[00:00:00] Jessen Fonte: Where in craft beer is there more room at the inn? We are going to talk about it on the Brewbound podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Brewbound Podcast. I am Jessen Fonte, Brewbound Managing Editor, also a long survivor of Catholic schools who will link pretty much any story possible to the nativity that has been drilled into my head for the next, what, four weeks, five weeks? I've lost track of time, but it is that time of year. Great conversation coming up with our Scott Newman-Bale from Shorts Brewing. All of this will make sense. We are not looking at mangers. We are talking about an inn. Zoe, I am rambling. Introduce yourself to the people. Tell us what's going on.
[00:00:57] Zoe Licata: Hello, I am Zoe Licata. I don't have any Catholic school trauma to associate with our story today, I apologize. But I'm very excited for everyone to listen to our interview later.
[00:01:12] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, fascinating conversation. No need to belabor the point right now. But a lot of news has happened in the past couple days. So why don't we take this chronologically and start with the most recent development. Zoe, tell us about Suncruiser.
[00:01:28] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so who would have thought, definitely not me, that Boston Beer was going to come out with another hard tea offering outside of the Twisted Tea brand. They announced yesterday that they are going to release Suncruiser, which is a vodka-based hard tea. It'll be coming out in March. Right now they have it slated for 14 markets. no specifics on what those markets are yet, so TBD. But yeah, they're getting into the spirits-based hard tea game, expanding on their existing presence with things like Truly, vodka, soda, and what else? Is Burbank County spirits-based or milk-based?
[00:02:12] Jessen Fonte: Oh, they're Jim Beam country coolers, Kentucky coolers.
[00:02:15] Zoe Licata: Yeah.
[00:02:16] Jessen Fonte: Wow. Yes. A lot of words. It's kind of like, like, mad lips around here. Yeah, they're Jim Beam FMV product. Great calls out. Yeah, that is that is malt based.
[00:02:26] Zoe Licata: Yeah. So they they've been experimenting with other versions of RTDs. And they've had their Truly extensions, but they have decided to come up with this new brand instead of expanding Twisted Tea with a spirits based version. I got to chat briefly with Erica Taylor, who's the Senior Brands Director for these tea brands over at Boston Beer, and she was pretty confident that this is not going to take away any sales from Twisted Tea, that this is going to be an incremental brand for Boston Beer. It's targeting a different audience who's looking for a bit of a more premium product, a less sweet product. 4.5% ABV, has what they call is just a hint of sweetness, one gram sugar. So a little bit different in slim cans as well. They're going to have two single flavor, four packs and a variety eight pack, which is similar to some other hard tea brands that today many names that we have seen. So yeah, interesting, surprising launch from Boston Beer.
[00:03:33] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, it's it's surprising. And yet it's not surprising. There's a lot of funny things here. And one thing I apologize, I didn't think to add this to your story yesterday when you're writing it, because I was out of town covering media marketers insights fall conference in New York City, and my brain can only work so many different ways. But this isn't the first time Boston beers tried to launch more premium, less sweet tea offering a few years ago. pre COVID 2018, 2019, they had worked on something called wild leaf, which was still malt based, and was trying to, like, answer that, you know, need state where somebody wanted, they like the taste of tea, but they want it to be less sweet than twisted tea. I don't know how far off it got from the ground, because I was not working in the brand department at that time anymore. But yeah, it's something they've tried. I think that was an idea that was just a little too early. And I think I think they're going to hit the timing on this one. This makes sense. You know, we've seen these spirits-based teas and lemonades take off in some parts of the country. So, so the time to do this is now. And I think Eric is right. I don't think, I think this is a different drinker than the tea drinker. So I don't see a whole lot of cannibalization here, but it's just funny because, you know, we've heard on several earnings calls where leadership says that they think spirits-based RTDs are a blip.
[00:04:56] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I think that's what made this surprising for me, was that there have been numerous conversations on these earnings calls. We've heard directly from Jim Cook, who said that he doesn't think spirits-based RTDs can really get any traction unless they have an existing spirits brand name attached to it. And we've also heard Boston Beer say a lot that they're really focused on trying to narrow down how much innovation they're doing. So they hadn't made any mention of doing a brand like this in any of those calls or in the copy of the wholesaler meeting we got. I'm sure there was probably discussions during that meeting. But It definitely makes a lot of sense. Like you mentioned, we've seen a lot of more regionally focused brands go off this past year or two that have had similar spirits-based tea and lemonade focuses. So we'll see how it goes.
[00:05:50] Jessen Fonte: They like to make it difficult on themselves. Two single flavor packs and a variety pack. That innovation pipeline is basically a fire hose.
[00:06:01] Speaker: Yeah.
[00:06:01] Jessen Fonte: But in other news, I covered Heineken is USA was gracious enough to share a video recording of one of their wholesaler meetings. So to tell us what's going on with them next year, just the highlights real quick Heineken silver, which debuted earlier this year, January of 23, as a challenger to make ultra, they launched it with $100 million investment, and they're doing it again. And That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. But they are confident that they they learned some things from the launch, they're ready to, to put those learnings into action. A big thing for them is going to be sampling. Basically, you know, Heineken USA, CEO Maggie Tooney says that whenever people try the beer, they love the beer. So good luck and Godspeed. But it's a tough year to be an import Brewer with a McUltra Challenger this year because you know, Constellation brands, Modelo Oro kind of the same thing doing really well. And yeah, I don't want to call out the difference here. But one of them is gold, and one of them is silver. And we know how that plays out on the podiums at the Olympics. Other stuff that's up with Heineken is 00 continues to crush it. They are hoping to make inroads into the C-Store channel this year, and no one's really been able to crack that nut yet. Non-alcoholics do really good in grocery, as Bill Schufelt, founder and CEO of Athletic, told the BMI conference yesterday that I'm sure I'll write about this week, but grocery is huge for them. Same for Heineken, but they're really hoping to make some inroads in the C-Store channel, which is one of the few places where just the beer category in general is actually doing really well. So look for more on that. And then something that really jumped out to me is that Heineken is also finding a lot of green shoots with Dos Equis on draft. But where they want to source this is slow moving craft tap handles. So you got a craft beer that's turning slow on on draft. Watch your back Dos Equis is coming.
[00:08:08] Zoe Licata: Yeah, and we've talked about it numerous times and we're going to talk about it again at Brewbound Live. Draft is a tricky place to be right now and craft is losing some of those handles that they've held on to for some time. So it's not surprising that an import brand is going to find its space in there because imports are doing really well right now. The Heineken Silver stuff is interesting to me. I've seen more of Heineken Silver on social media and things than I have of Modelo Oro. I think that's mainly because of Heineken's marketing plays at music festivals, and I've seen a lot of things with influencers. But It hasn't yet played out in scans that they have the same dominating presence at all. So we'll see if that increased investment makes any difference.
[00:09:01] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, the other interesting thing to me there when you mentioned the scans is that Heineken also has strongholds in independent markets and the data from those stories doesn't always show up in scan. So we will see. But you know, McAulter, people just keep coming for it. And McAulter just slots them down. So it'll be interesting to see what what this class of McAulter challengers is able to do, especially given, given the year that Anheuser-Busch has had. So not that McAulter was as impacted as Bud Light. But there's certainly a panoply of things at play here. Yep. What else happened last week? Oh, great frontier holdings, which is Zoe, maybe you want to give us a little background on this, because you guys wrote this story on the first day of my maternity leave. So when I was trying to wrap my brain and think like, Okay, I'm sure we know what this is, what is happening, then I found your story. And I realized why I didn't know anything.
[00:10:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so Justin and I had this story earlier this summer about the creation of Great Frontier Holding, which is this beverage platform that came together through what they described as a merger of Nankazi and Ashland Hart Seltzer's parent company, Wings and Arrow. So this ended up being multiple brands coming together now in this new platform. The other brands that are a part of it are... It's Villager, Canned Cocktails, Mucho Aloha, Hard Lemonade. Yes. And then Wings and Arrow has their own beer as well that they started this year. So there are now six brands that are all a part of this, if you include Wings and Arrow, that are part of this great frontier holdings platform with Ecliptic joining on. And you had this update on this story. So tell us how that deal is working out.
[00:10:58] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. So Portland, Oregon's Ecliptic Brewing, they've been in business for 10 years, founded by John Harris, who has brewed at all of the Great Pack Northwest breweries, certainly an OG of the craft industry in that part of the country. They are being acquired by Great Frontier Holdings, which Josh Landon, who's the CEO, who founded St. Archer, sold it to Molson Coors, and then founded most of those other brands that are under the umbrella other than Ninkasi. Josh and I chatted for a little bit and he explained he'd been in the Portland area for business visits and got to know John, got to talking, and then they realized that this could be something super mutually beneficial for all of them. So Ecliptic is coming on board. They will be shutting down their taproom and brewery in Portland. Their last day in operation is going to be later this week, I believe the 18th of November. All production of Ecliptic products is going to be moving to Ninkasi's facility in Eugene, Oregon, which is a little bit farther south. And it's a deal for the IP, the brand, the recipes. John is going to be joining the team as well. Josh was particularly excited to have somebody with his you know, brewing knowledge on board, great person to have around a quote from Josh. Really, he doesn't think that this is going to be one of those. Thanks for your brand. See you later. So let me actually quote him. He told me he says it's a big deal for us to join forces and for john to come into our business. He's going to be here with us working on the brands and on the board and he'll be involved. It's not just like, hey, great, this is awesome. And then see you later. It's nowhere near anything like that. He obviously is one of the most legendary brewers in the pack Northwest, if not the most. him working with our director of brewing operations, Daniel Sharp. That's going to be an awesome combo working on these ecliptic beers moving forward for us. And I think I probably put a little more emphasis on various words in there than Josh did himself when we chatted, but, but yeah, really excited to have John join the team and they're still going to keep pushing ecliptic beers out. The plan isn't to take them too wide. I think Great Frontier in general really wants to stay geographically focused in the West. You know, I think that makes sense right now. Ecliptics is distributed in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina, Arizona, Canada, and Japan, according to Ecliptics website. And something that really struck me in my chat with Josh is that, you know, Ecliptics doing over 20,000 barrels, Josh said close to 25,000. They don't have the biggest packages in craft beer right now are the best performing. They've never had a 19.2 ounce single serve can. They certainly have the portfolio to go into stuff like that. Super IPA heavy. And they've never done a variety pack. And, you know, Zoe, you and I see the data all the time. That's what's moving. So, you know, Josh feels really good about how strong the brand is and how good the beers are that they've been able to do this much volume basically in six packs and on draft. He's excited about it. I think we're going to see a lot more of these deals. You can just make your money work a lot harder for you when you team up like this.
[00:14:02] Zoe Licata: It sounds very familiar to what we were hearing from Josh when the Ninkazi deal happened, where there was already kind of an existing friendship going on and they realized this could be mutually beneficial for all of us. And the founders of Nkazi still remained a part of the company, still had leadership roles. So this was, they weren't getting X'd out of anything. And when we talked to Josh at that time, he really emphasized that, you know, there's kind of two business strategies of like either focusing on just gaining capital so that you can have your own personal growth, or what they're looking at is like, okay, how can we use these resources to have a more broader platform and portfolio with complementary brands, but also unique, distinct brands that can have mutual success. And so the latter is what we've seen companies do multiple times this year of being like, hey, let's, let's not focus on just expanding all the time or trying to get bigger and bigger. Let's focus on, okay, how can we work together to sustain ourselves and each other and the industry really.
[00:15:09] Jessen Fonte: Otters holding hands.
[00:15:10] Zoe Licata: Love the otters.
[00:15:11] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. And there's been a lot of news like this lately. You heard us talk about it last week. We're not going to rehash all of it, but this, this is something that you will see happening certainly next year. What else happened in news this week, Zoe?
[00:15:25] Zoe Licata: Well, we finally got our answer to who is going to lead this next chapter at New Belgium. They have looked internally and have brought on their CMO, Sean, who has been with the company for five-ish years now. 2018, yeah. And he is going to be filling the shoes of Steve Fetchheimer, who we all saw earlier this year was departing the company just for a new career path. Didn't seem like there's any negativity there. He wanted to leave the company while it was in a really positive spot. And as we all know, New Belgium is in a pretty great spot right now. continuing to really dominate scan data and any sort of craft lists, particularly with their Voodoo Ranger brand. We also learned, I don't know if this had been official beforehand, but through our conversation for this story, that all of Line Little World Beverages U.S. operations, so that includes New Belgium, Bells Brewery, and also a winery business that they own, is all going to be considered under this New Belgium umbrella now. So they will refer to it as New Belgium. So Sean's responsibilities are also going to include working on initiatives for Bells, which we talked to him a little bit about, Bells has had a pretty solid year this year with their brand extensions of their two-hearted family. We also saw them extend Oberon this year, and so they're going to continue to do some of those things next year. I mean, not a bad gig. Maybe a little high pressure to keep that growth going, but congrats to Sean for that role.
[00:17:12] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, big congrats to Sean. Certainly big shoes to fill. Yeah, another another story that broke while I was out having a baby. I did see that that one. I like Steve, but I hope he was enjoying whatever it is that he was doing right now, which I believe he was just taking a break, right?
[00:17:30] Zoe Licata: Taking a break and then will potentially I believe we'll know sometime in the near future what his next plans are.
[00:17:37] Jessen Fonte: Good for Steve. And congrats to Sean. Yeah. Yeah, we love an internal success story. And We love the nod to marketing. That doesn't always happen with internal CEO promotions.
[00:17:49] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And when we talked to Sean, he really emphasized that his role in marketing is also working on the strength of a brand and how you continue that success moving forward. And so there's a lot of overlap in your responsibilities with marketing and responsibilities in craft right now. makes a lot of sense.
[00:18:10] Jessen Fonte: Absolutely. And one thing we I don't think we put this in the story, but you and I chatted about this last week. Sean in one of his previous jobs at Purina was responsible, or partly responsible or worked on the team that got grumpy cat, like one of her first paid influencer deals. So he's in the know, he knows how to he's in the know, to cater to trends, may grumpy cat rest in peace. But yeah, I'm forever thankful that Sean helped elevate her place in our lives. So Brewbound Live will be here before we know it.
[00:18:48] Zoe Licata: I know. We're going to be like, what, by the time you're listening to this podcast, I think we're going to be less than three weeks out. Holy Toledo.
[00:18:57] Jessen Fonte: That is so close. So tell me about a panel you're excited to host.
[00:19:02] Zoe Licata: Well, since we kicked this off talking about tea, I think it's only right that we talk about our hard tea and lemonade focused panel. So also speaking of New Belgium, on this panel, we have Dave Nospi, who's the Senior Director of Brand Innovation at New Belgium, talking about their new Voodoo Ranger hard tea, which is called... Hard Charged. their hard-charged tea, which when we talked to Sean after his appointment announcement, he said it's going to be a really big focus for New Belgium this coming year. So Dave's going to talk about that and how they think they can really combat twisted tea. Also joining on that panel, we have Branya Shillow, who is the founder and CEO of Fisher's Island, who we saw she sold that this year to Gallo. And that is a spirits-based hard lemonade and they also have a half lemonade, half tea option that really kicked off. And so she's going to talk to us about that and the sale process and why that more premium priced product seems to be resonating with people. And that panel's going to be rounded out by Jenny Ripps, who's the co-founder and CEO of Owls Brew. We got to check out some of their new products when we were in Las Vegas for MBWA, and they have some more cocktail-inspired things coming out. We're trying to get some diversity within the hearty, hard lemonade segment of just the amount of products in there. That segment has been really driving the majority of the F&B growth this year. And F&B, as we know, is one of the few segments that are actually posting growth in beer at all right now. It's going to be a fun conversation just seeing how you can carve out space in an increasingly crowded market and tackle, you know, this is a unique segment where the majority of it is being dominated by a 20-year-old brand. So how do you even compete in that? I mean, we've heard Jim Cook has the numerous times he's not worried about competition. So it's an intimidating market to be a part of. And all three of these folks work for places that are still finding ways to have success in that. So going to be a fun conversation with them.
[00:21:27] Jessen Fonte: Awesome. I'm so excited to hear that chat, because like you said, there's a big elephant in the room. And these guys are all doing different and exciting things. Yeah. One Brewbound Live panel I am pleased as punch to be a part of. We are calling it the wake up call featuring members of the National Black Brewers Association. So we've got Kevin Asato, the executive director of the MB2A and your friends at Brewbound, Crowns and Hobbs co-founders, Benny Ashburn and T.O. Hunter. They are founding members of the MB2A as well. So these guys are going to share a little bit about the journey to launch the organization. We'll talk about their goals and we'll talk about why this is important, how they're going to gain traction, how they plan to make an impact. The MB2A launched earlier this year. Their mission is to advocate for African-American breweries and brewery owners who account for less than 1% of craft breweries in the US. Always love to talk with Benny and Teo. I know Zoe, you've met Kevin during CBC, which I could not attend. It's going to be a great time and I'm really excited to get them all on the stage together.
[00:22:35] Zoe Licata: This is going to be a nice follow-up to that conversation that we had during BrewTalks at TBC in Nashville, just seeing what the MB2A has been up to since they have launched and how to best support them and why this all is important for all of us to talk about at any sort of industry event. And we always love hearing from Benny and Teo. They are passionate people and they're doing really awesome things like crowds and hops. So it's going to be a really fun panel. I'm excited to hear from them.
[00:23:11] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. And it's like first thing in the morning on day two. So it is why we're calling it the wake up.
[00:23:17] Zoe Licata: If anyone can make a early morning panel really listenable, it's gonna be a nice, probably early morning shout from TL. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:23:30] Jessen Fonte: Awesome. Well, I mean, that's it. That's the news. Brewbound Live, I guess we should plug this a little bit more than we just have, but the nitty gritty nuts and bolts on Brewbound Live, it is happening on December 6th and 7th in Marina Del Rey at the Marriott. Marina Del Rey is part of Los Angeles, not a bad place to be in early December. So you can get tickets at brewboundlive.com. We've had a great lineup. Check out the rest of it there. In addition to all of these great presentations and panel discussions, you'll also have our annual Brewbound Pitch Slam, which is always a favorite of the people. And it helped introduce us to Benny and T.O. themselves. They won the Brewbound Pitch Slam in 2019. So has, you know, Funky Town, Bloomer Hart Seltzer, Sunboy, a lot of really exciting brands come out of that competition. So always a fun one to watch. And we hope you can join us in California to watch it all in person.
[00:24:24] Zoe Licata: Yeah, the full agenda is now live on BurrBoundLive.com. So check that out. And we also will announce our annual award winners at that. So if you want to see like who, who we are really trying to highlight this year, who's been doing some cool things in the business, you can come and check that out as well.
[00:24:42] Jessen Fonte: I am pumped for this year's award winners.
[00:24:44] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's a good one.
[00:24:46] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. And in addition to all the stage content, we've also got really fun networking opportunities. We've got a welcome kickoff party on December 5, which is the 90th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.
[00:25:01] Zoe Licata: How else do you celebrate then with industry folks?
[00:25:05] Jessen Fonte: Well that but also add a hard kombucha tavern. Yeah. So that's with our friends at Juneshine in Santa Monica. Yep. Yep. And then as per usual, our first night party is at Firestone Walkers Promenade, which I love. And always a great time outside with the fire pit heater guys, beers, really good food, really cool spot. I personally am very excited. I hope that we make the mini Ahi Tuna Tacos come back this year because we could not eat them last year. Big fan. Yeah, this is like my revenge Brewbound live.
[00:25:45] Zoe Licata: Come just for that. Come to witness Jess have her revenge Brewbound live.
[00:25:50] Jessen Fonte: All the beer in a responsible amount. Yeah. And that's that's our show. So let's get to our interview with Scott Newman-Bale of Shorts Brewing. Our guest today is Scott Newman-Bale CEO of Shorts Brewing Company in Bel Air, Michigan. Scott, thank you for being here. How are you?
[00:26:08] Scott Newman-Bale: Good, thanks. Thanks for having me.
[00:26:10] Jessen Fonte: I'm so excited to talk about this because I think this is super interesting. So Shorts is now one year in on a completely different kind of project, the Bel Air Inn, which is an affordable solution to Northern Michigan's workforce housing crutch. And you guys put out a report with some details. We thought it was really interesting. So Scott, before we dive into some of those stats, can you tell us a little bit about how the inn works?
[00:26:35] Scott Newman-Bale: Yeah, so it started with the fact that we found out that we couldn't get any employees. Summer was coming up. We had a lot of employees accepting positions, but they couldn't find anywhere to live, like anywhere, at any price. And it became apparent that we had to take some pretty drastic action. So we were kind of brainstorming ideas and this idea kind of came up and it was a very quick decision. It worked. So we went ahead. But basically what we do is we brought this 26 room in and the initial intent was to have half employee housing, half overnight to kind of subsidize it. As we later found out the need was greater than anticipated. So we pretty much filled it up immediately. And it was also awkward to have four paying guests with 22 people in hospitality living together. We're mainly running it as a workforce housing through the summer, and then we're using it for different things, you know, supporting the community and other things during the winter as well.
[00:27:35] Jessen Fonte: Amazing. Not that this is at all the same, but when I was at Boston Beer one year, we had hit a goal and had our company meeting in Cancun and at the resort, We had every room except for one or two. So I believe those people were taken care of to find other accommodations or else, like you said, would have been a weird time. Probably fun for them.
[00:27:58] Scott Newman-Bale: I do remember a company trip to Club Med when I worked for Electronic Arts back in the day. And yeah, I would not want to be another guest.
[00:28:06] Jessen Fonte: No, not at all. You know, you've said 26 rooms, you know, the stats shared on the report that you guys put out over the summer, 22, 22 employees. Currently you're down to five rooms for employees and the average cost per week is $115 per week for employees. And then a below market rate for non-employees in the average length of stay is three to five months. So I mean, to me, it seems like it's really working, but you talked a little bit about when you had the idea and how you made it all happen really quickly. What were some of the first indicators that this is a problem and we need to fix it?
[00:28:43] Scott Newman-Bale: I think it was to the point where we had multiple employees like camping. We had people in tents, we had people living in cars or RVs. A lot of times breaking up with significant others led to one person moving out and not having anywhere else to stay. So we had multiple situations at one go that we just, we knew we had to do something pretty urgently.
[00:29:03] Zoe Licata: I mean, this is a situation where people aren't always going to take that initiative to do it themselves as a company. So why did you feel like this was actually your responsibility to do it?
[00:29:14] Scott Newman-Bale: I mean, I would have loved not to have had to do this, but I think it was around January. You know, we're a seasonal tourist area and it was in January and We were already struggling to find housing for people coming in. We kind of ramped up in March. We have a few people earlier and we can find any housing for them. So we knew that if we didn't do that, we would be unable to open normal operations in the summer. And the cost of that would be devastating to our business. So we, we had little to no choice in this matter anyway, but obviously it's a, it was a unique situation.
[00:29:53] Jessen Fonte: How much difference has t to recruit staff?
[00:29:57] Scott Newman-Bale: It's fa a lot of people I don't k the hospitality in the k a hard place to recruit a people who are like, do I to live in the end? It's So we, I have a lot, I think a lot of people were more interested about the housing than working here at first. But, uh, that said is we've had a lot of employees who joined because of that, who are long-term employees, full-time year round employees at this point. So in fact, some of our managers have gone through and that's how we managed to retain them. So like it's had a massive impact on our business. And I really don't think that we would be operating seven days a week. We may not be operating. It may, it was that bad. So.
[00:30:40] Zoe Licata: Wow. So it's not just seasonal employees in here. These are some full-time staff as well.
[00:30:46] Scott Newman-Bale: Yeah. We just had one person moved in right after we bought it. We actually have people move in within three hours of us buying it. Literally we're sitting in the car park waiting to move into this place. So we have people moving in right after we closed, but we have one person move in a few weeks after that and has just moved out. So a little over a year or around a year they were living there. perfect scenario where they found a house. They were looking for a house for a long time and then found one. So it gave them that ability to not have to rush to find, you know, just buy something. So there's a lot of different scenarios of why people are living there, all over the board. So we've got higher earners, hourly staff, a lot of different things.
[00:31:29] Jessen Fonte: Now, one thing that you mentioned in the report was that you use, you know, you've welcomed J1 workers this year who come from, you know, all over the world. And I grew up at the Jersey Shore where a lot of businesses use the same program. So it's very cool because you get to, you know, I worked in hospitality too as a waitress and you meet people from everywhere and, and it's cool to see. what their vision is of your, you know, your home. But what's the onboarding process like for for people who I'm assuming probably aren't as familiar with the US craft beer industry? What was that like?
[00:32:02] Scott Newman-Bale: Yeah, it was definitely interesting, especially because we're dropping people from all over the world into northern Michigan into a rural area in the spring. So you know, we had a few people from Jamaica and The day they landed, it was literally freezing. And they were just shocked and horrified. But obviously, the other flip side is we're just as hot in the summer. So it wasn't too long when they realized it was going to be OK. But there was a lot of the cultural piece was really cool with the J-1s and having people from all over. We took it very seriously and did a lot of activities with them and a lot of good friends and hoping some of them come back to see us again.
[00:32:44] Jessen Fonte: That's great. Have you used that program before?
[00:32:46] Scott Newman-Bale: No, we've used a couple of similar-ish programs, but that was the first time we've gone through a formal process. And again, we could do it because part of that program, you have to provide housing and we couldn't provide housing before, so now we have the inns and that just allowed that to happen.
[00:33:01] Jessen Fonte: That's perfect. And one of my husband's, a high school teacher, and one of his good friends spent a summer a couple of years ago bartending on Block Island, which is a tiny island off the coast of Rhode Island. get a lot of fun. I was like, that's really cool. I didn't think about this when I was choosing a career path, but I should not be teaching the youth.
[00:33:21] Scott Newman-Bale: No, I'm also the president of the school board locally. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm familiar with that.
[00:33:31] Jessen Fonte: Scott, you're so important.
[00:33:32] Zoe Licata: I know, doing so many things, including now you are a landlord through this. So what has that been like? Is there any surprises in that new responsibility?
[00:33:42] Scott Newman-Bale: Yeah, that's been a shock. I mean, I've been the landlord on numerous houses and actually hilariously spent years getting out of the landlord business right up until the hotel, which I think was like, I just got out of my last rental property and then we bought a 26 room. And it's somewhat joking and somewhat not, but I think I can make more money than brewing by just putting TV cameras everywhere in the inn and making a reality TV show. It is dramatic. There's all sorts of drama, nothing too crazy that we've had, but it's definitely a drama-filled area. Mostly positive, but suddenly there's been some negatives too.
[00:34:27] Jessen Fonte: Can we talk a little bit about the inn? Is there any shorts branding? Is there anything to make you know you're in a shorts-adjacent experience?
[00:34:35] Scott Newman-Bale: We've started to, I mean, literally again, when we bought it, it was a really weird situation. Like the innkeeper we bought it from wouldn't even allow us to see parts of the inn. It was a really weird situation. We're pretty sure there's going to be dead bodies found in there, but it ended up being okay, but it did require a lot of work. remodeling some areas and getting some smells out of the common areas. So that actually took us months of work. Then we started branding it. So we had a common, we've got common areas and game area, pool table, some arcade games with some shorts branding. The idea probably long-term is to start branding out some of the rooms. So in the winter, we can have shorts experiences. Cause it's only about a five minute walk to the pub. So maybe seven to 10. So the idea would be to have some branding there, but it's kind of nice to keep it separate too, because again, there's sometimes drama at the end and we don't want drama associated with our main brand.
[00:35:35] Zoe Licata: Totally fair. So what is the long-term vision for this? Do you see yourselves continuing this for a long time?
[00:35:44] Scott Newman-Bale: Hopefully. I mean, I would hope that the economy would return, construction costs would return to normal and we'd see some other solutions where affordable housing becomes obtainable for other people, and we don't have to provide the solution, rental rates returning. So if that happens, I have no desire to be a long-term in-owner. It is fine. I can handle it. It is certainly not a passion, and it is, again, a drama filled sometimes. So I would happily get out long-term. I think that's not in the horizon for several years. We will maintain that. We're trying to make it better. And so if we do end up parting ways, it's going to be an asset to the community when we're on the other side as well.
[00:36:29] Jessen Fonte: Have other business owners in the area reached out to you about housing their workers too?
[00:36:34] Scott Newman-Bale: Oh yeah.
[00:36:35] Jessen Fonte: Yeah, I'm sure.
[00:36:35] Scott Newman-Bale: I can fill that place 10 times over. And it's not even just small. We've helped out some people here and there, especially when people need something for a week or two because they're moving into the area, we've done that. We've done a few longer term ones. Before we knew how much need there was, we got ourselves into a couple of agreements that we probably wouldn't have done. And now even in the winter low, we've got a local hospital and an adult care facility that has traveling nurses. So we actually have a bunch of rooms out to them right now, as they've just moved in and trying to find some housing as well. So construction, we had a bunch of construction in actually right now as well, but when they first moved up they had a temporary misplacement. So we had a bunch of construction people in there as well. So it's everything, teachers, the local school district needed. some rooms for new teachers coming in who couldn't find housing. They worked there very briefly and found houses, thankfully. So yeah, it's all sorts of different situations, but every single one of them benefits, has benefited the community one way or the other.
[00:37:40] Zoe Licata: So this is not like industry specific problem. It's something that's like affecting the whole community. Is there any other sort of action that's going on to try to find some other solutions for people?
[00:37:55] Scott Newman-Bale: I mean, I think, I mean, I'm a big, one of my other hats, which I know I wear plenty, was I was also on the state economic development. I was on the executive committee for that as a government appointee. And I think a lot of the problem personally is, and this is not a popular opinion, is that we have so much focus on affordable housing that any construction project, no one wants to do it because everyone's like, it has to be affordable, it has to be affordable. And everyone's like, I can't do affordable, so I'm just not going to do anything. we need housing, like we need mid housing, we need, you know, all levels of housing, just let people build housing. And then that will help with the affordable housing at the same time. So that's kind of my message. I think we are starting to see some traction. We are in town. We were going to do a couple of developments that ended up that we worked with developers and we have just, just, they're almost finished now building about 40, I think about 30 to 40 units in Bellaire, which will be short term. But they're also now just breaking ground, hopefully in a few weeks, on some affordable and housing and some other parts of that development too. So that's been something we've been very active in and we are building it. And we're a very small town. We only have a population of 1,200 people.
[00:39:11] Jessen Fonte: That is tiny.
[00:39:12] Scott Newman-Bale: probably get the whole town into the building and the beer garden combined.
[00:39:16] Jessen Fonte: Oh, easily. That's crazy. And Massachusetts has the same problem with housing that you were talking about. Everything that gets built is luxury, or there's the state-sanctioned affordable projects, but there's really nothing in the middle. And as a result, we have this awful housing crunch where prices are insane, rent is insane. And in a seasonal place, I would love to know how you know, businesses out on Cape Cod or Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket do it? I assume a lot of people are doing things similar to what you've had to do with the Inn.
[00:39:49] Scott Newman-Bale: It is a nationwide problem. At least now they're starting to say, at least we're hearing the missing middle. That's what I've been working on for so long. I think if you focus on the middle, then it will take care of a lot of other things too.
[00:40:02] Jessen Fonte: Absolutely. I mean, what advice would you give to other craft brewers who are facing the same problem and maybe considering the path that you've taken?
[00:40:10] Scott Newman-Bale: Yeah. I mean, I think whether it be, and it's a little dramatic of a step, and we got very lucky there's not that many of those hanging around, but you will find that there are some. Some of them need work as well, but then you can usually still, even now, find some duplexes and some things like that. So maybe that's an option. even if you don't have the money or resources to do something like that, working with locals who have facilities to rent, maybe need a roommate that you can try and find. That's how we started originally was to reach out to people who owned houses locally and needed, you know, owned a house but needed a roommate or something. So that's how we kind of started as well. So there's lots of different ways to do it. But I think pretending that it's not your problem is not going to work anymore, at least right now, because people don't have options and they will not be able to work for you if you cannot at least give them a fighting chance.
[00:41:06] Zoe Licata: Was there anyone that you looked to when you were starting this that had some programs in place or was this kind of a start from scratch situation?
[00:41:14] Scott Newman-Bale: This was a start from scratch. I mean, literally we talked about it. What are we going to do? And it was a dramatic kind of brainstorm issue. And it's like, you know, there was literally that on this end down the road, there was a printed out, like eight by 11 for sale sign by owner on the sign out front. And so like, it was, it was a hilarious kind of sign, I guess. And so we're like, all right, well, let's go into it to that. And it was, you know, I could go into the bizarre transaction nature of the end, but it was a story for itself, but ended up working out. So that's good. And just really got lucky at the right time, but So if you can do that, I think there are a lot of bins. It's a struggling industry still because they're struggling too, even though they have rooms, they're struggling to get people to clean the rooms and it's not the most profitable business anyway. It's okay. So a lot of people getting out of that as they are with restaurants.
[00:42:09] Jessen Fonte: Yeah. Which all of that is sad. You know, those things are like an easy way to enrich your life if you have, you know, the time and means. I know you said it's been huge for your business, but what really has been the net effect? Obviously, you're able to stay open more days than you would have, but beyond that, how else has it affected either the culture or the business at Shorts?
[00:42:31] Scott Newman-Bale: I think it did increase morale across the board. I think just people knowing that you've got their backs. We've had multiple people, again, go through it, which I think is the difference. This isn't like a server problem or a kitchen worker. Managers who have had difficulties in relationships or just literally moving house and have a gap between buying and selling a house. Like every situation has been so different, but we have been, so I think everyone sees that it could benefit them and it's kind of a nice safety net in case it's there. I also spent a lot of the summer there because I had to work very long hours this summer and it's right next door to the pub and 40 minute drive home. I have my little apartment there for a good part of the summer too.
[00:43:14] Jessen Fonte: No, that's perfect. Yeah. And what's the summer like where you are?
[00:43:19] Scott Newman-Bale: It's crazy. We're on the lakes and most people think of Michigan as cars and Detroit area and things like that. But really, most of Michigan is pretty rural and very beautiful. So it's kind of interesting now to see the transition, especially during COVID with so many people moving from New York and big cities. Yeah, we live near Traverse City, which has become one of the kind of hot tourist destinations in the whole country because it is just so naturally beautiful. But we do see a massive influx. I mean, the population in the summer is tenfold. The winter population, although it is balancing out, we're getting a lot more year-round residents at this point.
[00:43:57] Jessen Fonte: And then after summer, what's your next most popular season?
[00:44:00] Scott Newman-Bale: Christmas. We have a two-week Christmas rush. We do have ski resorts near us. Christmas is probably the most intense two weeks. And it's also where we don't have the staff because we're down to seasonal staff. So that's usually a fun couple of weeks where we're working an awful lot because we just don't have enough people, period, to run that. And everyone's busy with Christmas stuff. So that's definitely a stressful two weeks. But outside of that, it's pretty much Memorial Day to Labor Day. But we're now seeing massive color change. The color change for the last several years has been booming, and this year as well. It's kind of extended the season and global warming, we're just getting a little warmer. It doesn't get cold quite as quickly.
[00:44:44] Jessen Fonte: Get the foliage in the photos that are up on the report you guys have on your website are stunning, like just gorgeous.
[00:44:50] Scott Newman-Bale: It was a beautiful year. We didn't have a lot of hard winds, so we had a long color change this year where it stayed around for several weeks. Oftentimes we get a wind and it blows it down pretty quick, but this was a great year for colors.
[00:45:04] Jessen Fonte: Awesome. Well, and Scott, this has been so interesting and what a creative and forward thinking way to solve a very, very real problem. You know, we hear from people all over the country that they're having such a hard time with staffing for many reasons, but you were able to identify one very big reason and figure out how to fix it. So kudos. That's amazing.
[00:45:25] Scott Newman-Bale: No, thanks. It was, uh, said it saved us a lot too. And, um, actually another thing as well as on the packaging side, we actually Kind of, as everyone did, we were kind of expecting a little down year this year. As it turns out, I don't know what it was exactly. It was right product, right time, and a few other things. But we're actually having kind of a banner year. We're up almost double digits, which we weren't anticipating, which was kind of cool because we had to add a couple of emergency workers at that point. And only because we have places to stay, we can do that. So we ramped up the packaging line as well. So I single-handedly attribute that to probably about two points of growth to the whole company.
[00:46:09] Jessen Fonte: That's wild. Now, any new products this year that we're driving?
[00:46:13] Scott Newman-Bale: No, hilariously, it's the oldest products we have, which is great. I mean, it's light lager, which was doing well before even everything that happened. It was already on a crazy tear and then obviously gas on the fire. But the course table and everything else is doing well, but it's mostly on the locals. Lager was definitely the driver of growth. Everything else was stable.
[00:46:41] Jessen Fonte: Awesome. That's incredible. Well, Scott, we know you're busy. You're an innkeeper, a brewer, a school board president, CEO, got a lot going on. So we will let you get back to your life. But thank you for sharing this with us. It's been fascinating.
[00:46:55] Scott Newman-Bale: No, I appreciate it. Thanks.
[00:46:57] Jessen Fonte: Great. And that's our show for this week. Thank you so much to Joe, our audio wizard who makes this listenable. Thank you to Zoe. Thank you to Scott for joining. Thank you to Justin for all he does for us. And thank you to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, you know what to do. Like, rate, review. We will be back next week with another episode.
