Brewbound Podcast: ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and El Segundo on the Broken Skull Beers

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Stone Cold, Stone Cold, Stone Cold, Stone Cold Steve Austin is on the Brewbound podcast next. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound podcast. My name is Justin Kendall and I'm the editor of Brewbound and I do a terrible Jim Ross imitation. And I apologize to these next two people, the soon-to-be vacationing Jessica Infante. Hello, Jess.

[00:01:05] Jessica Infante: What's up? Hello. How are you?

[00:01:08] Justin Kendall: I am living the dream.

[00:01:09] Jessica Infante: You really are.

[00:01:11] Justin Kendall: Who said Brewbound did not make dreams come true?

[00:01:14] Jessica Infante: I've never once said that.

[00:01:16] Justin Kendall: Yeah, see. And also joining us is Zoe Licata. Thanks for being here, Zoe.

[00:01:22] Zoe Licata: Well, thanks for having me on this thrilling podcast.

[00:01:27] Justin Kendall: This is a thrilling podcast. What are you talking about?

[00:01:29] Zoe Licata: We're starting it out real hot.

[00:01:32] Justin Kendall: You got to come in hot for Stone Cold Steve Austin. So Stone Cold Steve Austin will be here on the Brewbound podcast talking about Broken Skull Lager, along with Rob Croxall and Tom Kelley from El Segundo. So we got a big guest, literally a big guest, as in a large human being.

[00:01:50] Jessica Infante: I think I'm just as happy as you are for you that we could make this happen.

[00:01:56] Justin Kendall: I tried not to be like the Chris Farley fan boy during that, but I'm sure it comes through at some point.

[00:02:04] Jessica Infante: No, you like you held us together. You were great.

[00:02:06] Justin Kendall: Thank you.

[00:02:07] Jessica Infante: Like I told you when we finished recording, you held it together way better than I did the first time I met Bruce Springsteen and the only time I met Bruce Springsteen.

[00:02:14] Justin Kendall: And so we missed this because she had to leave early, but there was nothing better than when we stopped recording and Stone Cold was like, hold on a second. What beers do you both like to drink? And you're welcome, Allagash.

[00:02:29] Jessica Infante: Yeah, Justin definitely converted Mr. Cold to an Allagash White, if not drinker, Allagash White hopeful. But he should be able to find it in California.

[00:02:38] Justin Kendall: Oh, definitely. Yeah. So that's what's coming up on this episode. Also coming up, we're going to Minneapolis and we're heading to CBC. We'll be there for Brew Talks on Monday, May 2nd, 1 to 4 p.m. Central Time. And I'm going to step back and let somebody else do the hard sell.

[00:03:00] Jessica Infante: I'm really excited. This is Shaping Up to Be an Awesome Brew Talks. We've got three really different conversations, but I've kind of noticed the theme of all of them is basically the future of craft beer, right? So our first conversation is with leaders from SwitchGuard Brewing and Modest Brewing to talk about how they've incorporated accepting cryptocurrency in their taprooms, how they've worked NFTs into some of their marketing. So that is going to be really interesting and I'm really glad that the two of you guys are spearheading that talk because I cannot speak intelligently about any of that stuff at all. So that'll be a good one. Then we've got people from a few different places to talk about the structural avenues to getting people from underrepresented groups into the industry. So that conversation features Tim and Dolly Parker of Chula Vista Brewing in California, Jennifer Glanville, the Director of Partnerships for the Boston Beer Company, Jennifer oversees Brewing the American Dream, which is a program that BBC launched over a decade ago that gives low and no interest loans to entrepreneurs in food and beverage, but also helps them out with mentorship and advice and just guidance overall. So Chula Vista won the Bring the American Dream Experience ship a few years ago because there's a special program Just for brewers where every year one craft brewer is selected and they get like an intensive year long experience. Basically, speaking to anybody they want to speak to within like the Boston beer organization. They also get to come to the brewery in Boston and do a collaboration. Lots of cool stuff there but they've helped a lot of breweries out along the way rock brewing. in Rochester, New York, Woods Brewing in San Francisco. There's a bunch of breweries that have graduated from the program. So we'll talk to those guys about what they do. And then we've got Mike Persick, who is the head of alcoholic beverage buying for Target. And Target has an accelerator program where, you know, brands from across TPG can enter the program and it sounds like they've got different levels for brands that are a little bit more established and brands that are just brand new. And they work with them to tell them, you know, coach them and then get them sold in Target stores. So that will be cool. And then last but certainly not least, we've got Mike Gemma from Haymarket Brewing. Jamal and possibly Damon and Anthony from the Moors Beer Company and Sam from Goose Island. So these guys are all from Chicago. Haymarket held a incubator program from February until mid-March, where they hosted a collection of black-owned breweries from Chicago and just turned their whole facility over to them. And some of them don't have their own tap room. So like the guys from Moors, they were able to make use of the Haymarket. tap room to host like a Super Bowl party. They had a few different events throughout the month. There's a collaboration beer that's come out of it. But basically, it's just all about how to foster these relationships at the grassroots level to allow people who don't really have the easiest time breaking into craft beer getting into the industry.

[00:05:55] Justin Kendall: Yep. And we will basically discuss how others can maybe replicate those programs, because I think it's so needed in this industry.

[00:06:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah, like, you know, if you had a Haymarket residency happening in every city, like who knows what things would look like. So all of this will be happening on May 2nd from 1 to 4 p.m. Central Time at the Carew Atrium at Target Field.

[00:06:19] Justin Kendall: Target Field, where the Minnesota professional baseball team plays.

[00:06:24] Zoe Licata: Yes, yes.

[00:06:27] Justin Kendall: They have a name, but you know.

[00:06:29] Zoe Licata: Absolutely.

[00:06:30] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Please join us. Tickets are on sale now and you can get them at Brewbound.com. Some of the proceeds go to the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild. So it's going to a good cause. They've got a lot of initiatives that they're doing that they could use help with. And so hopefully we'll be able to help them out. So come on out.

[00:06:49] Jessica Infante: I'm pushing for a ice cream sundae bar full stadium helmets, right?

[00:06:53] Justin Kendall: We're going to feed you too.

[00:06:54] Jessica Infante: There will be some good snacks to be had and beers from our presenting sponsor Dogfish head.

[00:06:59] Justin Kendall: Yes. Lots to check out there and lots of news. And if we're going to be honest, which we try to be. So, Jess, who is going on vacation in a week, we're recording this on a Friday so she could join us and talk about all the big news of last week, which is fine, because there's a ton of news from this last week. And it's like we couldn't stop working basically because Reyes went on to strike a deal for Columbia Distributing's Northern California beer business. It's about four million cases, I believe. Yep. So a lot of the usual suspects that you would expect in such a deal like the constellation portfolio. But that deal is supposed to close in June. And I mean, we'll have to get our Reyes coloring map out for the state of California and shade in the northern part of California now.

[00:08:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah, so this affects Sonoma and Marin counties. So just above the Golden Gate Bridge and parts of wine country.

[00:08:08] Justin Kendall: Right. Not much else to say about this because we've been through this story before and Reyes has been super acquisitive. And that leads us to another story about Reyes. We found out this week that Seismic Brewing in Sonoma County has filed a federal lawsuit, an antitrust lawsuit against Reyes and DBI Beverage. and Reyes Subsidiary Harbor Distributing, saying basically that they conspired to create a monopoly of beer distribution in California. And this is a case that was largely, the majority of the claims were rejected at the state level, but Seismic is now filing suit in federal court. We will see where this goes. We reached out to seismic. They declined to comment. However, Reyes has offered us a statement and I'll let you take it away, Jess.

[00:09:03] Jessica Infante: So Reyes told us through a spokesperson, quote, after Seismic's claims were rejected and dismissed with prejudice by a California state court, Seismic has repackaged the same inaccurate allegations and filed a complaint in federal court. While disappointing to see these tactics, we will again vigorously defend ourselves against these baseless allegations as has always been the case. Any business decisions or actions taken on behalf of our business are in full compliance with federal and state laws with oversight provided by the appropriate regulatory authorities. So we'll see what happens.

[00:09:35] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and Reyes will file its response in the next 30 to 60 days, and we'll see where this goes. They sort of updated their filing as well to include the treasury report that just came out on competition. So some updated things. I think they may even have gotten the Columbia Distributing acquisition in there, which is a quick turnaround. This was filed the day after that deal was announced. What timing?

[00:10:07] Jessica Infante: According to the data shared in this lawsuit, since mid 2018, Vegas has added 76 million cases to its market share in California, which is a whole heck of a lot of beer.

[00:10:20] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Other news of last week, Jess, you hopped on this story and you broke it. 30 workers were laid off from New Belgium and Bells following the merger and they were laid off last week. So take us through what happened there.

[00:10:36] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and never fun to report on people losing their jobs. But unfortunately, this does sometimes happen after, you know, two companies joined forces like that. So as we know, last fall, New Belgium's parent company, Lion Little World Beverages acquired Bells. And they both, you know, they're large craft beer companies. They probably, you know, the most of these 30 layoffs happened within the sales force. So you just got to imagine there's a lot of markets that just had duplicative representatives, either, you know, by territory or by relationship. So they did their best. We spoke to the team there and they said, we tried really hard to keep as many people as possible, but they do have over 1300 team members. It's a lot of people. So the layoffs only account for less than 3% of their total workforce, but that's what happened. There's about 15 to 20 jobs still open, so in sales. So everybody that's been affected is welcome to apply for a job in another territory. They've also been given a severance package. Just one of those unfortunate things that can happen when two companies merge like this.

[00:11:39] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and we've heard that there are more layoffs out there. And if you've heard that there are more layoffs out there, you can feel free to reach out to us. You can reach out to me personally, jkendall at BevNET.com. That's J-K-E-N-D-A-L-L at B-E-V-N-E-T.com.

[00:11:57] Jessica Infante: Yeah, definitely email him because when you listen to this, I'll be on a beach in Mexico.

[00:12:01] Justin Kendall: Yeah, nobody disturb Jeff while she's on the beach. So also not great news coming out of last week. Willie's Super Brew. We heard they laid off the majority of their staff and that they were considering a sale. This came out of a story from Good Beer Hunting. And yeah, Willie's makes Super Brew, which is how would you define Super Brew? Something between cider and seltzer?

[00:12:29] Zoe Licata: They define it as a hybrid between a hard cider and a hard seltzer. And said recently that their goal for this year was to try to create a new, they called it a new category, outside of seltzer as the super brew, make it its own thing. But that appears to not be as easy as it seemed.

[00:12:50] Justin Kendall: And they went through a packaging refresh and it's from the sounds of a good beer hunting story that proved to be fairly costly, more costly than anyone anticipated. And so that proved to be problematic for them. Willie's is a former Brewbound Pitch Slam competition winner. They won, I can't remember what year, was it 2018? 2018. Yeah. It's a bummer of news. It's always a bummer of news when we see these things. The story goes on that they may be in the process of selling, potentially, to Down East Cider, which produces Willie's Super Brew. Right down the street from me? Right down the street from Zoe. Well, Zoe, why don't you hop in here?

[00:13:35] Zoe Licata: I might have to go take a walk down the street, ask them some questions. Yeah, go buy it.

[00:13:45] Justin Kendall: It'll be Zoe Superbrew.

[00:13:47] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Stay tuned.

[00:13:49] Justin Kendall: You can only get Zoe Superbrew at a Darty.

[00:13:53] Zoe Licata: That is the one requirement. I don't know if it's the best strategic approach, but I'll try.

[00:14:01] Jessica Infante: We tried to get in touch with the Superbrew team to no avail.

[00:14:07] Justin Kendall: And some bon voyage is that we must bid adieu to one of our favorite people, Jim McGreevy, the president and CEO of the Beer Institute. He is departing in May. Don't know where he's going, but it's outside the Bev Alk industry. That's what he told me. And I am sad to see Jim go. He was fantastic at that role. He helped achieve the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act. His work lobbying Congress helped establish the brewing industry as essential, which kept a lot of people working during the pandemic.

[00:14:48] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I think we would have been looking at a very different past two years if that designation had not happened. Yeah, definitely. I'll miss Jim. Jim's great.

[00:14:57] Justin Kendall: Jim needs to get his butt to Minneapolis and drink Michelob Golden Lights with us with olives.

[00:15:04] Jessica Infante: With olives, that's key.

[00:15:06] Justin Kendall: You know, I speak things on this podcast and I hope they come to fruition or I try and like manifest them. So Jim, I know you're listening. You're coming to Minneapolis, so we'll see you there.

[00:15:16] Jessica Infante: I have heard that in some parts of Maine they drink a Narragansett with three olives and call it a Millinocket Martini. we don't have to go to Mi culinary delicacy, but we Exactly.

[00:15:31] Justin Kendall: And so are you j see you there, bud. Whil neck of the woods, hopef Paul Verdu, who was runnin is Molson Coors is craft that job this past week. a small craft outfit in W know which one, but you k for sale up there that w

[00:15:54] Jessica Infante: So many mysteries this week.

[00:15:56] Justin Kendall: I know it's so it's the week of mysteries. So where does Paul Verdu go? We'll find out, but he better be going to CBC too, so he can drink some Michelob Golden Lights with us as well. Now that he's not employed by emulsing board.

[00:16:14] Zoe Licata: I think this means we'll just have an extra exciting CBC, because everyone it's going to be like a send off for some people will have a good time.

[00:16:22] Justin Kendall: That's not a send off for any of us except for Jess, who's going on vacation.

[00:16:26] Jessica Infante: But I will be back for CBC.

[00:16:28] Justin Kendall: That's right.

[00:16:30] Jessica Infante: Look at me, jet setting Cancun, Minneapolis. So when I was researching to figure out where we should go on this trip, my husband's a teacher, so we got to go during school vacation week, which makes things difficult and expensive. But it was going through resort reviews on TripAdvisor and for the resort that I've selected, there was like no fewer than three people in the Q and A section going like, do they have domestic beers? And then somebody else would answer back. Yeah, they have Modelo and Corona, but nothing domestic. Like those are their domestics. Oh, made me so angry.

[00:17:01] Justin Kendall: I mean, we live in a bubble, Jess. You know this. I do know we live in a bubble. We have our own language, but we are going to speak my love language next, which is professional wrestling and beer. And we're going to do it with Stone Cold Steve Austin. So let's get to our featured interview with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Rob Croxall and Tom Kelley. Among the highlights of this year's WrestleMania was the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin to the ring after a 19-year absence. Austin emerged triumphant and ended the evening with his signature celebration, smashing together Broken Skull American loggers in what amounted to one of the biggest earned media moments ever for a craft brewery. For seven years, Austin has partnered with El Segundo on the Broken Skull line. And he's here today to discuss the brand and its future. So welcome to the Brewbound podcast, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Thanks for being here, Steve.

[00:18:01] Stone Cold: Glad to be here, man.

[00:18:03] Justin Kendall: We're psyched to have you. And we also have El Segundo owner Rob Croxall. Thanks for being here, Rob. Thanks for having us. This is great. And finally, we have El Segundo's Chief Vision Officer, Tom Kelley. Thanks for being here, Tom. Yeah, thanks for having us, Justin. So Steve, for starters, how are you feeling physically after WrestleMania?

[00:18:25] Stone Cold: I'm 100%. I picked up a little bit of a cold the other day, but I'm back home in Nevada. Shoot, Sunday I was 100%. And of course, I went back into action on Sunday, did a little extra physicality as part of the show. But it was just an exciting time for me to go back to a business that I really, really love. And I never thought I'd be back in the ring, but there we were headlining main event for the, headlining WrestleMania for night one and it was just truly an honor to be out there. And really excited to be able to just like the last few times I've been able to drink our beer, Broken Skull IPA out in the ring. A couple of years ago, we got a lot of exposure from that and just a real proud moment. Because when El Segundo and I and myself decided to come out with a lager, which was what everybody was wanting. which is really satisfying because I've drank everybody's beer in the past. I've been drinking beer my whole life and I don't speak technical beer language, but we've given all those other brands a little bit of a rub by using their beer. So to go out there and drink our own beer was very satisfying.

[00:19:35] Justin Kendall: You mentioned the other beers that you drank over the years, and I have a friend named Adam who has one of those Coors Light cans sitting on a shelf in his living room still to this day. I was sitting there with him in Iowa when he caught that can, so it's still one of his prized possessions. That sort of leads me to a question I had for you is one of the things that surprised me from that WWE run in the 1990s was that you never really had a major beer sponsorship, despite drinking everything there was under the sun and tossing them in the crowd. So was that ever brought up as an option? And if not, why wasn't that an option for you?

[00:20:15] Stone Cold: Well, it was an option. We actually pitched a beer company, and I won't name their name, but we've all heard of them and they're very popular. And I just think it was due to the fact that I was very aggressive, maybe a little controversial. My mother used to tell me, Stephen, if you were on TV when you were a kid, I wouldn't let you watch you. So I just think what I was doing was very cutting edge. It was very edgy. And that was the tip of the spear as far as the attitude era is concerned. So I just don't think that was someone's idea of what a role model for their beer would look like at that time.

[00:20:55] Zoe Licata: I think the estimate from BT Sport was that you opened 35 Broken Skull American Loggers just over this most recent WrestleMania. So, I mean, how many over the whole course have you, do you think you've gone through?

[00:21:10] Stone Cold: Man, it was a bunch. And the thing about it was, you know, I've been gone for so long, 19 years, and you cannot replicate that type of setting, you know, in your home gym. I work out all the time here. And I was going, you know, doing all kinds of cardio circuits and stuff like that. But I kept calling for those beers, not to gratuitously advertise them, but because I genuinely had cotton mouth. So anytime I needed a breath of air or just needed to whet my whistle, I'd call for my beer guy to throw me a beer. And of course, I'd toss it and continue on with the spectacle that we were presenting. Luckily, everyone that watched that pay-per-view or everyone there in attendance knew we weren't gonna have a scientific back and forth match. It was gonna be a brawling spectacle and that's exactly what it was.

[00:21:59] Jessica Infante: You told Justin that you got ten cases of beer for night one of WrestleMania and clearly Pat McAfee enjoyed it. So what was the feedback you got from everybody else about the beer?

[00:22:10] Stone Cold: Man, I've heard nothing but good reviews about the beer. I've got some really close friends over here in Nevada, and of course, all of us here at El Segundo, we've been working real hand-in-hand on this, and we value feedback. It's extremely important. But we're not worried about having our feelings hurt. We want to have someone's honest opinion about the beer. So when I brought it over to my buddies, I was thinking, man, we might change this, but this is kind of where we're at right now. And I sent Rob a text. I said, man, all my buddies over here in Nevada love this beer. I don't think we need to do anything to it. So we value feedback. We're not afraid of feedback. We want it. And I think that, man, we turned out a hell of a beer.

[00:22:49] Justin Kendall: Tell me a little more about that, because I mean, obviously you crushed a lot of macro loggers during your run throughout the years, and now you have a logger of your own. Tell us a little bit about why that was the right direction. I mean, it seems like an obvious one, but you guys actually started with an IPA.

[00:23:07] Stone Cold: I want to start with an IPA just because when I started, you know, craft beers been around for you guys no longer than I have. I mean, craft beers have been a thing for quite some time. And finally, I just got sick and tired of the, you know, the big beer lineups. So I started delving into craft beers and started going into the pale ales and finally ended up just being an IPA hit. That's my go-to beer. And when I took that IPA down to South Texas many years ago, my sister was a regular light beer drinker. And she said, is that your beer? Because she'd never seen it before. And I said, yes, it is. She goes, can I try it? I said, of course you can. And she took a sip of it. And I could see the look on her face of horror. He was a light beer drinker. It took me a year and a half to turn into a hop head. So anyway, I said, don't worry, you're not hurting my feelings. You're just not ready for this beer. And we converted a lot of just regular beer drinkers to IPA just based on the brand and myself and the fact that it is a really, really good beer. But the regular beer drinkers out there just kept saying, hey, please come up with a lager for the rest of us. We're not that much in the IPAs. As popular as the IPA is, a lot of people weren't into it because it's an IPA. So I kind of floated the idea about Rob a while back. When Rob called me and said, hey man, we're going to come out with a lager, I said, hell yeah. So it was just something that was waiting to happen. And when Rob called me and said, hey, let's do a lager, I said, hell yeah. So it was just meeting the people's demands and making a lager for really, I mean, when y'all know what the number one selling beers are, you know, and the top 10, I don't think there is an IPA. if we're just talking about beers in general. So we came up with this beer and we all loved it. Rob, you chip in on that story because as phenomenal as Rob is at brewing beer, this was a little bit out of the wheelhouse.

[00:25:09] Steve Austin: Yeah, for sure. I mean, we heard, you know, from the very beginning, even when we were introducing the IPA, it's like, yeah, that's nice, but when are you guys gonna do a lager? But of course, I mean, we're El Segundo. What we do is West Coast beer. So the IPA was the natural first beer. But I mean, we've heard since the beginning from customers, from distributors, all the time, when are you guys gonna do a logger? When are you guys gonna do a logger? And really, I mean, it was just about time. I mean, the IPA is still is one of our workhorses, it still does great. But with all the activity that Steve has going on this year, with WrestleMania and then 316, all these things kind of just lined up. And we, we decided to make, make it go the logger. So the logger, you know, it wasn't quite the slam dunk that the IPA was. It's a little bit more, a little bit more work in house. And I know Steve's got the story about when we did the IPA and we really did nailed on the first try, but this, this was not that we went, I think Tom can correct me, but I think we have four iterations of this beer before we got to the final version, and where we are I mean I'm really happy with it because, you know, those you don't know, we are our main focus is quality we don't want to put out. a craft beer, we don't want to put out something that's not an interesting beer. So whatever we do is going to have this quality component and still be an interesting beer for the craft beer drinker. But in this case, we want to make it accessible to the regular beer drinker too. So it took a little while to get there, but where we ended up was this, you know, from the outside, a fairly simple American lager, a little bit of corn, give you that kind of familiar taste. We ended up using Contessa hops, which, you know, we really wanted to use the American variety, of course, because Steve's beer makes perfect sense, but still give you the slightly noble kind of quality to give you this familiarness for this American lager. And that's kind of how we ended up where we're at.

[00:27:22] Jessica Infante: For our listeners who maybe haven't been able to try either of the beers, I'm really curious about the IPA. What can you tell us about a slaver profile, Rob? I'm sure it's a West Coast style, but what are some of the notes there?

[00:27:34] Steve Austin: You know, when we developed that beer, we sat down with Steve one afternoon, and we probably had 15, 20 different beers. And we were going through all these IPAs, and it's like, you know, what do you like? What do you not like? What are you Austin and El really kind of nailed down his palate, what he likes. And where we ended up at the end of the day was, he liked like an old school West Coast Seahawk IPA, like this mid-palate, he liked the flavor in the middle. Didn't like a lot of bitterness in the end, but then liked the big aromatics, you know, of some of the more current West Coast IPAs. So what we did on the first one was heavy Seahawks in the boil. So you get a lot of that, you know, I mean, you guys know what we're talking about, those flavors, mid-palate. relatively low on IBUs, but then a primarily Citra with a little bit of Cascade Dry Hop, because, I mean, we're in California, we've got to be using Cascade no matter what, but to give it, you know, the kind of those big aromatics. So it's kind of got this more old school IPA, mid-palate, but there's still big pop in the aromatics and a lot of bitterness. And that's, that was what we were going for. And that's where that beer is.

[00:28:50] El Segundo: And I'd add just that it ended up being a great intro IPA for people. We had a lot of people, like Steve said, come over from lager beers or less flavored beers to try this beer. And it's 6.7%. So it's not too strong, not a long lingering bitterness. And so it's actually a really great IPA for people who haven't had a lot of IPA to come and explore the style. We were successful in converting a lot of people over to IPA, I think over the last five or so years.

[00:29:23] Zoe Licata: How about your sister, Steve? Is she converted at all? Or how does she feel about the IPA or the lager?

[00:29:30] Stone Cold: She's still not converted, but she loves the lager a whole lot, but she's still not an IPA person. And you know, that was a really interesting task for me because I was going to make some great beers, but some of those double and triple IPAs, I'm not so much a fan, but as y'all know, you know, everybody has their own taste bud and it's all subjective. So I love the way the beer came in at six, seven, and that's a stout beer. That's stout enough. You start going higher than that. You know, I still like to be able to crush a couple of them, and I do. But a quick story, when we brewed that beer, when Rob came up with the formula, and a couple of weeks later, we went down to try this beer. And as I drove down to the brewery, I only lived six miles from the brewery at the time, And I'm thinking to myself, man, this could take 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times to get this right. And I'll never forget, we were all sitting there, we poured a glass of beer, and I took that first swig, and it was like, come to Jesus time. And man, that beer went down, and I looked right at Rob, and I said, man, I watched my language. I said, that's a good effing beer. And I said, hang on for a second. I took another swig and I said, that's a good effing beer. So we had some beers that day and I went home and slept on it. I called Rob the next day and I said, hey Rob, I think we need to go with the formula on that beer. I said, I don't think we can make it any better. And Rob said, Steve, I'm glad you said that because if you weren't going to use it, I was. So it was just a thrill to be able to hit it out of the park on the first try. And coming up with the American Lager, it was a process for me to dial back, just to say, okay, now we're just looking for a great, in my terms, because I've been drinking beer my whole life, and Rob knows that I don't speak technical beer language, but he's able to transcribe and understand exactly what I'm saying. The interesting thing about coming out with the American Lager was just dialing backs from the hops and trying to go into a regular beer. And I felt in that category of beer, from light beer to regular beers to just that genre of beers, there was a lot of room for improvement. And I'm really, really happy with the way the American Lager turned out. But it was a dialing down process for me.

[00:31:47] Justin Kendall: Steve, we don't want to be the ones to tell you you can't cuss on our podcast. You can definitely cuss because if you won't, Jess will.

[00:31:57] Stone Cold: That first time I drank that beer, I said, hey man, that's a good fucking beer. I took one more swig and I said, that's a good fucking beer. So we started drinking. We've got a pretty good buzz that day. And that turned out to be the formula for Broken Skull IPA.

[00:32:14] Jessica Infante: What a fucking great story, man.

[00:32:15] Stone Cold: I didn't know what y'all's parameters were.

[00:32:22] Zoe Licata: This was featured really heavily during WrestleMania. So what was the aftermath for El Segundo after this happened and all the buzz that it got?

[00:32:32] El Segundo: We're still in the midst of it, honestly. The nice thing about American Lager is we can brew a lot of it. And, you know, it's got a long shelf code, no problem. The problem with IPA is it goes back quickly, as we all know, very short shelf code. We try and ship IPA out of our facilities, you know, within a week or two, ideally. And so planning ahead and forecasting can be challenging. We're currently running out of IPA everywhere. which not the worst problem to have, but we're pivoting from there. I mean, we're just getting, you know, emails constantly every day from fans, from retailers, from distributors, from importers. This is the, I guess, kind of third time we've gone around this, but this is the first time we're really prepared. When Steve got on in July of 2019 for Raw Reunion and brought a bunch of cans that we had hand canned at another brewery and didn't even have Broken Skull IPA in cans, and then he got on national TV and told everybody about it. That was one pivot that was really interesting. We then launched Broken Skull IPA nationally or, you know, in most of our network we have now. in March of 2020. And so that was another interesting pivot. And here we are actually prepared with beer in cans and not during a pandemic getting to launch this beer. So we're super excited. We're working closely with our distributors to fulfill demand. Seemingly, it's out of control. Our website is getting lots of hits. People are direct shipping here in California. You can direct ship through a couple of retailers, including CraftShack, and so their numbers are all up. From what we've seen in the past, this will be a couple of months of interaction, and we'll have more press and stuff coming out. I'll let you know in a couple of months, but for the current answer, it's a tidal wave of demand. I think is kind of the best way to describe it. It's just so much all at once, especially for a brand our size. You know, I mean, we're going to probably do 15,000 barrels, 20,000 barrels this year. We're not that big. And so for Steve to get a placement like we did at WrestleMania, it really is just we're a little tiny boat on a very big wave.

[00:34:53] Justin Kendall: How much does Broken Skull make up of your your output?

[00:34:57] El Segundo: So we have a facility here in El Segundo, where we'll do probably eight or 9000 barrels total. We also contract brew with Figaro Mountain Brewing Company here in Southern California that's a new relationship for us. but those guys are masters of lager, and we're really, really excited to be working with them on that beer. We additionally contract brew at New Realm in Virginia, which is Mitch Steele's place, and he's been making Broken Skull IPA for us and for the East Coast since 2019, and just couldn't even have a better partner to be brewing IPA. They're also brewing the American lager, but obviously Mitch has some great lineage as far as it goes to IPA. Outside of Southern California, Broken Skull IPA makes up the vast majority of our sales, if not all of our sales at this point. Here in Southern California, where we're distributed by stone, American Lager is going to change this slightly, but Broken Skull has been a leader, but Mayberry IPA actually outsells Broken Skull in Southern California. It goes back and forth, I guess, depends. We've brought American Lager to the plate a lot because of the need for Broken Skull IPA to need a partner out there in markets where El Segundo isn't quite as well known. We do very well here closer to California, but the East Coast is a little bit more difficult for us to translate that brand. So it's really just Broken Skull IPA and Broken Skull American Lager everywhere east of Texas, basically.

[00:36:35] Justin Kendall: Steve, you did a lot of the heavy lifting as far as marketing goes during WrestleMania weekend. Do you anticipate sort of staying as actively involved going forward, whether that's helping with wholesalers or sales calls or anything like that?

[00:36:53] Stone Cold: Yeah, I'll do whatever I gotta do because for many, many years, I've been wanting to get into the beer business, but not at ground zero and try to build up an empire. That's not how my brain works. And so, seven, eight years ago, when Rob and I had our first meeting, We struck up a bond and a friendship first, and then we proceeded accordingly. I'm so proud of this. El Segundo, it is a business. I used to be in the beer drinking business, and now I'm in the beer sales business. I've learned so much from these guys about selling beer, about packaging, about everything. Whatever I gotta do, I'm gonna do, and I do it willingly because I'm proud of my association with these guys, first and foremost, as friends and business partners. I'm super proud of the beer that we came up with. And we still have a long ways to go, and as far as spreading the word and getting more people to try these amazing beers. So I'm hands on, don't worry about me if I'm on the football, I'm gonna keep going.

[00:37:55] Steve Austin: I think one of the things like what you hear Steve talking about. in my opinion, is one of the reasons why the beer has had the longevity that it has. I mean, seven years on IPA, especially something that's like a celebrity endorsed beer. I mean, there's a few things to that staying power of that beer. I think, first of all, the beer stands on its own quality wise. I mean, I think that beer we would be making and doing well with, with or without a brand, because the beer is that good. But Steve's involvement and continued involvement in the brand And the fact that he actually gives a shit really, it is so much more than some of these, you know, celebrity endorsed things where it's somebody just slapping a name on and doing it. I mean, it was built to his taste. He takes ownership. And I always tell the story like, It's not out of the question if him and his wife are out and they see how to coach beer on shelves, I'll get a text from his wife and then we'll go talk to our sales guys to fix it. But I mean, that shows the kind of care that he takes. And then, you know, when you're talking about going forward, he says, whatever you need. I mean, that's not a joke. I mean, for me or my sales guys to be able, marketing guys to be able just to shoot him something over and say, Can you get this out? I mean, that happens all the time. So, you know, his passion for it and the relationship that we have is what makes this thing work so well.

[00:39:22] El Segundo: I'd love to tell a quick story about Steve Austin to point out that authenticity as well. I think Steve's love of these beers, like true love of these beers, is also one of the things that gives it staying power. And, you know, Steve comes around often enough to the brewery and to our pizza place, The Slice and Pint, And to stay in the shape Steve is in, he has to forego drinking IPA from time to time. And he came to visit one day at the Slice and Pint. He was on one of his dry periods, and they were picking up some pizza to go. And he said, Tom, pour me a half pint of IPA. And I poured him a pint, half pint, and I gave it to him. And I watched him take a sip of this beer. And by sip, he probably drank about three quarters of a half pint. in one draft and the smile that came on his face may only have been bigger when he was in the middle of the ring at Wrestlemania last week, smashing American loggers. Like you can just tell how much the man loves that beer, highlighted also by being dry for a period of time, I suppose. But when he says it's the best MIP in America, he 100% believes that. I do believe that.

[00:40:37] Jessica Infante: So Steve, you've been a prodigious beer drinker, but now that you're on the business side, like this industry is real weird. Like I've been in beer for 12 years and I feel like every day I learn something new that surprises me. What surprised you the most about being on this side of beer?

[00:40:52] Stone Cold: When we first started off with the Rubber Skull IPA, that was back in the day when 22-ounce bombers were kind of the in thing. And so there we were, the 22-ounce bombers, and then everybody was going into more cans. And just from learning, going from bombers, listening to Rob talk about cost, because Rob's a former accountant before he got into the craft beer business. It's kind of like a rocket scientist and talking about, you know, costs for packaging with four 16 ounce cans, you know, then talking about, you know, trying to get into a six pack format. So just learning, you know, what everything costs, how to go about it, production lines, can lines. Drinking beer is one thing, selling beer is a whole other thing.

[00:41:36] Justin Kendall: Rob and Tom, you guys mentioned too that, you know, getting into the lager market is a pretty challenging one because you know that you've got the major brands such as Miller Lite, Coors Light, Bud Light. Those are brands that are, as a small brewery, it's difficult to compete against. So what are the challenges beyond that of getting into that market?

[00:42:00] Steve Austin: it really does come back to the cost side. You have to compete so much more on cost, on price, on the logger side, because it's just the expectations of the public, you know, is a much lower price point for that. And there's just a reality that we need to deal with that, I mean, we're not that big a brewery. We probably could not make more than 9,000 barrels a year at El Segundo. For us to think that we're going to compete in a six-pack format on those prices just simply isn't real life. We make up a little bit of ground by doing the 416s, and then the reality of it is it's Steve's brand too, so we have that help with the pull-through, but we're conscious that we're never going to be able to compete with the big domestics on a price thing. we're pretty confident quality wise, the product that we're putting out and then with Steve's push on it too, that's the approach that we have to take, but we're never going to compete on just cost. I don't know, Tom, if you want to add more on the cost side.

[00:43:01] El Segundo: for me, you know, like ste comes from a financial ba a very good idea of what and where the risk reward side, I think it's to be d will say about the price p excited about it. A lot of The long term viability of it at a higher price point, I think, is what we'll have to see. I hope that people can say, look, this is a higher quality product and I'm willing to spend the money to get that. I mean, that's really how we've attacked the market in general. You know, we don't want to be a giant. brewery, you know, we're happy for the growth and we're happy to put out a very high quality product, but, you know, that comes with its costs. And so there's always going to be a place for the cheaper 12 packs, you know, like hopefully that those drinkers are like some, you know, occasionally they're happy to spend a little bit more money and drink a better lager.

[00:44:00] Steve Austin: There's also, you know, reality too, just the way the market works. I mean, we have gotten a couple of comments on price and if we're like 1199 or 1299 somewhere, you know, the reality is too, we're not even in double digit margin and that's real life. And if distro and retail's all taking over 30%, I mean, we can only give so much. I mean, I know that's the game we signed up for, but there's a, you can't squeeze, what's the saying? I can't squeeze any more blood out of that rock or turnip or whatever that's saying. And we don't have more to give.

[00:44:34] Justin Kendall: Steve, I see you shaking your head during this conversation. And I think the one thing that I've sort of taken away is like, you like that this is sort of a very personal project. It's something that you're proud of. You know, you don't necessarily seem concerned about, you know, blasting this out everywhere.

[00:44:54] Stone Cold: I'd like to be able to sell as much as we can of this. But like Rob was saying, as far as being in competition with the bigs, I respect the bigs. I respect their history, their lineage, their tradition, how long they've been around, and their beers. I mean, because millions of people love their beers. But realistically, as far as competition, are we ever going to sell as much as Bud Light? Hell no. I was walking the floor of Billy Bob's the other day. We did a beer release over there from Texas, which is where I'm from. And I was walking with the guy that runs Billy Bob's and just out of curiosity, because I knew he was going to say Bud Light. I said, hey man, what's your number one selling beer here? And he said, McUltra. I said, really? I said, I'll be damned. So I respect all those people. But what we wanted to do or what I wanted to do was give people an option if they want to get some craft beer, American Lager, try, you know, there we are. And it's great to sell as much as we can. But this is this is a passion project for me. You know, this is what Robin and I do for a living. You know, I do other things for a living. I want to be profitable. This is the passion project that I'm in love with. And I'll be swinging for another 20 years if that's what we've got in us. I love this beer. I really respect and love and cherish the friendships that I have with the guys and gals at El Segundo Brewing Company. And that's just the way I see it, man. It's a passion project. and I want everybody to do as well as possible, but I want to be a viable option for someone who wants to try. I'll put this beer head to head with anything on the market right now.

[00:46:36] Steve Austin: When I first got to know Steve, when we started talking about this project, we're very open book with everything. I was just, hey, here's the reality. You know, we're this We're kind of big for LA, I guess, but we're a small brewery. We're only going to be able to make so much beer, really. And I said, if you really want to leverage your brand, cash in on your brand or whatever, you really got to be talking to a regional or somebody a lot bigger. And his response was, nope. I just want to be part of a project that I'm proud of and make a really good beer. And so from that point, I mean, it wasn't a money thing for him at all. And to this day, I mean, There's never been a case to come back and say, hey, we need more production. We need both. That's not what it's about. It's just about putting out the good beer. I think he has a good feel for it. We are doing pretty much everything we can to get volume out there as we can. But we're still the same brewery that we were when we started.

[00:47:41] Justin Kendall: Steve, I wanted to circle back to something that I had to bring Jess and Zoe up to speed on this morning, which was the time you drove a Decrescenti Coors Light Truck to the ring and then hosed down The Rock and The McMahon, Shane and Vince. Just curious, you know, how was that pitch to you? And what do you remember about that experience?

[00:48:04] Stone Cold: Well, you know, living on the road back in those days was a pretty wild time. And, you know, a lot of times you get creative the day of. So I just remember, you know, arriving at the building and then somebody saying, Hey man, we're going to, you're going to drive a beer truck into the arena and you're going to, you know, hose down the rock. And, you know, out of that beer truck, you know, I bumped the ring with it, but you know, the first 30 gallons that came out was actual beer. And then it turned into water. So when you show up and you hear all the crazy shit that they've had me do, whether it was Zamboni's, beer trucks, you know, driving cement trucks, filling in a Corvette with cement, just, you know, totally a damn good Corvette, you know, we were able to do so much fun things that It's those moments that people will never forget. And that beer truck was one of them. And as I stood on top of that beer truck, delivering the go home promo for Rock for WrestleMania 15, it was a hell of a night at the office. And people just shit their pants because you don't see that every day. And that's the kind of stuff that we were doing on, you know, shit, it seemed like damn near every Monday night, we're doing something off the wall. And that's why the ratings were so high. And that's why, well, I got to give a lot of credit to the roster. We had a loaded roster with a lot of great creative, and we were just on a tear.

[00:49:29] Jessica Infante: What year was the beer truck hosing incident?

[00:49:33] Stone Cold: That had to be 97-ish, 97-98. But have you have you never seen that?

[00:49:39] Justin Kendall: I shared the YouTube video today with her.

[00:49:42] Stone Cold: He did. He did. It was quite a spectacle. And I've always told anybody, and I don't know why I have this talent, but, you know, from driving monster trucks, you know, I learned how to drive a monster truck 15 minutes before we went on live TV. You know, that Zamboni guy showed me how to run it. uh that cement truck it had those fold-down levers they didn't have a mark for me to hit when it's good when you're on live tv and the red lights on i'm your guy and so just being able to come through at crunch time and always deliver the goods has always been something that i prided myself on when it comes to live live tv and working with the wwe which is a super helpful skill in pitching beer so

[00:50:29] Justin Kendall: I would have loved to hear that pitch to, to de Crescenti. You're going to do what now you're going to drive what, and you're going to spray like that. That had to have been an amazing conversation for whoever had to have it with WWE and them.

[00:50:43] Stone Cold: But you know what's awesome is like when you see the reacts because you don't know what's going to happen. That's not something you practice. You do it on the spot, live. And then you don't know how it's going to shake out. And so I'm spraying Vince down and him being the ultimate promoter starts swimming on the mat, trying to get away. I'm spraying the rock down. And then at one time I was going to give myself a drink of beer. And that thing's on full throttle. So if you watch that back when I took that thing up to try to take a drink from it, I mean, it's pouring out the force of a fire hose. And I almost took myself out of the game just by blowing my head off of that frigging flow of beer and water. So it was amazing and I really had so much fun during my WWE career.

[00:51:32] Jessica Infante: So Steve, we've got an IPA, we've got a lager. Is there another style you'd like to see next on the Broken Skull line?

[00:51:39] Stone Cold: Man, it's so soon right now. I love that IPA. I love that American lager. Rob and them make a, they make a, I guess those are Barney wines, Rob. Standard Crude and Old Jetty. Those are amazing beers that come out with a dark, something dark, way, way, way down the road. five, six, seven, eight years. I mean, you could ask Rob that question, but for me right now, the focus remains on the IPA and the American Lager. I don't want to get greedy. I think two is enough to focus on and maintain the push and try to keep making the American Lager and the Broken Skull name and El Segundo Brewing Company a household name across the United States of America.

[00:52:25] Steve Austin: Yeah, I think giving our salespeople time to get their heads above water before we even start thinking about it. I mean, I know we have other beers Steve likes, but dude, let's deal with what's in front of us first.

[00:52:39] Stone Cold: Yeah, and you know, like, we never, like, it's funny when you talk about the bigs, you see how much revenue that they had to spend on advertising. You know, our advertising budget is pretty fucking slim.

[00:52:55] Steve Austin: It's word of mouth, it's Instagram, it's social media. Until you show up with a giant can on WrestleMania.

[00:53:03] Stone Cold: I love the way, I love our operation. It's the real deal, it's authentic. Rob stopped accounting because of his love for beer and he's a businessman and this is a business, but I'm just happy to be a part of it. And it's just fun. So let's just stick with these two for a while and get our shit straight and sell some beer.

[00:53:26] Justin Kendall: Well, final question for you, Steve. We know that WrestleMania is right in El Segundo's backyard next year. So are we going to see you in the ring again crushing Broken Skull after a match next year? Or is this, have you scratched that itch?

[00:53:42] Stone Cold: Well, you know. For me to participate in WrestleMania 38, if you'd have told me, hey man, you're going to be part of WrestleMania 38, not only that, you're going to main event night one, I would have said, you're full of shit and you're crazy. And there I was in Dallas, Texas, you know, headlining main event on day one. So never say never, but I would really imagine that within the scope of that show, that's going to be a big show in a big time city. And it'll be a two-night event again. So I'm not, you know, I'm sure I'm done wrestling per se. But as a part of the, you know, as part of WWE, I can't imagine that I would not be there in some capacity. And I'm not gonna, I'm not saying, I'm not booking myself on the show, because I didn't book myself on 38. That's a Vince thing. And I have a great relationship with him. And if I get the call, I'll be there.

[00:54:42] Justin Kendall: Awesome. Well, Steve, Rob, Tom, we can't thank you guys enough for taking the time out to talk us through all this.

[00:54:49] Steve Austin: Thank you so much for having us.

[00:54:51] Stone Cold: This is great, man. Thanks for having us put the word out there. You know, we, we, you know, I advertise and budget's pretty slim and, uh, we're all proud of the beer and it is a business, you know, but I'm, I'm proud to be associated with these guys and we're just trying to do the best we can. And it's, it's, uh, you know, It's a passion project for all of us, but nonetheless, it is business. We're doing the best we can, and we're proud of the products that we put out.

[00:55:18] Justin Kendall: Absolutely. Our pleasure. Thanks again, guys. With that, we'll say that's our show for this week. Thanks to our one-man audio team, Joe. Thanks to Jess and Zoe, and thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week.