[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on The Brewbound Podcast, we're all living in an 8% ABV world. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:20] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:23] Justin Kendall: And I always mean to open this show with welcome in because I cannot unhear this because of you, Jess. Like every time I go into a Starbucks or another location, all I hear now is welcome in and I can't unhear it. It happens all the time and I don't know why.
[00:00:42] Zoe Licata: Dude, if you were to open this podcast by saying welcome in, I would leave. It is completely unnecessary and you may think we are crazy. We were just having this conversation before we started recording and I had noticed it a few years ago. Mostly the youth, I would say absolutely people well younger than me, have started saying welcome in. When you go anywhere, a coffee shop, a restaurant, a store, it's welcome in. Like I'm already in. You just have to say welcome. But I don't know. It's one of my little bugaboos.
[00:01:13] Justin Kendall: Are we crazy, Zoe?
[00:01:14] Zoe Licata: I'm a little crazy. We are crazy. We know this.
[00:01:18] Jessica Infante: I mean, we know that too. I have my own hiccups about words and things. So I mean, I don't think I've ever said it. No, I would not even back in like my coffee shop days or anything. But I'm not like, if I'm walking into a store and someone says welcome in, it's not catching me. It's not. Not like, oh, dang. But To meet his own, I guess. You're so normal. You're lucky.
[00:01:45] Justin Kendall: Now our listeners are going to be like, I hear this all the time now.
[00:01:49] Jessica Infante: I know. Now you really mess some people up. Yeah. Sorry, everybody.
[00:01:53] Justin Kendall: Had to amplify it because I can't unhear it. People need to be told. The most important thing you'll hear on this podcast this week.
[00:02:02] Jessica Infante: You guys passed over your Utilize thing to me, so that one bothers me all the time.
[00:02:08] Zoe Licata: Utilize also sucks.
[00:02:09] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Anti-utilize.
[00:02:11] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Seeing Utilize in tasting notes drives me bonkers bananas. Like, this beer utilizes this kind of pop. I don't want to drink anything that utilizes something. There's plenty of other ways to say that that don't sound like some kind of technical manual.
[00:02:27] Jessica Infante: The conductor on the blue line the other day said utilize when talking about different routes for red line passengers.
[00:02:35] Zoe Licata: Yeah, you could just say use, man. Save yourself several syllables. Not to continue the angry grammar lady rant, but the bachelorette on this past season, when she enjoyed spending time with various contestants, she would say, oh, there's a comfortability here. Jen, you can just say, I feel comfortable with you. That's it. Comfortable. Full word. Comfortability, not a word.
[00:03:00] Justin Kendall: And we inch closer to being a bachelor and bachelorette podcast. Honestly, I would be great. There's probably a lot of those, right? Already?
[00:03:09] Zoe Licata: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I listen to a lot of them. Let's talk about beer.
[00:03:15] Justin Kendall: Yeah, let's talk about beer and let's do our plugs because we are going to be in San Diego on Sunday, September 29th at the Lost Abbeys Church. This is NBWA annual convention week. We're going to kick it off before they kick it off. Yep. We'll be there from 4 to 6 p.m. You can register at Brewbound.com or you can just show up. We're looking forward to connecting with people. It's a free happy hour. Should be fun. Should be a great time.
[00:03:44] Zoe Licata: Have you guys been to the church? I haven't yet. Oh, I have been to the church. It is super cute and very churchy.
[00:03:50] Justin Kendall: Exactly the aesthetic we're going for. What will also be super cute and not so churchy though is Brewbound Live 2024. It's taking place December 11th and 12th in Marina Del Rey, California. We have tickets available now. You can get those and we've got a whole slate of speakers coming and lots of folks signing up already for this one.
[00:04:15] Zoe Licata: We have an awesome speaker slate lined up already. I'm really excited about Natalie Chillerzio, co-founder of Russian River is delivering our keynote address. She's going to talk a lot about creating memorable experiences because I think as we all know in today's challenge craft market, it's not just about having a tap room where people can come and drink beers and feel comfortability. It's about creating memorable experiences for people to think back on and keep thinking about and keep coming back to. And they've absolutely done that with their annual Plenty the Younger release. So she's going to talk all about how they really started quite a movement. I don't even want to guess how many years ago. I know it's a lot.
[00:04:57] Justin Kendall: It's like two decades at this point.
[00:04:59] Zoe Licata: Wow. Yeah.
[00:05:00] Justin Kendall: And we're also going to have a conversation about draft and the on-premise and the opportunity there. I would ask you both if you knew that the number one draft handle is open, but you already know that. We do already know that. You have known that for years, I'm sure. Yes. pointed out by our friend, Boston Beer founder, Jim Cook, recently. And he had said that the on-premise is somewhat neglected. And we're gonna have the conversation with Jennifer Hawk from DraftLine and Lester Jones, the chief economist of the NBWA, as well as, he's got a fancy title now, I keep forgetting, please remind me.
[00:05:39] Zoe Licata: I believe he is the VP of analytics, but do you guys remember that time I once accidentally called Lester the chief economist of the WNBA?
[00:05:47] Justin Kendall: Why not at this point? WNBA is very hot.
[00:05:56] Zoe Licata: Zoe, I would love for us to have a Boston WNBA team.
[00:06:00] Jessica Infante: Me too. I'm getting real excited. We have a hockey team coming, don't we? Women's hockey.
[00:06:06] Zoe Licata: I don't know.
[00:06:07] Jessica Infante: There are several expansions coming to Boston for women's teams, and I am very excited. And I can't remember if it's hockey or soccer that's the next one incoming. And so who knows? WNBA might be next. I think the Connecticut Sun, I think that's their team name.
[00:06:26] Zoe Licata: Yes, that's our closest one. Yeah, they just played a game.
[00:06:29] Jessica Infante: At the Garden. Yeah. And like sold it out. Amazing.
[00:06:34] Justin Kendall: This is going to be one of those times, too, where maybe they need a new arena and they'll threaten to move to Boston or something like that, isn't it? Could happen. This happens in other sports all the time. So I would not be surprised if that is like a thing that happens at some point. But who knows?
[00:06:54] Jessica Infante: Definitely, although we're running out of room. Confirmed it is a soccer team that is coming. I think we already have a hockey team. I think soccer is coming in 2026.
[00:07:04] Speaker: Wow.
[00:07:04] Jessica Infante: The stadium mock-ups look very cool. Very cool.
[00:07:09] Justin Kendall: Also on the Brewbound live front, we have awards nominations that are open now. I think that, I don't know how long they're open for, but they're open for a little bit here. And you can submit your nominations for Craft Brewery of the Year, Large Brewery of the Year, Beyond Beer Company of the Year, Person of the Year, or Rising Stars, or Best New Product.
[00:07:31] Zoe Licata: Yeah, this is the first year we're doing it this way, which I'm actually really excited about because I think You know, I think the three of us do a great job on the awards. We do a great job figuring out who else did a great job, but I think it'll be great to pull in from the community and really hear about maybe some, you know, people or companies that we wouldn't otherwise have had on our radar. So if you've got somebody that you think needs a little love, give us a shout.
[00:07:54] Jessica Infante: Yep. There are also so many awesome connections that have been just from like that event and getting their name out there too, that we've heard of after the fact.
[00:08:04] Zoe Licata: Real talk, our Rising Stars alums are incredible. Yeah, they're doing awesome things.
[00:08:11] Justin Kendall: That is one of the best parts of this job is getting to wade through the Rising Stars and figure that out with you both and talk to other people and see who is on their radar. Because you're right, they're fantastic.
[00:08:26] Zoe Licata: And the Brewbound pitch slam to Rising Stars pipeline is also pretty strong.
[00:08:31] Justin Kendall: Yeah, that is very cool. You know, even the companies that haven't won, there are a lot of gems in there as well.
[00:08:39] Zoe Licata: Look at us guys. We pick them.
[00:08:41] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Our pat on the back of the week. Let's get into the news, and I just recently returned from San Antonio, where Molson Coors was holding its annual distributor convention. And the news coming out of that, they're going to have a pipeline of innovations that are directly aimed at C-Stores. They're all singles, 8% ABV across the board. It's Blue Moon Extra, Simply Spiked Bold, and Topo Chico Max. So that last one's a margarita style drink. That's probably not all they're looking at for convenience. But I don't know in the year of our Lord Taylor Swift 2024 that this is a timely move. Makes you say that. We've heard about singles in this channel for so long, you know, whether it was New Belgium trying to up the ante in convenience and its place there with high ABV products. We've got a slate of high ABV products coming from everywhere at this point. We know the cooler door inconvenience is pretty limited and Yes, there is heft behind Molson Coors and its ability to get into some of those spaces, but I think it gets a little bit trickier when we move the calendar into 2025. I'm sure they're going to be fine getting some stuff in, but to me it just feels a little late to the game.
[00:10:19] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I mean, look, Voodoo Rangers had this strategy for years now and it makes sense. And I know I've been watching way too much Sesame Street when I was reading your story about this and was like, wow, Molson Coors' 2025 Innovation Plan is brought to us by the number eight. You know, we said it last week when we were talking about Firestone Walker's new Mindhaze Rage. Clearly, there's data that's showing them that there's a consumer out there for that. I know myself well enough to know that it is not nearly 40-year-old moms. And I don't want to be a naysayer because that's not always fun. I just can't see myself drinking an 8% Plum Lume.
[00:11:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah I get what you're saying where it feels like a lot of people did this last year and if they aren't they are doing it this year and so it almost feels like it's gotten to the point where okay if everyone's doing it then what's the point of doing it at all?
[00:11:15] Zoe Licata: I mean, like last year was like such an anomaly for Molson Coors. And it was created by this black swan event that almost nobody could have predicted, which was the Bud Light boycotts, which put an immense amount of wind in the sails of Coors Light and Miller Light. And maybe they had this stuff in the works, but maybe they just needed to pause everything to focus on getting, you know, those products, like keeping them in the pipeline. I don't know.
[00:11:41] Justin Kendall: I think there's something to that because we've seen that with other companies, whether it's Mark Anthony Brands with White Claw, where you didn't see the same level of innovation from them that, say, Truly was putting out because they were focused on their core packs because They're probably just trying to keep up. And here we are after, like you said, this Black Swan event. And, you know, if I were to vibe check this conference versus last year, I think that they were riding far higher last year than they were this year.
[00:12:13] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And I also think generally with C stores, like they really only do product resets once. So if you miss it, you missed it. So look, I get it. I've also heard that grocery stores are getting more interested in single serves. So like all this makes sense, but yeah, you guys are right. Like this could have, should have happened a while ago.
[00:12:34] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And I get that there's data out there that supports younger consumers being into these products and all of that. Totally get it. But where are sort of the caution flags too on this that maybe we saw before when it was Voodoo Ranger and everybody was like, oh, you know, like Skeleton Man in 19 two ounce can selling me, you know, eight to 10% ABV product. And you know, now we have some followers here who are all offering 8% ABV and up product as well. It gets thinner when you say this is the drink of moderation when your innovation slate is across the board eights.
[00:13:16] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Yeah. And the non eight version of those brands is all like a normal amount, if that makes sense. I mean, it's tough. Like, I mean, I get it. But how many of these cans can you drink?
[00:13:31] Jessica Infante: Well, there also seems to already be a decrease in demand. Like if you look at the scan data for convenience channel, like specifically for craft, these stores are not doing well right now. Like that channel is not doing well for craft right now. It's been like a consistent area of decline this year. Some of that I'm sure is because the previous year that was like the one channel where Kraft was finding a lot of growth, so they have to try to keep up with that. But if there's already some decline happening there, I'm not sure following the same trends that exist there right now are going to reverse those trends at all.
[00:14:11] Zoe Licata: Yeah, and Seastars had been on a roller coaster. They were very much not well trafficked during the pandemic. And then they kind of came roaring back. And then I think everybody sensed a gold rush and rushed in with their 19.2s of 8, 9, 10% alcohol stuff. And now I think the craze is kind of settling. And if you're coming in with one of those right now, you're a little behind the times.
[00:14:34] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I think it makes more sense for some of the beyond beer stuff, particularly because a lot of those products are, regardless of the ABV, I think just a single serve, a lot of those products are available only in like variety packs or something. And so if you want, if you really liked that one flavor, you're going to get a tall boy of that and be happy. So that one makes a lot more sense to me, but I don't want to see any more.
[00:14:58] Justin Kendall: If you were to ask me which one I'm most excited about, I would probably be most excited about the prospects of Simply Spiked Bold.
[00:15:06] Zoe Licata: What was the flavor on that, just traditional lemonade?
[00:15:09] Justin Kendall: That, and then I want to say Cherry Limeade.
[00:15:12] Zoe Licata: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I just pulled up the most recent Circona report, which is data through August 11th. I know they're very different products, but I think the closest thing we have in top 25 brand families to analog to this is Mike's Harder, which is, you know, a Mark Anthony product, but it is the higher ABV version of Mike's Hard Lemonade. And it's like middle of the pack of the top 25 brand fams in C-stores, dollar sales year to date down almost 2%, volume down almost 4%, which isn't awful.
[00:15:42] Justin Kendall: And I should clarify too that Simply Spiked Bold and Topo Chico Max are coming in 24 ounce singles. Yeah. So 2025, early 2025, look for those. Prepare your livers. Yeah. I'll prepare my liver for a Blue Moon non-alcoholic. That is still one of my favorite products that they put out last year. I'll give them credit there. And I think that Going national with Peroni 00 is good play for them. They have, I thought, some pretty decent plans around Peroni, and that's something that they think can be a quote-unquote power brand. And I guess a power brand is something that's like a million-plus barrels, and they've got one with Blue Moon in the above-premium space, and they'd like to have more. Obviously, we'd all like to have more.
[00:16:35] Zoe Licata: Yeah, the Peroni stuff is interesting. I might be biased, but I feel as though Italian things are having a moment.
[00:16:41] Justin Kendall: Not just ask Zoe. Yeah. As she puts on her Ferrari hat.
[00:16:47] Jessica Infante: I didn't bring my Ferrari hat today. We are coming off a mid-weekend for Ferrari. Charles started in first, ended in second. His teammate Carlos crashed in like one of the last races. It was very mixed results. Shout out to Oscar Piastri, Australian man, and my second favorite driver who won in Baku.
[00:17:10] Zoe Licata: Where's Charles from?
[00:17:11] Jessica Infante: Monaco. Oh, he's a fancy man. Yeah. He claims he is not a fancy man, like his mother's a hairdresser, but I don't think anyone can really be that poor in Monaco.
[00:17:25] Zoe Licata: I also think if you've ever sat in a Ferrari, you're no longer allowed to call yourself not fancy, let alone drive one for work.
[00:17:32] Jessica Infante: If you ever just pursued being an F1 driver at all, where I think it costs like a million dollars a year when you're like 14 years old, then
[00:17:41] Justin Kendall: Start with what, kart racing and move your way up.
[00:17:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah. There's your F1 education for today.
[00:17:48] Zoe Licata: Thank you.
[00:17:48] Justin Kendall: I have zero F1 knowledge.
[00:17:52] Zoe Licata: But yeah, I think non-Alc-Peroni, that's a perfect sponsorship. It always makes me feel like a little weird when Bev-Alc brands sponsor driving sports.
[00:18:02] Jessica Infante: Peroni and then Heineken 00 is everywhere in all of like ads around the races, ads on the tracks, like they get so much promotion. And that's it's like a global sport. So that's being broadcast everywhere. Really smart. Yeah, the amount of promo they get from that is massive.
[00:18:22] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Junshine. It's getting into non-alcoholic kombucha. And they say that this is the most requested product line that they've had in their history. And they finally sort of pulled the trigger on getting into this. And some of that is spurred along by the success of things like poppy and Aldi pop. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Okay. Clearly I am not the consumer here, but yes, I see those things at Target all the time now because, you know, that's what people in their mid forties do is shop at Target.
[00:19:00] Zoe Licata: Everybody shops at Target. Everybody shops at Target. My LA based brother, who is way cooler than I am, is a big Ollie Pop drinker.
[00:19:10] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I know there's been some controversy, I guess you could say, around some of these products about how much you can promote the health benefits and how much there actually is in them. But it's all been centered around this idea that you can have flavorful products that aren't unhealthy for you or trying to get rid of some of these negative connotations around things like soda. So they're massive, they're all over the place.
[00:19:39] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's interesting and it makes sense too, but I know we all know in the BevAlc world, you can't go around touting your health claims because alcohol is inherently not really a healthy beverage. So I think it's a little comforting to know that the non-Alc drinks are also held to similar standards. Yeah.
[00:19:58] Justin Kendall: Well, these are rolling out in SoCal right now, and you can get them in five flavors. Mango, passion, orange, guava, raspberry, ginger, lemon, ginger lemon, and honey crisp apple. They're being sold in 16 ounce clear bottles and priced to compete with market leaders like GTs and HealthAid.
[00:20:19] Jessica Infante: They're pretty good.
[00:20:21] Justin Kendall: Oh, that's right. You have a fridge full of these.
[00:20:23] Jessica Infante: I do have a fridge full of products. They send me a very large, large package that had an insulated, like, styrofoam cooler filled with a million ice packs to properly send these over so they'd stay nice and cold. Are they cold when you open the box? Yes. yes i'm impressed yeah so yeah now they are i had to keep them refrigerated so they are now filling up like half of my fridge And I try to have them in the morning to go through them, but they're really good. Junsha and I always stood out to me when we were drinking their regular like hard kombucha products that they have very strong like flavors, like the flavor profiles, they're kind of, they do nice mixes of different fruits and things. Like one of their, they had like a spicy mango one time that is still like one of my favorite things I've ever drank. And so if they had that as a non-alcoholic version, I would drink that all the time. How often do you drink regular kombucha? I would say once a week, maybe. If I go to Target, I will grab like a Pink Lady health aid bottle with me and like drink that. I'm not one of those people, though, that's like doing it necessarily like because it's going to give me some sort of health benefit. It's just like doesn't feel gross to drink and it's refreshing. So that's why I would reach for it.
[00:21:50] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I mean, they've got quite the portfolio these days. They've got their regular hard kombuchas, now they have the non-alk kombucha, they've got the RTD spirits-based cocktails, and they have their light lager brand, Easy Rider. Easy Rider, yeah.
[00:22:04] Jessica Infante: And they, I'd noticed, because they are hosting a party in San Diego over there, that they are calling themselves Juneshine Brands. I mean, they have told us multiple times now, they're trying to be the Boston Beer of the West. So they're just trying to be this big portfolio of brands and try to have their toes dipped into every market. TBD, if that's a great role model, but they found success. So I'm sure DreamStrike can also find success.
[00:22:35] Zoe Licata: They've picked some growing segments to play in.
[00:22:39] Justin Kendall: What does San Diego anchor Ron Burgundy say? Like 60% of the time it works all the time?
[00:22:45] Zoe Licata: Something like that.
[00:22:48] Justin Kendall: Anyway, let's talk a little bit about leadership changes. We already knew that Bob Pease is retiring from the Brewers Association, but the ad for his job just went up, I think it was like a week ago or so now. And one of the notes in there, which of course is gonna jump out at anybody, is the salary. And it's 300,000 to 350,000 per year. which I'm guessing is pretty in line for a nonprofit organization of the Brewers Association size. I know those numbers can look a little striking to folks who probably don't see nonprofit salaries. And we've seen a few of them and some of them are far higher than Bob's or whatever Bob's was at the end there. But the man had been with the organization for a long time.
[00:23:43] Zoe Licata: And that's a big job, you know? I get it, I see all sides of this. And I myself worked full-time at a nonprofit for a hot minute and made literally 10% of the higher range of Bob's replacement salary, which was sad for me. But yeah, I mean, it's, cause you think about it, like you do a lot. You should probably have like a lot of interfacing with leaders and politicians, so there's a lobbying component. You've got to do outreach to the members and keep them happy. You've got to figure out ways to continue growing your membership base. It's a big job. I get it.
[00:24:23] Justin Kendall: Not to mention events. You've got to deal with the press. You've got to just try and keep everybody happy.
[00:24:31] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Well, and the BA is a lot more consumer facing than like pretty much any other trade group should be because, you know, they took up the mantle of being like that. We need to help develop the marketplace of consumers for our members. And they they do a lot of that. They host the biggest beer festival in the country.
[00:24:46] Justin Kendall: And the largest gathering of craft brewers and at one time home brewers. Not this year.
[00:24:53] Zoe Licata: know, lots to do.
[00:24:55] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I think the overarching theme at the Brewers Association is change in 2025 because you've got Bob leaving, you've got Nancy Johnson retiring, and Nancy Johnson, for those who don't know, has run the Brewers Association's events. You've Clearly, from what we've seen of the Great American Beer Festival, they're trying to make it more experiential. Who knows if that'll work, but they're trying different things. I mean, if you look at the list, it's like a pre-Halloween celebration mixed with lucha libre wrestling. I'm not even making that up. And all kinds of different stuff in there. So I think that this is actually going to be a GABF that looks different for a change. Which is a good thing.
[00:25:43] Zoe Licata: Well that and I mean, you guys went last year, I didn't go, but brewers can pour anything, right? Like you can pour spirits-based cocktails, maybe?
[00:25:52] Justin Kendall: I don't know about the spirits-based cocktails. Okay. I'd have to double check because I felt like they had said yes at one point, but then they pulled back. I saw it somewhere because I remember we initially reported that.
[00:26:05] Zoe Licata: Yeah.
[00:26:05] Justin Kendall: And I feel like they pulled back on it.
[00:26:08] Zoe Licata: But yeah, basically like there's going to be plenty of things there to drink that aren't what we think of as being beer flavored beer. So a lot is going to be different about GABF this year. And I have a little bit of FOMO. I've had FOMO the whole time. I have not been to a GABF in which I was not with child since 2018, but it's okay. I will survive.
[00:26:31] Justin Kendall: Also, Lori Ajax, who ran the California Craft Brewers Association, she is departing the organization at the end of the year. They've already listed that job. So two very prominent roles. I'm guessing Lori isn't pulling the same salary as the BA CEO, but a very important role in representing California's craft brewers that for a long time was held by our friend Tom McCormick and he retired and then Lori has been at the helm for I think what will be like four years? Yep.
[00:27:05] Zoe Licata: I want to say Tom retired at the end of 2020. Yeah.
[00:27:08] Jessica Infante: Yes. I think our start date was like January of 2021. Yeah. Yeah, massive, huge craft market. So that's a lot of craft breweries that you're responsible for advocating for them and in their well-being. So it's a extremely important role.
[00:27:28] Justin Kendall: We are going to be very interested in seeing who applies for these roles or who gets these roles ultimately. Let's wrap this up with a few takeaways from the Brewers Association webinar last week for early stage breweries. And one of my favorite things you've ever put in a story, Zoe, is statistically your brewery will survive.
[00:27:52] Jessica Infante: Yes. This is a presentation from Matt Gesiak, who is the staff economist at the BA. He's coming up on being like one year there, he said. So he joined to help Art Watson with all of their fun data stuff they have going on. It was meant to give tips to both in planning and early stage craft breweries on what, almost like a reality check of what's really happening in the craft beer scene and what you should be aware of as a business owner. One of the things he pointed out was, we talked about it a lot, the amount of openings and closings is starting to, the gap there is starting to get smaller and smaller and they're basically going to match up. and potentially you might even see closings pays openings, which is totally normal in any sort of business, not to set alarm bells off. But yeah, he also pointed out, sure, it seems daunting, but statistically your brewery, yes, it will survive. So it's still possible to have a brewery and put it out there and it was going to live and it's not going to shut down in a few years. You just have to do it in a smart way. So that was kind of positive.
[00:28:58] Zoe Licata: Statistically, your plane will not crash.
[00:29:01] Jessica Infante: Yes.
[00:29:02] Zoe Licata: Might not always feel that way.
[00:29:03] Jessica Infante: there's always a chance, but it's leaning in your favor that you're going to be okay. One of the things that stood out to me other than that interesting comment was him just pointing out how small most breweries are, and also that we know this, majority of your sales are most likely going to be at your own taprooms on-site. It seems like distribution is 90 percent of what we talk about a lot of the time now, especially post-pandemic. But for a lot of crepe breweries, that's just not something you can do. It doesn't really make sense margins-wise to do it. It doesn't really make sense just logistically with working with different distributors when you're so tiny. He pointed to some of the stats here for different size breweries and ages. but 95% of the sales at breweries within their first or second year are from onsite sales. And that stays around 90% in your third and fourth year and around 80% up until like year 10. So that onsite business is incredibly important for craft breweries.
[00:30:11] Zoe Licata: You just think like, I don't know, 10 years ago, but probably less, like this was not a thing. You know, for the most part, if a brewery had a tasting room, it was someplace you went after a tour and had a few samples. It is wild how much this landscape has changed in not that long a period of time. Yeah. One thing that really struck me from Matt's webinar was merch. I think he said something like only 3% of sales really come from merchandise. Cause I feel like just in talking to some people and seeing things around the internet, like it seems like some people are super psyched to design their breweries t-shirts. And it's like, I don't know, get, get your doors open and get your tanks full first.
[00:30:52] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I'm not admitting he is a big time brewery merch guy, but yeah, 3% of breweries overall revenue, this is based on like survey results of the BAA surveyed a bunch of crap breweries. Yeah, 3% of overall revenue was from merchandise and they averaged, I think the median revenue per barrel that those breweries produced that they got from merchandise was $17.40, which is pretty tiny compared to or food. Food was the largest revenue contributor after beer, and a lot of places don't have food. So yeah, emerge is cool. You can use it for marketing, but it's not going to contribute a lot to your bottom line.
[00:31:37] Justin Kendall: It never ceases to surprise me seeing beer merch in the wild, just being in an airport. I think this last week I saw a new Belgium shirt. You know, you'll see a tree house shirt. You'll see whatever it is. You know, I'm always astounded to see like just random brewery shirts in the wild.
[00:31:59] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I saw a Treehouse shirt when I was home in New Jersey a couple weeks ago, but I did not, like, chase a man down the street to be like, excuse me, which location did you get this at? I thought about it.
[00:32:10] Justin Kendall: Sometimes I have those instincts, too, where you're like, do I ask? Like, do they work at the brewery or something? You know, do they own the brewery? But then, you know, that is just insane brain.
[00:32:23] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I did this a couple of months ago. I think it was on my second maternity leave. I was getting a coffee downtown here in Salem Mass and I had Corey with me and there was a couple. He was wearing an angry chair shirt and she was wearing a shirt from some other very buzzed about slightly obscure brewery. And I was just like, oh, hey, like you guys must be tourists in town. I see you're into beer. Make sure you go to Notch. What else are you doing in New England? And they had like a whole like robust Portland itinerary planned. I don't think that they really understood what I was saying when I told them what I did. I think they just think I'm a crazy lady, but I hope they enjoyed their trip.
[00:33:04] Jessica Infante: I'm glad there was a woman wearing merch because I feel like the majority of the time when I see someone in beer merch probably look a little bit like Justin. Not that there's anything wrong with how you look, just it's a middle-aged white man, 90% of the time. With a beard and a hoodie.
[00:33:26] Zoe Licata: Yeah, well, and like most of the time, like the women's selection.
[00:33:30] Jessica Infante: Don't get me started on v-neck t-shirts and women's cut t-shirts because I could go on forever.
[00:33:36] Zoe Licata: They're so tiny.
[00:33:37] Justin Kendall: Yep. Why? Do you remember when GABF used to have the huge wall of t-shirts from all these different breweries that you could go and get one. And there were, I remember lines to go in the merch. I never bought anything, but I remember that being a thing.
[00:33:58] Zoe Licata: That was a thing. I have entered the line and oh my God, this is so embarrassing. I can't believe what I'm going to say, but I have bought GABF specific t-shirts. I think I have two. I think I have Jon Landis, which Zoe was like teeny, teeny tiny and one like unisex t-shirt. But yeah, like it just feels like, I don't know, man, buying a brewery t-shirt at a big festival feels to me slightly disingenuous. Like I think you had to get that from the brewery or their website. I can see that.
[00:34:28] Justin Kendall: Weren't there like t-shirt clubs or something that would like send you like five shirts or whatever a month from like various breweries?
[00:34:37] Zoe Licata: I have no idea.
[00:34:39] Jessica Infante: I believe it. I believe you.
[00:34:41] Justin Kendall: I think that there was at one time.
[00:34:43] Jessica Infante: There was like a period when just any sort of like subscription box was like the thing to do. So there was something for everything.
[00:34:53] Justin Kendall: Which is kind of wild, too, when you think about it, because, like, you probably didn't visit one of these breweries and you're, you know.
[00:35:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Like, I bought Ryan a t-shirt at Surly when I had been there, probably doing, like, a homebrew con. Because he's kind of surly. And he would wear it and people would be like, oh, I love that brewery, blah, did you go? And then he'd have to be like, no, no, no, my wife, blah, blah. And then he outgrew it, which happened to many of us during the pandemic. And I don't really think he wears anything with brands anymore. He's gotten quite surly, honestly.
[00:35:29] Justin Kendall: Haven't we all in the last four years.
[00:35:32] Zoe Licata: It's been a trying time.
[00:35:34] Justin Kendall: I think we should maybe end on a happier note maybe for people, which is, You blurbed this for our newsletter, which it was a newsletter exclusive for our readers. And that is Treehouse is doing a Boston pop-up at the Prudential Center, where they also have a beer garden. And it sounds like you can just roll up, get your Treehouse and roll out.
[00:35:58] Zoe Licata: You literally can do that. Yeah. So the Prudential Center, if you're not in the know, is like a high-end shopping center in Boston's high-end Back Bay neighborhood. And Treehouse, which if you're listening to this, you I'm sure know is the country's largest by volume taproom exclusive brewery. They've got five locations open right now, four in Mass, one in Connecticut, one coming in New York. But most of them are not too close to Boston. Their golf course is, I would call, like, I don't know, what is it, like Metro West? Yeah, it's like a 45 minute drive without traffic. Yeah. But that's not a condition that exists here. Right. So if you live in Greater Boston, and you want some treehouse beers, and you don't want to take a ride to Cape Cod or Central Mass or Western Mass or their freaking golf course, you can go right to the Prue and you order ahead online. You, you know, it sounds to me like it works exactly the same way that target click and collect does. You pull up, tell them you're here, tell them what spot you're in. They bring your beer out to your car and you get on your merry way. Yeah. So huge deal. If you're into Treehouse, I don't know guys, I have to wonder, they keep opening location after location and so much of their draw for the longest time was that you could only get it at the brewery. You had to drive out to Charlton and stand in line and like, now it's more convenient, but does that make it a little bit less special? Maybe. I will say that the locations that make pizza, that pizza looks delicious.
[00:37:37] Jessica Infante: It always sells out. Really? I've never been able to get my hands on the pizza. Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like a lot of the folks that are going to Treehouse probably want to hit up some other breweries that are like in Boston and stuff. And so it doesn't make a lot of sense to go on a trip. Like if you're coming to visit Boston out of somewhere else in the world, doesn't make a lot of sense to like you're going to rent a car and go to one of these Treehouse locations. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
[00:38:06] Zoe Licata: Yeah. We asked for some info, like how many guests did you serve? And they didn't tell us.
[00:38:12] Jessica Infante: The Prudential is kind of an odd spot. Like I feel like it has a lot of turnover in the businesses that are there. So I think it's kind of hard to survive there. I'm sure the rent's expensive. Yeah, this one's a totally different business model. So I don't know how that works compared to just like these regular stores in there. But it's not the cheapest spot to be.
[00:38:35] Zoe Licata: No, and I think their weekly pop-up beer garden on Thursdays, I think it happens on that internal interior lawn inside the building. Hopefully they're not paying too much for that. But I don't know, it's smart, it makes sense. I mean, I think the greater Boston craft beer scene is definitely in influx right now. So we'll see what this does, but it's a really easy way to, if you're like Zoe, like you said, if you're here on a trip and you're trying to get somewhere else, really easy way to knock a bunch of things off your list, if you have a list.
[00:39:12] Justin Kendall: Well, we should probably wrap this episode, but. Again, these stories you can read at Brewbound.com. If you're an insider, you're getting our insider exclusive newsletter. It is jam-packed with stuff that you don't get otherwise. So it's a great thing to support us and support this site and keep the news train running here. But with that, we're gonna say that's our show for this week. Thanks to our one-man audio team, Joe. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for all they do. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.
