[00:00:00] As Garden: 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.
[00:00:28] Brewers Guild: What the heck is going on with brewery restrictions in New Jersey? Find out on the Brewbound Podcast. Hello, and welcome back to the Brewbound Podcast. My name is Justin Fonte, Brewbound Managing Editor. This is a girls-only episode of the Brewbound Podcast. While Justin is out this week, we miss him, but he is moving to Iowa, exciting changes. And joining me, who I am always thrilled to be sharing a microphone and the screen with, is my colleague, Brewbound reporter, Zoe Licata. Zoe, what's up? Hello, how's it going? It's going, it's going. I think we both had some interesting booze-filled weekends, so I am psyched to hear your report on Simply Spiked.
[00:01:26] New Jersey: How'd it go? Yes, it finally happened. We got our hands on some Simply Spiked. They sent us some over, so I handed it off to my friends this weekend. A thrilling review as always with those cast of characters. Working on my Twitter thread now for anyone interested, similar to what we did with Hard Mountain Dew. But a lot of mixed feelings on the Simply Spiked this time around. I'd say generally a little positive. But I think you could see there's a bit of fatigue with seltzers and lemonades. People are like, this is kind of similar to things that we've had before. Generally, general happiness in how flavorful a lot of these were, but also a lot of that came from the sugar content, which some people weren't as happy with. Overall, best flavor out of the four flavors was strawberry, according to most people. Strawberry was the one of choice, followed by watermelon, then blueberry, and then the original lemonade flavor was in fourth. So we were liking the flavors. I was really hopeful for the blueberry because that one was a little different, but it didn't, didn't meet expectations, unfortunately. That's a bummer. Is it carbonated? It is carbonated, which was a disappointment to one of my friends. She wanted something a little, she wanted lemonade, you know, not like a sparkling lemonade. Gotcha. She was also the one who decided that instead of buying these again, she would probably just get regular simply and mix it with a spirit of her choice.
[00:02:58] Brewers Guild: I was at a baby shower for my cousin about a month ago. And that was, you know, the drinks available for everybody. Well, except for her, obviously. But like simply with like Prosecco and the watermelon with Prosecco. Phenomenal. Loved it. Highly recommend. Would do it more often outside of baby showers. So I think I think your friend's on to something.
[00:03:23] New Jersey: Yeah, something to be said about just like letting people create their own concoctions might still be key. Even though RTDs are having their moment right here, there's still something to doing it yourself.
[00:03:36] Brewers Guild: Dude, they really are. So I am in New Jersey at my family's house in Lavalette down here at the shore for a few weeks and saw a banner playing a few times over the weekend and couldn't quite make out what it was. It was clearly for like a canned cocktail, but the brand name was not very visible. So my friend and I are sitting there and I'm like, well, what is that? And she's like, I don't know. Or maybe she asked me what it was. And I said, I don't know. I'm not really sure how this went down, but we were basically like, yeah, who knows what that is? You could see like smash really big, but that was really it. So then a few hours later after we've left the beach to go home for dinner, she texts me. She's gotten an Instagram ad for this very product. And it turns out it's from the Devil's Backbone canned cocktail line, which, you know, Devil's Backbone is in the AB Brewers Collective, Anheuser-Busch's, you know, craft family. So I guess that they're like they're flying the banner planes and then they're doing some geo-targeting.
[00:04:33] New Jersey: Yeah there's some like creepy I don't know-ness going on there where they're really watching what you where you are and what you're doing.
[00:04:42] Brewers Guild: Right like I love counting like booze ads on banner planes but we don't this I feel like this summer there haven't been nearly as many and then Like, I don't know, I think there's a pretty immediate response, you know, like you fly the planes over the beach and then you see how your sales are at those retailers, right? I don't know.
[00:04:59] New Jersey: Yeah, there must be something there. I don't know. I haven't really like, I feel like they don't really have banner ads around here, like the plane ones. I never see them at our beach here. But I need to go somewhere where like, do some observations. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[00:05:15] Brewers Guild: Well we're going to get into the news but before we do that, friendly reminder that if you want to join us in Boston for Brew Talks, it will be on Wednesday, July 27th from 3 to 6pm at the Sam Adams Brewery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, presented by our friends at Dogfish Head. Two great conversations about important topics in the Bev-Alex space, specifically pertaining to craft brewers, we'll be talking about how taprooms, particularly in Massachusetts, but really this applies to everybody, how taprooms are changing their strategy, what this looks like in a not quite post-COVID world, what do you have to think about when you're considering opening another location, staffing, branding, all that good stuff. We will have joining us Ray Berry, the founder of White Lion and Springfield Mass, Adam Romanow, the founder of Castle Island, with now two locations, Norwood Mass in South Boston, Sarah Lee, the General Manager of Business Operations for Medusa Brewing, and Scott Hempstead, who is the Senior Director of Retail and Taprooms for Boston Beer. So Scott oversees the Sam Adams Taprooms, the Angry Orchard, Coney Island in New York, Angel City and the LA, truly tap room, plus Dogfish Miami and the Dogfish location. So a lot of variety of viewpoints, both in terms of size and scope. That'll be a great chat. Really excited for it. And our second conversation with our friend, Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head is we're going to talk about how craft brewers can play in the fourth category. Should be a really good talk. Looking forward to it. Head over to Brewbound.com. Tickets are on sale right now. We would love to see you, but if you can't make it to Boston, we will be live streaming that as well. So, Zoe, the news. We've had a time, have we not?
[00:06:57] New Jersey: It's been an interesting week or so. We're recording this on Monday, so we'll see how this one goes. But the beer news does not stop. The beer news does not stop.
[00:07:07] Brewers Guild: Last week was a roller coaster. So let's see. The situation as we know it right now for Modern Times out in San Diego is that they are going to be acquired by Maui Brewing. Plot twist. I don't even know where we left off on last week's podcast.
[00:07:24] New Jersey: So yeah. I don't really remember either. This seems to all change so frequently that I can't keep track of it. But the last we reported before this news was that Brewery X was going to buy Modern Times. Brewery X is an Anaheim-based brewery in California. They were supposed to close that sale by the 14th of this month. But they notified Modern Times on July 1st that they had changed their minds. They would not be going through with this sale. So Maui, who was designated by the court as the backup bidder, is now in line to purchase them for a much smaller price. BuriEx was going to buy them for $20 million. Maui's bid was $15.3 million. So that process has begun. It will be determined if that sale closes. They have a much longer timeline. Their bid had a closing day of 120 days. So if it goes through, it will close by October. But it seems to still be in debate about whether Valley will go through with this thought based on the conversations we've had. I know, Jess, you've been talking a lot about what might happen or might not, but. It's not over.
[00:08:47] Brewers Guild: It's not over. So T Maui T Modern Times. Do you guys know standing invitation on the podcast whenever you want? Let us know. Yes, please. In other news though, you had a really interesting story about a new product coming out of Indeed in Minneapolis. What's up there?
[00:09:03] New Jersey: Yeah, so Minnesota kind of was trending a little bit on Twitter last weekend because the legislator and the governor had passed a new law that legalized edibles and beverages containing up to five milligrams of THC. And this was something that people weren't not necessarily expecting. Even some lawmakers were like, I didn't realize this legalized all kinds of THC. Some thought it was just that Delta H strain that we've talked about before, which has milder effects to it. But it's it's legal, also some debate of whether that starts now or it starts August 1st. I think people are kind of still figuring everything out now because it happened so quickly, but indeed is hopping on it and trying to take advantage of this new law in a safe and well thought out way. I talked to Tom over at Indeed. Tom is the co-founder and CEO, and he talked all about their new Too Good Sparkling THC Seltzer, which will have two milligrams of THC, two milligrams of CBD. It's set to come out around August 1st. It's going to be a lavender lemon flavor. It will be sold in the taproom, but for off-premise consumption. And it's not the first time that Indeed has dipped its toe in any sort of cannabis related products. They came out with a CBD seltzer, non-alcoholic CBD seltzer in 2019 and had that for a year or so before they were told, actually, you can't manufacture this in Minnesota. But they are also bringing that back that is low is what it's called. So, they're they're hopping on the game they've done a lot of research already just in anticipation for something like this coming, have some supplier connections, but had a really interesting conversation with Tom about how alcohol is already an intoxicating substance. It's a highly regulated industry. He sees a lot of overlap between that and cannabis. And so his perspective is who's better to hop on a product that's new and they're still trying to figure out regulations than someone like a brewery who's already used to this kind of thing. So he definitely will not be the first, but look out for that in August.
[00:11:23] Brewers Guild: Other news we have from the middle of the country out in Kansas City, Missouri, Schlafly Beer and WellBeing have formed a joint venture under which Schlafly will manage production and sales of WellBeing's products, which are non-alcoholic craft beers. No equity changing hands, WellBeing is still very much in charge of its own destiny and branding and all of that. but it's going to be sold in Schlafly's full distribution footprint, which is Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Justin had that story last week. It's up at brewbrown.com. You can check it out. But really interesting. That's one of the few segments in the industry that is trending positively, non-alcoholic beers. So smart move for both these two breweries. One more news item before we get into our featured interviews, but that is AB1, which is Anheuser-Busch InBev's wholly owned distribution unit, has split up its Oakland location and it's sold it and it's spinning this business off between two independent AB wholesalers, Markstein Sales and Montegrano Inc. These are two wholesalers in the Bay Area of California that have been around for quite some time and have been AB wholesalers. They're now expanding their AB business even more. They both do sell other things. Markstein recently got its termination letter from Constellation Brands a few months ago, which took a lot of volume out of their portfolio. So being able to switch and carry more AB brands should definitely be a boost for them. Montegrano also lost some business from Sierra Nevada last year, went into little bit of litigation, so certainly adding more cases to the business will help them both. Okay, so that's the news. And the bulk of today's podcast is two different interviews with two men who are super in the know on what is going on in New Jersey. We've got a chat with Eric Orlando, who is the executive director of the Brewer's Guild of New Jersey. And we are also talking with Brian Kulbacki, who is the founder, owner, and head brewer of Departed Soles Brewing New Jersey City-based, New Jersey. Now, we talked about this a little bit last week, but we've certainly covered it a lot more. Basically, the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control has announced that it intends to enforce some pretty strict restrictions it put in place on craft breweries in the state in 2019. Those restrictions went largely unenforced during the pandemic because there was a lot of other stuff going on. But toward the end of the month, of last month, the ABC was like, hey, you know all those things we told you that you have to pay attention to? Yeah, now we're going to make sure that you actually do them. Brewers face fines or even losing their licenses if they don't comply. But some of them are pretty nuts.
[00:14:08] New Jersey: Yeah, we're going to have some interesting conversations about them to dive deeper into how this impacts breweries in New Jersey. Especially we talked about, but like coming from Massachusetts where a lot of these things you can do and seem like pretty common, common things for breweries to be able to have are not the case in New Jersey anymore.
[00:14:29] Brewers Guild: Nope. So Brian and Eric will tell us all about it. OK, so one of our guests this week is Eric Orlando, who's the executive director of the Brewers Guild of New Jersey. Eric, how are you? Thanks for being with us.
[00:14:43] Eric Orlando: Good. Thanks for both having me on.
[00:14:45] Brewers Guild: Yeah, no, we're glad you're here. But, you know, your life became significantly more complicated late last month when the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control announced that the enforcement of the restrictive special conditions it placed on most craft brewery license would be going into effect beginning July 1st. We've written about this, we chatted about it on the pod a little bit last week, but this story really has blown up quite a bit and really is affecting the breweries of New Jersey in a big way. So in a nutshell, the conditions include a limitation on 25 public on-site events per year, the inability for breweries to host or coordinate with food trucks or other pop-up food vendors, a ban on discounts at any time, and a lot more. Eric, can you give our listeners a quick refresher on how we got here?
[00:15:28] Eric Orlando: Sure. So this goes back a number of years. New Jersey back in 2018, it was interesting, it was actually a former ABC director that was actually appointed by our previous governor, their current governor inherited, decided that one of the first things that he was going to do in his new position was to regulate breweries. After we got the law done back in 2012, there wasn't any regulations on the books to say what you could and couldn't do in a brewery. And a lot of folks in the restaurant bar industry wanted some type of stipulations in place to tell breweries what they could and couldn't do. So we went through a similar process way back in 18, where there was a bunch of rules that were proposed through a special conditions process that our state ABC has that said what you couldn't do and could do in a brewery. Huge backlash. bipartisan anger over it. Governor heard it from every corner of the state. They pulled it back. They delayed it. New director comes in soon thereafter. New director adopts what they call the May 2019 special ruling regarding the McBurghs. So think about that. That's what almost a year, year and a half maybe prior to maybe the pandemic starting where the world wall changed. So William was in place, it was more or less kind of like a training rules kind of guidance document to tell you about what you could and couldn't do as breweries, which by the way is similar to what the conditions are in the state of New Jersey. Pandemic happens, tasting rooms shut down, you can't visit a brewery. You're lucky if you're able to survive as a brewery during the pandemic. Folks that were doing on-premise all the time and they were selling beers and pints had to strictly transition to package goods and trying to sell into the marketplace. So, the special ruling that was in place in May 2019 was suspended. So there wasn't any, you know, enforcement, there wasn't any need for enforcement, nobody was at any breweries. Things start to get better, things start to open up, rules change regarding COVID, people start to go back to breweries. So pretty much at the beginning of this year, we started getting an inkling that the ABC was going to do what they were thinking about doing two years ago, which was to make this an enforceable type of regulation where they can actually go after early for violating a provision of it. So over the course of the spring we had a couple opportunities as an outreach with our state ABC here, and they explained to us they intended to do two things. First was to adopt a list of special conditions on a limited brewery license to tell you what you could and couldn't do. The second was to then undertake a formal regulatory process. This is a little inside baseball, but special rulings and regs are different. Regs actually have some type of public comment, whereas special conditions really are just placed on a licensee strictly by a regulator. We were going to have a reg process this summer to try to really put something permanent in place to give some guidance to breweries about what they could and couldn't do on all the different topics we've been talking about, whether food, events, all those types of things. Come to find out about three weeks ago now seems so much longer but only three weeks ago that the state ABC intended to adopt conditions that mimics, I would say 99% of exactly what the May, 2019 special ruling insisted of, but the difference is when it's a condition on your license. they have the right to fine you, they have the right to suspend your license, or they have the right to revoke your license altogether, which is kind of a scary proposition for a lot of small businesses that are in the craft beer industry in the state of New Jersey. Once we found out what they were going to intend to do, and we actually were able to get a copy of the special conditions once they started reissuing everyone's license, which expired on July 1st, That was June 27th, and here we are. And we had to go public with our really concerns about this because we had been told, I think, during even our meetings with the state ABC that there was going to be some lightening of some of the rules and regs. There was going to be more of an open process. They were going to take some of our feedback that we offered regarding some changes that we thought would be beneficial to breweries while also balancing the interests that everyone seems to want to do. And they literally took none of it. The only thing they changed was you only have to pull one permit for off-site event if the event takes place over the course of two or three consecutive days. So they pretty much saved everybody maybe a hundred bucks or two to pull a permit. But other than that, there was no other revisions to what was in that May 2019 special ruling. And Folks, as you have seen, are flipping out. My life over the past two weeks or so has consisted of nothing but breweries asking me about different questions about what they can and can't do, them trying to kind of allay the fears of consumers, of private parties. I mean, we had one brewery member of mine that simply had a sheer confusion about what they were allowed and not allowed to do. Had somebody pull a $10,000 event from their brewery, I mean, it's starting and coming out of now, I think we're through two weekends now with this being on the books. I'm waiting to see where the enforcement is on it. And if I'm going to start hearing from my members who are going to get love notes from state ABC telling them they violated a provision of their conditions or not. So that's probably the next thing that we're going to be dealing with here in New Jersey.
[00:20:58] New Jersey: So let's dig a little bit deeper into the concerns around this. I mean, you talk, people are pulling out of events, there's fees that could come up, but what specifically about these conditions can be really the most harmful to your members?
[00:21:13] Eric Orlando: So aside from strictly just the limitations that in our mind are kind of arbitrarily picked about how many of these different types of events you can do, you know, they even go as in the weeds as depending on what is on the television in your brewery, it's counted against you for an event automatically. the idea that folks were having music fairly regularly at their brewery on the weekend, now having to decide about whether they're going to have those musicians back because they played amplified music versus acoustic music. If you advertise as simply as putting that you have yoga on Saturday morning at your brewery on Facebook, that automatically gets deducted against one of the 25 events open to the general public. not being able to have or have a diminished ability to have food on premise. I mean, ABC did give everybody the right to have menus from local restaurants in the brewery so that somebody wanted to call out and have food brought to them via DoorDash or anytime service or had it delivered to them. They can, right? The problem is when the food trucks sees a lot of customers, let's say, at a brewery on a weekend and says, you know what, I want to park my food trucks in front of that brewery on the city street. The issue becomes as these breweries is that ABC is going to think that those breweries were in cahoots with that food trucks. And that's a violation. A lot of folks when they go to breweries and a lot of other places, there's food trucks there all the time. Some of the breweries in some of the states are actually working with the food trucks that be there to give them that food option, because what do you want when you're pouring alcohol over somebody? You want them to be able to eat. And it's those types of issues that are scaring a lot of breweries. And then it's also, too, it's now the This all being out in the public is making folks that might have considered maybe hosting an event at a brewery, maybe even just going to a brewery on a weekend, saying you know now I have to take a tour. Now I have to write my name in a log. at the brewery so they don't have to take the tour again if they ever come back. I mean, there's all these little things here that some of them are to the level of being annoying. Some of them are critical at the end of the day to the success of these businesses, particularly some of the newer ones that might have maybe just got started right before the pandemic, weathered the storm and are now trying to get back on their feet, even with still not knowing what the future holds in terms of the pandemic and honestly, the economy in general.
[00:23:49] New Jersey: So many things that I feel like, at least here in Massachusetts, we feel like go along with a brewery, like the food trucks or events that are so common here. It's just wild to hear how something could be so different just a little ways away.
[00:24:05] Eric Orlando: And the amazing thing is, so I was involved with the industry going back to 2010. So when we got the law changed here in the state of New Jersey back in 2012, great day, we were able to do so much, it launched the industry in a huge upward trajectory. The only thing it says in statute is that you have to take a tour of a brewery, which it's in there, we get it, got to give a tour. It says you can't serve food or operate a restaurant. Those terms, that's where they're being interpreted. to mean all of the limitations and things that we're dealing with today. So none of that stuff is actually in statute, which is a huge difference. So it basically comes down to folks at the state of ABC believing what the intention of that law was, and then them putting more kind of meat on it to do it. And it could honestly go in a totally different way. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is. So this is why we're fighting now, we're going public with it and we're trying to enlist supporters and other vendors and other supportive businesses to try to get the word out that at least the conditions on licenses should be suspended for the time being. And then we should take the longer step and probably the tougher step was actually just change the law altogether. So we're now finding ourselves in six months from now, a year from now, dealing with the same thing when ABC decides to revisit this and then put another set of regulations that we don't like.
[00:25:33] Brewers Guild: So, Eric, I know that the limited brewery license came to be through legislation in 2012. And, you know, I moved out of New Jersey in 2010. The beer scene did not look at all the way it does today. It's changed a lot. What did craft beer in New Jersey look like back in 2012 when this law was created to develop these licenses?
[00:25:52] Eric Orlando: So it's funny, when I first started getting involved in the industry, I think the first meeting we ever had, if anybody's local enough to know, it was at Triumph Brewing Company in Princeton, right? Brewpub, I think it was maybe the first or second licensed brewpub in the state of New Jersey, way back when. I think there might've been a dozen of us sitting around a table at the time. It was my first experience with the industry, but there was a small amount. I think maybe at that point, there might have been between two dozen and three dozen breweries in the state. You're talking 30 breweries, and some of them being brew pubs, by the way, so not even in the production, limited brewery license, which is impacted by the ruling today. We're at 141 breweries in the state of New Jersey now. I can remember having the hardest time, particularly when we were doing any type of outreach to you know local officials and legislators, trying to find a brewery that was near them in their district or in their town. Now there's some towns that have multiple. So now it's, there's this. this huge group of local businesses that have established a relationship with their community and also their elected officials. Now when I send an email or make a phone call, folks are very well familiar with these folks and know some of these brewery owners personally, that dealing with issues like this is a much easier conversation than what I would have had maybe 10 years ago when folks didn't know what a brewery was and didn't anticipate the industry. They just thought it was going to be a flash in the pan. Well, guess what? It's not. And there's even probably about a dozen to two dozen more breweries at different stages in the pipeline. So that number is probably going to expand. I'm really worried about them, particularly the ones that are tiered the late stages, jumping into this industry at this, because you probably have a business plan that you're going to do X, Y, and Z, and that thing's entirely blown up right now. So I feel really bad for them.
[00:27:41] New Jersey: And then these special conditions are introduced in 2019. Since then, we've gone through a pandemic. As you said, there's been so many changes in just a few years within the beer industry. So how has the New Jersey craft scene changed since 2019?
[00:27:58] Eric Orlando: So it's funny, there's a lot of folks, they probably had their long-term goal of probably going out into kind of package space where they're gonna be on liquor store shelves in four packs and they're probably gonna go out and try to get as many tap hands as possible. That drastically accelerated because there were folks that had beer in tanks that they could not sell on site at their brewery so that they quickly had to pivot and turn more into a package model. than even a draft bottle, that the industry now, you go into a liquor store, there's so much more beer in the state of New Jersey, locally, that's available to consumers in liquor stores. I think that's a factor somewhat of the pandemic, just because people got forced to go there, they had to buy canning lines, they had to get the mobile canners in to do it. Honestly, the draft accounts haven't picked up. I've heard from some breweries that they had like an 80-20 kind of draft ratio of what they were going to do. And it still hasn't gotten anywhere near close to that. So I think it's changed the dynamics of the way that people are getting craft beer. Also, too, I think folks are very much utilizing more of their outdoor spaces. We got the temporary privilege during COVID from a law that actually it's set to expire in November and that there's a bill on the governor's desk to extend for another two years to use a lot of these different outdoor spaces, whether they be on the licensed premise or those little parklets on the street, like you see downtown dining, whether open or not, that the breweries are also allowed to capitalize on. So I think the breweries put a lot of investment into those outdoor areas that they might have otherwise not looked at. With expirations of those things going away soon, There's a lot of change going on right now, and a lot of that change costs a lot of money. I think these breweries today, they're looking for predictability at some point. They can't keep going through these ebbs and flows of can you do this day, not this day, we can be outside, you can't be outside. I don't know how a small business owner can operate a business in not only an economic climate, but a regulatory climate like this.
[00:30:06] Brewers Guild: Yeah, it changes day to day and it's so complicated. The story is really blown up in local media and I'm sure it's rippling throughout, you know, people who follow the beer industry in other states. I just happened to be in New Jersey for the past few weeks and the next few weeks, but I mean, it's really complicated and has a lot of nuance. Is there anything out there, any misconceptions that you would like to correct?
[00:30:29] Eric Orlando: So I think the one thing, and it kind of popped up over the weekend a little bit, and it comes from folks that want to be supportive. Breweries don't want to be restaurants. They simply don't. We get the difference of what a restaurant or any brewery tasting room should be. We also understand that there's a lot of economic value in a liquor license in the state of New Jersey. At the end of the day, license value is honestly what dictates a lot of the policies that we're either pushing or up against, right? So we get that. Also, restaurants and bars in the state of New Jersey are huge customers of craft breweries. There's nothing that we want to do to hurt restaurants or stop them from selling our product. In fact, we want them to buy more. I think some of the conception is that it's always an us against them type of argument. When honestly, it's really not. I think folks go there because they see the difference in the licenses, the price of licenses, these rights and privileges. And the fact that there's an element of the industry that has pushed back on us, but in no way, shape or form do we want to hurt restaurants, nor do we want to be restaurants. So I think that's one thing I definitely want to clear up. And I think that's something going forward in terms of dealing with the media and talking to folks. That's what we want to put on the record is that they are our partners. we can each stay in our own lanes and live with one another. And, you know, I think it helps local breweries to have a good local beer scene at those restaurants. And it's not something that we want to hurt.
[00:31:58] Brewers Guild: For sure. I was able to chat a little bit with a spokesperson from the division. And the one thing that they just kept clarifying to me was that these aren't new. They're from 2019. I'm like, I don't think you saying these really strict rules aren't new is the winning point that you think it is.
[00:32:15] Eric Orlando: I also think that one of the things that I see is that there's a lot of referring to trying to balance the interests of the industries and license holders. And, you know, for the general public. They don't care about that. They care about their experience in their brewery they care about the experience in the restaurant. They don't care that there's a piece of paper that says you can do this and that, or there's a different type of license that allows you to do this, but not that license. They don't care about that. They want to be supportive of the local businesses. They want the experience that they want when they walk into a brewery. They don't want to be nuisanced by having to take a tour. They want to be able to get food when they want to get it. It's all these different things and that I think sometimes, particularly when you're talking to a regulator, that type of consumer demand and consumer appetite gets lost on them. That's not their job and I get it, but I think they can be a little bit more open to the ideas that the consumer appetite and demand for the way they get alcohol, not only started changing before the pandemic, it drastically changed during and after the pandemic. And I think a little bit of liberalization in terms of the way they think about those sort of things, and to look about modifying some of these rules, taking those things into account, will be not only beneficial to the breweries, but also beneficial to the consumer as well.
[00:33:41] New Jersey: Staying on the topic of consumers and beer supporters, is there anything that either the Guild or the Brewers Association is asking them to do? Is there any way that people can help?
[00:33:52] Eric Orlando: And we've actually, it's funny, we've been working with the National Brewers Association, who has a little bit more of the technological wherewithal than our little guild here in the state. But we've been trying to get the word out just to tell consumers, contact your local legislators, contact your county commissioners, tell them that you care about this, tell them that we want the conditions rescinded. But the VA actually put together a website and a grassroots campaign to actually target, not only legislature but the governor's office and the Attorney General to ask them to take action on this not only in short term but long term in terms of real kind of legislative reform. So the BA actually put together a website and also a text campaign where you can text NJBEER to 52866, and it'll actually take you to a website to actually allow consumers to weigh in on this and actually get the word out that you want this change. And that would help us and our industry greatly if you did that this week.
[00:34:46] Brewers Guild: Awesome. Now I dug into the BA state stats a little bit in preparing to, you know, write our stories last week and talk about it on the Twitter space that I do with some fellow beer writers. And I realized New Jersey ranks 45th out of 50 in breweries per capita. You know, we've got more than 9 million people here and you know, we're a state where people like to go out and have a good time. People generally have a little bit more disposable income. Why do you think that is? Why don't we have more craft breweries to serve these customers, potential customers?
[00:35:15] Eric Orlando: I think a lot of things, it's an expensive state it's operating. to lease a building costs a lot of money to get the good. It just, it's a very, very expensive state. I also think too, it's all of the things we're talking about today. There's a lot of local pressures, both political and economically that keep breweries out. I've worked in politics now for 20 years and it's amazing to me how many connections alcohol has to, you know, local politics and how that kind of works. So it's an interesting world to kind of be in. I think to as much as we think about you know it's like there's 141 breweries, what changed 10 years ago, probably a little bit more of a longer kind of track record for folks to feel that they want to get into it and get engaged in it and be a part of it. I think conditions are really like this don't help. If you're a person thinking about getting into an industry now, I'm sitting back and I'm waiting for this to play out because people mortgage their homes over this. People taking early retirement or quit their jobs or dip into a 401k to do things like this. If I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in my own money, let alone if you have other outside money coming in like from banks or other people giving me money for loans and things like that. It's scary to do that and take that leap. I think if anything, this might hurt that expansion that we've been seeing. By the way, a couple of years ago, I saw a stat. I think it was Austin, Kentucky. I think we had the greatest expansion of craft breweries in a 10-year period of any other state and country, yet we're still 45th. We're a densely populated state, so we do have the market that we'll be able to, you know, bring folks in. But New Jersey, like in a lot of ways, has a lot of different challenges and alcohol is no different.
[00:37:01] New Jersey: So at the end of the day, we're really, at least the Gills advocating for it, like we need to help the New Jersey beer industry right now. What is it about the New Jersey beer scene that makes it what it is and makes it so special?
[00:37:15] Eric Orlando: It's awesome to see, and I've seen it particularly in our South Jersey region. A lot of these towns, because of a lack of different kind of options and places to go, have really embraced breweries. I mean, they become the fabric of their communities. I mean, you can go and drive down a highway in South Jersey, these little towns, these little downtowns, and there's a brewery all along the way. I mean, beer trails are coming up because of that, right? Just because of the close proximity. New Jersey breweries try to be hyper-local. They really embrace the culture and the goods that are sold there. They want to work with local vendors. They want to work with local restaurants. We're starting to see here of different little industries, whether in the agriculture community or things like that, actually contributing goods and materials, actually brewing of the beer, which we've never had before. We are the garden state. There's a lot going for it in that way. We try to utilize as many local products as possible. It's a place great to bring families to. The spaces that are being built now are very hospitable to groups and to families. I think people just like being out and about. We're stuck inside for how long during the pandemic? The weather is warming up. People are feeling more comfortable being out there. These breweries are willing to host them. The one thing I want to definitely put on the record with all of this is that as much as negativity is out there right now, breweries are open. They want to have you as customers. It might be a little bit of a different experience since it was maybe two or three weeks ago, but they're still local, still cold, still great. Go get out there, buy an extra four pack or six pack to support your local breweries. They want this business and they can't wait to have you there.
[00:38:57] Brewers Guild: Awesome. Well, Eric, we know you're busy. You've got a lot of meetings today. So we're really, really grateful you took the time to chat with us. That's a perfect place to leave it. My very unbiased opinion, greatest state in the union.
[00:39:11] Eric Orlando: Makes two of us.
[00:39:13] Brewers Guild: Sorry, Zoe. Mass is a close second in my heart. It's okay. Eric, thank you so much. We'll talk soon and let's you and I get a beer while I'm around, huh?
[00:39:22] Eric Orlando: Sounds good. Thank you both for having me today.
[00:39:24] Brewers Guild: Okay. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Eric. Joining us now is Brian Kulbacki, founder and owner and head brewer of Departed Soles Brewing New Jersey City-based, New Jersey. Brian, how are you?
[00:39:37] Jersey City-based: I'm hanging in there. How are you?
[00:39:40] Brewers Guild: Surviving, not thriving. Zoe, how are you? I'm doing all right. Nothing too bad to complain about at the moment.
[00:39:49] Jersey City-based: You didn't just have like all of your activities taken away from you?
[00:39:53] New Jersey: No, no. I can say I'm doing generally better than
[00:39:57] Jersey City-based: all breweries in New Jersey. I think most people are.
[00:40:06] Brewers Guild: Brian, you've been super vocal about the 2019 and JABC conditions. Can you like put a number on what this means for Departed Soles? Like for example, like how many events could you host if you weren't limited to 25?
[00:40:19] Jersey City-based: So at our brewery, I mean, our brewery takes a huge hit by this special ruling. Monday through Friday throughout the week, we typically do what we like to call an appreciation night. So whether it's teacher appreciation night, industry night, first responder night, frontline worker night, you know, it was a small discount, but it was a discount on beer. We're now just straight up not allowed to do that anymore. Zero discounts on beer, zero buybacks, zero happy hour. So, you know, immediately, whatever five times 52 is, you know, that's a huge hit for us. And then typically on Thursday evenings, we always have some sort of event, whether that's trivia or live music. You know, so now all of that is pretty much off the table for us. So it's a massive, massive, massive hit. You're talking, I don't know, a few hundred events that are just stripped from us. When we started before the pandemic, we were only open four or five days a week. During the pandemic, we switched to open seven days a week to help us survive. Because even if you got $100 or $200 in on a really slow Monday or Tuesday, at least that helped everybody out. And we definitely created a little bit of a following doing that. And they're not always the busiest days, but definitely when you can have that other little feature in there. and entertainment aspect in there, it does help. And I wouldn't necessarily say we even get to the black on those days, but, you know, it's being involved with the community, it's helping out, and it's supporting other artists that are going through the same struggles as we are right now. So it's a massive, massive hit to our brewery, and we paid downtown Jersey City-based rent as opposed to, you know, a warehouse in the middle of nowhere rent. So having the ability to get that little bit of added income and have that ripped away from us all of a sudden is pretty devastating.
[00:42:05] New Jersey: How does like any of these limitations just affect your operations or just being able to like run the company?
[00:42:13] Jersey City-based: Yeah, I mean, from starters, it affects employment right away. We had a part time bartender that was looking for more hours. And, you know, we didn't have a full time job available. But we were kind of trying to think of ways that we could make that job available because we really enjoyed having her as a bartender here. And immediately the idea we came up with was to have her be an events manager, to have her booking artists, booking these nights, promoting these nights. And that all kind of went down right at the same time as the special ruling came out. And immediately it's like, all right, well, I don't know how we budget for this job anymore. And unfortunately, she needed the hours, she needed the money, and then she left last week because we just couldn't get it to her. So that's, that's a huge part of it. You know, you're looking at staffing situations on those nights where you had these events. You're immediately pulling back commitments. You know, we had commitments to trivia companies where we had contracts with, we've had bans about months in advance. And who knows if these guys are going to be able to find, you know, jobs or gigs on those nights now. Who knows if these people are going to let us out of our contracts without some sort of penalty. So there's a ton of different ways that it's hitting us and hitting our staff in the wallet and hitting the local community in the wallet. these bands aren't choosing to come here and play on a Thursday night because you know they had 30 different restaurants hitting them up and being like hey it's Thursday the second Thursday of July and we paid the most money like that's not a reality that's like how they're they're pitching it but you know we we pay a lot of money to our band we support them we like our local people and we want them to do well and you know they're playing here because that was the gig they had that night now they don't Nobody's told us like, oh, don't worry. It's not that big a deal. Bar X called us and will pick us up on those lines. It's not the reality of the situation. So it's affecting us a ton.
[00:44:00] New Jersey: Yeah, I'm sure there's also a lot of those bands are probably booked at a couple different breweries or might be like now they've lost multiple dates.
[00:44:10] Jersey City-based: Yeah, 100% there's another one other brewery here in town, much bigger space than us. Our brewery is only about 2000 square feet. But they also have a big parking lot that they do stuff and they do markets in that parking lot. They have a rooftop and they do shows at tons and tons of things. and it is especially aroun city is a big city, but i small town vibe and betwe and you know, there's def over and over and over a following. And you know, s
[00:44:43] Brewers Guild: Yeah, that like really hurts. I know one of the things that comes up a lot in this really like kind of a complicated situation is that the NJABC sees its decision as making things more fair between breweries and bars and restaurants. But the answer here is not to punish the breweries, it's to like, hey, bars and restaurants, like you guys could do this too if you wanted, but like what restaurant is gonna have like Sunday morning yoga?
[00:45:12] Jersey City-based: Right, they can't just pick up and move their tables like we can.
[00:45:16] Brewers Guild: Exactly, you know, like there's there's like a whole crop of things that breweries can do for a community that bars and restaurants maybe don't do, you know, like what makes Departed Soles different from a random bar?
[00:45:30] Jersey City-based: I have always said in our mission here, we brew a lot of gluten-free beer. About 60% of our production is gluten-free beer. I've always said the mission behind our brewery is to be more about community, to be sort of the neighborhood dive bar version of our brewery. Not necessarily a high place, not a place with huge lines out the door all the time. you know, not being able to give back to the community and support the community. And without our neighbors, we're nothing at the end of the day, right? Like, you need the people around you to support your brewery. And without them, I don't know what breweries will survive. And I don't think any brewery is trying to start a fight with the ABC. They have a job to do. We understand that. We all knew rules when we got in here. We all fought for our interpretations of those rules. We all respect The abc the director the governor, you know We understand that we shouldn't maybe get free will uh and free reign to do whatever the heck we want But you know The abc has come out in the in the week since this special ruling has been out and said they did negotiate with us They didn't give us something their give though was reducing one of the fees, uh $50 and that was the only thing that's changed as best I can tell from the special ruling in 2018 that they had to repeal because of the pushback As far as I can tell, changing that one fee is literally the only thing that has been changed since then. I don't see anywhere in a New Jersey liquor license that gives them, that says, by having this liquor license, you get to do trivia, you get to do live music, you get to do discounted beers and things like that. I don't understand why the ABC gets to interpret that into one license now and interpret that out of a different license New Jersey City-based, our hometown, goes so far as to require bars and restaurants to have an entertainment license if they want to do that sort of thing. They don't automatically assume you get to do that as a bar or restaurant. You have to pay the city that license so that they can be prepared to regulate that sort of thing. And that's really how this should be handled. In my opinion, the municipality should be able to handle that the way they best see fit. And when they do that, then a brewery can better choose where they want to open. Because breweries these days are economic drivers, they're tourism drivers, and by doing this, the ABC is, you know, kind of putting the kibosh on that.
[00:47:49] New Jersey: We talked a little bit in our conversation with Eric earlier that this also affects consumers. And there's a convenience factor of like with the tour aspect, like, oh, I don't know if I want to go to a brewery and have to put my name down and make sure I'm recorded as going on a tour. What are you hearing from Departed Soles consumers on how these changes impact them?
[00:48:12] Jersey City-based: We have a little one little bar area in our brewery where people get their orders and we put out a little flyer next to it. This week we just like QR code to a new story about this and the QR code to petition where people can sign. I would say one out of every five people opened up the QR code to the petition and signed it. Because, you know, especially when you're busy on a Saturday and you have three bartenders, you know, busting their butts, trying to serve everybody as fast as they can. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, before I give you this beer, you know, look at those big shiny things behind me where I make the beer, making this little thing behind me where I can keep your cold. And hey, here's a clear pint glass. Now I can serve you because I gave you a tour, you know, it's not that easy. I'm not saying every brewery is exactly the same, but you've been on one brewery, so you've pretty much been on them all. If you're a person that goes on road trips or does little brewery crawls, you know, like, you know, you go to the three breweries in our county, on a Saturday you drive up here it's like gosh all of a sudden I have to go on three brewery tours on my drive like it's it's so so ridiculous and we all understand the educational aspect of it and I think a lot of us got into craft beer because we took those tours once when we got into it and it's like yeah this is really cool but once you've seen the cheese made you've seen the cheese made
[00:49:29] Brewers Guild: I read the the Star Ledger's editorial on this this morning and they had a line in there that was basically said like the ABC is treating breweries as though they are beer making museums and not, you know, thriving dynamic businesses and I thought that was such a great way to put it. All right, so there was the 2018 ruling, all the pushback, and then the $50 deduction off one event, whatever, what an enormous boon to you guys. And then they rolled these out in 2019, but then COVID happened. And they kind of fell by the wayside because there was so much more to be worried about. But what were your event and hospitality operations like before the enforcement announcement came through a couple weeks ago? I know you said you did like, you do special theme nights, for members of the community, stuff like that?
[00:50:18] Jersey City-based: So we just hit seven years of distributing beer. And Tasting Room's yet to actually turn seven. And we've evolved the time. At the beginning, it was just me brewing, selling, delivering, and then coming back in, running the Tasting Room. And at this point, now we have five full-time employees, two production guys, Tasting Room staff. It's a lot. And we've realized we need to be open seven days a week to be able to support them. Even during COVID, the year that COVID hit, I had promised our full-time staff that by the end of that year, I would have full benefit packages for all them, health, dental, vision, and life insurance. And despite all the challenges of COVID, we made that happen. And being able to do these little things is what allows us to provide that. Throughout COVID, I think, actually, that was probably the last time you and I did one of these things, right at the beginning of COVID and how we were adapting to it. you know, at the beginning of COVID, because breweries were still allowed to be open, and it kind of directly correlates to this. We literally paid some of the musicians that we had booked to come and play with the brewery backdrop, just using our feed, because we were allowed to have them in there. They were technically, you know, a contract worker of the brewery. So, you know, we would let them stream music and do a little at-home concert. We had a DJ come in here. We did yoga teacher and that. And through that, and then as things started opening, we would have them outside. Upsetting some of the upstairs neighbors about how late we would let people play. But you know, it just became so crucial to us. We do trivia the first and third Thursdays of month of every month ever since things reopen. Our capacity is 50 people. We don't make a dent in any of the bars around us. Hudson Hall, the nearest bar, who we get along phenomenally with. Their capacity is several hundred people, and we refer each other back and forth. And we all get along so, so well New Jersey City-based these events have just, like I said, trivia, we maybe get 10 teams in here. We probably have five of the same teams at every everything. Musicians, we do twice a month at the right now, and it's basically the same six people that we're bringing in here. and very frequently and you know we're kind of like their home base. Lately we've been trying to do a little bit more stuff on Saturdays where we actually bring in a full band as opposed to one acoustic musician and we're seeing local bands who want to use us as like a EP drop you know and these are places that aren't going to get booked at a venue like White Eagle Hall. So restaurants and bars don't have the ability to empty out a space kind of like you alluded to whereas everything in a brewery is Mostly built to move around and adapt to whatever the job of the day is. We can do that. We can move our tables and chairs and our communal seating around and accommodate yoga or a bar class. Our events were becoming a huge aspect of what we were doing and now it's just, it's pulled out from underneath us completely because 24 events just isn't worth it.
[00:53:12] New Jersey: So contrary to what some people in New Jersey lawmaking might think, breweries aren't necessarily like in competition with bars and restaurants. You guys work together. You also want some of your products sold there in possibly restaurants and then also in retail. But what are some of the conversations that you're having with your retail partners and with other people about what you're going to do now?
[00:53:38] Jersey City-based: And I mean, I kind of made the point in one of my Facebook rants, which I've been trying to keep moderately private. So as not to pin a target on my back from the ABC. But Jersey City-based is the second most populous town in New Jersey. And in New Jersey, your liquor licenses are given out. The number of liquor licenses your town have are based off of your population. So New Jersey City-based, we have the second most amount of liquor licenses in New Jersey. And we have zero complaints against us for bars or restaurants and I can tell you there's several bar owners in town that hate my guts, but they don't go and complain to the state about they don't even go complain about the city about when we were trying to think of ways that we could. Nick Merriam-Short, Ph.D.: properly go about fighting this and using the right channels and using our resources, we immediately contacted our city council members and our Mayor like hey like we know you have no power over the situation, but perhaps if you guys take the stance of public stance on this. you will get in some more years than just the breweries complaining. And immediately we had three city council members offer to put up a resolution at the next city council meeting that they could vote on and ideally approve. So we're really supportive and appreciative of Councilman Solomon and Mayor Prince Harry and Frank Gilmore for doing that. And finally, actually this morning, Mayor Fulop, Mayor Stephen Fulop put a tweet out criticizing the special ruling saying, not just the special ruling, but that, you know, the state needs to really look at its liquor licenses as a whole and realize that what's happening in New York and Pennsylvania and what those breweries are allowed to do just makes them so much more attractive destinations for businesses to open up and that the state needs to stop being handcuffed by antiquated laws and doing things to accommodate antiquated laws and do more things to attract people here and support the businesses that are opening up here. Our brewery has, like I mentioned, Hudson Hall right next door to us, and a bar called O'Hara is right next to us. And we get along great with these bars. Both of them carry our beer. During the St. Peter's March Madness run, we were all in on it, sending people back and forth, ordering food for our guests from back there, or having food brought in, or sending people there when we got full. it's not really competition if you work together and choose to work together and choose to support each other. All these businesses during the pandemic were begging people, support local, support local, you need to buy local, you need to support local, drink local, eat local, don't go to a chain. And it's really hypocritical and ironic now that some of those people that were posting that are the same people that are putting Miller Lite and Bud Light on their draft lines and not buying local beer. And now some of them are going so far as to have their lobbies try and shoot the reason the foot. So it says a lot about who those people are and who those people were. And, you know, who you as a consumer should probably look a little more into where your dollars are going.
[00:56:33] New Jersey: Right now, this is how it is. We don't know how things might change or not. But how does that change your strategy as a business? Like what different channels are you looking at? Or what opportunities do you have to look at now instead of what you might have been doing before?
[00:56:49] Jersey City-based: The sad part is there's really no option, right? You know, the couple things that are in that special ruling that do present money-making opportunities for us, you know, doing an off-premise event, you know, you need the staffing to do that. So do I close down my tasting room on Monday or Tuesday so that I can send my tasting room bartender to a farmer's market to try and sell a couple pints? Like, you know, will that work out? And then, you know, you need to register your car and you need tip certifications and stuff like that to be able to do that and you know you need the markets to support you doing that and you know you need a guarantee like a safety area if you're serving beer at these events and how do you do that? How do you get that? Do I have like a mobile fencing company to follow me around? No, it's the sad part is that All this really did was limit the ways we can make money. It did not provide us with an alternative means to do that. And it wasn't a give and take situation. They just took from breweries. They didn't take from liquor license holders. As best I can tell, they didn't take from wineries or distilleries either, though. Some people have said they've kind of told distilleries to heed this warning as well, but they certainly didn't put a special ruling out to regulate them. So wineries are still allowed out. food trucks and festivals and that sort of thing. Distilleries still seem to be able to hold as many special events as they want. I don't see anyone canceling anything. And I don't mean that by an attack, and I don't wish this on wineries or distilleries. I don't wish this upon my worst enemies. But, you know, it's just handcuffing us. It's not providing anything for us.
[00:58:29] Brewers Guild: Yeah, it just seems to be taking opportunities away from you, and it doesn't provide opportunities to anyone else.
[00:58:37] Jersey City-based: No, and it doesn't encourage those other places to provide opportunities to the other people that are hurt. There's nothing about this that encourages bars to host more charity events. You know, you're not going to see a bar put a curtain up beer, an altogether beer, whatever charity beer you want to choose. Breweries are always, seems like the first people to give out of very shallow pockets. And those pockets just became significantly more shallow. So, you know, unless the ABC is going to do something to, you know, force the hand of liquor license holders to, you know, support more local musicians and host more charity events. This really just benefits one industry and hurts so, so, so many.
[00:59:15] Brewers Guild: What do you want fellow Brewers Guild other states to know about the situation here in New Jersey?
[00:59:22] Jersey City-based: that they can still sign the petition and try and help us out. That would be great. There's like two petitions out there. There's a change.org one and the Brewers Association actually went ahead and I believe created a web page dedicated to this. That's really easy to put your name and email and click a very simple button. I think it's really important to realize that our legislators are seemingly against this special ruling as well, despite the deep pockets of the people that are pushing for this special ruling. Many of our legislators have come out and said this is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it's just one body, one autonomous body that's appointed, not elected, making this decision. And, you know, it's certainly not the biggest or worst thing happening in the world or America right now. There's a lot more things we're fighting for and fighting against that are happening to people. And we're getting their freedoms stripped away from them right now, too. But, you know, we can still use some help, you know, fight for everything. or welcome us in, you know. Give me some tank space and cellar space somewhere else that I can brew so we can go do more fun things.
[01:00:32] Brewers Guild: Yeah, the text line that the BA set up is if you text NJBEER to 52886 that I think will get you a link to that petition. So that's been out there. I know the Guild shared it, the BA shared it. It does really seem like an all hands on deck effort here at all levels.
[01:00:51] Jersey City-based: Yeah, personally, the legislators is not in session right now. So we there's not much they can do. The governor has the ability to put pen to paper and he could stop this today. He could have stopped this July 1. So You got a question why, you know, like I said, one of the things that's been forbidden by this is free beers. Yeah. During the pandemic, he encouraged us to do a beer and shop special where people showed us their vaccination card. They got a free beer and that came out of our pockets. You know, we didn't get a tax credit for that. We didn't get reimbursed by the state or a town for that. That was literally just us giving away free beer. And that's now forbidden by this. So the irony that the state promoted and championed the shot and beer thing, and now we're not allowed to give away even a discounted beer to a first responder or a frontline worker is kind of crazy to me. We do a lot of stuff with the governor's office. He has always seemed to be very supportive of craft beer. So hopefully with everybody voicing a concern or going to that link or signing the petition, he realizes that this isn't something he should take his time on, should jump in before people lose jobs. People are already getting hurt. People are already quitting their jobs. People are already losing jobs. People are already losing gigs. So this has already started to negatively impact local economies. I would think our elected officials would like to stop that.
[01:02:11] New Jersey: So Brian, let's end this on a positive note. What should people know about the beer scene in New Jersey? What makes it so special?
[01:02:21] Jersey City-based: We have really create brewery dogs and most of our breweries. So people should definitely come here for that. Now, I mean, honestly, New Jersey gets a lot of crap, right? Where, you know, even even the breweries in Pennsylvania stuck up for us with several articles about this, but still called Jersey, the armpit of America.
[01:02:39] Brewers Guild: I was so upset by that. There's no need for this.
[01:02:44] Jersey City-based: It was a picture of Jersey City-based the headliner. So that was a double whammy to me. But we do appreciate their support. Pennsylvania's always been good. A lot of New Jersey breweries have second bases out there to ship it out there. Honestly, with Jersey, we just have such an incredibly unique and diverse brewing scene. Not everything's crazy IPA all the day. Not everything's crazy big barrel stuff. We have like a really, really wide spreading unique base of beers. And one of the best parts about Jersey is you can get everywhere really fast. You can jump on the parkway or turnpike. And if you spend a weekend here, you could hit 50 or 100 breweries if you really wanted to, but you would need several TVs to make that happen. You know, here in Hudson County, you have us and J.BeerCo and 902, a thriving restaurant scene, tons of hotels. You walk out our door, you're staring at the Statue of Liberty and One World Trade and the access to amazing non-beer centric tourism. stuff, or you can go down to Ocean County and visit Kane Brewery, who's won a million awards. And then there's also some really small breweries down there that you can hit up, you know, like Chug Handle or Buddy's at Carton. It's just so much, and every brewery is going to have something different because we'New Jersey, and we get very stuck in our ways. And when we open up our brewery, we decide this is what we're going to friggin' brew, whether you like it or not. If you don't friggin' like it, go to the next one down the street. So, you know, we brew gluten-free stuff in dedicated tanks, and that's what we're known for. And people love, you know, making the joke and rating gluten-free beer one star and going, haha, I could use more gluten. Well, you know what? I don't give a crap. Rate it whatever you want, but we make it, we want some GABF medals for it and all. And because of that, we get to be the place where people can get a flight of gluten-free beer for the first time in their life. And they've never been able to have a brewery experience before. They get to come here with their friends and all the friends get to drink beer. And that's really cool. You know, I think that's the biggest takeaway is that it's just an incredibly diverse and unique scene full of super passionate people. And you can visit so many of them in a day, you know, a day trip, you can fit so, so many breweries. And I think a lot of people don't realize that because that's something that they associate with a city or a beer town like Denver or Austin. And even, you know, what Miami's become, but you can do the same thing here and you can check it out.
[01:05:08] Brewers Guild: You heard it here first, everybody. New Jersey is the new Miami. Well, Brian, we know you've got a lot on your mind and a lot to do, so we really appreciate you taking the time to hang with us and hopefully we can have a beer together soon. Absolutely. Well, that's our show for this week. Thank you so much to Brian and Eric for joining us. Thank you, Zoe, for hanging with me. Justin, we miss you, but we'll see you next week. Huge shout out to Joe, our one-man audio team who is going to wizard his way through this to make it listenable to everybody. And thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed the show, like, rate, review. If you want to see anything on here or hear anything in particular, drop us a note at podcastatbrewbound.com and we will catch you next week.
