000 barrels.

[00:17:50] Sean McNulty: Do you see also the Dales rebrand? So these other things we've been seeing, you know, kind of bearing out in the numbers as well. And I guess the FX Flying Dog thing will be in effect for next year as well in terms of the change in numbers too, right guys? I believe so. Yeah. So that'll be another change.

[00:18:05] Zoe Licata: Yeah. All the stuff that happens in the beginning of the year is a little.

[00:18:10] Sean McNulty: Yeah. Sometimes I see it. Yeah. Sometimes I don't, but either way, a new behemoth there.

[00:18:15] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, and they're not, neither of those brands are leaving the craft set. So they'll be in one way or the other.

[00:18:22] Justin Kendall: One of the things that'll be interesting to see bear out to is how Yingling performs next year, and I wasn't expecting to say that, and I think they've been one of the beneficiaries of the Bud Light boycott sales drop. They've been posting some double-digit numbers of late in scans, and I know that's not everything, but that is one brand that is on this list that is definitely seeing an uptick.

[00:18:52] Jessica Infante: Yeah, but that's going to depend on what states that growth is coming from because BA Yangling is east of the Mississippi. West in the Western States is Molson Coors. So that, you know, we asked Bart about that when that went down and he said they are going to report separately. So we'll see.

[00:19:10] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And we reported earlier that they were having trouble sourcing materials to supply those new markets to the West. So they were already having supply chain issues before this. And I think that's another story unto itself of how breweries are going to be able to keep up with these double digit production increases or double digit sales increases, I should say, because you don't really forecast for that.

[00:19:42] Jessica Infante: No, I mean, this was not on my bingo card.

[00:19:47] Zoe Licata: I think it'll also be interesting for next year's report or the years following to see if the BA is going to do anything about trying to pull out what numbers come from contract brewing at all, because a lot of these. growth numbers in here could be coming from producing other brands. And Bart likes to try to parse out what numbers those are. There are a couple breweries that were in the top 50 regionals list, but didn't make the actual top 50 list. such as Muntucky Cold Snacks or Two Roads because of contract brewing. But Milwaukee brewing was like the number one growth regional beyond the top 50 with an insane number, what was it? I wanna say it was the 18,000 barrels, something like that. Yeah, increased their barrelage 83% to more than 18,000 barrels last year. And that set off some alarm bells because we know that they just sold the brand and their property separately. And the people who took on the brand said that they only expect 6,500 barrels from Milwaukee next year. As we previously reported, Pilot Project in Chicago is taking over the actual facility. And so we'll be doing a lot of production over there, but there's a little something that's not matching up there. So that could be due to a lot of contract production. We'll see if there's any way we can change how that system works or see how BART can try to decipher what's coming from where within some of those numbers next year.

[00:21:25] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And you have to think too, that the BA is probably looking at they've told us that they look at the definition over and over again of what is a craft brewer. And I think that we will probably see that get a harder look here in the future, too, because there are some oddities here. Let's not pretend it's not weird that they're cool with a cannabis firm owning a craft brewery or craft breweries or a major energy drinker owning craft breweries. But then, you know, someone like New Belgium, Bells, Stone, all those breweries fall outside of what is considered a craft brewery. It's definitely something that I'm sure they're trying to figure out how this thing evolves. Or maybe they're not, maybe they're steadfast and just think like, screw them.

[00:22:10] Sean McNulty: We don't want to lose any more members, Justin. Listen, keep as much money in the house as you can. But you talk about the big craft numbers. That was one thing that on the bigger beer, that was part of it as well. Big beer, craft beer, whatever you want to call it. But just the declines there were a couple of founders is down 24% in three years. You have Lagunitas down 20% since 2019. these breweries weren't part of a larger organization. It's like that's major volume loss in a very short amount of time there. That just struck out to me of these brands that were doing over 500,000 or whatever it might be, and they're not doing that anymore. So that was an interesting takeaway for me there.

[00:22:47] Justin Kendall: Well, and then there's Molson Coors' Blue Moon, which is the best-selling craft beer in off-premise scans. It's declined to the point of its lowest point since 2011. So in 2011, they produced 1.725 million barrels This year, their output declined 3% to 1.765 million barrels. Yeah. They're down 20% since 2015. Yeah. And that peak was 2.225 million barrels. That's ridiculous.

[00:23:21] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like hindsight's obviously 2020, but I think of all the changes the BA has made to the definition in the past few years, by far the most, we didn't really need this to happen one was raising the cap to 6 million barrels.

[00:23:35] Justin Kendall: Yeah, well, they had high, high hopes.

[00:23:39] Jessica Infante: High hopes.

[00:23:40] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And speaking of high hopes, New Belgium's production increased 14% to 1.23 million barrels just by themselves last year. So combine them with Bell's and you're talking, you know, well north of 1.6 million barrels of production. You're close to blue moon now. There you go. backed with a striking distance for sure. Yeah. As a combined entity, definitely. And then, you know, we can get into AB craft if you want, but all those brands, you know, 2.6 to 5 million barrels last year.

[00:24:14] Sean McNulty: Yeah. And then most, of course, have pretty much AB at 30% of, you know, of that big craft volume. And most, of course, was 29%. So it's interesting to see, you know, blue moon is primarily all of it in line of kugels is the other, other leg of that, but yeah, they had two out of their Brewer's Collective brands posted, you know, volume increases, the rest were either flat or down. So at least they had two, I guess is one way to look at it, but not a ton of great news there either, but they're all right size in the business as it feels like to this day and age here. And we always got to do like a shock top tracker.

[00:24:50] Justin Kendall: So minus 15 last year to 170,000 barrels.

[00:24:55] Sean McNulty: So minus five, all right, that's, you know, listen, maybe they finally found the level there a little bit. I don't know, I'm reaching for something.

[00:25:04] Jessica Infante: What is going to happen to Shocktop when the TTB bans category management? Just a question. We don't need to discuss, but that's how that branding is.

[00:25:14] Justin Kendall: Discuss amongst yourselves. Just take it out your flamethrower and then going home, huh? The last time, man, she's gone for three months.

[00:25:21] Sean McNulty: That's it. Yeah, until September. There you go.

[00:25:24] Zoe Licata: And we'll have some more coverage coming on some of the smaller breweries in there too, like microbreweries, brewpubs, taprooms, all those performances and trends. So look out for even more to come from those numbers.

[00:25:36] Justin Kendall: Yeah. There's your Brewbound insider pitch for the show. Go become an insider if you're not already. So Zoe, as promised at the start of the show, you tried all the progressive adult beverages as the kids over at Constellation like to call them. What's the verdict here? What did we try? What were the winners? What were the losers?

[00:25:58] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so I took advantage of the holiday weekend and seeing many people and unloaded my collection of different beverage alcohol that is piled up in my house and got the reviews from the youth, aka the 23 to 26 year olds in Boston, Massachusetts. The first thing everyone was very excited to try was the new Sunny D Vodka Seltzers. which had okay reviews, but general thought was way too sweet, can only have one, not gonna keep drinking them. So that might have a short life, at least over here in Boston. Also got to offload the Livewire Hard Mountain Dew, their new flavor, which comes in the very large cans, which were surprisingly well-received. That's orange? Yeah, it's very citrusy, which people seem to enjoy. I can't get over the zero sugar, like fake sweetener taste. It's not for me, but if you're into orangey stuff, people seem to enjoy it. Also got to try the Twisted Tea Rocket Pop flavor, which is part of a new variety pack from Twisted Tea. Basically tastes like a melted popsicle. How much tea gets in there? Very little. It reminded me a lot of, which was also talked about, the down east slushy flavors. The one qualm that everyone had with that is they wish that they could have it in just like a single pack and it's only available in those variety packs. So you'd have to also get like a twisted tea peach, twisted tea half and half, and there's one other flavor I believe, but Yeah, people are kind of, I think, getting sick of pack-exclusive flavors.

[00:27:47] Justin Kendall: Ooh, controversial take.

[00:27:49] Zoe Licata: I know, right? Like, variety packs like to have variety, but if they can't also get a flavor they really enjoy by itself, I think it's going to get forgotten about. Downy slushy also enjoyed by many, but new information to me is that they're not actually hard ciders. They are just an F&B from down east. So I don't think people knew that when drinking it. Do you think they cared? I don't think they gave two shits. And then final honorable mention I think would be Fisher's Island gave to some friends who really enjoyed one that you can taste that it's actual spirits, especially while we were drinking all these other kind of very sweet F&Bs and one other spirits based one with the sunny D. It stood out as just tasting like a cocktail and it wasn't carbonated, which some people were big fans of.

[00:28:47] Justin Kendall: All right, so just to recap here, what are we buying another round of and what are we tabbing out on?

[00:28:52] Zoe Licata: I think another round of Fisher's Island and maybe some more Down East, but Sunny D, Twisted T, Rocket Pop, and Live Wire might be some short-lived try it and then forget about it offerings from the youth of one very small section of the United States.

[00:29:14] Justin Kendall: How many people were at this party?

[00:29:16] Zoe Licata: Uh, in total, over the course of the full weekend, I probably got like I don't know, like 20 people, different people to try things. So we got a good handful, a nice mix of what people are normally drinking. These are people that are drinking on the usual Twisted Tea half and half, Mic Ultras, Bud Lights, and maybe mixing a like Alligash White or a Voodoo Ranger if they're like some of the weirdos in the group.

[00:29:49] Sean McNulty: If they're feeling fancy, yeah.

[00:29:55] Jessica Infante: Were any of these beers at all in the mix this weekend or was it just all... No, this weekend was all entirely... All flavors all the time.

[00:30:04] Zoe Licata: All flavor forwards mixed in with the very low flavored Anheuser-Busch beer products.

[00:30:11] Jessica Infante: I need to add Allagash White to the hospital beer packing list.

[00:30:14] Justin Kendall: Absolutely. We had a big bag. I don't know about this. Would it have been Anheuser-Busch products anyway or was it because there was such a deep discount on them?

[00:30:26] Zoe Licata: It would have been in Heist of Bush anyway, although I will say I've been noticing more, and I might need to assess some of these people's characters, more Mick Ultras than Bud Lights this time around.

[00:30:38] Sean McNulty: They're getting older. They're getting older. I gotta watch those calories, man.

[00:30:41] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I don't know what to infer from that information if it has anything to do with the scandal. But I think it's more what shots summertime starting to realize they have beer bellies and might need to cut back a little bit.

[00:30:56] Justin Kendall: Pool season's just begun, Zoe. Yeah, marketing works. There you go. Not anything I know about.

[00:31:04] Sean McNulty: Can Jess come to your next party now or is she not? Is that allowed? Okay. I don't know if there's an age, you know.

[00:31:10] Zoe Licata: Absolutely. I think Jess will be like the entertainment with all of her nerdy beer knowledge. Everyone will be asking many questions.

[00:31:20] Jessica Infante: You know, there is a certain man I share my life with that owes me for many, many months of designated driving.

[00:31:27] Zoe Licata: So you're welcome to come to our next gathering in the backyard in Malden, Massachusetts.

[00:31:33] Jessica Infante: Awesome. I'm going to cash in those rides with Ryan soon.

[00:31:36] Justin Kendall: let's wrap this up with something we should have done last week. We kind of dropped the ball on that. And that's a shout out to Alex kid at don't drink beers. Sean, you definitely shouted him out in your weekend newsletter. You gave him a beer, right?

[00:31:50] Sean McNulty: This beer is for you. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, he's posted a picture of a reel this week of, you know, being back on his feet, certainly in the, in the hospital there. Yeah, it's just, it's, you know, very tough news to read and just, you know, you can't imagine it, but you send your thoughts out and those who could, you know, support us, GoFundMe, that's great if you can put the link in there for that too. I'm sure that's a, you know, a costly thing to not figure into your life that you're now have to deal with, unfortunately.

[00:32:18] Justin Kendall: Yeah, for those who hadn't heard, Alex was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colon cancer and he underwent emergency surgery. He's back home, it looks like from his social pages. So as you mentioned, there's a GoFundMe started and it's up to, it looks like $236,000, a little more than that, 2,600 donations.

[00:32:43] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and Alex never fails to make me laugh. His content and commentary on the world of craft beer for the past however many years he's been doing it is spot on and incisive and really wise, but also really fucking funny. So he has brought joy to many of us. We can certainly all help him out in his time of need.

[00:33:05] Justin Kendall: Definitely well said there with that. Thanks, Jess. We will miss you, but we're excited for you and you know, we can't wait to have you back, but we totally get it.

[00:33:15] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Wow. This is weird guys. It's like, it's like the last day of school.

[00:33:21] Sean McNulty: You coming to Jersey with the baby or what? Yeah. I mean, I probably can't, probably can't bring the baby out in front of other people for a while. Right. This is how much I know about kids. Uh, you know, there you go. But I've heard, I've heard that as a thing.

[00:33:34] Jessica Infante: So the baby gets, and I keep saying the baby, cause I do not know the gender of this baby. It is a surprise.

[00:33:41] Sean McNulty: Yeah. Oh, don't name it after a beer. That's, that's the only thing I'd say. Yeah. Don't call it, don't call it shock top. That'd be bad.

[00:33:49] Jessica Infante: Here's my baby cat man. Um, no. So after, uh, when we get our shots at our eight week appointment, then we're going to Nana's house because Nana will be very helpful. So, yeah, we can meet you at a brewery as long as we're sitting outside.

[00:34:06] Sean McNulty: Exactly. Not a problem. It's time to do it. So, yeah.

[00:34:09] Jessica Infante: I'm thrilled to become a brewery parent.

[00:34:13] Sean McNulty: Your dream has finally arrived, Jess.

[00:34:16] Jessica Infante: We'll reassess when, you know, a little Catman Infante is big enough to walk and cause havoc. But baby Shacktop is just going to be, you know, in their car seat.

[00:34:29] Justin Kendall: I can already hear the pitch when you come back. Follow me here, kids in tap rooms. Everybody loves to read about it.

[00:34:37] Jessica Infante: Half a day The Brewbound Live.

[00:34:39] Sean McNulty: Yeah, there's your panel. Yeah, I can't wait for that one, Jess. There you go.

[00:34:42] Jessica Infante: Actually, I'm leaving you guys to start my own business, which is going to be Brewery Taproom Daycare.

[00:34:48] Sean McNulty: Oh, well, we have dog parks now. So let's have pet care. So let's add this, you know, finish this out here.

[00:34:55] Jessica Infante: But yeah, I'm excited. Thank you guys for being so supportive of all of this. Again, finding out that I was with Child the week before NACS, GABF, MBWI, and BI was interesting. And I feel like we've handled this whole wave pretty well.

[00:35:12] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I still can't believe you survived all of that.

[00:35:15] Jessica Infante: Dude, this baby's been everywhere. This baby's been to Vegas twice. Denver, Chicago, Sacramento, Palm Beach. Yeah. Very well traveled baby.

[00:35:28] Justin Kendall: Well, we are extremely excited for you. And like I said, can't wait to have you back. And you're not even gone yet.

[00:35:35] Jessica Infante: I know. Don't, don't miss me too much. But yeah, like I plan on like not paying attention to any beer news. Good. I'm going to put up like a pin tweet that basically just says, I am not here.

[00:35:46] Justin Kendall: Gone fishing. There you go. Yeah. Well, with that, thank you, Sean, for hanging out with us and going over the BA numbers. And now we got to go figure out who bought back their craft brewery. You know, once this episode ends, I don't want to put that jinx on us, but that's where we are.

[00:36:04] Jessica Infante: I did that last week.

[00:36:05] Justin Kendall: Sorry.

[00:36:07] Jessica Infante: But I called it, I said, before I have this baby, at least one more brewery will change hands.

[00:36:12] Justin Kendall: Well, you got two instead. and they shut down Tulane, so.

[00:36:17] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:36:18] Sean McNulty: Going away present, Jess, there you go. Yeah.

[00:36:21] Jessica Infante: I just hope that doesn't mean there's like a surprise twin in here that I don't know about.

[00:36:24] Sean McNulty: Oh boy. We'll have something for Labor Day to welcome you back, so. A Labor Day deal.

[00:36:30] Justin Kendall: With that, we'll say that's our show for this week. Thanks to Jess and Zoe and Sean, and thanks to all you for listening. Go like, rate, review, subscribe, and sorry to our one-man audio team for being late, but it was a holiday weekend, so we will be back next week.