The Summer Scans Turned Unpretty

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Next on the Brewbound Podcast, a post-mortem on the summer selling season. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:47] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante.

[00:00:49] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:50] Justin Kendall: And we're back together. How's everyone doing? Surviving. How was Tomato Days?

[00:00:56] Jessica Infante: Tomato Day was great. My big Italian family in New Jersey does a whole day where we jar a bunch of tomatoes for the year. It netted 328 jars of tomato sauce. And I am never doing that again without the help of my husband because managing a toddler during that process was extremely stressful. I don't think I did any tomato labor. I helped lay out jars for like one round and the rest of it I was just trying to keep a two-year-old away from very large boiling pots. We set up an area for all the kids because there's like seven kids around and they were not interested. They wanted to be up by burners and vats of sauce. Lessons were learned. On the docket for next year's tomato day is hire several babysitters. But lots of Sambuca was consumed. Good time had by most. Sounds lovely.

[00:01:51] Justin Kendall: Where do these tomatoes come from?

[00:01:53] Jessica Infante: A farm.

[00:01:54] Justin Kendall: Like family farm or?

[00:01:56] Jessica Infante: No, no, like a real farm.

[00:01:59] Justin Kendall: Okay.

[00:02:00] Jessica Infante: I believe my sister-in-law said it was 800 pounds, blend of San Marzano's and Roma's. I only brought home one jar and it is for Bart Watson, Brewer's Association CEO and noted pizza maker.

[00:02:16] Justin Kendall: I was going to say, where do these jars end up?

[00:02:20] Jessica Infante: So it's a big share, like my sister-in-law Steph is the person who's in charge. And I say it's my family, but it's actually like a group of friends, but I am tied in by family and it all goes down in my mom's house. Five or six couples buy in and then everybody splits up accordingly. And I usually am gifted a few that I also usually end up gifting to people because it's like a nice thing to give somebody, you know, it's delicious New Jersey tomato sauce. But this year I didn't really do too much labor, so I thought about asking for much more. But once Steph, you know, runs the numbers and figures out what can be shared, some should come my way. Some may go your way. But I did tell Bart during CBC when he was describing his transformation into a pizzaiolo that I would give him some sauce.

[00:03:12] Justin Kendall: I don't think anybody expected tomato talk here this week. No, no. We'd like to keep you on your toes.

[00:03:18] Jessica Infante: Right? I mean, hey, why not hear about the nonsensical reason why I was out for a Friday and a Monday? And for all your CBC 2026 travel, I will share that the Auntie Anne's in Terminal D of the Philadelphia Airport. Delightful. Lovely staff.

[00:03:35] Justin Kendall: Very topical. Did you have a Tilray shock top pretzel beer while you were at it?

[00:03:41] Jessica Infante: I did not. What kind of looks would you give a mother and two year old traveling through an airport? Should the mother be drinking a beer? I've thought about this on several occasions because they have the Jet Blue perk where I get a drink.

[00:03:54] Justin Kendall: After this weekend, I'd say drink all you want.

[00:03:56] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I'd probably look at her and be like, yeah, she probably deserves that. Thank you.

[00:03:59] Jessica Infante: Thank you for being so forward thinking. Yeah. Tomato Day is actually a good, it's a day drinking occasion. Surf sides were consumed, surf sides and modellos, and hourly shots of Sambuca. Hourly? Hourly. Some white, some black, some a blunt.

[00:04:17] Justin Kendall: Doesn't that cut down on the labor?

[00:04:19] Jessica Infante: You would think. Another reason why we need babysitters next year.

[00:04:24] Justin Kendall: Peel some people off every couple of hours after that shot.

[00:04:28] Jessica Infante: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we always asked my sister-in-law to do her power rankings of workers, and this year she said parents are all getting a score of three or below. But some for parenting and some for Sambuca.

[00:04:43] Justin Kendall: How you doing, Zoe?

[00:04:45] Zoe Licata: I don't have any exciting tomato stories to share, unfortunately. I'm sorry to hear that.

[00:04:49] Justin Kendall: No F1 updates yet?

[00:04:52] Zoe Licata: No, it was a off week. I did go, I took myself on a solo date to a live orchestra performance over the Princess Bride. Amazing. And it was spectacular at Symphony Hall, so highly recommend. I love this for you. Great solo date occasion. What'd you do before or after? I had a chill day before. I had like a outdoor workout class and stuff. But I got there a little early, got myself a little glass of wine and some Sour Patch Kids. It was lovely.

[00:05:21] Jessica Infante: And is this a new hat? This is beautiful.

[00:05:23] Zoe Licata: No, this was added earlier this year. But I I'm trying to be a morning person because you guys are forced to wake up early. And now I I feel like I should probably also be up early. Honestly, it's really nice. But that usually means I've done some sort of physical thing in the morning and want to hide my hair from everyone on this podcast. So you get to see my kind of embarrassingly large hat collection that is growing.

[00:05:48] Jessica Infante: This is an audio medium. Zoe's hat is a Ferrari logo looks like seersucker, blue and white stripes seersucker.

[00:05:57] Zoe Licata: This is the special edition for Charles Leclerc's home race this year.

[00:06:01] Jessica Infante: Gorgeous.

[00:06:02] Zoe Licata: Thank you so much. If you want to keep updated, check out the Instagram because the hats will be on there.

[00:06:09] Jessica Infante: I was wearing my Brewbound Podcast before this, but I figured you guys would both be wearing hats and I wanted to break it up. So I enlisted some dry shampoo.

[00:06:18] Zoe Licata: How professional of you.

[00:06:20] Justin Kendall: So he has to represent Ferrari. I have to represent the Cyclones, which, you know, another victory over the weekend. So I'll take Forno going into a bye week.

[00:06:29] Jessica Infante: Well, congratulations. Great times had by all.

[00:06:32] Justin Kendall: I wish it was great times had by all for the weekend. Unfortunately, we made it. not even two weeks into the school year before our first cold, and then my wife Marcy was sick on Saturday and Sunday, and it was not a very nice weekend had by all.

[00:06:54] Zoe Licata: The school plague, man.

[00:06:56] Justin Kendall: For real.

[00:06:57] Zoe Licata: Can't escape it.

[00:06:58] Justin Kendall: No, it's real. So far, I have escaped it.

[00:07:01] Zoe Licata: Knock on all the surfaces. Spray all the surfaces with Lysol. Yeah.

[00:07:07] Justin Kendall: Maybe this is the episode where we just don't talk about beer.

[00:07:10] Zoe Licata: Most not. The news is bad. Yeah, it would be a much more positive episode.

[00:07:16] Justin Kendall: I mean, we're doing well so far. We got the positivity of the Cyclones going 4-0. Zoe's got a new hat. Jess has canned a lot of tomatoes. I mean, maybe we keep this rolling, Ellen. I don't know. I guess we should get into it. Zoe, I'll let you be the bearer of bad news because you have covered the latest and you're usually on the scan beat. So bring us up to date on the post Labor Day scans, which I described as a bummer, which is the layman's terms.

[00:07:50] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that's probably accurate. Yeah, we expected that it was gonna probably be down, so this was the data for the week ending September 7th, so it did include actual Memorial Day, but the rest of the week was accurate. after most of the celebrations. And basically any momentum that was gained from the previous week, that 7% week over week growth, it fell back and sales fell again 7%. So it kind of just evened out again and we're back in this negative space for beverage alcohol. Sales now are down 2.6% for the latest week and volume was down 4.3% compared to last year. It was kind of like the end of the kind of closing the book on a very lackluster summer again, which really sucked. 2024 summer was not great and comps were supposed to be a little bit softer. And so we were going to see how summer performed compared to that. And it just continued to be kind of down. Did any category have it less bad? Spirits had a pretty good summer, I will say. So yeah, I'm talking mainly about beer and wine did not have a great summer, but Spirits ended it pretty high. RTDs also did pretty well and that was based off of Spirits-based offerings. In the latest week, Spirits dollar sales were up 3.1% and volume was up 10.4%. Last week, there was kind of weird declines and a lot of the brands or categories or segments or anything that were growing saw a slower growth week, but that all seemed to return to their normal their normal stuff this past week. Spirit's back with double-digit volume growth. Those RTDs are really contributing to that. And there were like positive beer brand stories too. I mean, it's not just like a whole category wide problem. You know, Pacifico continues to record pretty significant growth from Constellation Brands. A lot of kind of beyond beer things like Cayman Jack, Club Tails, Angry Orchard, those are all continued to post gains. And then non-alcoholic things like Athletic. So there are still positive stories with this summer, but I think the main takeaway was the beer occasions and holidays that typically provide a solid boost for the beer category really did not meet expectations this year. July 4th a little bit, that did help, but Labor Day, Memorial Day, even those June get excited for summer sales, they all missed the mark.

[00:10:37] Justin Kendall: And we saw the beer board data, which is on premise on the NFL's opening weekend. And that was also bad, except for opening night, which was the Cowboys and Eagles. But yeah, even that was not anything hopeful. But we, we do have some positivity that our friends from the Japanese office of three Tier Beverages has shared with us in our latest three up three down. And some of those bright spots are any beer brands beyond athletic, of course, spirits based hard tea and lemonade. So your sun cruisers and surf sides, and then alternative package formats, which is. We're talking mini rippers and like ABs, little Ritas. So some of that stuff is very interesting to see, especially with Sierra Nevada launching pills in the smaller can format. I can see this becoming something that some other brewers pick up on in the next year or so.

[00:11:37] Zoe Licata: Shout out mini cans. Big fan of mini cans. And of course, any sort of alternative packaging is not the easiest for breweries to take on. They're not really set up for that. But for those that can, I mean, you know me, I've been advocating for this since I had that first little buddy at the CBC in Nashville. So cute.

[00:11:56] Justin Kendall: I'm very glad you brought that up, because that's one of the first ones that comes to mind for me, too, is drinking that outdoors in Nashville, seeing Paul Coffin. Yeah. Shout out to Chad Maylis.

[00:12:08] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, the big guys are getting in on this too. I know I've picked up some eight ounce, I believe, cans of Miller Lite.

[00:12:16] Zoe Licata: So I think we've got a thing here, little babies. It seems to be happening even more in the non-elk, non-adult beverage space even more. So if that tends to pick up, then you're possibly seeing more more abilities or the greater possibility for brands to be able to pick this up too if it's just being more widely adapted. A lot of seltzer brands now have mini versions. Tons of soda brands have already had them, but I've been just seeing them pop up a bunch, which is funny because It's again one of these things that happen Tier Beverages where it's kind of two opposing things are trending at the same time because what else is doing really well right now is those large single serve offerings like 19.2 or 24 ounce cans. So it seems like people kind of are going both ends there, not going for 12 packs and necessarily like six packs either.

[00:13:12] Brewbound Podcast: This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at craftbrewersconference.com.

[00:13:32] Justin Kendall: Let's stick with packaging formats while we're here and talk a little bit about Moosehead in Canada. They are switching to cans only in 2026. And they mentioned that 85% of the Canadian beer market is sold in cans. And Jess, you wrote this for Tuesday's newsletter, and I thought it was interesting to actually read the comments on this.

[00:13:57] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, they say don't read the comments, but here we are telling you to go take a peek at what some people are really angry about. Oh my goodness. Yeah, Moosehead, iconic Canadian brewery, family owned, getting rid of bottles, going straight cans and draft. And the people, I didn't know that Canadians could get this angry. I don't know, man. My first day in my big girl marketing job at Boston Beer on the Sam brand was the day that we were kicking off Sam Adams going into cans. And that was a long time ago, like January of 2013. And for years, and probably still, I just don't look anymore, whenever they post a picture of a Sam beer in a can, you still get people like, beer in cans is gross. I like glass, it's classy. It's like anybody that has to declare themselves or some other thing to be classy. Usually it's not. But I mean, this is just what people want.

[00:14:58] Zoe Licata: Yeah. If you care so much about it, why aren't you buying it? This is another one of those things where if you see like a brand discontinued or something and people are outraged, the reason is because the people aren't buying it. They don't want it. If you're saying you want it, put your dollar where your mouth is. Exactly.

[00:15:17] Justin Kendall: I thought this was funny because it was one of those where this is an industry full of sales data. And I am certain that Moosehead looked at its sales data, looked at the cost of doing bottles, looked at the cost of doing cans, and crunched some numbers and maybe said, this isn't financially viable.

[00:15:39] Jessica Infante: Exactly.

[00:15:40] Justin Kendall: I could be wrong, and they were just like, screw it, cans. But I want to say that there was some thought put behind this.

[00:15:47] Jessica Infante: Oh, for sure. You're not wrong. And some of the comments talking about how beer tastes bad in cans, cans are bad for you. All of this is just boomer Facebook nonsense. To their credit, the Moosehead crew has come up with a really fun contest to say goodbye to their green bottles. You can submit, I am sure this is limited to Canadians only, but you can share your favorite memories or stories about why you are the world's biggest Moosehead fan. and you will win the chance to come to the brewery on the day the last bottle rolls out and then you will get to keep that bottle, which I think is pretty cool.

[00:16:23] Justin Kendall: Yeah, don't drink that bottle.

[00:16:25] Jessica Infante: No, no, no. Keep, keep the bottle. I appreciate that they put out a press release about it. But you know, I mean, the three of us are all just packaging nerds, and we find this stuff very interesting. Hopefully our listeners do too, because we've now dedicated a little bit of time to it. But it's a story. It's happening. It's a trend. And I think we'll see more of this, but we also hear other things going the other direction. What was it, eight last year announced that they were adding bottles?

[00:16:50] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:16:51] Justin Kendall: This year, I think, right?

[00:16:52] Zoe Licata: This year, yeah. I think part of that is because of the culture around the light lager scene right now where a lot of these brands are trying to be old school and fake nostalgic and bottles seem to fit in with that. And I think also a part of it is, yes, glass is very expensive. Aluminum is also getting more expensive. So are people going to be like, well, I guess you can't really win either way.

[00:17:19] Jessica Infante: I mean, bottles are just such a pain in the butt to deal with. Yeah. As soon as those Sam Adams cans came out, bringing your monthly allotment home from the office became way easier. I used to case the bottles pile up my desk and then demand, not demand, but he knew what was in it for him. Ask my then boyfriend, now husband, to come pick me up every once in a while so we could bring a bunch of cases home. But once we started doing cans, I could just slip a 12 pack in my backpack and take it home on the tee.

[00:17:46] Zoe Licata: I had my first time buying alcohol in a liquor store. I picked up a six pack of bottled Angry Orchard Rosé. Don't judge me. But when I picked up the first one, all of the bottles fell out of the bottom and it was a very traumatizing experience for my first liquor store experience. So now I think about that every time I see bottles. So basically, I have a vendetta against them, I guess. They've impacted my drinking life.

[00:18:14] Jessica Infante: Cans wouldn't do that to me. Cans would not do that to you. I'm on your side now, too. Thank you. Anti-bottles.

[00:18:21] Justin Kendall: So are 85% of Canadian beer drinkers, apparently.

[00:18:25] Jessica Infante: But not 60% of Moosehead Facebook commenters.

[00:18:30] Justin Kendall: Let's talk a little bit about a couple of closures and let's start with Call to Arms because the Denver Brewery is closing December 23rd. And this was an announcement that was kind of unlike any other closure that I've seen.

[00:18:45] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I got a couple of chuckles out of this video and a shout out to Call to Arms for one, making the tough call, but two, delivering the news in an entertaining fashion. It was Chris Bell, one of the co-owners and co-founders, you know, brewery opened a decade ago, a crew of former friends and coworkers who worked at Avery opened Call to Arms. And, you know, he go on their Instagram and watch it. I'm me recapping it. It's not going to do it justice, but there's an appearance from a clown. There are interwoven news clips. There's like a super mini super cut of a million news anchors saying COVID-19. There's an orange mocha frappuccino shout out. And a cameo from the Tiger King. This video has everything. It's like an SNL skit. Yeah, man. But yeah, I mean, they really kind of captured, I think, the zeitgeist that everybody's feeling. There's a million reasons why running a craft brewery is super hard today. And they were just really upfront about it. Last day in business is going to be December 23rd, which is also Festivus. So if you're spending the holidays in Denver and want to air some grievances, I would head over there. But they do plan to, I guess they, have a pretty sick holiday decoration game, planning to bring all the Halloween and Christmas decorations out this year. I hear they have a Janet Reno dance party that's very popular and will continue one more time, at least. RIP Call to Arms, may your last few months in business fill you with warm fuzzies and good memories. Maybe Zoe and I will come say hi and bye in a couple of weeks.

[00:20:22] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:20:22] Justin Kendall: Good plan for GABF. Well, another closure that you covered was Iron Hill Brewery. Not the whole thing, just three locations of their then 19. Yeah.

[00:20:37] Jessica Infante: So Iron Hill is one of those that we always hear from. They're pretty good about sending press releases. I personally have never really done too deep a dive on what's up with them. We do cover them occasionally, particularly with leadership changes or new locations. They're a mid-Atlantic based brew pub. that to me really is kind of the last one standing of that ilk. And it turns out there's probably a pretty good reason for that. Well, the news here is that they're closing three locations, Newark, Delaware, not to be confused with Newark, New Jersey, which is how we say it, but Newark, which was their first location and their flagship, and it's home to Udell and where they first opened. So to me, that was significant that they're closing that location. Also closing Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, which is near Philly and one in South Jersey, Voorhees, South Jersey, I believe. Yep. So that leaves 16 locations remaining, but right before COVID they had taken on, uh, they were really on a tear and we're trying to get to 25 stores before 2020. I don't know that they ever quite made it to 25, but they were up there and they were definitely over 20 at some point. They took on some investment capital in 2016. So now we're out to almost 10 years out from that. So I assume we'll see some more changes, but just interesting all the way around here, one that they have this many locations and are still doing well. But they also have a little bit slightly different of a business model in that they also sell their beer off-premise. So about 700 retail accounts across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

[00:22:14] Justin Kendall: And they're in five states though, right?

[00:22:17] Jessica Infante: They are. They get even farther out. They're in South Carolina and Georgia. That business model is never not interesting to me because I think brewpub chains like that paved the way for craft to turn into what it became. And then so many of them got left in the dust by a lot of different things, by changing consumer preferences, by taprooms taking off, by COVID. The thing that comes to mind for me is Boston Beer Works and it's related other fill-in-the-blank Massachusetts Boston Beer Works chain that's no longer with us, but did a lot for the industry, particularly a mass, gave a lot of people their first jobs in beer and introduced a lot of consumers to the idea that beer is not just a yellow fizzy commodity you pick up at the grocery store. It's something that gets made in a brewery by real people and you can watch it happen.

[00:23:04] Justin Kendall: There's definitely that pipeline in for a lot of folks when there weren't 10,000 craft breweries out there to work at.

[00:23:12] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Yeah. One thing, at least in, in Delaware for Iron Hill, something that was a problem for them was parking. I read the Newark onlines. It's I'm sorry. It's just so weird for me to keep saying Newark, but I read that town's publication of record who had covered a few, you know, city council meetings, zoning board meetings, whatever. And the leadership team had come in several times to say that parking was a real problem for them. The only other place where the parking was worse was their Phoenixville, Pennsylvania location, which had closed last year. So, so many things you got to think about. Yeah. Including parking.

[00:23:49] Zoe Licata: Including parking. Yeah. The Bridge Association also just came out with an interesting report on consumer trends at Taprooms. So if you want to see more of just like what is contributing to where consumers are going or what they want, you can check that out too on our site. It's random things like that. Do you have smaller pores or larger pores, excuse me, are the more popular now? Do you have food options? Are you open on Mondays and Tuesdays? That was an interesting one. There's little things like that that can have incremental positive impact for some of these places.

[00:24:30] Jessica Infante: I've seen some chatter online lately among like brewery owners who are kind of saying some of the different, like somebody had posted saying like, Hey, like we're having a hard time getting people in on Saturdays, but we're slammed on like trivia Tuesday, which is kind of crazy.

[00:24:46] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Matt Gasiak, who is a staff economist at the BA, he was using aggregate data, but it showed that Saturday is still the most popular day, but it's declining pretty significantly. And then Mondays are gaining the most. Mondays and Tuesdays are both rising, which it seems odd, but I think part of that is because breweries are hosting events on those days. Also, some breweries are just expanding their hours in general and may not have been open before. So, there's just more sales in general on those days. A lot of folks limited their hours the past couple of years due to the pandemic. So, maybe they're returning to more expanded hours, but yeah, just weird stuff like that.

[00:25:26] Jessica Infante: No, I mean, like in states where you can, if you're discounting on those days, it's a good way to get people in the door. But the backside of that coin is maybe I don't want to come to your brewery on a Sunday if I know I come in on a Monday and my beer is going to be cheaper. Something I can only dream of because it's illegal in our state.

[00:25:44] Justin Kendall: They keep trying. They do.

[00:25:46] Jessica Infante: Bless their hearts.

[00:25:49] Justin Kendall: I saw a time story or I think it was a time story about trying to bring back happy hour or bring happy hour to mass, but best of luck.

[00:25:59] Jessica Infante: Hope springs eternal.

[00:26:03] Justin Kendall: Let's wrap up and I'm going to let Zoe take it from here. And you can start with your disclaimer, Zoe, because I know you have very strong thoughts on this and I want everybody to be sure that you have no interest in the summer I turned pretty.

[00:26:19] Zoe Licata: No offense to anybody who is into the TSITP game, but it is not for me. Speaking of bottles, too, Sam Adams, Boston Beer and Sam Adams, kind of made a little, like, sleeper announcement yesterday, or surprise video drop. yesterday as we're recording this, this is Tuesday. So this happened on Monday, September 15th. And they have partnered with Christopher Briney, who is one of the stars of The Summer I Turned Pretty, who I'm going to assume most people listening have seen something about this, or you've heard someone say, are you Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah and been very confused. This is a TV show that has been on Amazon. This is the third season and the finale is this week. And it has just taken the internet by storm. It is turned into a social media trend of asking what team you're on. It's about a love triangle, involves two brothers and their childhood best friend. There's a lot of interesting dynamics going on there. But yeah, Chris is, he plays Conrad, who is, I think, pretty universally thought of as the better of the two brothers, less controversial. And so Chris is now promoting Samuel Adams' Boston Logger. So he showed the first video that went around the other day. It's almost like a promo for a soap opera or a romance book where he's just very slowly grilling a steak and a little sensually drinking a beer, actually drinking the beer, which we thought was interesting, and talking about how some things are worth the wait. which is a nod to the show and to the finale coming up. And then another video was released just on Chris's TikTok account, similar vibes. So people seem very into it. It was all over my Twitter, people screenshotting that just parts of the ad. I don't know if people actually cared or paid attention to it being Sam Adams or Boston Beer. It's going to make people drink it. But I thought it was an interesting move of targeting a primarily, I think it's a pretty significant Gen Z audience with Boston Beer of all things.

[00:28:27] Justin Kendall: Exactly. Why Boston Logger? Yeah. Why not Suncruiser? You know, this brand that is connecting with those Gen Z consumers already. I mean, I guess that would be maybe the argument for why Samuel Adams, but when you got one that's on the upward trend line and the other has been on the downward, I don't know. It would have made more sense to me like if it were a Suncruiser one.

[00:28:52] Jessica Infante: Zoe, like you, I have also not watched The Summer I Turned Pretty. I know a little bit about it. Is this what is responsible for all of the culture comments on an East Coast summer going on? Yes. Okay.

[00:29:05] Zoe Licata: The original season and where they're all from was all taking place on East Coast, coastal town. They spend the summer every year in the same place. Do they come out and say where? They definitely do, and I couldn't tell.

[00:29:19] Jessica Infante: I want to say it's the Cape or something. I know it's called Cotton's Beach, but I don't know if that's... Okay, so it's like New England. Yeah. So that's why Sam Adams. So my question, unrelated to that, is are any of these characters 21?

[00:29:32] Zoe Licata: Yes, they are in the current season. So they are in college, or I believe towards the end of their college years graduating. So they yes, there's drinking on the show. And yes, they are legal drinking age.

[00:29:46] Jessica Infante: Cool. So I mean, given the timing, if this were all happening, like say six weeks earlier, this would be a summer L thing.

[00:29:54] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:29:55] Jessica Infante: For sure. So that's why Boston Logger and that's why Sam Adams, the New England connection.

[00:30:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah. What confused me a little bit too about it was the videos don't really reference anything about Boston Logger. The narration for the first one is something to wait for. Boston Logger is around all the time. What are we waiting for? And then the second one was referencing how some things aren't like if it ain't broke, don't fix it basically. They did a, what they called, what was the word that they used? Remastered. Remastered. Yes. They remastered Boston Beer a couple of years ago. They made a big deal and changed the labeling to show that they remastered Boston Beer a couple of years ago. So how does that match up either? The only thing really saying, hey, you should drink this Boston Beer was, I guess, if you want to drink the same thing as this angsty actor. But yeah, it was just very odd to me. I mean, Sam Adams didn't repost this. I don't know why it was only on Chris Briney's TikTok account, but it was as official as the other ones. But of all beers to say, the one that you made a big marketing point about saying we have remastered it. I don't know. And if you're trying to introduce a legacy beer like this to a younger audience, I feel like it's kind of important to include more information about the product itself. But maybe not. I mean, what are you going to say to Gen Z?

[00:31:27] Jessica Infante: Like, so the noble hops in this beer.

[00:31:30] Zoe Licata: Definitely don't do that. But maybe Chris can point out that it's kind of light and refreshing because you wouldn't think that looking at it as Gen Z. I mean, I know it's not compared to a lot of the other things they're drinking, but something to dispel some of the myths I think that some Gen Z definitely have about that brand, if they've even thought about that brand. So yeah, I'm interested to see if this is just kind of a random one-off thing because this finale is happening this week, but it's a pretty big partnership internet virality wise. So I hope they really capitalize on it and do other things. Maybe it's this actor's favorite beer, so we'll have him say that.

[00:32:14] Justin Kendall: I would like him to get into the lore of Samuel Adams. Tell me about Jim and his dad's recipe and introduce Gen Z to this. Is he a septuagenarian, 76 year old? Does that, sep is seven? Yes.

[00:32:32] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, the summer I turned pretty has a lot of family dynamics going on. You could definitely weave something in there. Or about tradition, going back to the same beach house every summer. There are other ways that feel more accurate to connect these two things than what has actually happened. But just an interesting, unexpected thing I saw on social media the other day.

[00:32:53] Jessica Infante: So I want to say the first time you had Boston Logger was the remaster media venture in GABF years ago, right?

[00:33:01] Zoe Licata: That is correct. So I technically have never had the other one. Did they give you guys both to try side by side? I don't remember. No.

[00:33:10] Jessica Infante: Hmm.

[00:33:11] Zoe Licata: So yeah, I've never, never had the OG, only the remastered. I liked it. It's a nice beer. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. Stay tuned. See who wins out Conrad or Jeremiah. I'm sure the internet will tell us in 48 hours time. I mean, maybe neither of them. That's what really should happen. Belly, who is the girl's name, Belly needs to go. Yes. Yes. Belly.

[00:33:38] Jessica Infante: Is it short for like Isabel?

[00:33:40] Zoe Licata: Like I said, I don't watch the show and I read these books when I was 11, I want to say. Shout out to the Northfield library. Um, so I couldn't tell you who these details.

[00:33:54] Justin Kendall: I do love a good library shout out.

[00:33:57] Zoe Licata: I read through the entire YA section of that library. Shout out to that library. Good people. But yeah, I would vote. Team neither of these angsty boys. Go and do something else.

[00:34:12] Justin Kendall: It's just going to be awkward family get togethers from here on out if she chooses either. So I'm with you. What an episode. I'd like to thank you all for listening this week. Thanks to our audio team, Joe. Thanks to Jess and Zoe for sharing. And thanks to all you for listening. We'll be back next week.