Brewbound Podcast: How Worth Brewing’s Airbnb Earns Its Keep

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Next on The Brewbound Podcast, we're talking the ins and outs of running an inn. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall. I'm Jessica Infante.

[00:00:48] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:50] Justin Kendall: And I've got to know, Jess, following up on our conversation from last week, you've been our eye on the sky, or at least Cora has been. So you got to fill us in on what's going on on the beach there on the Jersey Shore.

[00:01:04] Jessica Infante: So regrettably, I didn't get a ton of beach time this weekend, which is too bad, because it was gorgeous after the morning clouds had burned off. But we got a few really good banner planes, like props to whoever is writing this copy, because I got a good chuckle out of a lot of these. And the first plane I spotted on Saturday was a beatbox one playing to the local crowd with a little riff on some of our more infamous visitors to these shores. Jim Tan Party, which if you are fortunate enough to have missed all of this was a famous tagline of the MTV Jersey Shore crew of Jim Tan Laundry. Personally, I would also pick the party. So props to beatbox. There was a bunch of Miller Lite banner planes just with the standard like I don't know, hey, Jersey Shorts, Miller Times, something like that. And Surfside changed it up this weekend, still continuing to tout their non-carbonated status, but this weekend's Surfside Plains said, no bubbles, no troubles. I chuckled. Cute. But it's also pretty easy to make me laugh these days, because most of my life is kind of a dumpster fire. So yeah, that's the Jersey Shore Report. Cora and I took a probably too long morning walk yesterday and stopped at the liquor store on the way home, mostly for the AC, but also so I could get some beer. And I had a nice chat with the ShorePoint rep, who is the person responsible for the intense visibility that Boston Beer's Sun Cruiser has had on the little island that I live on. He said that he would bet anybody $20 that in a blind taste test, they will pick Suncruiser over Surfside every time. I enjoyed our chat. Nice guy. Shout out to Pudge. I still bought a four pack of Surfside on the way out.

[00:02:55] Justin Kendall: I don't know. I think you got to do the Pepsi challenge or the Surfside Suncruiser challenge.

[00:03:01] Jessica Infante: Yeah. If I find him out and about in an account, we'll do it then.

[00:03:06] Justin Kendall: No, I mean, get your crew together, your shore crew, do the little Pepsi challenge tasting cups.

[00:03:13] Zoe Licata: I did a not blind test last summer. People did lean slightly towards Suncruiser, but it wasn't blind. So they did know that it was the one that they're used to.

[00:03:23] Jessica Infante: Right. My friends have been buying Suncruiser lately because they say it's cheaper. So obviously there is some pricing strategy at play here.

[00:03:33] Justin Kendall: Well, I was sent a billboard photo of Surfside just outside of Fenway Park. So it seems like there's a bit of shots fired back, at least, if they're coming into your territory.

[00:03:49] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it is very funny. The placement of that billboard right next to Fenway Park where it is inside the park covered in Boston beer related pieces of branding and advertising.

[00:04:02] Justin Kendall: and will be for another decade.

[00:04:05] Jessica Infante: Another decade. But as we dug a little bit on yesterday, it's not only yesterday, but this week. Yeah. Really kicking my butt. We found out that Suncruiser is not the official RTD of the Boston Red Sox. That honor goes to Sugarlands Distilling with their RT adjacent offerings.

[00:04:22] Zoe Licata: Correct. They still sell Suncruiser in the park, but it doesn't have any of those official partnerships.

[00:04:28] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I wonder if any of that matters to drinkers. I know the benefits as like a marketer, like you get to use their IP and all of that, and that's great and helpful, but I wonder if any of that ever clocks because, you know, anybody can use the Red Sox iconic font. So there's ways to dress your stuff up as though you are connected, even if you're not.

[00:04:51] Justin Kendall: You were there for the last partnership, right? You were still with the Boston Beer Company?

[00:04:57] Jessica Infante: I sure was. I spent probably the better part of two days packing boxes with co-branded Red Sox hats to send to all the distributors. I led a very glamorous life.

[00:05:09] Justin Kendall: Not as much fanfare this time around, which a renewal doesn't really get, but dropping this on a Friday, just very odd that they would kind of bury this heading into a weekend.

[00:05:22] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I 100% agree with that. The last time when it was new, obviously that's a huge deal. It was the first case of a craft brewer becoming the official sports partner of an entire professional sports team, not just the official craft beer of, which there's plenty of that. And it was a huge push. It was announced in December. I think it was on the front page of the Globe. It was huge local news. We all went to Fenway Park and had like a day Amanda Huang out with Wally the mascot and great, great times. But this renewal is, I would argue, even a bigger deal. It's a longer, longer period. But I don't know, a Friday in July news drop. And Zoe, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Sox are on one right now, right?

[00:06:07] Zoe Licata: Yeah, they are very hot. They're on a 10 game winning streak. And then this is all star week. So they're just riding that for a little bit now. So there's a lot of people paying more attention to the Red Sox right now. So it is also interesting that they chose not to make more fanfare around it when it's prime opportunity to.

[00:06:26] Jessica Infante: And if you are superstitious, which I would argue a good many New England sports fans are, not my husband, doesn't give a fig. But the first year of Sam Adams being the official craft beer, the official beer of the Red Sox 2018, they won the World Series. So.

[00:06:43] Zoe Licata: And had a very similar timed streak to what they're having right now. There's a lot of similar things happening.

[00:06:51] Justin Kendall: Hmm. Prepare the duck boats.

[00:06:54] Zoe Licata: We're already rooting for the duck boats to come out for the winner of Love Island USA. So we'll just keep them going. Is there a campaign? We really want it to happen. He is from Everett, Mass. The girl that he won with, a very lovely woman, it seems, is the absolute princess of the people right now because she seems like a very sweet person. So we're rooting for a duck boat Love Island USA parade. Are they still together? It's recorded basically live. It's only like a two day delay. So yes.

[00:07:25] Jessica Infante: Wow.

[00:07:26] Zoe Licata: They were announced as winners only. Yeah. Only like two days ago.

[00:07:30] Jessica Infante: It's very off brand for me in this this era of my life. I don't watch Love Island. Although maybe it's pretty on brand because it's a big time commitment.

[00:07:38] Zoe Licata: It is an hour and a half of your life, six out of seven days a week. I do not watch Love Island USA, except for we watched a season when we found out Brian was going to be on. But I was an original Love Island girl because you can listen to the very hilarious UK dating musings and phrasing and things. Hmm. But I don't have enough time in my life for that anymore.

[00:08:02] Jessica Infante: No. Dude, your boyfriend has so many reality TV friends.

[00:08:06] Zoe Licata: It's becoming a thing. This is now two within one year. So there has to be a third. I'm sure someone's going to end up on Big Brother soon.

[00:08:14] Jessica Infante: What if it's Lawrence?

[00:08:17] Zoe Licata: I don't know if I want that. I'll nominate him. So then, you know, people are going to find the podcast, they're going to dig into the internet, and then you guys are going to have attention. So if you want that to happen, go for it.

[00:08:29] Justin Kendall: I welcome this. Yeah, they'll become Brewbound subscribers.

[00:08:33] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Hey. Brewbound Podcast sponsored by Big Brother on CBS.

[00:08:39] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And Brewbound Live as well, right? We can plug that. They'll all be coming to Brewbound Live too. We'll just be intermixing with all our attendees, you know, distributors, retailers, brewers, entrepreneurs.

[00:08:54] Jessica Infante: We could start having rose ceremonies.

[00:08:56] Zoe Licata: We could. That's what we'll give out at the Pitch Slam. Just give out roses.

[00:09:03] Jessica Infante: Yeah, or, you know, like, that's how suppliers get their new distributor partners. Will you accept this rose and also promise to move many cases on my behalf? Yes.

[00:09:12] Justin Kendall: Our one-to-ones have changed to rose ceremonies. Yes.

[00:09:17] Zoe Licata: I like this.

[00:09:19] Justin Kendall: What a way to plug our event. So December 10th and 11th, Marina Del Rey. Get your tickets now. Maybe get a rose. Only if you're there for the right reasons. Maybe get a distributor. All right. Well, we've got a featured interview this week. We are going to actually talk about the industry and we're going to talk about our Taproom Tactics series, which is continuing this week. We're going to chat with, or Jess is going to chat with Worth Brewing co-owner.

[00:09:50] Jessica Infante: Peter Ausenhus, who is the owner of Worth Brewing in your neck of the woods, Justin, and he opened an Airbnb right on site. The brewery is in a converted historic building that had a few apartment units and one of them was just kind of hanging out, so they said, Let's get this listed. He had some help from family members who were more attuned to the Airbnb market and they got it going and it's been really humming along for them, delivering some nice revenue. And the reason I wanted to focus on Worth Brewing in this conversation was that, no offense to this corner of Iowa, but it's not really a known tourist destination. So it just really goes to show like, no matter where you are, if you have the space and it worked out this way, this could be an interesting thing to do. Peter told me they mostly get people who are passing through town to visit their families or stuff like that. Obviously, we know that Lawson's Finest Liquids has some really nice accommodations on site, but Vermont's a destination for pretty much three seasons a year. If you are not in a destination, not to fret. This might be able to work for you too, provided that you obviously have the space and can get approvals and all of that.

[00:11:06] Justin Kendall: Stay tuned for that, but we've got some news to cover. And this is an exclusive that you got, Jess, that there is a leadership change going on at Barrel One Collective.

[00:11:18] Jessica Infante: There sure is. So the wheels on this kind of got moving a few weeks ago when Zoe and I talked to Barrel One Collective, now former CEO, Dan Canary. Dan, as you all probably know, founded Harpoon way, way, way, way back when in 1986. and has steered Harpoon through enormous change in the industry, enormous change internally. They founded an ESOP, they then merged with FinestKind, parent company of Smuttynose, and closed their ESOP. And that was about six months ago with the formation of Barrel One. Now Dan is deciding it's time to take a little step down. He is not retiring. Dan is going to take on the role of president and their CEO is Nathaniel Davis who, I had never met before. I know you guys chatted with about the Duncan Spike stuff while I was out with Cora at some point, but just a delightful human. So nice. Brewbound Podcast alum. A Brewbound Podcast alum. Wow. Look at us. We only interview the best. I really enjoyed our chat. Nathaniel is a longtime industry vet. He most recently spent five years as the CEO of Drinkworks, which is the now shuttered joint venture between AB and KDP, which was basically the Keurig in your house for cocktails. But before that, he was at Anheuser-Busch for like 20 years. I have heard, and I have not verified, but I trust my source on this, that he was instrumental in the creation of the recipe for Michelob Ultra. Wow. basically changed the entire beer industry. Not a bad resume.

[00:12:49] Justin Kendall: Yeah, don't bury that on your resume.

[00:12:52] Jessica Infante: Right? And now he's the CEO of Barrel One Collective, which is the home of, God, like 15 brands now, mostly centered in New England craft brands. And then they've got a few RTDs with a bigger footprint. We've talked about Barrel One quite a bit. So if you want to hear more, go back to really any one of those episodes. But what Dan is up to, because I'm sure people are curious, is he is taking an eight week sabbatical. which is going to involve a cross-country road trip with his wife. I asked how many breweries they were going to. He said she asked for, please God, no. But I told him he could at least sneak in like five. I think that's fair, right?

[00:13:30] Justin Kendall: Five? Sure. Well, eight weeks. Yeah.

[00:13:33] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:13:34] Justin Kendall: That's not even one a week.

[00:13:35] Jessica Infante: It's not an eight week road trip. I believe there's also some more travel involved. And when I first heard that part of this news, I was like, oh man, good for Dan. He's taking time. But there's also like a reason for this trip. It's so that Nathaniel gets his eight weeks without Dan in the building. Because as Dan said to me himself, he is a big personality. And he gets to set the company up how he wants. He gets to establish himself as the leader. And, you know, when Dan returns, they both are very comfortable with this and say that, you know, Dan will stay in his lanes, but a lot of collaboration will happen between them. Dan was like, you know, I want to slow down a little bit. Don't really want to be giving 120%, which absolutely fair. He also said he's about to be 65. So happy early birthday to Dan.

[00:14:17] Justin Kendall: Yeah, you also said that he was going to work like 40 to 45 hours a week, which I double take that.

[00:14:24] Jessica Infante: Yeah. To Dan, not giving 120% is working a full week. So Dan, my friend, I think you needed to take a little bit more time off in the past 40 years. So I get that it's hard. Yeah. So the two of them, plus the board, all acknowledge that sometimes when founders try to hand over control, they struggle. So I admire them for acknowledging this and setting up a way for this to work where Nathaniel really is the CEO. And to me, it sounds like they're totally prepared for this to happen. Jan was like, he named his list of responsibilities. And I was like, so that's like everything, dude. Wholesaler and retailer relationships, continued M&A, government affairs, HR and personnel issues, and really maintaining their culture.

[00:15:08] Justin Kendall: Dan's really taking a step back.

[00:15:11] Jessica Infante: Yeah, he's slowing down. Totally relaxing. Another thing we talked about that I didn't really include in the story, but I think is worth chatting about is how Dan really thought that Nathaniel was a great culture fit. Nathaniel's not, obviously he's not like a Mass Bay lifer because he spent so much time at AB adjacent staff, but, you know, he joined in April of 23. And Dan said he really recognized that Nathaniel was like who he was looking for as a successor in terms of he understood the beer industry, but also Harpoon's culture, which is pretty unique.

[00:15:42] Zoe Licata: I mean, the culture includes 15 brands, too. So that's like it's even more important to have someone who can really corral all of that and make sure it still has some sort of harmony to it.

[00:15:55] Jessica Infante: For sure. And we talked a lot about that. You can read more about their portfolio strategy in the story. They're not really trying to shove all of these brands everywhere. It's more of knowing, you know, what brand is going to work for which wholesalers market and giving each wholesaler a portfolio that is non-wieldy.

[00:16:14] Peter Ausenhus: In 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.

[00:16:34] Justin Kendall: sticking with Massachusetts slash New England based platforms. We also have a story on a partnership between Hendler Family Brewing and Sloop Brewing, which is not an acquisition.

[00:16:49] Jessica Infante: No, it is not an acquisition, which is interesting. Hendler Family Brewing, which is the parent company of Jack's Abbey and Wormtown and Nightshift, and they also have contract production under the Jack'Summer Beverage Company banner. They are going to be taking on all production for Sloop, which is based in the Hudson Valley of New York. And the Hendler Family Brewing Company will also handle sales and marketing. And what's interesting to me about this deal is that there's no jobs being lost, which is kind of great. Like any salespeople that had been on the Sloop side are going to get absorbed into HFB. And they're also going to continue making beer in New York, but they're going to focus on innovation and providing their own taproom. with product. So production staff there stays on as well.

[00:17:36] Justin Kendall: What opened the opportunity here for these two to partner?

[00:17:42] Jessica Infante: Well, they've been talking about contract for a while. Sloop had an alternating proprietorship with Smutty Nose, which as we just discussed, has been a little bit busy. So that wound down and Sloop's been maxed out at their facility for years. So they need somebody. And as Adam, the co-founder of Sloop put it, he doesn't really like contract brewing. He thinks it's kind of silly and it adds an extra layer, takes away some margin, adds an extra layer of complexity, you know, into an already complex system. So they had been talking about contract production and then just figured out like, hey, what can we do here that works for both of us and is a little bit less cumbersome? And that's how we got here. It's interesting because Hendler Family has been buying other breweries, but this is not that.

[00:18:32] Justin Kendall: It's funny how all these things are interwoven too. You've got a Barrel One connection with this one as well, in some way. Mm-hmm. It goes all the way to the top.

[00:18:41] Jessica Infante: We see a lot of these acquisitions and building out these platforms, but then we also are seeing investment and partnership deals like this. We've seen, like earlier last month, non-Alc brand Al's and Industrial Arts, also in the Hudson Valley, signed up for something super similar.

[00:18:56] Justin Kendall: I think the first one of these type of deals, like a sales marketing relationship that I remember, as far as craft goes, was Pabst and the Dragon Milk producer. Dragon's Milk. Yeah, Dragon's Milk. New Holland Brewing. New Holland. Yep. And I think they're still going because I want to say that Pabst still promotes the Dragon's Milk. I feel like an old saying, the in front of things.

[00:19:25] Jessica Infante: It sounds like something that would be had in Westeros. Yeah, that is still going. And there've been a few of those. I don't know that we could name them all.

[00:19:33] Justin Kendall: Captain Lawrence.

[00:19:35] Jessica Infante: Captain Lawrence. I was going to say St. Lawrence. Thank you. Captain Lawrence and US Beverage. So plenty of options for people looking for their otter buddy. We haven't talked about otters in a while.

[00:19:47] Justin Kendall: This isn't going to slow down. This is only accelerating.

[00:19:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:19:51] Justin Kendall: Brewbound insiders have access to all of those stories. They also have access to our profiles on Outlaw Light Beer and Garage Beer, a couple of light beer brands that are fast growing. They have access to your story, Zoe, on Topa Topa, and they are entering decade number two.

[00:20:10] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that was a really fun conversation about what they have going on there. We know they were a rising star last year. They've had really consistent growth for quite a while now at this point, and that has been while also still just focusing on California and their home markets. They're not super outside of just their area in California, and now they're starting to explore other areas like Los Angeles and things. So it was just a positive conversation. They're very focused on how can we be flexible and shift within our plans and where we thought we were going to be to make sure we're still catering to what consumers want, what consumers need. They've made some updates to their taprooms. They're hoping to open more taprooms. they're also still focused on that wholesale piece, which is a piece that I know we've talked about it before with them. It wasn't really going to be a part of their plan. They opened as this taproom focused brewery. And just before the pandemic, they started packaging products and it worked out really well with timing. And now they're about 50-50 in revenue-wise of what is going to distribution, what is in the on-premise. It's a lot of fun nuggets in there, so definitely read that story.

[00:21:29] Justin Kendall: Yeah, Jack's always great to chat with, and I really enjoy Chief Peak IPA. And then you also had the interview with Ales for ALLS as part of our Around With series, which is exclusive to Brewbound Insiders.

[00:21:44] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so I did a Q&A with the National Director, Mike Shannon. of Ales for ALS, which is a program through Yakima Chief Hopps and Loftus Branches. It's basically this family decided they had some personal relationships with folks that had ALS and they wanted to incorporate some sort of charity campaign, some cause campaign with beer, which is what they do. And they've been doing this for over a decade now. And it's a really cool way that it works where they give you a experimental hop that it's made only for this program and then give you free reign to make whatever kind of beer you want with that. So it gives breweries a lot of flexibility. You can be experimental. You can try something new that you might not have otherwise. And then 1% goes to help with ALS research. So definitely check out that conversation. Also has some and things you might not know about ALS in there and how else you can support if you'd like to.

[00:22:43] Justin Kendall: And then we also have a story on a lot of drama around Hulk Hogan's Real American Beer brand. A former brand partner of Hulk Hogan claims that two executives swiped the idea for the brand and started it on their own. So that's all allegedly. You can read that because I dug through the court documents after just found this out in the ether. So much drama. so much drama and so many details that we couldn't add, like, Karma Holt Co. CEO is Mike Tyson.

[00:23:20] Zoe Licata: Oh yeah. The things you find in court documents.

[00:23:25] Justin Kendall: I mean, that was just by Googling after the fact. It was, I was like, wait, what? The founder stepped down and the CEO is now Mike Tyson? Like, how active do you think Mike Tyson is in the CEO role? It's the real Mike Tyson, right? Yes, like Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson.

[00:23:44] Jessica Infante: Well, I mean, everybody needs a fourth act in their life.

[00:23:50] Justin Kendall: They did not mention him in the press release or in the in the lawsuit, excuse me, not press release. That might be for the best. We'll be tracking this one because it is really interesting to follow. So stay tuned for that. But let's get to our featured interview with Worth Brewing's Peter Ausenhus.

[00:24:13] Jessica Infante: Welcome back to the Brewbound Podcast. Our next guest is Peter Ausenhus, the co-founder with his wife, Margaret Bishop of Worth Brewing in Northwood, Iowa. Peter, thank you so much for joining us. I know you'Red Bus, so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. How are you doing?

[00:24:27] Worth Brewing: I'm doing great, Jess. Thanks a lot for the invitation.

[00:24:30] Jessica Infante: Yeah, of course. So we are doing some check-ins with various craft brewers across the country who have found interesting ways to draw in different sources of revenue. And you, in addition to being a brewery owner, are now also a bit of an innkeeper of sorts. Worth has a two-bedroom Airbnb right above the brewery that I had noticed on your website. So tell me about that. What made you want to get into this line of business?

[00:24:56] Worth Brewing: Well, our building itself is kind of one of the draws. It's a historic district, and we've done a very sympathetic historic preservation of it. And so we had these, I call them old, grubby apartments upstairs, or four apartments that we've rehabbed over the years. And we kept one in the 1940s style, but it was originally remodeled to be an apartment. And that's one of the interests that my wife and I have, is restoration. And I had been using it as an office for myself. And my, actually my nephew and my sister, she and her son, he does Airbnbs for a living. And they came visiting from Missouri and said, we're going to turn this into an Airbnb. And they spent like three days was, you know, it was rehab, but they did all the things you have to do, either did them themselves or gave me a list of what I needed to buy. So it was a pretty easy, quick process. I was very fortunate to have it. immediately turn it into an Airbnb.

[00:25:58] Jessica Infante: Which is awesome. I mean, definitely helps that people who know what they're doing on that front. How long have you been hosting guests?

[00:26:05] Worth Brewing: Last August was our first guest. So they came last summer and I guess the cycle has been, it immediately was as popular as I expected. And then it dropped as expected during the winter where I think in January we had one night booked and then it's picked up again. So I think this month we're about 11 nights and 11 or 12 nights already for next month. So over the course of the first year now, or almost a year, it's been about $1,000 a month generating, you know, we just didn't have any of that.

[00:26:40] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that's certainly not nothing. That's great. I assume this is pretty hands-off for you, right? How much labor goes into maintaining the unit?

[00:26:48] Worth Brewing: It's absolutely hands-off for me, and that would be one of my suggestions, is finding a cleaner. That's really one of the biggest issues with the automatic door locks, both to get in the building and get in the apartment, and a reliable cleaner. There are times where I don't even see the guests a lot of the time. They're just in, they're out. I've got a cleaner who comes, cleans it, takes the linen to our house to wash, brings it back. So I'm very lucky to have a good cleaner who's reliable. And without that, it could be kind of a hassle, I think, especially with so many one-night bookings that I tend to get. I would be putting way more time up here than I really would want to.

[00:27:30] Jessica Infante: And, you know, how big of a draw is the proximity to the brewery? Like, are you getting guests who just find it just because they need somewhere to stay or are there people who are coming to town to visit Worth?

[00:27:40] Worth Brewing: Not too many are coming to visit us, if any. Most of them are here because they have a family connection. Maybe there's a wedding or funeral. Those are the weekends. We also get laborers. So we have a lot of wind turbines in the area. So we get a lot of people from other parts of the country, other parts of the world who are here maybe working for five days. And if you can, if you have two or three guys who are here at the country inn and suites or something. And it's a lot nicer as well.

[00:28:16] Jessica Infante: And I'm sure they appreciate having a quick, easy end of the day beer. So that helps.

[00:28:21] Worth Brewing: Yeah, yeah. And it's not a big part of it. But yeah, it's mostly the weekend, one or two night stays. And then we have occasional bedrooms for the week.

[00:28:32] Jessica Infante: So what were these apartments being used for before? I know you mentioned that there's four above the brewery, so I assume the others are still around, but doing something else if they're not.

[00:28:41] Worth Brewing: Right. One is being converted into the bathrooms for the ballroom. We have a ballroom in the adjacent part of the building, and we use that one to have nice bathrooms. and store it in an Airbnb. And the other two, one was a bigger apartment with, the other was an efficiency. That's now kind of combined into my office, which may become an Airbnb. It's all set except for a bath or shower, at least we have one of those in there. And then that might eventually be another Airbnb. But right now it's just kind of a catch-all where I have my office area and some other stuff in there.

[00:29:23] Jessica Infante: I do want to dig in on this ballroom that you mentioned. Is that all part of your business as well, right?

[00:29:28] Worth Brewing: Yeah. It's originally the International Order of Odd Fellows, the IOOF Hall. So if you're familiar with that, it's a fraternal organization from 100 years ago. It was very popular. It had been offices when we bought it, the building. Right now it's there for receptions, weddings. That has dropped down quite a bit since COVID. We opened it just before COVID, had some COVID overlap and some delayed weddings. So we had a good year after COVID and then that's been going down. But we have bags of cornhole up there in the winter in other events. So that generates some, but the Airbnb helps kind of with the revenue that's kind of dropped over in the ballroom. But it's a beautiful ballroom too.

[00:30:17] Jessica Infante: I'm sure it sounds lovely. I mean, the Airbnb, I think what I've heard you say is that it's just, it's almost an automatic way to turn on a stream of revenue.

[00:30:26] Worth Brewing: Yeah, for us, it turned out to be that way.

[00:30:30] Jessica Infante: How much promotion or marketing do you do for it?

[00:30:32] Worth Brewing: Fairly small, and that probably goes for both the brewery business and everything else. We're pretty low-key. We have some social media accounts. We don't do any really conventional old-school advertising. We have a newsletter that goes out to all of our customers. I don't know if that generates much for the Airbnb, but Northwood's a small place. We're in a town of about 2,000, not a lot of big communities around us, so there's probably two or three options here in town, other than going, we're about six miles from I-35 and a couple of hotels there, but there's a market for it here. And so that's really helped quite a bit without a lot of promotion.

[00:31:12] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So, I mean, for brewers who are considering doing something similar, what do they need to know before they jump into short-term rentals?

[00:31:21] Worth Brewing: Well, you've got to do the math on, okay, you've got to have an apartment available or something that is not, you know, if you're in an area that's got a lot, needs a lot of rental space, you may find that it makes more sense just to rent it out permanently to somebody. But if you can get a situation where you find a reliable cleaner and you're still in an area that needs some rental space, In that case, you may find a need for the Airbnb. But again, I think you can't find a cleaner unless you have the staff that's already cleaning and you can make use of some of that. But we really didn't have that going on. So those are the main things you need to think of.

[00:32:06] Jessica Infante: Yeah. What do you wish you had known before you started?

[00:32:09] Worth Brewing: Well, that's a good question. And like I say, it's been pretty smooth for us. So I might not be the best person to talk about because my nephew and sister did such a good job of kind of setting us up. I would say the few issues we have have have been you know I think coming across sometimes you just get people who are going to try to nitpick things and try to make some money get cheap and we had one instance where I was trying to do them a favor and did it offline I did it under the table and I say under the table but not through Airbnb because they were dealing with me directly those tend to be some they can be some problems if there's a problem and they don't have as much recourse and same for me so I would I would say if you're going to do it, kind of stick with the Airbnb or the VRBO or any other kind of setup platform that's going to be able to do a lot of that, guarantees and the other things.

[00:33:07] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, your reviews are amazing. You're 4.95 stars out of a possible five. It looks like you just had one person who wished there was a little bit more kitchen, but...

[00:33:16] Worth Brewing: And that is the person who went head over heels to try to make things right. I didn't hear about this until they checked out first. It's like, oh, one of the reasons you've got your Airbnb is because we thought you had a kitchen. But she didn't say anything until she was checked out. But sometimes the more you do for someone, they just then want, OK, how far can we take that? So that's what I mean when you don't try to do stuff outside

[00:33:42] Jessica Infante: I have a toddler. I feel like this is a recurring theme in my life as well. So I hear you.

[00:33:49] Worth Brewing: Yeah.

[00:33:50] Jessica Infante: Well, the place looks gorgeous. Two bedrooms, one bath, above a brewery. What more could you ask for? I mean, what kinds of people come through to stay?

[00:33:57] Worth Brewing: I think we have a lot of people who either had some connections to our small rural area here, who are back for an event, whether it's a wedding, something like that. We also get, like I said, some laborers spend the week. I'd say the vast majority of those, not so much beer tourists, but hopefully that will pick up too as the word gets out. The thought was, oh, someone's going to have an extra beer downstairs and need a place to stay. We'll be able to just send them upstairs. That hasn't really happened as far as I know, but maybe that will be a little growth there for the Airbnb as well.

[00:34:37] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, since I have you, let's talk about the brewery. What have you been noticing so far this year?

[00:34:41] Worth Brewing: Well, this year, as far as our beer sales, I think, not surprisingly, have been going down a little bit. So the Airbnb and the food, we've increased our food, and that's kind of made up for the beer loss, which for us have been the majority is distribution. We're very, very small in the distribution. We don't put any effort for the most part at this point. We're just in our surrounding counties with the AB distributor. So obviously they're just delivering their stuff and not really selling it. I understand that, but that's gone down considerably over the last three years or so each year. So that's been down, but again, that's shown our revenues now are actually up despite that because of things like the Airbnb. and now we have pizza on Friday and Saturday nights, and that helps. Got a new pizza restaurant opening in town, so we'll see how that hurts it, but I'm used to that with a lot of bars and breweries around opening up. So that's been one trend, both good and bad.

[00:35:52] Jessica Infante: What beers have been popular?

[00:35:54] Worth Brewing: Well, we have kind of unusual. Our flagship is probably our brown ale. That's really the one that's distributed. Really only one that's distributed along. We do a cream ale that we were contract brewing for somebody who's gone out of business. And so now it's basically our beer. But that cream ale and brown ale are, therefore, our biggest volume beers, because those are the ones that get distributed. We're pretty traditional in our style. So we do a lot of loggers, not too many super strong beers. We have a Belgian quad that we do every year too. But yeah, in the tap room, our Helles, Brown Ale, our IPA, and cream ale on top of it.

[00:36:34] Jessica Infante: So you are speaking my language. If I, well, I mean, I was kind of about to say, if I didn't live in Massachusetts, I'd be a regular, but you've got an Airbnb, so I could be.

[00:36:43] Worth Brewing: There you go, yeah.

[00:36:45] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Well, Peter, I know you'Red Bus, so I'm gonna let you back to it. But thank you so much for taking the time to chat and can't wait to hear more about the Airbnb and what it's been able to do for worth, because it seems like a great addition.

[00:36:55] Worth Brewing: Yeah, well, thanks, Jessica. I appreciate you taking time out to talk to us.

[00:36:59] Jessica Infante: Thank you. That's our show for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the Brewbound Podcast, please rate it five stars and leave a review on your podcast platform of choice so more people can find the show. As always, huge thank you to Joe, Joshua, and Ryan and the whole Brewbound BevNET technical team that makes all of this look and sound so good. And to Justin and Zoe for being great co-hosts. We will see you back here next week.