[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on the Brewbound podcast, we go down the news rabbit hole. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound podcast. I'm Justin Kendall. I'm Jessica Infante.
[00:00:20] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:22] Justin Kendall: And this week we have a news packed episode for you. So stay tuned. But, uh, how y'all doing? You surviving? Is it too hot to drink?
[00:00:31] Jessica Infante: You know what? I don't think it's too hot to drink. Unlike last month when it was definitely too hot to drink. I personally do not feel that way, but perhaps Scott Scanlon would disagree with me.
[00:00:43] Justin Kendall: There is the perfect beer drinking temperature.
[00:00:48] Jessica Infante: What is it?
[00:00:48] Justin Kendall: I don't think has really been established.
[00:00:51] Zoe Licata: I think we should try to figure that out. I was talking to my dad about this the other day though, during the too hot to drink period. And he, that later that day, he said, I can confirm today is too hot to drink a beer. He did not want one. I think it was like 89 that day. And as we have long established, your dad is very cool. He is very cool. He's cooler than I am. Yeah, so I think 89, 90 degrees was his limit. OK.
[00:01:24] Justin Kendall: I will say when it was 100 degrees here, it was definitely too hot to drink. We get into this thing, though, where companies or industry people are always citing the weather. Data folks. Too wet, too cold, too hot. Is this just an excuse? Is this reality?
[00:01:44] Jessica Infante: Well, do you think it's because it's one of the few things that none of us really have any control over? Yes. So, like, it feels better to be able to say, like, it's not because the beer industry has failed to release any products that resonate with young legal drinking age consumers. It's because it's too hot. It's not your fault. You're all okay. You're great. Here's a boop on the nose. Carry on.
[00:02:08] Justin Kendall: Meanwhile, super lights crushing it, but it's the weather.
[00:02:13] Jessica Infante: It's the weather. It's the weather. It's totally the weather. Nobody else worry about it.
[00:02:19] Justin Kendall: There are electrolytes in those hard sports drinks or something, right?
[00:02:23] Jessica Infante: There are. It's good for you.
[00:02:25] Justin Kendall: Can't say that. Well, you can say that.
[00:02:28] Jessica Infante: We can say that. They can't say that. My little fam went to an outdoor concert last week by us. We, you know, live near these, these really great publicly preserved lands. And so this old Gilded Age mansion was donated to this nonprofit and now schmucks like me get to go hang out there. Very nice. It's called the Korean Estate. Anyway, they have a fun concert every Thursday and True North Brewing from Ipswich, Mass. Sets up and they divide, I guess it's a license thing where they divide the great lawn where the audience is to sit. And in the front area, no alcohol, but the dance floor is there. Behind that, that is the cordoned off area where you can have beer. So my husband and I each took turns like going back to the beer tent one at a time to enjoy a beer. It felt weird. I never feel this way. I felt like I was doing something wrong. The answer to this should have been to just set up in the beer consuming area, but My three-year-old did not want to be kept from the dance floor. And people were drinking. There was a beer station, a mead station, and a wine station. Wow. Right?
[00:03:38] Justin Kendall: Really covering some bases there.
[00:03:40] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I only had one beer. Ryan had two. But it just felt like, I'm going to ditch my kid, stand back here, chug this beer, But there's an occasion. I know that's what we all talk about these days. Occasions.
[00:03:55] Justin Kendall: About the occasions, yeah. There were some occasions at Pilot Project last week. I went on the road for the Taste Radio meetup. For those who don't know, Taste Radio is our sibling podcast put on by BedNet CPG Media. 100 plus people, 120 people or so there. Nice to see a lot of friendly faces from the industry. Chris Shields from CalHops, formerly of Rheingeist. Big fan of the podcast, apparently.
[00:04:25] Jessica Infante: I miss your congeniality in beer.
[00:04:29] Justin Kendall: Mm-hmm. Great to see him. Great to see Josh Lindsay there from Sapporo. Don Bixel from Three Tier Beverages and Doug Velicky from Bright Dev.
[00:04:39] Jessica Infante: What was on tap at Pilot Project?
[00:04:41] Justin Kendall: Lots of good stuff. I had the rice lager, I had the pale ale as a final final, and the Italian pilsner. So you can see where my drinking has migrated to. The 5% and mostly below.
[00:04:57] Jessica Infante: No, I'm so right there with you. Sounds great.
[00:05:02] Justin Kendall: Yeah, cool venue. We've all been there before. We were there a few years back during the NBWA's annual convention in Chicago. if you're in Chicago, swing by Pilot Project. if you're in Los Angeles on December 9th and 10th, or you wanna make some plans, head over to Brewbound.com, get your tickets for Brewbound Live. We've got great conversations coming together. One of those, Tara Hankinson, co-founder and co-CEO of Talaya Beer Company in New York City is gonna join us. She's gonna talk about taproom profitability and creating just fantastic spaces. Their spaces are some of the best and most cited in craft brewing. They don't look like your industrial run-of-the-mill craft brewery spaces. They're warm, they're welcoming, they're colorful. They serve lagers and sours. They're really reaching out to consumers who under-index with craft. I think that's something that we can all agree that craft needs as some of these drinkers who aren't in the tent bringing them in. Very excited to have Tara with us.
[00:06:10] Zoe Licata: Stopping at one of their spaces is always a must do for me every time I'm in New York. And they are continuing to add spaces, like we've been talking about them for a while now, and they continue to add. They've found a way to do it that isn't necessarily just hopping on a quick trend. It's found a way to connect in a more extensive manner, which has been cool to see.
[00:06:32] Justin Kendall: Get your tickets today. Also, if you're on the lookout for your next job, head over to the Brewbound job board. We've got lots of great jobs listed. And if you're looking for your next great employee, the brew bound job board is there. One of the jobs that jumped out to me is the head brewer position at Weldworks is open. So, uh, if you're into making some of the most creative beers out there, I always come back to their cream cheese Rangoon Goza that they were serving when you're at, uh, the great American beer festival. You could make it.
[00:07:10] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that might be the job where you have the most creative freedom. Right? They will really make anything a beer.
[00:07:17] Justin Kendall: Raspberry cheesecake sour? They make it. Watermelon margarita sour? Why not? Rocket Pop Melter Sour. If you're into sours, let me tell you.
[00:07:29] Zoe Licata: We should start making our guesses soon for what the unique flavors are going to be this year at GABF, because they always have something.
[00:07:37] Jessica Infante: Speaking of GABF, I noticed an email this week, last week, I don't know what time is anymore, that the Saturday session is sold out. Look at that. Hey, look at that. Good for them. But there are still tickets available for Sunday. And Sunday is the day of the festival when you can get to see the award ceremony, which non-brewers have never been able to do before. So if you're not a brewer listening to our podcast and you're thinking about going, you can.
[00:08:07] Justin Kendall: Really get a peek behind the curtain here.
[00:08:10] Jessica Infante: Yeah.
[00:08:11] Justin Kendall: I mean, there were fewer sessions for GABF this year. You could look at it that way.
[00:08:16] Jessica Infante: smaller capacity.
[00:08:17] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Smaller capacity, but they're making pivots and so far having a sellout on a Saturday, not the worst thing. Nope. Now they can complain about the weather if the weather is bad.
[00:08:33] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And so can we, if we're stuck out in it.
[00:08:38] Justin Kendall: Absolutely.
[00:08:39] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I guess one caveat is that general session tickets are sold out. So I assume that means that paired tickets are still available. Paired is of course the VIP food and beer pairing portion that happens during the fest. And the poor list is available now too. So if you are curious, head to greatamericanbeerfestival.com and check that out.
[00:09:03] Justin Kendall: All right, let's get into the news and let's start with what's going on at Sam Adams' Jamaica Plain tap room. There is a unionization effort going on. Zoe, you dove into this. What's the latest?
[00:09:19] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so some of the workers at Sam Adams Boston Brewery location, so that's in Jamaica Plain, have submitted their intent to unionize. This is not brewer staff. This is folks that are working at the tap room that is connected to the brewery there. So bartenders, brewery ambassadors, cooks, key holders, which is like one of their leadership roles when they are asking for job security, what has been cited as equitable treatment, and some more clearly defined wages and benefits. So that's according to what was first reported by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 328. So they're kind of championing these efforts to form a union there. And Boston Beer confirmed to us that they have received a petition and they're reviewing it. So no real updates since then. So Sam Adams operates two taprooms in Boston. The downtown taproom is not a part of these efforts and to my knowledge are not having their own efforts to unionize. So this is strictly at the Boston Brewery location.
[00:10:30] Justin Kendall: I wonder why that they're not included in this.
[00:10:32] Zoe Licata: It seems like they operate totally separately in just terms of kind of like staff overlap and needs and even just how the types of consumers that are visiting each location. The Boston Brewery is their brewery tours location. The downtown taproom is more of the, you know, it's located in the super touristy section of downtown of having folks stop in to get a Sam Adams while they're touring all the other sites of Boston. And their management is a bit different too. So I think it's just the needs and dynamics of the two locations are separate. And we know this isn't the first, this wouldn't be the first union group to be within Sam Adams Network. The Cincinnati brewery that kind of brought on already existing union when that was bought in the 90s and that has operated for a long time since then. So Sam Adams has dealt with a union before, but we also know that they have had a history of having some conflict with efforts to unionize with some of the newer workers at that location, saying that there had been some issues with creating updated contracts for them. There's a mixed history for Boston Beer Company.
[00:11:46] Justin Kendall: Very few of Boston Beer's workers. It amounts to about 168 out of their 2,736 employees. That's according to a 10K filing from the company in February. So not very many. And across Kraft, not a lot of unions for Kraft members here. We've seen mixed efforts. Anchor was successful. Obviously, Anchor is in. purgatory or hiatus at the moment. And so, can't count them. I think the Fair Estate Collective was actually recognized, but Surly's effort to workers at Surly's taprooms, they tried, didn't work out. So, very mixed results.
[00:12:33] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And there seems to be very mixed responses to the news, too. I mean, looking at our own like social media feeds, some folks are championing this, saying this is what's needed right now with the state of the economy and the state of working for folks to protect themselves. And then other folks saying it's going to be real challenging to try to get this done or have real benefit from this in the current craft market. And so, yeah, it depends on who you talk to. It's totally different responses.
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[00:13:58] Justin Kendall: There's a lot going on with B3. Jess, you dove into this story last week. There is a lot. And it seems like as previously announced, they're taking over yards. But two roads and heavy seas are not in this platform after being announced as part of this platform last year.
[00:14:18] Jessica Infante: The easiest place to start this story is to back up and go back to the beginning. So in 2025, The B3 beverage platform was announced, I want to say late May, June-ish, and it consisted of two roads in Connecticut, yards in Philadelphia, and bald birds out of Pennsylvania. And I think when all this news broke, all of us kind of scratched our heads a little bit and tried to get a little bit more info like, hey, is equity being exchanged here? Is this a merger? Is this just a JV? What is happening? And information back then was a little fuzzy. And the thinking was that these breweries had plenty of capacity and they would be opening their doors as like a large Northeast network of contract brewing facilities. Fast forward to where we are right now and what we do know is that a deal for two roads never actually closed. You know, I spoke with people at a couple different sides of this and none of the announced breweries were closed upon at the time of the announcement last year. It was a multi-phase deal. And what has just happened last week is that the final phase to acquire yards has been put in place. A few other breweries, distilleries were announced as being part of the platform. One of them, Heavy Seas out of Maryland, confirmed to me that they have backed out. They are no longer included. They're not part of the deal. As I mentioned, Two Roads also no longer included, and we can get into some more of the legal intricacies there in a minute. And then Casey Jones Distilling out of Kentucky was announced early this year. I want to say January of 26, but B3 leadership told me that is very much on hold. but didn't say that they're out. Could be in, could be out, unsure what's happened.
[00:16:02] Justin Kendall: The other part of this is some legal wrangling that's going on between Two Roads and B3 involving around $18.5 million.
[00:16:14] Jessica Infante: Right. Over three different loans. Two of those loans were Master Promissory Notes signed by the owner of Two Roads, a W. Whitney George. One for $5 million, one for $2.5 million. And then another was $11 million in change drawn on a line of credit via two roads from Merrill Lynch. And if you look at court documents in the county court system of the County of Philadelphia, those have not been paid back. There was a settlement agreed to earlier this year that it said B3, which is comprised of seven different LLCs, most of them with some variation of B3 beverage, but some of them also including bald birds. And those are all listed as defendants in this situation. They were supposed to pay a million dollars by April 24th. Deadline came and went, was extended to a month later. That deadline also came and went and then after there was like a 15-day period that had to pass and then Two Roads opted to enforce its legal end of the settlement that was clearly not really being upheld. That's kind of where things are left. The court has documents saying that B3 was served with papers sometime over the summer. And I have been told that this is handled and it's just part of how the companies are separating their finances. That was also told to the Philadelphia Business Journal, who's reporting we relied on quite a bit here. So shout out to them. Thank you so much. And that's where things are. I have not seen any updates to that case in what's available online. So we'll see. Something else that the Philadelphia Business Journal reported was that B3 has made over $6 million of investment into yards over the course of time since the announcement last year. Some of that has involved paying down yards as debt. Some of it is capital injections into their facility. Yards is a major contract brewing facility. They can produce up to 250,000 barrels per year.
[00:18:27] Justin Kendall: I think when all this came together last year, or started to come together, I think my initial reaction was much like when Kings and Convicts acquired Ballast Point. Who and how is this possible? Because I admittedly had never heard of Bald Birds before. And here they were partnering with some very large, large within craft breweries, whether it's yards or two roads or heavy season. Of course, some of those companies are in decline. They've shed a lot of volume. They've relied on contract brewing. Two Roads has always been a major contract brewer within the industry. So, I mean, you could kind of see where this JV might work as far as the contract brewing part of it, but it definitely just outsider's view, very messy is what it became very quickly.
[00:19:28] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and you make a good point to bring up the contract production here. I dug into the numbers a little bit. Philadelphia Business Journal cited Yards as having produced 46,000 barrels of beer last year at that facility. I'd have to assume that that includes their contract work because I confirm this with the Brewers Association, B3's total output, in which the BA included yards, heavy C's, and bald birds, all of their own brand production volume was 36,572 barrels. Obviously that is less than 46,000 barrels. So that's what they were just producing under their own brands. Two Roads requested that its volume not be published last year, but they were not included in that trio. And now we know Heavy Seas is no longer part of the collective. So I think we'll expect to see their 26th volume reported separately if they choose to report. Baldbirds does have their own couple of tap rooms. They have a huge production facility in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, which is nowhere near the actual Jersey Shore. It is in central Pennsylvania. And they also have their own brewery taproom in Audubon, Pennsylvania, which is a little bit closer to Philly. Earlier this year, they ran a grand opening on a new taproom in King of Prussia, also in the Philly region. They took over the former Workhouse Brewing location. I think they had kind of moved in and were running under Workhorse's license. about this time last year and eventually received their own license and started producing under their own name. However, that brewery shut down a couple of weeks ago. And there's also been some legal wrangling in Pennsylvania County of Montgomery court. I have been able to see those court filings and in them, it looks as though the landlord for the space, the owner of the property is alleging that they are owed one and a half million dollars in rent. So there's a lot of that. It's tough out there. It really is. But this is a really complicated situation that is just very complicated. I wish I had a better word to explain it.
[00:21:36] Justin Kendall: It's very complicated.
[00:21:38] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So we'll keep an eye on it. We'll continue to monitor. We'll keep track. And if you work at any of these breweries, I'd love to chat. Jay and Fonte at BevNET.com, please.
[00:21:52] Justin Kendall: This isn't the first deal that's fallen apart, but when these things have gone public, they have been very much put out there like they are done deals. You don't get a picture of like all the principles together on that initial two roads deal. Like, Hey, look at us, like, Oh, well this hasn't closed yet.
[00:22:14] Jessica Infante: Right.
[00:22:15] Justin Kendall: I don't know. There's something's just, obviously something's apart.
[00:22:19] Jessica Infante: I think there was a lot of enthusiasm. And not all of the T's have been crossed and I's have been dotted. And we've seen other things happen that exact same way. I mean, we can start naming them, but I don't know that we need to.
[00:22:33] Justin Kendall: Flying fish in Cape May is the first one that comes to mind.
[00:22:38] Jessica Infante: Oh, I wasn't even thinking about that one. There was the Circle of Crowns partnership in California between Full Circle and Crowns and Hops. The partnership between Aslan and Torch and Crown. Lots of crowns. And yeah, look, times are tough. We've been saying this for years, and it really makes sense to form these joint ventures and platforms that enable craft breweries that have too much capacity to either combine forces and produce for each other or form a business that relies on contract brewing. One thing we know about contract brewing is that it really is a volume game. And if you are not doing the amount of volume necessary to cover the lower margins, you really shouldn't bother. Like look at Dorchester Brewing in Boston. They started like 10 years ago with the intention of being half contract producers and half beer under their own brand. And they decided to forego the contract brewing because it was just getting too hard and the numbers just aren't there. So yes, it makes sense to form these platforms, but it also makes sense that we're seeing a lot of them unwind or even fall apart before they get to the finish line.
[00:23:51] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Well, like you said, we'll be watching that. Before we get out of here, I've got a warm beer take. It's probably just me. It's a me problem. Not everything has to be a non-alcoholic beer. And I think what triggered me was the Leinenkugel's non-alcoholic Summer Shandy. I just don't see the reason at this point for its existence. Like the whole joy of a Shandy is beer and lemonade. And I don't know, I feel like not everything has to be a non-alcoholic beer. And I'm not talking about Lawsons because if you can bring me consumer data that says, yes, 30% of our consumers want this product, then I'm all good with it. But I just do not see it. And I feel like a lot of folks are grasping right now and we are fighting over a very small piece of the puzzle.
[00:24:55] Jessica Infante: Would you ever make yourself a Shandy that's half lemonade and half athletic? McUltra Zero, anything like that. Does that sound like something you would ever drink?
[00:25:06] Justin Kendall: I don't think so. All right. I just could be very, very wrong on this and watch this become the number one non-alcoholic beer out there. I just do not see it.
[00:25:18] Jessica Infante: When we initially had this conversation via text with our friend, Don Bixel Jr., I thought. To me, it feels like White Claw Zero. What is that? That's seltzer. Yeah. But I mean, they've been making it for years now. So clearly it's not nothing.
[00:25:35] Zoe Licata: My opinion on these things have changed slightly because of the non-alcoholic ciders, because those are products where it's, yes, there's plenty of regular old cider with no alcohol in it that people have been drinking for centuries. but these non-alcoholic versions of hard cider are an entirely different product. It's meant to taste like a more premium adult beverage, give you the same experience as if you were having a regular hard alcoholic drink, but there's no alcohol in it. And so that I can see the the purpose and the occasion for so I think this might follow a similar thing It's not hitting the same premium products standpoint, but it could be that you know, I want to have something for these occasions we talk about all the time that are I Want this beer that doesn't quite taste like a beer. It tasted more refreshing with some lemonade in it and I don't want the alcohol I don't see it having a massive audience. No. But there's an audience for everything now.
[00:26:48] Jessica Infante: Nine years ago, we went to Aruba, and I bought something at the Aruba grocery store that was labeled a Shandy, and I thought it was going to be like Leinenkugel's. We also bought some Miller Lite. And what I didn't realize was that it, I mean, I, my dumb ass didn't risk a 0.0 in huge numbers on the packaging, but it was a non-alcoholic shandy. And I think it was just like the lemon soda. So like we ended up mixing with those milliliters and it was pretty good. So I guess this is what that would taste like. Maybe, I don't know.
[00:27:24] Justin Kendall: So I'm looking at the packaging of this, and you mentioned that, and it does have a few shields on it that show that it's non-alcoholic, but it is almost identical.
[00:27:34] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[00:27:35] Justin Kendall: There's going to be somebody who picks this up and doesn't realize that it's non-alcoholic. I guarantee it.
[00:27:41] Jessica Infante: Which I feel like we keep hearing, particularly about McCulture Zero, right? Like I've heard of many people making that mistake lately.
[00:27:49] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Bureau just made the shanties, the non-alcoholic shanties. So apparently this is a trend that is happening. And their take was, you know, they wanted to make a product that their consumers, a.k.a. Tom Holland's wife and mother, could drink because they didn't enjoy regular...
[00:28:06] Jessica Infante: I feel like we need to clarify that those are two different women.
[00:28:10] Zoe Licata: They are welcome to drink beer, but they do not enjoy drinking it. And so they made these allegedly according to this story so that they could drink a Bureau product.
[00:28:21] Jessica Infante: It'd be really funny if the Leinenkugel family was making this with Zendaya specifically in mind.
[00:28:26] Justin Kendall: They know their target audience, I guess.
[00:28:28] Jessica Infante: Yeah, maybe they're big Euphoria fans.
[00:28:31] Justin Kendall: Anyway, I guess maybe I'd be more forgiving if it was coming from a non-alcoholic beer company. Maybe not. I don't know. I get the reason it exists for Bureau versus this.
[00:28:42] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I think perhaps, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but maybe your cynicism here comes from as you're just seeing this brand notice a successful segment that they want to play in, and you perhaps don't believe that they have the right.
[00:28:54] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I need more companies to come out with the stats like Lawson's did of how many of their consumers are drinking these products and are asking for these products, because that would make it a lot easier to have some takes.
[00:29:09] Jessica Infante: challenge out to the Leinenkugel's team to show us their data and we will reconsider. And that's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. The Brewbound Podcast is a production of BevNET CPG. Our audio engineer for the Brewbound Podcast is Joe Krachie. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski. Our designer is Amanda Huang. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and friends and review us on your listening platform of choice. You can find our work at Brewbound.com. And we also welcome feedback and suggestions at podcast at Brewbound.com. On behalf of the entire Brewbound podcast team, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.
