[00:00:00] Zoe Licata: It's National Cider Month. Let's talk Colin Schilling Cider about all things cider next on the Brewbound Podcast. Welcome back to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:21] Justin Kendall: I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:23] Zoe Licata: and I'm Jessica Infante. Welcome, everybody. This week, we get to talk to leadership at Schilling Cider for National Cider Month. So joining us later in this episode, you're going to hear from Colin Schilling, CEO and co-founder Colin Schilling Cider, from their CCO, Eric Phillips, and from the EVP of marketing, Rachel Thomas. So we can talk about how they started National Cider Month, how it's gotten to where it is now as a more brand agnostic celebration, all the fun things they're doing for that, as well as Schilling's participation at the Great American Beer Festival and their involvement with the Brewers Association. So a lot of fun things. Me and Jess talked to the crew over there, and you'll get to hear about all of that later in this episode. Also in that interview, we talked a lot about Brewbound Live because one of the parts of National Cider Month this year is a big partnership with Whole Foods and that partnership came about at Brewbound Live. So shameless plug for us for making that happen. And so if you want to be inspired for your next big partnership or network with some other people, Brewbound Live this year is going to be in Marina Del Rey in sunny California on December 6th and 7th. So come hang out with us. Get your tickets now. We're going to be talking about a lot of fun things, a lot of helpful things, I think, about what's going on in the industry. And you get to see a lot of smiling faces and potentially start your own next holiday or fun partnership. So, how are you, Justin? Justin, what's going on? Justin, you just got back from the Beer Institute. How was Denver?
[00:02:09] Justin Kendall: Denver is about the same as we left it the last time, minus one Sierra Nevada billboard.
[00:02:18] Zoe Licata: I mean, it was only, what, a week in between?
[00:02:20] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I think it was a very, very short time that they had that space rented for. But yeah, I just got back from the Beer Institute meeting.
[00:02:29] Zoe Licata: Before we jump into any news or anything, we should give a heads up to anyone that if we're not talking about something that broke this week, it is because we are recording this on Friday, because Justin and I are going to be in Vegas for most of this week that you're listening to this for the National Cider Wholesalers Association's annual conference, so fingers crossed there's not anything, knock on all the woods, that there's not any crazy breaking news that we're technically ignoring right now. I mean, I will be home and available to cover it. Yes, it will be on the site. If it happened, it'll be on the site. Just know we're not going to talk about it in our news segment today. Maybe I'll just go rogue and record a solo news pop without you guys if it happens. I'm all for it.
[00:03:17] Justin Kendall: I mean, we could talk about the one thing that is new, that is out, that just broke as of Monday. We can. Molson Coors' Happy Thursday, which is their spike refresher, no bubbles. That's going to be coming out, I believe in March of 2024. It was one of the things that they teased at their distributor convention. They didn't just tease it. They told it and then swore everybody to secrecy. You know, just like Dave Chappelle, they take all your phones and put them in a bag and No, they don't do any of that, but they should be like, wow, how did you record? Like, I'm sure there are wholesalers like snapping pictures and everything. Like they tell you, you can't write about it in the trade. So it's fine. It's whatever it is, but it's out now at like the news and it's coming next year. And you could have heard us last week talking about carbonation on another rounder tabbing out. And this was sort of the precursor to that because that's where I saw all of the social posts. They shared some of those of people taking the bubbles out of their hard seltzers and other drinks.
[00:04:25] Zoe Licata: I mean, what are refreshers other than just a glow up for FMVs? You know, like, I feel like I'm interested to see what happens. But the thing is, this isn't new. We've had products like this for decades. I'm interested to see what the reception is. I'm sure the liquid's delicious.
[00:04:41] Justin Kendall: It is.
[00:04:42] Zoe Licata: Yeah.
[00:04:43] Justin Kendall: This is definitely not, definitely not trying to appeal to me, but I think that the thing here is, you know, looking for innovation in different spaces and seeing what's happening with Starbucks. And I drink so much Starbucks, too much Starbucks.
[00:05:01] Zoe Licata: And are you a refresher guy though?
[00:05:04] Justin Kendall: I am not, but there are enough people that are leaving that building with refreshers or walking around a Target where there's a Starbucks that it's so noticeable.
[00:05:13] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I love a pink drink.
[00:05:16] Justin Kendall: Yeah. So you're going to be able to basically get a Spike Pink drink because it's coming in strawberry, pineapple, starfruit, blackberry, and mango, passion fruit, 4.4% ABV. And they did a tasting in between sessions and at the end of the day, and this was the area that most of the people were gravitating to because they wanted to check it out and see what it was all about. And I think that the general consensus was fairly positive. And you know, who came up with this?
[00:05:45] Zoe Licata: Jamie?
[00:05:46] Justin Kendall: Jamie Weidman-Roticki, who spoke at Brewbound Live last year.
[00:05:51] Zoe Licata: Not surprising. I feel like she is an innovation genius. Yeah. I covered Duval USA's sales call yesterday, and they've got a similar-ish product coming out down the Quirk line called Quirk Tales. Bright colors, fruit-forward flavors. They're cocktail-inspired F&Bs. The interesting thing to me is that their package format is 12-ounce glass bottles, six packs. but they said they wanted to go glass bottle to showcase the color of the product. So it'll be interesting. I think we've got a lot of real pretty Bev-Alk products coming down the pike. Is that coming after like a Sea Grimms or something? I think so, yeah. Club Tails. Or like a Smirnoff Ice. Yeah, their keywords here are cocktail inspired, clean ingredients, craft flavor. It's going to be 5.9% ABV. Anything else from the BI that is worth noting?
[00:06:45] Justin Kendall: I mean, one of the things that stood out to me was, I guess, you know, we get the welcome remarks from Brian Crawford, the new CEO, or I guess he's 10 months in at this point, so I don't know, sort of new, still on the job. Basically, he gave a speech saying a lot of the founding principles of the BI are facing a lot of headwinds now and in danger. And those pillars are limited government intervention, lower taxes, and free enterprise. They're concerned about some of these things that are like, there's no safe limit of intake of alcohol and those type of things. And they're worried some of this neo-prohibitionist style talk might actually come to fruition here in the U.S., I would be shocked if that's the case. I mean, I think there will be attempts. There's always going to be attempts, you know, every every few years, I guess. But I don't know that it'll gain any traction. And then there was a strong push on collaboration and differentiation. And that's something Anheuser-Busch, North America's CEO, Brendan Whitworth talked about as far as, you know, beating back spirits and their attempt to gain greater market access and lower excise taxes and the uphill battle they say that they're facing from an army of liquor lobbyists.
[00:08:12] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, they say that, and I feel like we've been hearing this drumbeat for years now, but usually when the rubber meets the road, a lot of these more liquor-friendly proposals fail.
[00:08:25] Justin Kendall: And that's something they point out. Yeah. Very proudly. And they've allied with the organization that has probably the greatest weight one of the greatest weights, it's probably top five, maybe top three, the National Cider Wholesalers Association. They are a powerful lobbying group. So I don't know. I mean, usually we see these things pop up and then they lose, but I don't know.
[00:08:52] Zoe Licata: The thing is that a lot of these liquor brands, particularly spirits-based RTD brands that we talk to, their strategy is to go through beer wholesalers. So for the members of the MBWA, these products getting more access is great. They're higher margin. They're doing volume. At what point does the organization's national lobbying goals maybe come into conflict with the interests of its members?
[00:09:18] Justin Kendall: Not saying that's what's happening here, but you mean America's beer and beverage distributors?
[00:09:23] Zoe Licata: Yes, America's beer and beverage distributors for sure. But I mean, that's who these new spirits brands want to be with. Like, that's who serves the cold boxes.
[00:09:32] Justin Kendall: Exactly. That's the exact conversation you and I had with Clement Pappas from Stateside Vodka. And as you've pointed out on this podcast, Surfside Vodka or the hard tea, hard lemonade is like killing it in the Northeast.
[00:09:48] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I mean like those spirits-based RTDs, that's where they want to be. So if the NBWA's members are moving them and the beer trade groups are actively lobbying against these products getting broader placements like that, at what point do the members say, hey, you're doing us a disservice now? I don't know. I mean, it's easy for me to say these things because I'm not going to the NBWA convention next week. So Godspeed to you both. Thank you.
[00:10:14] Justin Kendall: I think Brian was mentioning our podcast on stage without mentioning our podcast when he talked about our buddy Chris Swonger coming on from Discus and talking about the wins that Discus has had. But I mean, one of the things that I took away from that was Chris was, he wasn't rattled, but he was... wanting to push back on the stand with beer stuff. Like just some of the things where they're trying to like push back in other areas on spirits when he believes that they should be working together.
[00:10:47] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, it's tough because you just mentioned all this neo-prohibitionist stuff and that's coming for everybody.
[00:10:54] Justin Kendall: Exactly. I will say, the best parts of the BI conference are always Danelle Cosmal, and I am so sad that she's going to be leaving the Beer Institute. I'm very happy for her, because she's moving to Japan, because her husband has orders now. She announced that on stage yesterday, and so they've got their move date, and she's ready to bolt. She did her state of the industry talk, which was always good, and we'll have something eventually up on that when I am not exhausted. And then she also did a discussion with Mary Giver from Whole Foods, who is the coolest person in the world, as we all know. Matt Crompton from CGA. Also a delight. And so you get that on-off talk, but there was a lot of non-ALC talk. And Mary said, and I'm paraphrasing her, and this is coming from a very tired brain, but basically she said that they've got a lot of what they need already in the non-ALC set, like their non-ALC beer set. And so they're focused on, you know, the main brands there that they're working with that, you know, to push those. And so to me, that says the window is closing. Or it's very close to have closed in a very important retailer that, you know, caters to a lot of health and wellness focused consumers. And that to me was one of the more interesting pieces that we heard in Denver this week.
[00:12:31] Zoe Licata: That's really interesting because that's the thing, shelf space isn't infinite, but what NA brands do have at their disposal that regular alcoholic brands mostly kind of don't is direct to consumer sales. So if you can't get on the shelves of Whole Foods, there's always Shopify. That's true.
[00:12:52] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And she said that it's just killing it. Like it had been triple digits comping and now it's about above 50% of where it was last year and it hasn't slowed down. So yeah, that's a good space to be in. But something else that came up, our friend Don Bixel asked Matt from CGA, You know, non-alcohol doesn't really have a draft presence here. Some people have tried it, but it's a very tricky and complicated and for health reasons, you know, because it doesn't have the alcohol offset. Now, I'm not a scientist, clearly, you know, no one's going to confuse me with that. But he asked Matt and he said very few internationally offer draft beer because that was I thought it was a very interesting question. Is it more developed internationally? Because non-alcohol beer is more developed internationally than it is here. And he said, no. I go to a lot of bars, you rarely see it. And Paul Gatza spoke up from the Brewers Association and said, They're asking their members to hold off on DraftNA because they're doing research now and trying to sort of make sure that it doesn't run into any of the issues, you know, health-wise that would put a consumer at risk.
[00:14:09] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, the other thing, not just the quality and health issues, is that like, I mean, you ever order a beer and it comes to you and it's the wrong beer? Like, I bet that happens every once in a while. I would just worry, having recently been a pregnant person, I would just worry that I'm ordering a draft NA and it comes to me and it's not. It's a double IPA instead, obviously. I am able to know the difference, but not everybody does. So I think if you're ordering NA because you're specifically avoiding the alcohol, the safety and comfort of having it come in a package with a label, I think it's just that extra insurance that you would want. Yeah, I related to this. We had this week that we're recording had our industry meetup at the BevNET office and one of the companies pouring and sampling there was this NA brand called Owls. And their Whole Foods is mainly on-premise accounts or venues, but they're only focused on doing that with package. And so their cans are designed kind of look like an old school, like 80s beer can, and it's focused on being like this light lager competitor, but as a non-ALK version. And I thought it was a really cool concept. You're not seeing, like we said, you're not seeing any producers focus on that on-premise at all, but they're doing it without draft, really. as a thought right now, because it just doesn't exist.
[00:15:33] Justin Kendall: I think the last thing that I would say too on any of this, and it's something that the three of us talk about a lot, and we hear a lot from retailers about as well, is focus. And to me, that is going to be the theme of Brewbound Live, and it's going to be the theme of 2024, or it should be, because I'm seeing a lot of frustrated people, and you reported on it this week, Zoe, in the Bump Williams recent report. Retailers are asking suppliers to focus, and they're getting to the point of frustration that suppliers aren't focusing. And I think this is probably a different tangent than we were just on. If you're thinking to get into non-alcoholic beer, you better have a very good plan and you better have your retailers and wholesalers on board before you get into it. And you better have your processes buttoned up and put out a safe product because just you lived it being a pregnant woman on these forums, you know, talking about unpasteurized non-alcoholic beers. So if you're sitting here saying, oh, maybe I should make a non-alcoholic beer, think about all those things and think about the costs and think about the safety concerns because it's a different regulated product. Focus. It's something I'm not very, very focused right now.
[00:17:06] Zoe Licata: to focus on Fridays. But yeah, I mean, if you're not pasteurizing, I don't want it. I'm sorry if that was harsh. It's fair.
[00:17:13] Justin Kendall: No, let's talk about another non-owl company that you guys reported on.
[00:17:16] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Speaking of non-owls. Yeah. So Rationale Brewing, two-time Brewbound Pitch Lamb contestant. They have big exciting news. This is just their third year in business. The company was founded in 2021. They are completely refreshing their packaging. They've reformulated their beers. Their portfolio is Mexican Cerveza, West Coast IPA, and Hazy IPA. So all three of those got a little reformulation, new packaging, slate black background cartons that makes those white cans really pop. Packaging looks great. But the big news here is they've actually secured a strategic partnership that will allow them to increase production up to 70,000 barrels of capacity, which is enormous. And right now they're trending toward 5,000 barrels in 2023. So they've just got an enormous runway. But I mean, 5,000, they've already surpassed what they did last year, which was 1,200 barrels. So they're doing it and they're on their way. Tough market, Kraft NA, but a large part of this refresh is this new repositioning of their brand as being for Mavericks, which The press really said the word a lot, a lot, a lot. But yeah, I guess if athletic is for the people on the straight and narrow who get up every morning and exercise and eat their veggies and drink their water, rationale is not maybe. I really enjoyed a quote in the press release from co-founder and CEO Jamie Fay that says, you know, this is going to be a quote, a renewed commitment to our community of beer enthusiasts, the Mavericks, those independent thinkers and drinkers who uniquely define the way they brew and are in constant pursuit of an unparalleled craft taste.
[00:19:02] Justin Kendall: So Godspeed. Good luck to them.
[00:19:05] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I mean, the NA beer market is tough. I pulled some NIQ data for this story and basically the entire... segment is dominated by just a handful of brands. Eight brands account for 78% of the volume in the market, and those are exactly who you would expect. AB's Bud Zero, Heineken Zero Zero, AB's Bush NA, Athletic, O'Doul's, which is also AB, Molson Coors' Coors Edge, Lagunitas has a whole stable of NA products, including IPNA and their Hoppy Refreshers, which are lovely, and Pabst's Old Milwaukee NA. Bud Zero is 18% and Heineken Zero Zero is 17%. But I imagine those two trade the lead back and forth quite a bit, given how close those numbers are.
[00:19:48] Justin Kendall: Yeah. I drank a lot of Heineken Zero Zeros in Denver.
[00:19:51] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Dude, Heineken Zero Zero was great.
[00:19:54] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:19:56] Zoe Licata: One of the only other segments that seems to be posting really good growth in beer is import brands. And we got to hear from Constellation on their latest earnings call this week. We'll be very brief on this because there wasn't a lot new there. It's just the same. They're continuing to post pretty significant growth for their beer, continue to say that growth is expected throughout the rest of this year, but they didn't really change their projections too much. I think analysts were a little surprised. They basically just narrowed their projections to the higher end of what they've previously reported. But that is based on the second half of the year typically being slower. It's also when they make a lot of their investments in just behind the scenes things. So now projecting net sales growth of 8 to 9%. It was previously 7 to 9% and operating income growth of 6 to 7%, which was previously 5 to 7%. A little bit of talk about innovation from them, but they're mainly focused on continuing the growth of Modelo Oro, which has cannibalized some of their brands way less than they expected, even less than their tests had said it would. And so they're going to add some more SKUs to that brand. That's their kind of low carb edition. They're going to add more SKUs in 2024. Chilata continues to do excellent in that market. I mean, they have, what, like 70-something percent of the Chilata segment with their Modelo Chilata brand, so.
[00:21:32] Justin Kendall: Danelle had an awesome stat that Mexican imports make up 81% of imported shipments, which, I mean, it makes sense, but just thinking about like all the Belgian beers I love, it's like, oh, it's such a tiny part of this, you know? And I guess, you know, that sort of leads us to Duval too, right?
[00:21:54] Zoe Licata: Yeah, yeah, the D'Youville USA call covered their big American craft brands, Boulevard and Burry Omegang, but also D'Youville and Alachoof. It was a really well done sales presentation. I've been in planning meetings to host events like this. I've sat through many other brands planning sales calls and they did a great job. It was super meta where you are watching and VP of sales and marketing, Bobby Dykstra, is home putting together a snack board for clearly a TV watch party and Duval USA president, Seraf, shows up, knocks on the door. They have a little chat and Bobby's obviously trying to hide that he's watching TVs saying, oh, the team's downstairs. We're going to have a planning meeting and Seraf is like, oh, no, thanks. I've got stuff to do. I don't know why I'm giving you guys a load on it. I just thought it was really cute. Seraf goes off, but he's clearly going to play golf. And then Bobby goes downstairs with his leadership team and they are watching TV, air quotes, but it's actually brand presentations for all of their brands that are themed after popular TV shows. It was good. It was good. I enjoyed it. That's cute. Very cute. But yeah, the big news for, you know, for Duval is their big focus is going to be on Duval 666 draft, 6.66 draft. It's their slightly lower ABV draft offering 6.66 to be, you know, like the mark of, of the beast. But, you know, Duval means, it's a whole thing. But yeah, that's their big focus for that brand for this year. Big news for La Chouffe is cans and also a non-alcohol offering called Na Chouffe. Excellent gnome, excellent gnome appearance.
[00:23:35] Justin Kendall: Given to me by Chris Bauerarts. I thought Sophie had stolen it, but yeah.
[00:23:40] Zoe Licata: Adorable. So adorable. And I didn't realize the gnomes were as big a thing. Clearly both of you have much affection for them.
[00:23:49] Justin Kendall: Very much so. Chouffe is a great beer.
[00:23:52] Zoe Licata: Chouffe is a great beer. So that's what's up with the Belgian beers. Big stuff for both Omegang and Boulevard. Boulevard is. doing a lot in a World Series of Poker-styled segment. Basically, it was about betting big and whatever, but Dank 7, their hoppy forward is coming year-round. There's going to be a variety pack available with Tank 7, the original Dank 7, and then Tropical Tank 7. There's going to be an NA version of Unfiltered Wheat with Lemon. leaning a little bit more into the fruit flavors on the wheat line. Big stuff for Quirk, which is their hard seltzer, doing really well, particularly in the Midwest. They are doubling down on the popularity of the raspberry Roc-A-Pop, their bomb pop inspired summer offering, making basically an imperial version of it. That's 8% going to be available year round in 19.2 ounce cans. I don't want to give it all away here on the pod. You can read more at Brewbound.com, but those are the highlights. Sweet. All right, you guys want to do a fun, kind of different version, I guess, a little bit of another round or tabbing out. I have brought what has been previously mentioned. I think we talked about it before, possibly, but I feel like we're on Taste Radio. Hoppy Hour chocolate.
[00:25:18] Justin Kendall: Yeah, we all got it.
[00:25:20] Zoe Licata: Yeah, you're both welcome. Thank you.
[00:25:21] Justin Kendall: Thank you. Happy birthday to me.
[00:25:24] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Again, this was not part of your birthday gift.
[00:25:26] Justin Kendall: I mean, it came with it.
[00:25:28] Zoe Licata: It came with your birthday gift, but I wasn't going to ship you things twice. So we are sampling this dark chocolate with a hoppy dankness and a surprising effervescence. The small batch collab with Cho and Fieldwork Brewing collabed on this. Oh, it's very cute inside. Yeah. The inside is printed like beer bubbles. This is, you know, an audio medium. So thank you for describing.
[00:25:57] Justin Kendall: I mean, until this becomes a real.
[00:25:59] Zoe Licata: Yes. You can listen to some ASMR of us opening this chocolate. It smells like chocolate.
[00:26:12] Justin Kendall: Have any of you eaten any of this? Yeah, you have.
[00:26:15] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I had it at the office, which is where I got these from to give to you guys. It just yeah, it just kind of smells like dark chocolate with maybe a very subtle, very faint. Yeah. All right. Cheers, everybody. Did I not tell you guys about the pop rocks? Nope. I forgot about them.
[00:26:42] Justin Kendall: like eating a crunch bar.
[00:26:44] Zoe Licata: I feel like the crunch just keeps coming. I feel like my brain has like static electricity going on.
[00:26:54] Justin Kendall: For real.
[00:26:55] Zoe Licata: That's a perfect way to explain it. Yeah. So I get the hop flavor a lot more than hop aroma, which is interesting. But what's funny to me here is that they did not go for like more recently developed Pleasant Fruity Hops. They went for like big old pine cone hops. Yeah.
[00:27:12] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:27:14] Zoe Licata: You did mention this pop rockiness. So this is supposed to it has these crunchy bits. They're supposed to imitate the like bubbles of the of having a beer. Well, popping candy is the fourth ingredient listed. It's kind of scary. The chocolate part is delicious. You know me, I'm not, I kind of not a hoppy person. Usually a happy person, but not a hoppy person. Okay. Here, this explains a lot. Hops used are citrus, centennial, and Chinook. The packaging, I mean, this is a partnership with Fieldwork Brewing, who's in the Bay Area. Oh my God. The popping. It's gone insane. This bar tastes like a classic crisp California West Coast IPA with juicy grapefruit notes and bold pine aromas. But we wouldn't be Cho if we didn't throw in a surprising fizzy and effervescent finish. Yo, I thought they were based in Boston because that's who Sam Adams used to get chocolate cacao nibs from for Chocolate Bach. At least that's what we were told on the tour script. I can't tell if I'm hearing your popping or my popping in my own head. I think it's just everybody's popping.
[00:28:30] Justin Kendall: Does it go away? Eventually. Is this permanent?
[00:28:33] Zoe Licata: No, I think we have to live like this.
[00:28:35] Justin Kendall: I don't know that I can live like this, so.
[00:28:37] Zoe Licata: All right, rapid fire. Everyone go. Are you another round of tabbing out, Justin?
[00:28:44] Justin Kendall: I'd rather drink a Sierra Nevada pale ale. I mean, it's fine. If I gave this to my wife, she would not like it. She would not like me anymore, either, because she does not like hops. So if you like hops and chocolate, then you've got got a shot. But I mean, I like hops, but I think I'd just rather rather have like you like chocolate, though.
[00:29:09] Zoe Licata: You have a sweet tooth.
[00:29:10] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I do.
[00:29:12] Zoe Licata: Jess. I'm going to tab out respectfully. I'm a purist, you know. I like all these things, but I like them separate. I'm also going to tab out, although I want just that chocolate because the chocolate itself seems really good. I'm also 100% going to give these to people this weekend and not tell them about the popping and see what happens because I need other people to experience this with me. Honestly, I bought home a full box and I don't know what happened to the other two bars in it. Wow. Sounds like my husband is a fan. Guess so. Brian Corbett approved. Brian Corbett, I mean, as long as it's not Cora Corbett, I don't think she she doesn't have to eat it. So she can't eat this. All right. So I assume it's all right. We're going to go recover and you guys can listen to our interview with the Schilling folks. Let's get into it. For this week's Brew Bowd podcast, we have three exciting guests to talk all things cider, all from Schilling Cider. I'm talking about Cider Month. We're talking about GABF. We're talking about everything having to do with this delicious apple beverage that I quite enjoy. So joining us to discuss, we have CEO and co-founder Colin Schilling. Hello, Colin. What's up, Zoe? Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. And we have CCO, Eric Phillips. Hello, Eric.
[00:30:46] Colin Schilling: Greetings, Zoe and Jess. Good to see you.
[00:30:50] Zoe Licata: Good to see you virtually. We got to see you both in or I got to see you both in Denver at GBF recently, which was very exciting. We'll talk about that a little bit. And then also joining us, who has an exciting new title, we have Rachel Thomas, EVP of Marketing. Welcome to the Brewbound podcast for the first time, Rachel. Thank you and hello everyone. So thank you all again. Many, many thank yous for being here and chatting about cider. The reason why we wanted to talk to you, first of all, is that it is, as you're listening to this, it is officially National Cider Month. This is the fourth year of Cider Month. Is that right?
[00:31:31] Colin Schilling: Yeah, we're in year four. Time to get excited about National Cider Month. I gotta get that one out of the way early.
[00:31:40] Eric Phillips: You'll hear it 10 more times.
[00:31:47] Zoe Licata: So Cider Month, you guys kind of spearheaded, Eric you were telling me at GABF a little bit, spearheaded the original, the origin of this. How did Cider Month come about?
[00:31:58] Colin Schilling: So about probably, Collin, correct me if I'm wrong here, but about seven years ago, we had met up with one of our distributors, Columbia Distributing, with a bunch of different cider suppliers. And we had started talking about making a big splash in the month of October, which also correlates with National Apple Month, which is already an established campaign. And so we had been talking about that and it kind of had some traction a little bit, and then it just fizzled out. And no one really took charge of that. No one was really heading up that campaign. And as we started to grow and have more direct relationships with retailers, we started to tease out the idea and say, hey, is there an opportunity for us in the month of October? And so, you know, more than happy to talk more about that. But that's kind of how it started. And we started to ask retailers what their interest level was, what the opportunities were, if there was space on the shelf, if there's space on the floor, if there's space in their planning diagrams, etc. And that's kind of how we have started to develop. And it took a couple different iterations to get to where we are today, but we feel really confident about starting this as kind of a new iteration of National Cider month and starting to bring in other people and not just having it be a shilling specific thing, but rather more cideries and more suppliers being a part of a bigger, broader campaign that has now a national reach.
[00:33:25] Rachel Thomas: Eric hit it right on the head. You've seen Schilling and us for a long time kind of profuse the all boats rise mentality for cider and for craft beverage in general. And so this is just such an awesome opportunity to kind of build up the category and have our own occasion. And October is so fantastic because like Eric said, it's harvest season, apples are on folks' minds. And if you look at the data over the last couple of years, it over-indexes naturally anyways. And I think that's because of the harvest season, the change in weather, people are looking for a beverage like cider. So it's really the perfect time to do it. And we're so excited this year to be able to bring along so many other folks in our industry and give other people a platform that's brand agnostic to help build up the category as a whole. And, you know, selfishly Colin Schilling, we know that if the category grows, we'll grow as well. So it's really a win-win for everybody.
[00:34:12] Zoe Licata: Awesome. So I have a question. In my pre-brew band life, I worked at a craft beverage company that had a cider brand in its portfolio. And something that would come up a lot was how to make people think of cider at other times of the year than the fall. Because I think people made that association for all the reasons you guys just listed, but was there any thought to either having two cider months, like maybe a focus period some other time? Like, I just know that that was such a huge deal.
[00:34:41] Colin Schilling: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say sometimes it's nice to run downhill, you know, and sometimes it's nice just to just to go with the momentum that you already have. So people already have an association with it and we're already a smaller. portion of the pie, right? Another apple pun, you get the connection. And, you know, why wouldn't we just lean into that? Why wouldn't we just say, okay, well, there's already National Apple Month, there's already the harvest season, there's already the association with fall and going out and picking pumpkins and all of that, right? Being a part of that, it's just an easier conversation for everyone, and it's already associated their mind. So we start there, and then we can build to other occasions. But you look at There are, you know, you take Constellation's brand portfolio, right? You take Diageo's brand portfolio and they have occasions throughout the year that they really capitalize on. That's the goal for National Cider Month is to say, okay, it's in between right after when Oktoberfest beers are done, right? No one's trying to buy an Oktoberfest beer in October.
[00:35:44] Zoe Licata: Ironically.
[00:35:45] Colin Schilling: would have to be competin spirits for the holidays. opportunity. And so you know, if you thought abo we want to take advantage happening. Yeah. And so th You know, as Colin said, we over-indexed already in the fall, so why wouldn't we, you know, put a little more fuel on the fire and just see it continue to grow in that sense and allow us throughout the summer where people are looking for flavor four, they're looking for, you know, maybe a little bit more of the seltzer or cider kind of category in that time of year, we're going to be able to capitalize on that anyway.
[00:36:26] Zoe Licata: Beat the people where they are. Makes sense.
[00:36:28] Colin Schilling: Yep.
[00:36:29] Zoe Licata: So how many ciderys are participating this year? What does that participation look like? What are people doing to celebrate?
[00:36:36] Colin Schilling: So we created a website, Rachel and her team put that together to bring a bunch of cideries into the conversation. Every cidery is basically welcome to participate in National Cider Month, and they set it up so you have assets available on that website. But I'm going to kind of kick it over to Rachel because she's the mastermind behind all of the nationalcidermonth.com situation.
[00:37:00] Eric Phillips: Yeah, so as of yesterday, I believe we have over 65 participating. In the website alone, Eric, you're gonna have to jump in on some of the other broader national programming, but. We have them coming in by fives and tens each day. We kind of launched this thing last week, and we already have quite a handful of events that have been populated on this site. We really just wanted to give a platform that was brand agnostic, shilling agnostic, that encompassed the campaign as a whole, and a place for sideries to jump in and be highlighted and featured. And we plan to, on our side, put a whole separate campaign other than our own into fruition this month. So a lot of resources backing this, which is pretty awesome.
[00:37:51] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's a very beautiful site. Well done.
[00:37:54] Eric Phillips: Thank you.
[00:37:55] Rachel Thomas: Good job, Rachel. Crushing it.
[00:37:57] Eric Phillips: Claps for Rachel. I cannot take this credit. Our look and feel was created by this fantastic designer I've been working with and collaborating with for years. We worked on a couple rebrands together. She's that person that you can speak to and just have the stream of consciousness and she somehow like takes it all. Her name is Andy Richardson from Andy Grace Design and she just created this incredible concept, a fully fleshed out concept, a foundation of logos, badges, colors, fonts, and we just handed that over to our developers and we're like, here, create something. It turned out this beautiful. These assets are actually available on the website for people to use. The concepting of this, that's a whole other conversation, was to make this very Schilling agnostic and have something that captures the organic nature of the lines of an apple and how it's incredibly simplistic but complex in nature. and she was able to to create this sort of autumnal beautiful thing that can translate across plenty of brands.
[00:39:07] Zoe Licata: So are you also encouraging brands to do like physical like are they putting flyers up like what else are they doing to like kind of promote the month?
[00:39:18] Eric Phillips: Yes. So with those assets that you can download, we have a mini brand guide and people can grab it, read it, and take the assets and create their own POS to help. The only thing that we really grappled with was, you know, when this was taking a life of its own and separating from shilling, we were trying, it was like a brain test. We were like, how do we, we're so used to this being a shilling thing. How do we have it, its own character, independent shilling, yet retain like a cohesive, strong branding? And with that, we were able to put this guy together, give them the assets and allow them to not use the presented by or sponsored by, because that's what we had been using. We were trying to figure out how to not do that. But they have the ability to say in celebration with, you know, join us in celebrating and create to their heart's content.
[00:40:11] Rachel Thomas: I think that's so cool to what Rachel and her team were able to do in terms of doing something that was completely brand agnostic and had a different look and feel from Schilling. And that's really us putting our money where our mouth is in terms of all boats rise. It's the same thing we do with our cider houses, which carry way more gas taps than Schilling's own. And they're all focused about education and growing the category. And, you know, we've spent close to six figures on this National Apple Month or National Cider Month campaign, and that's out of a shilling's pocket to support the whole industry. And we've been doing that kind of thing for years. And we really, truly believe that, again, elevating cider and allowing cider to grow helps everybody and, of course, helps us, too.
[00:40:47] Zoe Licata: This website is gorgeous. And I did see that one of the events toward the end of the month is a dog Halloween costume contest at Right B in Chicago.
[00:40:55] Rachel Thomas: Sounds dope.
[00:40:56] Zoe Licata: Right? Cider, dogs, and Halloween costumes. It doesn't really get any better. So another really important part of National Cider Month for this year is this partnership that you guys have with Whole Foods for the whole month. What does that look like and what can consumers expect to find when they visit a Whole Foods market looking for Shilling Cider?
[00:41:16] Colin Schilling: So a couple of plugs here for a couple of different parties. There's this wonderful event in the Santa Monica area yearly around like December timeframe. I highly recommend that y'all go to it. It's called Brewbound Live. So just a little plug there for y'all. So we were at Brewbound Live last year and Mary Giver, who is the I'm going to get close, but I won't get it 100%. The global principal buyer for beer and cider and spirits for Whole Foods. And I had been talking with the team a little bit about the campaigns for the following year and what we want to do and how we could try and make some more impact and drive some more volume in sales. And so Mary and I were talking over lunch, and I said, Hey, I've got this idea. I'd like to pitch it to you. You know, if you got a couple minutes, it's gonna be my quote, hard sell. And so Mary was very gracious and said, Oh, yeah, absolutely. Of course, let's chat about cider. I love chatting about cider. So I conceptualized the idea with Mary and just said, Hey, I think there's an opportunity for cider to be featured on a national level. We're not a national brand, nor do we necessarily have aspirations to be in every single state at this point. And I said, but I think that there's an opportunity that we could piece together a couple different larger National Cider suppliers that are making craft cider and partners that we believe are helping elevate the visibility into craft cider and what's possible with selling, you know, more craft cider. And I said, I really like the idea, just flush it out. And so we spent some time with the team, and we flushed it out. And basically, what we came up with Colin Schilling is going to cover X number of states and then another cider, Blake's Cider out of Michigan, fantastic folks over there. And they're going to cover kind of the other portion of the US. And then from there, we're going to work to bring in local hyperlocal, local, and regional cideries to be a part of this program in Whole Foods at the state level. So, for example, in Washington State, featuring cideries like Dragon's Head. in Washington State small cidery on the island that I grew up on outside of Seattle and who's really making incredible ciders. So the whole concept is bringing awareness to cider with a retailer that has a national footprint, which is Whole Foods and who already understands the value of putting more education and time and energy into growing the cider category. And so that's really how this came about. And Mary and her team have been incredibly supportive And I think that they really understand the vision of this. And this is year one. And we have, I believe, 50 to 60 cideries participating across the 43 different states where this is taking place. So pretty big impact on year one. And the goal is, yeah, we weren't able to feature every single cidery. and that's on the radar. We know that, but the goal is let's be successful in the first year and then let's grow this program so that by the time we get to 2025, this is something that people expect, consumers know, and they're going to be coming to different retailers, not just Whole Foods, but we'll get some other local and regional retailers on board. to feature cider in a big way, which we have done in the Pacific Northwest already. But we want that to spread to the Midwest, down to Texas, over on the East Coast, et cetera. So that's the goal.
[00:44:55] Zoe Licata: That's really exciting.
[00:44:57] Colin Schilling: Yeah.
[00:44:57] Zoe Licata: I'm going to have to go explore Whole Foods now and see what they have going on. Shout out to Dame Mary Guyver, who was knighted last year. It was last year? Yes. Very exciting and shout out to Brewbound Live. We're going to take a little bit credit for making this happen. Another big development, you guys have been doing so much, but something that you also kind of announced around the same time is you're, Shilling is a part of the Brewers Association now, and you had a presence at GABF. I want to talk about both, but first just, why did you want to be a part of a beer trade group? What was the decision making there? Why was it important for Shilling to be a part of the BA?
[00:45:42] Colin Schilling: The initial push there was, looking at the big opportunity that exists within the BA. And we were at actually another conference and we were fortunate enough to sit down over dinner with Bob Pease. And Bob, being forward-thinking, asked the question, what do you think about Schilling being a part of GABF? And I said, I think that's really fantastic. I think we should absolutely do that. I would love to think about that and how do we show up so that we are also, again, growing the cider community, right? It's not just shilling for shilling sake, it's the idea of growing cider and more awareness around cider, craft cider specifically. And so that's kind of how the conversation kicked off of us being a part of GABF and then them being, again, forward thinking, the BA being forward thinking and saying, we would like you to be members as well. So we kick it over to you, Colin, to kind of extrapolate on that.
[00:46:41] Rachel Thomas: I think we almost have to go all the way back to the very origins of Shilling Cider. We were one of the first cideries in the country to sell cans of cider. Our whole thesis was make super high quality cider, but sell it more like craft beer. At the time, over a decade ago, most folks in quality cider were 750ml bottles. Again, they're making fantastic ciders, but it wasn't necessarily at that approachable price point like craft beer had always been or had been for a long time. And so we've always kind of seen ourselves as relatively similar in a lot of ways to craft beer, and we also believe strongly in craft beverage as a whole. And that's why we resonate so well with the BA because there's so many other like folks like minded folks that, you know, care about the ingredients they care about their people they care about sustainability. And they're also a relatively large organization. We've got some great cider organizations as well that do fantastic work, but they're obviously a little bit smaller than the BA. And so being part of more associations and more groups is always something that we want. We have a big tent strategy for sure. And it just allows us to have more reach, whether it be talking to the TTB about these weird, nuanced cider laws, which we would need a four hour podcast if you want to discuss the details of that. You know, or like working with Bart Watson, who's an absolute genius when it comes to trends and economics and things like that. I always love chatting with him. So just more resources for that. And I would say, too, you know, being able to be at GABF was just such an awesome experience. And Rachel and her team did such a phenomenal job of executing on that. And we really showed up in a way that I think was unique. So I'd actually love to kick it over to Rachel Thomas kind of chat about how we built a CIDR space. And we're really inclusive at that event as well.
[00:48:13] Colin Schilling: cider space because Excelsior space-themed ciders. I'm just putting out the puns here today, people.
[00:48:21] Zoe Licata: We appreciate it.
[00:48:23] Eric Phillips: Yeah, it's never a dull moment. You have a one-track mind and then all of a sudden it's like pun, pun, pun, and you're like, where was I? But it helps, it keeps it interesting. Yeah, so with this space we toyed around with a ton of different ideas. And towards the end there, we worked with a bag of vagabonds, which is this like incredible build company. They really curate experience as well. And talking with them, we wanted to still encompass the shilling portion of this, but make it really accessible for the cideries that we brought along. And it really helped bringing in just, it kind of looked like a spaceship. And we had three other cideries. Yep. It was a very large space. We had three other cideries. There were a couple cideries throughout JVF, but we were the biggest cider space, I believe. And they were kind of brought into this space themed photo booth themed area that showcased like a great range of cideries and ciders. So anywhere from like dry to sweet, we had Imperials. I feel like, Colin, didn't you curate this space?
[00:49:33] Rachel Thomas: Eric and I helped reach out to the cideries that were there. But again, the idea was all boats rise and showcase what cider can be. And again, really showing the craft community, because obviously, GIBF, largest craft Beer Festival in the country, now the largest craft festival in the country. Just such an awesome opportunity to introduce people to more than just what Schilling makes. Of course, we think our ciders are absolutely phenomenal. But we're not sitting here saying our cider is perfect for everyone. You know, we know that some people are going to have tastes that are outside of what we make. And that's what's so awesome about cider is it's very wide ranging, and there's always going to be a cider for someone. I can't tell you how many folks came up to us and said, you know, Oh, I don't like cider. And then they tried one, like, Oh, my God, this is life changing. And then they tried another one. And they liked that. And then maybe they tried a third one. It wasn't quite their thing. But then they went back. Right. So it's just that diversity that we were able to bring of flavor was so exciting. And again, Rachel's team just absolutely smashed the execution of it.
[00:50:24] Colin Schilling: The whole goal, just to reiterate, was to bring more people into the cider world and not just into the shilling space themed world. It was, OK, let's talk about this company is really good at this type of cider. Or did you know that this company exists in your home state? Come talk about this. Let's interact with this. so that people had a broader awareness of what cider is and what cider can be as well.
[00:50:49] Eric Phillips: Yeah. And I felt like it was a good space to have just with having so much beer there. And I, again, it's a Beer Festival, totally, but people kind of used it as a palate cleanser before they tried other ones because it was just such a different, different style, different, experience and we got a lot of repeats coming in going oh we're gonna we're gonna hit the cider space and then we're gonna go back and do you know the pacific northwest section or we're gonna hit the cider space then we're gonna go do you know another section in there so it was it was awesome to have that range for people to explore and get to know cider cider keeping people in the game longer
[00:51:29] Zoe Licata: Awesome. Two questions actually. So my first, which was, I mean, I know maybe this is asking too much, but if you guys could kind of guesstimate how many people that came into the cider space had never had cider before, like how many people were coming in with like zero expectations or knowledge?
[00:51:47] Eric Phillips: I don't know that it was, it was that they had zero expectations or knowledge. They had one expectation and one knowledge. And you can kind of see where that was going. And we had to kind of talk them. If we had the opportunity to talk them out of it or talk them, just be like, no, no, no, no, try this. And if this is too sweet for you, like we have this or if we, you know. but I think a majority of the people were going, oh, apple cider. And then they were tasting it and being like, wait a second, whoa. And we had brought a few flavors that were, you know, the ones that people are, yep, definitely want to try that. And they had no idea that cider could have this sort of flavor complexity. That's awesome. It wasn't just like apple juice.
[00:52:30] Zoe Licata: So, I mean, I wasn't there this year, but I mean, I've been a million times and It's like an intense environment. You know, there's thousands of people. God knows how many of them are just trying to get as drunk as possible. So it's not always ideal for educational enlightening conversations, but it sounds like you were really able to create like the space for that literally in your space, which is themed by space. And now I'm making very bad puns, but... Love it. Eric's interested in this. So my next question is kind of where was the space located? Were you by the Pac Northwest Breweries?
[00:53:08] Colin Schilling: That's a great question. We were so we were actually right outside the Silent Disco, which was. Oh, that's supposed to be. Which was dope. But under previous question, talk about having the opportunity in education. What was really wonderful for us and we're incredibly thankful and we hope that we get to participate in it again next year. was pair the food pairing and Colin, I got to be do so many people who came b want to brag too much, bu people that just said thi pairing that there is. And people were stunned by the opportunity to put these wonderful foods that were put together. I'll let Colin talk about more of the specifics here. But the food and the cider together, because people had no concept of that. They had no idea that that was even a possibility to have these complex flavors hit to elevate the entire experience. It was really fun to see people who had been there many, many times and were like, wait, this is insane. Like, this is no joke, like, hands down, like, the best thing here. And we're like, oh, really? Because, like, this is our first time. We have no concept of what this is like. And we had so many people that were just absolutely thrilled by the experience that provided at Paired.
[00:54:28] Rachel Thomas: Yeah, so we were paired, we were working with Matt Votter, who owns two amazing restaurants in Breckenridge, and he's actually done this for I think 10 years in a row now. So he is very well-versed at paired, absolutely amazing with his flavors. And so we did our Excelsior OG, our original Imperial, which has a lot of tannins in it. It's kind of a semi-sweet, very acidic, and we did that with a sweet bread. which, you know, a lot of folks may not have tried that before, but it was the perfect thing to do it paired where it was a little kind of, you know, push the boundaries a little bit, but it was such a phenomenal pairing. And then we did our chider, which is our fall favorite, spiced chai cider with an apple toffee bread pudding. And then I had behind the counter, I had some 16% ABV Palmo that was my secret pour off menu. And I gave those to people who would sit there and listen to my entire spiel, which was actually most folks. And then they were rewarded with a little extra interesting pairing. So it was super fun. Thank you to MicroStar for sponsoring that event. That was super, super cool. Dan Vorlage is an awesome guy. And he was obviously down there talking about the amazing things that MicroStar does. And so it was really cool to be there. And we would be very excited to be offered a spot again next year at GBF. Hint, hint, if you're listening. Plug.
[00:55:41] Zoe Licata: But that's super exciting that people were actively wanting to know more and were interested. I mean, the people who are going to Parrot are the ones that want to explore more about Beth Elk and beer and to see that they're pretty heavy beer enthusiasts are equally or even more excited about a cidery there. It's really awesome.
[00:56:00] Colin Schilling: That was a lot of feedback we got was that people were really thrilled at the BA's choice to include cider in Beer Festival. And they were very thankful for that. And they said, oh, this is so cool. Like, finally, cider's here. And now I can participate in a larger degree because, you know, maybe I'm celiac. Maybe I have some gluten intolerance things going on. And there were a lot of people who were incredibly thankful to the BA for including cider.
[00:56:30] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that's awesome. Because this was the first year that they were able to do that, they kind of expanded into additional beyond beer places. And you never really know how those Beer Festival core attendees, they're in a tent group, how they're going to react to change like that.
[00:56:47] Colin Schilling: We figured that if we included other cideries, they could also take part of the brunt of it, you know. No, but that was the whole goal of bringing the other cideries because we knew that it'd be so much more successful with more opportunity to try more ciders, right?
[00:57:02] Zoe Licata: Eric, you brought up Brewbound a little bit earlier, Brewbound Live. You were on our panel last year talking about cider and kind of trying to demystify some of the things about the segment and talking about the strength of National Cider. Since that conversation we had last year, I mean, we just talked about some of the misconceptions about cider, about its sweetness or its flavor, but are there any others that are still really sticking out there? Any myths we need to break today about cider?
[00:57:31] Colin Schilling: Yeah, there's one real fun one that's easy to break, because it's not just me waxing poetically here. It's that data doesn't lie. And so if you take away the national brands, and you just focus on regional and craft cideries, we have not tipped the scales. So regional craft cideries now outsell National Cider in the category is seeing growth again. And that's pretty fantastic. That started about April of this year. And we've continued that trend which has been really fascinating to see. We have talked about it for a long time internally and we've talked about it with other craft regional suppliers in the cider segment. But to start to see that on a national level and to start to see our growth impact the overall national growth in cider has been a really validating conversation to have, which has been fun for us. I'm sure Colin has some more things to add to that, but that's been one of the main ones that, hey, I hear you distributor retail partners, but I encourage you to dig a little deeper into the conversation about cider and look and see what is actually happening in that.
[00:58:39] Rachel Thomas: Yeah, Eric couldn't be more right on that. I mean, again, if you take one level down, there's at least 10 National Cider brands around the country that are all making amazing product and doing a phenomenal job and growing the category. And all the things we've been talking about in industry, which is flavor forward, beyond beer, fruit, sustainable ingredients, things like that. Cider could not be more perfectly poised for what the consumer is looking for right now. But there's not a ton of brands that are really doing a lot of activation around that. And that's why we're so excited about National Cider Month. is so that we can help elevate that conversation and get share of mind. Because we know that if people are paying attention to cider, that they'll see how amazing it is and it will continue to grow organically on its own. You got to remember in Europe, where cider has had a long tradition, it's 15% above out in a lot of countries. And we're still only around 2.5% in the US. So cider has got a lot of room to grow. It's historically very interesting in the US. If you don't know the history of cider all the way back to the country's origins, it's really, really cool to check that out. So again, I think cider's got a long term place in the country here and we're really excited to continue that growth.
[00:59:44] Zoe Licata: So I know, you know, getting to a point where regional brands have overtaken national brands and data was huge, huge goal for you guys. But what's next? What's your next big goal for the segment?
[00:59:56] Colin Schilling: I got vacation coming up. We just got tickets to Stephen Colbert show. So I'm excited about that. You wanted my personal outlook, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[01:00:08] Zoe Licata: So, so you're coming to the East Coast.
[01:00:10] Colin Schilling: I'm coming to the East Coast, maybe do a little surfing out there, you know, you know, yeah. So call your friends. I think that there's opportunity to continue to grow cider on a multi regional level. I think that's what is another driving force is looking at the opportunity to make sure that national retailers are really understanding what that looks like. What does National Cider Month look like in 24? What does it look like in 25? How can we continue the activations and continue the momentum? How can we ensure that our distributor partners are continuing to focus? And ours have done an insanely amazing job of focusing on the cider segment specifically and believing in us as a company, which is wild to me that someone is trusting me with part of their business. I love it. Don't get me wrong, but it blows my mind sometimes. But just looking at that and saying, There's so much more possibilities. Colin mentioned, it's actually like a 1.2 share, 1.3 share nationally, where in the Pacific Northwest, we're close to a 10 share. In the Pacific Northwest, if you take all of Oregon and Washington sales for all categories, Cider's now outselling F&Bs. So that's a conversation that can continue to expand beyond just the Pacific Northwest, where obviously we have the best apples. you know, plug for all those fine people to get us our wonderful juice. But that's, I think, one of the next opportunities for us. And then I don't want to tip my hand too much. I allow Colin, or not I allow, but I'm going to let Colin rather tip his hand if he so chooses in other opportunities for shilling down the road.
[01:01:45] Rachel Thomas: Yeah, I actually kind of want to go back to what Eric started with there. I know he was joking about vacation and everything else, but I think that's actually where we're really focusing over the next couple years. You may have heard me at some of my last conversations about actually trying to slow down our growth a little bit. We're kind of unique as a company that has grown pretty solid double-digit growth for a very long year over year over year now. And that's important to us, but we're an organic growth company. We're not fueled by investment dollars. So we are trying to be strategic and careful and not burn our people out. One of our goals as a company is to be the best place to work in our industry. And so we really take that seriously. So we are very actively trying to grow our team, grow our regions, grow our portfolio strategically where we're not burning folks out and we're not burning the candle from both ends. And that's hard for a small company that's competing against big brands, really a lot of smart folks out there. But that's something that's really important to us. And so making sure that we take that time and provide a great experience, a great livable experience for everyone that works with us. And then at the same time, we continue to focus on sustainability, which is huge for us. So you all covered it. We launched the first all EV fleet in the Bevalk industry this year. We've actually been adding to that and working directly with GM on some new cars that are coming out to continue to grow that fleet. and continue to showcase that to other folks. So if any of y'all are curious out there about converting your fleet to EV, give me a holler. Love to chat with you about that. And we're looking at some other really big investments next year around sustainability with the goal of cutting our carbon footprint ultimately down to zero would be our long-term goal. I don't have a timeframe for that yet. We're actually going through our second greenhouse gas emissions assessment right now. And out of this one, we're gonna be setting goals and hopefully figuring out a timeline to get to zero. So those are some of the things that are really important to us from a company ethics and company ethos standpoint. Growth is important, obviously. It's a business after all, but it's not everything. And we're really trying to focus on all different aspects of running a business in terms of what I consider success.
[01:03:37] Zoe Licata: And I love that you just said all of that because we always, it's easy to keep talking in terms of growth in numbers and volume and dollars and all of that. But what you just said, I think is something that a lot more people need to be thinking. And I'm going to give a shameless plug for your talk at Brew Brown Live last year, where you did an awesome job really educating everybody on what, you know, Schilling's goals and mindset and ethos are, but also like how you lead people because... Sometimes we don't always have the world's friendliest people-focused stories coming out of this industry if we've learned anything about life in beer the past couple of years. So Brewbound Insiders can check out that whole talk that you gave on Brewbound.com. It was Brewbound Live 2022?
[01:04:20] Rachel Thomas: I don't even know what year it is.
[01:04:22] Zoe Licata: Thank you. Yeah, it was an awesome talk. Highly recommend everyone checks it out.
[01:04:28] Rachel Thomas: Thank you.
[01:04:29] Zoe Licata: Because that, especially that kind of stuff can get forgotten in this weird time period we're in with Bevelc where it's been a lot of focus on just trying to combat financial things or try to get growth.
[01:04:41] Colin Schilling: I would also plug Zoe real quick. I plugged in it works. Right. And it's not just fluff and PR plugs or any of that. We have seen it. accelerate internally and externally facing as well. And a couple just real quick stories on that. One, when we were hiring down in Southern California, there were some people who applied who were way overqualified for the position, in my opinion, and having been with Schilling for a long time. And You know, and doing some of the screening interviews, I was very honest. I just said, I think, you know, you are very overqualified. It's not that we don't want to hire you. Just, I want you to be aware of what this role is and what the pay structure looks like and all that. They said, I heard about your culture. I want to be a part of that. That was the thing that they said. And I was, I was absolutely blown away. And I told several people within the company, I was like, Oh, this is working. Like this is what we, you know, the, the seeds that we planted a long time ago are growing. Right. Another one was actually just this week. Another very large craft beer company reached out to us because they had heard some of the things that we do internally. about some of our meeting styles, and how we meet, and how we have monthly meetings with the people that we work with, and how we talk about how clear is kind, and different things that we do that is just very different than traditional conversations within the BevOut world. And I just thought that those are the kind of things that are starting to happen. And I highly encourage people not only to check out the talk, obviously, Colin, you can see his mullet on the talk. You can't get that on the podcast experience, unfortunately. But hearing all that stuff. And we didn't come up with it to be very clear. But there are a lot of people who we get the opportunity to work with who are experts in this space. And I would highly encourage people to it's not, you know, just all about, oh, I want to make sure that you you feel good and all that it's, hey, we're gonna have hard conversations, but we're gonna figure out how to do it together. So they both feel good about this. And we both can move forward in a positive manner. So highly encourage people to really take a look at what they're doing internally. And again, we're here to, you want to nerd out? Like we can nerd out about, you know, wine laws and how that impacts cider, but like, let's nerd out about culture, like fully in.
[01:06:59] Zoe Licata: So one thing that I have never forgotten from Colin's talk last year, and except the one thing I have forgotten is its official name, but I think this would be a really fun way to close this out. Colin, what's the, it's like the Buy Cool Shit Fund or something, right?
[01:07:12] Rachel Thomas: Yeah, BCS. Oh, did I get it right? Yeah, Buy Cool Shit, good memory. Yeah. Good memory. Yeah, I mean, that's just one of many ways where we put our money where our mouth is, and it's literally $750 a year that you have to spend on something that brings you joy outside of work. And there's very little bounds on that. But you know, again, it's worth life balance.
[01:07:30] Zoe Licata: And I know what I would buy.
[01:07:31] Rachel Thomas: Well, tell us.
[01:07:33] Zoe Licata: I would get an Ooni pizza oven.
[01:07:35] Rachel Thomas: Oh, we actually had someone buy one of those. Yeah, we did. One of those come through.
[01:07:39] Zoe Licata: So I mean, Eric and Rachel, I want you guys to tell our listeners what you bought with your with your BCS.
[01:07:46] Colin Schilling: Oh, I wasn't joking when I'm actually going to try and go surfing in New York. Year one, I bought myself and my girlfriend cold water wetsuits. And so we go surfing on the Washington and Oregon coast now. And then we've gotten so into it that we got a layer, like a warmer layer of that. So we got a different one for when we go to California. That was year one. And then year two, I got myself an adult bicycle instead of, you know, just like what was probably in my parents' garage, like rusting. I got like a really like good one for, you know, the long-term. Because my girlfriend was begging me, let's go on bikes. And I didn't have one. So she didn't really want me like just riding on the handlebars anymore. We would love to see that.
[01:08:26] Zoe Licata: Very valid purchase. Rachel, what have you done?
[01:08:31] Eric Phillips: I bought Taylor Swift tickets for Switzerland next year. Wow. That's amazing. Well done. Yes. It was a feat to get them. And when I got the code in a different country, I was like, that's what BCS is going to. I'm new to the shilling team. So this was my first year and I knew exactly I own the prize.
[01:08:55] Zoe Licata: Nice, nice. Excellent. I am highly encouraging Brewbound to start a BCS fund, because that would be pretty fucking cool. Well, thank you guys, as always. Always great chatting with you. Exciting to see you in our next, whenever next our paths meet, probably Vegas, if not CiderCon in Portland, beginning of next year, so coming up very quickly. Brewbound Live this year. Or Brewbound Live this year. Oh yeah, we'll see you there.
[01:09:26] Rachel Thomas: Yeah.
[01:09:27] Zoe Licata: Great. All right. Well, thank you guys and happy National Cider Month.
[01:09:31] Rachel Thomas: Thank you. Cheers. Thanks for having us on.
[01:09:33] Zoe Licata: Thank you.
[01:09:34] Rachel Thomas: Thank you, Zoe. Thank you, Jess. Appreciate you.
[01:09:36] Zoe Licata: And that's our show this week. Thank you to Justin and Jess for hanging out with me and sampling Hoppy Chocolate with me. Quite experienced. Thank you to our one-man audio team, Joe, for making us sound at least somewhat nice. He makes us sound much better than we do. And to all of you for listening, we'll be back next week.
