Lagunitas CEO Bernardo Spielmann on Green Shoots and Party Legends

[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 is dead guy, a dead guy. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:47] Jess Infante: And I'm Jess Infante. I feel like it's been a minute, right?

[00:00:51] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:00:52] Jess Infante: I don't think I've done this in a long time. So if you've been listening and wondering, yes, I'm still here. But Zoe is not here today. She's a little under the weather and taking a rest. So it's just you and me.

[00:01:02] Justin Kendall: Yep.

[00:01:03] Jess Infante: It's like the old days.

[00:01:04] Justin Kendall: It's the OGs. I feel uncool even saying that.

[00:01:09] Jess Infante: Well, you're not the only one who uses it.

[00:01:11] Justin Kendall: That's all right. So this week, we have an interview. You have an interview with Lagunitas CEO, Bernardo Spielmann. What are we talking about?

[00:01:22] Jess Infante: Well, you know, as you know, Lagunitas' parent company is Heineken, and they were in a quiet period at the time of our conversation, so he couldn't say a whole lot. But just really reiterating a lot of the stuff that we talked about back in January when they were nice enough to invite me to their distributor conference, which they call Dogpile. I always want to call it Dogpatch, but that's not right. So at Dogpile, we discussed a lot of like positive trends for their core. They're really doubling down on the core as mostly everybody is this year. Lagunitas Hazy has such a huge on-premise presence, so that's big for them. I've noticed they're playing around with pricing in Cercana. We just published our report on Cercana's October report. And Lagunitas Hazy little something something, which I feel like I sound stupid saying every time. But that's one of the few growing craft brands to keep growing. You know, they've had accelerating sales in the last four weeks compared to the year to date. So good things for them, mostly. Some fun innovations, but basically Bernardo and I just had a really nice chat about how they're, you know, keeping the focus on the core.

[00:02:32] Justin Kendall: Stick around for that. We also have to plug Brewbound Live, which is coming up December 10th and 11th in Marina Del Rey. I think we put out the full agenda.

[00:02:42] Jess Infante: I think we did. We did yesterday. We're under a month out. When did that happen?

[00:02:46] Justin Kendall: So fast. And we are so excited to be able to do this. excited to get together with everyone. We've got a few hundred people signed up now and more by the day, and we put out the full agenda. You can find that at brewboundlive.com. We're also announcing new speakers. We still have a few that we haven't—they've been locked down for a while, but we haven't really put it out there. But I'm excited for a panel that Zoe's going to do, which is J.R. Hand from Hand Family Companies, Sunset Distributing, Dave Williams from Bump Williams Consulting, and then Jesse Ferber from Columbia Distributing. They're going to talk about modern retail trends, modern distribution trends, what we're seeing in the market. And I think a lot of people are probably going to want to hear what they have to say.

[00:03:35] Jess Infante: Yeah, I would definitely call that a not miss.

[00:03:38] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:03:38] Jess Infante: The whole conference is not miss, but that one in particular, some of the most important voices in that space on the West Coast.

[00:03:45] Justin Kendall: All killer, no filler. So I just got back from the CCBA meeting and you were at the beer marketers insights. I have to like, I say this so slowly because I can't remember where we've all been over the last few weeks.

[00:04:03] Jess Infante: Well, I couldn't remember where I was and I was like, where are we going with this? Where have I been?

[00:04:08] Justin Kendall: But more importantly, you were Tree House's new country club taproom? I sure was.

[00:04:16] Jess Infante: Golf course? Yeah. My good buddy, Audrey, wanted to get people together to celebrate her birthday. And Audrey is a dear and she understands. She does not have kids, but she knows a lot of her friends do. So she just said, 11 o'clock, show up whenever. And I like to think that Audrey did that to accommodate baby naptimes, but I think Audrey said 11 cause that's when they open. And that was when she had to get there to reserve a table because we got there not too long after and the whole place was slammed. A lot of kids, I will say they were very well behaved, including my own. Pizza is so good. an actual golf course, I could see like foursomes heading out, which will never not be bananas to me that this brewery owns like a GD country club, but they do.

[00:05:04] Justin Kendall: Can you imagine trying to manage all of that on top of selling the 40,000 barrels of beer or whatever they do annually?

[00:05:14] Jess Infante: Yeah. 49,262. I know we've talked about this on this podcast, but their taproom service format is a straight up line. Like they say, get in line. And there's like stanchions setting up the line. It's very funny to me, but that's like the best way to do it. What did I drink? I had a peach version of one of their Pilsners and then an all New Zealand hop Pilsner. Delicious.

[00:05:40] Justin Kendall: No hazies.

[00:05:42] Jess Infante: No hazies. Like it was 11 in the morning.

[00:05:44] Justin Kendall: That's true.

[00:05:45] Jess Infante: And I'm old. You know, I never actually got in the line myself, mostly because we knew if I were standing on a long line for beer and Cora could see me, she would be freaking out. So my husband was our beer emissary and I every time just said to him, just find me something under 6%. So he did good.

[00:06:05] Justin Kendall: That sounds like how my mind works when I'm staring at the board.

[00:06:09] Jess Infante: Yeah. Plus they were like, I want to say 45 beers on tap. Nuts. The thing though that really had me kind of agog was we were in their gift shop, which definitely looks like it used to be the pro shop of a country club. And you could go up to a tablet and order beer to take home. Because again, this is the only way they sell their beer is over their own bar and in their own gift shops. They do not distribute whatsoever. And Ryan went and ordered whatever he ended up getting. But you do a little like beep, beep, boop, tap it on a tablet. That order goes to the basement where I assume human beings and not Oompa Loompas are packing them. And then you get your receipt, you have to click I am here right now. And then somebody fills it and a robot carries it up from the basement. And you know, the gift shop employee comes over and calls your name. It's crazy. It was crazy. Good on them. They also had for sale custom holiday gift wrap.

[00:07:09] Justin Kendall: Oh, did you get some?

[00:07:10] Jess Infante: No.

[00:07:11] Justin Kendall: Why do you say it like that?

[00:07:15] Jess Infante: I already have a holiday wrapping paper. The only person I wrap gifts for is two years old.

[00:07:21] Justin Kendall: I'm not too good Tree House wrapping paper.

[00:07:24] Jess Infante: I'll go back and I'm going to ship you a tube because I'm not wrapping anything. The only person I wrap for, again, is- Please don't. Look, I'm terrible at wrapping. I just thought this was like a mom skill that you just like give birth and immediately become an excellent present wrapper. That has not happened to me.

[00:07:40] Justin Kendall: I'm a horrible wrapper.

[00:07:42] Jess Infante: Awful.

[00:07:42] Justin Kendall: It's just horrible.

[00:07:44] Jess Infante: I wanna know, are there classes somewhere? How do all of these moms get so good at it?

[00:07:49] Justin Kendall: Yeah, there are classes. I'm almost certain of it.

[00:07:53] Jess Infante: Yeah, man, and what else did they have that was nuts? Oh, custom wallpaper? It wasn't everywhere because most of their walls were really beautiful wood, but in the stairwells that went up and down the place, they had custom bespoke treehouse wallpaper. It wasn't my taste.

[00:08:12] Justin Kendall: Don't make enemies for them. Don't make any enemies for them.

[00:08:16] Jess Infante: I mean, just look at the things that you can have when you got in early on the hazy train and you didn't have to cede any margin to distributors.

[00:08:25] Justin Kendall: That's amazing. It was crazy. What's the vibe? What's the overall vibe?

[00:08:32] Jess Infante: I was in the taproom, which was clearly like the country club dining room, ballroom. It felt Tree House. This is only the second Tree House I've ever been to. I've been to Charlton, but nowhere else. It felt Tree House, you know, like a lot of their like carved wood, rustic feeling. But it looked like I was like, man, there must have been some fun weddings at this place back in like the 2012 like rustic wedding heyday. The room feels like it's a country club ballroom dining room. But mostly families, there was a full-blown child's birthday party going on next to Audrey's 37th birthday party. I don't know that I could do that.

[00:09:12] Justin Kendall: And I don't know that I would recommend that.

[00:09:15] Jess Infante: Right? I just, look, we don't need to get into kids and taprooms. I'm fine with them as long as you parent them. But like, I can't see saying, hey, for your third birthday party, mommy wants to drink beer. So. We're going to go Tree House. Like, hey, do you want your birthday party at Tree House? Yes, that sounds so cool. I would love Tree House. Here we go. So there are signs around that say anyone under 12 must be with their parents at all times.

[00:09:44] Justin Kendall: Probably good policies there.

[00:09:46] Jess Infante: Yeah. I've noticed a lot more of that. A lot of like, you have to police your children, but the copy isn't always the most friendly. Maybe I'm more sensitive to that because I now am a parent in a taproom on extremely rare occasions.

[00:10:02] Jess Infante: This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at CraftBrewersConference.com.

[00:10:22] Justin Kendall: Well, not to slight the Iowa Craft Brewers Guild because I didn't mention them at the top. I was also at iBest on Friday. So I want to thank them for having me there and adding me to a panel that the local TV anchor was the most popular person on, of course.

[00:10:45] Jess Infante: Dude, how nice was it to go to a conference that you didn't have to take two airplanes to?

[00:10:49] Justin Kendall: It was amazing. I only had to drive less than two hours, which is not bad at all. Just listening to podcasts or in excess the whole time.

[00:10:59] Jess Infante: In excess.

[00:11:00] Justin Kendall: I like it. Bringing it back. Nice. Very underrated.

[00:11:03] Jess Infante: Yeah. What were the vibes there?

[00:11:04] Justin Kendall: Field day brewing. Beautiful facility. Great location, right on like sort of like a trail pass, little creek, you know, bridge, great outdoor seating spot, huge inside, duck pen bowling. It's a very cool space. And they also are into the THC Bev's.

[00:11:27] Jess Infante: What was the scuttle on that at the time?

[00:11:29] Justin Kendall: People worried? I think everybody there is, thinks that it'll get worked out too. Or at least the folks that I talked to.

[00:11:37] Jess Infante: That's my very uneducated take as well.

[00:11:39] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And I got to catch up with a few folks like Dave Morgan from Single Speed Brewing, who was in the deal with Backpocket. So they're still in the deal with Backpocket. They've got the platform that they created, the Parallel Collective, and then they're merging ops.

[00:11:57] Jess Infante: Previous Brewbound Live speakers.

[00:12:00] Justin Kendall: Yeah, it was a good time. And I made it back in time for pizza night.

[00:12:04] Jess Infante: Perfect. What more can you ask for?

[00:12:06] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Not a bad trip. So very cool area. North Liberty, Iowa. Wouldn't have thought to recommend, but I do recommend.

[00:12:15] Jess Infante: It sounds nice. Yeah. Well, while you were there on Friday, a massive news story broke.

[00:12:22] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and there was scuttlebutt about it. I saw a supplier, a major hop supplier, and he and I were kind of talking about it like, oh, wow, that's a thing. So let's get into the news.

[00:12:35] Jess Infante: Let's get into the news. Thank God you saw that and told me because I was neck deep in Cercana, which I do all my Cercana prep work, like super analog, like I write everything out by hand. So I was super focused on that. And then you sent me a link to a story. about rogue ceasing to exist.

[00:12:52] Justin Kendall: These are always shocks to the system. When I was in California, there was some talk about like, oh, you know, kind of like the fact in the fiction of the current state of the market. And it's these things that shock the public. Your 21st amendments, your Iron Hill, and then something like a rogue. You covered what was covered, and you got a little bit more. And part of that is just the way this whole thing went down, which is... same day finding out, same day employees finding out, same day the landlord finding out, and the city or the port authority or whatever it is, that they are ceasing operations.

[00:13:39] Jess Infante: Yeah. You know, it's funny that you mention Iron Hill, because it was literally the same exact way employees found out. The internal app they use for scheduling, and it's been so long since I've worked in any kind of bar or restaurant capacity. The apps didn't exist back then. So I suppose this is something now everybody has, is an app to keep everybody in communication, which makes all the sense. But it was the same time. It was like 8 a.m., all hands message, hey, you are not working today. We are going out of business. I was able to find one of the other Oregon news outlets found an employee who told them that they were all told they would be paid through the end of that day. And that's it. So super abrupt, seems like a pretty dire situation. The executive director of the port of Newport, Oregon told another news outlet that rogue president Stephen Garrett came to meet with her that day and said, Hey, we are shutting down. And she said that they, She had been fully prepared to work with them. News reports are that they were $545,000 behind on their rent, which they pay to the port, and also close to $30,000 behind on taxes to the county. I mean, I went back through old Brewer'Brewers Association data and their volume peak was in 2014, where they had close to 110,000 barrels, but it's been downhill ever since. And I want to say they're about 45,000 barrels last year. But I mean, you know, we've seen some signs over the summer. They announced that they were partnering with US Beverage to handle their sales operations. And at the time, the news had been that US Beverage would be hiring most of Rogue Ales force. So those people would become US Bev employees instead of rogue employees. And if that all worked out the way that it was reported to have, Hopefully that was actually a blessing in disguise for those employees. But I mean, the thing is like a lot of people are out of work at a time when it really sucks to be out of work. Like you're right, it is such a shock to the system when any large brewer goes under like this, but particularly a top 50 brewer, and they were number 50. Rogue to me has always been in my brain's craft beer encyclopedia. You know, like when I became Iowa Craft beer drinker, they were one of the few brands that you talked about and they distributed to all 50 states, more than 50 countries. That's what their website says. In this day and age to me, that's bananas, but there must've been a reason for them to want to start doing it when they did it. You know, I feel like there used to be a time when you could be a nationally distributed craft brewer and that worked out well for you. But here's the thing, like nobody in Massachusetts really needs your beer from Oregon unless you have a really, really strong proposition these days. There's just too much good beer locally everywhere, right?

[00:16:34] Justin Kendall: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's incredibly difficult to be a national brand at this point. I think folks have probably even heard us sort of Be like, I don't know, man, at some of the national aspirations on some of this lately. And there is rogue beer in my local Hy-Vee. I took a picture recently. It was the single serve section and in the top left hand corner is a Dead Guy Imperial IPA. I think that's fairly new in recent times because the line extended the Dead Guy franchise and they tried different things and Pilsner and probably a Hazy.

[00:17:16] Jess Infante: We had their president, Stephen Garrett, on the stage at Brewed by Life to talk about exactly this, how this line extension of flagship brands was something that these legacy brewers were trying as a way to diversify their drinker bases. And for some it works and for some it doesn't. The port director said about 65 people worked at that location, which was their main production hub. And I believe they have one taproom there. And then they've got a few more taprooms, but you generally, you don't have a hundred people working at each taproom location. So I'm sure at some point they had that many people, but now I assume it's less than that. But as you realize, they didn't file a warrant notice. So we don't know.

[00:17:57] Justin Kendall: I think one of the other keys that we should probably talk about here is the fact that they didn't own their facility, their land, any of that. They were still paying rent. And that's something that VP of analytics and chief economist of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Lester Jones, pointed out to us in an email with his trademark snark.

[00:18:21] Jess Infante: Yeah, but then he also blasted out on LinkedIn for all the world to see.

[00:18:26] Justin Kendall: He did.

[00:18:27] Jess Infante: He's got a point.

[00:18:28] Justin Kendall: He does have a point, and I'll just read part of what he wrote. He says, in the back of his head, he can't help but ask, why they owe $500,000 in back rent? After 37 years, a brewer still paying rent is like a 37-year-old paying rent to live in your friend's garage apartment. He said, in these economic times, renting is almost a death sentence. And that's something that I actually heard in California, is a lot of these brewers out there when they hit sort of that second lease, that second five-year lease and on the back end of that year 10 is what they're running into is the landlords want market price at the end. That's what they're negotiating for. And it puts a lot of them in a bad situation that they're basically forced with a decision to move or close.

[00:19:24] Jess Infante: Yeah. I mean, I think that's kind of what we're starting to see here is like these things happen in five-year, 10-year chunks sometimes, and we're now like a decade past the peak. So everybody that opened during that time period probably had terms that were pretty doable. And in addition to the craft beer climate changing, the general economic climate has changed. And the general like BevElk climate has changed. So we're in a completely different world than we were when a lot of these leases were signed.

[00:19:56] Justin Kendall: Yeah. This is a souvenir that I have of Rogue when they relaunched Dead Guy with the variants. This was sent to me and it has some real Oregon dirt in it. I keep it in my office.

[00:20:09] Jess Infante: For the people who are listening to this podcast, Justin is holding up a small black coffin.

[00:20:16] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I don't want to break it, but it is number 41 of 55. Oh, wow. Former CEO Dharma Tam wrote on it, thought you would enjoy, which I did enjoy.

[00:20:28] Jess Infante: He was right.

[00:20:29] Justin Kendall: So thank you, Dharma. Rip Rogue for now. My expectation is that somebody will probably pick up a brand out of this.

[00:20:36] Jess Infante: You think so?

[00:20:37] Justin Kendall: I think so. I mean, we'll see what happens with 21st Amendment. Can you kill Iowa Craft brand? I guess that's what I'm wondering. But from one end of the spectrum to the other, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, and they are calling this an exclusive, that Anheuser-Busch InBev is nearing a $700 million deal for beatbox.

[00:21:00] Jess Infante: What?

[00:21:02] Justin Kendall: Yeah, you're hearing this.

[00:21:04] Jess Infante: Wow. This is complete news to me. That is something.

[00:21:12] Justin Kendall: Everything I've sort of gathered from the founders is they weren't looking for an exit, but you never know.

[00:21:18] Jess Infante: I too have gathered that. But if $700 million comes your way, what are you going to do? Say no thank you?

[00:21:25] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:21:25] Jess Infante: That's super interesting. That would be huge for both. Beatbox is one of the few brands that companies across all three categories really look to and are like, how do we do that?

[00:21:37] Justin Kendall: And you see so many copycats of that Tetra Pak now.

[00:21:42] Jess Infante: So many copycats. Oh my God.

[00:21:44] Justin Kendall: I don't know that there are a lot of details out there around this right now, other than this initial report.

[00:21:50] Jess Infante: I am just a poor booze reporter. I don't subscribe to the journal. So if you've got. story I can read, that'd be helpful.

[00:21:57] Justin Kendall: I will send it. I mean, just the quick take on this is, this is AB building out that portfolio of cut water and neutral, and this would be a major addition to that. This puts them in that high ABV wine-based space.

[00:22:13] Jess Infante: Very differentiated packaging.

[00:22:15] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And it connects in a way that is very different than their other products. And I guess we have more questions than answers at this time. I wonder if the strategy would be to bring on the founders, which would be extremely smart of Anheuser-Busch to keep them on to help guide this, because if we learned anything from the way they handled some of their craft brands, they're really going to need them.

[00:22:42] Jess Infante: Look at what they did to Spiked Seltzer. You bought the first brand in this segment and then trashed it.

[00:22:53] SPEAKER_??: Yeah.

[00:22:54] Justin Kendall: For now, this is just a rumor, I guess. Would you call it a rumor? This is a report.

[00:23:00] Jess Infante: Well, I believe it was the journal that was running unsubstantiated, well, not unsubstantiated, but anonymously sourced reports that Suntory was going to buy Boston Beer, no? We're like a year and a half out from that.

[00:23:15] Justin Kendall: Well, this would be a huge deal in a year where it's been very quiet and you can see where the money is flowing at the moment. We'll be on it. So check out Brewbound.com and read it all there. But, uh, let's get to our featured interview with Bernardo. Yeah.

[00:23:37] Jess Infante: We are here outside the trade show at the National Beer Wholesalers Association's 88th annual convention. I believe it's Brewbound Managing Editor, Jess Infante, and I am so excited to have our next guest here with us. We are thrilled to have Lagunitas CEO, Bernardo Spielmann. Bernardo, how you doing?

[00:23:53] Bernardo Spielmann: Hi Jess. Thanks for the invite. Love to be here with you guys at Brewbound and your podcast. Doing good. A lot of energy over here. A lot of excitement. We had a great happy hour with our distributors last night. So feeling great.

[00:24:06] Jess Infante: Awesome. I mean, the last time you and I sat down was back in January at Dogpile in Petaluma, which is a beautiful part of the country I'd never really been.

[00:24:15] Bernardo Spielmann: And you were there when the weather wasn't fantastic. So hopefully you can come back next year around summertime.

[00:24:21] Jess Infante: Homie, let me tell you, the weather was better than Massachusetts. True. So I've been watching your numbers in the Circonadata and it's really impressive. It's been a tough year for craft. We could say that every year for the past like five years, but a particularly tough year this year. But a lot of Lagunitas brands are finding Not just a little growth, impressive growth. I specifically just pulled up last month's Arcana report. A little something something is up in the last four weeks, 12% in dollars, 9.3% in volume. You guys should be proud. How's the team feeling?

[00:24:55] Bernardo Spielmann: The team is feeling great. Actually, again, a tough context overall for Kraft. We know there's a lot of cyclical issues, structural issues impacting the overall industry, but especially a maturing stage into Kraft. For us, we've been really focused on driving the core business. So you saw the numbers are now a little something, something, but also IPA. With heavy investment, this year we increased about $6 million in our marketing investments and a lot of discipline on execution together with our distributor.

[00:25:24] Jess Infante: Yeah. Well, so how would you define the core? What brands belong to that family?

[00:25:27] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah. So IPA is about 50% of our volume and LSS about 20% of our volume. And now we have an innovation, which we're also considering as part of the core from an ABV perspective, which is Hazy IPA.

[00:25:39] Jess Infante: I'm glad you called it LSS because that's how I write it in my notes because I feel like I do not sound cool attempting to say it by its real name. I just sound personally silly.

[00:25:48] Bernardo Spielmann: That makes two of us.

[00:25:50] Jess Infante: So I know a huge driver for IPA has been draft. We talked a lot about it in January. What are you seeing right now? Cause draft is a hot topic.

[00:25:59] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, we're gaining some momentum back. I think the team has been really, really focused behind gaining tap handles at what we call the whale accounts. So those accounts that really drive a higher rate of sale. The team just put together a very strong distributor incentive for the month of September where we were able to gain over 1.2 thousand tap handles.

[00:26:18] Jess Infante: That's incredible.

[00:26:20] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah. For a brand like Lagunitas Hazy has built in the on-premise, has already established a strong presence with IPA, that's a very impressive number.

[00:26:28] Jess Infante: How are you finding that younger legal drinking age consumers are coming to discover the brand?

[00:26:33] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, I think this is one of the big challenges of craft in general, right? There's a little bit of a perception of lack of excitement. That discovery factor around craft, which in the past was an amazing driver with the younger audience, now has disappeared a little bit. For us, it's really focusing on bringing new news, new stories to the brands. And for us, a great example is Party Legend. I don't know if you heard about it, but we were quite caught up with an insight that only about 4% of Americans are actually celebrating and having reasons to socialize. So we decided to throw out there a Party Legend, which was a challenge to try to find the legendary person that is really driving the socialization within the group in the America context, right?

[00:27:20] Jess Infante: I love this idea. So how is this? I mean, we call it a campaign, an initiative. How's it working out?

[00:27:25] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, it's a brand activation. Of course, we have communication behind it. But it was, again, less about that crazy party point of view, but more about championing socialization and making sure that people are aware that even in tough times, we have good reasons to get together and celebrate. And that was something that we, again, put it out there. We got a lot of engagement on social media and we just recently crowned our Party Legend 2025. Yeah, of course, in very clear La Bonita style. He got his own golden bust as well, which is available in Petaluma. So we'll definitely show you when you're around next time.

[00:27:59] Jess Infante: OK, so there's a chance for me in 2026.

[00:28:01] Bernardo Spielmann: 100 percent.

[00:28:03] Jess Infante: Great. I feel as though Sunday night I definitely was maybe the Party Legend of this entire event.

[00:28:07] Lagunitas Hazy: I'm very good.

[00:28:08] Jess Infante: Judging by the number of people I saw Monday who said you had fun last night. But that's really fun. I'm glad you brought this up because this socialness has been a huge topic this week. I don't need to tell you or anybody listening. Everybody's really familiar with the headlines that have been dominating national media about how consumers are reevaluating their relationship to alcohol as it pertains to their health. But something that's missing from a lot of those conversations, because I know it's a hard needle to thread, particularly for beer brands. But socializing is good for us. It helps particularly mental health, but I'm sure you could also probably find ways to talk about how it affects physical health too. And it's hard to talk about because of you guys having, you know, limitations from the TTB. And I'm so not trying to goad you into saying anything you shouldn't, but I'm glad you're bringing it up because we are social people.

[00:28:59] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, no, I fully agree. I think from a Lagunitas perspective, we're quite in a privileged position because we have a well-balanced portfolio where we have the core, as I mentioned to you, we have some high Alk propositions, but we have also a very strong non-Alk portfolio. The point that we have been pitching is it's not about just going out there and drinking, it's getting together, really enjoying each other again, especially in tough times where we need to get that human contact back.

[00:29:27] Jess Infante: And you said it, your portfolio offers something for almost all of those occasions. You do have the super... high octane ABV stuff, but you've got Hoppy Refresher, which is a really delicious non-alcoholic sparkling hot water. What's up with that part of the portfolio for 2026?

[00:29:42] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, so Hoppy Refresher will be refreshing the visual identity. We're also building an innovation pipeline. We'll be releasing more details at Dogpile. So again, we'll share all with you once you're there with us. But we're quite excited about, again, revamping a bit the proposition.

[00:29:58] Jess Infante: Great. And then last year at Jogpile, we talked about Maximus, which I know has a first name that is escaping me.

[00:30:04] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah, it's Maximus. And then now you have Maximus hazicus.

[00:30:07] Jess Infante: That's what I'm saying.

[00:30:08] Bernardo Spielmann: Which is the flavor piece of it.

[00:30:09] Jess Infante: So what's up with those products? How has their launch year been?

[00:30:13] Bernardo Spielmann: It's going quite well. So Maximums has been around for a while. This year, we launched Hazicus, the famous golden can, which pops up in 19.2, that pops up quite visibly in a convenience store. That's going quite well. I think our team, together with our distributors, did a fantastic job this summer. We were able to hit 20,000 points of distribution. which for innovation of that size for us, it's quite impressive. And now we are really trying to find the right balance of how to continue to expand that moving forward.

[00:30:41] Jess Infante: Awesome. Well, you know, we're here with all of the distributors in the country, and I know you guys threw a great party last night. You said it was a lot of fun. What's the sense you're feeling from your network? How are they feeling about Lagunitas for this year?

[00:30:52] Bernardo Spielmann: It's very, very positive. Again, we've all been through a very tough year, but I think when we look at the recent trends, and you had some numbers from Cercana, we also used Nielsen, We've seen for the past two quarters, according to Nielsen, we've been gaining share within Kraft Total Portfolio, driven by IPA, LSS, and the innovation, especially the Hasikas that have helped us. And in that front, you start finding reasons to believe and building momentum. And for us, it's great with the distributors, but also when you start pitching for resets for spring next year, we're feeling quite confident about what's to come in 2026.

[00:31:28] Jess Infante: you absolutely should be based on the data that we're able to see. So congrats on a strong year. It's really impressive.

[00:31:34] Bernardo Spielmann: Big congrats to the whole Lagunitas Hazy. I think we've been quite focused and disciplined and pushing and also keeping the investment. I think when you start a year like this, The immediate response is to say, can we pull back in investment and be careful? We found efficiencies wherever we could and we stick to the investments that we committed to. I mentioned before, but over $6 million in additional in marketing, but also additional funding in commercial activities.

[00:31:59] Jess Infante: Awesome. Well, congrats on a strong year. It's been really cool to watch. It's nice to have good news in craft.

[00:32:05] Bernardo Spielmann: Now we're proud and now we're setting the bar a little bit higher for next year as well.

[00:32:09] Jess Infante: Well, I cannot wait to see what the plans are.

[00:32:12] Bernardo Spielmann: So yeah, we'll share more in January. But I think what we can anticipate is the Hazy IPA, which this year was extremely successful in draft. So we decided to launch it just on draft this year, with the exception of the state of California, which is a big market for us, where we also had package in New York for next year. We're going to be expanding package nationally, rolling it out. So we're quite excited about this. We also, later this year, just launched Sugar. I don't know if you had the chance to try. We missed you last night at our happy hour where we had Sugar. But that's also something that we're quite excited about, learning how to play around seasonals again.

[00:32:49] Jess Infante: Good. That's fun. I love that you did a draft only launch for Hazy. It was a bit of a throwback, but important and clearly effective.

[00:32:58] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah. And it's one of those things that more and more, I think as the craft segment matures, we're going to have to be sharper on per channel, per market, per SKU, how you want to build your proposition. There will be a rationalization and that's the expected approach. We need to facilitate that for retailers but also our distributors. So it's also part of our strategy to be very sharp on how we launch or roll out innovations and understand the trade-offs.

[00:33:24] Jess Infante: So, Sugar, coming back, very exciting. This is a, I'm just gonna quote what you guys sent over, because I couldn't say it better myself, a strong ale with a legendary backstory and a loyal following, which was originally created by accident. A cult favorite, 9.9% ABV noted for molasses and caramel flavor and a hop-driven balance as brew, I'm just gonna stop reading this press release and let you talk about it, but I've had it, I'm excited to see it come back. Why did we decide to do this now?

[00:33:53] Bernardo Spielmann: No, definitely an amazing recipe that had resonated. One of the things as we engage with our social followers as well and try to really reignite that conversation, we've heard time and time again about the request to bring sugar back. It is the original recipe, so we're quite proud to bring it back. I think the last time we had it was 2019. And this time, again, we brought it back quite excited from October to December, national distribution available in bottles, also in club packs. And this is something that for us is key that we learn more and we gauge further as we build our seasonal strategy moving forward, how to listen to consumers, see what has resonated, what they're excited about, and be able to quickly respond to their requests.

[00:34:36] Jess Infante: So seasonal is not really something you guys do, right?

[00:34:39] Bernardo Spielmann: Well, I think we've done in the past as we evolved throughout the years. I think there was a lot of doing within a certain season itself, which lost a little bit of its specialty for us. I think Lagunitas Hazy always kind of found a different take on how to do seasonals. And that's what we're bringing back now with sugar. And then hopefully with some new ideas for next year.

[00:35:02] Jess Infante: Oh, what a cliffhanger. So Suge is going to be in six packs of 12 ounce bottles, also sneaking into variety packs for the season. Like you said, Costco exclusive. I love when people are able to land a Costco placement.

[00:35:15] Bernardo Spielmann: Yeah. And it's club channel overall, but yeah, big shout out to our team that pushed strong distribution within Costco and some others.

[00:35:22] Jess Infante: channels. Well, so how pent up was the consumer demand for this beer?

[00:35:25] Bernardo Spielmann: It was high. And it's crazy how every time that we post something about the credentials of our beer or our brewing process, you see the feedback of saying, for the love of God, bring this back. I was convinced. So that was an easy one. And hopefully we'll find a few others to keep people excited.

[00:35:42] Jess Infante: Craft drinkers are nothing if not persistent in demanding their favorite beers be returned.

[00:35:49] Bernardo Spielmann: That's one of the biggest dilemma for us because there were so many different ones that have been resonating with fans that now we need to be quite sharp on how we pick and choose the right ones.

[00:35:58] Jess Infante: Nice. Well, I cannot wait to see this make its triumphant return and hopefully try some.

[00:36:03] Bernardo Spielmann: Very good. I appreciate the time and the support to promote it. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you, Jess.

[00:36:09] Jess Infante: And that's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. The Brewbound Podcast is a production of BevNET CPG. Our audio engineer for the Brewbound Podcast is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski. Our designer is Amanda Huang. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and friends and review us on your listening platform of choice. You can find our work at Brewbound.com. And we also welcome feedback and suggestions at podcast at Brewbound.com. On behalf of the entire Brewbound Podcast team, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.