From Blueberries to Boom Season: Baxter and Orono’s Maine Strategy

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. What's going on in Maine? Find out next on The Brewbound Podcast. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall. And I'm Jessica Infante. And we've lost Zoe to internet connection issues.

[00:00:52] Jessica Infante: Yeah, it's a real blustery day here in Massachusetts. So Zoe is having First the power went out, now the internet's blinking. So you had all three of us for a week, and now you're back to just two of us.

[00:01:03] Justin Kendall: And full disclosure, we're recording this on St. Patrick's Day.

[00:01:07] Jessica Infante: Neither of us are wearing green, but Zoe and I both went to Boston on Sunday. So I think we did our parts. She went to an actual St. Patrick's Day party along the parade route in South Boston. I went to the Maine Brewers Guild Brunch with the Brewers event to close out Mass Beer Week. And that was lovely.

[00:01:25] Justin Kendall: It's like the Starship Troopers meme. I did my part.

[00:01:30] Jessica Infante: Yeah, exactly. I don't know what I was thinking, but I just thought I'd have a nice quiet train ride down on a Sunday morning from the North Shore where I live, thinking nobody up here wanted to go to the parade. I was so incredibly wrong. I don't know where I got that idea.

[00:01:44] Justin Kendall: How many Borgs did you count?

[00:01:46] Jessica Infante: I saw no boards. I did see many McGillicuddy's nips. And at one point I saw just a very large smeared off red, white and blue bottle being passed around. And like the train was packed, standing room only. I just wanted to read my book. And the seats on these trains are like three across and two across. So in a three-seater where I was standing next to, it was like a dad and his son. And when I pulled out my book and stood there, I think the dad was like, oh, this is just a normal woman. And he had his kid scoot over and let me sit down. And the three of us were probably the only people not breaking open container laws on that train that day. On my way home, nobody wanted to sit next to the old lady. So I got to sit and read my book.

[00:02:31] Justin Kendall: Austin has a reputation to uphold.

[00:02:34] Jessica Infante: Really does. And like this is super unscientific, but for anybody that's worried about the kids not drinking, I don't know, man, these kids do.

[00:02:44] Justin Kendall: Well, we'll look forward to seeing that in the next data set.

[00:02:50] Jessica Infante: Yes.

[00:02:51] Justin Kendall: You can look forward to a pair of interviews from the New England Brew Summit, which was in Portland, Maine earlier this month. Jess, who are we talking to?

[00:03:02] Jessica Infante: We are talking to Jenn Lever, who's the president of Baxter Brewing and Abe Furth, who is the co-owner of Orono Brewing. And both of them are on the leadership board of the Maine Brewers Guild. So Zoe talked to Abe, I talked to Jenn. I was not around for Zoe's chat with Abe, but I'm sure it was great. Jenn and I talked a lot about their non-ALC beer line. They're doing some really interesting stuff. Whereas I think a lot of what we're seeing in craft NA is IPAs and lagers and other like golden ales, things like that. Baxter has really gotten fun with it. You know, they do a blueberry that's really popular, a pumpkin beer in the fall. You know, they're trying to give, you know, NA beer drinkers like the full craft experience, which I think is great.

[00:03:47] Justin Kendall: So I lied. You will hear from Zoe later in this episode and you will hear more from Jess.

[00:03:53] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Sorry about that.

[00:03:55] Justin Kendall: So stay tuned for that. We got a few things that we've got going on. We're going to be. in Philadelphia for the Craft Brewers Conference. We'll be on the trade show floor recording this podcast, future episodes of it, as well as we'll be there Sunday night for a networking event at Love City Brewing. We'll be there from 5 to 7 PM. That's April 19th. We'll have registration up very soon on Brewbound.com. So look for that.

[00:04:23] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we're having a party. I'm excited. This is all I've wanted for years. It's for us to have a party and we're doing it.

[00:04:31] Justin Kendall: If you want to join us for the party, that's one thing. But if you want to be on this podcast, hit us up at podcast at Brewbound.com.

[00:04:39] Jessica Infante: For sure. We will build out that schedule and get back to you. And I am looking forward to having chats with our craft beer friends from all over the country.

[00:04:48] Justin Kendall: And we're also looking forward to having chats at the December 9th and 10th Brewbound Live in Los Angeles, Marina Del Rey. Which one should I say?

[00:04:59] Jessica Infante: Both are accurate. Marina del Rey is a section of Los Angeles. Unlike Santa Monica, which is its own town.

[00:05:05] Justin Kendall: Yeah, let's run with Los Angeles.

[00:05:07] Jessica Infante: I think people know that one.

[00:05:09] Justin Kendall: Yeah. We're putting together the program now, the work really starts early. And so if you're interested in speaking, if you know somebody that should be speaking or you want to hear from, hit us up at podcast at Brewbound.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think would make good stage content this year.

[00:05:29] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Other stuff to check out before we dive into the rest of this episode, as always, the Brew Brown job board is robust and full of a lot of cool openings right now. So if you're looking for something or you know somebody who is, absolutely send them that way because there are plenty of jobs to be had right now.

[00:05:47] Justin Kendall: And these stories that we're going to be talking about, you can read them in full at Brewbound.com. Become an insider today to get full access. You'll also get full access to our insider daily newsletter and our weekend recap. So well worth it. Check it out. But, uh, let's dive in and we're going to start with Tilray and BrewDog. Wow. It's like we talk about it every week now.

[00:06:14] Jessica Infante: Well, dude, if it's a Monday in March, Tilray has acquired some facet of BrewDog's business is what I have decided.

[00:06:20] Justin Kendall: Well, you got the distinct honor of speaking with Irwin Simon, the CEO of Tilray, and you got to the bottom of what's going on with this BrewDog acquisition.

[00:06:30] Jessica Infante: I did. So if you've been listening to the podcast, you know that beginning of this month, news broke that Tilray Brands was acquiring the Scotland operations of BrewDog. But that first part of the deal that was announced was for BrewDog's IP, global brand rights, 11 pubs in Scotland, England, and Ireland. and their huge brewing facility in Ellen, Scotland, as well as a production distribution hub. That's part one. The next week, news broke that BrewDog was going to be selling their Brisbane, Australia brewery, as well as a group of taprooms in Australia. And then finally, the last shoe dropped this week of this three-shoe set, very common. that Tilray would be acquiring BrewDog's production brewery outside of Columbus, Ohio, as well as a couple tap rooms in Ohio and BrewDog's facility on the Las Vegas strip where Justin, you, I, Zoe, a few other people have had beers.

[00:07:36] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Very nice rooftop.

[00:07:38] Jessica Infante: Yes, a very nice rooftop. So something interesting that Erwin told me yesterday with regards to that brewery or facility or taproom, I assume they brew there. I don't know. We got there and we went right upstairs to the roof deck. So I don't remember what their setup is. But he is thinking that that could very well turn into a Tilray multi-brand house where it's, you know, Tilray's headquarters on the strip that serves beers from their wide portfolio of craft brands across the country. So that could be interesting to see. He seemed really excited about that.

[00:08:09] Justin Kendall: The shock top sky deck.

[00:08:11] Jessica Infante: The shock top sky deck. Yeah, man. The sweet water strip side watering hole. So yeah, keep an eye on that. We'll see how long that will take to develop. I'd assume things like that take time because it's very big and very thoroughly brewedogged out. Less enthusiastic about the hotel that they have in Ohio, but it's part of the package, so it stays. He seemed kind of interested, but kind of he's like, would I want to get into the hotel business from the start? No, but it was part of the deal.

[00:08:45] Justin Kendall: That was going to be my first question was how does he feel about being in the hotel biz?

[00:08:50] Jessica Infante: mildly bemused to slightly pessimistic is how I would categorize that.

[00:08:55] Justin Kendall: How many rooms do they have?

[00:08:57] Jessica Infante: You know, I don't know. So that's part of the deal. You, I believe, wrote this up for us this week that BrewDog's Atlanta outpost has closed. Years ago, when they first started making their big push into the US, BrewDog had operated tap rooms in a bunch of different places. I want to say there was Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, like really like a whole host of cities that were like spitting distance from Columbus where they set up shop for their headquarters. And those, you know, we don't need to get into it here because we've talked about it ad nauseum, but some of those that had some issues, all of them have since closed. What's left is a few tap rooms around Columbus, one in Cleveland, one at the Columbus airport.

[00:09:41] Justin Kendall: So I dug it up. They have 32 beer themed rooms.

[00:09:47] Jessica Infante: Dude, that's pretty big.

[00:09:49] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:09:49] Jessica Infante: Right? Like I know there's the Dogfish Inn, but I don't think that's that big.

[00:09:53] Justin Kendall: They feature draft beer on tap.

[00:09:56] Jessica Infante: In your room.

[00:09:56] Justin Kendall: Fridges stocked with the finest non-alcohol and craft beers and plenty of brew dog attitude.

[00:10:04] Jessica Infante: They could do a room for every brand.

[00:10:07] Brewbound Podcast: This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at CraftBrewersConference.com.

[00:10:28] Jessica Infante: So I asked Erwin a bunch of things and one of them was, what's going to happen with this brewery because you already have a ton of breweries and you were already closing production at some of them. So what's up here? And he pointed out that they're still, you know, starting next January, they'll be doing stateside production of Carlsberg. So they're going to need somewhere to make that. And they're actually contract producing highball energy. So they would be able to bring that in house. That made sense to me. They're going to run BrewDog as a separate business unit for right now. He was really impressed with the BrewDog US sales team. He was excited to be able to bring them on. He wasn't sure about layoffs yet. Who's left? That's a great question, but he has had Zoom calls with people.

[00:11:12] Justin Kendall: Our buddy Eric, who we had on this podcast not long ago, he is no longer there. Correct.

[00:11:18] Jessica Infante: Yeah. They did a round of layoffs last fall. But I mean, Erwin was really positive on the people that he's met and he says that they are really going to be able to help them out. They've got super close ties to Kroger, which makes sense. They're based in Ohio. So I did actually end up asking Erwin how much this deal all in was for, because when the UK portion of the deal was announced, it was included in the press release that Tilray had paid 33 million pounds, which comes out to about 44.1 million US dollars. He told me yesterday that for the UK business, the Australia business, the US business, everything all together, he said is in the neighborhood of 40 to 41 million pounds. So take that first chunk of the deal and add seven, 8 million pounds extra. And that is what the Australia and US total comes up to.

[00:12:14] Justin Kendall: So around 54 million US dollars.

[00:12:18] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Our friend of the pod, VinePair columnist and editor of the Fingers Booze Letter, Dave Infante, no relation to me, received and shared a letter that was sent to the equity punks, the people who have paid into BrewDog's crowdfunding platform over the years, who basically said like, hey, your portion of this business was not included in the sale. It remains with the remains of BrewDog USA, which I think was a lot of words to tell those people basically, you're probably not getting any money. Dave posted that on his blue sky account. If you want to go read it. One thing that Irwin did tell me is that for BrewDog, the brand for their distribution business, they are going to be focusing on four key States, Ohio, obviously Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. And one part of the business they want to build up as they're going to plan to do in the UK as well is getting distributed draft out to the on-premise. That had kind of not really been too much of a factor in the brand's plans previously due to they just had so many taprooms. So they are going to be working on that. He's really excited about it. And he said, you know, this really kind of plays into our strategy of having regional drools, which you can see, you know, they, they've got stuff in the pack Northwest. They've got. They've got the Southeast, they've got New York, and they kind of had a bit of a hole in the Great Lakes part of the country. So this gives them a plug for that. And the other thing he pointed out that like really kind of struck me as being like, oh, I don't know why I didn't think about this, but he was like, this makes us a global beverage company. Like this is our first global brand and it is. So that's what was attractive. He said they had looked at it a few times over the past few years, but when the stars aligned, this time it was a deal they could not refuse.

[00:14:13] Justin Kendall: Is he done?

[00:14:14] Jessica Infante: Yes and no. He was basically, it looked like he was like, it's really hard to do what we've been doing. We were not in craft beer in 2020 and now we have a lot of craft beer. Now we're the fourth largest craft brewery in the country. So they've put together quite an operation in a very short period of time. And I think all of it was like, the word that keeps coming to my mind is opportunistic, but that's not quite the right word, but it's basically like when you're presented with this opportunity, you take it. They didn't really want to do this, but these deals kept coming together that were at prices they couldn't refuse. And now they have a ton of craft brands.

[00:14:51] Justin Kendall: Is anything going away?

[00:14:53] Jessica Infante: No.

[00:14:55] Justin Kendall: No. All right.

[00:14:57] Jessica Infante: Not that he wanted to tell me.

[00:14:59] Justin Kendall: This is essentially canarchy, right? In a way, canarchy paid big money for things at a time when acquisitions were hot and Irwin's picking up things on the cheap as he's sort of laid out here and done through AB and Molson Coors, although that Montauk per barrel price was pretty high.

[00:15:23] Jessica Infante: They were still young at this. They didn't know.

[00:15:26] Justin Kendall: Yeah. So they've acquired a lot of things. And I mean, they've got far more than Canarchy ever had. Or another example would be ABV, ABV much smaller. But yeah, this is the platform that is nationwide, right?

[00:15:45] Jessica Infante: Yeah, this is definitely a nationwide platform. But, you know, they did it with Sweetwater, like they took Sweetwater nationwide when it wasn't. I don't think they want to do that now. I think they're happy to keep their regional brands regional. Canarchy nationalized its biggest brands.

[00:16:02] Justin Kendall: They tried to. Cigar City, Dale's.

[00:16:05] Jessica Infante: Right. Another parallel between Monster Canarchy and Tilray is they have these brands that they acquired, but they're also building their own, you know? Monster has built up The Beast and Nasty Beast. And Tilray has built up a lot more from scratch. There's Liquid Love, Runner's High, Cruisey's. So they've got a lot of Bevelle brands. Some bought, some built. And we'll see where they go. I mean, they've kind of got a, they've got a player in most segments. A lot of them are fast followers, which can be a really successful business model until it's not, but. One thing that Erwin told me, their priorities for right now is no more acquisitions. They do want to stabilize the BrewDog brand because he admitted he's had some stumbles lately. And I think maybe when the brand is a little bit farther removed from its founders, some of those things should go away. You know, he said it just, they need, like the brand needs some love. It's a great brand, but it needs some love and attention. They're going to do that. Another thing he told me is that with their vast and varied portfolio, they have over a thousand distributors. That's nuts, right? Well, I mean, look at where they got most of their craft brands from, like Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors. So of course they're going to have different distributors.

[00:17:30] Justin Kendall: It's one of the most fascinating stories in beer right now is what Tilray is doing and how they're going to pull it all off in the end. And can they maintain all of this?

[00:17:43] Jessica Infante: Yeah. He, he didn't tell me, but he was like, I wouldn't have believed what's for sale until I got in this role and we started buying stuff. And then all of a sudden everybody has come out of the woodwork to be like, hello, here's my brewery.

[00:17:56] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I'm sure he's the first call most people go to at this point. Why wouldn't he be?

[00:18:03] Jessica Infante: Who else is there? Sucks for the equity punks.

[00:18:07] Justin Kendall: To me, that is one of the most underrated things on this is how you turn around a brand with a devoted fan base who purchased equity in this business and have essentially been left out in the cold. If those were your most loyal drinkers, how do you bring them back into the fold? How do you get them back when they're like, well, I got a t-shirt and some discounts, you know?

[00:18:34] Jessica Infante: And some of them didn't even get that.

[00:18:36] Justin Kendall: This isn't the billion dollar sale that they thought they were going to be along for the ride on maybe.

[00:18:42] Jessica Infante: I mean, when does this ever work out? I can think of far more crowdfunding raises that didn't go well in this space. Yeah. But I'm also not in the habit of following other ones.

[00:18:55] Justin Kendall: I think you kind of have to know what you're getting into when you are getting in those deals. Kind of know the deal and maybe the discounted beer and whatever swag you get is the best you're going to get. You can read more about that at Brewbound.com. Jess will have her interview with Erwin up very soon. So stay tuned for that. But we should talk a little bit about shipments and then get out of here because the Beer Institute released the latest economic reports, including domestic taxpayers, and it's not starting off to be a hot year. It's been good in scans, but the shipment data is not great because While shipments topped 9.6 million barrels in January, that was a 995,677 barrel decline compared to last year. And last year wasn't good either because we lost 9,075,728 barrels that year. So we are losing about close to a million barrels a year at this point, the last couple of years.

[00:20:07] Jessica Infante: Which is. A lot. That's like a Sierra Nevada disappearing from the industry, basically. Yeah. It's interesting because as you said, the scan stories are all like, yay, things are better.

[00:20:20] Justin Kendall: Well, in January, it's supposed to be your loading, right? Right. And so it's brutal. And then you look at imports and imports are down 17%. In January, Mexican imports are down 14.6%, Netherlands down 25.9%, Ireland down 27.9%. And those, I mean, you can pretty much link up who you think is related to each of those countries.

[00:20:46] Jessica Infante: Right.

[00:20:48] Justin Kendall: Pretty easily.

[00:20:49] Jessica Infante: Right. And I think we're out of the cycling of production moving domestically.

[00:20:57] Justin Kendall: That too.

[00:20:58] Jessica Infante: Because imports were looking pretty ugly for a while, but it wasn't as bad when you consider the fact that a lot of those brands went from being made overseas to being made here.

[00:21:06] Justin Kendall: Beer Institute's chief economist, Andrew Heritage, noted that we were dealing with a lot of bad winter weather during this time, so that really played a role in some of this, and he expects that some of this to come back in line. We shall see, but 2025 finished with down months every month of the year. And that can still turn. They can still update those numbers, but they didn't update this last month. So pretty rough shipments to start the year.

[00:21:41] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:21:42] Justin Kendall: Before we get to our feature and interview, let's talk a little bit about the scans and We mentioned that they have actually performed much better than what we've seen shipment data. And of course, we've only got one month of shipment data to talk about. And we've got about three months now of scan data, two and a half.

[00:22:04] Jessica Infante: The most recent scan data report covered that week where we had a pretty gnarly blizzard here in the Northeast. Serkana seemed to think that that helped. I mean, it makes sense why a gross blizzard affects breweries shipping their beer to wholesalers. It also makes sense why people stuck at home in a snowstorm want to drink some beer. So similar things, different outcomes, depending on what you're looking at.

[00:22:30] Justin Kendall: And we just had a blizzard here in Iowa on Sunday and carried over into Monday where it wasn't a great time if you were out on the road. There are factors at play here and hopefully things turn around. And I mean, as Jess pointed out, the kids, the kids were drinking on the train. The kids were drinking on the train. The youth will save us all. Yeah. So with that, let's get to our featured interviews.

[00:22:59] Jessica Infante: Hi, it is Brewbound managing editor Jessica Infante here on the trade show floor at the New England Craft Brew Summit in lovely Portland, Maine, one of my favorite cities. I am psyched to have this next guest here to chat because I have heard so many wonderful things about her over the years. We have some mutual besties who have assured me that I will love her. and I'm sure they're right. Welcome to the Brewbound Podcast, Jenn Lever, Baxter Brewing President and CEO. Jen, how are you doing?

[00:23:24] Baxter Brewing: Great. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here today. It's such an incredible and important day for us in the Guild and as board members, as members to get together. And so the day is always very infectious and we're really excited to be here. And yeah, so it couldn't be better, honestly.

[00:23:43] Jessica Infante: Either Zoe or I attend this event every year. In addition to being the fearless leader at Baxter Brewing, you're also the president of the Maine Brewers Guild Board of Directors, which is a huge time commitment and such a service to do for your peers, so kudos. You guys do an awesome job.

[00:24:00] Baxter Brewing: This conference is great. Thank you so much. I think anything that comes out this well is definitely done with a lot of heart and a lot of intention and definitely led by our fearless leader, Sarah Bryan, our executive director, who I think Kai captured really well in the keynote this morning. I think we have the best ED in the country. Sarah's two years into this role now, are going on year two, so her second summit. Her influence can be felt and seen and touched in the quality of the seminars and the vendors that are here, in the quality of the food and just the membership engagement in general, which is honestly the most important part.

[00:24:38] Jessica Infante: Sarah, she is, like you said, slightly new in the role, but I feel like she's been here forever. She's so great and she is so knowledgeable about the industry and particularly what Maine needs because You know, this is a country of 50 states and they're all different, but Maine is really interesting to me because you guys are a huge industry for the state, but you also rely on a lot of tourism. Like there's a lot that goes on here and a lot of stuff that has been happening in the world has been affecting Maine Brewers in ways that it's not really affecting at other places, like the loss of Canadian tourism. I'm sure you guys have felt that. I didn't know that that was where we were going to go when I started talking, but here we are.

[00:25:13] Baxter Brewing: Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely. I mean, we're so proud to represent Maine year-round, but we also recognize that the challenges that come when your population quadruples for less than half of the year. You've got to be ready to activate and react as quickly as possible to that summer seasonal and the people that come to Maine the first time, it's never their last time. That's the kind of experience I think that statewide we're so good at curating. and Canadian tourism and Canadian staff coming down for even to be employees at our restaurants and in the hospitality business. It's such an important part of our state and I think we depend on that in such a different way than most other states. So we hope this is a pause rather than a breakup and we look forward to more people understanding the quality that if they spend their money on the tourism in places down here, it's well worth it and it's going to really good people. So you brought up the seasonality.

[00:26:09] Jessica Infante: I think that's really interesting. How does that affect what you guys do at Baxter? Like your production, let's say, like the logistics of that. How do you plan for this?

[00:26:17] Baxter Brewing: Yeah, I mean, I think Baxter quality is so important to us. So we're tracking the trends of that piece, but we definitely ramp up for the summer. Quality and freshness and shelf life guides everything we do. So, you know, we're making reactions on brew scheduling. I think like most of our counterparts in the industry, based on those trends. We're about a 70% package, 30% keg brewery, and that percentage goes a little bit the other way during the summer, but it's so important for us to be present on these on-premise restaurant menus so that people can also find us in the locally grocery stores and the independent retailers. And having that consistency is incredibly important. But we do majority of our volume across seven months of the year. And so March kind of also hits that tipping point. And I think that's the beauty of having the summit right in early March, like everybody's gearing up. We're having weather like we had this morning and we're kind of over that weather and we're focused on spring. We're focused on being ready and prepared for as many opportunities as our sales team can go out there and grab for us. So when does the slower times start? I think it's a little bit different for Lewiston. We're located in Lewiston in the base complex mill. We don't see the same track and trend of tourism in the summer as other people do. So we're on a waterway, but it's a river. And so back to school is really good for us. Typically, starting out in early September, you've just spent all the money on the back to school shopping and getting your family ready. But mid to late September, people are ready to come back out and go to their local watering holes. And we're proud to be one of them. So we stay busy pretty much through the holidays. And then we take two weeks down in December. We started that five years ago. And yeah, give our team a chance to be home with their families and friends and worry about something other than the beer for those busy holiday weeks. And then come back in January and start gearing up and making the plans for how do we do everything we did last year, but a little bit better. Awesome.

[00:28:19] Jessica Infante: Yeah. You know, last year I actually ended up writing a story about how I noticed like a few breweries, particularly in New England, where our weather in January is frankly awful, that were taking time to shut down their taprooms just to do some work, do like repairs or construction or renovations. And it just made sense to me because if you're a little bit slower, why swim upstream? Like close down, take the time, do some stuff. But you guys, you mentioned before we started recording how big your non-ocs have gotten lately. So does that play a role for you in the taproom in January?

[00:28:48] Baxter Brewing: Yeah, certainly in January, you know, the tagline is sober October is very real You know the thing I try to explain to people too is if you take one month one week off a month You actually don't drink for three months of the year. So it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing mentality But I think our approach with non-alcoholics They're absolutely for the sober lifestyle person. And that was the idea behind developing our non-alcoholic blueberry is we really recognize the lack of a flavored beer in that category. My uncle's been sober for 35 years, and so he hasn't had a blueberry beer in 35 years. So that's the one he's gravitated towards. But, you know, a lot of people are doing it to also flex their moderation. You know, that's why we're like using all seasons, all reasons, like we don't need to know why you're not drinking if you want to share it. Great. But if you're making that decision for health, happiness or your ability to meet that meeting in the morning, like we want to be part of that decision and give you a local option that is made here in Maine. And we're proud of the low calories and the flavor profiles that have come out of that category for us. Awesome. What other non-alcoholic beverages are in your to Non-Elk IPA and we just called them exactly the style we want the consumer to know exactly what they're getting. So our Non-Elk IPA came out in October of 24. Non-Elk Blueberry, a Non-Elk Pilsner that we just released in December. That's all main made malts from Blue Ox Malthouse in Lisbon. So we're really, really proud of that one. And We did a non-elk pumpkin last year.

[00:30:14] Brewbound Podcast: Wow.

[00:30:15] Baxter Brewing: Yeah, we got the question. I had made a promise to my brew master and director of operations like, all right, we're going to work on next year's releases. Sales manager came and said, what do you think? He said, I think I can make a really good one. He did. We had a lot of fun last fall with that one. Looking forward to doing that again this year.

[00:30:34] Jessica Infante: I love that you're doing this because as somebody who occasionally does drink a non-elk and as somebody who was pregnant, you know, the options aren't always there for these flavors. So that's really cool.

[00:30:44] Baxter Brewing: Yeah. And people like they would at our restaurant, we would serve it with the sugar rim and like give that full experience. And then we also served it with a shot of vanilla vodka and called it a drunken pumpkin. And, you know, I think that's what we all are out here doing. We're trying to connect with the consumer and meet them where they're at and understand their needs just a little bit better today than we did yesterday.

[00:31:05] Jessica Infante: What is pulling ahead in terms of the Non-Elk portfolio? What's selling better than anything else?

[00:31:10] Baxter Brewing: The Non-Elk IPA, I think we thought would be the lead runner kind of no matter what. And what's been shocking to us is the Non-Elk Blueberry being as successful as the IPA, particularly on on-premise. It's one for one with very similar variety and velocity. So that's fantastic. You know, that tells me a lot about something that people were looking for. And our team is just so proud of that beer. We have a great blueberry beer that we do year-round, and we're just so proud to be in Maine, from Maine, and we want to find ways to bring that into the beer we're making, and this is just one way, and we're thrilled with the outcome.

[00:31:47] Jessica Infante: Awesome. And what else is going on with Baxter this year? What are you guys keeping an eye out for in terms of product trends?

[00:31:52] Baxter Brewing: We are a part of some of the membership group that's doing the Delta 9 THC beverages. So we've taken a bit of a different approach than some of our counterparts. We don't have a distillery license, so we're actually doing it as a juice. And we've used the weed strain name so people can understand the consumer knows Pineapple Express is going to taste like pineapple juice. It's not going to be a mix of a lot of other things. And so while right now it looks like that product line is going to go away from us in November, we're just trying to make the most of it. We recognize the large overlap of craft beer enthusiasts with the cannabis community and that relationship is just so clear in the purchasing of these products. So it's been fun to develop and have this different line. Outside of that, I think Summer Crush is our summer release. It's our second year with this release and our First time having a summer ale, that's, you know, we've really been a big part of our brand in my entire tenure, so last eight years. And the way the team has gravitated towards it, we used a new hop technology. We've got a QR code where people are telling us about what they're crushing this summer. I mean, Maine summers are just meant to be captured. So we're just trying to play a small role in helping to do that.

[00:33:02] Jessica Infante: I love that. So eight years you've been around. I think eight years in the beer industry through what has happened since then is like a lifetime. What stands out to you about how things are different today versus how they were when you started? Different.

[00:33:17] Baxter Brewing: That's a great question. You know, I think, not that you asked this part, but I think what's the same for me... Honestly, that might be a better way to approach this. The collaboration, you know, and even the recognition. When a guy like Rob Todd can stand up and tell you, like, this is the hardest years of his career, I think a brewery like Baxter and, frankly, every size brewery in Maine, you just feel a little bit more seen. And he might not be up there telling you exactly how to solve it for your particular issues, but I think days like today and people's willingness to share what's working for them just makes you feel a little bit less alone. Some issues are cyclical, and then some issues are brand new, and we've been faced with all of them. We're not doing a lot to impact tariffs, but we're reacting and trying to do the best we can. In my experience, national politics in the last eight years haven't played as big of a role to business decisions that we're making about what we can offer for beers and in what vessel. So that's probably the biggest change. But the optimism, I just can't let go of the optimism I have that with so many people in the industry so willing to still share where they screwed up and what worked well for them. I think if you've got the willpower to keep fighting, that there's some good things to come for a lot of members.

[00:34:35] Jessica Infante: Awesome. What are you guys looking forward to this year?

[00:34:39] Baxter Brewing: Hard after today's weather to not look forward to the sun, I'll be honest with you. We're thrilled about the non-ALC development. I think that's the, you know, we're so proud of our core beer lineup and we're excited. We're making a variety pack change, which probably seems trivial to a lot of people, but when you have a variety pack in your lineup and it's such a big, that's our number two package to give a new beer to that variety pack drinker, we're putting our pale ale into the variety pack. I'm really excited to hear more feedback on our pale ale, particularly.

[00:35:09] Brewbound Podcast: Awesome.

[00:35:09] Baxter Brewing: What we can learn and kind of meet the consumer at where they're at. What else is in the pack? We've got Stowaway, which is our flagship beer. That's a West Coast IPA, 6.9%. Coastal Haze is our hazy IPA that we released in 2020, 5.9%. Staycationland, 4.9%. The Hellas-inspired lager, that's our number one lager. And now it'll be our pale ale, 5.4%. So yeah, we'll be launching that next month.

[00:35:35] Jessica Infante: Is that year-round constantly in market?

[00:35:37] Baxter Brewing: Yes.

[00:35:38] Jessica Infante: Okay, cool. In my old life, I worked on a team that did a seasonal variety pack every quarter and it's tough.

[00:35:45] Baxter Brewing: Baxter once did that, yeah. It's so hard. Yeah, it is really hard. I think that's another piece of what we learn by continuing to do this is how do we take out the hardest parts and still deliver what the consumer wants. Yeah, we're excited to learn more. I mean, the consumer is always changing and growing, expanding, and palates are changing. And we want to have something for everyone. That's been the priority. I think that's the difference in Lewiston too, is that we don't have a certain beer style that we really focus on. I want to make sure every drinker finds something they can be satisfied by. And particularly, if you're not a craft beer drinker, to come into an atmosphere that you can ask the question. There's no dumb questions, and we're learning right along with you.

[00:36:27] Jessica Infante: Awesome. package formats, what works for you guys? Have you gotten onto the 19.2 single-serve can train?

[00:36:33] Baxter Brewing: We've been on 19.2s. We had our loggers in 19.2s. We've since focused on those less. The 19.2-ounce gas and convenience drinker is definitely looking for the high ABV. And we've seen that success with our double IPA, Coastal Storm, and with Stowaway. But we actually are releasing a 19.2-ounce blueberry as a trial this summer. Love this. We're learning a lot about the blueberry drinker between blueberry kush, which is our delta drink, the non-oak blueberry, and then our regular blueberry beer. We have that beer available in so many formats already that the 92 ounce drinker is typically a very different drinker than who's buying your 12 packs and we want to give it a go. There's some room in those doors and we want to see what happens and I think that that's the general attitude at Baxter right now is that we're taking measured risks and really evaluating at the end of something that we tried, did that go as well as it could have? Was there something we didn't expect and how do we prepare for the next risk or change or decision?

[00:37:34] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Who is your blueberry drinker? What do you notice about how that drinker is different from other drinkers in your portfolio?

[00:37:39] Baxter Brewing: I think we made the beer for tourists almost as much as we made it for year-round folks because people just always want a piece of Maine. And I think, you know, in the dead of summer, how do you not gravitate towards blueberry? But like our approach with all of our beers, I think our blueberry drinker is meant for somebody who wants to drink beer with their meal and not have the beer be the meal. And there's a great space, I think, for all different varietals of blueberry beers. But ours is very aromatic, but light bodied. So when I go into accounts that are drinking blueberry beers, it's not hard to have a second beer. It's actually a really nice complement to what you're eating and obviously whatever your company is. But I think it's actually all demographics too. It's new drinkers, older drinkers. I think it feels a little less intimidating for newer drinkers, newer to the category. And it pulls in different people that enjoy different styles, but they feel like they have to drink for the occasion, and the occasion being Maine. And that's why that beer, I think, went year-round for us. It's because people that have restaurants open in the dead of winter, they also wanted a blueberry beer. You know, blueberries mean as much as they do to tourists as they do, I think, to Mainers. You know, it's like a bean boot. Like, everybody wants it.

[00:38:57] Jessica Infante: I just love blueberries. Like, I live down in Mass and whenever, you know, the Maine blueberries show up at our farmers markets, like, that's like my Super Bowl.

[00:39:04] Baxter Brewing: We're very lucky. I mean, we're lucky in all accounts. But yeah, to have great ingredients and great flavors that people associate with your state. I mean, it's one of the many reasons that we have the tourism and the affinity for Maine that we do, which is awesome. And then it's the same thing as, like, our namesake, right? Like, people have incredible memories from Baxter State Park. engagements and life changing hikes. And so, yeah, I think, you know, we try to bring that out and everything we bring to life.

[00:39:30] Jessica Infante: So your drinker base in general, I feel like you must have a very solid, like core group of mainers in your audience. But how many tourists do you think come visit and discover your brand?

[00:39:42] Baxter Brewing: You know, one thing that I really pride ourselves on is that anybody who reaches out to us, anybody who's like, I was in Maine, I was here, I was there, I drank this beer, we engage with and have and write them back. And, you know, we get a lot of those emails of like having a great experience and at any bar or restaurant or finding it while they were at a campground and now they want to find it back in Texas and Arkansas and wherever else, you know, they've come from, which, is always an awesome thing for our team to celebrate, even if you can't put a face to the name always. But given our on-premise representation, I would think at least 30 out of 100 tourists would have to have seen our brands. If they're here to experience beer, I would think it's probably closer to 100 because They're here trying to intake what's out there for brand options. What do we have for beers available? And I think my sales team works really hard to try to make sure that gets in front of as many eyes and hearts as possible.

[00:40:40] Jessica Infante: Awesome. And what's your distribution footprint these days?

[00:40:43] Baxter Brewing: We are Maine, New Hampshire, and Mass right now. And we've done some exploration. We've got some opportunities in the pipeline for another exporting opportunity. Last time we exported to England was in 2018, just before I had taken over. And so we've got some cool conversations going that I'm hopeful will come to light. And Nanoq has given us a different platform as well for some nationwide distribution coming from retailers. Sweet. Do you do any DDC work with Nanoq? We don't right now. We will be adding that functionality to our website. We just launched a new website and that's going to be another element. You know, I think diversity is just going to continue to help us stay afloat and ride through this tide that's going on through the industry and come out the other side, you know, at least more informed about the direction of where we're headed.

[00:41:34] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Well, Jen, this has been great. Thank you so much for chatting. I love hearing how optimistic you are, but realistic.

[00:41:41] Baxter Brewing: Yes. Thank you. We certainly try to be, and everything that we put out is definitely a team effort. So it's got a lot of love and a lot of consideration going into it, and we hope that people will come check it out. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:41:57] Jenn Lever: Joining us for our next podcast interview is Abe Furth, who's co-founder of Orono Brewing in Orono, Maine. Welcome, Abe.

[00:42:03] Orono Brewing: Thank you. Thank you for being here today as well, celebrating the 10th year.

[00:42:06] Jenn Lever: Yeah. You had a little bit of a spotlight on the opening session earlier, talking about that 10th anniversary. How have you seen kind of this event and everything evolve since then?

[00:42:17] Orono Brewing: It's been a really fun process of seeing the different keynote speakers that have come through and the different focuses throughout the years. One of the things that's been a constant is just great to get so Maine Brewers together and to have that camaraderie and the ability to learn from each other and to celebrate the industry and to have an opportunity to do events together and continue to kind of pull together to be one of the strongest craft beer states in the country.

[00:42:41] Jenn Lever: Yeah, we talk about all the time this is one of our favorite events to come to because the amount of folks that come out for this and like get a lot of stuff out of this event and just the Maine Brewers scene in general is so great and so strong that it's just it's we come every year.

[00:42:57] Orono Brewing: Absolutely. And it's fun. It's great for breweries of all size. When I first started coming to the Brew Summit and getting involved with the Maine Brewers Guild, we were brewing out of a four barrel system. My business partner, Asa, was doing all of it himself. And we were making 500 barrels a year. And we had a lot to learn from folks. And now, 10 years later, still a lot to learn and a lot to share. So it's been really fun to see that continue on. But it's also been really fun to be involved with the Maine Brewers Guild itself. Early on, when we were a really small brewery, I ran for a seat on the board. And it's so important to me to be involved because, A, you learn so much, but also it's an opportunity to give back to the industry. and served as president and now I'm back on the board and vice president with Jen from Baxter Brewing the board president and doing an awesome job. So really just we've been very fortunate to have amazing executive directors as well running the guild.

[00:43:53] Jenn Lever: Yeah, it's a really strong Brewers Guild. What are some of the things that you guys are prioritizing from that board?

[00:43:58] Orono Brewing: So, you know, for me, it's really simple to look at the Maine Brewers Guild's focus as promoting and protecting. So, so much of it is our legislative work and we're very fortunate to have an amazing lobbyist from Portland who is looking out for us at a really active legislative committee. So we set out a legislative priorities survey and make sure that we're representing our members correctly and then work on strategy with our lobbyists and the legislative committee and then have to get everything approved through the board as well. I've been chairing the legislative committee for quite a long time and it's a real honor to be able to kind of continue to move our industry forward through legislative work. We've done things like franchise law reform, and other kind of big lifts that have happened and they've happened without a fight because we make sure that we include other stakeholders like our distributors and that's been a really great thing to see happen. We've certainly seen other states where it's evolved and become very contentious and it's no fun to be pitted against the groups that are selling our beer for us. So we're very fortunate to have distributors in Maine who are looking at the ecosystem and are working really closely with us. So that's one side of it. And then promotion, things like this, where it's educational, but it's also promoting the fact that we are a strong industry and that we are really a big part of the Maine economy.

[00:45:17] Jenn Lever: So let's talk about Orno. For anyone who doesn't know, what is the brewery all about? How did you guys get into everything?

[00:45:23] Orono Brewing: So we come from a restaurant background. Started our first restaurant when we were 23 in Orno, which is a college town that we live in, and sold a lot of beer while we were bartenders in college, and then started the brewery after about 10 years of being in business, in the restaurant business. Then really got excited about Baxter Brewing industry and put all of our focus into the brewery. So there's four of us that own it together. We all do very different roles. And then we have about 45 employees. And we started off very small. And then in 2017, purchased a 10,000 square foot building with seven acres in Orono. It was a real diamond in the rough. It was a shuttered concrete plant. And that was a big leap for us. That's also when we went from self-distribution to distribution. And then we've just steadily grown every year. Some big leaps and then some, you know, four to 10% years of growth as well. But we have managed to grow every year. And I've just really enjoyed it along the way. And Tubular came out in 2017 and became a big part of our brand. It's our flagship IPA. It's about 70% of our beer production. And we really focus on four or five core beer items. And then, you know, we'll do some smaller batch stuff as well. We still have our original brewery from our old location and have maintained that location so we can do experimental batches and pilot batches. And then we also did diversify in the early 2020s with Wild May and Vodka Seltzer, which is about 25% of our overall production.

[00:46:54] Jenn Lever: Oh, wow. What made you want to add on something that was outside of the beer space?

[00:46:59] Orono Brewing: One of the really fortunate things of living in a college town is I get firsthand, I can witness firsthand what trends are coming as they're happening. So I talk, we employ a lot of college students. We do a lot of events. We see what people are drinking. And I realized that the RTD thing was here to stay. And we did a lot of research to figure out how we wanted to make ours and what our brandy would look like. I think it was about a year once we developed the recipes that we wanted, figured out how we were going to brand it. So Wild Maine came out of just a lot of throwing stuff against the wall and talking as an ownership and management group, and then finally figure out something that we were excited about, which was good timing because it's also, we were, I think, the first in Maine to do a vodka-based RTD. So there's a lot of things to figure out as far as just compliance and all that. So it was, it was a long road to get it done, but it was, we did it at the right time and we were able to grow it pretty quickly. So really just can kind of thank the 21 and 22 year olds who I know helping us stay in front of trends and not chasing them.

[00:48:05] Jenn Lever: Yeah. I mean, that's key sometimes is just observing and listening to the consumer.

[00:48:10] Orono Brewing: For us, it's so much listening to the consumer, listening to our distributors, asking questions to the retailers. Some of our best on and off premise accounts are very, very good communicators about why what we have works and what we could do for things that we haven't made yet. So like our blueberry beer came out of a conversation with one of our top on-prem accounts, and the manager said, like, hey, Tubular's selling awesome, but if you did a blueberry, I bet you it would sell as well. And we launched it that year, and he was completely correct. For those areas in the coast, it was 50-50 on our Wicked Blueberry Beer, which we make with Weiman's blueberries from Maine, or Tubular, as far as being the top seller. So it was super cool. We really appreciate people sharing ideas with us.

[00:48:55] Jenn Lever: Yeah. So you all founded in 2014?

[00:48:58] Orono Brewing: We say 2014 because we did legitimately open on New Year's Eve. So we were open for one day in 2014. Nice. But 2015 was our first full year.

[00:49:08] Jenn Lever: So now just past that big 10-year mark. Yeah. We've seen that's kind of been a super vital mark for breweries of deciding what's going to happen next. What do you think has been key for you all to still be finding growth and staying strong past that 10-year mark?

[00:49:23] Orono Brewing: So much of it's just been, you know, consumer trust, making sure that we are keeping beer really fresh. You know, if it's a core product, always in stock, the right amount, right accounts, all those things. But also owning our real estate, knowing that we have a permanent home there and having bought it right so that we're not swimming in debt and having grown slowly so that we could kind of make sure we didn't bite off more than we could chew. And also staying really excited about the industry and living it daily. So there's nothing else that we want to do. We love this industry. So it makes it easy to put all of our effort into it. And then again, just the relationship side, not just with consumers, but with retailers and with distributors. Our number one customers are distributors. So making sure that we have strategy sessions, multiple times a year with our brand managers so that we can offer them what the options are for innovation and they can choose so that we make sure that we're on the same page on what we are innovating with, that it's a product that they're actually excited about selling that fills a hole in their current portfolio.

[00:50:33] Jenn Lever: Yeah. One of the things that you also kind of presented today was you have a new collaboration with Dogfish Head. How did that come about?

[00:50:42] Orono Brewing: For us, collaborations really have to be, there has to be a reason behind it. You know, we don't want to do a collaboration that doesn't make sense for one reason or another. And Dogfish Head is, you know, a extremely well-respected brewery that had a big impact on my business partner, Ace, when he was a home brewer and running home brew stores. I think his seventh beer that he brewed was a Dogfish 60 clone back in like 2007 or something like that, you know, shortly after Dogfish 60 Minute launched. But the kind of backstory on this collaboration goes back to six years ago in Big Sky, Montana. I was skiing and Sam, the founder of Dogfish, was there skiing as well. And we threw a tubular party at a slope side bar and I heard there was a dogfish tasting on the rooftop bar above us. And at our restaurant that we previously had, I had sold a lot of dogfish, 60 over the bar, as well as other brands they made. So I went up to say hi to whoever was pouring samples, and it happened to be Sam himself. After building one of the most well-respected and biggest craft breweries in the country, he was still out there, boots on the ground, pouring samples, which for me was really inspiring, because that's my side of the business, is the relationship and marketing side. So it was great to see somebody grown a very, very large business and was still out there meeting people and pouring samples. So we chatted then and then stayed in touch. He and his crew enjoyed tubulars. The crew Lever and Orono really enjoyed drinking their beers. And then I let Sam know that we'd love to make a beer. And we talked about what made sense. And there were some really cool tie-ins. Their head R&D brewer, Brian, His son is a student at Maine College of Art. So we tied in the Maine College of Art connection and Brian's son Charlie actually drew the label and we're donating some of the proceeds from the beer sales to Maine College of Art scholarship fund. So like all our collabs, there's a long story behind it, but really for me it's just Sam is an awesome dude and we love their beer and we're really honored to be doing a collab with him. The beer tastes great. And we also combined some of the old school methods that dogfish used for dry hopping back in the day with some advanced hop products that are modern. So it's kind of a cool mashup between some old school brewing techniques and then some like new school products. And it is a West Coast IPA and it's the first time we've dry hopped with whole cone hops and it was quite a process. Getting those out of the tank was a lot harder than putting them in.

[00:53:15] Jenn Lever: That's what I've heard. So where can folks find that beer?

[00:53:18] Orono Brewing: It will be at beer stores, independent beer stores throughout Maine. We only did a 20-barrel batch, so it's going to be gone before we know it. But we're really excited to share it with people while it lasts.

[00:53:28] Jenn Lever: Sweet. You all also have a panel on this conference, right?

[00:53:32] Orono Brewing: Yeah, a bunch of hookups.

[00:53:33] Jenn Lever: Yeah. That's a great way to sum it up.

[00:53:35] Orono Brewing: That was Sam's idea. That tracks through.

[00:53:37] Jenn Lever: That makes sense. So going over mistakes made and lessons learned, what are some of the key points that for anyone who's not able to go to that session they should know?

[00:53:46] Orono Brewing: So I'll be presenting on my side of the business, which has been a lot of like the actual construction strategy and branding side. I think that Rob and Sam will have a lot to say about beers that they worked on over the years. And they also have 20 years head start on us. So I think that if I were in the audience, I'd be so excited about hearing from Sam and Rob. I'm a bit of an outlier as a brewery that's 20 years younger and smaller than both of their breweries. But I hope that it's relevant to the folks that can think about growing to our size, whereas a lot of breweries I don't think will ever hit the 100,000 plus barrel size. But what I'll talk about is one mistake that ended up working well for us was when we went from a 250-square-foot brewery to a 10,000-square-foot building. I talked to the state of Maine fire marshal and convinced him that I didn't need an architect, an engineer, or a general contractor, and that I'd do it all on my own with great contractors. And that was an incredibly stressful part of my life. And I did that to save money, of course, because I didn't want to borrow more millions than I had to already. So that was, you know, that overall went really well. There were a couple of stressful moments. One in particular that I'll talk about is that we had a concrete pump truck come in to pump a lot of concrete into a wall behind the bar and our forms broke. and all the concrete went into the walk-in cooler that we just built, and we had to shovel it out by hand, and it was one of the most stressful moments of my life. I kind of froze and didn't know what to do. Asa, who is our business partner that runs production, picked up a shovel and said, hey, everybody start shoveling, which is a real kind of nod to his practicality, and like, this is, okay, we have an emergency, let's fix it. Another thing that I'll chat about is just in those early years of our growth, I had to learn the lesson the hard way. It's more important to make beer that people want to drink than to chase Instagram likes or trends or hype. So I learned that through a series we did that was called Fruit Pie. It was a fruited blender vice and the beer looked really cool. It was a knockoff of a hostess fruit pie label. It got mentioned in New York Times. It got a lot of Instagram love and it sat on shelves and didn't sell at all because the consumer actually didn't care. at all about drinking that beer. So really important lesson to actually like Maine Brewers that people want to drink rather than beers that make us feel cool. And then one other thing I'll chat about in that panel is having ideas that sound grand that are too complicated and making sure that somebody is there to rein you back in. The example I'll give for that is We came up with a beer collab with a brewery that used to operate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and we were going to have this huge release party on Christmas Day. It was called Christmas at the Beach. We were going to be on a bunch of boats in the Virgin Islands drinking our beer. I had these grand plans. We made a mango and passion fruit IPA. The beer itself, we weren't actually that stoked about, but the label is great. And we were like, okay, we're already too deep into it. We need to send it. We went out on a tanker truck or sit-taker boat and disappeared in the ocean. So we spent a lot of money on merch and on this beer and nobody ever drank it. I don't know what happened to it. I don't know if somebody eventually found it and it was nine months old and had been stored warm and it was exploding. It wouldn't explode it, but it would have tasted bad. Yeah. So anyways. That was just a great lesson on, you know, an idea could sound really cool, but sometimes, you know, better to think about promotions that make a little bit more sense to the market you're in. And we're never going to sell beer in the Virgin Islands. So let's stick with Maine, New Hampshire and Mass for now. New York City once in a while.

[00:57:34] Jenn Lever: That goes back to what you were saying at the top, right, about listening to all of your partners, listening to your consumers, seeing what actually is working on the ground with folks.

[00:57:43] Orono Brewing: Yeah, I think that the event tonight, The Great Lost Bear, for our brand, is more impactful than sending beer to the Virgin Islands for people who will never drink our beer again.

[00:57:52] Jenn Lever: That makes sense to me. All right, was there anything else that folks should know either about Orono or about the Guild, anything that you want to let folks know?

[00:58:02] Orono Brewing: Anybody that's in Baxter Brewing industry that is interested in joining their local guild or being involved, really just encourage you to do so. It's a great way to stay informed about what's happening in your state and in the industry in general, and it really allows you to feel the camaraderie of your fellow craft brewers. It's definitely worth the time. It's a big commitment to serve on the board, but 100% by far the most impactful and enjoyable board that I've personally ever served on. I'd say kudos to all the states out there that are doing a great job with their own brewers guilds and it's a worthy thing to be involved with.

[00:58:38] Jenn Lever: Well Abe, really appreciate you coming down and talking to us about everything going on.

[00:58:42] Orono Brewing: Thank you so much for having us and thank you for being here in Portland, Maine today.

[00:58:46] Jessica Infante: And that's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. The Brewbound Podcast is a production of BevNET CPG. Our audio engineer for the Brewbound Podcast is Joe Kratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski. Our designer is Amanda Huang. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and friends and review us on your listening platform of choice. You can find our work at Brewbound.com. And we also welcome feedback and suggestions at podcast at Brewbound.com. On behalf of the entire Brewbound Podcast team, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.