Brewbound Podcast: Lager Talk with Jack’s Abby, Von Ebert; Marketing & Making Connections with Julie Rhodes

[00:00:11] Jack Hendler: Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Brewbound Podcast. My name's Justin Kendall, and this week we are going to bring you three more conversations from the Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas. First, we'll be joined by Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly, discussing their book, Modern Lager Beer, Techniques, Processes and Recipes. Hendler is one of the co-founders of Jack's Abbey, a Massachusetts-based lager-focused brewery, and Connolly is the brewery sales director. Then we'll be joined by Von Ebert Brewing's Sam Pecoraro as he discusses the Portland, Oregon brewery's increased focus on lagers, its takeover of the former Ecliptic Brewing space, and its five brewery tap rooms. The show wraps up with an interview with Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, Julie Rhodes, who talks shop Hobby Marketing, including the importance of making personal connections and native digital marketing campaigns. If you liked this episode, please like, rate, review, and subscribe. And with that, let's get to our featured interviews.

[00:01:20] Joe Connolly: We are back on the CBC floor. I'm Zoe and I'm here with my colleague, Jess. Hi, Jess. Hi, Zoe. And we are joined with some of the folks from Jack s Abbey from our beautiful home state or Commonwealth of Massachusetts. First is Jack Hendler, who's founding brewer of Jack s Abbey. Welcome. Yeah, thanks for having us. And we are also joined by Joe Connolly, who is the sales director. Welcome, Joe.

[00:01:43] Modern Lager: Thanks for having us and putting respect on the Commonwealth.

[00:01:46] Joe Connolly: It is a Commonwealth and a fine one at that. And you guys are here today because you just wrote a book that is pretty timely for a lot of the conversations we've been having lately. Modern Lager Beer, you published this through the BA. Tell us about this book. What's it all about? IPAs, right?

[00:02:03] Von Ebert: Yeah.

[00:02:03] Joe Connolly: Yeah, definitely.

[00:02:05] Von Ebert: Yeah, so we wrote a book about lager beer and how to produce lager beer. And, you know, there's been a little misunderstanding about why it's called Modern Lager beer. We're not here to tell you how to produce the fastest, most efficient lager. We're trying to help explain how in today's brewery you can make traditional progressive beer, utilizing all the techniques and processes that have been passed down for many generations. And hopefully this is timely. I do see there's some excitement for lager beer these days. and really happy to be a part of where Lagerbeer goes from here.

[00:02:40] Joe Connolly: I was just at the MBWA legislative conference last week and Bob Pease from the BA was on stage and he mentioned your book and he said normally the books that come through the BA, they do alright, but this one he said has been like flying off the shelves. People are super into it. Why is it resonating with folks so much?

[00:02:58] Modern Lager: That's a good question. I think it's certainly something about where lager beer is today and how, you know, the prevalence of it. I'm not sure that I can answer exactly why that resonance has struck a chord so much today, but I definitely think that there weren't a lot of resources for breweries of our type and American craft breweries for producing craft lager beer and like lager beer intentionally. And because of that, we definitely like, you know, we're filling a void that wasn't there.

[00:03:23] Von Ebert: I think we were definitely inspired by some of the other BA books, particularly about Belgian beer and how they sort of broke down some of the myths and misconceptions about how those beers are brewed. And we were able to do a similar thing, really talk to a lot of brewers. try to get an understanding for why they do certain things. We learned a lot. I think we make better beer at our brewery after doing three years of research and talking to brewers. And hopefully we're able to do the same, give that advice to a lot of other brewers, or at least people who are trying to get into the lager brewing at this time. And it makes a lot of sense why people want to get into lager brewing. And I think that may just be part of the reason why right now is the right time to have this book out.

[00:04:04] Sam Pecoraro: Well, so lagers take longer to make, they tie up tank space longer than higher ABV beers that consumers may be willing to pay more for. So what's the business case for Kraft Lager? And I don't mean this to sound like I am antagonizing, I am 5,000% with you.

[00:04:20] Von Ebert: That's a good question, and there's always been this association with lagers cheap, lagers easy to make, and the truth is, particularly from the craft beer side, it's way more expensive. You need more time in the tank, you need new equipment potentially to do some of these things. There's some investments to be made. On the flip side, we know where the craft beer industry is right now, and there's tank space. So there is that opportunity if there is availability of time, and I think the last thing I heard was like there's almost double the capacity of actual production right now, something like that.

[00:04:55] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah, Bart said that last week.

[00:04:56] Von Ebert: Yeah, I don't know if it's really, it's probably maybe not that for really small brewers, but if you look at the industry at large. So there's tank space if you want to give beer time right now.

[00:05:06] Joe Connolly: On the consumer side of this, do you have to do a lot of education into like, hey, these are the things that you can do with a lager?

[00:05:13] Modern Lager: It's not just... Yeah, I mean, we were just chatting with someone about how lager is like a cudgel against crappy beer for a long time. It's like, oh, you know. We're fighting the perception that lager is cheap, fizzy beer still. I mean, someone asked us recently about the dominance of ales in the United States. And we'd be like, no, actually, most beer that is drunk here is lager, still. So that's still happening. Not all of it is craft lager, obviously. And that's a way tiny percentage of it. But fighting against that perception, that's what sales is for us. It's talking to people about why their menu shouldn't just be every IPA and double IPA, Bud Miller of course. There should be something in between for somebody who wants to get out of Bud Miller of course, but doesn't want to have their palate destroyed by an IPA.

[00:05:57] Joe Connolly: So this is a conversation and education that you have to do with like bars and restaurants, too.

[00:06:01] Modern Lager: It's not just... Yeah, we actually... took the presentation that we just gave here at CBC and we were like, we went to a couple of local restaurants who really care about having their staff educated. And we gave them basically a shortened version of it. Like, hey, we're about to give this to our industry peers and colleagues, but you need this information too. You're part of the system of communicating Not Your customers why people should care about this stuff. So yeah, it's down to servers.

[00:06:25] Von Ebert: explain the value, explain the cost, explain why the beer is unique and why it deserves the attention that I think it's starting to get. And it's something at Jack's Abbey we've been having since we started. And I tell this story a lot, but when we first opened, people would walk into our brewery, see we only had lagers, and they would turn around and try to walk out without us noticing. Now, we didn't have a lot of people in the brewery then, so it's easy to get their attention and be like, hey, it's free. I mean, what's the worst that could possibly happen right now? We're going to give you some free samples. And 9 out of 10 times, that person who wanted to just walk out of our building was like, wow, actually, I really enjoyed these beers. I'll be back again. And so it's just part of our DNA, knowing that we're going to have to educate people and explain why the beers we produce are interesting and are deserving of the craft moniker.

[00:07:16] Sam Pecoraro: Jack's Abbey is one of the perfect examples I can think of for why there is a business case for craft lagers. You only make lagers and yet your portfolio is diverse and you're doing really well. You're the 38th largest craft brewery in the country by volume. You moved nine spots up that list from last year to this year. So something's working and something's clicking, but all Not Your beers, you know, I think people think lager and they think yellow fizzy, but that's absolutely not the case.

[00:07:45] Modern Lager: Yeah, not always.

[00:07:46] Von Ebert: Yeah. And it's something we really understood from the beginning about what the preconception is. And we brew a lot of beer just to brew it sometimes and be like, hey, what is a double dry hop, fruited lager? Like it doesn't really exist. It's not a thing. But we're going to push that boundary and we're really going to make people rethink about what their preconceived notions are about lager beer and try to change the conversation. Now, we're not going to sell a lot of double dry hop fruited lager, but that is going to hopefully allow us to sell more Helles and Pilsner by making people appreciate lager in a different way.

[00:08:23] Joe Connolly: It's so funny thinking of people walking out, seeing a full menu of lager. Well, I would be so drawn, like I would run to that so far. But if I saw some of these lists that are a lot of just various IPAs, it's horrifying to me. We can't have a light lager conversation, I think, or we can have a general lager conversation without talking a little bit about a certain large scale light lager brand that had a dip in sales this past year. Does that have any impact for craft people like you guys? Do you see any benefit from that at all?

[00:08:56] Modern Lager: I think we should all be real scared. Yeah. I don't know if a benefit is what I would describe it as from our perspective. We share distributorships with a lot of those brands. And when that happened last year, I think I was on paternity leave when it happened, but we had a sales rep out talking about craft beer in Salem get an earful because we share a distributor with a certain light beer brand. They decided that we needed to know, she needed to know, right then and there, why whatever thing was wrong was wrong. And, you know, she needed to hear it from that man. So that was maybe a micro conversation about it. Not the whole thing, but that conversation happened in various forms across our industry. I do think there's an opportunity to talk about what that spot on the menu is and why people should have a light option that they can repeat. And I think that's what we try to pull positives out of it. But that is us trying to make positive out of a strange situation that I think the industry found itself in.

[00:09:58] Von Ebert: I think we're more linked craft and the macro than we like to believe. And when macro hurts, I think it hurts craft. And maybe long term we can separate that out. But in the meantime, I think your average consumer isn't necessarily aware of exactly what the difference is. And particularly, there's even people in the industry. What is craft? What isn't craft? I mean, it's a good question as to what people think is craft beer or macro lager.

[00:10:26] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah. And we are particularly spoiled in Massachusetts. We have you guys. I live down the road from Notch, which is making some great kraft lagers. What do you think it is about New England that has nourished such a thriving kraft lager situation?

[00:10:42] Modern Lager: It's a good question.

[00:10:43] Sam Pecoraro: Thanks.

[00:10:45] Von Ebert: I think craft beer in general, New England's sort of been ahead of the curve. So I think it makes sense that, you know, people will follow New England. I mean, we're obviously the best. We're from Massachusetts. We have a commonwealth. So people are going to keep following what we do in Massachusetts.

[00:10:59] Modern Lager: The wealth of common breweries. Yeah. I think there is there is something about the Maybe there's this culture everywhere, because we said about craft beer or beer everywhere being lager beer, but there's a culture of drinking beers, and I'm emphasizing the plural there, and that is what lager beer is for. When I talk about what we do, I'm like, we think about this in a liter. We want you to be able to have a liter. You don't have to have a liter of it, but you need to be able to have a liter of it and want to finish that liter of it. And that drinkability and like the idea that that New England is a place where people enjoy that and enjoy that sitting over a couple of beers thing. Like, you know, that's that's impactful, I think, on why beers like ours, Notches, can resonate.

[00:11:41] Sam Pecoraro: Like one of my like top five favorite beer occasions is like a liter of house lager at Brewers Fork in Charlestown. We used to live up the street. It was amazing.

[00:11:53] Modern Lager: What a great place. Right? We love that place. Yes. We're making a cease to go there next month. We're going to have a book event there and drink some liters of house lager.

[00:12:02] Sam Pecoraro: What day? I will be there as well.

[00:12:03] Modern Lager: All right. We'll see you May 16th.

[00:12:06] Sam Pecoraro: Sure. No.

[00:12:07] Modern Lager: I don't know if I'm on Jack's calendar yet. We'll figure it out.

[00:12:11] Joe Connolly: I like Count Me In. We'll be there. I'm just curious because we have a lot of these conversations with other breweries and we're almost asking every single one, what's your innovation plan or how are you approaching innovation right now? From your perspective where you're focused on lagers, what are you excited about in the innovation space?

[00:12:30] Von Ebert: I'm really excited about the idea of dialing in on what land beer is to us in the U.S. because for lager beer, even in craft beer, we're generally trying to take inspiration from Europe for the most part. And I think there's this unique switch where we're taking inspiration from the raw materials that we have here in the U.S. We're basically doing what craft beer did for ale, but now doing it for lager. So I'm really inspired by a lot of these craft maltsers, a lot of these new hop varieties, and making really interesting and unique lagers that maybe have process and technique that we take from Europe, but the flavor profiles are American and even maybe more regional they are from a place and a time. And that's something that's really got me excited right now.

[00:13:19] Modern Lager: echo that. There's somebody said this to me in the course of researching the book about being a really great cover band as opposed to writing your own material. It's like, you know, you can make, we can make a great German style Helles. And like, if we make a perfect one, maybe we transport you in mind and not body to Munich. But if we can listen and taste where we are from and bring that forward in a new way and do something that's unique, that is something that only we can do.

[00:13:45] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah. Any new beers this year you're particularly excited about?

[00:13:49] Modern Lager: I think PorchFest is a pretty good example of that, actually, because we're doing stuff that's traditional, but we're also doing a bunch of stuff that isn't.

[00:13:55] Von Ebert: Yeah, certainly from the beers that we're producing, our innovation right now is taking some American brewing techniques and making what would otherwise be a very traditional recipe on paper for a German fest beer. And we're doing a cool pool, beer with Calista hops, so you get a really bold hop character, but it's still the same recipe that we would have done for a fesbier. But on the flip side, I think there's a lot of American lager brewers who are doing really cool, interesting things. We talked about Riggs today in our presentation, who's actually growing their own corn to make a special American Modern Lager. We talked to a bunch of other farm breweries who are doing some nice local inspired lagers. So I think that there is a lot of innovation happening on the lager front and I'm excited to see what's next.

[00:14:44] Modern Lager: I would shout Not Your innovation brewer, Holly, who's working on our seven, was it a seven barrel system? We've got that's up and she's been doing some really awesome stuff and like stuff that is top from only right now, but is like looking like, you know, we're talking 2025 and things that we want to bring, bring to the floor. And so, yeah, getting people excited about Fesbier, sneaking Fesbier into their lives outside of Oktoberfest. Love it. Hell yes.

[00:15:05] Sam Pecoraro: Great. Awesome. Well, snaps for Holly. PorchFest tied to the PorchFest?

[00:15:10] Modern Lager: Yeah, it's tied in spirit to the PorchFest. And PorchFest is like a community music festival that just kind of grows out of communities. We've seen it. I think it came out of actually Ithaca, New York, originally. But yeah, I thought it was like a JP thing or something. Me too. But it came out of Ithaca like 2003 or 2007, something like that. But, you know, pretty recently, and it's been spreading into different communities, communities where you wouldn't necessarily expect it. But it's just like people playing music and, you know, on porches. Yeah, that's right. So yeah, we are sponsoring a couple of them this year. Some new communities get involved in it. But yeah, that's what we're doing.

[00:15:44] Sam Pecoraro: So cool. Well, thank you guys so much for stopping by. We know you're busy, but we're really glad you made the time. And Zoe and I are always here for the year of the lager, the week of the lager, the month, the day.

[00:15:56] Joe Connolly: The moment of the lager. Now I really, really just want to drink a lager.

[00:16:02] Modern Lager: What is stopping you?

[00:16:03] Joe Connolly: I need one. I need someone to deliver one to me.

[00:16:06] Modern Lager: We Not Your.

[00:16:07] Joe Connolly: Someone deliver a lager to booth 1989, please and thank you. All right. Well, thank you, Jack and Joe. Really appreciate it. This was great. Thanks, y'all. Jess and I are here with Sam Pecoraro, who is the brewmaster at Von Ebert out of Portland, Oregon. Welcome, Sam. Hey, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. I'm really excited for this conversation because you and I kind of already had this conversation. And what is that? February, January, February during CiderCon, I got to come by during the ice storm, which was quite an experience. Yeah. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. Sliding away into the tap room. probably wasn't the best representation of the city, I don't think, at that time. So for people who don't know or haven't been to Portland, what is kind of the craft scene going on there, and how is the health of craft in Oregon right now? Yeah, I mean, I think everybody, you know, everywhere knows that craft beer is a little bit down right now. You know, the culture is healthy. Portland has been one of the icons of craft beer in the U.S. for a long time, and yeah, we're still going strong, but, you know, there are some issues right now, for sure. Yeah. We always look to those OG craft spaces for what's going to happen next in craft. So is there anything that you could point to that maybe we should be looking out for, just like trends or themes based on what's happening in Portland right now? Yeah, I think beer-wise, style-wise, the big story has been lager and pilsner. It's been a slow roll for many years, and then a few years ago, it just took off. At Von Ebert, we have oftentimes five or six different pilsners on tap at the same time. They're some of our best sellers.

[00:17:49] Sam Pecoraro: Wow.

[00:17:50] Joe Connolly: Can I move in? I know. It's like music to our ears. We love that. We talked about some of that when we were smoking in Oregon about the loggers thing and Bonnie Burt's shifting away from potentially like sours and stuff to focus more on that. Can you like talk a little bit about what just like that, how that innovation landscape has changed a little bit? Yeah, I think in general, mixed culture beer and sour beers have, uh, you know, they're, they're below what they used to be. We're not giving up on them, but what we're doing is really just optimizing our space, making sure we have the, the right amount of oak to get the residencies and the turnover where we need them to be. So, yeah, we're not giving up on them. We're just giving the consumer the amount that they would like. Yeah, we've talked about that a lot. It's like what the consumer base is for Sours now. And there are a lot of breweries that are focusing more on lagers. We know Russian River. We talked to Natalie last year about that. They're saying, yeah, consumers want that more. So I'm rooting for it, even though I'm a big fan of Sours. Yeah. I also think the other comment there is that the mixed culture program is going very heavy fruit. I think that is what's selling.

[00:18:57] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah. I mean, I think that draws in a lot of people to craft that maybe weren't here before. So really an important thing to have in the portfolio. But I think to get people in and keep them here, you need to diversify the way that you guys have done. I mean, anybody that listens to this podcast knows how often we talk about sea creatures, specifically hermit crabs, which is, you know, our goofy term for what happens when one brewery moves into another space, the way that hermit crabs trade shells. And this is a long way to say that, you know, in January, you guys announced that you're taking over Ecliptic's former taproom and production space in Portland. So what's the update there? How's it going?

[00:19:33] Joe Connolly: Yeah, that's correct. A lot of work going on, you know, even at CBC. My inbox is filled with that project right now. Yeah, we took over January 1st. Ecliptic Brewing was sold to Great Frontier Holdings. And then we purchased all the assets and moved into the building. And it's going to take Vonnebert's production from about $4,000 to $20,000. Wow. Yeah, so we're making a lot of changes inside. We purchased a five vessel, 30 barrel system that we're going to be moving into the location and it's going to get us more efficient and more pills in. That's a huge increase. Like what are the things that you have to think about? I mean, you're the one that's kind of in charge of all of this, all that production side. So is there anything you have to change from your strategy to go to increase to such a bigger size? Yeah, absolutely. But I do just want to say that, yeah, maybe maybe my title's brewmaster, but we do also have an incredible team of people, including Eric Ebel, our director of brewing operations, that does the majority of that work. So Honeybird has primarily been a Portland brand and ninety nine percent of our beer has been sold, you know, very locally within 10, 15 miles, I would say. So, you know, moving to 20,000, especially in this market right now, we're expanding our footprint. So we're going to be sending a lot of beer up to Washington and Idaho and more beer down to California. And we're also targeting a different consumer. We're moving into 12-ounce six packs with Pilsner. That already happened in April. And then this fall, we'll be following that up with an IPA, a seasonal IPA, light lager, and getting closer to grocery store shelves and selling different ways. Right. When you're choosing those markets that you're expanding to, what is it? Is there something that's like, OK, this is definitely a Bon Iver marketplace or like what goes into that decision making? You know, a lot of it's geography. We don't want our beer going all that far out so we can keep a close eye on it. Right. And be involved in the market, you know, visit, taste our beers, have meetings with our wholesale partners. So I'd say primarily geography. And also, I think, you know, Seattle is just an amazing city. So that was kind of number one on our list. Is there anything about like your changes that you have to make to the Von Ebert branding Hobby Marketing when you're reaching, you said you're meeting new consumers now. So is there any adjustments you have to make there or are you sticking to a core message that is going to resonate in multiple marketplaces? You know, honestly, I think it's just been about focusing more and telling our story where before it was, you know, it's pretty easy to get picked up by local press and everybody knows all the breweries in Portland. and now we have to take our story and tell it elsewhere. So really just honing that in and getting more organized on that front. We're here at Craft Brewers Conference. What are you most looking forward to here with connecting with your fellow craft folks? Ooh, my best friend Natalie Baldwin from Wayfinder Brewing is doing a panel tomorrow that's gonna be on innovation and brewing and she's doing it with a few other incredible brewers and I'm really looking forward to seeing that and I think it's gonna be a packed house.

[00:22:46] Sam Pecoraro: I think we are planning to attend that one. We are. That was one of my picks for our pre-CBC content package that dropped last week.

[00:22:54] Joe Connolly: Well, perfect.

[00:22:55] Sam Pecoraro: We can hang out and talk about it after. Vegas is not one of the first places that comes to mind to me when I think of craft beer cities, but have you gotten out and about on the town at all to visiting the breweries that are here?

[00:23:07] Joe Connolly: I've been very well behaved the last few days. That might not happen the next few days, but I have, yeah. I've been really impressed. There's, you know, I think I thought the same thing before, and this is my first time in Vegas, but every bar I've been to has a nice selection and some really interesting local stuff, and I've had some great beers.

[00:23:25] Sam Pecoraro: What do you think, potential Von Ebert market?

[00:23:27] Joe Connolly: We've got a lot of runway between here and there. Yeah, maybe someday. Yeah. I know I already said my final question, but I have a final final. You mentioned you've been here judging for the past few days. Is there anything interesting that stood out about the beers you were trying there? Just, you know, absolutely incredible judges to judge with people from all over the world. You know, primarily that's number one. As far as the beer goes, you know, just the world's getting better and better. Quality just keeps increasing and it makes judging a lot harder. I'm glad that's not my job. I'm impressed by everyone. The Brewers Association does a phenomenal job of organizing the competition and they deserve a lot of credit to keeping it streamlined and easy to be a judge.

[00:24:12] Sam Pecoraro: I had to run homebrew judging contests for a couple years and it is so hard.

[00:24:17] Joe Connolly: I'll imagine doing that for, you know, 9000 entries times four to five bottles of beer.

[00:24:23] Sam Pecoraro: No, I would probably sooner die.

[00:24:26] Joe Connolly: Like, it's just so much work. Yeah, I cannot do that. Just the logistics of even like getting that beer to all the judges in the first place. No. OK. Well, Sam, is there anything else that we should know about what's going on at Vlaaniper? Yeah, you can find us at vineybertbrewing.com. Our Instagram handle is vebrewing. And yeah, hit us up. We've got five locations now. One in Beaverton, one on the Glendivere Golf Course, downtown, one by the airport, Cascade Station, and yeah, the new location that we'll be opening up at Taproom coming up in a few months. Wow. Well, thank you for joining us. Thanks for sharing everything. And always good to connect and chat. Good luck with the rest of the conference. Yeah. Thanks so much. Thanks.

[00:25:18] Sam Pecoraro: Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast recording live and in person on the Craft Brewers Convention trade show floor. So excited to be here in the Brewbound Podcast on location studio. But even more exciting than that is the guest who is sitting right next to me. your friend and mine, one of this industry's bright shining lights, Julie Rhodes, founder of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions. Julie, how are you doing? I'm wonderful. I'm super excited to be here next to you. Oh, I'm so glad that you're here. I feel like you and I have chatted a lot lately, which has been really nice. Yes. For me. It's been a treat for me. Oh, look at us. Look at us. So, Julie, you recently and excellently participated in our new Q&A series Brewbound Around With. So you did such a good job answering those questions that I wanted to make sure that we were talking about something different today. So I have us getting into the nitty gritty marketing stuff. That's great. I love talking shop about this. And I just spoke yesterday. So this is great.

[00:26:14] Von Ebert: Good, good, good. Perfect.

[00:26:15] Sam Pecoraro: Perfect. Well, so Julie, like I am a former marketeer and I have always appreciated the name Not Your consulting firm. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I have many thoughts about how you landed on it that I will keep to myself right now, but you give us the backstory and we'll see if my thoughts line up. Okay, so it was something that popped into my head probably six, seven years ago when I was thinking about starting a business. And it's really through like friends and family that, you know, I would talk about business in some way. And they're like, Julie, nobody knows that stuff. I was like, what are you talking about? Everybody knows this stuff. They're like, you just need to teach this. And I was like, okay. And at the time it was kind of, you know, when we were seeing that huge peak of like openings And there were a lot of homebrewers that were entering the space. And a lot of people were like, I just want to take my hobby to like a professional level. And I just kept hearing it over and over and over again. And I thought, oh gosh, I'm a sales lady, right? I'm a marketing lady. I was like, wait a second. If you file for a business, it's a little bit different. You have to treat it a little bit differently. So I was like, gosh, this is not their hobby anymore. And it just sort of stuck in my brain. And a lot of people told me it was silly for me to name my company that. They were like, that's a mouthful. Nobody's going to remember it. It's too much. Your URL is going to be too long. You know, all that stuff. And I was like, you know, it just kept coming back to me over and over again. So I thought, well, you know, my tagline is if you have customers, you have a business, not a hobby. So there is a little bit different delineation of once you file for that DBA and that license, it's kind of a different ballgame. everything changes once that happens. So that's not at all what I was thinking. I was thinking that, well, you know, I feel like, and maybe this is colored by many of my own experiences, but that people just think, Hobby Marketing's just like fun and silly. Anybody can do it. Exactly. much more nuanced than that. And honestly, conferences like this are a great place for people to have that aha moment. Yes. Because a lot of the times, people that might not be able to hire out for like a full-time marketer or have a marketing team, and they're like, Oh, this person is an extrovert. They'd be great at marketing. They just sort of throw them in. And then they attend something like Hobby Marketing sessions here at the conference. They're like, wait a second, hang on. There's channels, there's strategies, there's copywriting, there's content creation. It really is a gateway to connect with consumers and it's way more nuanced than than most people think. And side note, this is funny about my business name. I thought when I first got started that I was just going to be doing marketing consulting, and so that was the DBA that I took out. And now my name is synonymous with my company, so I don't want to change it, even though I do full business consulting. Yeah, you do so, so much. Well, so let's stay on the idea Hobby Marketing for a minute. So thanks to social media, marketing has kind of become democratized to the point where sometimes it ends up the responsibility of very junior team members or interns, and I'm not trying to shade them at all. Right. I'm sure many are really talented and really smart and capable. But why should that not be the case? Oh gosh, if you think about it this way, this is what I tell people all the time. Hopefully this analogy helps a little bit. You have to think about dating your audience, right? So like you have a first date, you have a first impression, you want to make a good first impression. And then you want that person to like hang out with you more. So it sort of depends on the environment, like the conversation. And so if you think about marketing as a conversation between your brand and your target audience, you want them to like you. You want them to hang out with you more, right? And then hopefully you want to be in a committed relationship with that brand in order to earn word of mouth marketing or to earn brand loyalty, things like that. So if you think about it as a relationship role and not so much a promotion role, I think it will help people wrap their brains around how much strategy actually needs to go into it. That's really, really helpful.

[00:30:13] Von Ebert: Good. Yeah.

[00:30:15] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah. I mean, that seems like a great way for especially for craft brewers to really think about it because it seems it's daunting. You know, there's so much that you can do. It is. And you know, today's consumer, especially with the younger generations, we find that they don't want in-your-face branding, you know, like how the beer industry used to be like decades ago, where you have like mascots and logos and, you know, neon signs. Like it's a little bit different, right? They want a more personal connection. They want the brand to be human. They want to get to know a brand. So when you can learn how to connect with them, whether it's social media, email, your website, you know, articles. I still, people laugh at me. I'm like, blogging is not dead. Blog about your brewery. I think it's great. But it allows people to get them to know you in a more personal way. And that really helps foster that like brand connection. Yeah. Well, so budgets are stretched really thin these days. What are some of the best banks for your buck in digital marketing? Oh, digital advertising. Okay. Short answer. Straight to the point. Digital advertising. Tell me more. So start with social. That's the easiest like gateway first baby step. Just like paid promoted Instagram posts. Don't boost. I'm going to give everybody a hot tip. Oh. Stop boosting your posts. Please don't waste money on that. You're going to get a lot better results from your ads if you do like a native ad campaign from the beginning and keep them running for a long time. Also think about, you know, you don't have to have something specific going on in social to promote it like an event. You can run just brand awareness ads that let people know who you are at any given time. You're also going to get more data with native ad campaigns. So stay away from boosting, but social media ads like Facebook, Instagram are a great way to start. If you're doing a lot of private event business, don't forget about Pinterest. That's still very relevant to business marketing strategy for breweries and beyond. Second thing would be like Google, you know, PPC ads. I've been doing Google ads for longer than I want to admit on live feed, but the interface is much easier than it used to be. So it's really easy to get started. It's almost like plug and play. They just sort of click, you know, you click through and it walks you through. It's easier than people think. So definitely get into that space. Awesome. And if you have a little bit of money you can splurge, what's the most worth it in digital advertising? I would say if you can hire a content creator of some kind. And I don't mean you have to hire somebody full-time. You could even do like a 1099 contractor, a college student that wants to build up their portfolio. It could be part-time, it could be full-time, you know, whatever it is. But I think the higher quality content that you have for, especially social, but you also need content for email, you know, websites, advertising, all those things. So the better media that you have, especially short-form video, if you can find somebody that's great at capturing and editing short-form video, you'll be in really good shape. That is a skill that I do not have. Yes. And I think a big problem that I see currently is that a lot of people that don't know a lot about marketing drastically underestimate how time-consuming content creation can be. So finding a good quality person and just, you know, fair warning to everybody, you're going to pay for what you get. So, you know, it's a good place to splurge. Awesome. I mean, that makes so much sense. I do want to call out one thing I've noticed that you and Jason are both wearing. customized, Not Your hobby sneakers. Yes. Is this a CBC debut? It is of this version. I debuted some last year. They're sort of like, they look like Chuck Taylors, but they're not. I don't even know. They're very comfortable. And at this point in my era that I'm in as a human, I need comfort in my footwear, especially for CBC. But yeah, we try to, it's become kind of a tradition. We try to do a different branded shoe each year. I love this. I love this. They are for sale on my website too. Oh my God. That's crazy. Like anybody wants a shoe from a consultant, like come on, but they're fun. They're fun. They're amazing. I love this. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Well, let's wrap. What is one takeaway you wish our audience would keep with them after they hear this conversation? I cannot heavily express enough the reliance on financial literacy and business strategy. What I see and hear, because you know I love data. I do.

[00:34:46] Von Ebert: As much as you guys do. I do know about this. Yes.

[00:34:48] Sam Pecoraro: Yeah. Big data nerd. And I do go to a lot of events. I read a lot, obviously, you know that about me too. All signs lead to, you've got to get your house in order. You need to get some strategy and some plans going. You need to make sure you're behind the scenes, finance, admin. Do you Not Your margins? Do you Not Your cash flow? Do you Not Your COGS? All those things. how can you kind of double down on the things that you wouldn't think to double down on right now, which is marketing. I'm a little biased, but don't get me wrong. Usually, you know, there's peaks and valleys to the market, right? And usually people think like, oh, when it's a valley, I've got to pull back on a lot of things. Don't do that. Almost like what Fawn Weaver said the other day. Just don't listen to everybody else when they say pull back. It's like when the stock market goes down and you're supposed to buy everything on sale. When the market goes down, double down Hobby Marketing because it will pay off in spades. It's a long-term investment. Perfect. Julie, thank you so much for taking the time. I know this is a busy week for you, so I'm glad you found a couple minutes for us. Thank you for having me. I was super excited about this. A great way to wrap up day three. Love that.

[00:35:52] Jack Hendler: And that's our show for this week. Thanks to all of our guests. Thanks to Zoe and Jess for conducting the interviews. Thanks to our audio wizard, Joe. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.