Brewbound Podcast: Funkytown Brewery on Expanding Craft Communities

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before The Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with The Brewbound Live. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head The Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch The Brewbound Live at booth 956 during CBC. We're going The Funkytown next on The Brewbound podcast. Hello and welcome back to The Brewbound podcast. My name is Justin Kendall and I'm the editor The Brewbound and I'm joined by Jessica Infante, the managing editor The Brewbound, a road warrior. Welcome back to the Boston area. Where have you been?

[00:00:59] Rich Bloomfield: Well, thank you kindly, sir. Let's see. Yesterday I went to Washington, D.C. for the day, which it was fine. I was kind of dreading, but it was fine. It was nice to get home and sleep in my own bed. The last time I took a day trip to D.C. was for the eighth grade graduation. bus trip. So flying was much more civilized than that. And then last week, the Maine Brewers Guild was kind enough to invite me to participate on a panel at their New England Brew Summit. So I was in Portland, Maine, which is a much easier hour and a half drive and a delightful place to visit. So all in all, I'm doing all right. How are you?

[00:01:35] Jessica Infante: I'm doing all right. You know, it's been a busy WrestleMania weekend and I didn't crush as many broken skull loggers as Stone Cold Steve Austin, but I'm going to find out how many distributors are making calls this week to El Segundo to see if they can get some beers.

[00:01:52] Rich Bloomfield: That sounds like an excellent follow up.

[00:01:55] Jessica Infante: Yeah, following up on the good work of Kate Burnett from Good Beer Hunting, who did all the legwork at the beginning to tell that story.

[00:02:04] Rich Bloomfield: When she texted me and Dave and said she was interviewing Mr. Austin, I was like, oh, Justin is going to lose his mind. So she said he's very nice.

[00:02:13] Jessica Infante: It's rare that I'm actually jealous of someone doing work, but that is the one piece of work that I am the most jealous about is interviewing Stone Cold Steve Austin. So we're going to have to make that happen on this podcast, I think.

[00:02:29] Rich Bloomfield: Oh, we have to.

[00:02:30] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:02:31] Rich Bloomfield: Imperative.

[00:02:32] Jessica Infante: If so, I mean, I might just have to pull a George Costanza and leave on a high note. So we'll see how that goes. But we've got some great guests this week. We actually have last year's Pitch Slam winners, Funkytown from Chicago. The founders The Funkytown Brewery going to be here. That's why I said what I said at the top of the podcast. And we will be joined by Rich Bloomfield, Zach Day and Greg Williams. They're kind enough to join us and update us on what they've got going on. But also, we've got some news to update you on, which is the Brewers Association released a ton of data. This is data Christmas, basically.

[00:03:17] Rich Bloomfield: This is data Christmas. What a beautiful way to put that. Yeah, so I think the biggest headline of all here is that craft beer volume grew more than Bart thought it would. Bart Watson, the BH chief economist, you know, had been predicting for a few months that craft would probably grow like 7%, but actually we, uh, craft knocked out one more percent and grew 8%. So you got to take those wins where you can get them.

[00:03:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah, especially after a year in which we had to revise last year's number to a negative 10% down from 9.3%. So last year, even worse than we thought.

[00:03:59] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah, yeah. So I think we got that percentage point back plus some. I always love when this list comes out, but you spent most of the quality time with it yesterday. So how was this? Was this fun?

[00:04:13] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I mean, this is definitely quality time spent, you know, with the list. That's how I would put it. Yeah. I spent some time with it and I dug through, I guess, do we want to go to the list or should we talk about openings and closings first?

[00:04:28] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah, let's do that first. I feel like also we should probably note that our real road warriors, Miss Zoe Licata, who is in San Diego for the California Craft Brewers Association. So that's why she's not here, but she took the lead on The Funkytown interview and knocked it out of the park. So we miss her, but she'll be back tomorrow.

[00:04:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we're gonna bring Zoe back, don't worry.

[00:04:47] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah, don't worry. Zoe's not like tied up in a closet somewhere.

[00:04:50] Jessica Infante: You'll have a reason to listen again. But yeah, let's get to the openings and closings. There were 646 openings, 178 closings. That closing number is actually down from the previous year, which was a bit surprising. But Bart noted in a webinar that you and I just sat in on that early this year closings are outpacing last year. So not so great news to start 2022. Although, I mean, there's not a whole lot of great news to start 2022 anyway.

[00:05:23] Rich Bloomfield: No, not in any aspect of the world. But Bart also noted that three states are delayed. So he doesn't have full year for Texas, Oregon and Michigan.

[00:05:36] SPEAKER_??: Yep.

[00:05:36] Rich Bloomfield: And so pretty sizable craft markets there. So maybe things will change as more information rolls in. We'll see. But yeah, one thing that we noticed is that the BA breaks out members into a couple different classes. There are regional breweries, which are the smallest group, but of the biggest members, those breweries that produce between 15,000 and 6 million barrels annually, mostly for distribution. So that's one class. Then there's the taproom brewers who produce beer for consumption on their own premises, and they package beer for to-go sales, but they don't operate restaurants. Brew pubs, which are what you're thinking, they produce beer to be consumed on the premises and have a serious restaurant focus. And then microbreweries, which produce fewer than 15,000 barrels of beer annually, and they also package that beer for distribution. Most of these microbreweries predate the taproom class evolution. But what we noticed was that that class had the tightest closing to opening ratio. I just wanted to ask Bart what was going on there because I would think that everything we've heard about the restaurant industry, like that particular sector of the economy has had it really rough basically since the pandemic. So why didn't brew pubs have more closings? And he explained that selling beer for distros is a tough business. And if you're small, everything that makes it hard is harder. And a lot of these brewers are a little bit older. So a lot of different things going on there.

[00:07:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And he very much said that this is a make it or break it year for a lot of breweries. And there are any number of reasons for that. You know, you can look to no more government aid. Potentially, they're still working on additional restaurant revitalization fund money, but nothing is guaranteed there. we'll stay on top of that. But one of the big positives I think to come out of this too is there's an all time high number of breweries that operated at least in some part of 2021 and that was 9,118.

[00:07:34] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah, that's a huge number.

[00:07:37] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that's up from 8,764 in 2020. And you broke out all the classes, so we don't have to go over that. But I feel like it's still inching upward, that number. It's just a lot slower. The days of a thousand plus breweries opening in a year may be gone, but still outpacing closings.

[00:08:01] Rich Bloomfield: Do you think we hit 10,000 craft breweries before, say, like the next presidential election?

[00:08:07] Jessica Infante: I think we're going to hit 9,999 breweries and we're going to get stuck there. And we won't be able to get over that hump.

[00:08:15] Rich Bloomfield: Noted. All right.

[00:08:16] Jessica Infante: And you'll have to open a brewery just to get us to 10K.

[00:08:19] Rich Bloomfield: Oh, good Lord. No, thank you. I don't think anybody wants me to open a brewery. I was a terrible home brewer. Absolutely terrible.

[00:08:26] Jessica Infante: We also got the list of the top 50 U.S. craft brewing companies, and top of the list, kind of boring, you know, top five, still the same, no change there. But there was a lot of shifting, you know, in the 20s, I'll say, we get to some shifting and some big leaps. You've got Athletic jumping onto this list at number 27, crossing that 100,000 barrel threshold last year. So that's a big win for non-alcoholic beer to appear on that list. And then two spaces down is Kona Brewing, which back to craft, because Anheuser-Busch and Craft Brew Alliance had to divest of Kona's Hawaii operations. And that's just the Hawaii operations that made the list. But that's pretty sizable. Yeah.

[00:09:17] Rich Bloomfield: For one tiny state, this one brewery is the 29th largest brewer in the country. And they're not the only Hawaii brewery on the list, but they are the only Hawaii-specific brewery on the list. Maui is also here at number 43, but Maui also distributes beer to some select mainland states.

[00:09:39] Jessica Infante: Yep. And Bart noted that Maui wasn't on that list last year. I don't think they even reported data last year.

[00:09:48] Rich Bloomfield: Cause I was looking up something not that long ago and noticed that they hadn't reported. A lot of breweries didn't report last year though.

[00:09:54] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:09:55] Rich Bloomfield: We'll see more of that when the new brewer comes out with all of this data, but Yangling didn't report last year.

[00:10:01] Jessica Infante: Gotta keep those secrets.

[00:10:03] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah.

[00:10:04] Jessica Infante: And we've got a few other newcomers on this list. Fiddlehead Brewing in Vermont rocketed up this list, 37 spots to rank at number 49. I thought that was pretty impressive. North Coast is back on the list after a one-year hiatus, back in at number 50. And then, I guess, Scofflaw was also on the list. They jumped 21 spots to take the number 45 spot. A few new brewers on here. And the funny thing about last year was of the six new craft breweries on last year's list, five of those dropped out and the sixth one was two roads and they had been on the list the previous year. So I won't count them, but all six of those breweries are, are now not on the top 50 list. And we'll have to wait till the May, June issue of the new brewer to know exactly where they fell to. And I asked Bart, you know, is this a product of return of on premise, a product of, You know, things opening up more. Why would all these breweries that were on last year's list drop off or at least were new to it? And he sort of confirmed that theory that as things opened up, the more established folks who are coming back on or some of these other folks, you know, had stronger on premise presence.

[00:11:28] Rich Bloomfield: I mean, the other thing is that last year was just so weird. Like as weird as we thought 2020 was, last year was even weirder. I don't know, two weird years in a row. So who knows what happened. On Scoff Law, I think it'll be interesting to see where they land next year because they'll get, I assume the BA will count them as Indie Brew with Bearded Iris and whoever else joins their platform. So that should give them a little volume boost to go up a couple of spots again.

[00:11:56] Jessica Infante: Yeah, one of the legends that the BA shared also noted that Green Flash and Alpine, their production for this year will be folded under Sweetwater going forward. So that kind of skews some of this is that when you have these platforms like Duval, you know, that rolls up all the data for Firestone Walker and Boulevard and Omegang, Canarchy, you've got all the canarchy breweries under that, you know, and Bell's leaped them this year, but they're going to jump off the list next year, presumably barring any craft brewer definition change that would allow them to remain on here. But we'll just say for the time being that they're likely off this list when we talk about it next year.

[00:12:45] Rich Bloomfield: Yeah, but Sweetwater and Canarchy will still be here, even though they had some big transactions.

[00:12:51] Jessica Infante: Presumably, yes. Who knows? Who knows what happens next year? What we'll have to do is go to the Craft Brewers Conference and find out, because I'm sure they'll share some things there on May 2nd through the 5th. And if you're there on the 2nd, you can join us at Brew Talks. in Minneapolis. Look at you with this pivot. Oh, I was trying hard. I'm terrible at it. I feel bad pitching it, but it's for a good cause. Part of the proceeds go to the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild. Tickets are available now The Brewbound.com. We're going to release the venue in a very short order, probably by the time that you're listening to this, we'll have a venue, but it's in the works. We'll just say it's in the works. It's going to be awesome if it happens where we think it's going to happen. I don't want to oversell it because what if it doesn't happen there, but it's probably going to happen there and it's going to be very cool. We've got a pretty fun lineup that's come together. We've got the beer buyer, I should say, from Target. So we're gonna talk a little bit about getting into big box retail. We've got some of the folks from Modest and Switchyard. We're gonna talk about NFTs and crypto, accepting crypto in your tap room with them. I think that's super interesting. And what's it like to launch an NFT beer and what are the unexpected consequences? We'll talk about that. We've got Jennifer Glanville from Boston Beer Company, as well as Tim and Dolly Parker from Chula Vista to talk about brewery incubator projects, or more so like, how would you describe brewing the American dream?

[00:14:40] Rich Bloomfield: Brewing the American Dream is a philanthropic effort that offers low and no interest loans to entrepreneurs in the food and beverage space through a collaboration with an organization called Accion. And in addition to providing money to entrepreneurs, anyone in the program also gets access to coaching from basically anybody they want to talk to at Boston Beer. Can you tell, I used to have to talk about this on brewery tours.

[00:15:03] Jessica Infante: It's amazing. It's like you were reading it off something but you just downloaded it completely from your brain. That's literally what just happened. No cue cards, no nothing. And we've also got Michael Gemma from Haymarket Brewery to talk about their residency program as well as Jamal Johnson, who is from Moore's Brewery, who took part in the residency program at that Chicago brewery that opened up their brick and mortar space to black-owned breweries. And we've also got Goose Island brewer Sam Ross, who worked on a black brewer collaboration with Haymarket to create Harold's 83 Honey Ale, which was named after Chicago's first black mayor. And you just said this as we weren't recording, so say it while we are recording.

[00:15:51] Rich Bloomfield: The honey, you know, we chatted with Sam and he explained to us like how it all came together. The honey comes from bees that live in an apiary. I'm pretty sure that's what you call a collection of bees that is managed by formerly incarcerated people.

[00:16:04] Jessica Infante: We're going to talk to them about putting together a residency program to get more brewers involved who, I don't know if disenfranchised would be the right word, but I would say to get more diverse people into this industry to open their doors in a way that makes it easier for them to establish themselves and build followings, and then in turn, build their own breweries down the road. And that's going to segue great to this week's conversation with the founders of The Funkytown, who took part in that residency program at Haymarket. And they're going to open their Funkytown Brewery. They're going to talk about it with us. And let's get to that featured interview.

[00:16:50] Rich Bloomfield: I'll tell you a secret.

[00:16:51] Jessica Infante: What's your secret that Joe is going to hear?

[00:16:54] Rich Bloomfield: I mean, you can include this. My nickname at home is Jay Funk. My brothers, all my friends I grew up with, everybody calls me Jay Funk or just Funk. So I was very excited when we interviewed Funkytown. There you go.

[00:17:08] Jessica Infante: So here is our featured interview with Rich Bloomfield, Zach Day, and Greg Williams from Funkytown.

[00:17:17] Zach Day: I am super excited today because we are joined by the men behind The Funkytown Brewery, a Chicago-based, Black-owned brewery and the winner The Brewbound Live's 2021 Pitch Slam, Rich Bloomfield, co-founder and CEO. Hi, Rich.

[00:17:33] Greg Williams: What's up?

[00:17:34] Zach Day: Greg Williams, co-founder and sales director. Hi, Greg.

[00:17:38] Chicago-based Funkytown: Hey, how's it going?

[00:17:40] Zach Day: Hello. And Zach Day, co-founder and head of brewing operations. How's it going, Zach?

[00:17:45] Brewbound Live: Yo, yo, what's going on? How you doing?

[00:17:47] Zach Day: I am super excited to have you guys on. I had the pleasure of chatting to you before Brewbound Live happened, just to check in about the Pilot Project, Chicago Brewery Incubator that you guys went through. and talk about your launch and was even more excited to see you guys win our Brewbound Live Pitch Slam this year. So we had to bring you back, had to catch up and see what's been going on The Funkytown since then. To start things out for people who didn't have the pleasure of hearing the story The Funkytown at that Pitch Slam, give our listeners a little snippet of how this brewery came to be.

[00:18:27] Brewbound Live: Okay. Well, The Funkytown is the story of three friends, known each other since grade school, fourth grade and seventh grade, to be exact. We went to college together at Grambling State and HBCU. We stayed friends after college, just working, you know, moving through the ranks of professionalism, I guess. We were always into beer. We wanted to be creative. So in 2017, we decided that we're going to brew beer professionally. So we started home brewing and just building our business strategy since that point. And then basically from 2017 through now, like all we did was gather more information, research different aspects of the business, network with people. And there's a lot in between but in 2021 in June 2021 we got our deal with Pilot Project brewery incubator, and then in October of last year we're able to bring our vision that we've been working on for like four and a half years to life and it's been well received so.

[00:19:29] Zach Day: That's great. So you guys went, you started homebrewing in 2017. And for what you told me, you kind of got inspired to make this a business after you went to Fresh Fest, which is now the Barrel and Flow Festival. What was it about that festival and the people you met there that inspired you to turn this into a business?

[00:19:50] Brewbound Live: So we were two years in the homebrewing. We know that the industry lacks diversity. So we got out to Fresh Fest, and it just seemed like, I don't know, diversity wasn't an issue. And we got to see so many Black people and women in craft. It was just like, all right, this is very inviting. Through the seminars and just the one-on-ones, everybody was just really friendly and sharing information. all of a sudden it seemed like, I don't know, the industry didn't have a diversity issue when we were at Fresh Fest. Like it just felt like a good, I don't know, it just kind of validated that we're on the right path and like, this is the crowd we want to be around. And we're seeing other people's like within, within the black community, you know, we're not a monolith, but we're getting to see all these different creative aspects of all these other black brands. And like, we saw where we fit in. And, uh, it was, it was also a dope festival too. So, you know, I want to be a part of that. Fresh Fest was definitely something to change the outlook. Like we get there and it's a whole bunch of, like Rich said, it's a whole bunch of information sharing. And it almost felt like family down there. So it's like almost a beer culture shock, so to speak, because where we were coming from, you know, white dominated as far as like what you see visually. And then going down there and just to see like the family atmosphere, I've always said it felt like a big old family reunion down there. And that kind of gave us the extra spark and motivation saying like, okay, this looks like to be the first wave that's on the way. And we definitely want to be here and be around to catch that second wave. So then there, it proved the point that black folks and people of color, black, brown, and women can kind of like gather in one spot in one space. and enjoy craft beer. So that was just like the, okay, the visual that we kind of needed, because we all had it in our head, of course, but to actually see that in fruition and out there, gave us that extra step when we got back. So like, all right, time to go, time to do it.

[00:21:48] Chicago-based Funkytown: Yeah, same for me. Just the overall experience. Just starting off with the like the symposiums and you know that conversation about craft beer, the direction craft beer was going to as far as diversity. And then just having like the bottle share events and then the actual festival just pretty much gave us the opportunity to network with different people. see similar people like us that were had the same interest in craft beer. And just overall, like we talked to a couple of people in particular that helped us, you know, shift our gear into that third shift, you know, just to make sure that, you know, we can actually do this the proper way, get into the industry at a lower level with contract brewing. So we actually learned that aspect, you know, while out there, you know, networking. So once we got back home, we definitely knew what we were going to do, change that business model and got it going.

[00:22:39] Rich Bloomfield: Have you kept in touch with any of the other entrepreneurs you met while you were there?

[00:22:43] Brewbound Live: Yeah. So the most valuable contact, the best contact we made was Alyssa Bones Mercado out of Rhythm Brewery. She's the one who kind of shifted our whole business strategy. We talked to her out there. She was new at the time, but was doing well. She got on the call with us immediately after Fresh Fest to explain the contract brewing process. We've stayed in contact with her. She's dope. Hannah Ferguson, dope's the brand, they're opening a cidery out in Ohio. I had a chance to meet her at Fresh Fest and it was just cool because She was just in the idea phase like we were at that time. And now she's getting ready to launch her stuff. Cajun Fire Brewery, I met them as well. And they kind of provide advice. We can just reach out to them on Instagram and they provide some details. So yeah, I think that's the main ones I can remember. There's other people too, like there's a podcaster named Nigel. Y'all remember Nigel? Yeah, like there's a few people that we kind of keep up with on Instagram.

[00:23:50] Jessica Infante: So you guys started brewing at Pilot Project. How did you guys get involved there? How did you find out about it? And what has that done to sort of accelerate what you want to do?

[00:24:03] Brewbound Live: We came back from Fresh Press when we talked to Alyssa, who was about contract brewing. So that was the new, a new term for us. We didn't know anything about it. Again, our goals and dreams were to just pretty much walk into a bank and ask for some money for a brewery, and figured out that that wasn't going to work. So when we talked to Alyssa, we pivoted our plan. And when we came back, we started doing research about, you know, contract brewing, and we came up on a term brewery incubator, and then found out that that brewery incubator was a Pilot Project, and they had just been open maybe like two months before we even really started even looking into it. So we knew that that was something that we wanted to focus on. And like Greg said, it's a better entry point. So again, we just retooled the business plan, still consistently stayed at home brewing, and then had opportunities to kind of drop samples off, dropping those samples off, and then just building that relationship. with them made it a little better for us. Cause then, you know, we get some critiques on what we needed to do. And then even for us to find out that they had space open for us to come in, but we weren't fully ready yet. And I think that that kind of spoke volumes from one business to another. It's like, we're not going to come over here and waste your money with a plan that we're not ready with yet. So that gave us some integrity with them. And then when we went in there and had the interview and I'm not going to sell us short, we killed it. you know, we had a whole bunch of slides. We brought our personalities with it and just impress them to the point. It was like, yeah, these guys are business guys. These guys know what they want to do. They know how they want to do it. They know how they want to be seen. They know how they want to come into the market. So we came in ready with what we wanted to do and the ideas that we had. And it just makes it easier because we can focus on branding. You know, we can focus on, different activations while they can handle somewhat of the PR, somewhat of the sales logistics and things like that. So three guys working their regular nine to five jobs, there's no way on God's green, we would have been able to do half of this stuff with us still working here. So still allowed us to feed our families, keep food on the table and pursue a passion. So it just kind of worked hand in hand, created a great partnership.

[00:26:16] Rich Bloomfield: So it's not shocking at all to hear that you went in there and killed the pitch on the first try. Cause I remember watching you in Santa Monica and you guys were like a breath of fresh air, not to say Justin and Zoe, that you were not also, you were very much, but you know, we know our content, we know what's going to happen, but to watch you guys present in both different phases of Pitchlam was awesome. So can you walk us through what your process was like to get ready for the Pitchlam?

[00:26:42] Brewbound Live: Okay. Um, there's a story behind that. So, so yeah, it was, it was great that we got invited to the Pitch Slam because, um, uh, we got a bunch of friends out in Cali from college. So we came out there first, hung out with them for three days. And then we kind of had like our first, uh, semifinal, like blurb kind of typed up. And we're planning to kind of rehearse that and finalize it Monday, the day of the first meet and greet. So we're at the Airbnb, working through it, trying to pare it down to two minutes, because you just realize you talk too much when you write stuff. And we start seeing bugs in our Airbnb. And I first chalked it up. I said, those are some California-type bugs. It's just one. And then we kept trying to go through our pitch. And then we saw another one. All right, it's just two. And then I took a closer look. And I was like, those aren't California bugs. Those are roaches. They kept coming, right? So there's like a roach infestation in the Airbnb. And like, you know, we're tired. We're preparing for this pitch. And then I said, hey, roaches, they won't get in the bed though. We just got to make it through the night. Cause we have to wake up at like six in the morning and come to the Pitch Slam. And then I think Greg went into the room and there was a roach on the bed and no words were said. Everybody just packed up and left. We went to the day's end, checked in at like 1.30 AM. We have to go to sleep. There's no reason to practice. My brain's not working. You know, our brains aren't working. wake up at like 530 a.m. and finally trim it down to two minutes practice and just, you know, pray about it, pray that we have some energy and just try to go kill it. I mean, it was like additional pressure on us for that pitch. We were off like three hours of sleep.

[00:28:36] Jessica Infante: If that's low energy, I hate to see you guys on high energy.

[00:28:41] Chicago-based Funkytown: Yeah, and the crazy thing, like he was saying, we was practicing, kept consistently going through it, and we had to keep trimming it down, you know, just to make sure we're under those two minutes. So that morning, it was like five in the morning, Zach had footage, like, hey, it's 5 a.m., we're up, getting ready. Like, his voice sounded just like the original. He's like, practicing by himself. I'm still in the bed, like, head looking towards the ceiling, like, what just happened? How crazy can this be before, you know, the semi-finals? And we know we have to perform. Like, there was no if, ands, or buts about it. But, you know, I know my guys, and I knew, you know, we're still gonna do what we had to do at the end of the day. But just, you know, just going through that, like, was crazy. Because even the hotel we were in, it was two beds, three guys. So me and Zach just like...

[00:29:32] Brewbound Live: Rich had a lot on his chest, a lot on his shoulders for the next moment. So he's like, you get that twin size bed all to yourself, brother.

[00:29:49] Chicago-based Funkytown: I wish we could have recorded that. Cause that was something like we never would never forget. So yeah, it's crazy.

[00:29:56] Zach Day: You never could have known from watching you guys on stage, though. And even like the judges pointed out, they're like, you guys have the personality and it comes across in your brand, too, that you don't see all that behind the scenes, that you're struggling through that. So it was very impressive.

[00:30:12] Brewbound Live: Right, yeah, that Airbnb, they also got in major trouble after that. Yeah, everything was bad. Everything was bad, like it was an Airbnb that wasn't even supposed to be an Airbnb, and I'm like returning the keys, and she was like, so where were you staying? I was like, right down there. It's like, this isn't even an Airbnb spot. I said, oh, how about you just hand me those keys, baby? Here you go.

[00:30:38] Rich Bloomfield: Did you get a refund?

[00:30:39] Brewbound Live: Yeah. All right, good. She tried to not give us a refund and say that she was charging us for the night that we didn't even like spend the night there. She was like, yeah, we'll give you like 300 bucks back or like 400 bucks. And we're like, no, we didn't even, we had roaches all through the place. And it wasn't even supposed to be an Airbnb. So many roaches. Oh my God. Very interesting time.

[00:31:06] Zach Day: But it all worked out. You guys ended up winning. When you were going into writing your pitch for that whole process, what were you trying to prioritize? What you want to say about who you are The Funkytown and what was most important?

[00:31:24] Brewbound Live: First, we want to get the audience to know us and like the friendship and like the bond between us. We want them to understand that we're homebrewers and we wanted to convey like the fun part of the brand. And I think that's the main part we want to convey and we do that by just having energy, being active, showing those labels, actually living out the identity. It's not like we were pitching something we weren't doing actively. We were actively trying to meet people in the community when it came to homebrewing. We were actively taking our homebrew to Black people and women to understand what their palate was. And with the pitch, since we were actually putting that work in, it was easy to put those slides together. The rest is just conveying that information. saying it in four minutes or less, which is most difficult. When it comes to marketing our brand, we just wanted people to understand us. We were only out for 60 days, so there's not much information people can find on us. So it's really up to us to get that introduction out, know the founders, know what we're about, know how we've affected the community, see the labels that we've gotten out there, and smile and laugh.

[00:32:30] Jessica Infante: That was one of the things that stood out to me, though, is that you guys really understood your drinkers' palates. And that wasn't what a lot of people would have been pitching, which would be like hazy IPAs. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:32:45] Chicago-based Funkytown: Hazy IPAs. Well, we know a lot of minorities and women do not like the word IPA. It can be bitter, you know, too hoppy. That's not a beer you should introduce to someone who's never had a beer. So what we just figured out, like, hey, we can come out with something that's palatable. People will actually appreciate that our craft beer drinkers at the same time who've never had a beer will actually love it. And that's what we, that's the actual information we've been receiving amongst our peers and consumers out here in Chicago. Eventually, of course, we'll come out with an IPA, but right now we're going to just consistently focus on those traditional styles just to help people create their own palates and be able to enjoy beers in any aspect, in any environment. You know, there are all types of events that may have beer with spirits, and they'll give them the opportunity to, hey, instead of having a spirit, you can have a beer and still have the same amount of fun and enjoy it. Yeah, we just consistently gonna continue to do that, come up with some new styles, still traditional, and yeah, expose everyone.

[00:33:51] Brewbound Live: We wanted to do a campaign and we wanted to make sure that flagship beer that we came out with was something that the people wanted, right? So, we did these drop-offs, we did these hand-to-hand drop-offs to potential customers, people who haven't had beer before, people who have been immersed in the beer world for a long time, and we wanted to get that feedback. Because again, we're trying to reach demographics that either A, haven't had a beer, B, had a bad beer or had a, you know, 50 IBU IPA for the first time out and ruined their palate, like trying to make a new introduction. So it was super important that we gather as much information, as much intel as we could to figuring out what would go well with people's palates that's never been in this space before. So everything, you know, on purpose, even the colors of the beer is something that's done on purpose. flagship is the lightest beer that we've had to this day. And then it just continually progressed to get a little bit darker with the amber ale than with the red Irish ale than with the milk stout, you know, the imperial stout. So it's just something that we're trying to condition. It was all about customers. We want to make sure that the consumers and the people like what they drink it and can drink plenty of it.

[00:35:10] Chicago-based Funkytown: Yep. And just me being out and about as a sales director, a lot of my customers ask, you know, what kind of beer? That's the first thing they ask. I hope it's not an IPA. Because like, for example, Emporium, that's an arcade here in Chicago. The beverage director was like, hey, yeah, we want some beer, but just make sure it's not an IPA. We want our people to enjoy their time here. I'm like, oh, no worries. We got the beer. especially that beer exactly for you. You know what I mean? It's just like people know that the intake, you know, the alcohol volume, the ABV, you know, can deter someone, you know, from actually purchasing beers at times, especially if they never had a beer. So, so those Ambers, you know, Irish Red Ales, American Pale Ales, you know, things of those natures have been very appealing to people here in Chicago.

[00:36:00] Rich Bloomfield: You guys had mentioned how, you know, when you go out and talk to people about how they'll be spirits drinkers and you're able to introduce them to beer, but what do you think it is that the spirits industry does that makes their products connect better with the black and brown communities than beer does? Because we all know beer is extraordinarily monolithically white. So what do you think, like those connections have been had much longer with spirits, but what is it about them? Like what makes them successful?

[00:36:27] Brewbound Live: It's kind of hard to put my finger on. I know with the spirits that I see that are most popular in the black community, there's definitely like a premiumization on the brand. So maybe that's something we need to do to the beer or the way that we promote the beer. Like we need to highlight the quality of it and that it's not just something that you use to chase your spirit in the club. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, it's the feature is good. So, You know, with that, like we're going to learn a lot about this because with our market being underserved, I just, I don't know if the data's out there to like what they're looking for in beer. Like based on like the previous conversation, like we've gotten a lot of feedback through these events from people that don't like IPAs and don't want IPAs and are excited. And it's just interesting because you go to the bottle shop, it's mostly IPAs there. And you just wonder, I think there's a premiumization in it and somehow like the way that spirits have been marketed, black people see themselves in the beer or in the product. So that's kind of what we're trying to do with our labels and like the references that we use. And hopefully that'll be like that gateway that really pulls in people to the craft industry.

[00:37:42] Jessica Infante: What do you guys see as sort of your go-to market strategy? Do you want to be in, you know, grocery? Would you rather have like your own place and taproom experience? Do you see, you know, being on draft at on-premise locations? Where do you guys want to be?

[00:38:01] Greg Williams: Everywhere, everywhere.

[00:38:05] Brewbound Live: So like, yeah, we're already in like 150 locations. You know, we're in the Whole Foods, like 26 Whole Foods locations. Jewel Asco is a huge grocer out here, so we're in those locations as well. Foxtrot Grocery, Benny's, like a large beverage depot out here. So we're in a few large chains, but we're also in like over 115 private locations that the community really supports. Those bottle shops where you know, the representatives really know how to explain your beer and explain, like, the taste and notes of it. Yeah, we want to be everywhere, but the goal is for us to have our own brew pub. So we're going to continue to distribute to the market because, like, we want to, you know, just attach ourselves to the Chicago community. So when we do open our doors, there's already a following that's ready to come support. And that brew pub will kind of be like that final vision, like, you know, like a uniquely designed space that's playing all types of soul hip hop and just like having fun, retro video games, everything that you see in the founders, you're going to see in the brew pub. So that's kind of like the end goal.

[00:39:11] Jessica Infante: You guys got a taste of that experience through a residency program with Haymarket. Can you tell us a little bit how that went?

[00:39:19] Brewbound Live: It went great. You know, Haymarket put together a residency with other black breweries, Turner House Brewing, Morris Brewing, us, Black Horizon, Sam and Jay, who came up with Harold's Honey 83 Ale. And it was a six-week residency. And I think what that did was pretty much show the city of Chicago, maybe Chicagoland beyond, maybe parts of Indiana as well, that there's something, I guess pun intended, there's something brewing in Chicago. And then we're coming together to kind of like highlight and showcase what we're capable of doing. So we had a beer, a collaborative beer that came out that was called the Chicago Uncommon. And it was representative of the Chicago brick and what it took to rebuild the city back after the great Chicago fire. So it's definitely something that we hold near and dear because it's the first that we've ever done anything like this as far as a residency and pairing with different breweries from around the city. So it was great to be a highlight. It was great to highlight. And it was just a month full of activities. We had a Super Bowl party where we tapped it. So I came out and tapped on the Super Bowl. And we had our different events. Like we had a game night. We had grown folk stories provided by the Silver Room. It was a lot of different activities within that residency. So it was a lot about community, collaborative effort, and then coming together for one common cause.

[00:40:48] Zach Day: How would you guys describe what the Chicago craft beer scene is like now and what it's either missing or what you might be wanting to add to it?

[00:40:59] Brewbound Live: Well, I guess our experience with the craft beer scene and what you hear, it follows the overall theme of the industry. People have been welcoming, people have been friendly. Chicago, you know we have a ton of breweries out here and we have some creative ones like there's one that closed down early in the pandemic but I love it it had a Michelin star. That's cool so there's definitely a lot of creative stuff out here. I think it's just, I mean it's obvious it's just lacking in diversity. I mean, that's the main thing for us. We're trying to introduce more Black people into beer, right? But Chicago doesn't have the bottle shops or craft beer shops in the Black neighborhoods. And it's going to be a process. You know what I mean? We're not here to just make money and leave. It's going to take time and condition folks to drink beer. And getting the rest of the craft beer industry that's already been here on board, like, hey, there's more people that want your product, diversity is tied to more sales and more revenue. That's what we're trying to do. That's what we're trying to fit in in Chicago. Just introduce more people to the industry. You can see it. There's no infrastructure on the South and West sides, which are concentrated in Black folks. There's food deserts. So even though we're in grocery stores, we're still not reaching our people. You know what I mean? So there's just infrastructure problems with that. And hopefully through beer somehow, we just bring a little bit more attention to that locally.

[00:42:20] Jessica Infante: Are you guys making an effort to get your beer into those neighborhoods where those bottle shops don't exist into what, whether it's like local stores, local liquor stores, like, are you making those inroads?

[00:42:34] Brewbound Live: Yeah, we are. We're in a, we're in a few liquor stores in like the South side and like the grocery store Jewel, they actually have a few locations on the South side, which is a little bit less of a food desert. So that's great for us because like beginning craft beer drinkers also won't go to a bottle shop. they'll just pick up at the, you know, when they're picking up macaroni and stuff. So yeah, we have been making inroads, but again, like, I think that is difficult though. Like, because like, well, you'll talk to like a buyer at a private shop and all they're used to carrying is a national brands and they don't believe that their community is going to want our craft beer. So it's going to take some time to even condition the buyers to pick up our stuff and offer like a more premium drinking experience.

[00:43:18] Rich Bloomfield: How much sampling are you guys doing? Are you tasting people weekly? What's your sampling schedule look like?

[00:43:25] Chicago-based Funkytown: It's all over the place. We do a lot, but just due to the demand of the beer, we're consistently selling out after each batch.

[00:43:35] Rich Bloomfield: That's awesome.

[00:43:36] Chicago-based Funkytown: So, yeah, we've had some nice activations. I've had an activation at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was a brewsology beer fest. Our line was the longest. Like, we had patrons come up to us, like, if y'all don't know, your line is the longest. And we're on the second floor. We weren't even on the main floor. So we were just shocked, because initially it was like three people up there. We were like, oh, they gave us the short end of the stick. Within the next 36 minutes, it was busy for five hours.

[00:44:09] Rich Bloomfield: Wow, that's nuts.

[00:44:11] Chicago-based Funkytown: So yeah, we tried, we consistently been having tastings, but due to the high demand, we've been selling out, so.

[00:44:21] Rich Bloomfield: It's a great problem to have.

[00:44:24] Chicago-based Funkytown: For right now, we're on hold right now because February was immaculate for us. And in March, we're switching out a couple of beers now, you know, just to the season change. So we had our hip hops and our brew out there, our flagship. And that sold out probably within, what, 40 hours after the actual batch was made? So, yeah. So it's been pretty crazy out here.

[00:44:50] Jessica Infante: You're already dealing with out-of-stocks.

[00:44:54] Brewbound Live: They've been coming through. Chicago's been real supportive. It feels good.

[00:44:59] Zach Day: With that much demand, do you see yourselves like expanding into possibly other cities or other states? Like, do you want to become a like bigger, possibly national brand or do you want to keep it local?

[00:45:14] Brewbound Live: That's definitely a goal. to be a national brand and to kind of like do what we're doing here in other major cities, because, again, like the diversity, the lack of diversity is everywhere. It's all across the country. But to do that, I do think we need to have a concentration on Chicago first, rather than just like trying to get widespread distribution, because like what's working for us here is that we're also here meeting the people. shaking hands and getting our cards out and having events here to support the beer and showing people how the beer can just like fit into their lifestyle. You know, when it comes to expanding nationally or just, you know, expanding out of state, you just want to be able to support those accounts. You don't want your beer sitting on the shelves in Michigan because people don't really know The Funkytown. It doesn't resonate. So big plans, but it has to start with like focusing on Chicago first. Gotta be able to come home.

[00:46:07] Zach Day: getting out that you're really kind of in this now, you're trying to like figure out all the ins and outs and distribution and all of that. Like what has surprised you most about getting into the beer industry and just being a part of craft beer?

[00:46:20] Brewbound Live: For me, I'll say like marketing, sales, production, scheduling, like working hand in hand with one another. It can't be, it almost seems like it can't be like working silos in this business. Like before we got started, I was thinking like, yeah, we release this, we make this, market this, release this, we make this, we market this. And it was like, no, you can't make a stout in December because sales needs to have that on the shelves in November. And then marketing has to have that out by the end of October. So it's like, kind of learning that everyone needs to be like on the same court, kind of working just like harmoniously together is like probably one of the biggest things that I personally have learned. Because it was just, all right, Zach, what you brewing? This, that. We don't send it out here. We don't do this and we don't do this. Now it's like, yeah, you have to make sure that your team is moving on one level in order for everything to kind of work smoothly.

[00:47:23] Chicago-based Funkytown: For me, just being out and about, you know, meeting different people, off premise, on premise, the competitiveness. of getting your beer on tap versus in cans. Of course you get them in cans, but I feel like it's like a special, like when you look, when you go into a bar, like the tap, tap section is like, God sent, like, oh, you know, like, I gotta get there. Because once you're on tap, you're undeniable, in my opinion, just because, you know, of course, those establishments make more money off the poor. So if you get some kegs in there, you're easy money. and then just also just event planning. you know, like you said, we always come up with stuff and events and, you know, come up with great ideas. But actually orchestrating these events, getting everything you need properly in a timely manner, all of that combined before the event, I didn't realize how much work it was to do that. And then just to actually create flyers with the marketing and, you know, just make sure everything is on one accord before the actual event. That was definitely something different and new for us.

[00:48:31] Rich Bloomfield: Planning events sucks. So like with you on that. Probably my downfall of my last job, but we'll talk about that off the record and over a beer. For sure.

[00:48:45] Zach Day: Well, I appreciate you guys coming and talking to us about this. I'm going to wrap this up with just telling us what's on top for the rest of this year from Foggytown. What can we expect from you guys?

[00:48:56] Brewbound Live: We got some new beer coming right around the corner, some more dope labels that's going to help people further understand our identity. We're excited that people look like they'll be out this summer, so we're going to be going to festivals. We will be hitting the road and pouring up at Barrel and Flow. And yeah, we're just looking to throw dope events. We probably have like five more beers we're releasing this year. There's new stuff. I'll let you know that. Yeah, and just keep having fun with it. You know, like we're having fun and handling the business and everything else will work itself out. Like we're learning about the financials and stuff with the next steps and all that, you know, all that business back office stuff. But as long as we keep having fun and like doing what we set out to do, like everything will work itself out. And we're trying to come back to BrewBangle too.

[00:49:48] Zach Day: Good.

[00:49:50] Brewbound Live: Oh, yeah. We're definitely coming. With beer this time for everybody.

[00:49:54] Jessica Infante: And a better Airbnb. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

[00:50:01] Brewbound Live: We ain't going to make that same mistake twice. I kind of felt like that was on me because I'm the one who put the Airbnb and stuff together. So it was like extra weight on my shoulders when we leave and everybody packing up silent. I'm just in my head. It's my fault. We gotta win now. So I was like, Rich, you get the bed, bro.

[00:50:27] Jessica Infante: Well, this has been awesome. Thank you guys for doing this.

[00:50:31] Chicago-based Funkytown: Thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Appreciate you all. Nice to see these friendly faces again. Once again.

[00:50:39] Jessica Infante: And that's our show for this week. Thanks to our one-man audio team, Joe. Thanks to Zoe and Jess for hitting the road and doing all the hard work while I'm taking care of a three-month-old who screams in my face. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.