Brewbound Podcast: Strategies for Opening Additional Taprooms and Retail Outlets

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: 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. We deep dive into strategies for opening additional taproom and retail outlets next on the Brewbound Podcast. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. My name is Justin Kendall and I am the editor of Brewbound and I am joined by Jessica Infante, the managing editor of Brewbound. How are you doing, Jess?

[00:00:59] Brewbound Podcast: I'm good, Justin. How are you?

[00:01:01] Jessica Infante: I'm doing well. It's good to see you. Glad you are back fully in action.

[00:01:06] Brewbound Podcast: I think so. It's good to be back.

[00:01:09] Jessica Infante: Also returning is Zoe Licata, Brewbound reporter extraordinaire, Generation Z consultant, fresh back from vacation. Well rested is probably a stretch.

[00:01:22] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I don't know how rested I am after a week-long vacation. Yes, I technically just landed back in Boston. I don't even know how many hours, six hours, five, five hours ago as we're recording this.

[00:01:40] Jessica Infante: This is dedication. This is your dedication to the cause.

[00:01:44] Brewbound Podcast: Well, I left you guys for like 10 days. Like it was a long time. So jumping right back into things. You did nothing of the sort, Zoe, but you had a vacation. How was it? It was great. It was lovely. Yes. I was in California for basically a full week. I had a wedding of a friend from college out in Los Gatos, which is like basically San Jose. and it was a Thursday wedding, so we just turned it into a full week's vacation. Went to San Francisco for a couple days, then hung out in Los Gatos, and then went down to middle of nowhere California, a town called Lemoore, to visit my boyfriend Lawrence's father. Lots of driving. We went to Yosemite while we were in Lemoore because it's nearby, which was gorgeous. Incredible. Yeah. Loved it. And I felt like we saw so much that we really only saw a tiny, tiny fraction of the entire park. So definitely will have to go back. Overall, great trip. Did a lot of things. Definitely need a nap.

[00:02:48] Jessica Infante: From your field report, what was everybody drinking?

[00:02:51] Brewbound Podcast: At the wedding, it was an open bar, but there was no spirits except for a rum punch cocktail. So we had beer, wine options. A lot of rosé was consumed by many and a lot of Coronas is what I saw the most on the beer side. And then we went to a little after party after the wedding at this local bar and they had a lot of craft going on there. I had a nice pupil from society, which I was excited to see. They had like a sour from modern times. They had like a kind of random assortment of things, but it was awesome. Nice.

[00:03:30] Jessica Infante: Well, this week's episode, we are going to feature one of Brew Talks conversations from earlier this month on expanding taproom and retail locations. Our panelists include... Actually, it was last month. I am so out of whack at this point.

[00:03:46] Brew Talks: Well, it's the very end of last month.

[00:03:48] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. So this conversation will feature White Lion founder Ray Berry and Medusa Brewing Director of Business Operations Sarah Lee, Castle Island founder Adam Romanow, and Boston Beer Senior Director of Local Brands and Taprooms Scott Hempstead. That was a conversation that I had the fortune of hosting and we get to share it with all of you here and we'll probably share more as it goes. But you can also watch the conversations on Brewbound.com. With that, let's hop into the news. And you're just fresh back from California. And how did you like the Voodoo Ranger IPA Action Park? Did you stop over there?

[00:04:31] Brewbound Podcast: I did not make it over there. I can't say that I did. Yeah, you guys are going to have to catch me up on everything that's happened in beer because I have purposely been ignoring everything. But coming back and seeing some more news on this venture park was, I can't say it was on my bingo card for my return.

[00:04:49] Jessica Infante: I don't think it was on either of our bingo cards. I know that they got a lot of impressions. And I am a big fan of what they've done with the Voodoo Ranger brand. But this one, I just do not understand the payoff.

[00:05:02] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, you know, like we got a press release about this weeks ago, months ago. Yeah, time doesn't mean anything anymore. It feels like it would have fit in well on April 1st, but we all know how the three of us feel about press releases sent on that day. Yep. But it seems like, you know, they announced it. They said they're going to build an action, like an amusement park. They were calling the action, like the Voodoo Ranger Action Park, which I don't know, like I am from New Jersey. So when you say action park, I think of a very specific location that was profiled in an HBO Max documentary that I feel like everybody has seen.

[00:05:41] Jessica Infante: Yeah, one of the most dangerous action parks out there, I believe, was like the theme of that, right?

[00:05:49] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, yeah. We, I've never been, we can talk about this offline for sure, but my late dad was an attorney and he had so many clients that got injured there that I really, I think Action Park is how I was able to go to private school.

[00:06:04] Jessica Infante: But this one, they were just trolling the people of Napa, right?

[00:06:08] Brewbound Podcast: Exactly. And the people of Napa understood the assignment. So what our friends at New Belgium have released was a video of the local on the ground reaction to their announcement of this giant IPA action park. And it's what you would expect. It's like, you know, the people of Napa out protesting and holding signs and obviously denigrating beer and just generally being snobby and like I feel like this kind of prank would have made sense 10 years ago. I would like to think that all of us have been able to move on beyond the the beer versus wine people debate but apparently we needed to come back and and stoke the flames there a little bit more. Also, I feel like we have so many other things to legitimately be an uproar about or like concerned about that I feel like we don't need to add any like fake outrage things to our mind space and digital space. Right? Miss me with this. I'm kind of over it.

[00:07:08] Jessica Infante: Yeah, we don't have to give it much more oxygen. But I mean, it's just the payoff just wasn't there for me. I expected like a new beer, a variety pack, anything to come out of it that would have had an ending other than we got a bunch of press and we messed with these folks.

[00:07:27] Brewbound Podcast: Look at these angry wine snobs lol.

[00:07:31] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Speaking of outrage and this one I think lit a fuse for a few folks within the craft beer space. Ball had an earnings call last week which I covered and They are planning to close two can manufacturing plants, one in Phoenix and one in St. Paul, and they're gonna delay construction by six to nine months on a new facility in North Las Vegas. And they had a lot of thoughts on their customers raising price ahead of inflation, but Ball is also not afraid to raise prices itself. They touted some escalators in the contracts of their clients and Yeah, no word on how many employees are going to be affected at those two plants, other than an NPR, Minnesota Public Radio, I believe that's what it is, reported that it's 110 workers in St. Paul and no word on Phoenix.

[00:08:31] Brewbound Podcast: And those are old plants, right? Like they were built in the 60s and 70s. So, you know, with the can shortage that's been going on since 2020, Ball has announced the construction of several new facilities to make cans. It's not closing any one of the new plants. These are very old plants. You have to assume they probably would have put them out to pasture anyway, but yeah, you got some pretty, they read pretty incendiary comments from, you know, the Ball leadership.

[00:08:59] Jessica Infante: They lay this pretty squarely at the feet of the customers. This is CEO, Daniel Fisher. So you're getting to a point now where year over year, you're looking at 20%, almost 30% price increases in some of these products. That absolutely has an impact on discretionary and consumer buying. And we're looking at that and we're making adjustments. We're optimizing our footprint. This is a near term balance for us. He highlighted that basically alcohol sales are down and the customers are chasing price versus chasing volume. And that's led to zero growth for Ball and those products. It's just a complete narrative flip from being oversold and instituting new printed can minimums for customers by the truckload. And they're not going to run back to those customers, I don't think, because that's all about efficiency.

[00:10:04] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I was just going to ask, do we think they'll walk back any of those policies? But those policies affect their tiniest customers who, like you said, are not the most efficient for them to serve.

[00:10:16] Jessica Infante: Yeah. CFO Scott Morrison said Ball was building inventories for what we thought would be a more robust season here in North America that didn't show up. Bummer news, and yes, a lot of people lighting up Ball on Twitter, at least in my comments.

[00:10:35] Brewbound Podcast: The thing that's interesting to me is that I feel like we've been having this conversation so much about how beer is not rising at the same rate as inflation. So it's just interesting to hear Mr. Ball say this. And I know that's not his name, but...

[00:10:50] Jessica Infante: Well, and beer is only part of what they do, but yeah, I mean, it seemed like that's where the finger pointing was coming from. You know, when you're a publicly traded company, everybody's got to answer to shareholders and there's got to be a reason for not quite getting where you want to be. Let's get to Boston Beer and Beam are going to release Twisted Tea, Sweet Tea, Whiskey.

[00:11:20] Brewbound Podcast: It's happening. Yeah.

[00:11:22] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I'm so excited.

[00:11:24] Brewbound Podcast: You sound excited.

[00:11:26] Jessica Infante: I'm not. I might be the least excited. This is not aimed at me. I'm probably more excited for Tito's empty can.

[00:11:35] Brewbound Podcast: I am old enough to remember when Twisted Tea launched a bourbon barrel flavored Twisted Tea. That was the tea. I mean, no bourbon was involved, obviously, but it was the bourbon flavoring. And that didn't last too long. I want to say it had a lifespan of maybe two years. as just like a tea variant. But yeah, last summer when Boston Beer and Beam announced this partnership last July, they hinted at something exactly like this. So here we are, this is the third product to come out of that JV that those two companies have going on. The first being truly flavored vodka, and the second being Sousa tequila branded agave FMV cocktails. So here we are with Twisky. I am not an art critic. The package to me looks rather down market and perhaps that's what they're aiming for. But yeah, I mean, it'll be available in a range of bottle sizes, including the teeny tiniest 50 milliliter guys up to one liter and obviously 750 in, you know, in between there. But yeah, it's another example of the lines blurring between all sorts of BevAlc categories.

[00:12:51] Jessica Infante: 32.5% ABV, 65 proof, 50 milliliter, 750 milliliter, and one liter bottles. Not sold in Iowa, so you guys will have to drink all of it in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri. I guess I could cross the Missouri border to maybe buy some, and then Texas.

[00:13:13] Brewbound Podcast: Those are a random collection of states to me. Yeah. When I saw this, it reminded me of everyone last year was really into deep eddy lemonade vodka, and they also have a sweet tea vodka. It's very similar, like very sweet flavored liquor, but it's, you know, it's a spirit, but it doesn't necessarily have that traditional flavor. And it was very popular. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's because the lemonade went viral on TikTok last summer. But if it can have that similar effect, then I think it will do well, but TBD if that happened. How were people drinking that? Was it over ice by itself? Was it mixed with seltzer? It was mainly straight up. You could add it as a mixture if you wanted to have some extra fun. But yeah, the whole appeal of the D-Betty was, you know, you can just drink this and it doesn't taste like you're just drinking spirits. Well, and that might be the case here because this is made real brewed tea and lemon flavoring. Yeah. We'll see what happens. I'm sorry to have taken a cheap shot at how cheap the bottle looks. That was rude, but to each their own, I guess. Another Boston Beer partnership that has hit some, some speed bumps.

[00:14:35] Jessica Infante: Not a partnership.

[00:14:37] Brewbound Podcast: Oh, sorry. That's right. We don't like the word partnership.

[00:14:40] Jessica Infante: The partnership is out now.

[00:14:42] Brewbound Podcast: Oh, okay.

[00:14:44] Jessica Infante: I don't know what you want to call it. A distribution agreement between a supplier and a wholesaler.

[00:14:51] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah. Oh boy. What we're dancing around here is a hard Mountain Dew, which comes into the world through a process by which the Boston Beer Company licenses the intellectual property from PepsiCo, which owns and makes mountain, you know, non elk Mountain Dew. They produce hard Mountain Dew, and then they sell it back to Pepsi, which distributes it. through its blue cloud distributing network, which is hitting a couple snags because this is a strange situation that many states have never seen before and they don't really know how to regulate it. For example, recently, you know, over the spring, the state of Nevada was having a hard time with this and said, you know, technically this seems like something that can't happen. But then, I guess it got cleared because hard Mountain Dew rolled out in Las Vegas.

[00:15:45] Jessica Infante: That's in the city, you know.

[00:15:47] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I guess so.

[00:15:48] Jessica Infante: Ain't no laws when you're drinking hard Dew, right?

[00:15:52] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. That's the phrase.

[00:15:55] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I think somebody had a better version of that somewhere, but they also ran into a snag in Georgia as well as our friends at Beer Business Daily reported and beer marketers and sites for that matter.

[00:16:07] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah. And I mean, you guys covered the Boston Beer Earnings Call. CEO Dave Berwick said that they are going to not hit their depletions goal for this product because they're just unable to get it out to as many places as they would have liked. Yeah, they moved a significant portion of the states they wanted to open this year has been moved to 2023 because they just haven't been able to figure out that distribution yet.

[00:16:30] Jessica Infante: Well, this is something that you've asked about, at least I know well before this, whether they would alter plans in the states where they did hit snags, and we didn't really get any answers as to whether that would happen. And it seems like that isn't something that they're looking at, at least this year.

[00:16:48] Brewbound Podcast: Right yeah we had heard rumors that it was potentially being pitched to you know existing beer wholesalers but never heard any confirmation from them one way or the other and that seems to be abandoned right now as a plan. But there are big questions that haven't really been answered about this. In the world of non-alcoholic beverage sales, particularly big soda sales, slotting fees are a common practice. And those are wholly illegal on the alcoholic side of the world here. So what happens when a company that does pay those slotting fees, and that's how they conduct their business as they are legally allowed to do, Ben wants to sell an alcoholic beverage. Is the retailer supposed to completely forget? Like, oh yes, your company does pay me to put some stuff on shelves, but we're going to act like that completely does not happen, and now let's have a completely pure and chaste conversation about your alcoholic beverages. I don't know. Nobody's really been able to answer that.

[00:17:46] Jessica Infante: They've gone about this in what is seemingly the hardest way possible, the most onerous way of getting this thing to market.

[00:17:56] Brewbound Podcast: And you have to assume that Pepsi has future plans for other alcoholic beverages, because why on earth would you try to build a beer wholesaler network from scratch just to sell one thing?

[00:18:09] Jessica Infante: Their CEO has said as much on earnings calls, which takes us to another earnings call, which was Monster finally revealed plans that they're going to release an FMB 6% ABV, The Beast Unleashed, not really using the Monster brand, but using the Monster brand.

[00:18:28] Brewbound Podcast: I mean, this is as close as you can probably get.

[00:18:31] Jessica Infante: Yeah.

[00:18:32] Brewbound Podcast: The Beast Unleashed. What a name.

[00:18:36] Jessica Infante: It's coming out in Q4.

[00:18:37] Brewbound Podcast: All right. Honestly, I would expect nothing less. I'm like, of course they would have something called the Beast Unleashed.

[00:18:46] Jessica Infante: So 16 ounce single serve cans, 12 can variety pack and 12 ounce cans. No word on flavors from what I can tell and nationally distributed by the end of 2023. And they're probably likely to use some of CanArchie's wholesalers, right?

[00:19:08] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I'm sure. And 60% is an interesting choice to me. I feel like lately everybody in this space is 5% or lower, No, it's like weirdly walking the line between not actually deciding if you want to be in that 5% space or be more in the target, those higher ABV searching consumers. Yeah. And maybe those consumers are who they're going after. So Godspeed to them. They're clearly not looking for the late thirties married woman demographic. And that's why this is not, it's not jumping out to me. It's something that must be in my fridge immediately.

[00:19:42] Jessica Infante: And it's likely to be probably familiar monster flavors, which I am completely wholly unfamiliar with.

[00:19:51] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I can't say I'm consuming monster ever. I was going to say often, but I don't, I don't think ever. The world of energy drinks to me is mystifying. It's a whole culture. Yeah. I do remember like when I was in college, somebody, one of the guys at the frat house next door to my sorority house had a hookup and all of a sudden they had three pallets of Rockstar. Oh, boy. Right. And like, we were like buddies with them. So like, I do remember like, suffering through a couple all nighters, because I was not good at time management. And, you know, texting me like, Hey, put it on the porch, and I'll come get it.

[00:20:31] Jessica Infante: Do those Mini Coopers still exist with the Red Bull can on them or whatever they were?

[00:20:37] Brewbound Podcast: They drive around Cambridge all the time. And then they have their, um, there's always some young women walking around with their backpacks, giving out cans of Red Bull. of Red Bull, yep, they would always stop by when I worked in Harvard Square, they would stop by and give us whatever they had left so they could leave and end their shifts. So we always had ample supply of Red Bull. Literally a tactic they've been deploying for 20 years because The summer before I went to college, I worked at a bagel shop and the Red Bull team like came in and that was the first time I had tried it. And I didn't, I don't know, I was just a sweet little summer child and was like, why am I so jittery? This is weird.

[00:21:21] Jessica Infante: A product that may not make you jittery, other than being jittery to get on the quirk boat Quirk Boulevard Brewing Company's hard seltzer brand was, or maybe still is, the number one hard seltzer brand in Kansas City for the last eight weeks. It's expected to be a quarter of Boulevard's sales by the end of the year. Not bad.

[00:21:47] Brewbound Podcast: good for them. You know, I will say like, I am totally wrong here. I had really thought like, okay, these little, not little, but like regional seltzer brands, they're okay for now, but I don't see them having staying power. But like, I'm happy to be wrong on this one. Looks like these guys are really making it work for them.

[00:22:07] Jessica Infante: It is surprising though, because for so long, White Claw and Truly had upwards of 70-75% of the hard seltzer market, and then you throw in AB, and they had 10%. I mean, not that they're a small company, but Molson Coors has really come on and they're claiming share. Sonics going national. You've got Quirk with a different strategy of, I feel ridiculous saying this, and I felt ridiculous writing this, but in their quirkdom of like Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, and parts of Oklahoma, they're doing really well.

[00:22:51] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I mean, I think you know your territory and you know. you know, where the openings are there, and you can really make it work. I mean, I think that the national conversation about the downturn of hard seltzer in general has probably opened up a lot of doors. So, you know, a sales rep could go into an account and say, hey, like, I'm sure your white claw and your truly sales are down, but we've got this local product with local roots, and we think it has the ability to appeal to your customers. Listen to me being an inauthentic marketing personality. One thing that Bobby told you is really working for them is the way that they recommend their flavors being served.

[00:23:31] Jessica Infante: The draught flavor, yeah. Over ice.

[00:23:33] Brewbound Podcast: Over ice. That is huge. I think that has a lot to do with why seltzer on tap has had a few stutter starts is that nobody really knows how to serve it. And just pouring straight seltzer into a pint glass is not really that appealing. I think you need to be over ice with a straw, maybe some garnishes. And that really helps people feel like they're not drinking a glass of bubble water. You're having a drink. When we were in Minneapolis and we had some fruit smash over ice, that was like the first time I'd had a seltzer like that and it was delicious. Yeah, world of difference. Yeah. And it felt more appropriate to be out at a bar drinking it like that than just, you know, a hard seltzer as is. Yeah. But the best part about the Quirk story is how they've been able to do sampling activations this summer. Justin, why don't you tell Zoe what they do?

[00:24:28] Jessica Infante: They have a boat in the lake of the Ozarks and they go around and they sample folks.

[00:24:34] Brewbound Podcast: So do you get invited onto the boat to try it or do they just pull up to wherever you're at?

[00:24:39] Jessica Infante: I think they pull up. I think they roll up to you or not roll up, float up to you.

[00:24:43] Brewbound Podcast: I mean, I'm all for just the free delivery of some hard seltzer. That sounds wonderful.

[00:24:50] Jessica Infante: Yeah, well, sampling was such a challenge for so long. I mean, the opportunity here, you've got all these vacationing people who are coming from Iowa or Kansas or Missouri or Arkansas to the Lake of the Ozarks or even other places. And you're basically inundated with Quirk Hard on the way there. And when you get there, you got a quirk boat floating around. Genius.

[00:25:18] Brew Talks: Yeah, I like it.

[00:25:19] Jessica Infante: working for the weekend. That's what it says on the back of the boat.

[00:25:24] Brewbound Podcast: I feel like, you know, a bar boat with the right safety guard rails could be a wonderful thing, as the Boulevard and Quirk team has demonstrated.

[00:25:35] Jessica Infante: All right, well, that's probably enough news for now, because we got to get back to reporting news. So let's get to our featured conversation. So we're going to jump right into our next panel here and call out our next panelist Price is Right style, it seems. So everybody's expanding in some way, it seems like, in this state. And we wanted to sort of focus on the strategies behind that. So let's get some of the folks who are doing the work up here. Ray Berry, the founder of White Lion Brewing in Springfield, come on down. You're going to spin the Perkin Elmer wheel, too, when we're done here. So Sarah Lee, the director of brewing operations at Medusa Brewing in Hudson. Come on down. Adam Romanow, the founder of Castle Island Brewing in Norwood. Looking like a fighter pilot. And also Scott Hempstead, Senior Director of Local Brands and Taprooms for Boston Beer Company. Come on down. So we are psyched to have all four of you here. Let's get going here. So this is going to sound like an obvious question, but I think it's one that has a lot of purpose. Why are you expanding? And Sarah, you really dove into something deeper on this, which is, you know, it's important to look beyond just the here and now of these expansions. It's, you know, what's it going to look like in 5, 10, 15 years down the road? Can you dive a little deeper into that?

[00:27:28] Brewbound Podcast: Yeah, I think anytime a Brew Talks about expansion or a second location or any type of new kind of business venture, it's really important to think out some of those clear objectives as to why you're doing so. Is it filling a cash flow situation? Is it a hiring situation? Is it a demand for more inventory situation? And have you exhausted all your means within your current structure to do so? And if not, then what does that benefit that second location do for your benefit? Because those questions, and sometimes the answers to those questions, while they do change, if you don't have those first set of clear objectives, you don't have buy in, you don't have communication, you don't have transparency, you don't have a lot of the fundamental things that you need in order to feel like when you are moving forward, and that ball is rolling, and you cannot stop it. something to kind of anchor yourself down in and say, this is why we opened. Let's go back to kind of our shared core values, what that looks like, and make sure that those are all in check so that in 10 years, in 15, in however long your objective, you know, goal is, it stays relevant to your cause and what you're trying to do. So I just don't think that that is talked about enough. So I just wanted to really talk about that.

[00:28:38] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I see you nodding your head, Adam. Give us your take for Castle Island and why it's important for you to expand in that way.

[00:28:46] White Lion: I mean, we opened a second location in South Boston recently. Got tired of answering the question, why is Castle Island in Norwood not stealthy? No, in seriousness, though, our customers are already living and eating and drinking and going out to party in an urban environment. And we're physically located, or we were physically located, 20 miles outside of that environment in the burbs. Norwood's been a great place to call home for the last six and a half years. We wanted to build awareness for the brand. We wanted a bigger megaphone. We wanted to put an outpost in our core consumer's backyard. And we had a phenomenal opportunity to do that with a great storytelling element that really allowed us to kind of double down on the brand without cannibalizing existing business. So for us, it was purely about growth and visibility.

[00:29:33] Jessica Infante: Ray, you've got a second location coming to Amherst. Give us the decision tree for you on that.

[00:29:39] Medusa Brewing: So originally when we went from a beer brand to a brick and mortar location in downtown Springfield, the framework of the business model included resources for us to either expand outside the state or look for a second location. So as we got through the first round of the brick and mortar right in the heart of downtown Springfield, there was an opportunity, an ongoing conversation by officials in the town of Amherst while we were building out Springfield. They were very much interested in what we were doing from a brand perspective, from a community engagement perspective. and from a cultural perspective. And so once we realized that realization downtown, it just accelerated the conversation. And then internally we decided to take those resources that were parked and look at a second brick and mortar. And there's a lot of similarities, and we'll get to that later on in the questioning, but there's a lot of similarities between the footprint of downtown Amherst and the footprint that we currently reside in in downtown Springfield.

[00:30:47] Jessica Infante: Hempy, Boston Beer is a little bit bigger than these guys, just a little. So how do you make decisions for the brands? Because I'm curious, because you've got a lot of different things you're playing with. You've got a Dogfish Head location in Miami. You've got a Truly Seltzeria in Los Angeles. So when you're looking at the forecast of 2, 5, 10 years down the road for these locations, how do you sort of view that?

[00:31:16] Castle Island: Well, you know, our view on it and sort of our strategy is to kind of go to where the drinkers are going and finding these places where we can create immersive experiences for our brands. Our sites are really kind of targeted. They're a major part of our development in terms of what's next. So kind of the why on how we make that decision is a lot based on sort of the consumer experience and going where it's easy for people to go. So that kind of drives kind of the way we think about it.

[00:31:45] Jessica Infante: So Adam, I want to circle back to you. When you're looking to add another location, what are the top factors in your decision tree and on the places and spaces that you're looking to go?

[00:31:59] White Lion: Geography for us was number one. As I mentioned earlier, getting closer to where our consumers actually live, work, and play was the top priority. But we were also looking for a space with authenticity. We were looking for a space with some runway. For anyone who's been to our location, right now it's on a little bit of an island right in the middle of the city, but there's a really awesome plan that our landlord and a couple other developers have built out that really is going to transform that neighborhood over the next several years. And we're kind of a key building block in that. So for us, it was about a spot that felt right, a spot that really fit what we were looking for today, but also sets us on a nice, sustainable path going forward.

[00:32:37] Jessica Infante: Ray, we talked about that Amherst space. Tell me about the decisions there as far as what you're looking for in a place, in a space. And I think there's something special, too, to that with the partnership that you have with Marcus Camby, with NBA legend, UMass legend.

[00:32:54] Medusa Brewing: It sounds kind of cliche, but it really does come down for us to location, location, location. We built our brewery and brand on being in the downtown or being part of a downtown business district environment, whether it's corporate, nonprofit, philanthropic, educational institutions. So by having that aspect right in the middle of downtown, it gives us an opportunity to touch not only the Springfield community, but because we're a gateway city, it allows folks from outside the area to come in and experience what we do. So when we were looking at the second location, it was important for that to be in place. It was important for the city or town to have a strong downtown environment. Both cities or both towns have a strong business improvement district. The role and goal of the business improvement district is to encourage business development, economic development, creative programming, and we witnessed that in downtown Springfield. And we knew that the leadership in Amherst, the town leadership, the business improvement district leadership, the restaurant role that we were part of, there was somewhat of a renaissance taking place similar to what was taking place several years ago in the city of Springfield. A new beginning, a new cleansing, and we wanted to be part of that conversation.

[00:34:08] Jessica Infante: And they were really coming after you, right?

[00:34:10] Medusa Brewing: For several years. So again, all through the pandemic, we were building out our brick and mortar in downtown, and they were in our ear every step of the way. And getting back to the strategic partnership with Marcus Canby, that helps. Marcus is a brand in itself. He put the University of Massachusetts on the map relative to Division I basketball, and he continues to want to make an impact in the UMass Amherst community. So it was a good strategic partnership.

[00:34:43] Jessica Infante: Sarah, you've had quite a bit of experience with opening locations across your career. Tell us about the decisions that sort of go into that, that you've seen throughout that experience.

[00:34:54] Brewbound Podcast: I think it's easier almost to answer that question with the things that I don't see, because I think there's a lot of things that people expect, like, oh, this location's really great, we've done the data, the demographics are there, the income bracket is there, et cetera, et cetera. I think the thing that people underestimate probably the most is quantifying what your culture means. I really sometimes hate that word because I really do think it's become this kind of meaningless buzzword at this point. But whatever that means for you, make sure you kind of have that down operationally. That's a lot of things. Operations, in my mind, I am the director of operations, so I might be a little biased here, but operations provide strategic flexibility. You can't be flexible. You can't make those spontaneous decisions if you don't have, you know, a system and a process down. And I think quantifying culture into that and what that means to you, what are your shared values, and making sure you're transparent about that. That transparency goes not only to your employees, it goes to sponsorship, it goes to brand ambassadors, it goes to your retailers, your distributors. Knowing what you're doing, what that plan means for you, who you are. I think people kind of lose sight of that because you get busy, you get bogged down in the details, you get bogged down in the day-to-day and all of a sudden your budget's much higher and production's slower. it's so easy to get caught on that. But as long as you have that foundational kind of this is my strategy, this is my operation, this is what this means for my team, and make sure that everyone has that buy in, especially your team, because they are the ones who are going to carry you across that finish line and forward, making sure that that is quantified and built into your operations in a very strategic way. And I feel like I am using a lot of like, just buzzwords right now, but it really does come down to just making sure you have that buy-in, transparency within your team, and just making sure that everyone knows what's going on, how we're going to do it, so you have everyone on board. That really gets lost a lot of times when another location pops up.

[00:36:55] Jessica Infante: Hempy, you made the switch from sales to operations and Sarah just sort of broke down her view of operations and the changes there. Now that you've got eyes on that different part of the business, what are your key learnings for that on opening these spaces?

[00:37:10] Castle Island: Well, first off, after 20 some odd years in sales, I've noticed how fucking hard it is to run these places. I have an incredible amount of respect for all of my co-panelists over here. It's been eye-opening for me to get on the other side of the fence and sort of understand what it's like to sell brands directly out of our breweries. We have Coney Island, we have Dogfish Head, you know, we have Angel City, obviously Samuel Adams. And, you know, one of the things that's kind of blown me away is just how important it is to know who you are and what you're looking to do with your brand and where you want to be. And, you know, when you go to a wholesaler after years of working for Boston Beer and Sales, We have some big mega brands where you go ask for some big things from, you know, Truly and other brands that we have. But we also have segments of our business that are so important to really just be really thoughtful about, you know, what you asked for and where you want it to go. That's sort of like been a big headline for me.

[00:38:13] Jessica Infante: Ray, when you're choosing a location, how do you weigh the price paid for being in a more densely populated area versus one that may be in a cheaper outlier place? Less populated place.

[00:38:27] Medusa Brewing: I know there's a couple Amherst folks in the audience and Western Mass folks in the audience that are familiar with the greater Amherst area. Amherst is basically a 10-month, 11-month community because of the institutions, Amherst College, UMass, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith. It was important for us to be part of that downtown environment. I can't stress that enough. We wanted to be part of the foot traffic, the vehicle traffic. And one of the other key decision-maker points was our brewer. cut his teeth in Amherst. He brewed at Amherst Brewing. The location that we're going in is a location that once housed Amherst and another beer brand and he had an opportunity to brew out of that space. So he's very much familiar with the greater Amherst Northampton community. Obviously numbers always come into play. We go back and look internally on what the best approach is, and we follow our own internal guidelines whether or not we're gonna pull the trigger or not. And we felt that based off of the environment that we were going in, based off of what we knew, that it was the best deal for us.

[00:39:35] Jessica Infante: Adam, I'm guessing South Boston isn't very cheap. You talked at the top of the show about going where the people are. So tell us a little bit about that decision.

[00:39:45] White Lion: We were already in a less expensive market with our Norwood location. We did that deliberately because we launched as a wholesale only brand. We opened without a tap room in 2015. One of the dumbest things we've done, but we fixed that problem. So at the time, pairing a manufacturing operation with a low rent market made sense. Going at a selfie was the complete opposite side of the coin. It was all about the experience. It was all about on premise. It was all about bringing consumers into our space. We basically built the model knowing up front that it was going to be a ridiculously expensive market for us to get into. We negotiated the best possible lease we could with our landlord. I think we did all right, but it's still crazy expensive, especially when you hold our Norwood rent check in one hand and the Southie rent check in the other hand. You're like, wait, but it's less space. That doesn't make sense. But it was deliberate on our part. It was baked into our plan from day one, so it's working.

[00:40:38] Jessica Infante: Sarah, when you're working with brewery owners through these decisions, how do you advise them when there's a higher priced, higher population place versus lower priced, lower population place or higher?

[00:40:53] Brewbound Podcast: I think being in between Ray and Adam right now is like a great example, just kind of seeing the different, it's all subjective at the end of the day, and it really ultimately came down to what were their fundamentals, what was kind of what they were searching for. You know, Adam said, like they've always been looking for that space. They always knew they wanted to go into kind of the city. And Ray has talked about what Amr has brought to his company. And it's still, it's very much in line with kind of his core values for what he was looking for. And that kind of forecasts how they have made the decisions to be in the locations they're at. Like Medusa Brewing, we just opened a second, sort of Belgian beer, oak footer, you know, barrel conditioning tap room. And that was for a completely different set of reasons. We're just right down the road from our old brewery. So we get that question a lot of why right down the road, and it captures a whole different market. And it's a whole different kind of beer. And it's a completely different consumer experience. And what does that mean for our brand? And it ultimately came down to who like what we believed, which is ultimately in making great beer and providing like a safe space of fellowship. And so I think it really just comes down to there's no real right reason to necessarily go into a more or densely populated or not as densely populated area. It ultimately comes down to what are you looking for as your brand? What is your company looking for? What are your core values? How do you make that into an operational decision so that, again, you can have that flexibility to decide, do we want to move into Amherst or do we want to move into Boston?

[00:42:31] Jessica Infante: When these announcements come, they're not always well-received by wholesalers or retailers. So, Hempy, how do you sell your wholesalers and retailers when you're opening up a new space?

[00:42:45] Castle Island: You know, honestly, the most recent one was Truly L.A. And our wholesaler there at Reyes Beer Division, they weren't very supportive. You know, we're really kind of, our sites just help propel the brand and bring in an immersive experience for our drinkers to try new things. And really, there's no way that the wholesaler is often going to be able to work with some of the styles that we sell. So we don't use any like costs as guardrails as we innovate. We just we do crazy things inside of our sites that the distributor is never going to see. We have a pickle Lee and Boston Taproom right now. You either love it or you hate it. But, you know, I don't see us going to the wholesaler to go try it out. We have a beer called Covered in Nugs, which is a IPA that we brew in Delaware. Brian Selders worked with Sam Calzioni on this beer. It is our number one seller every month in and out. There is no way we can distribute that beer. Economics don't work. So I'd say generally speaking, the wholesalers are supportive of our efforts and see the value in the brand and what they get from a marketing standpoint out of the sites.

[00:43:58] Jessica Infante: Sarah, can you share a little bit about your experience on this, on proving that it's a brand building opportunity?

[00:44:07] Brewbound Podcast: I think our biggest retailer in the state of Massachusetts is maybe two miles down the road from our brewery, which is crazy because the brewery is right there. I think that is just kind of a great example. Thankfully, we have an incredible director of sales Katrina Schrabo over there who just does a great job. But a big part of that is just showing people, you know, this is what we're about. This is what our brand is about. And just being transparent and keeping those retailers and distributors in that conversation and just letting them know like this is what our intent is. This is what we want to do. Keeping that line of communication open so that people understand that you're just trying to help the brand. You're not trying to take away from their business. You're keeping that conversation open about what they might need versus what you might need and how you can figure out where those two things align. So again, you're It's less about selling your beer because your beer now at this point is one of hundreds on the shelf. It's about selling who you are and what you are trying to achieve and making sure you have as much buy-in as possible. And again, it's just more of those strategies that I think people miss out on.

[00:45:13] Jessica Infante: Adam, how do you make the case to your wholesalers and retailers on this?

[00:45:17] White Lion: Yeah, I think adding to what's already been said, we really lean on the data to help us tell the story. And we did it in Norwood when we opened our taproom in 2017. We've done it in Southie when we opened our taproom last September. We give our wholesalers our depletion data. We give our retailers the rate of sale data. And we say, look, you guys are getting lift out of this. We're getting lift out of this. The point was to grow the brand. Here's the data to show you that it's working. It's really easy to overcome objections when you have data to back it up.

[00:45:45] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that seems to help a little bit. Ray, have you experienced this with Whiteline?

[00:45:50] Medusa Brewing: Our model's a little bit different than my three co-panelists. We self-distro.

[00:45:56] Jessica Infante: That's an easy conversation with your wholesaler.

[00:45:59] Medusa Brewing: So we have that mind game with ourselves. But no, I mean, but it's important for us to be looked at as a partner in our community, not a competitor. So it's all about moving the needle in the right direction for the greater good. And when we have those conversations, especially with the on or off premises locations near us, It's about how can we all work collectively to bring more people in to the downtown area, the Amherst area, the greater Springfield area for a better experience. And that's the approach that we take.

[00:46:34] Jessica Infante: So speaking about, you know, building relationships in your community, you've done a good job of building relationships with local leaders. Talk a little bit about how important that is, Ray.

[00:46:46] Medusa Brewing: Super important. I come from outside the space. So I come from the nonprofit quasi public space and my teeth were cut on the importance of engaging the community So when I made the transition to the craft beer space, that's really all that I that was that's all that I knew that was the experience that I had over the many Suns around the moon, but Yeah, I mean, when it comes time to engage and have serious conversation or have decisions made or stakeholders believe in what you're trying to do, sometimes those relationships come into play. And I would never, ever discount the importance of going out and meeting your local legislators, your local educators, your nonprofit leaders, other corporate leaders, because at the end of the day, when you look at the entire experience of your taproom or your brewery, they're the ones that are going to come in and support you. So, we try to create that connectivity, we try to build that bridge on an ongoing basis, and it's benefited our brand so far.

[00:47:53] Jessica Infante: When you were going into South Boston, how important was it for you, Adam, to make those connections with local leaders?

[00:48:00] White Lion: This is going to be shocking to hear. Boston's a pretty old school city. Nothing gets done without those relationships. You absolutely need to get to know the local electeds. You need to get to know the community leaders. You need to know the neighborhood groups and present your case the best you can. We were actually really fortunate going into Southie. I had pre-existing relationships with a lot of those individuals. I've lived in Southie for 12 years now, so that's part of it. But we also need to show them, and this was a point of resistance we ran into in the city, that you're not just another bar. Like, that's the number one concern is, well, we don't want another bar. We have enough of those. It's a lot of trouble. Like, all right, brewery tap rooms are not bars. Stroller City on Sundays, we close at midnight, we're not doing liquor, we're not doing shots. Those kinds of things will help build stronger relationships when you give people a sense of what you're looking to do and what your story is and why you're interested in coming to the neighborhood and that it's not just a, you know, it's not just party HQ.

[00:48:58] Jessica Infante: Sarah, adding a location can definitely add complexity to the business. Can you dive in a little bit on your experience on what it does when you jump from one space to two spaces and what that does to operations that people may not be taking into consideration?

[00:49:17] Brewbound Podcast: You will never have enough time. Like, that is just, like, please do not. I think there is just this assumption that, like, I have the right people, they're really motivated, they're, like, ready to go, and it feels great. You will never have enough time. So I think one thing that people might underestimate is, like, be prepared to, like, export some basic tasks. get the buy-in from your team, find the people within your teams that are motivated. This is a great DEI practice, just in general as well, just finding the people on your team that you, you know, even if they're a part-timer, what could you be adding? What value could you be adding that would benefit both you and me in this field? That is just huge. You will never have enough time. So make sure you use your people. Make sure you look to them for not just help, but also support. They are your brand ambassadors on the ground. They are the people that really care and are going to be living the lifestyle or the brand or the story that you're trying to tell. So let's just make sure that they understand what's happening, that as owners or as brewery leaders, people are being transparent. to the team beneath them, and just making sure that that is what carries. Because again, every time you think you have time, you don't have time.

[00:50:35] Jessica Infante: Hempy, for Boston Beer, when you're doing this, how do you prepare for that added complexity?

[00:50:42] Castle Island: You know, it's all about the people and the culture of the sites and the brand. And so it's so important when you're expanding, if you're going from one to two or one to three sites, finding that synergy from location to location and making sure you don't under-train and under-educate all your co-workers. That is a very dangerous trap. And because the consumer and your guest and your drinker, they just view it all as one brand. So if your team is not on board and your team is not lined up with the strategy for the brand and the DNA of the culture of the brand, it could be a big watch out. So we put a lot of time into training and education.

[00:51:24] Jessica Infante: Adam, what's your biggest takeaway on going from basically doubling your size, but quadrupling your complexity?

[00:51:33] White Lion: We definitely got caught a little flat-footed, frankly, on some of this. We've always been a small, scrappy company. I think we performed pretty well as a small, scrappy company. But what that resulted in is we'd never really codified or articulated our mission or values or what we really care about. It was always in the company, and it was organic, and it was authentic. But you learned it by being part of the team. You learned it by being exposed to everything. You open a second location that's 20 miles away with a predominantly new staff. I mean, we had, I think, five people transfer over from our Norwood location to the Southie location out of 40 that work at the Southie location. And the best you can hope for is that some of that bleeds over. But we really had to grow up pretty quickly and learn how to put a lot of that into language, share it with our people, train our people. And that's on top of the operational and the administrative complexity that it adds. buy a truck because we're shipping beer up to ourselves. We went from a part-time outsource bookkeeper, we just hired our first full-time staff accountant. We have proper HR now because we went from 35 employees to almost 80 employees. And this stuff happens literally overnight. And like Sarah said, you can't possibly prepare enough. There's just not enough time. But I can tell you for sure, I wish that I was sitting listening to this panel before we opened selfie. That would have been helpful.

[00:52:53] Jessica Infante: Well, I'm glad that we're at least doing a service. So you're sitting here listening to this, Ray. You've got Amherst coming online. What's your big takeaway, and what are you doing to sort of prepare?

[00:53:03] Medusa Brewing: I'll be calling the three of them.

[00:53:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah, there you go.

[00:53:07] Medusa Brewing: Perfect. No, to Adam's point, though, you really do have to sharpen the pencil. I mean, you want to put your practices and policies and protocols in place all in alignment with your culture. The key for us is, or at least the key for the core team, you can't always lead from the front. You can lead from the back. You can lead from the side. You've got to entrust the people that are in place. So I think if you build and frame out the right team, and give them the right guidance. Know that there will be hiccups along the way, but learn together and trust in each other. I think that will make the road ahead of you a little bit smoother.

[00:53:47] Jessica Infante: We've got about 10 minutes left. So if you've got questions, send them to our text line at 617-336-8560. This question came in for you, Adam. What's it like to partner with a permanent third-party food vendor that is also trying to build a brand of its own inside of your space? This is something that we talked about, or we're going to talk about, so it dovetails nicely into leveraging partnerships.

[00:54:14] White Lion: It's awesome, and it's weird. We are still learning nine months in exactly how this partnership works, exactly how our brands are aligned, exactly how they're not aligned, and sort of the operational efficiencies to it. But really, this idea was born out of We do beer and we do a great job at it. We work with a lot of restaurants and they do a great job at it, but we're not about to go and do what they do. Let's partner with someone who does an exceptional job with food to help build an exceptional food program, something that complements the beer really well, executes our vision while allowing us to really focus on our strengths without essentially biting off more than we can chew.

[00:54:51] Jessica Infante: Ray, you've got a big partnership with Marcus Camby. What's the opportunity there? What cache does that give White Lion that maybe it didn't have before? Or what do you do for him that he didn't have before?

[00:55:05] Medusa Brewing: Well, it's what we do for each other. It truly is a partnership. I think that as soon as we announced the partnership, it opened up some doors. Obviously, the University of Massachusetts is big on Marcus. Marcus is big on the University of Massachusetts. So we see an opportunity there. It strengthened the communication and conversation with the downtown business improvement district. We do have a beer labeled after Marcus Canby, New England IPA. At this point in time, it's our leading seller from the top of the year. So, you know, Marcus is from Connecticut. We just entered the state of Connecticut, and some of that was due to Marcus's engagement and his familiarity in Connecticut. So, you know, we'll work collectively, strategically. You know, we don't know where the road will take us. We don't want to bite off more than what we can chew. There's a long road ahead, but we're looking forward to what that journey looks like, and he's looking forward to working with us collectively, and we'll see where the road takes us.

[00:56:04] Jessica Infante: I'd like to hear from you all around the horn on this one. You know, how do you feel about going into an area and being like the pioneer brewer versus being a part of like a collective of breweries? Like how do you view that decision?

[00:56:19] Medusa Brewing: Well, I guess I can start real quick, because we were a beer brand. And the city of Springfield is the third largest city in the Commonwealth. And at that time, there really wasn't too much conversation going on, despite all of the outlying conversation in other towns and cities. So I had an opportunity to volunteer and sit on the local license commission. And it allowed me to go out and really see a lot of on-premise and off-premise locations wanting to have something local. And having just the entrepreneurial spirit and the true appreciation of craft beer, I said, why not? Why not have a conversation with key stakeholders to see what can take place? So, you know, we started as the city's first craft beer brand. We ended up being the second brick and mortar. but the first tap room to open. So it's helped us. It's always good to be able to pave the way and start the conversation. But as long as you're in a position to work collectively with other breweries, that's the key aspect for us.

[00:57:17] White Lion: How about you, Adam? So that's essentially what we did in Norwood. We were the first brewery in the town's history. And if that's something you're considering or looking at, be prepared to educate a lot. The first objection we got from the town was that they were worried about the smell, because someone once went to Ipswich Brewery, and it wasn't even that they found the smell unpleasant. They found it pleasant. But we're in a manufacturing zone next to a factory that makes meatballs, and their smell is Not desirable to some, so that was something that we were going up against. But it really took a lot of that relationship building with the people in town hall to say, hey, look, here's what we're here to do. We're not just another bar. We're not going to be stinking up the neighborhood. We're going to be creating jobs in a community gathering place. that you're going to be glad you had. And now the town's got two breweries and there are probably half a dozen breweries within a 15 minute drive of us. I won't say because of us, but because I think, you know, the towns around have said, hey, this is something that I think we could get behind. How about you, Sarah?

[00:58:14] Brewbound Podcast: I don't think competition's ever really a bad thing, especially, you know, Medusa. When we first started in Hudson seven years ago, we were, Hudson was a very different place. We're a big part of the kind of Hudson revitalization. Hudson Main Street was recently voted best Main Street in America, which I didn't know there was a contest for that, but pretty cool. But yeah, it's just been like a part of a revitalization. And now we have a bunch of breweries and it gives us a really great opportunity to work with other breweries, which I think is just great for everybody. We like Medusa hosts a block party every year and we invite our friends like Glashue and and anyone who's kind of in our central Massachusetts area. So it provides a lot of opportunity for collaboration with other spaces, a chance to promote your brand. But if you're also the first person there, like, it's the same either way. Make sure you know what you stand for, why you want to do it, and make sure you just keep carrying that through.

[00:59:08] Jessica Infante: How does Boston Beer sort of factor that in, whether there are already breweries in a location or not? Happy.

[00:59:15] Castle Island: You know, the origination of Coney Island and Angel City was centered around a mission to expand craft beer drinker base. So the way we thought about it was, let's go to major markets that have very low craft beer as a percentage of total beer sales. And if you look at that, it's like LA, Manhattan. Miami. And so that just lines up with kind of how we thought about it. And that was, you know, over the last 10 years, I would say today, we probably I don't know if we really have a strategy on it now, like for the next site. But I would say overall, that was the mission. And I would say it was probably pretty successful. If you go to Manhattan now, compared to 10 years ago, there is a lot of craft beer on. Of course, you've got neighborhoods in Brooklyn and other areas, and in LA, you're down in San Diego, and you go a little north to San Francisco, you've got huge craft beer index, but LA is still low. So we look at where's the white space, where can we get new people into the category that'll drink all of our beers?

[01:00:19] Jessica Infante: So I think we've got time for one more question. We got an audience question here, and it's from somebody who said that they built out a 36,000 square foot facility with a previous company. They are curious, what did the panelists get wrong in their expansion that they wish they could change? So let's start with you, Hampi.

[01:00:41] Brewbound Podcast: This is the last, how much time do we have?

[01:00:44] Castle Island: Just make sure you understand the question. If you could do anything over, what would you do over, basically? I think about our sites and I think about Miami as a big brewery with a smaller footprint for our space. So we probably would have went a little smaller there. LA is getting to a good place where there's a lot of places to sit. I think you've got to understand what you're looking to do. Are you looking to have a brewery and a tap room? Or are you looking to have a mostly brewery and a little bit of a tap room? And that would be my advice is just, or the opposite, like what we have at Boston Tap Room in Faneuil Hall, we have a very small brewing production there, but a large area to sit and drink. And I think that's the thing anybody getting into it should probably be thinking about.

[01:01:37] White Lion: Adam, what would you redo if you could redo anything? So this isn't something that we didn't do, but it's something that I think we could have done differently or done better or more of. Just because, in our case, we're in an urban market and arguably the most popular neighborhood in Boston right now, doesn't mean that people are going to find you. We're in a corner of the city that isn't fully built out yet. We're not on Broadway, which is the actual Broadway for those who aren't familiar with the neighborhood. And I think we probably could have put a little more energy into, figuring out how we were going to get people to walk the extra six blocks to our location. In our heads, it's like, six blocks? That's nothing. It's five minutes. But it's actually a real challenge. So that's something I think we could have figured out better. How about you, Sarah?

[01:02:23] Brewbound Podcast: I think something we could have done a little bit better was kind of being more transparent with the people around us as to what was happening. I think a big part of it, we were starting this new concept. We just opened a restaurant called Wild Hair. It's kind of a cafe, brew, Belgian beer cafe, oak aged footer kind of vibe. But again, that wasn't really clear when we first opened the space. So there was a lot of questions about like, oh, it's just a second tap room, so what are you doing with the old one? Oh, this place has food, I didn't know that. So just being more transparent about what we wanted. To be completely frank, that was also a result of us trying to figure out what we wanted and what that space was going to look like. But as soon as we align that and figure that out, it just became way more clear. But I think that was definitely an uphill battle at first.

[01:03:12] Jessica Infante: Ray, we got to wrap it up. Last word real quick on that. Real quick.

[01:03:16] Medusa Brewing: More space. We have a self-distribution model. I wish that our dry and refrigerated space was a little bit larger than what it is. We're in the process of looking at that right now. So if we were to change something four or five years ago or two years ago, that's what it would be.

[01:03:33] Jessica Infante: All right. Give it up for these guys. They did awesome. All right, and that's our show for this week. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for hanging out. Thanks to our one-man audio team, Joe, the Cal Ripken of podcast editing. And thanks to all of you for listening. We will be back next week.