Brewbound Podcast: SoCal Cerveceros Share How the Homebrew Club is Helping Build a Brewery Pipeline

[00:00:00] Justin Fronte: How is the SoCal Cerveceros Club bringing new life to the LA homebrew scene? Find out on The Brewbound Podcast. Hey, hello, welcome back to another episode of The Brewbound Podcast. We are recording this live on November 1st. I think some of us, mainly myself, have a little bit of a Halloween hangover. This is Justin The Brewbound reporter, joined by my colleagues, Justin Kendall, Brewbound editor. What's up, bud? How are you?

[00:00:40] Justin Kendall: Well, I'm doing well. I'd like to special shout out Generation Z correspondent Zoe Licata, who is having a birthday.

[00:00:50] Justin Fronte: Zoe is having a birthday.

[00:00:52] Agustin Ruelas: Happy birthday, Zoe. Thank you so much. This is the first birthday where I like am realizing that I am getting into an actual adult age. So I'm kind of in denial about it, but thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Sorry.

[00:01:08] Justin Fronte: It's kind of downhill from here. All downhill from here. Yeah.

[00:01:12] Agustin Ruelas: But look, now you can rent a car. That is the one perk. I have freedom now wherever I travel.

[00:01:19] Justin Fronte: That is true, but renting a car is not exciting.

[00:01:22] Justin Kendall: Hertz will love you. Yeah. If you can get a rental car at this point, because it's kind of a shit show like everything else right now.

[00:01:29] Justin Fronte: Hmm. Yeah. Well, the most important news now addressed. Happy birthday, Zoe. So yeah, it is November 1st. Yesterday was Halloween. As I feel like I say a lot in this space, I do live in Salem, Massachusetts, which fancies itself to be the Halloween capital of the world. And like any good Salem resident on Saturday night, I watched Hocus Pocus. Guys, that movie's weird. I know that's like a crime against Massachusetts to say, but like real scary, scary for a kid's movie. I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it, but we watched it. And then on Sunday, I hung out on my front porch and gave out candy to the kids. Met a family on vacation here from Oregon, like they live in Oregon and we're like, let's go on vacation to go trick-or-treating in Salem. Interesting. Interesting. And you know, just drank some beers, sitting outside with the candy, eating the candy. And then I took a walk downtown where somebody else also was and didn't tell me that she was here. Zoe, what was your Halloween like?

[00:02:29] Agustin Ruelas: I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I did make the trip to Salem. I honestly felt like a celebrity the whole time because me and my friends dressed up as the Cheetah Girls and we had no joke, like over 20 people asked to take pictures with us while we were walking down the street. So yeah, it felt like a big deal. That's fun.

[00:02:51] Justin Kendall: I do not know what you just said. I do not even have the slightest clue what you dressed up as. So you could show me a picture and I wouldn't even have a clue, I'm sure.

[00:03:02] Agustin Ruelas: I'll send you reference pictures of us and what we were dressed up as. But the Cheetah Girls, for Justin and everyone else, are a iconic girl group from the early 2000s for women who always wore cheetah apparel and sang. kind of like mix of pop and R&B style music. They're a Disney Channel show, right? It's a Disney Channel. Yeah, Disney Channel, like they had three movies. They went on like world tours. It was that era of like everyone who did music on Disney Channel was kind of a pop star. Raven-Symoné was like one of the people on it. Justin says, like, no, no, don't know who that is.

[00:03:47] Ray Ricky: God, I'm old.

[00:03:47] Agustin Ruelas: They were a very iconic group for my age demographic. I'm glad you had fun.

[00:03:54] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Thank you. Did that double as a birthday party?

[00:03:58] Agustin Ruelas: Yes and no. That'll be probably the extent of the height of our partying for me. Halloween normally takes over my birthday a little bit. which honestly I'm okay with because I'm not a huge birthday person.

[00:04:12] Justin Fronte: Halloween's a fun one. Yeah. Like I'm a Christmas birthday person and that when I was your age there, there was really no partying to celebrate my birthday. Yeah. I've accepted it at this point. Yeah. You've had a whirlwind. You had Mr. Harry, you did Salem. Were you by the stage with the band with the guy dressed as the Pokemon guy who was doing all the raps for this cover band? No, I did not see that one. I'm sad I missed that. It was a very special time. Yeah, I did not. I was not in costume. Slightly disappointed. Yeah, sorry. I realized like halfway through the night that my costume, if anybody ever asked, would be that I was an elder millennial woman being haunted by the biological clock, which I thought was pretty funny. My husband did not find that nearly as funny.

[00:04:58] Justin Kendall: Yeah, this got dark and deep real fast. for the holiday. Jesus.

[00:05:05] Justin Fronte: You know, that's the theme.

[00:05:07] Justin Kendall: Well, since this is a beer industry podcast, maybe we should talk about the people who stayed at home, like myself, were responsible citizens and ordered their Halloween Drizly through our friends at Drizzly. Did you do that? I did not. I carved pumpkins. I have more beer here than I'll ever be able to drink and seltzers and hard tea and sun ice and any number of alcoholic beverages to get me through the next 20 years probably.

[00:05:37] Justin Fronte: Did you get trick-or-treaters?

[00:05:40] Justin Kendall: We did. I carved a couple pumpkins and a lot of little people showed up and took candy and I screamed out the window at them to take more of it so I can at least hit my new calorie budget like a responsible person, but they didn't. And now I've eaten a lot of Swedish fish.

[00:06:01] Justin Fronte: Just take notes on on little person Halloween costumes for next year. Me. Yeah. You're going to have to dress up a small person now. Yeah. I've noticed that like family costumes are a thing.

[00:06:15] Justin Kendall: Lots of those.

[00:06:16] Justin Fronte: Mm hmm. That seems new. Like I don't like my parents. I don't think dress up. I don't remember my parents coming with us. I just remember getting like sent out into the streets of New Jersey, which is great.

[00:06:28] Justin Kendall: If I knew any of those parents, I should have gifted them some of the alcoholic beverages that I have, but I didn't know anybody. Thank you, pandemic, for making sure I didn't know my neighbors very well. I did prevent my pumpkin twice from catching on fire, so I'm pretty proud of that. But that's a whole uninteresting story, unlike these drizzly numbers.

[00:06:52] Justin Fronte: Important civic duty. Yeah, drizzly numbers, drizzly sales were up 22% over the whole weekend compared to the previous four weekends in October. So I think that's a pretty healthy number that shows us that people were really into the idea of having booze delivered to their homes. On the day of Halloween, which was Sunday, sales were up 11% compared to the average of the previous four Sundays. Another good-sized bump, you know, that people weren't saying, oh, it's a school night. I still call things school night, even though I'm not in school. People were still into the partying.

[00:07:27] Justin Kendall: Bit of a bummer, though.

[00:07:29] Justin Fronte: That it was on a Sunday?

[00:07:31] Justin Kendall: Well, no, and maybe that factored into this, but a bit of a bummer is beer sales were down year over year, down from 20% to 18%, and that could be a Sunday versus a Saturday, right? Yeah. Or pandemic.

[00:07:47] Justin Fronte: Yeah. Don't people on Sundays in the fall watch a lot of football? Doesn't that usually involve some beer? I sound like an alien asking about like human earth culture.

[00:07:56] Justin Kendall: Yes, Jess. Human people drink beer while they watch football on Sundays sometimes.

[00:08:03] Justin Fronte: Yeah, that is a bummer. Beer loss, share. Liquor gain, share. No, wait, liquor well shared too.

[00:08:10] Justin Kendall: Yeah. So wine, a lot of wine drinking, which does not really, I don't know who is drinking wine on Halloween.

[00:08:20] Agustin Ruelas: At one of the parties I attended, they had these blood pouches that were just filled with sangria. I've noticed a couple places had similar like the gory themed stuff with red wine was a bit of a trend so I guess I could see it there maybe.

[00:08:35] Justin Kendall: This is a lot of champagne and prosecco as well as red wine with Naomi Pinot Noir red wine moving from number nine to number seven bestseller so Who knows, but it looks like RTD's, they're still popular. High Noon made a big jump as well on Drizzly's list and hard seltzers are still chugging along as well.

[00:08:59] Justin Fronte: The White Claw Hard Seltzer Variety Pack Flavor Collection No. 1 moved from the No. 2 to the No. 1 best-selling spot in the beer category. So that's big.

[00:09:11] Justin Kendall: Good news for them.

[00:09:12] Justin Fronte: I feel like there's been like such a huge push over the past few years of Halloween candy and wine pairing content. Yeah. Maybe that's what's encouraging people to drink all this wine. Beer needs to hop on its candy pairing marketing.

[00:09:28] Justin Kendall: Now we've depressed all the beer people. So let's get to some other spooky beer news.

[00:09:34] Justin Fronte: This is like a murderer's row of spooky beer news on this script we've got here.

[00:09:39] Justin Kendall: It really is.

[00:09:42] Justin Fronte: Stone Brewing closed their Napa, California outlet last week. Long-running legal dispute with their landlord over whether or not the force majeure clause in their lease allowed them to not pay rent during some particularly rough months during the pandemic. Stone says they've been focused on making back payments. Their landlord says no, and this was just kind of resolved by Stone closing up shop. There were 40 employees there who were, you know, being offered homes elsewhere within the Stone organization if they're interested, but obviously this is up in Northern California and the concentration of Stone on-premise locations is in Southern California.

[00:10:22] Justin Kendall: It's definitely a bummer to see a location like that close and 40 people be left in limbo, especially over a landlord rent dispute. That's a very, he said, she said battle there that's gone public.

[00:10:37] Justin Fronte: Yeah. Stone told us that they've, you know, written these checks and they haven't been cashed. Their landlord tells us that they decided to pursue litigation rather than pay their rent. So cool looking building, old building from the 1880s. Maybe it'll be home to another brewery one day.

[00:10:52] Justin Kendall: Sounds like it's a possibility, at least from your conversation, that they want to keep that place going. I mean, not with stone, but the landlord wants to keep it going. And maybe here's another hermit crab opportunity.

[00:11:04] Justin Fronte: One day I'm going to tell you the story of the pet hermit crab I adopted at the age of 22, but today is not that day.

[00:11:10] Justin Kendall: This is not, but we will tell you that Bloomberg says its last call for cheap beer in a report that has the very scary subhead, soaring barley and aluminum prices spell bad news for a sector that's just beginning its comeback. Bloomberg tells us that Higher beer prices are coming. Not that we didn't know that. Jess and I have spent a lot of time on earnings calls and we've heard it from everyone from Boston Beer to I believe Anheuser-Busch. So not a lot of surprise here that that's gonna happen.

[00:11:45] Justin Fronte: Molson Core's gutted half of its economy line. So clearly everybody's focusing on the premiumization of beer. And that's just a consumer trend that happens to dovetail with the realities out there.

[00:11:59] Justin Kendall: Well, you've got the pandemic still going on. You've got higher aluminum prices, although maybe we're going to see some relief there. And then we've got higher barley prices. And what Bloomberg has to say about that is barley prices are largely to blame for the rising beer costs. After dry weather scorched fields in North America, which typically produces enough barley to account for about 20 percent of the global commercial beer production, And the EU has also cut its barley crop estimate after rain dented the quality of the harvest. Barley output shrunk 34% to the second smallest harvest since 1968 in Canada, the fifth largest producer, while American farmers reaped the smallest crop since 1934 just after Prohibition ended. Yeah, we're all cheer here.

[00:12:49] Justin Fronte: Zoe, you wrote a really uplifting story last week. Please tell us about the Pilot Project.

[00:12:55] Agustin Ruelas: Yeah, I can change the mood a little bit. So I, in a much less depressing news area, wrote about the Pilot Project, which is a brewery incubator in Chicago. And they're doing some really cool stuff where they basically act as this one-stop shop for new breweries, providing marketing resources, networking resources. They'll produce beers and hard kombucha for new companies. And so they've launched 12 breweries since they started. Most recently, they launched Funky Town, which is surprisingly only the second black owned brewery in Chicago. And they have a huge range of the types of breweries that are coming out of this Pilot Project. They have Rome Heart Kombucha. They have Azadi Brewing, which is like Indian flavor inspired beers. It's really cool and kind of was a bit of a refreshing story to do that reminded me of all the really interesting stuff that can happen with beer and projects that can come out of beer. So honestly, it was one of my more favorite things to write about recently. Definitely more positive outlook on the industry and what people can do when they have resources.

[00:14:15] Justin Kendall: Yeah, it's cool to see a lot of underserved folks getting opportunities to break into the industry. I'm always happy to see us do stories like that. I mean, this is a perfect example. And don't they have aspirations outside of Chicago as well?

[00:14:32] Agustin Ruelas: Yes, so they are looking to expand their own presence, their own facilities into other major cities and possibly also internationally. And they also are distributing the products from their breweries outside of Chicago as well. So Rome is looking to expand to California next year. They want to kind of mimic what they're doing in Chicago in other similarly big beer places.

[00:15:00] Justin Fronte: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense because brewing is so capital intensive. And if you're just starting, you don't have that kind of money. But the other thing is that so many of these skill sets don't often happen in the same person. You might find somebody who's super passionate about the technical scientific aspects Stone Brewing. And they probably, not probably, but I'm sure some of those people don't give one fig about marketing. So it's interesting to be able... to let everybody take their part of the process that they love and are passionate about and put them all together to help these new brands, you know, take flight.

[00:15:35] Agustin Ruelas: Yeah. And Dan Abel, who is one of the co-founders of the Pilot Project comes from the music industry originally. And when I was talking to him, he kind of pointed out that the beer industry is kind of unique where people starting out have to invest so much themselves first to even get any product out there. I mean, if you were a music artist, you could find a producer who will help you like create your music. You'll find someone who can help you like distribute your music when you are just starting out as a brewery. You kind of have to figure that all out by yourself. And it's not as easy. And so they're giving people those resources in one spot, which is really cool.

[00:16:13] Justin Kendall: Extremely cool. Glad to see some of those barriers to entry getting broken down. Another story you have up now from earlier this week was the Great Notion Brewery expanding their direct-to-consumer sales. Where did they expand? California?

[00:16:31] Agustin Ruelas: Yes, so they just opened up a fulfillment facility in Sacramento so they can now ship directly consumers all across the entire state of California, and they're looking to open some more tap rooms possibly in the state in the future. They're a unique brewery where 90% of their sales are direct-to-consumer shipping. And so they are continually trying to find ways where they can get over some of those barriers of when it comes to shipping into more and more states. And California is the latest one.

[00:17:07] Justin Kendall: Well, I wonder if they delivered to the Lowe's Hotel in Santa Monica, where we'll be in California for Brewbound Live on November 30th and December 1st. Did they mention that?

[00:17:20] Agustin Ruelas: I'm sure they do. They say all around all across the state so we can order some right to our hotel.

[00:17:26] Justin Kendall: Perfect and you can too. This is another push for Brewbound live The Brewbound.com. You can check out the agenda. The lineup includes. a chat with Firestone Walker's leadership team, David Walker, David Macon, and Dustin Hines. We've got a group of wholesalers who are going to tell you straight what they wish you knew if you're a supplier out there. We've got Sinead Carey from Wine Warehouse, Laura Markstein from Markstein Stells, Terry Sikola from Elite Brands of Colorado. We're going to have presentations from Drizzly, Danny Brager, who many of you know from Nielsen, Danelle Cosmo, who is now with the Beer Institute. And we've got a Generation Z presentation lined up that Zoe and Jess will be taking the lead on. We've also got the leaders from some indie hard seltzer brands. We've got two robbers coming, Mighty Swell, Sonic Hard Seltzer and Ashland Hard Seltzer. We've also got some next beverages that should be on your radar with sun ice, june shine hard boy, hard tea and spritzes buyers who are going to t to selling more beer in 2 from Whole Foods and Jason Wild Wing. So you'll get t view. And we've got our p If you're an up-and-coming brand, you can present in that. We've had several brands that have come out of that who have done very well for themselves, whether that's Willie's Super Brew or Crowns and Hops or Lunar Hard Seltzer. So all those details The Brewbound.com. I'm leaving off a few of the panels, so you can go over there, check those out. Maybe one of them's with athletic brewing. I think it is. I'm exhausted.

[00:19:15] Justin Fronte: Good job leaving some things for a surprise.

[00:19:18] Justin Kendall: So that's sort of the news. And where are we heading next?

[00:19:22] Justin Fronte: Our guests today are Ray Pico Rivera and Agustin Ruelas. They are founding members of SoCal Cerveceros, the largest Latino-centric homebrew club in the country. The club is based in the LA area, has grown to contain more than 250 members. Ray, Agustin, and several other members have gone on to found commercial brewing ventures. So we're gonna talk all about the connection that happens when a bunch of like-minded homebrewers get together and start to affect Stone Brewing industry of the community around them. Hey, Ray. How are you?

[00:19:53] Brewbound Podcast: I'm good. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:19:57] Justin Fronte: I'm so glad you're both here. Hi, Augustine. How are you?

[00:20:00] Ray Ricky: I'm good. Thank you.

[00:20:02] Justin Fronte: Well, thank you guys both so much for joining us. So I hit some highlights of the club, but why don't you really tell us a little bit more about it? Because I know, you know, I know the founding story, but not all of our audience does. So how did the club get started?

[00:20:17] Brewbound Podcast: So Agustin and I met online back in 2015, both of us as homebrewers, just kind of looking for other homebrewers to talk to and share tips. And we met up and we basically hit it off, became friends. And at the time I was new to homebrewing. I was just starting one gallon batches on my stovetop. Agustin and his friends and his brother had been brewing for several years, so he was really knowledgeable. I started asking a lot of questions and through those conversations and those meetups. we started asking ourselves if there was a need for a homebrew club that had Latinos in it. For one, we didn't see any clubs around in the LA area that was kind of Latino-centric, and that's really how it started, just kind of casually, and then kind of recognizing that there was a void in the homebrew scene, and we thought maybe we could be the ones to help fill that void.

[00:21:14] Justin Fronte: And what year was that?

[00:21:16] Brewbound Podcast: That was in 2015. I believe we had our first meeting like April, around April of 2015. Yeah.

[00:21:24] Justin Fronte: So, I mean, you guys both have delved into the commercial brewing world. So what have you noticed about the home brewer to pro brewer pipeline? Does it exist? Is this a thing or is this something that's just unique to your club?

[00:21:36] Ray Ricky: Oh, yes, definitely. So right now at Brewheria, we have actually two club members that are employees. And I mean, we wouldn't have known where to go or where to look had it not been for that connection. Last year was really tough. I mean, we were hosting club meetings, off-flavor, like, you know, courses and stuff like that. And it just, obviously that was all sidelined last year, but now we're actually hosting one, an off-flavor course next Monday for the club and hosting their December meeting. And I mean, we still, talk with all of our a lot of our you know members co-members the founders as well like it's just yeah it's been super invaluable and helpful just as a resource as a support system yeah it's been awesome

[00:22:28] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, just to add to that, it's been great with the several members that have gone from homebrew to pro-brew, because now for the rest of us who are looking to make that move, we have a huge resource. So like with Breweria, I'm constantly bugging, asking questions, and we're doing things together. And like he mentioned, he has two employees who came from the club and we're seeing that happen with other breweries as well. So there's like a couple of the breweries that are connected to the SoCal Cerveceros who turn around and employ other members from the club. So we're kind of seeing that in terms of a pipeline. We're seeing home brewers come to the club, gain knowledge about the commercial industry and then finding their way in through other members. So it's been really cool to see.

[00:23:15] Justin Kendall: So you've each started your own breweries out of this club. Tell us a little bit about each of Stone Brewing companies that you guys have started and where they're located and what really you guys are hoping to do with each of those projects.

[00:23:30] Ray Ricky: My family and friends and I opened up Brewjeria Company in November of 2019 in Pico Rivera, California. You know, it's again, we opened right before the pandemic, so It was really crazy for us trying to figure out how to even run a brewery that's not really a brewery anymore. I could just completely change everything that we do, everything that we had planned for our first year, second year. But now we're kind of getting back on course. Actually, it's this November, two weeks from now, we're celebrating our two-year anniversary. So it's just really cool to have made it through such a difficult transition, difficult time. But you know, I think for us, the biggest thing is obviously wanting to offer quality beer in a community that has never had a brewery before, that is not very familiar with craft beer. So we do introduce a lot of people to it that did not really know what it was before. So that's really cool to kind of bring the community together. And then also, I mean, as a Latino brewery, like that's also just something that you know, it's not that we lead with it, but it's just clear from even our guests coming in saying very many things with Latino faces behind the counter, much less, you know, in ownership and being part of, you know, building the business. I mean, we're there constantly. Like, I don't, I think I go maybe one day if I'm lucky, not being at the brewery. But you know, it's also just, it's a wonderful thing to experience, to be a part of, and to hopefully grow into the future.

[00:25:09] Justin Fronte: When did you start homebrewing? Before the club?

[00:25:13] Ray Ricky: Oh yeah, we Stone Brewing in 2010. So it was, it took us, yeah, almost a decade.

[00:25:20] Justin Fronte: Do you think that the commercial project would have materialized if you hadn't been part of the club?

[00:25:25] Ray Ricky: No I mean we had no clue that there were other Latino homebrewers. So I think for me right like I just didn't even know that there was a you know for lack of a better term like a consumer base that would gravitate towards craft beer but that was also coming from a Latino lens. So it's a see just how much the club was growing. And also, again, like Ricky mentioned, like just other members that have started their own breweries or have breweries, but they became members because of just, you know, what they saw in the club. Like, yeah, if it wasn't for that, I don't know that we would have taken that risk.

[00:26:03] Justin Fronte: And Ray, tell us about Norwalk Brew, because I know you and I have talked a lot about it, but give our audience the overview and the intro.

[00:26:10] Brewbound Podcast: Sure. So what I'm doing is a little different. I'm actually a beer wholesaler, and I'm bringing my own brand Norwalk Brew to market via the wholesale side. So I don't have my own production brewery, at least not yet. Hopefully one day down the line, if it still makes sense for me. When I set out to do this, I had moved to the city of Norwalk, which is probably about 20, 30 minutes outside of downtown Los Angeles. I was working with local bands and I was doing a lot of booking and managing and things like that. I just realized that in our local market here in Norwalk, there was no place where I could book live music. That's where the idea started. I was like, well, maybe I could open a venue. Then that idea morphed into like, I want to do a bar and grill and we can serve California made craft beer. And that's when I started thinking about craft beer. I wasn't even really homebrewing yet. So that's where the idea came from. And then as I joined, as we created SoCal Cerveceros, and I meet people like Agustin, and I start to learn more about the commercial industry, I just learned there's other ways to go about it. And then actually watching the guys from Brujería go through the process of moving from home brew to commercial brewery and seeing what that entails and how much capital that entails as well, I started thinking, maybe that's not the best route for me. So I started to look around and figure out another way in, because it's definitely, it has definitely been a huge interest of mine. Something I wanted to do is be in the commercial space. And so I found that route via contract brewing. So that's what I'm doing. I partnered up with Eagle Rock Brewery here in Los Angeles. They're going to be producing my beer, packaging my beer. I'm going to take that and then self-distribute to retail. And hopefully also distribute other Latino-owned businesses like Brujeria and everybody else connected to the Silk House Cabeceros.

[00:28:05] Justin Kendall: I think that's really cool that you have that example that you can go on and go off of, learn from, and sort of figure out everything that, you know, worked for Augustine and apply that to yourself or, you know, at least learn from that. And I think that's got to be really important for the other club members as well.

[00:28:27] Brewbound Podcast: 100%. You know, again, when we first met, we were homebrewers. And I was looking for somebody that I could talk to because I went online was asking all these homebrew questions. And there's, you know, multiple forums, there's a million answers. It's just very overwhelming when you're new to this. Same thing when you're trying to run a business or start a business, rather. So having these guys go first, gather up a bunch of information, and then relay that to the rest of us, it's been tremendous. It's been a huge help. And now what I'm seeing is other people are hearing about what's happening. And so they're gravitating to the club, not necessarily because they want to be better homebrewers, but because they want to learn about the industry as well. And they know that we have members who have that information.

[00:29:11] Justin Kendall: Are there a lot of breweries in planning through the club?

[00:29:16] Brewbound Podcast: Well, there's two right now. There's one in Whittier down here. That's not too far from where Breweria and I am located. And then there's one up in Salinas, California, who's another member of ours. It's funny, we have two sets of twin brothers who want to open breweries. And one of the sets is from Wilmington, California. They're actively working on that right now. Two sets of twins is wild.

[00:29:46] Justin Fronte: The club has really helped create this community and it gives you a lot of like-minded fellow entrepreneurs. How do you think the club has affected other breweries in the area? Have they reached out to you guys for collaborations? What's the relationship been with through members of the club and existing breweries in the LA area?

[00:30:06] Ray Ricky: I mean, it's always been great. I mean, even, you know, when we first started out and we're looking for spaces to hold meetings, you know, we've been at Angry Horse in Montebello. We've been at Pacific Plate in Monrovia, Feathered Serpent in San Diego. It's like, we've been to so many breweries, right? And they were always open to, you know, helping us out, you know, having us ask questions. Like, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, it's not like, yes, of course the club, you know, was something that we felt was necessary. But I mean, the support was there from the industry itself from the very beginning. It's always been one of those things that I really appreciate about, you know, the industry is that you can literally reach out to anybody and they're willing to help. And even if they can't, like, they're like, well, I know, you know, so and so can certainly help you out with that. Like, you know, maybe I can't right now. And it's an ongoing thing. I mean, all these new breweries that are opening up are saying, hey, we want to have the club here like we want to whatever we can do to kind of just keep it going and keep showing showing that it can be done and you know the different ways that it could be done as well.

[00:31:15] Brewbound Podcast: And what's also cool is all the breweries that we we don't know of that may be out of the area or like newer and they're also have Latino ownership behind them they reach out to us. There's a brewery I believe they're called Hermosa Brewjeria Company which is like in a beach town out here. I had no clue that they were an open business. And they reached out and they said, you know, our owners are Latinos. We know the SoCal Cerveceros. We would love to have you guys come have a meeting, maybe brew a beer here as a collab, or they just felt the need to reach out and let us know that, hey, we're here too, you know? So things like that have been really cool to see.

[00:31:55] Justin Kendall: Do you guys get some of that from across the country of folks saying, you know, I'm in Texas or here on the East Coast in Boston or wherever, you know, reaching out and asking how you guys were able to put this together and make a go of it?

[00:32:11] Brewbound Podcast: Personally, yes. I've had people reach out to me. When I was more involved as a president of the club, I would see emails and DMs and things like that on social media. And yeah, people all over the country, East Coast, Midwest, down South, Northern California, Pacific Northwest. It seems like in these areas, you have just a few Latinos and they're like, hey, I'm out here all by myself. I'm homebrewing. love what you guys are doing. How can I do something similar? Or do you guys have other chapters? That question has come up often of us chaptering and things like that. We haven't got around to doing that. I don't know if that's in the club's future or not. But yeah, to answer your question, yes, definitely. There's been folks all over the country who reached out to us over the years.

[00:32:56] Justin Fronte: What did you guys notice that the homebrew community was lacking when you started the club?

[00:33:01] Ray Ricky: Well, I think, you know, what we're talking about now is just diversity. There were maybe two or three clubs in and around our areas. I mean some of them are far off like the Meltis Falcons. I mean that's just not you know we're in L.A. there and was even not Ventura but close by. You know, so some of it was geographic, but yeah, definitely diversity was just one of those things where we would go to meetings and it was just older white males. And it was like, oh, that's not, not at all what we were expecting. And not that it was a bad thing, not that they weren't welcoming, not that we didn't continue to attend meetings and keep going to, you know, to the shops. Cause I mean, they're usually at home brew shops. But again, when, when Ray and I met, it was like, well, you know, what if it were Latino homebrewers? And we just kind of, again, we had no clue that that would even be a thing. It's like just completely blew our minds.

[00:33:57] Justin Fronte: How has interest in homebrewing and the club been over the last 18 to 20 months? Have you noticed any pandemic effect on it?

[00:34:04] Brewbound Podcast: That's a really great question. It's kind of weird because most of what we do is now, well, since the pandemic has been via like Slack, most of our members are on Slack and that's how we trade information and keep in touch with each other for the most part. There's interest from the club like existing members has been strong this entire time. Everybody has definitely been itching to get back into in-person meetings and I believe the club just started about the last two meetings have been in person. I have not attended. I'm still social distancing with my family. But I know we did gain some members over the course of the last 18 to 20 months. I don't know what those numbers look like, but I do know there has been some new members who've joined, which is really interesting because I feel like to get the full experience of this club, you have to experience it in person. Like, being there, seeing the people interacting, like, it's really great. And you really get the sense that everybody is welcoming, everybody's really cool. So it's interesting to hear that people have met us online, or the club rather, and still are interested in joining. But yeah, there's been interest for sure.

[00:35:23] Justin Kendall: And one of the things that you guys have done really well is you've been very intentional about including women in the club. How did you guys go about doing that?

[00:35:33] Ray Ricky: When we first started the club and there were not, you know, very many members, maybe like eight to 12, you know, sometimes like our partners would come along, right? The brewer's partner, or even just if it is their girlfriend or wife, and they're actually part of the homebrew adventure, like they just didn't seem to come back. They'd go for one meeting, maybe two. And it just kind of, for some reason they just would not return. And I think that's where kind of Ray, I don't know how you did it, man. It was dope though.

[00:36:03] Justin Kendall: How did you go about making it a more welcoming space for them?

[00:36:08] Brewbound Podcast: It's 100% true what he's saying, and the few of us that were in the club definitely recognize that, like, hey, women are not coming. Whether it's them, they are coming, but they're not returning, and we're not actually getting members who are women. who are just interested. And I tell this story, and I think I shared with Jessica before, is I remember this one particular meeting where we were meeting at a brewery, we were in like a back room where there's a bunch of fermentation tanks and barrels and things. So you had to go through like a door, you had to go through the back. And I'm sitting there, and there's about six of us there, and it's all men, and we're all drinking. We're just kind of waiting for more people to show up. And these two women walk through the door. They kind of look like they're a little confused. They peek their head, and they look around. And one of them asks, hey, is this the Homebrew Club meeting? I excitedly was like, yes, yes, that's it. Yeah, you're in the right place. Come on in. And they just kind of look at us, and they're like, oh, you know, we'll be back. And so I thought they were going to go to the bar and grab a beer and come back. They never came back. And it was just very clear that women weren't going to feel easy about rolling up to a group of men drinking and wanting to hang out. So we definitely needed to do something. And as Agustin mentioned, we did notice that a lot of men would come with their wives or just couples in general. And so we thought it might be a good idea to offer a couples membership option. And when we did that, we saw the numbers increase. we started seeing married couples and unmarried couples show up, have a good time, and they started coming back. But it did take a long time for us to have a decent amount of women in the club. And now we have, it's great, I think there's maybe about 40-45% of the club is women, and we have some serious homebrewers, some multi-award winning brewers, commercial brewers, So it's been great to see. But yeah, it took some work and it took some time to make that happen.

[00:38:14] Justin Fronte: That's huge. I know pre-Brewbound in my old life, I worked for a Brewjeria Company that has a homebrew contest and that fell on my list of projects every year. And I would go to, you know, we would have judging events. I would go to homebrew con. And you notice there are a lot of couples that do it together, which seems nice. But the few times that I have ever tried to homebrew, It really just resulted in my husband getting very upset at the size of the mess in the kitchen. So I retired because, you know, I'm fortunate enough that people send me already made really good beer and I just don't have to make it myself. You mentioned like experiencing the club in person. And I know you guys have started like a signature festival that was really popular. And obviously you haven't been able to have, I'm going to say it wrong, but Coachella. Yeah.

[00:39:01] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah.

[00:39:01] Justin Fronte: you have been able to have it with the pandemic. But, you know, tell us about the event. What was that like?

[00:39:07] Brewbound Podcast: Well, first off, I want to go on record to say that the name Cold Chela is all Agustin. That was his genius there. Love it. And for anybody who may not know, chela is Spanish slang for beer. So literally cold beer festival.

[00:39:22] Justin Fronte: Perfect, because this is audio, it's spelled C-O-L-D-X-E-L-A.

[00:39:28] Ray Ricky: Right. Well, there was a name change somewhere in there, but yes. Or I should say letter change, but yeah.

[00:39:35] Justin Fronte: Okay. But yeah, tell us about the event. What goes on?

[00:39:39] Ray Ricky: We just bring together as many homebrewers, Latino homebrewers or just POC homebrewers as possible. I mean, we started in a parking lot that was, I don't know, could fit maybe like 20 cars. Like the restroom line was longer than the beer lines just because there was just nowhere else to go. We literally had like three restrooms but I mean it's just you know again we didn't know there were so many Latino POC homebrewers and certainly there aren't necessarily a lot of festivals that are just homebrew focused. You know, I do come from a nonprofit background. So that kind of was like, hey, I know this is possible. And then Ray, I mean, he's he has that experience to, you know, performing, putting on shows, you know, coordinating events. I mean, it was just I think it just came together. It just happened to come together like the right people. I mean, it just it's a way to bring homebrewers together, build community relationships. I mean, again, people getting to know each other. I mean, one of our owners was actually a member of a different, you know, homebrew club. And he was like, no, you know, I want to work with you guys and see if, you know, I can be a part of it. And I'm sure that's happened with other, you know, homebrewers as well, where they kind of make the switch and go, you know, to another career or whatever. I mean, that's, that's possible, right? In our case, anyway.

[00:41:07] Brewbound Podcast: And just to add to that, what's different about us is, as Agustin mentioned, it's all people of color. Like you come to Coachella and that's the thing that jumps out right away. It's like, it's just a sea of people of color. And if you're an avid beer festival goer, you know that that's not the case. generally, like especially in Southern California, you go to a beer festival and it's predominantly white male with a small percentage of women. And I'd like to think that Coachella is super welcoming no matter what you look like. I feel and I've heard that It feels safe. People are comfortable there. They don't have to be looking over their shoulder. And I think that really sets us apart. And now we're so big in terms of the club that all the brewers pouring are members. Whereas like the first year we did it, I think we had a few outside guests, other home brewers, and it was like 20 brewers. And now we're like over 50 and it's all from the club. So if you want to participate, you got to be a member of the SoCal Cerveceros. And yeah, it's just a really cool thing to see, especially if you're new to beer festivals. It's kind of like a whole new world. Like, you know, all these Latinos, we have Asians, African-Americans, and then you have the whole element of live music and we put it all together and it's a good time.

[00:42:32] Justin Fronte: But it's crazy to hear you say that if you go to a beer festival in Southern California, everybody's white, because that is not what Southern California looks like, you know? So clearly the beer scene really is over-indexing and under-indexing on certain parts of the population that really should be fixed.

[00:42:49] Brewbound Podcast: That's one thing that Coachella shows us, that there is a market here in Southern California. So there is space for people like Brujeria to exist. There is space for SoCal Cerveceros to grow. So the demand, the interest, it's there. And Coachella really is telling us that because it grows every year.

[00:43:11] Justin Kendall: Seeing what you guys have been able to do with Coldchella and just in general with the club, what can the larger industry take away and learn from you all and do better at that they're not doing now?

[00:43:28] Ray Ricky: It's not that they weren't doing anything when we started the club. It isn't anything that they're not doing, I guess would be the answer. It's unintentional, you know what I mean? We didn't do this because we couldn't find it elsewhere. We just did it because we came together and we saw potential and we went for it, you know? So it wasn't that anything was missing. We just kind of, we connected and it just made sense.

[00:43:55] Justin Fronte: Cool. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I don't know if you would say that there's something else that could be done. I don't, like when I look at the way that like, styles and flavors get introduced. And it's like, you can almost kind of see like, Oh, I see this brewery is debuting something with mango. And I wonder if they're trying to like make sure that gets in front of certain groups of people. And it's like, I don't, I don't know that that's the way to do that.

[00:44:19] Ray Ricky: Sure. It's not about like, what isn't somebody else doing? Like, look, Brujeria, when we Stone Brewing, and still now, our favorite styles of beers are Belgian.

[00:44:29] Justin Fronte: That's fascinating.

[00:44:31] Ray Ricky: And we were making Belgian beers, and again, serving them to largely crowds that were people of color. And they were like, what is this? And we've stuck to our guns. And we're like, no, but we love Belgian beers. We want to introduce them to a different crowd. And it wasn't about like, well, what aren't like European beer styles doing for a Latino or people of color crowd? Like it was just for whatever reason, we ended up having a group of people that loved Belgian beers.

[00:45:02] SPEAKER_??: Cool.

[00:45:04] Justin Fronte: I want to ask you what like the education process is like to introduce these beers to your drinkers. What does that look like?

[00:45:11] Ray Ricky: I mean, for one, it's just, uh, Like I was saying earlier like not giving up. You know we had events back when we were doing homebrew fundraiser events like people would be like well what is a do bell. What is a triple. What is you know a Belgian golden strong. They're just like well what is that. You know what's what's a sour even although you know that's really more of a newer thing for us. But It was just really like wanting to share with people like what those characteristics of those beers that we liked, right? The maltiness, the high carbonation, like the fact that a lot of the flavor comes from the yeast, right? And people were like, oh my God, like I get it. Like that makes sense. And still, you know, to this day, we always have two to three Belgian beers on tap. It's usually our Belgian triple with muscat grapes called grapes of wrath. our Diosa de Oro with passion fruit, which is a Belgian golden strong style. And then every fall winter, we do our Belgian quadruple with cherries. And, you know, people are like, oh my God, I want that beer now. They're like, that's my favorite beer now. That's just, you know, again, having just explained it to them and have them just taste it. And they're like, oh my God, like, I can't believe that. Introducing people to what you love. Exactly. And we do have beers with mango, beers with, you know, hibiscus, right? That's like our most popular beer. But those were things that just came through. Well, you know, what are the things that we enjoyed as kids? And can we add that to beer?

[00:46:50] Justin Kendall: We see that trend so much now where it's either like a playoff of juice boxes or, Ray Ricky, you know this, I mean, you competed against Lunar in our Pitch Slam competition and, you know, they have the Asian-influenced flavors that they've produced in their hard seltzers. It's kind of cool to see that come to life.

[00:47:13] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, and what's really cool is that a lot of people like Luna are pulling from their culture, pulling, yeah, you know, like Agustin said, it's things that we grew up with. And if you're Latino, you grew up with something that's very specific. So yeah, I love seeing beer companies using their background as a resource for creating beer styles or, you know, introducing new beers rather.

[00:47:36] Justin Fronte: It just makes for really interesting and engaging ways to tell stories. It's very like, for lack of a better word, super authentic. It just feels very real.

[00:47:44] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah.

[00:47:45] Justin Fronte: Anything we haven't covered that you guys want our audience to know?

[00:47:49] Brewbound Podcast: One thing I want to add that I think is really cool, when you were asking about if there was a pipeline and how our club has influenced breweries, what's been really cool for me is Breweria, Norwalk Brew, and South Central Brewjeria Company. South Central Brewjeria Company is another three-person group within SoCal Cerveceros who are working towards being a commercial brewery. Proceeds from each beer were donated to a particular nonprofit supporting migrant workers in Los Angeles. What's cool about that is. The first release we did was the first time that Breweria had a packaged beer for distribution outside of the brewery. And it was my first time and Norwalk Brew as a brand's first time of being in a collab that went out for distro. So there's all these firsts and it's only possible because Breweria and that connection we have to the Soca Cerveceros. I see a lot of things like that happening more often. And it's just this cool thing. And I wouldn't have had that opportunity had I not have been friends with Agustin and been a part of this network of the SoCal Cerveceros. And now because of that, other opportunities have come my way. And now I'm doing my wholesale business and I'm actually in business getting ready to release my first flagship beer. And it's kind of like we're creating this cycle where we're all helping each other and we're all sharing business and we're all kind of putting others in business and keeping others in business, if you will. So that's been really great for me to experience and to watch develop.

[00:49:34] Ray Ricky: And it was Ray's idea from the get go. You know, for us, you know, again, coming from a nonprofit background, that was always part of our business model. But, you know, we always thought, hey, we'll put, you know, we'll do a tap every month. to benefit an organization. But you know again having to completely turn our business around into a go only model. Right. Like that we were just like well let's figure that out. And Ray was like well hey but what if we do a beer that's for for some some type of charity. And I don't like that word too much. But you know And we're just like, oh, my God, like, how would that? How do we not ever realize that that was also an option? But because of that and having now released four in the series, like a full four pack, we're actually hoping to release a four pack with all four labels for the holidays and again, continue to donate to these nonprofit organizations helping migrant workers. And also just because of that, having to switch and do canning, like we've now purchased our own canning line, which has, you know, is now like, holy cow, like we have to now create a completely different department in our business. But I mean, we've been doing that for the last year, but, you know, mostly out of need. And now we're like, well, now it's a part of our business. Like we can integrate it into what we do.

[00:50:59] Justin Fronte: Awesome. Well, for people who are interested in the club, how can they find out more?

[00:51:04] Brewbound Podcast: SoCal Cerveceros is on all social media platforms, probably most active on Instagram. So at SoCal Cerveceros or visit SoCalCerveceros.org and you can get information on how to become a member, upcoming events and meetings and things like that.

[00:51:23] Justin Fronte: Fantastic. And then Augustine, that special four pack, where can people find it when it comes out?

[00:51:29] Ray Ricky: We'll probably be just at the top room in Pico Rivera, California. Awesome. Yeah, it'll be a small batch.

[00:51:37] Justin Fronte: Cool. We are coming your way in a couple of weeks, so maybe we'll meet up with you guys for a beer, but this has been lovely.

[00:51:42] Ray Ricky: Awesome.

[00:51:42] Justin Fronte: And I know you're both so busy, so thank you so much for taking the time. And thank you to our one-man audio team, Joe, for making this episode possible, and to everybody for listening. And we will catch you with another episode next week.