Brewbound Podcast: Protecting Your Taproom Team During the Pandemic

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: 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 Check 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 Check Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. What's it like to operate in a state with no restrictions? Stay tuned to Check Brewbound Podcast to find out. Welcome back to Check Brewbound Podcast. My name is Justin Kendall, and I am the editor of Brewbound, and I am joined by the most prolific baker in the beer Instagram world, Jessica Infante. What is up, Jess?

[00:01:01] Austin Beerworks: Not much, man. I don't know if that's true, but I appreciate the sentiment.

[00:01:05] Jessica Infante: I don't know if I follow enough to keep track of who is doing what on Instagram, but you seem to be the most prolific that I've seen out there.

[00:01:17] Austin Beerworks: Thank you. Yes, I bake my feelings, basically. It was something I got into when I worked in marketing because I felt like I wasn't making anything anymore. You know, like when you're a journalist, like you're, you're making a story, you know, you collect the information, you format it into a story and you know, that story goes out to be read. But when I worked in marketing, I was more of a, I asked a designer to do something. I asked the procurement team to find me a koozie, like, and then I put those things together, but I wasn't making anything. So to be able to take like flour and butter and sugar and turn it into something I could eat ended up being like quite a nice hobby. Now I just keep doing it.

[00:01:56] Jessica Infante: And you, you use a lot of beer in your cooking, don't you?

[00:02:01] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, I, uh, I used to work at the company that makes Utopias and I have a lot of Utopias and I feel weird drinking it just because there's never like a casual Tuesday where you're like, oh yes, let me drink this 30% beer. So I bake with Utopias all the time.

[00:02:18] Jessica Infante: A lot of people just gasp.

[00:02:19] Austin Beerworks: I know, I know. I feel bad that this is what I... No, you don't.

[00:02:24] Jessica Infante: You don't feel bad.

[00:02:25] Austin Beerworks: I really don't. I don't at all. Once I was out of vanilla and I already had started creaming together butter and sugar and I was like, well, what am I going to do? And then I was like, oh, you have something you can use. And that was how it all started. And it just added so much more depth of flavor than regular store-bought vanilla that I use it a lot. you know, pouring a GABF when you run out of it, and people will come up to the booth and be like, well, what does it even taste like? And then I'll be like, you know, I find it's really great to make French toast with. I'm honestly shocked I haven't been punched in the face.

[00:02:57] Jessica Infante: I am glad that you haven't been punched in the face. And what wasn't a punch in the face for us this last week was getting recognized by the drinks business as one of the six best beer podcasts out there. I am super self-critical. hate everything I do. So it was very cool to see us recognized.

[00:03:20] Austin Beerworks: That was really exciting. And no, we are not owned by the drinks business. I'm glad that you pointed that out.

[00:03:27] Jessica Infante: Yeah, someone on Twitter said that we were owned by the drinks business. Aren't they owned by the drinks business? And that's always a gut punch because it's like, oh, you hope you're doing quality work. And then somebody is like, no, let us cut you down. Well, thank you, Twitter.

[00:03:44] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, I mean, that's what Twitter is for.

[00:03:46] Jessica Infante: Yes. Let's get to some Brewbound business here. We have a lot of upcoming events. We've got a content calendar on Brewbound.com. You can find out when we're doing podcasts, when we're doing front lines. And we've got a BrewTalks coming up, very first one of the year. That is Thursday, May 13th. We have confirmed for our pandemic one year later panel, Dogfish head founder, Sam Calagione. Of course, we're doing this with Sam. Dogfish is presenting BrewTalks. So Sam is back, but also we have the Winking Lizard restaurant and tavern owner, John Lane, lined up. And we have a tentative yes from Julie Verati, the co-founder of Denizens, who is now the Associate Administrator of Field Operations with the U.S. Small Business Administration. I'm excited to hear from Julie again in her new role. So that's exciting. We gave you a little bit of a preview of what John Lane's going to talk about on the last episode of Brewbound Podcast Club with three-tier beverages. So if you're a subscriber, go back and watch that. But BrewTalks is coming back. We'll have two panels. One is still TBD, so stay tuned for that.

[00:05:01] Austin Beerworks: I think it's going to be really interesting to talk to all those guys and see how the past year has treated them because I remember watching that panel happen and everybody just seemed honestly a little freaked out. So I think it'll be good to take a look back and see how it was that everybody came to survive the past year.

[00:05:20] Jessica Infante: This is basically one year ago to when the pandemic really set in, the shutdowns set in, and I ran to the grocery store and was searching for any type of meat and found, you know, dinosaur chicken nuggets because that was the only thing left in the freezer aisle and everybody was- But those are the best! I love those things and I have continued to buy them, which is ridiculous, but Yeah, I mean, that's why we're here today and that's going to be part of the discussion we're going to have. But before we get to that, we also have a Brewbound Frontlines episode coming up on March 25th. That's a special Retail Pulse edition of Frontlines with Buffalo Wild Wings, Jason Murphy. I'm excited. I'm always excited, apparently, because I keep using that term, but I want to hear from Jason. I want to know what's happening in the on-premise and how Buffalo Wild Wings is approaching everything. As we're starting to open up a little more, on-premise business is coming back little by little, and Jason's going to tell you what he's looking to buy.

[00:06:28] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, I always learn so much whenever we talk to Jason and we did just chat with him yesterday in preparation. And it's crazy to hear him describe all the samples that he's been receiving for potential new products for when they set their draft mandates. And I don't want to drop any spoilers here, so I will keep this to myself. But I think Buffalo Wild Wings is certainly a very interesting I don't want to call them a test case, but I think they're very much a canary in a coal mine of sorts for where the beer industry goes. You can kind of see how they're usually really good out ahead of product trends. And you can see that reflected by what their mandated draft lines are.

[00:07:09] Jessica Infante: And Buffalo Wild Wings is the largest pourer of draft beer in the U.S. So that's a perspective that we want to hear. And this week alone is really when we're recording this episode of the podcast is St. Patrick's Day, which probably not that big of a deal for them. But March Madness is a very big deal for Buffalo Wild Wings. So Jason will be able to tell us a little bit about how this last week went for them. So we will get that canary in a coal mine view that you just talked about.

[00:07:40] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, this is a huge week for the on premise in general.

[00:07:43] Jessica Infante: So let's get to this week's show. Several states are beginning to reopen, including Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott removed all capacity restrictions at the state's businesses while simultaneously lifting the mandate to wear masks. That went into effect March 10th and others that followed suit. They did so despite the Centers for Disease Control Director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, saying the agency has been very clear that now is not the time to release all restrictions. Walensky also called the next couple of months really pivotal as vaccinations are scaled up. We really need to decrease the amount of virus that is circulating as we are trying to vaccinate all of the public, she added. These moves in Texas and other states came just in time for spring breakers to pack places like Galveston and South Padre Island. The scenes are making my palms sweat seeing all those kids jammed in together. Add in a winter storm a few weeks ago that wiped out the power grid in Texas and it hasn't been easy to be a craft brewer or really anyone in the state of Texas. So here today to discuss what it's been like to operate our Austin Beerworks co-founders, Adam DeBauer and Michael Graham. Hey guys, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. Great to be here. Thanks for having us. So before we get started here, our audience might hear some things in the background. Adam, can you just tell us a little bit about what those folks are hearing?

[00:09:13] Michael Graham: Yeah, we've got a particularly aggressive and loud bird here in Austin, Texas called the grackle and they're ubiquitous. You'll see him absolutely everywhere, but it is grackle mating season and I chose to sit outside on this kind of lovely overcast day today for this podcast. And so our birds are joining us intermittently as we enjoy our time here.

[00:09:35] Jessica Infante: And apparently they love to mate at Austin Beerworks Works, which Good for you guys.

[00:09:43] Brewbound Podcast: We've created a very comfortable environment for every species. Yes.

[00:09:49] Jessica Infante: Speaking of trying to create a comfortable environment for all species, although the governor has removed all restrictions on masks and indoor seating, you guys have decided to maintain your policies, citing the safety of your staff and your customers, which includes keeping the restrictions on masks. You guys want your customers to wear masks. You are keeping reserved tables. You're not accepting cash. Tell us a little bit about the decision to maintain those safety precautions.

[00:10:18] Brewbound Podcast: Well, it's a difficult one to justify to a customer that disagrees with you. But basically what we've come down to is that our top priority is the safety of our staff and guests. And we have not seen any, especially locally, we keep a close eye on the Austin and Travis County numbers. I've not seen any significant change in the case rates or anything that would suggest that reopening 100% is a smart thing to do, especially within inside dining. The decision we've come to in the metric that we're comfortable with and that our staff seems comfortable with is basically to reopen once everybody on our staff who wants to be vaccinated is vaccinated. And we're also, I mean, we are still keeping a close eye on the local case rates and we'll sort of adjust our policies accordingly. But just making sure that our staff is safely vaccinated is sort of the main metric that we're going off of.

[00:11:12] Austin Beerworks: Michael, that's a really interesting metric to use. How have vaccinations been going? I know here in Massachusetts, they've been really slow to roll out. So are you guys having better luck than we are?

[00:11:23] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, Adam might have some extra insight. We were just looking at some numbers today. From what we saw, I think there's roughly 10% of Texas is fully vaccinated, and about 20% have received at least one dose. Adam was pointing out earlier that those numbers have increased by 6% or something, 5% in the last week. So the rate seems to really be increasing, and we're hopeful for that. I mean, it seems to be a positive trend, but I think there's still a ways to go and kind of maybe anticipating mid to late summer by the time that everybody would be able to get one.

[00:11:59] Austin Beerworks: Adam, have hospitality workers been prioritized to receive vaccines?

[00:12:03] Michael Graham: No, and really what it comes down to is being able to use whatever means necessary to go to different towns and counties to find where vaccines are available. We have different criteria for being able to actually receive vaccines, and it's not a secret. I mean, a lot of us have underlying medical issues, and so we're able to qualify. I personally have already received both shots, but I spent weeks basically sherping my family, my elderly parents, you know, my godparents, you know, everybody and anybody that I care about who is, you know, older. We were able to, you know, spend days and hours and weeks on computers and on phones and, you know, just kind of burning up the highways trying to get people vaccinated. And I've actually helped several of our staff also trying to find places where vaccines are available. And, you know, the criteria in Texas are not super difficult. You know, believe it or not, smoking in some jurisdictions actually qualifies you as an underlying condition. And so it's kind of one of those really strange places. I'm 40 years old and I'm fat. So I've got a couple of different medical underlying issues that allow me to qualify. And it's one of those things where, on the one hand, you could say, well, there are other people that are worse off, but we are hospitality workers. We do interact with people. We are service industry. Every one of our staff is service industry. When you think about it, all of our brewers interact with customers. All of our distribution drivers interact with customers. And it's incredibly important to us to make sure that those folks are looked out for and taken care of. And so we've been really very aggressive with our mask policy. We've been wearing masks indoors since last March at our brewery. And imagine working in 105 degrees and 90% humidity in the summertime doing actually brewery work. It's not comfortable in any way, shape or form, but we're committed to making sure that this is a place where people can still earn their livings and do it in a safe and meaningful way. I wanted to touch on something you mentioned earlier. Actually, I guess it's all really related to politics. Texas, we have over 30 million people, but the amount of vaccine that we've been guaranteed from the federal government came from the former administration. I deeply believe that it had something to do with the state politics and just the general defense that our state leaders I guess, but towards the previous administration. It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I think the proof is in the pudding where you look at how many vaccines we've gotten versus our population versus, say, a place like Hawaii or California, particularly liberal states who have aged populations who probably should have more vaccines than what they do. You know, I just, I think that the politics of our state have dictated so much of the way that the vaccine has been received here, but then also, you know, it's a purely political decision to get rid of the mask mandate. You know, in our state, there's absolutely no, there's no bright line. There is no indicator of any kind of health or anything else otherwise that, you know, said, hey, it's time to go ahead and remove that mask mandate. It was a purely political decision. in my opinion. And, you know, I think it was our governor who was finally caving to, you know, the particularly, uh, extreme, you know, members of his party so that he wouldn't have a primary challenger, you know, two years from now, because the particularly aggressive, you know, very far right wing was very upset about the mask mandate, you know, but my rights, you know, is a, is a big thing here in our state. Oh, but my rights are more important than your fear, which I find to be a, a really horrible and, um, disrespectful and, you know, callous and disregard for humanity.

[00:15:36] Jessica Infante: So what kind of position has that put you guys in? Because that seems to put the onus on the business owner to really defend their own policies. Yeah, without a doubt.

[00:15:48] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah. And like Adam was saying, I think it's, I think the policies are undoubtedly political in nature more than More than science based or or anything else. The unfortunate thing is for us it makes it seem like our policies are also political that our decision to. to keep masks is sort of a rebuke of the governor or whatever. And I think that people not associate our position with with a political position. And it's really not. I mean it feels just like the just it comes from a care for for the safety of our of our employees and our guests and really the people that keep us in business. If you want to just look at it as a pure financial decision. It's unfortunate that politics have to be involved at all, but it is. And I think that's the way most people view it on either side, whether you're pro or for the policies.

[00:16:41] Austin Beerworks: So how do you handle these conversations with guests who might not agree with your policies?

[00:16:46] Brewbound Podcast: It's not a perfect analogy, but the way I was trying to talk to some of our taproom staff is that any service industry, and especially alcohol service industry, they're used to dealing with drunk people and cutting people off. And that's kind of the same thing. I mean, I think some people, all they need is just a reminder or a slight like, hey, please put your mask on and that's gonna be enough. But every once in a while, there's gonna be somebody who's confrontational. And it's the same way with somebody who's had too much to drink. If they've been cut off, Most people will be fine but every once in a while there's somebody who's belligerent and our staff has been trained pretty well to handle those situations you know with de-escalation and you know to not be confrontational to something that might cause a physical altercation and I think. Luckily that's you know I don't know if we're just fortunate to be in Austin or if we've sort of naturally collected a just a really great group of customers and fans or you know maybe a little bit of everything. But we really haven't had hardly any any confrontational issues especially with with locals. When it when it is it's usually people from out of town that have an issue. And We haven't had to call the police or anything like that. It's usually some harsh words exchanged to our staff, and then that's it, thankfully. But in general, it's just we have to treat anybody who disagrees with any policy that we have, you know, masks or otherwise, just sort of with caution and care, and that hopefully, you know, involving outside law enforcement or anything else would be the last resort, but that hasn't had to happen.

[00:18:18] Jessica Infante: Adam, if the governor had maintained the mask mandate, how would that have changed the conversations and interactions that you guys are having with your customers?

[00:18:27] Michael Graham: I mean, I think it would just make things a lot easier, you know. I guess before the governor was the bad guy, right? Because he's the one who had enforced the mask mandate. And what's interesting is this emergency has been treated differently than any other emergency in the history of our state. The governor has very broad emergency powers that were granted to him back in the 70s. And they were basically unchecked or rather they'd been untested until Hurricane Harvey, which was the first time this governor actually started utilizing some of those emergency powers, and he kind of really has expanded what those original emergency powers were ever meant to do. And so when the pandemic came along, he started making all kinds of new decisions, things that had never been contemplated, completely separate from our legislative process, and basically operating as a true through executive, you know, for lack of a better term, you know, kind of like a king, right? He utilized whatever agencies, however he wanted to, in whatever manner he wanted them to operate. Again, outside of the typical legislative process and outside of the laws that were on the books. So it's a kind of a strange position. But so, you know, by putting in that mask mandate, that was something that had never been done before. Again, untested and unlegislated. By removing it, you know, you put all that onus directly on business owners across our state to make those decisions. And I sit on the board of directors for the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, and I talk to our other board members, you know, who are brewery owners and brewers across the state of Texas. And, you know, what's going on here in Austin is not what's going on in Dallas and Fort Worth, and certainly not what's going on in Lubbock. where, you know, say Lubbock is ground zero of the anti-mask movement, you know, and I can't imagine being a business owner in those places and having to subject our staff to a level of belligerence is probably the right word, you know, about, you know, the simple act of wearing a piece of cloth over your mouth and not spreading germs. You know, the proof's in the pudding for me about wearing wearing masks. I haven't gotten sick in the last 12 calendar months. I don't know anybody who has, you know, like we're all wearing our masks. all day every day. The flu this year has been a non-factor. I kind of can't wait to continue wearing a mask after this is all done. It just seems so odd to me that this is a thing that people draw a line in the sand about.

[00:20:41] Jessica Infante: Is there any recourse for you guys? Is there any discussion or lobbying or anything that can sort of get this thing reversed?

[00:20:50] Michael Graham: No, I mean, it's a simple answer. As a guild, we really mounted a very concerted and large effort during the early pandemic time where all breweries were treated the same as all bars. And we were all shut down. And so we couldn't have any on premise, you know, patio or anything else. social distancing didn't matter. We were shut down for effectively over 140 days where we had no on-premise operation at all. You think about that, where that was our number one revenue generator for our business was our on-premise operation. Just to lose that pretty much overnight was a big deal. That wasn't just our business, that was every brewery across the entire state, 250 small businesses from the smallest mom and pop to the largest guys, St. Arnold and Houston with a couple of hundred staff. We lobbied with everything we had. We've got a pretty sophisticated email and phone system called Phone to Action that we mobilized. We got a 20,000 person signature campaign to allow direct consumer shipment, which basically fell on deaf ears. You know, we did everything we possibly could. We went through every channel that we had, formal and informal. You know, I wrote a letter to the governor's chief of staff, you know, imploring his humanity, you know, to help us keep our staff employed just for, again, for patio, again, with our social distancing in place and with our masks and, you know, with our sanitizing and all of the practices that we've done. And so if all of those efforts fell on deaf ears during, you know, a particularly dire time, in all of these decisions have made during kind of a political process. We're at the end of that political process now. From my estimation, the governor's not going to make any new allowances and he's not going to make any new edicts. He's dead set on it. The thing that I think is most frustrating is there is an entire governor's strike force team that was supposed to look at all the evidence and make smart, informed decisions. There were going to be bright lines and there are going to be reasons for if X happens, then Y can happen. All that was just thrown completely out the door. separate from from what we were to understand it would be done by. I don't believe there's any opportunity for any any further relief, you know, when it comes to the executive branch, our legislative session is in session right now. And there are lots of bills that have been filed to curtail the governor's emergency powers. I don't personally believe that they have very much of a chance of passing. Because we had another giant emergency on top of an emergency with our big freeze a few weeks ago, where at least 60 Texans died from carbon monoxide and hypothermia, because inexplicably, we don't have a power system that can stand seven days at 20 degrees, or six degrees as it was.

[00:23:38] Jessica Infante: And we want to touch on that in a bit here. But one of the questions that we have here is, we're not going to ask you to name names, but have you heard of other craft brewery owners or even businesses that are forgoing all safety measures at this point? Not locally.

[00:23:55] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, not locally, not in Austin. And I think that's a couple important points of one that that, you know, the governor Abbott made that proclamation on Texas Independence Day. I think it was a planned, you know, political theater and that that decision had been made. way in advance you know that was going to be the day where things were going away and he made it from Lubbock which is a town in sort of a northwest Texas and I did see a brewery in Lubbock on that same day post you know some social media posts of of burning masks next to pints of beer and said, you know, come on in, we're ready to reopen. And so I think that that was the most aggressive public stance on that issue. In Austin, that's a secondary thing of although the Abbott issued that for the no mask mandate and 100% opening for the state, the city of Austin has maintained some of those guidelines and they're still requiring masks indoors. and limited capacity. And I feel like the city of Austin is always in direct conflict with the state. I think that the governor and lieutenant governor and attorney general in particular, there's always a pending lawsuit or something. But at the moment, the city of Austin still has mandates in place, which helps us out a little bit. as far as justifying some of our policies.

[00:25:15] Michael Graham: But I would like to point out those mandates that are in place right now. The attorney general has sued the city. The state court has put a two week hold on it. And Austin has lost pretty much every single time it has tried to put further restrictions in front of whatever the state allows. We've lost just about every single time. And so, yeah, we're on a two week hiatus. I think there's seven days left. for that, you know, to be cold and so yeah I don't hold great hope that the state, you know, my gut tells me that the judges in our state will ultimately side with the executive branch until the city of Austin, you know, you can't continue to enforce it. And it's just, that's one of the kind of really head-scratchers in this entire situation is, at first, the governor kind of wanted to put the onus on all of the individual municipalities. We have a long history in Texas Gov this idea of what we call local control, but over the last, say, 10 years, that local control has been pulled away to the central government where municipalities really no longer have the ability to set their own rules and set their own standards for what's right for them, which is, again, inexplicable. You know, it would not surprise me if one week from now, the state's telling Austin we can't enforce their, they really aren't necessarily enforcing their full restaurant, I don't think. I think right now the state says they can have up to 75% capacity, but I've seen a few restaurants that were absolutely packed and there's no way that they were enforcing any amount of, you know, reduced capacity. I don't eat inside restaurants still. You know, I just take to go. So I'm not sure who the folks are who are sitting in there with 100% capacity in this day and age.

[00:27:00] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, I mean, elsewhere in the country, you know, we've seen a few breweries run into sticky situations when they're asking their customers to wear masks, regardless of whatever the local rules are. If it's the brewery rule, customers need to wear masks, you know, sometimes they get some pushback. So a few breweries had viral moments on social media over the weekend when their responses to customers who disagree with safety protocol really kind of resonated with people. And some of them were a little bit funny. So in Oregon, Seaside Brewery posted a sign describing their new surcharge system, a $50 fee if they have to explain to the customer why masks are mandatory, and then a $75 fee if they have to hear why the guest disagrees. Then in Virginia, Beals Beer released a beer called Your Manager is Bitch. The beer gets its name from a grammatically incorrect email from a customer who was displeased that Beale's taproom manager refused some service because he refused to wear a mask. The brewery described this beer as, quote, a love letter to all the service industry workers who, despite a global pandemic, endeavor each day to provide a safe, welcoming environment for their guests. So, Michael, you handle a lot of Austin Beerworks social media. How do you thread the needle between, you know, using your platforms to remind guests of the rules, but still maintaining your brand's voice online? Because I could see that being a very tricky situation.

[00:28:15] Brewbound Podcast: It is. You know, I think in general, we try to approach most things with humor and sometimes, you know, and sarcasm and sometimes self-deprecation or guest deprecation if it's warranted. But in this particular instance, really tried not to do that because we take it extremely seriously. And I just feel so bad for our staff, you know, that it's not me or Adam that has to deal with these people and justify our positions to them. It's our staff that basically, you know, we're sort of dictating the positions to the staff. after talking to the staff about what they're comfortable and not comfortable with. But still, it's a difficult position to be in for them. And we try not to make light of it. And again, thankfully, we have not had any really extreme situations or confrontations that we felt needed to be talked about further on social media. I think that those two things were great. you know, great responses and, and we've, we've had a few, you know, if you go and look at any one-star review in the past really year that we've had, they might or might not mention a mask, but usually what it is is staff was very rude, beer sucks or whatever. And then, but the taproom staff's like, oh yeah, this guy refused to wear a mask or wouldn't sit down. And we, and we had to ask him to leave. And, you know, there's always almost a guaranteed one-star review coming from after that, but that's sort of the extent of it. And really something like that, we don't want to draw any extra attention to, I know, It's always very tempting and sometimes I do it in my head of writing a detailed takedown of what a shitty customer they were and that their accounting of the events was definitely not the accounting of our staff and that we have video backup to show and all that stuff. for every one star review we get, we've gotten 10 of people appreciative of the policies we have and everything else. And it's kind of just, we just have to take those lumps and move on as quickly as we can. Even though, like I said, I've written a lot of mental emails and responses to some of those situations.

[00:30:12] Austin Beerworks: I get why you wouldn't write that and post that, but I love reading those whenever, you know, somebody comes out and, well, I remember when you came in and you were horrible to our staff.

[00:30:21] Brewbound Podcast: Me too. It is great to read other people's dirty laundry. And I, as a consumer and just general guy who spends a lot of time on the internet, I really enjoy reading those. But I try to pick our battles wisely, sometimes more successfully than others.

[00:30:37] Austin Beerworks: For sure. I wish everybody spent at least six months working in service, because I think it makes you really empathetic to what the employees on the other side are going through. I used to cocktail waitress at the Jersey Shore in the summers in college, and it really- Congrats on surviving, yeah.

[00:30:52] Brewbound Podcast: Thank you.

[00:30:53] Austin Beerworks: Very much toughened me up as a human.

[00:30:55] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I like that. I do think that society would benefit from that, instead of a mandatory service industry when you turn 16 or whatever it is, I don't know, I think it would be a good lesson in empathy for a lot of people.

[00:31:13] Austin Beerworks: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:13] Jessica Infante: At what point do you guys feel like you'll be comfortable enough to reopen a little more than you are already?

[00:31:21] Brewbound Podcast: I would have to say that I think we're already there a little bit. I feel I certainly feel better today than well than a year ago for summer. You know, I feel l are in the right directio the vaccination rates are very quickly. And again, I mean, I don't know, you could look at data, data is so hard to make decisions on, or at least there's so many different data sets to choose from. We keep a close eye on hospitalization rates and ICU rates and death rates and all that stuff. And there's, you know, Austin has a sort of a local dashboard that has different stages. And right now we're in stage three. So it's three out of five, which is better than it's been. But all that stuff seems fairly arbitrary. And that's why we ultimately decided on our staff vaccination rates that really we weren't comfortable forcing any of our staff into a situation that they weren't comfortable with. So until everybody, you know, we can't force our staff to get vaccinated either, but that's why we sent out something that basically, if you're interested in getting vaccinated, let us know. We want to kind of keep track of who's interested, who's not, you know, where you are in the process, if we can help you get vaccinated. Adam and I have both spent a lot of time on the internet getting appointments for other people, you know, family member and otherwise. We want to help everybody as much as we can. And we just instituted, you know, that for our carrot, you know, that once everybody is, or once we get to a certain percent, we can start having company parties again. You know, we really had annual boat parties, annual, you know, whatever, just things where people can actually hang out. And the part that actually makes working at a brewery more, you know, really worth it when it comes down to it. That's kind of where we landed that made most sense for the company is just once our staff is safe and taken care of, then we'll feel a lot more comfortable letting other people in as well.

[00:33:12] Jessica Infante: Have you had a lot of employees who have said that they're not interested in taking the vaccine?

[00:33:17] Michael Graham: I haven't heard from anybody who said they're not going to take it. We've got one employee who is traditionally very skeptical of everything scientific or political or vaccination related, but I think even he said he's going to get it.

[00:33:34] Brewbound Podcast: And I think that's always been a strength of ours to that. And one of the reasons why we try to be extremely apolitical as a company but we've got a very diverse staff and I would I would almost guarantee that you know in any political election we have staff members that would vote for for multiple different candidates and It's a difficult thing too. I want everybody to get vaccinated. I think that that's the right thing to do. And I think that's the right thing to do for the company, but we never want to force anybody into it. And we never want to force anybody into having to justify their position one way or another. So that's why we kind of wanted it. It's sort of a silent spreadsheet that we have. I haven't even seen it myself. It's sort of an HR deal. But Yeah, we wanted to reach out to everybody individually and just to let us know if you're interested or not interested, and that way we can track. And once everybody who is interested has been able to get it, then we feel like we've sort of done our job.

[00:34:24] Michael Graham: Yeah, our goal, of course, is, you know, at least 85%. That's kind of the driving goal. Once we get 85% of our staff there, we feel like we will have done our part for our business, but also for society, right? It's kind of, you know, that magic number that I've read, at least, you know, hopefully get towards the herd immunity realm. go and get their shots, you know, and we're giving them time off for recovery. You know, we're doing the things that we would want for ourselves, whatever we can to make it easy for folks to do it.

[00:34:55] Austin Beerworks: Empathy is so important in leadership, really anywhere. And it's always kind of shocking to me how sometimes you see a complete lack of it places, but So we're going to shift gears a little bit. Texas was recently hit by a winter storm that took out the power grid and left the state in post-apocalyptic conditions. It sounds like we're joking, but for those who lived it, it really seems to be true. And I know up here in New England, when places that aren't used to snow get snow and freak out, we have a tendency to be like, oh, you're so cute. But this was really disastrous for you guys. What was it like for you personally?

[00:35:27] Michael Graham: I was pretty lucky. There's a nursing home right around the corner from, from my house. And we were able to maintain power the whole time. You know, we got down the coldest I saw at my house was seven degrees, which I was born and raised here in Austin. And, and, you know, it's never gotten below 20 in my lifetime. I just turned 40 last week. And so it's, it's kind of a crazy place to be. I actually had frozen pipes in my house. I had a burst pipe, but I'm actually quite a So we were able to get our water back online later that day and still be able to take hot showers and actually put up one of our staff who didn't have power and didn't have water for a couple of nights. But I mean, our roads were mostly impassable because it snowed and then it thawed and then it turned into ice. we don't have salt, we don't have sand, we don't have any of the things that cities and northern climes have. There's that way all across the state. I saw snow on the beach in Galveston pictures where, you know, there's eight inches of snow in places maybe it never snowed before. But I think Michael actually had a much tougher time than I did, to be honest with you.

[00:36:30] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah. I mean, even mine was not that bad. Our power in our house went out for a couple of days and our, uh, my part of town, the wastewater. So that when the power went out, then the wastewater sort of lift stations went out. So they were really begging people not to put anything down the drain because it would just, there's nowhere for it to go. So, you know, there was a lot of peeing in the snow and whatever else was coming. Luckily, I mean, luckily the brewery was here once the roads became a little bit better, the brewery fared very well. But that's sort of the new running joke of, you know, Austin home resale value of going to have to start listening to like power didn't go down during the during the great storm or whatever, you know. And I guess everybody learned a lot about how the how our infrastructure grids work and that, yeah, there's these are these these key grids. They have your next to a children's hospital or an old folks home or whatever that that they will. that neighborhood will receive priority in their infrastructure when things go south. And of course, a lot of it happened along financial lines of the city. A lot of the better-off neighborhoods fared better than a lot of the poorer parts of town, which is, I guess, an ongoing truth of where you are, unfortunately. But overall, fortunate, our house was well-insulated. I didn't have any pipes burst. you know, as a joke too, that my kids, I've been wanting to teach them how to play poker and dice games and all these games I played. They'd never been bored enough to entertain me and we finally got there. So I have some new card buddies to play with. And it was their first time, you know, it was their first time without the internet for any extended period of time or power. And so it was a good learning experience for them too, that all these things aren't, you know, that there's not a little power man in the wall that actually, makes their devices work and that, I don't know. So it was one of those things, a tragedy, but looking back on it, it was, at least for my personal experience, my family, I think it will be something that they remember kind of fondly as a fun thing.

[00:38:31] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and if you get a young poker player out of it, even better. That's my retirement plan, yeah.

[00:38:38] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah.

[00:38:40] Jessica Infante: As far as the business goes, were you guys down very long? Did it lead to any out of stocks? Did it affect production? How did that go?

[00:38:49] Michael Graham: Yeah, we were, we were down for a little bit. Um, let's see here. So the storm really started hitting on Sunday and I'd, I'd come up here over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, just trying to keep, keep things going. But, uh, on Sunday, at least one of our boilers had frozen solid. I realized that it was going to be a losing battle. And so we ended up, I ended up shutting down some of our other plants, you know, operation stuff. And then, you know, that Sunday night was really when the coldest of the cold came and the biggest snow, And we weren't able to get back up here to the brewery until I think Thursday was the first day we were able to come back up. The roads were passable. I've got it all with a drive vehicle. And so I was able to get up here, but, um, you know, we had a lot of, we had anything that was outside, um, was frozen and that was a challenge. Uh, we had some damage on our, on our taproom patio, but other than that, those were really kind of cosmetic. And by Friday I was able to get both of our boilers fired back up and, You know, technically we were in a place where we could have brewed beer very soon thereafter, but a side effect of the state losing power was at our municipal water utility here in Austin, a lot of them across the state lost power and so then we're all on citywide and I think most of the state was on a city or statewide boil notice. And so none of us had the ability to drink the water coming out of our faucets. Interestingly, breweries, we've got thousands of gallons of fresh, clean water on hand at any given time. So we actually became a de facto water provider for the city, we gave out, I don't know six or 8000 gallons of water to all comers anybody who came with some kind of a vessel we're filling it off of our, our cold liquor tank, you know, just just part of our brewing brewing water. That was all pre, you know, pre freeze water that had been filtered and softened and all that stuff. And we gave water to local hospitals. We gave water to the airport, restaurants, anybody who asked, we, you know, we had, and we said, come on, come get it. It was a crazy scenario. So yeah, we were, we didn't brew beer, uh, for about, I guess it was probably about a week and a half that we were down. And to my knowledge, we are real, real tight on a lot of stuff at this point, Michael would be able to speak better to that.

[00:40:57] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I mean, it was, it was wild. I mean, it was nothing, nothing ever like it has happened in Austin. And again, in my, in my lifetime, but the city shut down for an entire week. So we couldn't go out and make deliveries to sell anything. Nobody was going to the stores or bar. I mean, it was, it was just shut down. So it's sort of a weird last week of, and I'm looking at this purely from sales. So like sales, basically zero for that entire week, because we just couldn't get out and sell anything, and people weren't going to the stores to buy it. So it was just an erased week. And it was interesting, just human life stopped, but yeast keeps on going. So our fermentation kept happening, so our production was going, but we couldn't get up here to manage it. And so yeast viability and these other things. Luckily, we didn't lose any batches or anything, but it took a while to sort of you know, reconnect the various production schedules and everything that we have going on. And yeah, and in terms of just the year, I mean, it's a, we're just erasing a whole week. So that's, you know, several hundred barrels worth of sales for us that are just, that are gone. And there's a little, you know, there's a little catching up, but really it was, I mean, I guess people were probably still at home drinking a beer and then eventually they'd have to go and, you know, rebuy. So there's a little bit of catch up rebound the following week, but, but really not to make up for that week disappearing. So that'll be a blip on our 2021 calendar of, I don't know, our sales calendar has been very strange over the last full year now of COVID and weather disasters.

[00:42:33] Austin Beerworks: Do you think this is going to be something that you're going to have to factor into the business plan moving forward?

[00:42:37] Brewbound Podcast: I hope not. I hope it's an isolated incident and that we're not in for for a future of drastic climate shifts, you know, one way or another. I really don't know what we could do to prepare or to even plan for something like that. Because they're just, you know, without redoing the entire city infrastructure, I just don't think there's anything really to be done that we could, especially, you know, so much was out of our hands that I just don't think there's any amount of planning that could have changed anything on our end.

[00:43:13] Austin Beerworks: For sure. Well, you guys are certainly living in interesting times down there and we know you're both busy. So thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. We've really enjoyed having you on the show.

[00:43:23] Brewbound Podcast: Oh, it's been great. Thank you guys. You guys have been doing a killer job. I really been enjoying listening to all the episodes lately. So thank you guys. One of the, one of the things that has gotten me through the pandemic has been great podcasts. So you guys are, you guys are doing a great job.

[00:43:36] Jessica Infante: Thanks, man. We really appreciate that.

[00:43:38] Austin Beerworks: Yeah. Thanks so much.

[00:43:39] Jessica Infante: All right, let's get to some of the news of the week, or as it appears to be, CELT's talk. I think that's horrible. I apologize to everyone out there for that. But all these headlines, or most of them, involve hard seltzer. Apologies if you don't like it. And if you do like it, well, here you go. Big stories out of last week was Coobail Works and Oklahoma City Craft Brewery has struck a deal with fast food chain Sonic to produce a hard seltzer line based off some of their flavors like cherry limeade and ocean water. It's going to be available in six states. And I'm really kind of excited. There is that word again. I'm actually excited about this product. I want to try it. I think it could be cool. I don't know if it can be a top five player, but they think it can be.

[00:44:29] Austin Beerworks: I best of luck to them with that. But what makes the most sense to me about this partnership is that both of these brands have serious credibilities in both of their respective industries. You know, Coop is a beloved Oklahoma City craft beer maker. They have their own hard seltzer line called Will & Wiley. So they've clearly been plying the hard seltzer trade for a little bit. And Sonic is cherished for their sodas. I don't even, can you call ocean water a soda? I'm not really sure.

[00:44:57] Jessica Infante: You did some reconnaissance over the weekend, so what's your read on ocean water?

[00:45:02] Austin Beerworks: So I went to Sonic this weekend amid all of my weekend chores, and I tried an ocean water, and extraordinarily sweet, shockingly blue, a little bit of coconut, but not overwhelmingly so. My sister-in-law is from Tulsa, so when this story first broke, I hit her up and was like, well, what do you think? And she said, ocean water hard seltzer sounds delicious. And she's a bit of a hipster who loves Negronis. So that should tell you what her palate's like. The fact that she's excited about an ocean water hard seltzer, I took to mean that it had a lot of potential. So I went and tried one. I think when you put those flavors in the 100 calorie, 5% ABV format, there could be something pretty good. It won't be available in the Northeast, just six states right now. Maybe in year two, we'll see further expansion of sauna card seltzer, but I think they have the potential to knock it out of the park with this.

[00:45:54] Jessica Infante: I agree with you. I think there's a lot of potential with this. Also, potential exists with a Spindrift hard seltzer. They're going it alone. If you don't know Spindrift, it's a non-alcoholic sparkling water brand based in Massachusetts, and they aren't partnering up on this.

[00:46:14] Austin Beerworks: No, that's what makes it odd, because in this year's crop of new hard seltzer entrants, there are a lot of partnerships between Bev-Elk brands and non-Bev-Elk brands. We've seen Molson Coors Topo Chico, Heineken, and Arizona Iced Tea. The fact that Spindrift is doing this on their own is really interesting to me. We'll see what happens. I mean, I guess if you want to go by that popular online meme, adapted for these purposes. The best time to release the hard seltzer was last year. I guess the second best time is now, but a really crowded field and alcohol is such a highly regulated industry. I assume they know what they're doing, but we will see.

[00:46:54] Jessica Infante: And while we're talking about hooking up, Diageo has acquired Lone River Ranch Water Maker Far West Spirits. If you listen to this program, you know that I am a fan of Lone River Ranch Water. So I love this deal for Diageo. Could Ranch Water translate to states such as Massachusetts or my home state of Iowa or Montana or wherever? I have no idea, but I think it's awesome. And I think that they got a steal on this one.

[00:47:24] Austin Beerworks: For sure. Founder Katie Beale-Brown was on a panel during Brewbound Live in December, and she told us that at launch, occasionally she'll get questions from people who ask if it's similar to ranch dressing. To be clear, it is not. It is the name of a Texas cocktail that involves usually sparkling water, Topo Chico in particular, tequila, and lime.

[00:47:48] Jessica Infante: And if it was ranch dressing, it would be very popular in my home state of Iowa. This is really one of the first MNA moves that we've seen this year outside of the Deschutes-Boneyard craft-on-craft deal, which was, what, two weeks ago at this point? I don't know. It's all a blur. But the conversations I've had with dealmakers since then is, There is a lot of interest in the F&B hard seltzer space, and that is where the deal activity is really sort of simmering at the moment. We've all heard about the rumored deal for Ashland that has not come to fruition yet. could be, maybe not, but take your notes out there. That is where the activity is at the moment. And while we're on the subject of FNBs, Dogfish Head has released its canned cocktails. I've tasted through them and they do not drink like 7% ABV canned cocktails. They are very smooth, no burn. And Sam Calagione used the word sessionable. I would not use that term, but they are very, very drinkable.

[00:48:56] Austin Beerworks: When you drank these with Sam sitting, you know, on a park bench in Boston Seaport District last week, did you pour them over ice?

[00:49:04] Jessica Infante: We did not, no. There was no ice. It was fricking cold though. And we were socially distanced. So that was the first human contact that I've had outside of my home since July, other than, you know, the random target or grocery trip. He was the first human being that I have seen. It was very strange.

[00:49:25] Austin Beerworks: That's quite a way to break your distancing. And you were still distanced, you know what I mean.

[00:49:31] Jessica Infante: Yeah, exactly. Other headlines that we should tell you about, Jax Abbey is attempting to terminate its wholesaler contract in Massachusetts with Atlantic. There was franchise reform in Massachusetts last year. And you reported on this story, Jess.

[00:49:49] Austin Beerworks: I did. Our governor, Charlie Baker, signed the franchise law reform into effect on January 12th. Jax Abbey notified their intent to terminate Atlantic's contract on January 14th, so they really wasted no time there. They brought up a few concerns as to why they're doing this, but the bonus for brewers under a certain threshold in mass is that you don't need to prove cause to terminate. Previously, you had to, and often that meant that those contracts were nearly impossible to exit. Jax Abbey said that Atlantic has, they laid off a significant portion of their sales staff. They stopped servicing 1,000 accounts with in-person service and shifted them to all being online only. And those accounts accounted for almost 40% of Jax Abbey's business through Atlantic. Atlantic serves the whole state for Jax Abbey. Massachusetts is 70% of Jax Abbey's volume. So that's a very potentially significant blow for them. Atlantic is challenging the termination. They are saying that Jax Abbey cannot terminate their agreement without appointing a successor wholesaler. Jax Abbey has designated themselves as a successor wholesaler, but their license in Massachusetts, a farmer brewery license, allows them to only self-distribute about 1,200 barrels, which really is not very much. Jack Zabby says they will do this in the short term, self-distribute up to the limit under their license, at which point they will either seek to obtain a license to distribute, you're allowed to self-distribute in Massachusetts, or appoint another wholesaler. But we spoke with co-owner, co-founder Sam Hendler last week about this, and he said, really, time is of the essence, and they're just trying to get out of what he called a toxic relationship as fast as they can. So we'll see what happens. Atlantic is also threatening that franchise law reform is unconstitutional because it requires arbitration if the two parties cannot agree to what fair market value is. And they're saying that arbitrators are denying them of due process under the law because they would like to see a jury assign it and have it be approved by a court. So potentially ruining a, what, decade-long legal attempt?

[00:51:53] Jessica Infante: Potentially more than that. It might be way more than that, but yes. So a lot going on here in Massachusetts. In Kansas City, Boulevard has dismissed three more employees and they've wrapped up their, well, the independent human resources firm has wrapped up its investigation and they determined that harassment and bad behaviors have occurred at Boulevard. You were also following this story.

[00:52:22] Austin Beerworks: Yes, I was. So Boulevard, they've been fairly transparent about the process of the investigation. They posted on their website when it started, that it was still ongoing, that it had ended, and then they posted the results. And the fact that they had dismissed three more employees was the very last line of that post. But they said that you know, harassment did in fact occur. Employees were not always treated professionally or courteously, that they needed to streamline their hiring policies. So it sounded like this external firm found a lot going on to investigate. We were not given any more details about who those employees were, if they were people who perpetuated the bad behavior, or if they were higher up people who condoned it. We're not entirely sure.

[00:53:06] Jessica Infante: Yeah, progress being made there. There are a lot more stories on Brewbound.com, including you recovering the BrewDog firings recently, and beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, breaking news as we're recording this, and it is relentless. There are a couple of stories that Jess and I are going to have to pop off this podcast recording and go report on C&C Group in Ireland has sold its U.S. subsidiary Vermont Hard Cider Company to Northeast Kingdom Drink Group for $20 million. So that's the story we're going to be following once we get done recording and we're tipping our hand here. We're recording on a Tuesday. Also breaking news, the TTB has accepted an offer in compromise from Stone Brewing Company in the amount of $1.8 million. That is for a number of alleged violations, including misapplication of reduced tax rates, nonpayment of excise taxes on inventory shortages, nonpayment of excise taxes due on unsubstantiated exports, and nonpayment of excise taxes on certain other removals, failed to timely file excise tax returns and timely submit excise taxes, failed to submit complete information on export documentation, failed to timely submit Brewer's report of operations, and to submit accurate operational reports, failed to maintain sufficient bond coverage. The dollar amount of liability being compromised according to the TTB was in excess of $2.7 million. So, We're going to be reporting on that as soon as we wrap up here. I've put out a call to stone for comment, nothing as of wrapping up this recording. But with that, since we got to run, we're going to say that's our show for this week. Thanks to Adam and Michael for hanging out. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe, for removing all of my ums and ands. Please like, subscribe and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Drop us a note via email at podcast at Brewbound Podcast com to share your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks for listening. We'll be back in a couple of weeks.