Brewbound Podcast: Diving into the Headlines with Deals, Deal Seekers, A Closing & Candy Corn Hard Cider

[00:00:00] Zoe Licata: Next on the Brewbound Podcast, we talk done deals, more craft brewers looking for deals, a cidery closing, and we preview brew talks. Hello, and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Kendall. I'm joined by my co host Zoe Licata. What's up, Zoe? Hello. Happy to be here. And we won't be alone next week. That's a little teaser. And that's not for an interview. We might have Another Round host by next time. Very exciting. It's happening. Get ready. Yeah, get ready. A big injection of New Jersey coming very soon to a brew down podcast near you. Let's plug BrewTalks because Zoe and I are going to be on the road next week for the Great American Beer Festival. But before the festivities even begin, we're going to be hosting a BrewTalks event on Thursday, September 21st from noon to 3 p.m. Mountain Time. We're going to be at Cervantes Masterpiece again, and we have a great lineup of speakers. We're really going to dig into draft beer trends. And there's a big reason for that. And that's because draft has been in decline since the mid 2010s. It is still struggling post pandemic. It really hasn't recovered to those pre pandemic levels and things aren't getting better. And we'll talk a little bit about a beer board report here in a second. that sort of backs that up. But let's talk about our first conversation. And that's a national draft conversation with Dogfish Heads, Sam Calagione, Tamaron Consulting's Lori Scheffler, and Buffalo Wild Wings' Jason Murphy. So we're going to drill into those national trends with those three. Yeah, so that'll be a nice kind of intro to our whole conversation for the day. And then we're going to really zoom in on the regional level and talk about regional draft trends with a few folks that represent the greater Colorado area, which makes sense for there for GABF. But also, we know it's a more mature craft beer market. There's a lot more going on there. And so they can serve as a pretty nice representation of what could be to come or what is happening with craft on a regional level when it comes to draft. So for that conversation, we have Dave Thibodeau from Scott Brewing, Katie Neerling from Elite Brands, Drew Watson from Hops and Pie, and Karen Hertz from Holla Daily. So we have craft beer brands, when it was a gluten-free brand, we have Elite Brands is going to give us that distribution angle and Hops and Pie, which will give us that more retailer angle. So it's going to be a great conversation to close out the day and really see what is happening. and that more local focused aspect of things. We know that draft has been historically a huge important piece of the craft brewing business. It's accounted for 30% of distributed draft. And really it serves as that theater that craft beer has owned so much of in the past. That's your brand building experience. And we know that things are changing. So let's talk about it. Let's figure out what's going on. how these businesses are adapting. Nobody pours more draft beer than Buffalo Wild Wings and Jason's gonna be able to give us that perspective of what a major retailer is doing and the type of support they want in the future and maybe some things that craft brewers can do to sort of get in there and really boost a night that might be a little more quiet. Yeah, the reason why we're focusing on draft for this Brew Talks is we just heard so many times, particularly from, like Justin said, from Bart Watson before, that it is a pivotal area for craft to really recover and for beer general to recover right now. and it's not where it needs to be, it's not where it should be, and so we want to dive into not only what is happening there, what has changed, but what people are looking for, what are we not hearing when it comes to challenges, or what is working in that space. There's just so much going on there and it's so important to beer in general that we think it's worth having these two conversations. And as Bart has pointed out, the risk here is if draft does not improve, then you risk that on-premise bars and restaurants won't invest in draft systems in the future, won't invest in draft beer. And if they're not doing that, do you really think that they're going to devote so much space to cans and bottles? I would think not. That's a lot of space that's going to be taken up by those individual packages as opposed to, you know, draft kegs that are out of sight. Right. So even if you're somebody who doesn't have a lot of draft accounts right now, or you're focused on your own taproom business, this topic is something that could impact your potential future plans. Or you can come away from this talk with some takeaways on how to maybe help improve or add to your business with this. So it's something that's going to impact everybody, especially if it ends up with those long-term effects on just how the on-premise is run. And if you want to feel worse about where draft beer stands, let's look at the latest beer board report that we just got in our inbox. Beer volume is down 8.3% year over year compared to last year's opening night and NFL opening weekend. So not a great start to the season when this is supposed to be a big beer drinking event of the year and not off to a hot start. Yeah, I mean, this is after, what was it, two straight years of solid growth, even with the on-premise struggling still. So it shows that, sure, we've talked about the impact of COVID and all those things, but now there's declines happening past those initial changes. And something like NFL opening weekend and the performance happening there is a pretty big indicator of what's happening overall in this area. So let's talk about it at BrewTalks. Let's try and come up with some solutions. Let's network. We're gonna feed you. You're gonna get a couple of beers for the ticket price. And a lot of that money is gonna go to the Colorado Brewers Guild. So money goes to a good cause. Zoe and I aren't all lining our pockets with it. No. We couldn't do that to the Colorado Brewers Guild. Never. No. So let's talk about some of the latest news. And we teased a lot of things that are going on. Insiders have been reading a lot of these stories at Brewbound.com, but also in our new newsletter. If you're not a subscriber, you can subscribe to the new newsletter. If you're an insider, you're getting a whole lot more than non-insiders are getting. But let's talk about the opening deal of the week, and that was Brooklyn Brewery has taken a minority investment in Hoplark. And Hoplark, they make non-alcoholic hop teas non-alcoholic beer, some sparkling water. They basically go by a triple zero tenet of zero sugar, zero alcohol, zero calories. So Minority investment as part of a Series A round, they're going to do a lot of production and logistics are going to run through Brooklyn going forward. And it sounds like they're going to be doing some production at FXMAT, which Brooklyn has an investment in FXMAT as well, a minority investment there. So they've got their irons and a lot of buyers. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. We've heard a lot from Brooklyn about their non-elk stuff for a while now. They were one of those early craft entrants into this space way back in like 2018, 2019 when they first launched and then came into the US with it. And it takes up a lot. Their non-alcoholic offerings take up a decent amount of their sales as well. I mean, their variety pack is their number three top performing offering in off-premise channels. So it just makes a lot of sense that they're going to continue to invest in this space that's working for them. Another company taking a minority stake in a non-alcoholic business, and this is an energy drink. Well, Molson Coors is upping its minority stake in Zoho, which is The Rock, Dwayne Johnson's energy drink. They've had a partnership for, it feels like, three years, two years, three years now, somewhere in there. And ZOA has hit some highs. It's starting to hit some lows as far as like scan data sales. But Molson Coors is apparently pretty committed to make this minority investment in the brand. It sounds like they're going to have their name on the product going forward and just continue to push that in a bigger way as part of their portfolio. And the energy drink space is really crowded right now with a lot of new entrants kind of dominated by a handful of brands. So it's going to be interesting to see how Zoe can carve out its space now that it has even more resources from Molson Coors. Well, The Rock has a lot more time on his hands these days with the strike, the actor's strike. So he can, you know, promote that brand a little bit more. And I wouldn't be surprised to see a pre-recorded video from The Rock this week when I'm at Molson Coors distributor meeting in Orlando. So I'm expecting a little bit of that this week. A couple of other deals. We caught up with Gina Harrington from Mighty Swell about that company's sale to a family flavor business. And now it's under the Lemonade umbrella. So they're going to be doing a lot of different things like canned cocktails, possibly ready to serve spirits. some other things there. And then another partnership that's worked out, Green Man and Appalachian Mountain Brewery, which some of the co-founders reacquired from Anheuser-Busch earlier this year. A&B is going to be contract brewing at Green Man's Asheville facility. You can read those stories at Brewbound.com. So let's talk a little bit about a closing last week. And we got the news that Reverend Nat Hardsider in Portland, Oregon, is going to be closing September 24th. So this is another story, which we again talked about numerous times of seems like founders or people in the Bedelk space are kind of changing up what they want to do in beer and beyond. And so NatWest, who's the founder of BrevNats, has decided to close the business after 12 years. He started this company as a hobby, as many people in the industry have, and it seems relatively satisfied with where it's been. The standout part or one of the standout parts with this news as it comes just a few months, about six months after Revnat opened new tap room in Portland. So we don't have too many details or specifics on what exactly led to this decision to close. It's kind of a handful of things, but interesting that it comes so close to the time that they opened that new space. Wes mentioned COVID closures, changing consumer preferences, the sputtering of craft beer overall, and the decline of Portland as a worldwide tourism destination. There's a lot going on there. But yeah, I mean, Portland itself has had a lot changed with COVID and with protests and things that happened there. So that whole atmosphere and environment has changed. just seems like a culmination of things led to this decision. Although Nat said not to be sad, it's hard not to be a little bit sad that one of these older cider brands in the Pacific Northwest is calling it quits. But it sounds like he is going to be doing some consulting work in the future. So congrats to him. It's a hell of a run. If it's just time, it's time and totally get that. Who knows what happens? Maybe somebody revives this brand in the future, but all that's up in the air at this point. Let's move on to some leadership changes. And this is really more some like these businesses are a little bit for sale. I would say Weathered Souls, starting with them, they announced last week that one of their co-founders, Mike Holt, is going to be leaving the business and he's looking to sell his majority stake in the business. And this is the San Antonio Craft Brewery that started Black is Beautiful. Marcus Baskerville has been on our BrewTalk stage. He's been on this podcast. Even just a few weeks ago, we were talking about Black is Beautiful Volume 2. Marcus is staying and his partner is looking for an exit. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there is any animosity between the two at all. It just seems that Hole is ready to put it in someone else's hands right now. And Marcus, like you said, will continue on with whoever takes that role. And they've recently expanded to Charlotte, so they have a presence there now. What was interesting to me is that this is a majority stake in the business that's up for sale here. And I feel like that's something that, you know, isn't usually publicized in this sort of way, although We are hearing more and more from people who are sort of in a similar position. Lost Nation in Vermont is looking for a new equity investor to buy out either one of its co-founders or as a turnkey sale. So that's a story that's going to be, by the time you hear this, it's going to be up on Brewbound.com. It's one where the business partnership has dissolved between the founders. And now it's left for the other founder to sort of pick up the pieces and try and figure out, you know, do you carry on this business or do you get out of it? And both are on the table, it sounds like there. And then you have another story in Portland, Oregon, where Culmination Brewing is seeking a sale as well. And they have brought on a consultant to try and sort of shepherd the business going forward. And whether that's a sale or whatever it is, but it sounds like a pretty dire situation from all the reporting that I've read out there. So. It all adds up to it's hard to run a craft brewery at this point. And the economic climate isn't favorable. And there are a lot of businesses out there, whether you know it or not, that are for sale. Yeah, I mean, if Jess was here, she would say it is fucking hard. It is no secret that beer in general has been struggling right now. We've been kind of on edge waiting for things to get a little better. People have been putting all their resources into getting by so they can wait for whenever we reach that moment where craft is gonna level out and be okay. And Now we're starting to see that businesses, they're really starting to break now. You can't sustain it anymore. They can't sustain the losses anymore. On top of issues with leases, there's issues with distribution and getting representation there. There's so many different things that can happen. to a craft brewery right now and a business right now that when you stack a couple of them on top of each other, it's really hard to keep going. It's really hard to stay passionate about it. And I think that's another thing we've seen is people are just tired and they want to see their companies or their businesses or just the name and brand stay out there, but they know that maybe it's not best in their hands anymore. Maybe someone else can continue that life for it. And there's an overarching story in craft beer at this point that there is just a sea change of leadership moves going on, whether it's longtime founders getting out, longtime CEOs, employees, you know, even the guy who is running the most successful craft brewery at this point has stepped away from the business, which is Kind of astonishing. I mean, although like if you're going to go out, go out on top, I guess. Yeah, I mean, that's a more positive way to leave, I guess, than others, but it is definitely a turning point. And we've talked about it before. I mean, the list keeps getting longer and longer of the people who are leaving companies, a lot of really long term established craft breweries seeing leadership changes. And hopefully this will look back at this turning point as when there's new leadership that's coming in and representing a new age of craft and there can be some great new players in the space. But right now, it's very much a time of uncertainty and just very interesting landscape for craft right now and craft leadership right now. And next week, we'll be celebrating it all at the Great American Beer Festival. It'll be interesting to see how everyone's spirits and what everyone is like at GABF. We will be in Denver a week from when you're listening to this and it's definitely going to be interesting to see how all the breweries there are. how they are just doing, who is participating, how the industry is feeling. Industry events tend to be a little bit more positive. People are excited to be around each other, but this year has been a significant one in terms of change, and so we'll see how everyone is feeling. I remember a time when the Great American Beer Festival was an instant sellout as far as some of the opening nights or even the weekend nights. There were sessions that sold out immediately. I don't believe that's the case this year, and that's not a knock on the BA. This is the situation we're in right now, and this is possibly a read of where the overall craft or consumer in general is. Zoe and I will be on Another Round and we'll be able to report back two weeks from now on that. But let's leave this on a positive note, I think, or a little more fun note and play Another Round or Tabbing Out. And last week we had the team from Mass Bay Brewing, which is doing the Duncan Spiked line of hard teas and hard coffees on here to talk about it. And they're getting a lot of good buzz. And over the weekend, I had the opportunity to finally try all eight products and you have tried, what is it? A handful? Four. All right. You're halfway there. Yeah. We're going to do this anyway. So you've done this. You're in Massachusetts. You are essentially a target audience for this product. Zoe, having now tried them, how are you feeling? Are you buying Another Round? Are you Tabbing Out on Dunkin Spiked? I am buying Another Round of the Dunkin Spiked teas. I might be Tabbing Out on the Dunkin Spiked coffees. I did a test with the group of friends over the Labor Day weekend, which has been a minute since we did one of those. So that was exciting. And people were highly anticipating trying these products. But the ones I was able to get my hands on, I had three of the coffee flavors. I had the mocha, the caramel and vanilla. And then I had one of the big tall boys of the slightly sweet hard tea. Hard Tea was the one we tried first and honestly, I really enjoyed it. It had a very, very similar flavor profile to a Twisted Tea. It was nearly identical, except for that it had a little bit more of that bitter black tea aftertaste to it, which I enjoyed. I think it cut some of the sweetness and made it so I would probably buy that one again. Crowdsourcing, it was pretty 50-50 split on people liked it or not. Coffee-wise, I tried it the next day with Another Round of people and that was a much more collective unsureness about them. The overarching theme of it all was they were very, very sweet. It was definitely a focus on the syrup flavors over the coffee flavors, so that was a little a little aggressive on the palate, on the tongue. Also tried them over ice to see if you could emulate more of that Dunkin' iced coffee feeling that we were looking for. And it helped a little bit, but they were very, very sweet for my liking and for the group I was with liking. So not really sure those will be bought again by us. I was a little more mixed on these. I liked the original coffee, which you didn't have. I thought that sort of set the baseline for me of what I was expecting. And I was fine with the mocha. And then I got to the caramel. I am a caramel macchiato drinker. And this is true. It was not it for me. I usually like sweet things. And that just I think it might have wrecked me for for the rest of the evening at that point. Not from a too inebriated state, but just like my palate has been severely compromised. Yes, I think we tried caramel last, so luckily didn't impact our others. But I will say when ranking the three coffees that we had, we all pretty collectively agreed that mocha was the best and caramel was the last. Yeah, I would rank it number eight of the eight. Yeah. as far as the ones I tried. You didn't get to try the refreshers. I tried both refreshers. I thought the dragon fruit was pretty good. Something I was like, Oh, I could see sipping on this a little bit. Now, the slightly sweet. Again, I like things sweet. This was too sweet for me. Yeah, like this was way too sweet. I mean, like I said, it had that Twisted Tea flavor to it and Twisted Tea is known for being pretty sweet as well. So yeah, it definitely was on the sweet side. If anything, I would maybe even try the coffees mixed with an actual Dunkin' Coffee. I really wanted that coffee flavor so bad. So I was a little disappointed there, but I'm excited to try the other tea flavors, those refresher flavors when I can. They are pretty much sold out everywhere around here right now. The demand has been pretty high to try them out. So we shall see when I can get my hands on those. This will be an interesting shakeout one just to see which ones the consumers gravitate toward if they like really latch on to something here or if it just kind of ends up being a fade out thing. I do think that this is the right direction to go with this brand. I do wonder if they are doing a lot all at once. And so it's. Yeah. kind of muddying the waters. And I don't think you can do like a Dave Portnoy, you know, one sip take on this. And that's sort of my method here, my methodology on trying multiple things. And I think I may have needed to like separate things a little bit more to really enjoy them. But I don't know, I'm kind of a mixed bag on this. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the like rebuy rate is and everything. I think it is hard that they were both released at the same time. So if you have a negative reaction to one of them, maybe you're not likely to try the other one or vice versa. And it's also hard because you really kind of have one shot with this type of thing. So if you don't nail it on that first try with this Dunkin branded beverage, I don't think it's very likely that people would go back if you try to maybe reformulate or something. But we'll see. I mean, we have also talked about how like flavor forward things and very like kind of sweet things sometimes people are excited about. I mean, twisted tea is still growing an insane amount. So this might really it could resonate with those consumers. I think they have a shot to break through maybe with the refreshers. I think that that might be enough of a differentiator to get them through. But I guess we'll see, you know, next year if they lean more into that or what they lean into. Yeah, I mean, Jim Cook doesn't seem too stressed about it, based on some of the comments he's shared over the past week. Shots fired. He called it a comical release. That was the word he used. Said it was quote, comical, that Duncan was coming out with a hard T, and then said basically that Jiffy Lube might as well come out with one next, which I think didn't make total sense. I mean, Duncan is known for T's already. But he's not stressed at all about people coming after Twisted Tea. He's called them all kind of Me Too brands. He said they don't really serve a purpose, that they're not trying to fill any void necessarily, and that those that might try to, Twisted Tea is already one step ahead of them and is borrowing routes to market, like coming out with Twisted Tea Light to serve that lower calorie option, or coming out with Twisted Tea Extreme to serve the higher ABV wants. He's not sweating at all. So we'll see if it does make any sort of dent in that 90 plus percent share that Twisted Tea has. What exactly is the point of a Twisted Tea? I mean, that's that's a great question. I guess if we were the moderators, we'd have to ask Jim, if the others don't have a purpose, what is Twisted Tea's purpose? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that the purpose of any alcoholic beverage is fairly stated, but he's Jim Cook. I thought he was a little more outspoken on this than I expected him to be, given, you know, it's one of his neighbors that's behind this product. But hey, Jim's gonna Jim. Yeah, he wasn't even sweating the entrance of traditionally non-alcoholic tea brands like the Arizonas. He said those probably make the most sense, but he just doesn't see them working because they're not used to the BevElk space. They're not used to marketing things the way beer has to be marketed. And Mass Bay Brewing isn't? Well, right. Mass Bay Brewing does. Duncan comes with the regular tea experience and formula already. Jim also dove into the complications of mixing tea with alcohol and how they have this 200 year old tea company that they've been working with forever to make sure they have the right flavor profile. I said it earlier, I thought the Dunkin' Slightly Sweet tasted almost identical. So I don't know how complicated that is, but I don't want to shade Jim too much. But he was throwing out a lot of his own shade this past week. Yeah. I mean, he's pulling old SNL jokes at this point with that Jiffy Lube comment anyway. But yeah. All right. One more and let's get out of here for the week. And that is Beacon Skiff, it's a New York cidery, is launching Candy Corn Hard Cider under its 1911 established line of alcoholic beverages. It's available in 4-inch well packs of 16-ounce cans, and it's available for purchase online and at Wegmans, and it's 6.9% ABV. Speaking of sweetness, it has a 6 out of 6 rating on the sweetness scale as per Beacon Skiff. Zoe, candy, corn, Hard Cider. And I almost said seltzer because when I first saw this, I was like, this is obviously a seltzer. It is not. It's Hard Cider. Are you down with this? I'm going to tab out on this, which I'm a little sad to say because I'm a little familiar with the 1911 brands. I am a huge fan of, they have like a raspberry flavor that's kind of really tart that I used to drink a lot a couple of years ago, but I can't do the super sweet. They also have Hard Cider donut one, which is... It should be really good, but it is also, they would probably rate it a 6 out of 6 on the sweetness scale, too. It is very, very sweet, and I couldn't drink one of those, so this is probably the same way. And as a candy corn defendant for a long time... Defendant? I was a Katie Korn fan for many, many, many years. Now, not so much. I think it's just, I don't know, if you have too many and then it all kind of starts to taste weird. But I think Katie Korn gets a lot of hate. So I try to, like, give support to the underdog. But now this is too much for me. I'll give them that it's not a pumpkin product right now. Right. It is going in a different direction, but still in that fall holiday theme. I just don't know about something that's like stale candy at your aunt's house that no one's eating. And it's probably been there for multiple years and nobody would know the difference that, you know, it's candy corn, right? Yeah. I mean, until you bite into it. Is there a reason candy corn is almost always on sale whenever it's out at Walgreens or wherever else you can get your Halloween candy? I think it might be among the worst candies ever invented. That's a very bold statement. My teeth kind of hurt just thinking about it. This is why I was a supporter of candy corn for so long, though. It was just those little guys are so cute and they get so much hate. But I mean, it's literally just what corn syrup and that's about it. And some food dye. Yeah. What else could it be? Lots of sugar. Yeah. I mean, I'll eat a candy corn over a red vine. So. Oh, no, no, no. Red vines are disgusting. As perfumey as they are, I would totally have a red vine. I would try a red vine cider right now. Call up Beacon Skiff. I will. I'll be like, hey, let's have some red vine cider. They might do it. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't already some sort of red vine affiliated beverage out there. I'm sure there is. I'm going to Google this real quick before we get out of here. This is vital research. 10 Barrel apparently has a beer called Red Vines Sinister, but I don't know if that's supposed to be the same sort of red wine. Aged with red vines. Now Twizzlers is a far superior licorice to Red Vines, but Red Vines has that nostalgia movie theater thing that you're probably not old enough to... Disgusting. Yeah. My like one real core memory with Red Vines is we had a girl on my softball team who was from the Midwest brought them instead of Twizzlers one time to a game and it was awful. I can't even buy Twizzlers because I'd house it. My mom's favorite candy or at least like within the top three for sure. It's a good one. Yeah, we're Twizzler fans. Well, now that everybody knows our licorice preference, I feel like we should get out of here. But if you've listened this far, check out BrewTalks if you're in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. Tickets are on sale now. You can get them at Brewbound.com. You're going to get a couple of beers. You're going to get to network. You're going to get some light apps. You're going to get some beer biz conversations. We're going to talk about draft. It'll be a good time. So with that, we'll say that's our show for this week. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe, thanks to Zoe for doing everything she does for the show. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.