Brewbound Podcast: How a Las Vegas Wholesaler is Prepping for the Super Bowl

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: 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 team. 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 team at booth 956 during CBC. How are Vegas beer distributors prepping for the Super Bowl? Find out next on The Brewbound Podcast. Hello, and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:49] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:52] Justin Kendall: And it's Super Bowl week. And we have a special guest as I teased at the top of the show. We are going to be joined by Deacon Nauslar from Breakthru Beverage Nevada. He's going to tell us all about how Breakthru is prepping for the Super Bowl, what it's like compared to other events and much more. So stick around for that. But my question to you, Jess and Zoe, is how are you preparing for the Super Bowl? If you are at all, are you among the 61% of consumers who are preparing for the Super Bowl or going to watch?

[00:01:28] Jessica Infante: Well, it crossed my mind on my drive here today to, you know, the global The Brewbound HQ that I need to maybe stop at the supermarket on my way home to get stuff to make snacks. Cause I have made the mistake before of going to the supermarket Super Bowl Sunday and it's ugly. But yeah, I mean, I I'm in it for the snacks, man. I'm excited. Will I have time to make the snacks? Who knows? Baby's a game changer. So you making cookies?

[00:01:54] Deacon Nauslar: I am changing things up. I'm not making cookies this year. This is big breaking news. No Super Bowl cookies from this house. I'm going to Foxwoods this year. We decided this football season was not fun for Patriots fans. And I honestly, I think I watched more Bill's games than Pat's games because they were really depressing. And so we wanted to do something different for the Super Bowl to kind of make the year better. And we're going to Foxwoods and with a bunch of girls and going to watch at, I think at Scorpion, like basically watching a football game at a club, which we'll see if I actually enjoy that or not. But yeah, not staying inside, not having like a house party, Super Bowl watch party thing this year. I love this for you.

[00:02:45] Justin Kendall: I want to rewind for a minute too here to a statement you made about watching more Bills games than Patriot games, which is quite a statement. You know, Bills games are not for the faint of heart usually either.

[00:02:59] Deacon Nauslar: They also had a lot of national broadcasts this year. They were just like on the TV all the time. But I feel like I watched in full more Bills games than Pats games, because I would give up on the Pats about halfway through. And Bills, at least they would like have some rallying efforts that made it more entertaining. Definitely more entertaining football than Pats games were this year. Would you say they are your second favorite team? No, because that feels so wrong to even consider them like a adjacent favorite team. Justin, what's your NFL team?

[00:03:33] Justin Kendall: I don't have one, but I'm going to be rooting for the 49ers.

[00:03:38] Deacon Nauslar: As you should.

[00:03:39] Justin Kendall: Nobody can see this other than the two of you. I have an Iowa State hat on. I have my Iowa State sweatshirt on. And former Iowa State quarterback Brock Purdy is leading the 49ers. And this is like one of those I don't know how many times in my lifetime a cyclone is going to be quarterbacking one of the two Super Bowl teams, but this is it. You know, if this is it, I'm all in for Brock.

[00:04:06] Jessica Infante: I mean, that's a good reason, because for a second I thought you were going to say they're the same colors.

[00:04:10] Justin Kendall: So no, it's a little deeper than that.

[00:04:14] Jessica Infante: Go, Brock, go.

[00:04:15] Deacon Nauslar: I appreciate that. I found, I had a Snapchat memory come up the other day of the 49ers Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl from, what is that, three, four years ago now? I think that was 2019, 2020. 2020. God. And it was a selfie of me of Lawrence captioned, we're the only ones rooting for the Chiefs and like excited emojis because the Chiefs had won and how times have changed because now we're absolutely disgusted by the Chiefs and don't want them to win at all. So yeah, it's quite an interesting turnaround. Oh, how the turntables.

[00:04:53] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:04:54] Justin Kendall: And I think that's a little bit with your own fandom, because a lot of that hate was going toward the Patriots for several years because people were sick of them being in the Super Bowl. Yeah. And now it's flipped to the Chiefs. And then there's the Taylor Swift element, which I don't mind. I don't really care.

[00:05:12] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, at least personally, this has nothing to do with Taylor. I just, yeah, I'm feeling the pain that everyone else felt where I'm sick of watching the Chiefs win. And Jimmy G isn't really an element anymore at the 49ers, so I don't have to worry about like, I know we have a sordid history, so. But did that make you like the Niners more? No. No, all right. No, I was not a Jimmy stan.

[00:05:37] Jessica Infante: I had thoughts and feelings about Jimmy that don't pertain to football. But we don't need to get into that here.

[00:05:42] Deacon Nauslar: A lot of people do.

[00:05:44] Justin Kendall: Is Lawrence's Tom Brady poster still up?

[00:05:48] Deacon Nauslar: Of course. I'm looking at it right now. I don't think that thing will ever go away.

[00:05:55] Jessica Infante: Does Lawrence remember a time when New England sports weren't just like completely dominant?

[00:06:00] Deacon Nauslar: No.

[00:06:01] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:06:02] Deacon Nauslar: No. I mean, we were We were like five when the Patriots won the first like Super Bowl of the start of the dynasty. And then like the Red Sox were a couple years after that. So he has no idea. This is a whole new territory for him and he's not really enjoying it.

[00:06:23] Justin Kendall: If that poster came down, would the paint on the wall be different behind the poster than the paint above or below the poster?

[00:06:32] Deacon Nauslar: If it was still in its original spot, it would be completely different. Since we've moved into this place, so the posters had to move. But the poster's in rough shape because of that. It's got some green tape all over it. It's wrinkly. It's been through a lot. It's moved and traveled with him everywhere he's gone.

[00:06:51] Jessica Infante: When I met my male companion, he also had a Tom Brady poster. It was on the wall in his room in the fraternity house. It came back home and he moved in with his parents. And when we moved into our own apartment, it did not come. Good for you at your request, or no, no, I don't think I said anything about it. I think he knew it was time, but like because of that poster, I could tell you everything there is to know about Tom Brady. I know his birthday. August 3rd, 1977. But yeah, Lawrence entering a whole new era of being a New England sports fan.

[00:07:26] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, he's like all about the Celtics now, which that's the one thing we have going for us still at the moment.

[00:07:34] Justin Kendall: Well, we have some numerator data, and it sounds like 38% of consumers are planning to buy, or excuse me, 37%, big 1% jump there, plan to buy beer for the Super Bowl. It only trails soda, which 50% of Super Bowl watchers said they'll be buying. I think that there's also a bit of interest in some of the other drinks that are on here. Spirits, 22% of consumers say they'll buy that. Same for wine and champagne. Sparkling water is 15%. Juice is 13%. Hard seltzer is 10%. Ready to drink cocktails, 9%. And THC or CBD infused beverages, 3%. So that's according to Numerator. Actually, what are you gonna be buying, Zoe, while you're out drinking?

[00:08:25] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, I have no idea what my options are. Based on the group that I will be with, I assume it's gonna be a lot of high noons. It's gonna be the drink of choice.

[00:08:35] Jessica Infante: I am gonna just call it right now and say I'm probably good for one beer. And it probably is gonna be one of the cold time lagers that Revolution Brewing so generously shipped to my home. And that'll probably be it.

[00:08:50] Justin Kendall: Solid. I have no idea. I was going to ask you, Jess, if it was going to be one of the dusty bottles from that bottle shop on the buy one, get two free or whatever it was.

[00:09:01] Jessica Infante: You know what? Maybe, maybe we could make that happen. Maybe I'll, I'll take a trip.

[00:09:06] Justin Kendall: The other thing of note here in the numerator data was that Chiefs fans are planning to spend their beer money on Mic Ultra, Bud Light, and Coors Light, which should delight both AB and Molson Coors, since those are commercials that are going to be running during the game. 49ers fans are going to spend on Modelo, Coors, and Bud Light. So good for them.

[00:09:33] Jessica Infante: Well, they can't drink anchor.

[00:09:35] Justin Kendall: No, they cannot. That was another interesting piece of news that came out this week was that the anchor union folks or, you know, the former anchor workers aren't going to be bidding on the brewery. Tell us a little more about that.

[00:09:50] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, we just found the Instagram post initially from them that they posted last week that they decided based on the other bids that had been submitted that they are not going to move forward with bidding on the brewery. They still hope to be involved somehow. Their ideal situation would be to be a cooperative still running anchor. They said they're in talks with other bidders. telling them, hey, this is what our ideas are, this is the experience we have, this is how we could help you if you do win. So it seems like they're not, have decided they can't do it themselves, but if someone else takes over and is willing to take them on, then they want to pursue what that looks like. They did clarify, because you know they've been funding this through a couple crowdfunding things, including a WeFunder campaign, They said, you know, that money is in limbo until we figure out what happens. If it does move forward and we are going to work as a cooperative, then we'll use the money for that. If not, it will be returned to people who donated.

[00:10:55] Justin Kendall: And we're still waiting to find out who the high bidder is on either the brewery equipment and IP or even the physical location. So that has yet to come out, or at least as of this recording. I guess that was supposed to wrap up at the end of last month.

[00:11:14] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And, you know, we've, we've let the people in charge of the communication around this situation know that we would love to be kept in the loop, but that loop hasn't yet to close. And for posterity right now, it is 12, 23 PM on Tuesday, February 6th on the East coast. So, I mean, who knows, they are three hours behind. There could be news today. And I think I just spoke this into existence.

[00:11:42] Justin Kendall: Thanks for that. We'll get right on that after we finish up recording. Let's get into some other news of the last few days. And what we found out, we started hearing rumblings about, you know, some type of Xi'an news coming last week. Jess, you had the ear on The Brewbound on that. we were all wondering, you know, what's coming? And well, what's coming is it appears that the three-year legal battle between the Gerald and Maureen Sheehan and one of their sons, and then I believe it's like an attorney for a trust for some other family members, is coming to an end, or at least they think it will, because they've reached an agreement to sell the company to four of the sons. So Xi'an family companies had confirmed this. They had said that Timothy, John, Christopher, and Matthew Xi'an will acquire the business from, quote, other Xi'an family members who do not wish to continue in the business. And It sounds like the rest of the family is getting out once this deal, if it closes, and it sounds like it's supposed to close in Q2 of 2024. So, you know, we got a few months to go there. And I read through the document and it sounded like it's going to take at least 180 days for it to come to a resolution. But once it does, family patriarch, Jerry Sheehan is expected to retire.

[00:13:15] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, this has been a long time coming. And if you've followed the news, which I assume you do, if you listen to this podcast, you've known that the She and Family Companies has been selling off branches pretty consistently. So this all makes sense to me. I mean, that original lawsuit we dug into like around this time in 2021 was when this lawsuit came through originally. And basically it showed a family schism over, you know, some of the children are, and they're, you know, the adult children, like several decades older than me. Some of them are involved in the business and have worked very hard and dedicated their lives to it. you know, moving like from state to state to run or open different branches and others didn't play an active role at all. So originally they had had a what was called the 60-40 split that made sure that the people who were actively working were entitled to a little bit more compensation than the people who weren't. And then that seemed to deteriorate over the years. And the plaintiffs were accusing their dad, Jerry, of, you know, trying to quote unquote, even the stacks between the siblings, you know, those who worked and those who didn't. So it generated a lot of media interest at the time, because it was basically like, you know, beer industry, Massachusetts succession.

[00:14:31] Justin Kendall: It really was.

[00:14:32] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I mean, I would watch that.

[00:14:34] Justin Kendall: It was probably one of the juicier industry lawsuits that we saw, right? Oh, for sure.

[00:14:40] Jessica Infante: Well, you know, it got picked up in like Boston Magazine and like, it was really, I read it. I like brought the magazine to the diner with me on a Sunday morning and sat at the counter and read it. And it was like props to the writer. It was good, but like, it was interesting. to me as a person who knows how all of this works to read what it's like to be told as a person who doesn't, you know, like the writer says, like, you know, on your way to Cape Cod on route three, there's a giant building and you wouldn't know anything from looking on the outside. It just seems like a basic warehouse. But inside is the inner workings of one of the richest families in the state. And it's like, yeah, none of that's wrong.

[00:15:18] Justin Kendall: Yeah, it was a little bit juiced up. I feel like that lead was like, oh, this shadowy operation of beer wholesaling, you know, like, oh my. Yeah. Oh, there's a Budweiser truck. Oh, there's a Bud Light truck.

[00:15:34] Jessica Infante: But like before I knew how distribution worked, it was interesting because I feel like you see trucks on the road and you're like, oh, that truck came from the brewery. And here it is. You know, over the summer, a person in my extended family was very hyped up to tell me, like, I saw a beer truck from a brewery in Vermont all the way here in New Jersey. And I had to be like, well, no, that truck came from the wholesaler, probably from Hunterdon, which was the Sheehan branch before it closed down.

[00:15:59] Justin Kendall: Right. And they've sold that off. Sold that off and a lot of other things. A lot of other things. Included in this deal, according to our friends at Beer Marketers Insights, are the operations in Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Carved out of the deal are Craft, Connecticut, which Beer Marketers Insights said is likely moving in another deal, and then Beer House of Kentucky.

[00:16:27] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that's interesting to me, but saying they're part of another deal makes sense.

[00:16:32] Justin Kendall: Well, that's not the only legal news of the week. And this is a story that I believe you've been on top of. I know you've been on top of, Jess, and that's Boston Beer being sued over its non-competes.

[00:16:46] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So, you know, I'll keep this high level because we haven't actually published yet, but I've done all the backend work on it. And there are two different lawsuits, one filed in Massachusetts in early January and one filed in Washington state last week. Both are former Boston Beer sales reps, and they are claiming that the company's non-compete policy, which it's had in place for years and years, is not fair. And the non-compete, which I'm sure we've covered on this podcast, because it did pop up in the news last fall, basically says you Sin City at the time of your hiring, and you are promising that you will not go work for a competitor of Boston Beer for one year after you are last compensated by the company. And that's a lot. They define a competitor as a company that makes or imports beer, flavored malt beverages, hard cider, now hard seltzer if you started after Truly, products that are within 25% of Boston Beer's prices to wholesalers. So there is a little wiggle room there, but not really. And in these cases, the one filed in Washington State, the plaintiff, whose name was Max, he left the company of his own accord in April 2021, didn't really have anything lined up. He wanted to stay in beer, so he thought he would do the right thing and adhere to the non-compete, took odd jobs for a year. He was reminded in his exit interview by an HR business partner, remember, you are beholden to this non-compete. If we find out you violate it, there could be trouble. And that sounds more shadowy than I intended to, but if we find out you violated, there are repercussions. He was a key account specialist for the on-premise. That's a pretty big role. He was taking jobs, waiting tables. He worked at a winery for the season, like basically cut his own salary in half to adhere to this non-compete, only to find out that non-competes are banned in the state of Washington and it was unenforceable. However, he was told by his HR business partner, hey, this is, this is a thing. So he, you know, in good faith did what he thought was the right thing only to find out that he basically, you know, robbed himself of some opportunities. So that's one. The other lawsuit comes from a former senior brewery rep, which is the promotion above the entry level sales role. He had worked in the state of New Hampshire, and there's a lot of other stuff that went down in his departure from the company that we won't get into right now. I'm sure we'll want to talk about it next week. but he departed the company and he went to a lawyer and his lawyer said, hey, this non-compete is unenforceable. Don't worry about it. There's no way this can be enforced. It is too broad. This cannot be upheld in a court of law, which many lawyers have looked at this non-compete and said. So he gets a job with Lone Pine, a brewery based in Portland, Maine. He would be covering two different states. He was gonna cover Vermont and New York. He did not cover those for Boston Beer. And he works there about a month and Boston Beer finds out that he works there. They threaten Lone Pine and Lone Pine said, you know, hey, you told us this wasn't an issue, but they are threatening to sue us. So unfortunately, we have to terminate you. Non-competes have really been under scrutiny lately. The FTC a year or so ago had said, hey, these really shouldn't be a thing anymore. Massachusetts specifically enacted new laws around them in 2018 that says if you are going to make your employee sign a non-compete, you need to be prepared to offer what's called garden leave. Mass is the first state in the country to do this. And garden leave is like an English term that basically means you're paying somebody to hang out in their garden. paying the employee half of their salary for the period in which they need to sit out on the sidelines or other mutually agreed upon consideration and that is not defined. So what Boston Beer did for John from New Hampshire was offer him three thousand dollars to compensate his time for this non-compete period of a year which obviously

[00:20:44] Justin Kendall: You can't live on that.

[00:20:46] Jessica Infante: You can't live on that. No, I'm like, you can barely live on what his salary had been. His base salary was $55,000 in the Northeast.

[00:20:54] Justin Kendall: Yeah. No, I remember moving from Kansas City to the Northeast.

[00:21:00] Jessica Infante: Terrifying, right?

[00:21:01] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Yeah. There's a reason I live in Iowa.

[00:21:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So that is all part of it. He tried to say he did not want to accept this. They deposited in his account anyway. And yeah, like, you know, more to come on that. But Boston Beer is one of the few beer industry companies that I know of that has a non-compete and does enforce it. They enforced it in the fall. Former Boston Beer employee left the company, went to Down East and Boston Beer waited. I believe he went to Down East in April or May and he was sued at the end of October. They do it every once in a while. They had actually enforced a non-compete in California in 2011 against an employee who went from Boston Beer to Anchor, funnily enough. The other funny thing that I noticed in doing all the research for these stories, because that lawsuit gets attached to all the other complaints, was that in his affidavit, that employee who left BBC for anchor said he didn't think it would be a problem because the person that he was backfilling in his job in Boston Beer had left Boston Beer to work for Coronado. But no action was taken against him. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to enforce the thing, but I think you kind of got to do it more evenly than has been done.

[00:22:17] Justin Kendall: We've seen a lot of top level job moves too over the last couple of years of people leaving top breweries and going to other breweries almost immediately. So to your point of, you know, Boston Beer being among the few that does have non-competes, I mean, you know, there are several that come to mind from job moves from like Lagunitas to Firestone and such that, you know, they're not that we know of any action in those cases.

[00:22:46] Jessica Infante: No. Yeah. I mean, like people go from like Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors to craft players and vice versa. It happens. And the other thing is like, yeah, I think the Boston Beer non-compete specifically is so broad that it is unenforceable. As many attorneys have said, the problem is that the company tries to enforce it. So whether or not they even had any intention of suing Lone Pine, Lone Pine gets scared enough to say, we can't chance this. And that's where it creates a chilling effect.

[00:23:14] Breakthru Beverage: 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.

[00:23:34] Justin Kendall: Let's talk a little bit about another closure of a tap room in San Francisco, and that's New Belgium is shutting down its space in the city.

[00:23:45] Jessica Infante: They are, and that itself was a hermit crabbing. It had been a Little Creatures tap room. Little Creatures is a sibling brand to New Belgium under the Lion Little World umbrella. They're Australian, and they opened a few months before COVID. Then they went dark, and then the space sat dormant for a while, and New Belgium announced that they were going to convert it to their own brand. And they had it going almost three years, but decided to call it quits last week.

[00:24:17] Justin Kendall: For financial reasons, or at least they said it was not financially viable.

[00:24:22] Jessica Infante: Right. And it's in the neighborhood by the sports arenas. It's like the fancy new shiny neighborhood of San Francisco. But San Francisco is one of those cities that people love to bring up as an example of why remote work is bad. I think a lot of that's over exaggerated a bit, but I know their downtown district has recovered. I want to say like it's almost like two thirds recovered to pre-pandemic levels of foot traffic, but enough to be harmful to New Belgium. So they've said, you know, everybody who worked there has either been given a severance package or the ability to, you know, work elsewhere in the New Belgium crew when they still have their tap rooms open in Fort Collins, Colorado, Asheville, North Carolina, and at the Denver airport, home of my favorite Pizza Hut Express.

[00:25:08] Justin Kendall: And their star brewer at the location, Ramon Tamayo, is moving to another New Belgium operation, it sounds like.

[00:25:16] Jessica Infante: Yeah, they didn't tell us where, but he will still be around. Ramon recently got a lot of love in Open Beer's press release. I guess he's helped them tremendously. And he is going to stick with the company.

[00:25:29] Justin Kendall: Well, let's close with some data and then play Another Round or Tabbing Out. And I mentioned that a majority of consumers who are watching the Super Bowl are going to buy some soda. And Zoe, one of the more bombastic headlines that we had this week was soda is coming for beer shelf space.

[00:25:49] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, I'll keep this brief because I know I really want everyone to get to our interview this week. It's a fun one. But the recent monthly report from Bump Williams Consulting, Bump Williams himself pointed out that you might need to look at total beverage trends rather than just what's happening in beverage alcohol to see what might be happening to it in this coming year and moving forward. And within that he showed, you know, beer is still in beer, including F&Bs and hard seltzers and hard cider. It's still the number one beverage by dollar sales, but it lost share last year. It lost like 0.6 of a point of share, which isn't huge, but there are other beverage segments that are gaining share, including energy drinks and sodas. And Bob pointed out, you know, retailers are, particularly very large retailers, are looking at their shelf sets and being like, hey, we should probably replace some of this extensive beer space with displays for other faster-selling beverage categories. Potentially, that would be soft drinks or energy drinks because those are adding growth, they're bringing in dollars, and so they are able to take some of that space and bring in more money for retailers. So a little scary, a little scary. A lot scary. Yeah. Cause we, there's a lot of in fighting or talking within Bev-Alec of like, Oh, you know, beer needs to watch out for spirits or vice versa. And all the things that can cocktails, but the big threat potentially could be these other Breakthru Beverage categories that are coming in and they're having success right now. And so they're going to take away some of your space as well.

[00:27:31] Justin Kendall: It wasn't long ago that Beer Business Daily ran a story that said that, I think it was in the South, Coca-Cola was basically headhunting beer cooler space.

[00:27:43] Jessica Infante: Makes sense. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, the other thing is like energy drinks are also on beer wholesalers trucks. Yeah. So you got to think about that, like for the middle tier, like as long as this is a brand that's in your house, still win, so.

[00:27:58] Justin Kendall: It is just the shaky thing with franchise laws and those cases where non-alcs can move a lot easier. Whenever the heck they want. Yeah, than beer products.

[00:28:09] Deacon Nauslar: Right. And you could see like even some of the displays for especially the energy drinks these days look very similar to like the big beer displays that we're used to seeing. And so they're looking for like more space and to take up some of those spaces that maybe would have been a light lager display or something like they're creeping in there.

[00:28:33] Justin Kendall: Well, let's play Another Round of Tabbing Out, and we have a couple of ads to talk about for the Super Bowl, which is obviously this weekend. We finally got a look at the Bud Light ad, and in this ad, we see the debut of the Bud Light genie, which I'm sure they're hoping will be the next Frog or What's Up or, you know, that sort of thing. Ad features Post Malone, Peyton Manning, and UFC boss Dana White. Zoe and Jess, are you buying Another Round that this type of humor-led ad can help the Bud Light brand win folks back?

[00:29:13] Jessica Infante: I mean, it depends on the folks we're talking about. Yeah.

[00:29:16] Justin Kendall: The folks that'll be excited about seeing Dana White.

[00:29:20] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it'll work for them. Yeah, possibly. I'm not entirely sold. I did a very tiny two-person case study with two folks that I think would fit into the target demographic, which is white men in their late 20s. And they were not impressed by the Bud Light ad at all. One of the comments was, It's so annoying when they just have to use the clout of celebrities, like just putting them out there. They're not doing anything with those celebrities. They're just putting their faces there to be like, oh, look, we're cool because we got these guys in our commercial. They were really into the Chill Train ad, though.

[00:30:04] Justin Kendall: That's something we'll talk about. But I think that there's one thing that Jess brought up last week about the advertising that we had seen so far. And that is abundantly clear now that we've really seen everything is there are a lot of guys in these ads, like almost predominantly guys. And if you are a woman in any of these ads, you are either a secondary character in a service industry role, or background fodder, really.

[00:30:36] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of a lot of women behind these bars and pulling tap handles, but not enjoying the beer since then. I know you can't drink a beer in a beer commercial, technically, but, you know.

[00:30:46] Justin Kendall: It's just a noticeable shift for Anheuser-Busch after the last few years. And I mean, even last year's Michelob Ultra ad, which had like Serena Williams and WNBA stars and, you know, just a more diverse list of characters than Peyton Manning, Post Malone and Dana White, you know, or Jason Sudeikis and Lionel Messi or, you know, Clydesdales.

[00:31:13] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I saw a meme once that said Post Malone looks like a doodle bear and I really can't get it out of my head. Yeah. I mean, at least there are women in the ads at all. I don't know. That might be a reach.

[00:31:29] Deacon Nauslar: really growing on my bone there.

[00:31:31] Jessica Infante: Yeah. But I And Justin, to your question, do I buy a round? Do I buy Another Round or am I Tabbing Out? I'm not quite Tabbing Out on this, but I think I'm just going to have some water for this round and we'll see because yeah, I think this will help Bud Light in its current predicament. Yeah.

[00:31:47] Justin Kendall: I don't know how I feel about the Bud Light Genie, but they have run Genie commercials before, not in this way. It was actually with The Lamp in the, like, 1990s, I think it was. But they're way more, like, of that era, and they do not age well at all, as you can imagine.

[00:32:08] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I mean, they say all of this knowing full well I am not the target. Yeah. I get it.

[00:32:14] Justin Kendall: Well, you mentioned the chill train, Zoe, and we've finally got a look at the ad. We got the 90 second version. I don't know how they're going to cut this down to 30 seconds, but what we saw was a young woman bringing a date to a Super Bowl party with her parents and the date is wearing the opposing team jersey. And so it's one of those awkward moments. And that activates the chill train, which rushes across the country. And in one scene, an unexpected cameo, I think, by Verona, unwittingly, as the train whooshes by and the bucket of beers with limes goes flying and the couple in the lawn chairs are left frozen with horse-like cans, or not completely frozen, but frosted over. And then the train crashes through the house after it's driven by Laney Wilson, who is a country star, and then crashes into the house. And, you know, the conductor is LL Cool J. And then he plays the song and everybody's happy. And the very ironic woman says, you know, thank you, LL Cool J, you know, and everybody's happy. And, you know, they're throwing up deuces. Are you buying Another Round or Tabbing Out on the chill train now that we've actually seen it? Do we owe Molson Coors a mea culpa?

[00:33:42] Deacon Nauslar: I'm reluctantly getting Another Round here. I was not the biggest fan of the ad when I first saw it. I think it probably didn't help that we were coming off of these more like masculine driven AB ads beforehand. And so I was like, Oh, great. Here's like, an ad where they're showing some train like barreling through people's lives. Like, great. I don't love it. But the Corona part was funny. And then I showed it to people and they're like, this is kind of epic. Like, I really like it. And it's a little humorous and lighthearted and didn't feel like it was trying too hard. Like it wasn't like shoving celebrities in your face. LL Cool J is the conductor of the chill train because of course he is. So I think it'll work out well for them. It's a little clearer, I think, too, than last year. So I think that'll help them out.

[00:34:35] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I would like to apologize to our friends at Molson Coors because I think I was a little rude last week or whenever we discussed this and I liked it. I thought it was good. I enjoyed. There's a few things I liked about it. the main protagonist is the woman bringing the boyfriend home, you know, like, and that felt in the national, there was, so a lot of women had a lot of agency. This is something that you learn in marketing graduate school, and I wish I could unlearn it, but basically showing people in advertising who are doing things themselves instead of having things done to them, if that makes sense. So, you know, the woman brings her date home, but that happens, but the train is barreling across the country. Justin, you mentioned the beach scene. There was a father walking a bride down the aisle, presumably his daughter, and the train, you know, whooshes by this outdoor wedding and the tear on his cheek freezes. Then there was a man hanging up laundry on a clothesline outside who was like, I don't know, seemed like a young-ish, 30s-ish, fairly muscular man. Like, yes, let's portray... Domestic men. Yeah, let's see somebody doing domestic labor that fits that, you know, demographic profile. I mean, I have no complaints. My husband cleans our whole house. You know, like I liked it. It was showing little snippets, like you said, Zoe, of people's lives that this train rushes by and whooshes them with beer, which obviously will never happen. But you know, I liked it. I liked LL Cool J. Ladies love Cool James. That is what his name means. I realized that I put that in email and didn't explain that to anybody else. So if you didn't know, now you do.

[00:36:08] Justin Kendall: I think if you were of a certain age and you lived through the nineties, you know this.

[00:36:14] Deacon Nauslar: Zoe. I did not know. That's what it stood for.

[00:36:18] Justin Kendall: Zoe did not live through the 90s.

[00:36:20] Deacon Nauslar: Just the last three years and a month.

[00:36:24] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I, he, you know, perfect cameo. It was great. Like the song made me feel real bad about whatever I had said about this last week. Kind of made me want to Coors Light. Justin, to your point about the, the Corona beach, I assume this is not going to be in the, what makes it to air.

[00:36:41] Justin Kendall: I would be surprised if it did. It had that tinge of, it's the wink and the nod, as opposed to the outright brutality of the, uh, corn ads that we- Corn serve. Yeah. A few years back.

[00:36:56] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:36:56] Justin Kendall: I was having flashbacks when I saw it, like, oh no, is this going to be a thing that we're going to have to deal with?

[00:37:04] Jessica Infante: Limegate.

[00:37:05] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:37:06] Deacon Nauslar: They heard our podcast where he talked about how my roommate had called them ballsy for showing competitors that weren't competitors. And they said, you know what? We are gonna be ballsy and we are gonna show a competitor.

[00:37:20] Justin Kendall: Well, I mean, that was the surprising competitor to show. Yeah. Well, we're gonna do one more. And this is one that unfortunately, Jess and Zoe don't get in on because I have here in my hand. a can of Truly Hot Wing Sauce, which I am truly afraid of trying, but I'm going to suck it up and try it live. Wow. Or a live edition of... Show and tell. Yeah.

[00:37:48] Deacon Nauslar: Is it cold or is it room temp?

[00:37:50] Justin Kendall: It is cold. It's been in my refrigerator. It does not look like I thought it would look.

[00:37:55] Deacon Nauslar: Ooh, it's pink.

[00:37:57] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I did not expect that to look pink.

[00:38:00] Deacon Nauslar: So pretty.

[00:38:01] Justin Kendall: Yeah. So they sent a box with one can in it and a foam football and a foam carrot and celery stick. And oh my God, this thing.

[00:38:14] Deacon Nauslar: Does it smell like hot wings?

[00:38:16] Justin Kendall: I don't think it smells like hot wings, but maybe to a degree.

[00:38:20] Deacon Nauslar: We need a really descriptive scent profile for our audio listeners. Does it smell like vinegar?

[00:38:26] Justin Kendall: No, it doesn't. It smells exactly like a spice cabinet gone wild. I do not have chicken wings to go with this. Oh boy.

[00:38:37] Jessica Infante: Do you smell like any cayenne?

[00:38:40] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I think I definitely smell cayenne. All right. What about butter? I don't, but I think I, a big hint of vinegar, although I did clean in the bathroom last night, but I think it's coming from this. So I'm just going to try it and we're going to see how this goes.

[00:38:58] Deacon Nauslar: Bottoms up.

[00:39:00] Justin Kendall: All right.

[00:39:02] Deacon Nauslar: No crazy reaction.

[00:39:06] Justin Kendall: Oh no.

[00:39:07] Deacon Nauslar: Delayed reaction.

[00:39:10] Justin Kendall: He definitely hits you on the back end with that high-end pepper feel. I don't know that I'd recommend it. I certainly as hell am not finishing this thing.

[00:39:23] Deacon Nauslar: Would you pair it with celery and ranch dressing?

[00:39:28] Justin Kendall: If you're gonna go all in, you gotta get some wings for this. You need some Buffs Pubs wings in Newt Mass, now accepting credit cards. Best wings in the world. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to go all in, I think you need that and a blue cheese chaser.

[00:39:45] Brewbound Podcast: I'm going to stop at Buffs on the way home.

[00:39:49] Justin Kendall: You should.

[00:39:50] Brewbound Podcast: You know, I don't even eat chicken and it's making me really hungry. Do you see like a salinity to it?

[00:39:55] Justin Kendall: It's just spice. It's just all spice. And I mean, it's medicinal.

[00:40:01] Deacon Nauslar: But there's no like chicken, right? It's just the hot sauce.

[00:40:05] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:40:06] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah. Okay. I'm, I'm fine with that. I feel like I'd be into it.

[00:40:10] Jessica Infante: Right. I think Zoe and I, I think this would shine. I feel like this got like roundly ridiculed, at least on the corners of the internet that I frequent. And I didn't agree with that. I thought I'd like to try this. Yeah. You know, I'm into the spice. Yeah. Talaib had a chili crisp beer that Zoe and I both had intense FOMO over.

[00:40:31] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, I want to try that so bad. It's in a big can too, right? It's like, is it just like a 16? What is that? It's not their usual little skinny can.

[00:40:43] Justin Kendall: Yeah, it's the 16 ounce can.

[00:40:47] Deacon Nauslar: I would have drank it. Come back to us next week. We'll see if your organs are still functioning.

[00:40:53] Justin Kendall: Try me in about an hour or so. It definitely is clearing up some sinuses. I think with that, we should get to our featured interview with Deacon Nauslar.

[00:41:06] Jessica Infante: Okay. Our featured guest this week is a very busy man for the next couple of weeks. Joining us today from Breakthru Beverage Nevada is Deacon Nauslar, the vice president of Breakthru Nevada's beer division. Deacon, thanks for being here. How are you?

[00:41:20] Super Bowl: I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very honored to be on here. It's just perfect timing about a week out before the big dance.

[00:41:28] Justin Kendall: just one week. That's wild. So how long have you been preparing for this?

[00:41:33] Super Bowl: You know, we started these meetings back last March and, um, with, uh, several suppliers just talking about what they wanted to get out of the, the event itself and what hotels would work with us and work with them. And so we, we started, uh, last March and then we went about every two months up until about Just between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we started hitting it pretty heavy with a lot of meetings, weekly meetings. So that was with most of my suppliers. And then most recently, much like the F1 Formula Race that we had back in November, I found out that by having weekly calls leading into it really worked out well. So I'm taking the page out of the book, what we used for the F1 Formula Race. last November and we're doing the same thing for the Super Bowl. So weekly meetings right now every Monday and everyone's got a to-do list and I just get everybody on a team's call and we talk it out and we find out some issues and we definitely can check off some things that we feel comfortable with. So long-winded answer but it started last March and now we're right in the thick of things. That's crazy.

[00:42:39] Jessica Infante: Ballpark guests, how much extra beer is the team expecting to move between now and the Super Bowl?

[00:42:45] Super Bowl: You know, that's a really because, you know, the Su as we all know, but this to be a place to go for t we're always busy for the Usually jump between the 90 and 92% ratio for the hotels. So, the incremental business will really only be at the stadium because all the bars, all the casinos, all the sports books. Matter of fact, for the sports books for Super Bowl every year, they bring in additional couches. They bring in chairs, they sell more areas to spend the day there and drink and have food and watch the game on the big screen. So I would say that the lift is between 5 and 10 percent. And I know it sounds like a small number, but we figured we'll probably get a little bump out of it. Again, most of it will be at Allegiant Stadium because all the other bars and restaurants and resorts are always full.

[00:43:45] Deacon Nauslar: Logistically, what do you have to change to prep for any of that influx? Like how many more deliveries do you have to be thinking about or how are those plans changing?

[00:43:55] Super Bowl: Well, it's a great question because that's a concern of ours. Any type of additional operational costs we have to really scrutinize and look at and dig into it. And so we're not experiencing it yet. We will experience it next week. So because of all that planning back in March and then most recently every week, we're knocking out a lot of the problems. So we hope that we have very few operational problems next week. But to answer your question directly, we're going to see a lot of A lot is defined in so many different ways, but I will see that we will have incremental deliveries as much as we tell our sales reps, both the on-premise and the off-premise reps, to load in their accounts. Accounts just won't do that because, A, they don't think they're going to get the traffic flow, foot traffic coming in, and or they don't have the space. And then all of a sudden, they want the product So, we're going to have some hiccups and we'll probably have some off deliveries, off day deliveries, overrides, demands, probably as late as Thursday of next week, Friday. And I hope, I just really hope that we all do a really good job that we don't have any deliveries on Saturday because the traffic is going to be just chaotic down on this trip. So, we're going to have some operational costs and we have that plan and we do have a standby person to make deliveries on Saturday if need be. We have vans in place for late Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon. So, I think we're ready and the best thing that could happen to us is we get zero calls.

[00:45:26] Justin Kendall: You mentioned the F1 race and that might serve as a pretty good precursor, but. Was it more of a challenge, I guess, to prepare for F1 since that's a, a unique and new event there, as opposed to, like you said, a lot of people come to Vegas already for Super Bowl. So, you know, you're expecting five to 10%, you know, extra business, but you know, what's it like preparing for an event and how do you expect that to compare to F1?

[00:45:54] Super Bowl: Yeah, well, I should say the F1 was a task that we had to take on. And that was there was so many unknowns with the F1. At least we know a little bit about what goes on with the Super Bowl. But the last time we had an F1 race in this in this city was 1985. So having this last F1, I know we're not necessarily talking about it, but it is, you know, building up events. That was an unknown one that we were a little bit caught off guard, but I can tell you, and I'm proud to say that, you know, we had a lot of presidents from a lot of different countries come in for that. And some of the brands we carried the team and breakthrough got some accolades for how well it looked. because of the brand that sponsors F1, and we carry that brand and it was plastered all over. We had signs, we had deals, we had discounts, bow flags, directions, hotels, menus, we had it all really locked and loaded. Plus with the F1, that's a last-minute crowd. Most of the people that went on Wednesday night was all locals, and then on Thursday was locals. Then we just got inundated by Learjets, coming in on Friday and Saturday for the race itself. And that's when it became chaotic for us and making sure that everything was coming together. They had no out of stocks with that because everyone spent most of their time on the strip because that's what the track was. But the Super Bowl is about the same. The big difference, I would say, Justin, is the F1 group was more, they were beer drinkers the first couple of days and then they slid into champagne and maybe cocktails after that. Whereas the Super Bowl, we anticipate a whole bunch of beer being drank for the entire three or four days that they're here. So we have to really load up differently and think differently for the retailer and how we load them up because it's more of a beer drinking crowd for the Super Bowl.

[00:47:47] Deacon Nauslar: I wanted to circle back just a second about what you were saying with the retailers not wanting to take on too much inventory right away. Is that something that's a more recent trend because of them being burned by too many inventories before? Or is that something you've kind of always had to deal with?

[00:48:03] Super Bowl: Always, Zoe, again, really good question. It's a continuous problem and it's not their fault. It's not the retailer's fault. They just have so much space, but it's a continuous problem when we lead into any type of major event or any holiday. We just, we plead with them and tell them, we try to backtrack with them and show them what they sold in years past and that we had to make it an incremental delivery. Can we not do that? Cause that just costs us more money. So, We really try to work with our retailers, both the on and off premise accounts, And Justin try to be a consultant. You know, we really try to be a consultant every time the next year comes around for a big event or a major holiday and say, this is what happened last time. Can we try to prevent it? So it's an ongoing. if we continue to learn from our mistakes and try to educate, you know, the end result, the retailer buying it and that they're going to lose out if they don't take in additional product because they just lost sales. And when they lose sales, they lose it forever. They never get it back ever again. So it's a continuation revolving door conversation that we have a lot.

[00:49:09] Jessica Infante: I think there probably is no quote unquote normal week in Las Vegas because there's always so much going on, particularly, you know, for your team, but what's a regular weekend like moving beer around the city?

[00:49:21] Super Bowl: Oh, boy. Well, I can tell you that just an average day for us is, I don't know, I mean, pretty average is 16, 17,000 cases a day is what we will send out. And that's on just an average day. So it'll bump quite a bit. Like I said, for the Super Bowl, we figure a bump of about 5 or 10 percent. But if you look at it, our summer months here, our other holidays are even bigger than Super Bowl. So even though it's going to be a 5 or 10% bump for Super Bowl, they're bigger spikes for, say, Patty's Day, March Madness is a huge one for us. The Wednesday night before Thursday of March Madness is craziness here before all the college teams kick off. The 64 teams on that Thursday, and then you got Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day. They're bigger than Super Bowl. I'm hoping I'm answering your question, but. I have loadouts at times, and we break it all down to 12-ounce equivalents. I load out probably on average every night. That was a strip, by the way, the numbers I gave you. But we load out for the market around 37,000 to 40,000 cases a night that we deliver of beer alone, not liquor and wine, just beer alone. So I would say an average number would be about 37,000 cases a night.

[00:50:43] Jessica Infante: Deacon, that's wild. To me, that just sounds like so much beer. So the Super Bowl, at least for the beer industry, the Super Bowl is our Super Bowl in a stupid parlance, but it sounds like you're about to get busy and stay busy for weeks. Like when's the next time you feel like you're going to be able to catch your breath?

[00:51:02] Super Bowl: Never.

[00:51:03] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:51:04] Super Bowl: There's no low time for us anymore. I mean, if it is, it's really going to be short-lived. It's going to be between Super Bowl and St. Paddy's Day. I mean, St. Paddy's Day is on a Sunday this year. We're gearing up for that. And it is a lot of beer. I mean, we do just shy of 8 million cases, and that's just us. And our total market is about 25 million case market in beer. And we do about 8 million cases. yeah we'll get crazy but we're we're prepared for it we've already built our inventories up our average inventory day is around 21 days and we're at 33 days so we have excess inventory and when's not the best time to bring it in then early on in the year because you have the rest of the next four or five months to bleed it through and reduce our inventories if we get any kind of jam so we brought it all in we're well prepared it really is and I know you probably all Don't get this, I'm oversimplifying it, but it's just normal business for us on these big events. It's crazy how we just deal with them and it's just kind of roll over each month. Oh, we got this. Oh, we got this. We got this. So it's been a learning curve. Hey, listen, I've been doing this for 40 years. It'll be 40 years this July for me. And this has been the most exciting part of my business the last 10 years here breakthrough with all these events. I, I live for them right now. I think they're fun. I get to see a lot of friends that come through, get to see a lot of clients, just like anything you had to try to take anything that might be a negative, which this isn't and turn it into a positive and have fun with it.

[00:52:35] Justin Kendall: So is this an all hands on deck weekend for you and your team then?

[00:52:39] Super Bowl: You know what it's yes and And Justin it's it for sure it will be for our on premise team, they will be all hands on desk, they will be expected to be at the back and call phone calls and we're going to set up a van downtown that's going to have all incremental POS so if anybody gets. crazy and tears things down or they want more POS point of sale, by the way, we'll take that out of the van. We'll have a little bit of beer available at strategic locations to feed off of. We'll have some blank invoices ready to fill those out and and have the retailers sign off on the product. We get them to prevent maybe a truck, a big truck coming out of the warehouse. So the on premise will be all hands on deck. I will be out there. I'm staying downtown for four nights. I've got good relations with some key retailers. So if they call me, I can follow others. And I think the off-premise, which is the grocery segment and this convenience store segment, they'll probably have an off weekend, enjoy the game because they've loaded in all their inventory in the accounts, not only in the back rooms, but they'll also have displays in those accounts. So they'll have plenty, very few, if any, out of stocks. But off-premise, we'll have the weekend off. On-premise, all hands on deck.

[00:53:56] Jessica Infante: So I'm glad you mentioned off-premise, because obviously, you know, so much of what we're talking about here, Super Bowl in Las Vegas, where the Super Bowl itself is also being held, is a huge on-premise occasion. But what's the planning like for the off-premise? Do you have like an increase in display activity? What about, you know, ad activity? Does that factor in at all?

[00:54:14] Super Bowl: Oh, yes, big time. We've got some potential crazy ads that are coming. We haven't seen them yet, but those will be probably a lot more deeper than normal in this market. Plus, we have a very competitive market in the off premise. So they all want that consumer and that buyer. So they'll get all very competitive. Incremental displays, yes and no. We're a big chain market, so we have a lot of grocery stores. We have a lot of convenience stores. And they're all mandated by 1 buyer for all those those accounts. So there's a thing called planners. And each chain has a planner, and every store has got to live to that planner, in which what I've seen so far has been all incremental. Bigger displays, less chips or less something else that they might, less water on display and fill up more beer on the display. So they're filling the gaps with what they think is the consumed item that's potentially going to happen. But if there's any, and there's nothing easy about this, believe me, but if there's anything easy about it, The off premise is going to be a little bit easier to manage because they can take on more inventory. When I said to Zoe's question earlier, the storage situation, that's usually in the on premise where they just don't want to bring additional kegs. They don't want to stack them twice too high in their bars because it could fall over and hurt one of their employees. So bottles, and in some cases, cans in the on-premise. So the space that I was talking about, it's limited, was in the on-premise. But the off-premise, there's plenty of off-premise space and displays in back rooms.

[00:55:53] Deacon Nauslar: How much would you estimate of what's going out there this weekend is going to be draft first package? What's that mix break down to?

[00:56:02] Super Bowl: You're killing me with these great questions.

[00:56:04] Deacon Nauslar: It's team effort.

[00:56:05] Super Bowl: That is a great question because we don't know. And I just said that I didn't want to load up with kegs, but we're trying to get as many kegs out there as possible because that's very profitable. That's more profitable for the retailer the on-premise retailer than the bottles are. So we don't want them to run out. So we're loading in more draft. I'm hoping that we sell selfishly more bottles because I think a bottle in the hand gives us more exposure on our brands. And somebody might be thinking about buying something and they look around the room and they see a certain brand in someone's hand and it's ours and they order it, that's a win for us. Whereas draft is usually just in a pint glass, unidentified, but it could go either way. it might go a little bit more mixed on bottles. The reason why I say that is I'm seeing a few of the accounts that don't normally order aluminum pints, they're ordering those. That would fall under the package mix. I think that we could sell a little bit more in the package because of the canned pint package and then bottle could outdo the draft. I really think so. But the retailer, Retailer would be better off selling draft because they make a heck of a lot more profitability on draft beer.

[00:57:20] Justin Kendall: When you're mapping out pain points for that week, what are the big ones that you can foresee ahead?

[00:57:28] Super Bowl: Well, just off the top of my head, I would say the biggest one that scares me the most is manpower. The manpower is so slim at retail that if they don't stock their shelves quickly and somebody comes in and buys, I'm going to make up a package, an 18-pack, And there's six on the shelf. They took all six. It might take them a while to fill that shelf. So I think manpower in the off premise to make sure that their shelves are filled is going to be very critical. And we do have a merchandising team that we will have out there hitting all the stores, especially around the district corridor, up and down Las Vegas Boulevard and surrounding grocery stores. We'll have merchandisers out there filling shelves. We do that normally, but we might have a little additional manpower out there, but the retailers manpower is a pain point of mine. Space that I just shared with Zoe, I think that's a that's a scary proposition for us that. Somebody says, I just don't need any more and then they're out. I hate out of stocks. Out of stocks is not my friend. We do not like out of stocks. And so I think that would be it. And then just incremental operational costs would be the third pain point. And that's just things such as getting a driver out there on the road or getting more people in the stores. And probably the biggest one is my draft text. We have eight of them, and we're going to have all them on call because I don't want anybody's draft to go down. And if it goes down, I want to have our draft guys out on the streets fixing those. And anything could happen with a K. I mean, K could have a little nick in its seal and all it does is blow foam the entire time. So we need to get in there and we will have eight of our draft techs out there working just in case, and ideally, I pay them for nothing, because then they had no problems at retail. Those would be the pain points.

[00:59:25] Deacon Nauslar: for the business going on at the stadium? What's that package mix look like? Are a lot of people going for bottles at all at the stadiums?

[00:59:34] Super Bowl: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. More and more events. We have another place in town that opened up, I'm sure you all heard of, called the Sphere, MSG Sphere. And that's an incredible spot. If you all get a chance, come on out and see that. But at the stadium itself, they're really starting to institute grab and go's. so that they have 24 ounce cans and so we think that the can business at the stadium is going to go through the roof because it's grab and go and you don't have to have anybody manning it. So you just line, you go through, you do the credit card first and then you go through, you get what you want, you scan it and it charges your credit card. So it's kind of the way the future and I like it in the sense that it's quick, it's easy, but I hate the fact that it also kind of puts people out of jobs. And I don't like that part of it. But as the grabbing goes, I think package will be when you watch the game on on Sunday, I think you'll see a lot more cans in the hands and you will drop beers in the hands.

[01:00:37] Deacon Nauslar: Yeah, they brought a bunch of those into Fenway recently, and those are super popular. It's like you just see people lining up and going through just past the fridges. You weigh in, crack open your beer and then you're out.

[01:00:48] Super Bowl: Yeah, right. And the lines look long, but they move fast.

[01:00:51] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I'm a new mom. I don't get out. I have a dumb question.

[01:00:55] Deacon Nauslar: How are they checking your IDs? The ones at Fenway, there was the person there who was checking them, so yeah.

[01:01:01] Super Bowl: They say that they're an unmanned, but that's a good question. I've never been there to actually witness it, so I can't tell you firsthand, but I would think you're going to put your license in, which will scan your date, and then you put your credit card.

[01:01:15] Jessica Infante: Yeah, like I'm sure there's something.

[01:01:17] Super Bowl: Yeah, there's got to be too much risk and liability if they don't do that. They have to show some proof of validation.

[01:01:24] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Cool. But I mean, Deacon, I'm with you on that. I don't like going to self-checkout at the grocery store because one, I don't like doing it and two, that's a job.

[01:01:34] Super Bowl: That's right. That's right. Exactly. And I'm a big fan of keeping unemployment down and keeping people employed.

[01:01:42] Jessica Infante: About how many of your portfolio's brands will be represented at the stadium?

[01:01:47] Super Bowl: We will have roughly, uh, we'll have at least 10 different brands represented at the stadium.

[01:01:57] Brewbound Podcast: That's a lot.

[01:01:59] Super Bowl: Yeah. We're pleased with the representation we're going to have. I know we're not the major sponsor for the, one of my suppliers is not the major sponsor of the NFL, but I think we'll have our, our good day in court and we'll sell some product there. And like I said, I think we'll, we'll sell, you know, five to 10% bump. That could be somewhere in the neighborhood of all incremental, maybe 20,000 cases, 15,000 cases incremental. huge.

[01:02:27] Jessica Infante: When we were in town for the MBWA conference in 2021 and one of your suppliers hosted a great party at the stadium that Justin and I went to, so it's beautiful.

[01:02:40] Super Bowl: It is what a state of the art. And everyone asked me, by the way, you didn't ask this question, but I'll share it with you real quick. Cause I was interested in the stadium. So beautiful that it's one of three stadiums that everybody wants to go to. They want to go to New York, LA and Las Vegas. And that's why the prices have been driven up. It's just the desired place to go Legion stadium. And it's wonderful. It's easy to get around. It's easy to get to, you could walk there from the strip. But between how beautiful it is and how easy it is to access, and the casinos buying up a lot of the tickets, that's why the price is so expensive right now. They're very expensive. I'm shocked to see some of the price tags on the $300 and $400 level at $6,300 a ticket.

[01:03:25] Justin Kendall: You going? Yes.

[01:03:27] SPEAKER_??: Good.

[01:03:28] Justin Kendall: Is this a best case scenario Super Bowl the industry or for Vegas, you know, a marquee matchup between the 49ers and the chiefs?

[01:03:39] Super Bowl: Oh, yeah. I mean, the both those teams are well-liked. Thank you question. Yes, because we also see at our stadium here, the Legion Stadium, the Raiders team, we see about a 60 40 split. So when people come to the games, about 40% of them are for the Raiders and 60% is for the opposing team. So we see that quite often. I mean, almost every game, some believable. I hate to point out any particular team, but I'll tell you that green Bay is they travel really well. Minnesota is really well. And I got to believe that we'll have a great travel from Kansas city. They love their team. And I think because how close San Francisco is, I think we'll get a lot of people from seeing friends. So I think it's a great marquee between the two teams. I think, I don't know this for a fact, but they're far enough apart that I think the whole country is going to be very interested in watching the game. I'm hearing there's going to be like 58 million people watching it. Something like that. I thought I read, I'm not sure, but it's going to be, it's going to be an exciting game. You bet. Yeah.

[01:04:45] Justin Kendall: Well, we talked about the 49ers and the chiefs, but there's a third fan base that we didn't mention, which are the Swifties. What kind of Taylor Swift bump do you expect to see?

[01:04:57] Super Bowl: Oh, boy, I don't even know if I want to get into that conversation, but it's quite interesting what she has brought to the NFL and what the NFL has taken advantage of her involvement in going to the games. But I really don't even have an answer for you on that one. I don't know. I've not even heard if she's coming. I would imagine she is. I know that I saw on the local news they were showing she's going to be out of the country and it would take her 14 hours to get here. And I'm going, you've got to be kidding me. They're talking about it that much. So, hey, it's good. It's all real positive. It's positive for the NFL. It's positive for the game itself. And we'll have to wait and see. I don't know if I answered your question, but it's pretty interesting. she gets in the NFL, gets out of it.

[01:05:48] Justin Kendall: You mentioned those Lear jets. She can just sleep for most of those 14 hours.

[01:05:53] Deacon Nauslar: I'm sure there'll be some visitors to Vegas that are solely there for some Swifty watchouts. Trying to catch a glimpse of her.

[01:06:03] Super Bowl: Oh yeah, you gotta believe it. I did see this morning that they started releasing and selling all the NFL Super Bowl gear. T-shirts, jackets, hats. But I haven't seen anything with Taylor Swift on in the Super Bowl yet. So I'm waiting for that one to hit.

[01:06:19] Jessica Infante: They'll be there. We'll definitely be there. So a lot of beer ads have started dropping. We've seen teasers and seen full commercials. Have you seen anything drop yet that's caught your eye? Anything you think is a particularly smart move?

[01:06:31] Super Bowl: Nothing yet. I know that there was a couple that came out on the BBD today. I haven't had a chance to click on them and review the commercials. I think the silver bullet train works really well because the way that it runs, it runs through all kinds of cities and neighborhoods. And so it gets everybody involved. And I think whenever you can do something to get everyone and catch their eye, that's always good. But I haven't seen any of the current ones, but I know some came out today on the BBD.

[01:07:01] Deacon Nauslar: The big question that I think we all want to know after your team has put in all this work, making sure everyone has their beers, how are you all going to be celebrating once all this work is done?

[01:07:15] Super Bowl: Yeah, well, a couple of things. Thank you for asking. We've really taken care of the team. We've given them some nice golf shirts. We've given them some nice pullovers that say Allegiant on their big game of you can't see Super Bowl. So it's just a big game 24. So they feel like they're somewhat have clothing that they can relate to to the big game. We also have at one of the resorts that works real well with us. We have a lot of our reps going there for the game, so they can go plus one and take whomever they'd like. And we also took care of them in terms of making sure that if they needed an Uber, they would have an Uber to take them home that night. So I encourage them all to go, have a good time, go there in an Uber, and then there's no decision to be made going home. You have to take one. So we have a nice little setup for them that I think they can really enjoy at a local resort that they should have a lot of fun at. And of course, they're going to be sampling the product and having plenty of food and enjoying themselves. And whoever can't do it, we'll do something special for them. And I won't know that until afterwards because of the call-ins. And whoever had to go open up the warehouse and do whatever, I'll have a good feel for who had to work their butt off during the day of the game. And I'm a people person, love my people. I can't do it without them. And so I try to take care of them as much as I can, as fast as I can.

[01:08:43] Deacon Nauslar: I'm sure anyone working in Vegas knows how to party and relax, so I'm sure they'll have a great time.

[01:08:49] Super Bowl: Have you been there, Zoe?

[01:08:51] Deacon Nauslar: I have. I have been once, and we'll be back again in April for Crap Brewer's Conference.

[01:08:57] Super Bowl: Oh, we'll all have to hook up. I'd love to be down there for the entire time. So love to see you guys, if we can figure out a hub somewhere at a bar. Beer's on me. Drink's on me.

[01:09:08] Justin Kendall: You can sneak us in the sphere. We'll be right there at the Venetian.

[01:09:13] Super Bowl: Hey, you know what? If you don't ask, you never know. So, you know, we could talk about that. We, we do have a suite there. So you never know if I can squeeze a couple of tickets out, depending on what, I don't even know who's that.

[01:09:29] Deacon Nauslar: I think it's fish while we're there. So it's going to be high demand.

[01:09:33] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[01:09:35] Super Bowl: And if it is, I think they're only playing, I did hear about them. I didn't know it was in April, but I heard like only four to six times you're playing, I think. But hey, you never know. Let's follow up on that.

[01:09:48] Justin Kendall: All right. Yeah. Well, this has been awesome.

[01:09:51] Super Bowl: Yeah. Deacon, this has been a blast. Thank you. I feel honored and I love what I do. And to be able to help you out and give you some perspective, I hope that I did. And anything you need down the road, I'd be happy to help out. It was a true honor to be on this and speak to all of you. And Justin thank you very much. I appreciate it. As I do this and my years become a close, this is the highlight of my day right now. So, and this year and the year just started.

[01:10:20] Jessica Infante: Well, Deacon, thank you so much for joining us. We can't wait for you and the team to have a blast on the Super Bowl and to take a long nap the next day. And congratulations on your upcoming 40 years of beer. That's incredible.

[01:10:33] Super Bowl: Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.

[01:10:36] Jessica Infante: Okay, well, that's our show for this week. Thank you so much to everybody for listening. Justin and Zoe, you are the world's best co-hosts. Thank you for everything you do forever and always. Josh, Joe, Ryan, the tech team that makes all of this happen. You guys are great. And all of our listeners, thank you so much for spending time with us every week. And we will catch you next week with a fresh episode.