Brewbound Podcast: Rhinegeist Leaders Discuss Leadership Shakeup, Path Forward

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: Next on the Brewbound podcast, the leaders of Cincinnati's Rheingeis join us to discuss a shakeup at the top of the brewery. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound podcast. My name is Justin Kendall and I'm the editor of Brewbound. I'm joined by Jessica Infante, the managing editor of Brewbound. What's up, Jess?

[00:00:28] Zoe Licata: Nothing, how are you?

[00:00:29] Jessica Infante: I'm doing well, and we're also joined by Zoe Licata. How you doing, Zoe?

[00:00:35] Bryant Goulding: I'm fine, dealing with a very brutal loss by the Bruins, so we're in recovery right now.

[00:00:43] Jessica Infante: A little bit chippy.

[00:00:44] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, it was sad, I'm very sorry.

[00:00:46] Jessica Infante: Lots of salt, lots of salt over there. I couldn't even tell you who the Bruins played, so.

[00:00:51] Bryant Goulding: They played the Panthers, they should have gone through the round very easily and ended up going to game seven and losing in game seven in overtime. They had record-breaking great regular season play, so it's just all terrible and unfortunate.

[00:01:08] Jessica Infante: You still got the Celtics, you're fine.

[00:01:11] Zoe Licata: If they make it, yes. Is it embarrassing to lose to a hockey team from Florida?

[00:01:19] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, yeah, when my own mother who doesn't watch hockey was pointing out like, oh, Florida has hockey, are they any good? Yeah, it's really embarrassing.

[00:01:29] Jessica Infante: It's not like the players are all from Florida though or anything like that.

[00:01:33] Zoe Licata: No, no, but I mean, when you're an original six team, I think it just hits a little different. Look at me, I know things. Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:42] Jessica Infante: You know more than I do, so. Well, we are in the final week before BrewTalks in Nashville, which also has a pro hockey team that I don't believe is in the playoffs. No, maybe?

[00:01:57] Bryant Goulding: I don't think so.

[00:01:58] SPEAKER_??: I don't know.

[00:02:00] Jessica Infante: So all the more reason to come to BrewTalks on Sunday, May 7th, 2 to 5 p.m. Central Time at Nashville Underground. We've got a couple of talks. Zoe, what do we got going on?

[00:02:12] Bryant Goulding: Well, first we're going to check in with the Tennessee Guild. We have started doing a little tradition here, check on what's happening in Tennessee legislation wise. And then our first official panel, we are talking about the combating trends of low and no elk and high ABV. So we have people from athletic brewing, Dogfish Head and Greater Good Imperial Brewing on that panel. And then we'll have some networking. After that, we'll be checking in with the National Black Brewers Association, who is just newly formed, seeing what that association is all about and what they're going to be working on before our second panel of the day, talking about multi-state taprooms, so how you can create your brewery presence in multiple states through your own premise. And for that, we'll hear from people at Monday Night Brewing, Weathered Souls Brewing, and High Wire Brewing. Yep. So lots of fun people, lots of fun conversations, and lots of networking and beers.

[00:03:15] Jessica Infante: Yep. Tickets are available now, so you can get those at Brewbound.com. We'd love to see you there. There's going to be plenty of time to network, drink some beers, chat with folks and just take it all in. So hopefully we'll see everyone there. So let's plug our featured interview this week. And as I mentioned at the top of the show, that is Rheingeist. We are going to be talking about a change in the CEO role at the Cincinnati Craft Brewery. We're going to be joined by Interim CEO Adam Bankovich and Rheingeist co-founder Bryant Goulding. And Adam's interim tag comes with a lowercase I, it sounds like. I think as Zoe reported this week, it's a living interview.

[00:03:58] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:03:58] Jessica Infante: Living job interview.

[00:04:00] Zoe Licata: Which sounds stressful, but do you guys know what Adam and Bryant both have in common other than Rheingeist? I guess it's connected to Rheingeist, but... They have both been on stage at Brewbound live. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Brian joined us to talk about, uh, culture in 2021 and Adam joined us to talk about the fourth category in 2022.

[00:04:25] Bryant Goulding: Slowly becoming some form of the Simpsons where we're predicting like predicting or pushing things to happen in the future. We had we had Steve and carry on before the big bells deal. We're having we're having future leaders on the Brewbound live stage. You just don't know it yet.

[00:04:45] Zoe Licata: I know. I mean, if we could like manifest this into ways like for us to come into millions of dollars or something like that would be really useful.

[00:04:53] Jessica Infante: But let's work on that. Yeah.

[00:04:55] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could use a daycare spot somewhere in northern Massachusetts, you know,

[00:05:01] Jessica Infante: It ain't easy.

[00:05:03] Zoe Licata: I'll take anything, really.

[00:05:04] Jessica Infante: You need about a million dollars to get on all of the wait lists. Grossly true. Let's get into the news of this week. A big deal went down on Monday. Spirit of Gallo, E&J Gallo's spirits division, has picked up Fisher's Island Lemonade.

[00:05:21] Zoe Licata: Yeah, you know, you know, Justin, you had been told about a deal is coming, you know, during our morning meeting on Monday, which is how we start the week. And we had no idea what it was. And then we, you know, as the hours went by, figured it out and ticked it together and Yeah, congrats to Bronya and the whole Fishers Island team. That's a great brand. With a fun backstory, Fishers Island is a squiggly looking island closer to Rhode Island than Long Island, but technically belongs to New York. And typical Northeast New England summertime island population swells in the summer. Shiloh's family has summered on the island for a long time. They own the island's only bar at the Pequot Inn. And they'd always made this signature drink called the Fisher's Island Lemonade, whiskey, vodka, lemon, and honey. And Branya was the manager of the bar for a while, and she noticed how popular these things were. So in 2014, she decided to start packaging them. This is well before hard seltzers or any other kind of RTDs. Fisher's Island is really kind of an OG of that segment. It's definitely a product of its time. It is higher in alcohol than a lot of the other popular products in the segment, 9%, but they've diversified their portfolio since then. They've got a few different other offerings.

[00:06:45] Jessica Infante: Delicious.

[00:06:46] Zoe Licata: Delicious.

[00:06:48] Jessica Infante: Dangerous. Yeah, it's dangerously good. You don't even know you're drinking a 9% ABV product.

[00:06:54] Zoe Licata: going to be siblings to High Noon, which is the standout RTD star in Gallo's portfolio. Reminds me a little bit of another deal with a female-led brand creating an RTD based off a family recipe, like Katie Beale Brown, founder of Lone River Ranch Water, sold her brand to Diageo in 2021. Like Katie, Brawnia is going to stay on too and be the face of the brand. I think that's smart. I mean, Brawnia is that brand and that brand is Brawnia. So, you know, taking it without keeping her would be silly. So I'm glad that the Gallo crew knows that. Yeah.

[00:07:36] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I think it's always important to have a founder on like that to sort of guide things in the transition and even after.

[00:07:44] Zoe Licata: for sure. Yeah, I mean, Katie's years in still there and still very super involved. Fisher's Island isn't quite nationwide. They're super East Coast heavy, basically from Maine to Florida. And then Out in Colorado too, interestingly enough. I assume that their new parent company will be able to help them scale up and expand.

[00:08:09] Bryant Goulding: Like we've just seen with Montauk after that Tilray acquisition. Definitely. Great reference.

[00:08:16] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And then you have the Sercana data. It's 52 week data for hard lemonade and hard tea. They've collectively increased sales 17.6% in that period to nearly $1.5 billion and volume is up 11.2%. So you can get a, get an idea of why Spirit of Gallo would be interested in this brand. Speaking of hard tea brands and the like that are burning up sales, Zoe, Boston Beer Earnings Week was last week, but that always bleeds over. It sounds like a lot of twisted tea doing well, some hard Mountain Dew, and then not so great after that.

[00:09:04] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, hard man do twisted tea, the only things in Boston Beer Company's portfolio to really show any growth in the first quarter of 2023. This was a bit of a refreshing earnings call in that it wasn't all truly talk and we covered a lot of different topics over the call. But yeah, Twisted Tea was really the star of the show. It now accounts for 27% of F&B sales and off-premise channels, increased dollar sales 34% year over year in Q1. A lot of that growth is driven by better distribution of 12 packs, some more retail programming, some Super Bowl programming in place, and more is expected. Dave Berwick said they still expect double-digit growth throughout the rest of 2023 for Twisted Tea. And that will come as they continue to just expand the reach of that brand and fill in a bunch of markets that are still pretty underrepresented. And

[00:10:02] Jessica Infante: One of the standout numbers for me was they're gonna gain 45% in shelf space this spring. So that's a large number for that brand.

[00:10:15] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, we got some insight. They have about 70% of their retail customers they have information in so far for those spring and summer resets. And yeah, 45% increase for Twisted Tea, which is up from, they were expecting a 30% increase. So that's well above what they even thought was going to happen. Truly also expect to get a bit of an increase in shelf space too. And that's mainly from the hard seltzer segment is going to contract, but they're going to focus on some of those larger brands like Truly, like White Claw. And so Truly will benefit a little bit from that. Yeah, 45% is

[00:10:52] Zoe Licata: And say, I am sure you noticed this too last night, but a bunch of twisted tea commercials during the Bruins game, which is something that's somewhat new for them, you know, for a while, they used to just kind of treat it like a summer brand. But a year or two ago, they announced they were really going to invest behind twisted to year round. So.

[00:11:09] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, and it seems to be working. The Twisted Tea Lite, their new lower calorie version, is also going more nationwide this year. So that is also going to be bringing in some new consumers. Even though Jim Koch said, you know, the Twisted Tea consumer is kind of like an ice cream lover. where you're there for an indulgence, you know what you're getting. So you're not necessarily looking for those lower calorie options, but Cook was saying, you know, we're going to offer it to some people who may want every now and again to get a lower calorie version.

[00:11:41] Jessica Infante: Jim's very confident in Twisted Tea. He had that quote, something like, Twisted Tea's got 90 some percent of the category and the next product might have five. And he said, I don't see what would differentiate another tea to make significant inroads on Twisted Tea.

[00:11:59] Bryant Goulding: This is probably the most we've heard from Jim Cook in a while on an earnings call. And he commented on a lot of things. But yeah, he is pretty confident that even some of these larger, traditionally non-alcoholic beverage brands that are coming into the market, even though they're starting to come out with some hard versions of their teas, it's just, he says, it's too late for them to really make a significant impact.

[00:12:22] Zoe Licata: And we saw this a few years ago, I wanna say like eight to 10 years ago, there was a little smattering of hard teas that were never really able to make a dent. It's Twisted Tea and it's Mike's Hard Lemonade. And those two brands have such a dominant hold over their respective segments that if you're coming in, you gotta bring something different and you gotta have a plan and you gotta be okay with just tiny little gains.

[00:12:48] Jessica Infante: And apparently Spirit of Gallo is looking to make some of those gains with Fisher's Island. It all sort of comes back.

[00:12:57] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a different product because it's spirits based at 9%. Right.

[00:13:01] Jessica Infante: But still going after like the lemonade tea drinker.

[00:13:05] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:13:06] Jessica Infante: One of the things that I took away from the call was the Wall Street analysts, they were as engaged as I think I've seen them. They had very sharp questions. They were hitting on a lot of different things from Truly's declines to what Boston has learned by trying some of these malt-based cocktail-inspired offerings that they've had to shelve or disco, and then just getting Jim to weigh in on the Bud Light boycott as well.

[00:13:37] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, there was an interesting comment from Jim when they were asked about Sousa, which was that malt-based version or extension of the Sousa tequila brand through this partnership project with Beam Suntory. And we learned a couple of days before this call that that brand was discontinued. But Jim said, Part of having a presence in this beyond beer space is innovating. And in that innovation, most of our products are going to fail because that's just the nature of how innovation goes. And so you need to put a lot of products out there and have, he called it a fairly robust innovation pipeline if you're going to find that next product that works like a twisted T. He also said like the next Truly, which give or take how you determine the success of that, but it's still the number two hard seltzer.

[00:14:27] Zoe Licata: And disco sounds like something way more fun than it actually is.

[00:14:32] Jessica Infante: For real.

[00:14:33] Bryant Goulding: Another interesting part of that real quick too from Jim's comments was he noted that it's one of their biggest learnings was that it's really hard to make a malt based extension of a liquor branded product. But they are still doing that with these Jim Beam Kentucky coolers that are just that are launching nationwide this month. So that was a peaked my curiosity a little bit, those kind of conflicting comments.

[00:15:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we talked about this a little bit last week, but there's definitely like an exemplar for for that product in the the Jack Daniels Country Cocktails. But I mean, other than than those and like Smirnoff Ice, like he's he's kind of right. I think drinkers are a little bit savvier now. You know, when I was in college, I will not tell you how old, but there was like a spate of like spirits branded FMBs. Like there was like Bacardi Silver and Captain Morgan Gold. And I obviously didn't know all the things that I know now, but I remember being slightly confused. Like, what is this? What's in here? But drinkers today know. They're starting to understand the difference between what's the base of an alcohol. I know sometimes we see analysis that says they don't care, and we see lawsuits that allege that they're confused, but people can find this out.

[00:15:55] Bryant Goulding: There's so many more products in the space now that it's kind of forced consumers to be more aware of what's in their product. And there has been a bit more of those lawsuits that have come a little bit more to the spotlight. I mean, we saw the stuff with Fireball recently where people are realizing that maybe some of these products aren't actually liquor based. So. Totally. It's more on people's minds.

[00:16:17] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And Fireball. What did we write about last week? Oh, Topo Chico Margarita Hard Seltzer.

[00:16:24] Adam Bankovich: Mm hmm.

[00:16:25] Zoe Licata: where that judge was having none of that, so.

[00:16:28] Adam Bankovich: Nope.

[00:16:31] Jessica Infante: Well, to put a bow on Boston Beer's earnings for the first quarter, it was a rough one. They were cycling some not great numbers. The company's shipments and depletions in Q1 2022 were down 25.1% and 7% respectively. And coming into this year, Boston's shipments were down 7.6%. And their depletions were down 6%. So they had some pretty easy comps and they couldn't, couldn't pull it off. The company recorded $9 million loss in the quarter. So again, not a great start, but it's early.

[00:17:11] Zoe Licata: That is ugly. Ugly AF. All of those numbers.

[00:17:17] Bryant Goulding: And they blamed a lot of that on Truly, mainly with lapping the Truly Margarita launch last year. And that combined with Truly Iced Tea, which was discontinued, accounts for more than half of those losses.

[00:17:31] Jessica Infante: And they've held off on launching a new innovation play Early this year, they're going to roll that out. What spring, summer. Summer at this point.

[00:17:42] Bryant Goulding: Yeah. New variety pack.

[00:17:43] Jessica Infante: So yeah, not, not a great start there, but a company that is off to a great start is non-alcoholic beer maker, Athletic. They just announced a partnership with JetBlue, which is going to get them on all domestic flights. So Upside Don Golden is going to be offered on all those flights for $9 a can. So might be, it's an option out there. If you know, somebody is looking for a non-alcoholic beer on a JetBlue flight, they're going to get it.

[00:18:11] Bryant Goulding: I honestly, before this came out, was kind of craving one on my JetBlue flight, on my travels to the MBWA legislative conference. It was like five o'clock, prime time for a nice cold beer. And Athletic lets me do that and still do my job.

[00:18:28] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I've seen some discussion on the $9 price point of it, which is in line with alcoholic beverages, the beer alcoholic beverages. So you could get like a Bud Light or a Truly Seltzer or whatever for the same price. But I don't see that as big of a hurdle. I think that that athletic drinker is pretty dedicated. health conscious. So that's what they're looking for. And they're not going to switch to a free soda or something like that, because that's just not who they are.

[00:19:00] Bryant Goulding: Yeah, I think Athletic has made itself pretty known, situated itself pretty well within the existing alcoholic beer space where consumers are thinking about Athletic in the same space they're thinking about some other alcoholic beer. And so the price point is pretty level at this point.

[00:19:20] Zoe Licata: And if you have the JetBlue card, you get 50% all in-flight purchases. So you could get that non-alcoholic beer for $4.50.

[00:19:27] Jessica Infante: Oh, even better point there because the JetBlue card is, it is, is well worth it. This is not commercial for them.

[00:19:35] Zoe Licata: No, but JetBlue, if you are listening, I will gladly accept mosaic status for 2024 because I'm about to go nowhere in 2023.

[00:19:45] Jessica Infante: Good point. I will take status, but I can't even fly JetBlue because they don't even fly out of Iowa. So it would do me no good.

[00:19:54] Zoe Licata: I do have one beef with JetBlue in the beverage front, and they recently switched Diet Pepsi to Pepsi Zero, and that's not the same. No, I like the fake taste of aspartame.

[00:20:06] Jessica Infante: Not great.

[00:20:08] Zoe Licata: No. But yeah, congrats to Athletic. That's a huge deal. Yes.

[00:20:12] Jessica Infante: What is great, too, is more brewery locations, and there are going to be two Montauk locations at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play, and the Lost Abbey has a new home. They're doing an alternating proprietorship with Mother Earth in Vista, California.

[00:20:30] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Yeah. If you go back a few weeks on the Brewbound podcast, you can hear Lost Abbey co-founder Tommy Arthur talking all about it, explaining why he thinks alternating proprietorships are going to become even more popular going forward, which was an interesting chat.

[00:20:45] Jessica Infante: It's what, like the sister happening to your sea otter?

[00:20:52] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it is.

[00:20:56] Jessica Infante: You can consolidate, you can merge, you can acquire, or you can just do an alternating proprietorship, right?

[00:21:02] Zoe Licata: Yeah, yeah. I don't know that they're holding hands. Maybe like the alternating proprietorship, and I don't know if this is a thing that happens, is when, I don't know, like one dolphin in the pod stays awake and looks out for sharks while the other ones sleep? Is that a thing? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It should be. It should be. That was something. But yes, Mets fans, you can get Montauk beer products at several new locations within Citi Field.

[00:21:30] Jessica Infante: Let's close this out with another rounder tabbing out, and it's something that came up in our Slack channel. with each other. And that is a recipe for a bubbly burrata martini that I'm not even sure the people who were pitching it were sold on because in the pitch it said, does this quirky, odd, and in parentheses, maybe delicious drink fit into any stories you're working on? And the answer would be definitely no, but we might talk about it on this podcast. And I guess, do we have to go through what it is? Pour two ounces of gin into your coupe glass, combine with one ounce of burrata water, three fourths ounce rosemary, simple syrup, give it a good shake, top it off with one to two ounces of sparkling ice, classic lemonade, garnish with fresh lemon and rosemary. I feel like I know the answer on this, but I'm going to ask you anyway, are you buying a round of this or are you tabbing out?

[00:22:27] Zoe Licata: Whoever invented this needs to be tried at the Hague. Like, no, no, absolutely not. I am tabbed out. I didn't even go out tonight. That's how out on this I am. And look, lemon, burrata, and rosemary are my favorite things. If you ask my husband, those things make appearances in probably 40% of the meals I cook at home. This sounds disgusting. Nope. Yeah. Maybe, maybe if you left out the lemonade, maybe I could get there. But like the mouthfeel of whatever burrata water is meeting, first of all, I hate gin, but if I were to make this with vodka, I don't have the words.

[00:23:07] Jessica Infante: The water is described as the liquid that's left over from making burrata cheese.

[00:23:12] Zoe Licata: Oh, yeah, no, that's not- That's what it is. I know what it is, but what the combination of that plus alcohol? Plus lemonade?

[00:23:24] Bryant Goulding: No, no, no, no. As someone who loves a extra, extra, extra dirty martini with even put some like blue cheese stuffed olives in there, that is disgusting to some people. It's delicious to me. This is too far from me. I can't. I'm just picturing like that burrata water with probably some little burrata floaties in there. No, I can't get behind it.

[00:23:51] Zoe Licata: No. And so I'm with you on dirties. I love a good, like, extra, extra dirty martini. Yeah. This, no, no. What did I, what did I say to you guys? Have your eyes also been offended by this recipe? Yeah.

[00:24:04] Adam Bankovich: Yeah. I don't know why people do this to us. Or themselves, for that matter.

[00:24:10] Zoe Licata: Like, who's, who's paying for this? Is it big burrata?

[00:24:16] Adam Bankovich: Big burrata water. Sparkling ice. That's who it is.

[00:24:20] Zoe Licata: I just, you know, not everything needs to go in the same glass.

[00:24:25] Adam Bankovich: No.

[00:24:26] Bryant Goulding: Maybe it's like an environmental play. We're trying to reuse any water used in the burrata making process.

[00:24:34] Jessica Infante: It might be sparkling ice classic lemonade pushing this.

[00:24:38] Zoe Licata: More likely, yes.

[00:24:40] Jessica Infante: Probably regretting it.

[00:24:42] Zoe Licata: Did you tell them that we might talk about this on the podcast?

[00:24:45] Adam Bankovich: No. Yeah.

[00:24:47] Zoe Licata: I would feel bad for them to tune in and then hear me say that they need to be tried at the Hague.

[00:24:53] Jessica Infante: Would you though? Because I feel like you're halfway serious.

[00:24:59] Zoe Licata: I'm proud. I'm pretty serious about this. This is like war crimes material.

[00:25:05] Jessica Infante: Well, let's get to our featured interview with Ryan guys, Bryant Goulding and Adam Bankovich of it. There was a big change at the top of Cincinnati's Rheingeis last week. The brewery named Adam Bankovich as interim CEO. And here right now to discuss the move is co-founder Bryant Goulding and Adam Bankovich. So welcome to the Brewdown podcast, guys. Thanks for having us. Thanks. So Bryant, walk us through this transition that took place last week.

[00:25:36] Google Play: We have had a CEO for the last two years. When we hired a CEO, Bob and I recognized that we were a fundamental reason and foundational leadership point of getting us to a certain point, but we were kind of burnt out and recognizing that Our skill sets probably weren't the ones that were going to take us to the next level. We see a ton of potential to realize in this business, so we look for a CEO position. We had never hired a CEO before. We had never supported a CEO before. And over the last two years, we've now kind of learned how and how to do that. Things are really challenging in our industry and outside. And we decided to make a move. Adam was hired six months ago as chief commercial officer to kind of help support leadership and some strategic direction. Has very quickly made a positive impact. So two years ago, we hired a CEO recognizing that us founders weren't the best managers and we really like to be strategic and we really like to support and love this brewery, but we're having ESOP going and we want it to be run by employees. So the step aside creates the space for someone to come in and manage vision, the strategy to get there, develop leaders and deliver on all of the awesome potential that exists here at the brewery. After we felt like enough time for us to learn, you know, what a CEO role can do and what we thought the potential was and how to support that. We transitioned on Monday. Adam has been with us for six months as a chief commercial officer in charge of sales and marketing. So somewhat similar to my old role. We are tackling that a bit differently in terms of onboarding a CEO, what we want out of that role and how we can see supporting it better. Monday, we let all of our employees know. via email and a handful of video interviews, Tuesday and Wednesday. We met with each department and not just department heads, but the layer of key leadership beneath and just asked them, what are your challenges? What do you do? Who are you? What are your challenges and how do we support you? And the level of sharing and openness, I think was really cool. Adam's curiosity and understanding of this place, having been here six months, having been in our industry over a decade or close to. A lot more than that. Oh, yeah. With your time at Cavalier. We're tackling this differently. And then that was two days, 48 hours of all of our departments. Not sure what else we did there. It's been a hell of a week. And then we got offsite with our executive leadership team to take a look at some of the vision work that we've been doing over the last six months to really rededicate ourselves to what makes this place special. That's apparent, but like Bob and I are super allergic to the corporate styrofoam tasting speak that we experienced in the consulting world and corporate world. And haven't really codified a whole lot of that, though it's like with positive momentum and high retention, it's just sort of known. But really distilling our vision, our core values and beliefs, our purpose, and where we want to go. What's our definition of success? What does that look like? What are our aspirations? And then starting to assemble in an offsite yesterday, what is our strategy to get there? but starting with like, what is strategy? And like, maybe we're a mature enough business that should know that. I think we've been really strategic. We've made a lot of good decisions, but a good strategy is having a good sense of what your biggest challenges are, what are the ones that you can address and building a coherent plan of action to resource the capabilities that you need to get there. And then having done that, be able to socialize that in a way that really motivates our team. And today we had meetings with 50 leaders and there's another one next week to describe what we're working on and also how do we want to develop our leaders because leadership in this company, if we have teams of leaders and teams are the cells of the organism that is our company, we're going to succeed like we have, but even more so in the future. So that's how we've been treating bringing a CEO on board differently this week, recognizing that what we want out of the CEO is someone who is open and curious and empathetic and really human oriented, similar to the ways that I feel like we've always run this place. And Adam has embodied that spirit since we hired him six months ago. And as long as we've known each other, just as kind of beer geeks in this small Cincinnati industry.

[00:30:21] Jessica Infante: He's a Cincinnati guy.

[00:30:22] Google Play: He is. He is. That's probably a good segue for me to shut up a little bit and let him speak.

[00:30:30] Zoe Licata: Well, Adam, you really hit the ground running when you joined Ryan Geis last October. So, you know, in your short but super impactful, God, I hate that word impactful. It's not really a real word, but I can't think of anything better right now. Your short but impactful time there. What have you learned about the company?

[00:30:45] Goulding and Bankovich: Yeah, it's been a really exciting whirlwind of the past six months. I've been, so Brian just referenced it, right? Like I've known Bob and Brian since before they sold Case One. I was a distributor at the time. And I remember sitting down and meeting them over coffee and talking about their vision for Rheingeist. And ever since then, as just a beer geek and Cincinnatian, I've been a part of it from the outside looking in. So I was always, I felt really familiar with Rheingeist because I was here and I was a part of the scene. So I thought I knew a fair amount coming in. And a lot of the things that I assumed were right, but I probably was most surprised to learn how everything I thought Rheingeist was great at was really dialed up far more than I could have imagined. So a lot internally, we talk about geistiness, and it's a fun internal word to just describe the grit that everybody here has and the DIY nature of everything that we do. And the brewery, the entire business is really complex and diverse. It's more than just a packaging brewery or taproom. There's a lot built in there that we do ourselves that's really impressive. So I learned that really, really quickly over the past six months. Brian pointed out that I am hyper-curious. I guess I've always enjoyed learning, so I didn't view it as curiosity. I just was quick to try and learn as much as I could about the entire company, certainly sales and marketing, the things that I was focused on for those first six months specifically. But everything works together. That was really clear and obvious coming from my past company, because that was also a complex and diverse business. So I just innately wanted to learn more and dig in and try and understand how everything happens and gets done and the people involved in doing it. Because on the sales and marketing side, we interface, interact so much with all those other departments. So I guess that's, I think I answered the question. I'm not quite sure, but I just really like the, the, the geistiness to go back to that word is immense here. And that was really, really fun. And it's a pivotal time for the company, right? I, not to draw too many parallels, but when I was at Stone, there was major shifts and everything happening. And I was really excited to be a part of. So when I got here, it was amazing for me to be kind of one of the leaders at this company to help tell everybody that, yeah, change can be hard and uncertain, but it works out in the end and it's all for the best. We're a much larger company than we were 10 years ago, stating the obvious. So some of the things really do need to have a little more rigor and discipline behind them. That being said, it's always been important to me to add a level of transparency and understanding so people understand the why behind what we're doing. So that's been kind of my focus over the past six months.

[00:33:29] Zoe Licata: I do want to come back to Geistiness in just a second, but a corollary to our last question, you know, in your time at Ryan Geist, what have you learned about being a leader? Because you've really, like you said, came in and really shared a lot of wisdom and experience with the whole team. So what's that been like?

[00:33:46] Goulding and Bankovich: Rewarding. Without a doubt.

[00:33:49] Bryant Goulding: Nice.

[00:33:50] Goulding and Bankovich: I enjoy being a leader. Yeah, man. Rewarding is the first thing that came to mind. What have I learned is it's, I think, especially most recently, it's okay to be vulnerable. Transparency is important. Those are things that I always knew, but I've learned even more now, the value of those things, things that I've always known or believed is that people want to be heard. I enjoy listening and learning and then responding. Uh, so I think that's been something that I've brought to the team, but some people seem to enjoy it. So I, I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's okay to say, you don't know, and let's figure it out together. that goes a long way and it's fun. And I guess, I know you want to come back to guysiness, but that's part of it too, is nobody here has all the answers. Absolutely. There are people who are best suited to give their opinion and they might be closest to the answer, but there's a lot of really intelligent people here that are willing to learn and figure it out together. And that's been fun. It's challenging out there right now. Sure. In the craft beer space, but all need to be said, we'll say it anyway. So this complex, diverse company that we have here, everybody needs to take a pause and know that what we did for the past 10 years isn't what's going to take us to the next 10. And it's worth reevaluating things and asking questions and figuring out what else we can do together.

[00:35:18] Bryant Goulding: Brian, for someone who isn't familiar, how would you define Geistiness in the Ryan Geist culture?

[00:35:25] Google Play: Well, Geistiness is like, The appreciation for the unique individuals that make up our company and the assumptions you can make about some of the work here internally that are they're hardworking, they're curious, they're have their own personality. Like we've got, I just met with, you know, two groups of our leadership teams, 50 people that we've got like wrestlers, like semi-pro wrestlers, semi-pro women football players, semi-pro disc golfers, heavy metal pirate rock, and some other type of music that I'd never discovered. I guess pirate rock is sort of like minstrel strumming sort of stuff.

[00:36:15] Jessica Infante: We're learning all kinds of new stuff.

[00:36:17] Zoe Licata: Quilters. I'm so excited.

[00:36:20] Google Play: There's just, there's a rich fabric of people who I feel like are attracted to this place for the potential they see, but also the quality and the spirit of adventure that I feel like we've captured well with high ambition and space to be creative and a respect for history and respect for our industry and respect for each other and the individual. But where that has a sort of appeal, and I think there's a, you know, Googlers and Netflixies or whatever they call it, but like there are companies that have pretty intense cultures, I think are helpful in that there's just a lot of institutional knowledge and resilience around those things that make it special. And our antagonism and displeasure with like corporate things worked in the early days. We were kind of David against the Goliath of big business. And Craft Beer was that too. But I think there's a version where this company, we're aiming for it to run itself. And geistiness only goes so far. I don't think we ever lose our geistiness, but we also need to build a development program that takes our leaders and delivers on our hope to be a place of realized potential. And there's more there's more of a focus on what that Geistness means, because Geistness only goes so far, but it's an awesome accelerant and you get it. But I both want you to get it and it to be that sort of, leave that mystery there, even though I just tried to describe it. but also let you understand that the degree that our company will be successful is the degree to which we have individuals that are self-aware and have an appetite for better understanding themselves, their uniqueness, therefore being attuned to the individuals on their team so that they can lead them, understand what their aspirations are, and how to create space for them to grow and invest within business need, but also from the top to lead with a clear vision of where we want to go in the long, long run, and then a strategic plan for how to get there, but to socialize that in a way so that people really get it and believe and are happy to be here, even when there's a recession on our doorstep. There is political instability. Inflation is higher than it's ever been in my lifetime. Dot, dot, dot. Social media and the attention of the economy is robbing us and our own faculty to focus. And old man yells at the cloud. I think there is a geistiness that will always be a part of this place. And then there's a mature stance on how do we really give our people a framework to excel so that we keep the culture of excellence. Because geistiness is cute, but excellence is what has brought us here and what will get us there. And better defining there and how we invest and resource in getting there is what I'm excited about. And I'm just like, I think we share a powerful curiosity as does Bob and our team. And so this challenging environment is actually a really fun space to play in to see what we can do with the intellectual capital we have here with a little more rigor and discipline and intention.

[00:39:54] Bryant Goulding: Anytime you're dealing with that kind of shifting moment of growth and you have something like a leadership change, even though, you know, Adam, you're familiar with the company a little bit more now, it's a little scary for other people in the company. What has been the perception and what have you found is the best way to tackle any of those nerves?

[00:40:14] Goulding and Bankovich: Vulnerability, I think, number one. Bob and Brian are, in my time here, very apparent to me. They are still incredibly involved and passionate about Ryan Geist. So for me, the best way I think I can help assuage that is let the entire company, everybody I interact with, know that I've been having these conversations all week And it feels redundant to me because I'm the one saying it, but the years are new that I'm saying it to every single time. And I'm getting a lot of nodding and positive reaffirmation, which feels really, really great. They're incredibly involved and they care a lot. And the things that they care about are things that they've always cared about, right? So that is stability and consistency. And my role here is to make sure that everybody knows what those things are that are important and how we're going to achieve them. And there's strategy and vision over here that we're talking about a lot and spend a lot of time this week on. But it's also making sure that the culture is maintained and improved upon because it's great if it's great, but it can always be better. So we're taking care of the people. Financial stability, that the company is healthy. We're doing things that we need to do. Yeah, it's scary outside and it's tough and the industry is unstable in ways we haven't seen in decades. But we're okay, right? We're fine. If this thing is hard or that thing is hard, it's still going to be okay. So just letting them know that, because that's the fortunate reality that we're in, because they've built over the past 10 years a very stable business. So making sure that they know that. And then strategy. So now strategy comes back in. And yes, we've got huge strategic goals we're aiming at. We're going to better define those and lay them out for everybody. And there's going to be Tactics for us to get there and then ladder it down and there's little strategic things we can do that are more attainable and achievable so we're going through all of that right now we're gonna keep informing the company so. It's communication and transparency and letting people know the state of the honest state of the state really and being there to answer questions. Let people have which. I've gotten all kinds of different questions and some are really, really intense, scary economic world and others are really simple. How's Truth doing? Because we launched Juicy Truth. It's great. So like, in all ranges in between. So I don't know, that's how I tackle it. It's just being available and talking and giving the information and news, because it's good.

[00:42:40] Google Play: Yeah, we've had a structured approach for reintroducing your new role and sort of this accelerated onboarding process. I'm sure there's an energy and passion to do things right, but also just creating the space for humans to process change. What does it mean? How long will this transition take? What does interim mean? And I'll tackle that since it's probably a decent question we've gotten that. How long will it take? I don't know.

[00:43:05] Jessica Infante: That is my next question actually was about the interim tag. So you have, this is all very fresh and you have the interim tag that you've placed on the job for now. So, you know, what does that sort of mean? You know, because right now you have a workforce that's processing this and they see Adam with the interim tag and so they know who they're, you know, working for essentially at this point. An interim tag could possibly mean that that changes over time. So, you know, how are you approaching that?

[00:43:39] Google Play: I've been describing it. This is not literal, but like lowercase I versus capital I. in that this isn't an interim CEO position that this is a living interview. So this isn't the intention where we're definitely going to find someone new. We have someone different than two years ago when we knew we were at a point where we wanted to put someone in this role and act as a board to support the CEO to run our company. We now know how we want to support a CEO to run our company and we have confidence that Adam is a really good fit for a role like that. Now we're going to look for VP of sales to replace Adam's role if this success is to continue. And we're also going to look outside. I don't think Adam has a lot of ego in this, no matter how this plays out. Best for the business to look for other CEO candidates as that might, that for the future. And that's how I've been describing it to our employees. And how long does that process take? It's to be determined. We can't control that, but I think we'll know what we know and then react accordingly. But this week has been one of a lot of disruption, but minimal anxiety. and a sense of calm, and that gives me a lot of confidence that we're headed in a good direction, and that Adam has made the same impression that he has with Bob and I, with the team. You know, we're not here every day by design, but I come back enough to have a sense of things, and this week, creating a space for people to ask tough questions, the questions haven't really been that tough.

[00:45:29] Zoe Licata: So Brian, you decided to step down from day-to-day ops alongside Bob two years ago, and you really graciously joined us to talk about that decision on the podcast, your video. Two years on, why do you think that was the right move for you?

[00:45:46] Google Play: Well, we want this company to run itself. And as founders, you tend to be more authoritative in your role in setting direction and then really efficiently scaling and growing by being really clear about what needs to happen and then having a team go execute it. Now for the next phase of Rheingeis, we need to create the space for our leaders to build strategic direction so that it is actually running itself and we're not just dictating strategy and then execution happens. That's us still leading, but from afar, which is suboptimal. So the CEO role is, that's why we described it and our team was looking for the same. I think it's the right solution. I think there's a spectrum of businesses where there's old school siloed businesses and a real rich hierarchy and lack of transparency and communication. And there's a space of, a real discipline around as few rules as possible and an entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of space for autonomy. And I think we're just out of the box. Maybe it's Geistness. It was certainly our intention coming out of, you know, working for some of the biggest companies in the world before we started this little project. And that autonomy is really a source of motivation. It's also a source of agility and a source of, you know, opportunity to create space for, you know, I'm a millennial. I'm not a great employee. I've got a lot of needs. I've got a lot of opinions. And I expect a lot out of my bosses. I always did. And I always will. But we built this place to respond to the relative suffocation of working in a hierarchy where it's not meritocratic and people aren't looking out for your best interests. They're pooling you and assessing you up against So I guess my point is, I forget what the question is, but if we can really focus on what makes this place special, and by that, which I think we are doing, Geising has got us this far, and I love that, and it's not going anywhere, but a real structure and consideration, and this is messy work. When I say strategy, it's like, It's not just a bunch of goals and a bunch of fluffy words that sound intellectual. It's like a real set of coherent actions aligned with the right investments to build capabilities. But like, what should we do with technology? We've got a lot of departments that have been pretty siloed. So we're evolving in some ways, but we're having macro culture in other ways that is pretty autonomous. But we also have to merge and create more collaboration. But we have to create a framework for collaboration. So that's where I've been calling it, like I'm trying to better understand what companies at our scale need to be excellent and look outside our industry for those on the cutting edge of how businesses are run to better appeal to an employee base that has needs that resonate with me. That's why we built this. But what is Netflix doing in terms of HR and development. What is Google doing that's made them so successful? And how do we employ those things in a realistic way? We make beer. We move stuff around. Things are messy. Everything's breaking. There's a fruit fly outbreak last summer in the basement. People are talking and

[00:49:27] Jessica Infante: You're like a living, truly commercial. It's real here.

[00:49:30] Google Play: Making beer is messy, right? But with leaders that are willing to roll up their shirt sleeves and get messy and not ask someone to do something that wouldn't do themselves and really creating a structure that we can, you know, with a framework, you can, you can build real muscle around those things that have made us successful. So I'm rambling, but those are my thoughts.

[00:49:51] Bryant Goulding: Well, you're obviously doing some things right because you have made it 10 years in with Ryan Geis now. Any particular way you guys are celebrating that decade mark for the company?

[00:50:03] Goulding and Bankovich: Lots of ways. We haven't published any of it yet, so there's, I can't, Tracy would kill me if I divulge too much. I mean, you're the CEO now. I know. Lowercase I, but you know. There's no, I mean, there's, there's a project that I'm really excited about that has an amazing tie to a lot of what we do here that I'm not going to give up right at this moment, but it was a year and a half plus in the making. It involved lots of people around this office that we're sitting in. It involves local community. It involves pillars of giving, which was charitable suds and is now beer beer for humans from us. I think it's really fun and impactful and unique and different and something that is specific to us and where we are. So that's one way. There are employees who have been here 10 years that we've already started to recognize. And yeah, I mean, that means they predate before we opened the door and started selling beer.

[00:51:06] Google Play: We're drinking employee number one. which is our pilot, that's for our 10th anniversary beer. And it's, Inspiration Island was the beer that like became truth. But like, if you brewed Inspiration Island today with Thylized Yeast and all the hot technology and evolution that we could, if Ryan Geist started today as a home brew, this is what it would be. And like, I don't know, most of the employees out there are drinking Employee No. 1 today.

[00:51:31] Jessica Infante: That's awesome.

[00:51:33] Google Play: His name is Jignaat, and he was our brewer. He's still here in the Quality Lab.

[00:51:37] Goulding and Bankovich: anyway if you want people to like spill stuff before ready to reveal it also like on the on the homebrew It would be a home brew beer today if you had a home brewer that had access to all of the latest cutting edge hop techniques and oils and yeasts and things that didn't exist 10 years ago. But yeah, that's another thing that we're doing. It's really exciting. There'll be a party for sure. There's going to be celebration of employees, not just those that have been with us for 10 years, but all of the employees and the people that make this place what it is. There's going to be a lot, there's a lot in the works for it. So we're really excited to celebrate 10 years. There'll be commercially visible things out in the market to celebrate along with us as well, beyond just the beer. So we're excited for 10 years. And you have it.

[00:52:24] Google Play: If you have been here 10 years as an employee, you get a month off.

[00:52:26] Zoe Licata: Ooh, that's delightful.

[00:52:29] Google Play: Consider that. You've earned it. 10 years in Ryan Geist years are like, I don't know, ask my wife.

[00:52:37] Jessica Infante: You still look good. You're doing all right.

[00:52:42] Zoe Licata: The 10-year gift at my former employer is a mug with your name engraved on it. Month-long vacation is way better.

[00:52:50] Google Play: Sounds fantastic. I need to be able to make the rules. Like burnout is a real thing through the pandemic. Like a lot of changes happened and like how to address that. Well, one way is to like create the space for people to just like be together and not have to just like bear down on work, but also have a discipline around ways of communicating and just talk to people and send an email occasionally and understand. that burnout and work-life balance are important things to consider and to lead by example. And I think that's one of the ways that you come in. That sense of calm, you guys have all known me a bit. I don't know that I would be described as calm for most of my life, but I think we're all trying to be more intentional as we grow up here. And calm in the face of adversity is something that I'd like our leaders to exhibit. And so I'm trying to show up like that too. Adam, out of the box, since I've known him, has done so. And that sense of calm, I think is really helpful given the uncertainty ahead and challenges. And we know the craft beer industry is down for the first time in my lifetime. Well, not lifetime, but like aware of craft beer, not a 10 year old.

[00:54:09] Jessica Infante: I know that there are a lot of people excited about him being in this position, excited for him being in this position, excited for you, Adam. So I think that there's a lot of good energy going behind this. I'm excited to see where this goes. So thanks for taking the time to talk to us and best of luck to you and congrats.

[00:54:33] Goulding and Bankovich: Thank you. I appreciate it very, very much. It's I'm excited. It's humbling. It's an honor. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to it.

[00:54:41] Jessica Infante: Yeah, well, we appreciate you both taking the time and that's our show for this week. Thanks to Adam and Bryant for being here. Thanks to Zoe and Jess for all they do. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe, and thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.