Brewbound Podcast: That’s a Wrap on the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: What do Taylor Swift, Justin Kendall, and Zoe Licata all have in common? They were all on stages in Nashville last week, and we are going to talk about it here on The Brewbound Podcast. Hi, welcome back to The Brewbound podcast. I The Brewbound Managing Editor, Justin Fonte, joined by my esteemed colleagues, Justin Kendall, Bound Editor. What's going on, bud?

[00:00:32] Bound Editor: There's not going to be an intro like that again anytime soon. No, no. Never mentioned in the same breath as Taylor Swift before. So that's, that's something.

[00:00:44] Justin Kendall: First time for everything. And of course, here with us today is Brewer and reporter extraordinaire, Zoe Licata. What's going up, Zoe? Hello, hello. Hi. I think I tried to ask you what's up and what's going on and it turned into what's going up. So thank you for graciously blowing by that. And I, of course- In my brain, it sounded normal.

[00:01:04] Zoe Licata: All right, great.

[00:01:06] Justin Kendall: Well, so it's nice to be back with you guys, because last week we were all separated, even more so than we usually are, because the both of you were at Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, and I was home in Massachusetts. We'll get into all of it, but how was your week? What'd you think?

[00:01:25] Bound Editor: A good vibe, given the undertones of what we heard from Bart Watson from the DA, the chief economist.

[00:01:33] Zoe Licata: Yeah, there's a lot going on. Nashville is quite a place with the Craft Brewers and all the Swifties. There's a lot of energy abuzz in the city.

[00:01:43] Bound Editor: I don't know how anyone lives there just normally.

[00:01:47] Zoe Licata: It's muggy. It's hot. You're sweaty. Just constantly being surrounded by people having wonderful party times, but I couldn't live there, but had a great time while we were there.

[00:02:02] Bound Editor: Yeah, it was fun.

[00:02:03] Justin Kendall: overrun by bachelor and bachelorette parties, I'm sure.

[00:02:06] Bound Editor: I couldn't tell because of the Swifties. They were everywhere and they were catty.

[00:02:11] Zoe Licata: Oh, howdy.

[00:02:13] Bound Editor: Yeah. Well, I was in an elevator with some Swifties. And this woman very politely says to this group of people who are all dressed up, are you going to the concert tonight? And they're like, oh, no, we just dress up like this. Normally, this one woman says in the back and somebody like tries to calm her down. And she's like, well, you know, I don't know some people. She's there for four nights. I didn't know if you're going tonight or another night. you Yeah, it was like a whole thing and then like the nice woman got off the elevator who asked the question and I'm stuck in, you know, with the other people and they're just going about like, yeah, we just dress up like this. You know, she didn't say you were the most beautiful people that I've ever seen in my whole life. This is almost direct quotes.

[00:02:57] Zoe Licata: I wonder if someone talked crap to them at some point and they were on edge because they're definitely getting a little bit berated by a lot of people. But the city was filled with glitter and sparkles and a lot of like moms and their daughters like there was there's a seems like a nice change from the usual Nashville crowd.

[00:03:20] Bound Editor: There's still the pedal pubs and all that too, which is a war crime until itself.

[00:03:26] Justin Kendall: I am sorry to say that I have I have partaken in a pedal tavern in Nashville and never again. But those could not exist in Massachusetts. Like, Zoe, can you imagine?

[00:03:38] Zoe Licata: Absolutely not. They would try it once and someone would get into an accident or they would get like stuck on some cobblestone road like it would just be terrible. Oh, they would be like road rage homicide.

[00:03:53] Bound Editor: Yeah. At least a fight.

[00:03:55] Justin Kendall: 2016, the American Brewers Association offshoot of the BA had HomebrewCon in Baltimore in June-ish, but it was the same weekend as a Beyonce concert. And I want to say a baseball game. So like one night, like the people watching out on the streets was phenomenal. It was like homebrewers plus Beyonce fans, plus like very excited Orioles fans. And it was like something special. I'm glad you guys experienced that with with Tay Tay and her fans.

[00:04:31] Zoe Licata: It was pretty easy to distinguish between the Swifties and the Craft Brewers people. Definitely were two distinct groups.

[00:04:39] Bound Editor: The fuchsia gave it away.

[00:04:40] Zoe Licata: Or the flannels or beards.

[00:04:46] Justin Kendall: What a time. Cool. Well, I mean, I'm sad I missed out, but no, you're not. You hate Nashville. I'm sorry.

[00:04:55] Zoe Licata: Yeah, no, I just it's the country music. I can't do it. I can't. It was the way I described it to Lawrence was it kind of felt like a more honky tonk version of New Orleans, where it has kind of that one main strip of bars and everyone's kind of just walking around having a good time, but with less good music. Ooh, shots fired. Sorry. Sorry, everyone.

[00:05:24] Justin Kendall: I think that's a good way to put it, though. Yeah. Did you guys go to any honky tonks?

[00:05:28] Bound Editor: Yes, but they were mostly named after singers.

[00:05:32] Zoe Licata: Yeah, like all the bars are named after country musicians. And I don't know if that's like, because they have ownership in it or not. And there was just like a name, but that was interesting. We went to a good handful of bars, but the music being played at most of them ended up being, it was either modern, like what you would hear at like a club here, or me and some of the folks at Three Tier Beverages went to the Johnny Cash Bar and they had this live band playing a lot of like classic rock covers, which was pretty cool.

[00:06:04] Justin Kendall: That's fun. Like I could get down with that. Yeah. Did you have any fried bologna sandwiches? That's a thing. Absolutely not. Nope. Good choice. And Zoe, what's the vegetarian alternative to hot chicken?

[00:06:19] Zoe Licata: I had some Nashville hot tofu tacos, which were pretty solid and lots of shrimp, seafood-y stuff. But I mean, nothing's going to be equivalent to the classic Nashville hot chicken. So I did what I could.

[00:06:38] Justin Kendall: Justin, did you have any hot chicken sandwiches?

[00:06:39] Bound Editor: I didn't. I was offered the day of brew talks and I was like, that seems like a bad idea.

[00:06:44] Justin Kendall: This was wise. Well, BrewTalks is great. I watched it at home, sat down on my deck and watched you guys on the laptop. Really interesting conversations. Those will be, they are available right now The Brewbound.com for everyone to read, not just insiders, everyone to watch. Courtesy of our presenting sponsor friends, Dogfish Head and Ollie and Next Glass Company.

[00:07:12] Bound Editor: Way to work that in.

[00:07:13] Justin Kendall: Yeah, you know, that's me. Friend to the team. So let's talk about the actual business news that went on. You guys did a great job covering CBC last week. I was happy to read all your stories as they came in. Justin, you mentioned Bart's presentation was pretty sobering, and I know you had chatted about that in last week's pod, so we're not going to get into that. But BA CEO and President Bob Peace had a bit of a more optimistic outlook, and then you also got into all the ins and outs of federal and state legislation. You know, this is really the the BA's annual gathering of the whole Craft Brewers industry. So there's a lot to talk about. You know, it's basically covering like a year's worth of class announcements. Let's get into the panel that featured the three leaders of the major beer industry trade organizations. Zoe, you covered this, that's Bob Pease, but Beer Institute President and CEO, Brian Crawford, and National Beer Wholesalers Association President and CEO, Craig Purser. And it's always interesting to me to see how these groups work together because they ultimately all have really similar goals, right? Like they want more people to drink more beer, but they all have different ways of wanting to achieve that. So based on what you heard on stage last week, where can we expect their agenda to overlap this year?

[00:08:24] Zoe Licata: The number one issue definitely was beer kind of fighting back against the spirits industry. And this was a message that the three of them had also shared a few weeks ago at the MBWA legislative conference where they also were on stage together. But Brian Crawford said again, you know, liquor and spirits have been really good about having a collective agenda and trying to get more attention. including traditional beer occasions like sporting events and venues, and increasing the access of ready-to-drink spirits-based cocktails. And so all three tiers across beer are trying to focus on making sure beer is keeping its separation from spirits-based RTDs, and where they can be bought in certain taxes, and trying to get back some of those lost occasions. So that was definitely the number one message They also talked about, you know, beer had its big success or win was that they figured out that craft beverage modernization tax reform act. And they brought up, you know, with the spirits trying to change some of these tax related things with these RTDs, it's potentially going to unravel this very delicate structure that we already put together and spent 12 plus years working on. So that's been kind of a wake up call for everybody to maybe we need to put some of our smaller differences aside and focus on this together. An interesting bit that also got brought up was distribution, which they shot their shot. Yeah, yeah, they pretty much, I mean, Craig Purser was asked a little bit about self-distribution, which some of his members have fought against. And he admitted that, you know, this is something that might actually work for some breweries in the States, that you can do that. He didn't directly say that, oh, we're going to tell our members not to fight against this. But he did say, when you're staying within a certain mile radius of your brewery, this might be a very valid option. And Bob Pease asked Craig on stage if there was more that the BA could do to kind of help breweries or give more resources to breweries for how they can handle distribution and building those distribution relationships. And Craig said, please, more people in the boat is great. We'll figure something out to try to help breweries build those relationships better. Because it's kind of a tough time, especially for those smaller breweries right now, to even get into finding wholesalers.

[00:11:05] Bound Editor: With all the consolidation, it just makes sense. And wholesalers don't want all of this beer from somebody that's a very small producer or really any producer. I mean, they're not going to take everything from everyone.

[00:11:20] Justin Kendall: No, they can't. And they've long been fairly vocal about their frustrations with the rotation nation that goes on. So it's interesting to hear this because it's like, there is an easy solution here, wholesaler friends. You don't want to carry a bazillion small beer brands, but then you can't also turn around and tell those small breweries, like, no, you can't also distribute your own product. I don't want you to, but you can too. And you're like, that's not. That's not friendly. Zoe, you've seen a lot of these three lately. Which panel do you think they had more chemistry on? Oh, interesting.

[00:11:57] Zoe Licata: I feel like they probably were more comfortable with each other for this second round. The MEWA legislative panel definitely felt a bit more, I don't want to say ventful, but it felt a bit more impactful because it was kind of the first real time they were all together saying some of these things. So that one probably stood out more, but it was nice to see some of them like Craig and Bob just talking on stage and asking, like, how can we do things together? They definitely have their talking points. And so there wasn't like they were sharing too much new information, but they definitely seem more collaborative than perhaps in the past. Cool. Who moderated this conversation?

[00:12:38] Bound Editor: Lee Cheston.

[00:12:39] Justin Kendall: Nice. Yeah. Right proper in D.C. Yeah. I don't know why I know this, but Leah's been on the B.A. board of directors for a while. And Brian's kind of new to the mix, right? Like Brian joined the B.I. in December and he's really like off and running. And yeah, I spent a lot of time with Brian in Vegas at the Constellation Gold number summer. He's super nice.

[00:13:00] Bound Editor: I feel like he spoke more than everyone else.

[00:13:03] Zoe Licata: Oh, my God, he seems to be the most direct about calling out beer, which I think he can because he was an outsider for so long calling out spirits or both, but like calling out beer for their history of not being as collective of a force and being like, Hey, like, I'm in here with you guys now. And I'm letting you know, like, things need to change up a little bit. But I hung out with him in DC too for a little bit and went to the BI offices and he's very passionate about making sure beer gets back to where it was and try to gain back some of those sales and occasions and all that fun stuff.

[00:13:40] Justin Kendall: That's great. Like having somebody with fresh eyes come into a situation like this is probably more valuable than we can even really explain. Awesome. Congrats to the BI on their new dad. Justin, you sat in on VA General Counsel Mark Cerini's annual legal update. And, you know, I read your story, the Treasury Department competition report seems to still be top of mind. How can we expect that to play out this year?

[00:14:07] Bound Editor: So Mark laid out the comment areas that they're going to focus on when they drop their comments at the very last minute before the deadline, which I think is June 7th. So they're planning to, one, talk about category management and two, large venue sponsorships. Those are the main two focal areas out of that. There's some other things like third party digital, what was it, digital marketing or?

[00:14:33] Justin Kendall: Like the digital shelf. Yeah, which is interesting because things do get a little murky, especially when you look at somebody like a Drizzly, you know, like they're not the retailer. but you can pay for ads on the platform and you can't do that with a retailer. So, you know, it's one of those instances where technology evolved a little faster than the laws did. The large venues is interesting to me because we've been covering this forever, it seems. And I don't know that that came up at all.

[00:15:05] Bound Editor: I wonder where that came from.

[00:15:08] Justin Kendall: I don't know. Somebody maybe wrote a story.

[00:15:10] Bound Editor: The $5 million fine?

[00:15:13] Justin Kendall: Yeah, so I mean...

[00:15:14] Bound Editor: I wouldn't know anybody that had anything to... No, I don't know.

[00:15:17] Justin Kendall: So, I mean, what was that? The summer of 2020, Anheuser-Busch gets hit with a offer in compromise from the TTB for $5 million for basically paying to play at large venues. And the thing is, like, The practice of doing that, the practice of secure, I'm not saying that AB does this, I'm not saying anyone in particular does this, but the practice of securing sponsorships at these venues, which in turn comes with placements for your product, is just what happens.

[00:15:50] Bound Editor: It's not supposed to.

[00:15:52] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's like an open secret that just everyone has kind of accepted at this point. I mean, we still get press releases every month of people saying now the official so and so of this sporting team or this venue. And it always makes you cringe a little bit. But it's that's how open it is, is that it's just kind of the practice.

[00:16:14] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and you get a lot of things with that relationship. Like you're allowed to use the team's, you know, their assets. Like you can use their name and stuff. You get advertising in the venue. You know, you can give away tickets. You can do a lot more. It's not just about the placements, but like, It's about the placements.

[00:16:33] Bound Editor: And that's the thing, too, though. They're not going to advertise with an arena if they're not going to be in the arena. Like if I'm a spectator and I'm sitting there and I see like whatever beer brand come up, Zoe's beer to guard come across the ribbon, which, you know, they serve a lot of beer to guards in stadiums and and such. But I sort of have that expectation as a consumer that I'm going to be able to go to the concession stand and get one.

[00:17:01] Justin Kendall: I can't wait to get the little protective baby headphones for my baby and go to a baseball game and drink Zoe's Beard or Guard this summer. It's going to be great. We'll see you on the Jumbotron.

[00:17:11] Bound Editor: Category management's the other big one.

[00:17:14] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And Catman's been discussed the whole time.

[00:17:17] Bound Editor: Yeah, it has. And as Mark pointed out, having your competitor sort of be the gatekeeper to the shelf is really messed up.

[00:17:29] Justin Kendall: super messed up, like whoever came up with this is, well, I'm sure we can imagine who came up with this.

[00:17:37] Bound Editor: I think Mark explained it as like the retailer says, well, I don't understand enough about this, but theoretically you have a buyer who is in place to know about these things, right? They're the ones bringing in the, or, you know, basically setting things up. Although that's the whole thing about category management is it's outsourcing, I guess.

[00:17:59] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I mean, and it's been a practice for a while now, but it'll be interesting to see if like, cause it is so entrenched that like, does it even have the ability to really go away?

[00:18:11] Bound Editor: Yeah. And the digital marketing thing is just kind of a wild west thing, right?

[00:18:16] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Super, super wild Westie, I would say. And the other thing that gets interesting too is that, you know, there are like, like Total Wine is a retailer, but they too have, they have their own, you know, e-commerce delivery. And like, I've seen ads where, you know, a brand, like a supplier brand will show you an ad that says, like, get our new product available, like, through Drizzly and Total Wine. And it's like, that's a no-no. You can't do that. You're giving something of value to Total Wine, but I get it. Like, it is an easy way for people to obtain your product. Drizzly, you can do. You can do Drizzly. You can do Mini Bar. They're not Reserve Bar, Instacart, any of these things. They're not suppliers themselves, but they are like an intermediary. And so then thanks to prohibition, like this wacky industry of ours has a million fronts on which brewers need to advocate for themselves and every state has its own laws. So what battles is the BA looking to fight on the state level?

[00:19:25] Bound Editor: Correct to consumer, for sure, which you can listen to our latest Frontlines episode that you and I hosted to hear more about that from Delvos Ship Compliant.

[00:19:36] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:19:36] Bound Editor: I think that's one of the big one, franchise law reform. But these are all things like, it's a great wishlist, but it's like they said, multi-decade work that they need to do. Like how long did it take in Massachusetts?

[00:19:52] Justin Kendall: Franchise law, at least a decade.

[00:19:55] Bound Editor: Yeah. Seven to 10 years, maybe longer, probably longer.

[00:19:59] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:20:00] Bound Editor: Yeah. And then it's, you know, RTD, beat back that if you can.

[00:20:06] Justin Kendall: Yeah, the RTD thing is interesting because I feel like, I mean, Zoe, you've covered this extensively. In most cases, the side that the beer industry takes, which is to restrict market access for spirits-based RTDs, that usually ends up being what prevails. Did in Tennessee, right?

[00:20:26] Zoe Licata: Yeah, in Tennessee, they were able to keep Spirit Space RTDs out of grocery stores. That was one of the things we talked about with Sharon Cheek at Brutox, who runs the Tennessee Guild. But yeah, it feels like Access is where they've had the most success so far. And Sharon was saying, you know, the battle there is not even close to over. Yeah, we won it this time, but they're going to keep fighting that. And Brian Crawford brought up an interesting, just bring it back to him for a second. He brought up that there's this movement of, I forget what his phrase was, but it's in Europe, basically they're saying no alcohol is good alcohol. And so it's like, weirdly equating spirits and beer and everything. And he's saying, hey, that might be coming over here, too. So while it might not be limiting alcohol, it may be inadvertently saying, you know, maybe spirits and beer need to be handled similarly and impacting some of those fights and states.

[00:21:26] Bound Editor: I believe our friends at the World Beer Alliance, if I'm getting that name right, are trying to beat back some of those efforts, too.

[00:21:34] Justin Kendall: Interesting. Yeah, the past nine months of my life have been spent swimming in all sorts of stuff like that. And that's a very common thing you read where it says, when you are pregnant, no amount of alcohol is safe. Because I had checked in with doctors before events and stuff saying, hey, can I have a non-alcohol beer? They are under half a percent of alcohol. Their official party line is no amount of alcohol is safe. But the other thing is that there is alcohol. lots of stuff. There's alcohol in bananas. There's alcohol in orange juice. It's just so small that it doesn't really need to be moderated. But yeah, like I think there's, this is such a hugely important and nuanced conversation that smarter people than I need to be part of it because I don't even really know how you would explain it. But that's interesting because Europe gets brought up a lot in pregnancy and alcohol conversations. We're like, well, women in Europe drink a glass of wine a day or whatever. And that's not true.

[00:22:35] Bound Editor: Well, and you wonder how much ammunition too that the industry as it is currently is giving to some of those, I don't know, would you call them neo prohibitionists?

[00:22:47] Justin Kendall: Yeah.

[00:22:48] Bound Editor: Look at the conversations and the things that some of the analysts like Nadine Surwat have thrown out there is, You're playing this dangerous game with, you know, non-alcoholic brands branching out into alcoholic beverage brands that, you know, some of these brands have appealed to children before. We talked about one of them two weeks ago or whatever it was. I think on Another Round and Tabbing Out with the Warheads, Warheads, yeah. Sunny D, Hard Mountain Dew, you know, all these things that are sort of converging, this convergence. So how much of that opens the door? And then on the other end, you have a whole lot of higher ABV products being pushed out there and singles. So it gets to be in an area where, you know, how much of of the drink of moderation are we chipping away at with those?

[00:23:43] Justin Kendall: Yeah, which like very nicely dovetails with the BrewTalks conversation that Zoe moderated. Like we can say beer is the drink of moderation until we're blue in the face, but when some of the only areas of the industry that are doing well at retail are 19.2 ounce cans of 10% ABV IPAs, where's really the moderation there?

[00:24:04] Zoe Licata: Yeah, and Colleen Quinn from Greater Good Imperial Brewing who was on that panel mentioned, you know, weirdly those trends do speak to moderation because people are having maybe one or two of those instead of a six pack of another, but that requires so much education to explain that to people that it's going to be hard to translate to legislators or somebody when you're trying to advocate for beer as the drink of moderation.

[00:24:31] Justin Kendall: for sure. We can have this conversation another time. But really interesting of note this weekend, a friend of Brew Brown Cape or not had a story in the Washington Post about the use of the term juicy and how, you know, this idea of juicy as a descriptor really flowed into IPAs in the past handful of years, but now it's exploding into other parts of the industry. But then she got into straight up like hard juice. And I know you should never read the comments, but I read some of the comments and there were lots of, you know, Washington Post readers who basically decried that whoever wants these drinks is, you know, very infantile. But these things are popular for a reason. You know, companies wouldn't be making hard juice if they didn't think it was going to sell. So, yeah, like I'm personally glad the days of, you know, IPAs with enough bittering hops to rip the enamel off your teeth are gone.

[00:25:27] Bound Editor: You're not down with a palate wrecker?

[00:25:29] Justin Kendall: No. No, I like my palate. But also like some of these IPAs are pretty darn near close to actual orange juice. But with more alcohol than actual orange juice has.

[00:25:41] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Justin Kendall: Which is not zero.

[00:25:43] Zoe Licata: Yes.

[00:25:44] Justin Kendall: Wow. We are really far from where I thought we were going, but let's pull it back on track. Yeah. So, I mean, we kind of talked about overall vibes in the beginning of this conversation, but Zoe, you're always great at assessing the overall vibe of an event. So how would you rate this year's CBC?

[00:26:00] Zoe Licata: Well, thank you. It definitely felt more lively than last year in Minneapolis, for sure. Like, last year was borderline a little depressing. I think it was because, I mean, it was a lower turnout. I think people were kind of right in the middle of things of, like, still dealing with post-COVID lulls, but also, is this ever going to change? Not really sure what's happening. Not quite accepting where Kraft is at yet spot. this year was everyone just seemed really excited to be together. Yes, you know, Bart was telling us, you know, crafts declines are probably the new normal, but people just seem to be excited for the potential of bringing that back and collaborating and innovating and just being together and you know COVID's not technically a national emergency anymore so it feels like it might be more of the past and so it definitely was much more positive and upbeat than last year. And not for nothing, but the weather was terrible last year. That too. I mean, we did get stuck in a downpour turned hailstorm at one point in Nashville, but the sun came out eventually. And then it was quite lovely. And that always makes a big difference.

[00:27:23] Bound Editor: Literally stuck.

[00:27:25] Zoe Licata: Literally stuck under a hotel awning. For how long?

[00:27:31] Bound Editor: Felt like 20 minutes, maybe 15. shouldn't have walked back. Last time we listened to Jon Landis.

[00:27:41] Justin Kendall: Well, how was the trade show?

[00:27:43] Bound Editor: Bustling from what I can see. Cool.

[00:27:46] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, it felt big and busy and everyone that we talked to that had a presence there seemed really happy about it, like seemed like they were having a productive time on the floor. Nice. What local breweries did you guys visit? Not really any.

[00:28:05] Bound Editor: Bait La Force.

[00:28:07] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it was a weird trip in that it felt like we were going to a lot, yeah, a lot more bars that were with breweries hosting events there. Like Rogue had an event at this cool bar with a bunch of like old school games like pinball and stuff, which is really cool.

[00:28:24] Bound Editor: Yeah, we played a lot of video games.

[00:28:26] Justin Kendall: Yeah, that's fun. I assume next year in Vegas, it's going to be pretty similar.

[00:28:32] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we tried to go to Monday night and we ran out of time, but I, if I'm ever back in Nashville, I want to check out their spot there. It seemed really cool.

[00:28:41] Bound Editor: I definitely wonder how next year is going to go. Like Nashville wasn't inexpensive either, but I think we had the extenuating circumstances that is Taylor Swift to bring this full circle. Vegas is not inexpensive. I kind of wonder how that's going to work with all these small brewers

[00:29:01] Zoe Licata: Right. And what breweries are we going to go see there? Brewdogs? New Rooftop? Like it's, it's, it's a different scene.

[00:29:11] Bound Editor: They're Vegas Craft Brewers. I just can't name any off the top of my head.

[00:29:14] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And they're, I mean, they're not on the strip. Right. Right. That's the thing is that it's so concentrated and then wicked spread out that it's just a lot different than some of these other cities.

[00:29:25] Justin Kendall: And like everything else to do in Vegas is obscenely expensive. Right. So, you know, I mean, I was there early March and got a regular breakfast and it ended up being like 50 bucks with tip. So I just hope everybody's saving. Well, tell me about the Paul Coffin concert. What did I miss other than seeing my face on a giant screen?

[00:29:50] Zoe Licata: It was very cool. So yeah, we were one of The Brewbound was one of the sponsors for this concert that was right up the street from the convention center.

[00:30:00] Bound Editor: Walk of Fame Park.

[00:30:02] Zoe Licata: yeah, Walk of Fame Park, VIP tent, where Brubant had a presence at, but good time. Like that was the type of Nashville vibe that I was looking for, where everyone was kind of outside, jamming to some music that even if you don't, I'm not a country fan, but Paul Cawthon has quite a presence on stage and just being kind of funny and the caricature of just a country rock star. And just we had really good feedback of people excited about it and Rebound was definitely on all the screens and signage. So we we were present.

[00:30:41] Justin Kendall: Well, thanks to our friends at Turnitup Marketing for inviting us along on that journey. It looked awesome from from here. And from people tagging me on Instagram of pictures of my face on these giant screens, slightly alarming.

[00:30:54] Zoe Licata: It was quite a dynamic of listening to this guy sing about limos and champagne and cocaine. And then you see Data Club, Frontline, Sprewbound Podcast.

[00:31:06] Bound Editor: Yeah, this is like new age outlaw country.

[00:31:09] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:31:10] Bound Editor: It was good stuff. I've been listening to it nonstop since I had no idea who he is and or was beforehand, but I do now.

[00:31:18] Justin Kendall: Now you're a fan.

[00:31:20] Bound Editor: Yep.

[00:31:21] Justin Kendall: Awesome. Well, sounds like you guys had a great trip. Thanks for being the emissaries for the crew. Yeah. Next year at Vegas, I will be there.

[00:31:31] Bound Editor: I think we're going to hold you to it.

[00:31:34] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we're going to send you by yourself to CBC Vegas. That's fine.

[00:31:39] Justin Kendall: That is fine. So, Zoe, you covered Pliny the Younger's economic report. What did you find from our friends, the Chillerzos?

[00:31:51] Zoe Licata: Yes, and we saw Natalie and Vinny in Nashville, so always nice to see those folks.

[00:31:57] Bound Editor: On an escalator.

[00:31:59] Zoe Licata: Yes, going in the opposite directions on the escalator and say, yeah, it was. Quite experience, yeah, so Russian River annual planning, the younger release generated a record 6.3Million dollars in economic impacts for the Sonoma County area this year. It was. held in end of March, the beginning of April for that two week in-person release this year, a little later than they traditionally have it, which is something they started last year out of necessity because they had a bit of a COVID outbreak and realized, I think Natalie called it like a blessing in disguise, I think is what she said, and a happy accident because they found out, you know, longer days, better weather, it seemed to work out. And I mean, the results of the past two years have been record years for them. Just looking at some of the numbers here, over 24,000 people visited their two taprooms in Santa Rosa and Windsor, California between March 24th and April 6th for this release, which is the 19th annual release. Twelve different countries represented, 41 states and Guam. Visitors spent an average of $290 at the taproom. average of $366 spent on airfare and $656 spent on lodging to the airport and local lodging establishments. And 98% of the visitors said they'll do it again. So it looks like it's the momentum will continue.

[00:33:33] Bound Editor: Two percent are liars.

[00:33:36] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Two percent got there too late probably and didn't get to have the full experience. Yeah, 64% of the people visiting were returners and the average for those returners was they visited an average of 4.3 years. So it seems like people like to come again and again. And Natalie and Vinny always speak so positively about the whole Planet of the Younger release experience and the people that go and it seems to be one of... that to my knowledge, one of the few beer centered tourist attractions that are still really holding on strong now, where they're still even in a time where craft is struggling a bit, they are still getting record breaking attendance and people coming and lining up rain or shine to get their hands on some Pliny.

[00:34:27] Bound Editor: It'd been kind of rough for them the last couple of years too, I think with sort of extreme weather in that area and wildfires that had really sort of dampened things, but it's awesome to hear that it sort of had bounced back better than ever.

[00:34:42] Zoe Licata: Yeah, they went through 41,000 bottles this year, that two week period.

[00:34:47] Justin Kendall: Oh my God. And not to keep plugging other people's work, but Natalie was recently on Dave Infante's new podcast, Cap Lines, talking about the first ever Pliny the Younger release. And it's, it's really funny. Check that out because she is such a great storyteller.

[00:35:05] Zoe Licata: listen to that interview and hear about the OG one and then listen to our interview with Natalie from when we were at CCBA in Sacramento and you can see how things have evolved because she was talking about the latest release. For sure, they definitely have it down to a science.

[00:35:20] Justin Kendall: Cool, okay, well, in other news, also in California, in Northern California specifically, Markstein Sales Company acquired rights to a few brands from Bay Area Distributing, which is going to be winding down as its owner prepares to retire. But Markstein, owned and run by Laura Markstein, is taking 15 brands, but certainly for our purposes, the biggest among them are Asahi, Drake's and Bear Republic, which merged earlier this year. Dust Bowl Brewing, which is out of California and has had some pretty strong growth in the past few years. So Markstein's going to be selling those guys in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Markstein is an AB-aligned house, but they were unlucky enough to receive a termination notice from Constellation last year. So this should help them a little bit. Last year, also over the summer, they acquired some territory from AB winding down. It's WOD, it's wholly owned distributor AB1 for Oakland. So bit of an up and down, but sounds like this should hopefully boost their business by about 350,000 case equivalents, which isn't nothing. So that brings them up to 5 million cases a year.

[00:36:34] Bound Editor: Yeah. They also lost Sierra Nevada last year, right? Yes, they did. Great call. So they needed a shot in the arm, so that's a good thing.

[00:36:43] Justin Kendall: Yeah, definitely. I know when the Constellation termination came down, they terminated both Markstein and Bueno Beverage at the same time. And those two distributors were doing 4 million cases of Constellation products. So this doesn't replace that, but definitely chipping their way out.

[00:37:02] Bound Editor: We talk about what consolidation has done out there to small Craft Brewers needing an avenue of access to market. And you can see Markstein is picking up some of these brands. So that's helping them out, especially, you know, when the wholesalers basically winding down and getting out of the business, but it's tough out there in distribution.

[00:37:28] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and well, in California doesn't really have franchise laws. So that's why we see a lot more of this happening there than other places. Yeah. And in other news on the East Coast, Justin, this was a funny one that we worked our way through last week, but. Basically a county executive for Baltimore County in Maryland is offering $500,000 to invest in any brewer that wants to contract brew Guinness Baltimore Blonde to keep it in market.

[00:37:59] Bound Editor: There's some lucky Maryland brewers, maybe.

[00:38:02] Justin Kendall: Maybe. I mean, I guess Baltimore Blonde was just a huge point of pride for the local community.

[00:38:11] Bound Editor: It was a product in decline, right?

[00:38:14] Justin Kendall: It's extremely in decline, double digit declines for years, every year that it's been in existence. So what is happening?

[00:38:21] Bound Editor: And you have a very uncommittal Diageo on the future of that brand?

[00:38:29] Justin Kendall: No, they don't give two figs about this. And this is happening because Diageo is shutting down part of their production facility in Maryland. Their plant in Relay, Maryland, which produces plenty of Diageo products, but is also home to the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, which is a taproom and restaurant and has a 10 barrel innovation brewery, all of that's staying open. But this building was also responsible for producing Guinness Baltimore Blonde, which has very intense Maryland Baltimorean branding on it. And, you know, its first full year in market in 2019, the beer sold $6.375 million at off-premise retailers, which is almost 180,000 cases. Last year, that was down to $1.75 million and 42,000 case equivalents.

[00:39:20] Bound Editor: I think Diageo wants to take it to the disco, but I'm not sure. I don't want to speak for Diageo, but that would be my hunch.

[00:39:28] Justin Kendall: That is my hunch as well. It is surely not worth it to keep this brand going. So RIP to Baltimore Blonde. Possibly. May the angels lead you in.

[00:39:42] Bound Editor: All right, let's play a game of Another Round or Tabbing Out. I know you both were not expecting this, but we have three of them. We'll go through them. You know how this game is played. So if you're buying something, you're going to get Another Round. If you're Tabbing Out on something, I'm sure there's a super cut of Zoe Tabbing Out on a lot of things that we can pull that exists, but Let's get into it. So every now and again, we see these companies come out with these fake C-suite jobs. The latest is Hard Mountain Dew. It is appointing a chief hard officer to promote its Baja Blast variety pack, the Hard Mountain Dew version of that. Are you applying to be the chief hard officer, Jess?

[00:40:29] Justin Kendall: Absolutely not. No, I'm so sick of this.

[00:40:33] Bound Editor: I feel like this happens so often.

[00:40:36] Justin Kendall: All the time. All the time. Because people, when they get media pickup, Facebook friends of mine that I don't really talk to will post it and tag me, like, LOL, you should apply to us. I have a job in beer. I like it.

[00:40:52] Zoe Licata: Stop it. My first reaction is frat boroughs are going to love this and appoint themselves chief hard officer because that sounds like it was made up by a frat boy. hate it. One, personally, just hate it for selfish reasons because people put this as their official title and then I'm, if I'm going to quote you, I want your actual title. I don't want to write in our business article that the chief Harvard officer said whatever. This is why people don't take us seriously sometimes when you say you work in beer because these titles exist. Yeah, man.

[00:41:28] Justin Kendall: I mean, this is just a sweepstakes, right? Like this is not this person's not like getting hired and like going to orientation in Boston. Like this is just a little stunty thing.

[00:41:38] Bound Editor: Here's some social media posts, right?

[00:41:41] Justin Kendall: Yeah. I mean, just give away some money.

[00:41:43] Bound Editor: Number two. In my home state of Iowa, there is a town called Pella, and they have a celebration of Dutch heritage, which is the Pella Tulip Time. There's a brewery here that is releasing so-called first ever tulip beer, or Pella's Tulip Time, which was, we missed it because we were at CBC. They plucked all the petals off 170 tulips and put them directly into the beer to add color. And I guess it's got a nice orangish, pinkish hue. So is this a beer that you would even entertain the thought of trying?

[00:42:27] Justin Kendall: I have questions. Was the plucking of the petals done with permission or is this like a case of vandalism?

[00:42:34] Bound Editor: I think they bought the flowers. It's not the worst thing somebody's put in a beer. No, definitely not.

[00:42:41] Zoe Licata: No. As someone with a tulip tattoo, I feel obligated to probably try it. But I don't understand what it even tastes like. Like, you know, florally perfumy. Yeah. Yeah. As someone who got a tulip tattoo after traveling around the Netherlands, I think I would have to. You have to. Mandatory. Yeah. This is your beer.

[00:43:09] Justin Kendall: Unfortunately.

[00:43:10] Bound Editor: You're invited to Pella Tulip Time next year.

[00:43:13] Justin Kendall: Thank you. Is there like a Pella Tulip Time queen? Probably. I would like to nominate Zoe. I'm not drinking this beer, but I'm super allergic to real flowers and anything that is reminiscent of them gives me psychosomatic, oh my God, my allergies. But it sounds all right. All right. Creative. Not bad. It's tied to a time and a place.

[00:43:39] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I guess if we're playing the game, I guess I'd have to say I would order one, but then close out right away. I'm not keeping the tab open.

[00:43:48] Justin Kendall: I will order one and give it to somebody else.

[00:43:50] Bound Editor: What if it surprises you? Then you're reopening the tap.

[00:43:53] Zoe Licata: Reopening.

[00:43:55] Justin Kendall: It's not that hard.

[00:43:56] Bound Editor: All right. Final one, our friends over at Torch and Crown Brewing Company are working on a beer or releasing a beer, I should say, with Purdue. It is Purdue Beer Can Chicken. It is a honey double citrus summer ale that is brewed with citrus hops and grilled chicken seasonings like rosemary, thyme, pink peppercorn, that way it gives it that backyard griller flavor. Is this something that you're even entertaining?

[00:44:34] Justin Kendall: I will entertain because I like those flavors, but the direct call out of chicken makes me uneasy. I'm not sure. I don't want the beer to taste like chicken. Do you remember those crackers, like chicken in a biscuit from back in the 80s and 90s?

[00:44:49] Bound Editor: Oh yeah.

[00:44:49] Justin Kendall: What is chicken flavor and why is it going in this cracker? I don't know. I find it strange. But I see what they're doing. I see the brand tie-in. I get it. It makes sense. I've never made a beer can chicken myself. Are you supposed to drink the beer with the chicken? Are you supposed to cook the chicken with the beer? Are you supposed to do both?

[00:45:11] Zoe Licata: That's my question. Like if this was a just honey, that first description of it as like the honey something beer, and it was supposed to accompany chicken and enhance the flavor. Sure. I mean, I don't eat chicken, but then I'd be more on board. This, I'm seeing it in the bar window and deciding to walk somewhere else because I don't, I'm not going to consume that.

[00:45:35] Bound Editor: Sorry, old. I don't know. Rosemary, thyme, pink peppercorn all sounds pretty good to me.

[00:45:41] Zoe Licata: But yeah, I like all those things. Yeah.

[00:45:44] Bound Editor: I just don't know about it in my beer.

[00:45:46] Zoe Licata: The chick, it's the chicken is throwing me off. Right. Like it sounds like it should be one of those dog beers. What? Like they make the beers that is really just kind of like a bone broth that you're supposed to give to your dog. And they market it as like a dog beer that doesn't Bush do one and someone else does one. So that's what I immediately thought of when you're combining beer and chicken. But obviously you wouldn't give your dog the alcoholic version. Fair.

[00:46:15] Justin Kendall: Dogs also can't have hops. Right. Fair. I mean, I don't know. It sounds good. Yeah. Those, all those things all taste good. But I don't know that I would want to waste one of them to make a beer can chicken.

[00:46:29] Bound Editor: I've never had beer can chicken, so.

[00:46:32] Justin Kendall: I don't know that I have either. They had a real moment like 10, 15 years ago. But I feel like that's a job for like domestic premium, sub premium.

[00:46:45] Bound Editor: Double citrus summer animal. Sounds pretty good though.

[00:46:48] Zoe Licata: To give them some credit, I feel like the chicken loving community is a pretty intense community. Everyone I know that really likes chicken really likes chicken and would probably get anything that has chicken in it. So I'm sure there is still an audience that would try this because it's chicken.

[00:47:10] Bound Editor: There's clearly still an appetite for big CPG companies figuring out how to get a Craft Brewers in some way. Yeah. This is not the convergence that we've signed up for.

[00:47:25] Zoe Licata: No. Well, there was, was it last year when Southern Grist and Hardee's partnered up and they did those like biscuit beers and those made a little bit more sense to me because it wasn't, it was still like on the, they had jam related to it. So it was still like on the more sweeter side, but. That's definitely not a new phenomenon.

[00:47:47] Justin Kendall: No. And the perk of having a big CPG brand partnering with you on something like this is your store placements. So like you can usually get a pretty nice floor display with this. And usually your partner has some deeper pockets than you do. And you can merchandise really cool. Like you could merchandise this with like Wow. You could get Weber grills that you could put on display as a dealer loader. You can do coupons off chickens. Sorry, I just put my old market to your hat on. I saw the switch flip. But yeah, I mean, our friends at Torch and Crown, God love them. I don't know that their footprint really has the markets for that.

[00:48:30] Bound Editor: Not to mention you get their social media presence. I'm sure there's someone still clamoring to do something with Wendy's, just dying to do something with Wendy's. For sure.

[00:48:40] Justin Kendall: Wendy's, RTD, hard, frosty, when?

[00:48:45] Bound Editor: Next week, probably.

[00:48:49] Justin Kendall: Well, I'm glad that you guys are back from Nashville. I'm glad you had a nice time. I'm sad you didn't get to see Taylor Swift. I'm sad I didn't get to see Taylor Swift, but the tour is long, so maybe. But that's our show. So thanks to both of you for joining and reporting and on all the hard work you did at CBC last week. Did not go unnoticed. You guys really covered pretty much everything that needed to be covered at that conference. So you should be proud of yourselves. And thanks to our one-man audio team, Joe, who makes all of this listenable. Thanks a bunch to the rest of The Brewbound BevNET AV crew who worked so hard at BrewTalks. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, like, rate, review, and we will be back next week.