[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on the Brewbound Podcast, we dive into the 2025 production data for craft breweries. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall. I'm Jessica Infante.
[00:00:23] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:24] Justin Kendall: And this week we have another double shot of interviews for you all. We'll have a conversation with Julie Rhodes of KickFizz, the THC infused beverage brand. And we're gonna catch up with Andy Sauer, the owner of Garage Beer. Jess, did you do both these?
[00:00:42] Jessica Infante: I did both of those. I'm so sorry to our audience.
[00:00:45] Zoe Licata: Don't apologize for being just a podcast beast at CBC.
[00:00:49] Jessica Infante: It's a lot of time with this voice though. But you know, I'm a good, I'm a good and generous interviewer.
[00:00:56] Justin Kendall: You are.
[00:00:56] Jessica Infante: They do most of the talking.
[00:00:57] Justin Kendall: You're very conversational.
[00:00:59] Jessica Infante: Thank you. I just, you know, like to sit down and shoot the shit with the people. Yeah, but great chats with both of them. Brewbound podcast listeners know our dear friend, Julie Rhodes, pretty well, probably from her work with Not Your Hobby Marketing, which is her craft beverage consulting firm. But she had said, which Julie do you want today? And we said, we want Kickfish Julie. So tell us, what's going on out there in the world of hemp evs. So great talk with her about that. And you know, she's out on the, on the road these days, really like pitching to distributors and setting up meetings. So it's always fun to hear from somebody who's living that life. And then with Andy, we had a really fun chat. We talked all about Basically, What's Up with Garage, it was his first trip to Craft Brewers Conference. So it was fun to hear the perspective of somebody who had never seen that before. Quite a year to be, what, number 12 in Craft Brewers by volume and making your first appearance at Brew Expo America. But we had a really great chat about just their goals for this year, how they approach marketing, what is going to be happening with them on the flavor front, and buckets. If I recall.
[00:02:14] Justin Kendall: Buckets.
[00:02:15] Jessica Infante: A lot of bucket talk.
[00:02:17] Justin Kendall: Buckets and stubby bottles.
[00:02:19] Jessica Infante: Stubby bottles. Yep. And that day in Philly, he was heading to the world premiere of a short film they made that basically put Jason Kelsey in the old Wild West.
[00:02:32] Justin Kendall: It's funny, I'm not trying to spoil anything before we get going, but I'm searching through the new brewer into this production data on Garage Beer. And they're number one in the North Central region, which is wild. And the regional breakdown, they topped New Glarus, Boulevard, Rheingeist. So that's the top four right there.
[00:02:53] Jessica Infante: Crazy.
[00:02:53] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:02:54] Jessica Infante: Those geographic buckets to me are, they're so granular and their names don't always mean that much. So I always have to be like, wait, what states are we talking about?
[00:03:02] Justin Kendall: It is very much a hodgepodge.
[00:03:04] Jessica Infante: Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me because they technically call Ohio home. They do a lot of production in Michigan with founders, right? And I assume those are both north central states.
[00:03:20] Justin Kendall: Indeed they are.
[00:03:21] Jessica Infante: I wonder what would happen if they were not. But that seems like doing what my therapist calls borrowing trouble. That's not a thing we need to worry about.
[00:03:29] Justin Kendall: Well, a thing that no one should worry about is Brewbound Live. It's happening December 9th and 10th in Marina del Rey, California. You can find out more information at Brewbound.com. Full disclosure, we're recording this before Memorial Day weekend. Just how schedules are, we had to hop on this, but the BA made the big drop before the weekend and let out all the production data. We've got our story on the top 10 up now. We'll have additional coverage of production data for Kraft Breweries up throughout the week. But, you know, when we dive into the top 10, what are some of the storylines that you two are seeing here?
[00:04:13] Jessica Infante: Well, three breweries grew and two of them by very impressive numbers. Way to start out positive, Jess. Right? Bart would be so proud of you.
[00:04:23] Justin Kendall: You're feeling the vibes.
[00:04:24] Jessica Infante: So I feel like you're always very good about reminding us that we need to be more positive. And so I'm just embracing that. Two of the top 10 breweries increased their volume by double digit numbers. Athletic brewing was up 20% to 480,000 barrels of beer. That is so much beer. When you think about a brewery that's not even 10 years old. That I think when we look back at these times, and I think even now we don't need to think about this with the future benefit of hindsight, like that has been one of the biggest success stories in craft beer over the past five years.
[00:04:59] Justin Kendall: And one of the largest share gainers too.
[00:05:02] Jessica Infante: Yeah.
[00:05:03] Justin Kendall: Second to garage beer it looks like.
[00:05:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah, so and I wrote a story about the top 10 today, GarageFell just outside of that. So I'm sorry for not thinking to include them in this part of the conversation. But the other brewery that put up some really impressive growth numbers was Kraft Stahlworte Deschutes up 14%. They landed at number 10. That's great, you know, and that doesn't include any of their non-beer stuff. So I assume it does include Deschutes Kirkland Helles Lager, which we are big fans of in my house. And then Tilray was up, what, 1%, Zoe?
[00:05:40] Zoe Licata: Yep, up 1%. It's not like they added anything at least on the books between last year and this year. So that is a mix of even though they've been cutting SKUs and cutting back on some stuff, they have found growth with what is working. That data does not include the volume that they will be getting from BrewDog since that deal happened after. right now their 2025 data has them at 791,746 barrels. So if you add a BrewDogs 2025 volume to that, it would be over 866,000. So still would rank them number four. It wouldn't move them up any spots, but that is a lot of beer.
[00:06:23] Jessica Infante: a lot of beer. And I did similar math to what you just mentioned because the way that we split the list, I was looking at the Duval-Morquette USA crew. And that's another situation. We're going to have different numbers next year due to acquisitions this year. And with that, Firestone Walker was the sixth largest brewery The BA reports the D'Youville crew differently. There's a reason for why. I've asked about it. I've been told about it. It doesn't stick in my brain. But the BA has domestic craft producers list and regional craft breweries list. And on domestic craft producers, the D'Youville crew is all together. They're at number five. On the other list, Firestone is separated. Athletic is five. Firestone is six. And then Boulevard Brewery Oma Game is farther down the list. So basically, we all know, we've talked about this ad nauseum that Firestone Walker went on a shopping spree this year and has acquired Shroomer Pills from Gambrinus, which is only about 30,000 barrels. So it's not too much, but they've also just recently acquired Stone Brewing, which is like 250,000 barrels. Running the numbers, it kind of looked like not too, too much would change because Firestone, plus its new babies in Tremor and Stone can't catch Tilray. But when you add Boulevard and Omegang, I think it's kind of anybody's guess as to what happens next year. They're all going to be pretty close in numbers. So next year, it's going to be a race for number four.
[00:07:59] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that seems like the distinctions of why we have kind of this weird mismatch of numbers is the domestic craft beer list includes single entities that have a combination of micro or regional breweries and or multiple brew pubs or breweries that are contract brewed. So that's why like Garage Beer falls number 12 on the domestic beer list but is not technically on that regional list. You're so smart. That's just a shout out to the BAs. It's this very teeny tiny little lettering definition under their domestic list. So that's why it kind of makes it hard when we're talking about some of these ranking numbers, especially in that kind of top 50 list. Domestic and regional is not entirely the same, but we're kind of looking at domestic for a lot of these rankings. And if you look at both those lists or in that top 50 domestic, there's around 20 brands that found growth last year or 20 breweries. And if you go to regional, it's down to around like 17-ish brands. That's just kind of a quick scan. Like you said, we were recording this on Friday, so we were going to dive deeper into these numbers and have them for you before this episode comes out next week. So slightly less than last year, but still plenty of folks finding growth. I mean, triple-digit growth from Garage Beer to Voli's on the top 20 domestic, they're up 102%.
[00:09:17] Justin Kendall: So outlaw.
[00:09:20] Zoe Licata: Yes, exactly. Yeah, so showing the strength of those craft light lager brands is really, really what this is.
[00:09:30] Jessica Infante: We talked about this probably a month ago when the initial production numbers came out. One of the biggest things that's different this year is that Sierra Nevada overtook Boston Beer at the number two spot for a bunch of reasons. But now we can kind of see fuller pictures of what the difference between them was. And it's not much. Sierra Nevada last year produced 1,036,995 barrels. Boston Beer, which is going to be Sam Adams and Dogfish came in at 1,028,000. So the teeniest bit basically, but Sierra was down 3%, Boston Beer was down 7%. Expect those trends to probably repeat next year in terms of Sierra Sierra's trends looking a little bit better and Boston beers focus is elsewhere as we have talked about extensively Well, you can dig into our coverage so far at Brewbound.com become an insider today let's get to one more story before we get to our featured interview and
[00:10:30] Justin Kendall: That's an acquisition that happened in Washington State. Cloudburst is going to Bailbreaker.
[00:10:38] Jessica Infante: Yeah. This is, I don't know, guys, how many acquisition merger stories do you think we see a week? A lot.
[00:10:45] Zoe Licata: Including all tiers? Yeah. Yeah, a lot.
[00:10:50] Jessica Infante: a lot. I have not seen the warm fuzzies about a deal to this extent in maybe ever, but definitely years. So the TLDR here is that Steve Luke, who founded Cloudburst, is moving to New Zealand where his wife got a job. And when he was trying to figure out what to do with the brewery, which he started under 10 years ago, He approached his buddies at Bailbreaker and was like, hey, do you want this? And they were like, no, but they came around. And now the Bailbreaker crew, which is really like, look, I could never do this. I love my husband. I love my brothers, but we couldn't run a business together. But that is who is running the ship at Bailbreaker. You have Megan Quinn and her husband, Kevin Quinn, and her brother, Kevin Smith. So there's a lot of Kevins around. But they are, God, like third generation in the beer industry. Their great grandfather started a hop farm in Yakima. That's where Bale Breaker is based. They met Steve before any of them had started their own breweries. They met him at the Yakima Valley, like fresh hop ale fest when he was at Issaquah Brewing. It was his first Pac Northwest job. He had come out from New England. And they just headed off and became friends. They used to do collaborations together while Steve was at Elysian kept it up once he started his own brewery and they all decided that this would be the right way for Cloudburst to continue. After Steve moved, Steve's still involved. He's going to be writing the recipes. He's going to be running the social media. And he's already got a bunch of trips back here planned from New Zealand. So, you know, if you want to, I guess, do Steve a solid, send him recommendations for things to watch on planes because he's got a lot of rides ahead of him.
[00:12:37] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that was a very long, long flight.
[00:12:41] Jessica Infante: Right? Yeah, you would know. One of the things that I think people can probably look forward to here that I don't think anybody would be upset about is a little bit more production of Cloudburst's flagship, Happy Little Clouds. The Bailbreaker crew thinks they can either take on some of that. They've also hired a delivery driver to help out with the self-distribution of Cloudburst, but everything is kind of going to remain as is. They were very adamant that You know, Cloudburst is not becoming Bailbreaker. Bailbreaker is not becoming Cloudburst. Bailbreaker will continue its distributed model in three different states. Cloudburst is going to remain self-distro in a tight footprint, mostly all draft. And yeah, everybody was pretty happy. So congrats to everybody involved.
[00:13:25] Justin Kendall: And if you're a craft beer watcher, you might recognize Steve Luke from various metal wins at the World Beer Cup or Great American Beer Festival. There was the year that he wore the, what was it, Fuck Anheuser-Busch?
[00:13:40] Jessica Infante: Yes. Fuck Anheuser-Busch would be a very long t-shirt. It said Fuck A.B. InBev. It's always interesting to me what people call that company because I feel like there are varying levels of what the various abbreviations say about what you think about them. But that's a conversation we can have another time.
[00:14:00] Justin Kendall: I think that was around 2018 or so. So we're talking about like peak craft unity type stuff.
[00:14:08] Jessica Infante: It was like right after the shopping sprees started to slow. But yeah, Steve had been at Elysian, which sold, and he had feelings about it. And I think it was like maybe Cloudburst's first year in existence was already picking up medals.
[00:14:24] Justin Kendall: Didn't he create Space Dust?
[00:14:26] Jessica Infante: Yes. He wrote the recipe for Space Dust, which is now, if you look in Circana, it's the fourth largest selling craft IPA.
[00:14:34] Justin Kendall: And then this year, he got his pic taken with Bart at World Beer Cup. He did. Bart was the one that was dressed up.
[00:14:43] Jessica Infante: Bart was fancy. Yeah, we don't do a whole lot of metal coverage at Brewbound. It's just not really in our wheelhouse for coverage, but I spent a lot of time looking at award lists to write this story, and Cloudburst is heavily decorated for being relatively young. So they're clearly doing something right.
[00:15:01] Justin Kendall: Well, congratulations to them on a very nice deal.
[00:15:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah.
[00:15:05] Justin Kendall: A feel good deal.
[00:15:07] Jessica Infante: A feel good deal. So everybody, again, has big time warm fuzzies about this one.
[00:15:11] Justin Kendall: Well, let's hop off to our featured interviews.
[00:15:16] Speaker 1: Mark your calendar. Brewbound Live is back on December 9th and 10th in Los Angeles. Join brewers, distributors, investors, suppliers, and industry partners for two days of beer and beverage alcohol conversations, fresh perspectives, and product discovery. Early registration pricing is available now. Head to brewboundlive.com to register.
[00:15:36] Jessica Infante: We are here in the Brewbound podcast on location studio on the trade show floor at Brew Expo America at Craft Brewers Conference. It is Brewbound Managing Editor and podcast co-host Jessica Infante. And I am so, so, so excited to be joined by the one, the only, the lovely, the inimitable. I think I said that wrong. Julie Rhodes, COO and co-founder of Kickfizz, among many, many, many other things. But we're doing Kickfizz today.
[00:16:06] Speaker 2: We are. Thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you for being here, my friend. I'm very excited to be here, and I hope I live up to the intro you just gave me. Oh, you will. No problem. You know, I feel like maybe I was wearing this sweater the last time we hung out. Possibly, but that's okay. It's pleasant every time. I will take it on. Thank you.
[00:16:23] Jessica Infante: So, Julie, you do so many things, but you've got your own baby in the form of KickFizz, which is a THC-infused beverage that you launched, what, a year ago?
[00:16:34] Speaker 2: Technically, yes. Behind the scenes, you know how this works with beverage. Oh, totally. I've been working on it for three years, a little over three years, but we launched to the public in March of last year. So we just had our little baby brand birthday. Oh, happy birthday.
[00:16:47] Speaker 1: Thank you.
[00:16:47] Speaker 2: About a month ago, we launched DTC. So just online sales in states where it is properly regulated. And now we are working on easing our way into the wholesale channel and hopefully getting into distribution. So if there's any distributors listening, we will be happy to talk to you. And there are. I hope so. That's the plan. But yes, I'm the COO and co-founder for people that want to know my double life as well. I'm also the owner operator of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions. So I'm a strategic business consultant for beverage companies. So I actually think that's a big bonus and a big advantage going into this project.
[00:17:25] Jessica Infante: You have your consulting firm that you've done for years and years. And I love that you get to then practice what you preach on your own brand.
[00:17:31] Speaker 2: I do. And I tell people every day it makes me a way better consultant because I'm literally living it every single day. I'm not just telling people how to do things. I'm actually executing it in real time. And you can watch along if you want to.
[00:17:45] Jessica Infante: The last time you and I hung out a month-ish ago in Albany, New York, you were just about to have a distributor meeting. So how are those conversations going these days?
[00:17:55] Speaker 2: They're hard. I'll just be honest with you. I think everybody realizes the wholesale channel for craft beverage, it's a little overwhelmed right now. There's a lot of brands out there. I think everybody knows that. It's becoming harder to kind of prove yourself as a value add to somebody's portfolio. It can be done. It's not impossible. I think it's good for brands to know you really need to bring something to the table that will add to their portfolio, bring value to them, bring value to you. It needs to really be a mutually beneficial partnership for it to be successful. And it's good to be prepared. So just prepare yourself with understanding their business model and it'll be just fine. But it's hard. It's also hard to get a meeting. So if you're trying, don't give up.
[00:18:38] Jessica Infante: And by these days, I also mean the fact that you've got a looming federal ban hanging over our heads here in November. How is that coloring anything you're doing right now?
[00:18:49] Speaker 2: It does come into play. We do hear from some folks that they're a little hesitant on dipping their toes in the pool because we don't know exactly what's going to happen in November. But to be honest with you, at least brands like myself, we're very heavily involved with monitoring the regulatory environment, even though it's kind of like whiplash, it changes all the time. It's hard to keep up with. I've watched a lot of C-SPAN, which is not exciting, but we're hearing a lot of optimism. And there seems to be more people kind of getting organized, getting involved, and just saying, hey, this is what we stand for. This is what we stand against. And just voicing our opinions and our stance as much as we can to policymakers. The general public can do that too. So I encourage them, if they support the industry, definitely reach out to your local policymakers and say, like, hey, we want this to be regulated. That's the biggest thing is avoiding prohibition, you know, getting into standard regulation.
[00:19:43] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, and tell me about the brand. I want to say everything is five milligrams, but I think maybe that's not correct.
[00:19:50] Speaker 2: Correct. We have two levels. Okay, great. You're correct in saying that's not it. We are very low dose. We play in the very low dose space. So two milligrams is our beginner one. That's so nice. And then we have a five milligram version. We have two flavors. One is a lemon berry ice. It's kind of like a fruited Italian soda. Ooh, delicious. If you've ever had one of those. Mixberry Lemonade, and then the other one is a Black Cherry Vanilla. So kind of like a dark cherry soda, that tiny bit of vanilla. The thing that makes us really different is that we're occasion-based. So instead of having just a style or a flavor, we sync up to your moment. We tell people, choose your moment with Kickfizz. So one is called Day Drinking, that's the Mixberry Lemonade, and one is called Evening Buzz, that's the Black Cherry Vanilla. Love that.
[00:20:35] Jessica Infante: You know, I think sometimes consumers really appreciate when a brand just gets real literal with them.
[00:20:39] Speaker 2: We're trying to be literal because there's, I mean, think about it. When you walk into like a package store or even just going to a bar or restaurant, like how overwhelming is a menu or a wall of beverages, right? You might not know where to start. So we thought, why not make it easy, take out a little bit of decision fatigue and, oh, I'm going to a friend's house maybe for a barbecue or a pool party. Oh, this is good for day drinking. I'll just pick up these, like just sort of make it easy for them to make decisions.
[00:21:06] Jessica Infante: Well, you know, life is fucking hard. And in this season of my own life, any decision I don't have to make, it thrills me.
[00:21:14] Speaker 2: We just updated our website and there's a big section on there that says, you've made enough decisions today. Don't worry about your beverage. We've got you covered.
[00:21:22] Jessica Infante: Well, there's like some crazy stat out there. I don't really know what it is, but it's a number that is like jaw dropping about how many decisions a mom makes in a day.
[00:21:28] Speaker 2: Yes. It's outrageous. Oh, crazy. It's nuts. And then you combine that with the marketing stat, something like you get bombarded by 30,000 plus marketing messages per day. No, we don't. Just between email and social and television and, you know, newspaper, whatever you're reading, you know, things of that sort. So it's very overwhelming. We're trying to make it simple. Well, and you're also, you're operating in a basically a brand new category of product. Yeah, I'll be honest with you, when I got into the beer, like beverage industry, I was not ever aligned with a brand that was like a first adopter or like first to market. This is a whole new experience. It's been a really good learning experience because it is very hard. There's no other way to say that of just being out front with something that is very uncertain, but you're certain that it's good and it tastes good and that you have a good concept. And we also have the feedback, like the social proof, like we've won, you know, not to toot my own horn, but we have a bunch of gold medals from tasting competitions. We just won best in show at the WSWA Tasting Alliance competition. Congratulations. Thank you. We got a big write-up in Food & Wine magazine, which is very cool. And we've had a couple other write-ups as well. Shout out to the media. Thank you very much. Oh, you're welcome. Which helps to fuel business. It's wonderful. But yeah, when you have like the proof of like, oh, my concept is great. This is working. It feels really redeeming. You kind of stop thinking about how difficult it is to build a brand from zero.
[00:22:56] Jessica Infante: You said something that I find really interesting. You had been in beer forever and you've never worked on like a new to market brand. What's the difference here? How much education do you have to do?
[00:23:06] Speaker 2: Tons. You know, it's funny coming from somebody who, well, you and I are the same. We've been in the industry for so long. I've got, oh my gosh, 25 plus years now, which is a little scary.
[00:23:16] Jessica Infante: I am 22 years old, so I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:23:19] Speaker 2: I know, right? That's so great for like a 28-year-old. I started when I was three. I would imagine, if I had to guess, if you pluck somebody, I don't know, say like Grossman or Garrett or, you know. Oh, those fellows. anybody that was on like the cutting edge right at the beginning of the craft beer scene, this is probably what they felt like, which is really cool. It's very exciting. You're like on the forefront of innovation. It feels like you're building something like way bigger than you, which is pretty amazing. So it's very redeeming. A little scary, but very redeeming.
[00:23:53] Jessica Infante: A little scary, but yeah. What's the most common misconception that drinkers have?
[00:23:58] Speaker 2: that it's going to taste like grass. Huh. Or ass. Pick one. Either one is not good. Lordy. And they say that to your face? Most people say I've had one of those seltzers, quote unquote. Nobody can see me with my quote fingers right now. Maybe they can, but. You know, most people say I've had one of those seltzers before. I didn't like the way that it tasted. It had a weird aftertaste.
[00:24:21] Jessica Infante: And are they talking about like a hard seltzer or an infused seltzer?
[00:24:25] Speaker 2: An infused seltzer. Oh, okay, cool. I would say the hemp beverage space is kind of dominated by like fruited infused seltzers at this point. We're a little bit different. We're a sparkling beverage.
[00:24:35] Jessica Infante: Yeah, you're not quite as carbonated.
[00:24:37] Speaker 2: Correct. We have very light carbonation, very fruit forward. The other thing that we get is I don't want to wind up in the couch. all day. That's another one. Like I'm scared of it. I don't know how to approach it. I don't know what dosage to try first. I don't know how long to wait. I think it's a big consumer education issue. A lot of our brands are trying to do our best to like teach people about things as best we can. But again, I can kind of equate it like when RTDs came out or when craft beer came out, there is going to be an education wall that you kind of have to get over. It's a speed bow. It's fine. You just talk about it.
[00:25:11] Jessica Infante: Are people ever concerned about like, I don't know, like having to take a drug test or something? Does that ever come up?
[00:25:17] Speaker 2: There are concerns. So we, again, we don't have a federal framework in place yet for label standards, which, fingers crossed, we will eventually one day. On our labels, and I can just speak for my own, for KikViz, we do have a statement on there that says, hey, if you do have to take a drug test, it might cause you to fail it, just as a heads up, because we do want people to know that. It's not guaranteed that you'll fail it, but We just want people to be well-informed.
[00:25:42] Jessica Infante: Well, I feel like your packaging is very clear and direct about everything. Like, you guys are super out front. Thank you. Yeah. Like, you pick one up and you know exactly what's going on.
[00:25:51] Speaker 2: Exactly. We even, I don't know if you ever turn the can around because I think some people see the front and they're like, oh, this is cute. It is cute. Thank you. We actually have drinking instructions on the back of it, so there's like a one, two, three step on the back that says like start low, go slow, wait a little bit before you decide to drink more, especially if it's your first time. If you're feeling okay after, you know, 30 minutes, go ahead and drink the rest of the can, see how you feel, if you're good. Go from there, but take your time, ease into it. But again, I think education is gonna be key. And I know it's talked about consumer education, but I think also responsible service. We see folks like, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but the cannabis beverage certification. There's like an actual certification that you can kind of like tips training or serve safe or whatever it is for food and beverage. There is now a cannabis beverage equivalent to that. And I've gone through it. I'm certified. There's like an easy test and then there's a really hard one that you have to pay for. But I think everybody should go through that. It gives you an idea of the ingredients, how it's made, what goes into the beverages, signs of intoxication, smart service, things of that sort. So shout out to the cannabis certification folks.
[00:27:03] Jessica Infante: I'm glad you bring this up because this makes me curious about your on-premise strategy. Do you have one? Is that a channel that you guys pursue at all? We do.
[00:27:10] Speaker 2: Actually, we would really love to see the two milligram versions of KickFizz be positioned in on-premise. Again, not because there's anything like official yet that is concerning like liability insurance, like dram shop laws, like any of those things, right? We know those exist for alcohol in that realm. It's going to have to be developed, honestly, for on-premise because we are seeing... Now, on-premise occupies like a very small percentage of the market share as far as hemp beverage sales go overall. Like, you know me, I follow data, so I've seen it. It's like a tiny piece of the pie, right, overall. But I think it has its place, and I think especially for low-dose hemp beverages, that is a really good space to be in. Maybe somebody doesn't drink alcohol, maybe one of your friends has decided not to, or maybe they just want something different that day. Who knows? But I think the low-dose space is primed for on-premise consumption. You know, if I was an owner-operator of a bar or restaurant, I would feel more comfortable with very low-dose items, just to be careful. So that's kind of what we're hoping for, fingers crossed. Awesome. Where would you like to be?
[00:28:14] Jessica Infante: Julia, I think this is a great place to leave it. I am so excited to see how things kick out with KickFizz this year.
[00:28:21] Speaker 2: Look at you.
[00:28:21] Jessica Infante: Look at me. Look at you.
[00:28:22] Speaker 2: Marketing.
[00:28:23] Jessica Infante: It's like I deal with woods. And my friends always like to spend time with you, but now I'm glad that everybody else gets to hear what a delight it is to spend time with you.
[00:28:32] Speaker 2: Well, thank you so, so much. And I love being here and I'm glad that the team is here at CBC again. And it's always a pleasure to be in the Brewbound booth. And I will just shamelessly self-plug myself and go to kickfizz.com if you want to learn more about us.
[00:28:46] Jessica Infante: Perfect. Welcome back to the Brewbound podcast on location studio here on the trade show floor at Brew Expo America at the Craft Brewers Conference in lovely Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is Brewbound Managing Editor and podcast co-host Jessica Infante, and I am pumped for this guest. Joining me right now is Mr. Andy Sauer, CEO of Garage Beer. Andy, how are you? I'm great, Jess.
[00:29:15] Justin Kendall: Thanks for having me.
[00:29:15] Jessica Infante: Oh, I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad we can make this work. So in our life, you know, we've been covering all of the BA news of late and you guys just made it, I think, a pretty big splash. You landed on the Brewer's Association's top 50 list of craft breweries at number 12.
[00:29:32] Justin Kendall: Number 12.
[00:29:33] Jessica Infante: Huge.
[00:29:33] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:29:34] Jessica Infante: How do we feel about that?
[00:29:35] Justin Kendall: Flattered, to be honest. Yeah. Very thankful.
[00:29:39] Jessica Infante: And we had a big chat with BA CEO Bar Watson yesterday. He met with us, members of the media, and we talked a little bit about craft versus independence and what that means. And to me, you guys are an independent beer brand.
[00:29:54] Justin Kendall: Agreed. Yep.
[00:29:54] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I don't want to say that you're not craft because you are, but I think that might not be something that you lean into in messaging to consumers, right?
[00:30:02] Justin Kendall: That's right. I mean, I think a part of that was what craft started to mean in beer specific. I think it means something different in beer than it did in bourbon where I worked previously or other food categories. So we didn't lean into craft heavily because I think in the consumer's mind, what we learned when we started the brand was craft meant heavy or hoppy. And we were like, That's not what we are. So let's not lean there. We have a ton of respect for what the craft movement and beer built. I mean, our whole thing was craft quality. Domestic drinkability was kind of our goal and mission from the beginning. So a ton of respect for the craft industry. It was just, we want to tell the consumer what we are versus like, you know, confusing them.
[00:30:42] Jessica Infante: Well, yeah, I love that because I think it goes back to what we were talking about before we hit record, which is that I'm just going to out myself here. I am, I'm a little hurting from yesterday in which I drank a lot of very delicious high ABVIPAs and I am a 41 year old mom and I can't be doing that all the time. And fortunately I don't, but your product I have had, it is crisp. It is refreshing. It is delicious. And it absolutely would have done me some good yesterday.
[00:31:09] Justin Kendall: Listen, I coach a lot of baseball, a lot of t-ball, so Saturday, Friday nights, can't have the heavy beers anymore. Just the way life went.
[00:31:18] Jessica Infante: You know, it's okay. I'm okay with that.
[00:31:19] Justin Kendall: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:21] Jessica Infante: Is this your first CBC?
[00:31:23] Justin Kendall: It is.
[00:31:23] Jessica Infante: Wow, what do you think?
[00:31:24] Justin Kendall: I wish there was more beers, like readily available.
[00:31:27] Jessica Infante: Oh, there are plenty.
[00:31:28] Justin Kendall: You know, I was like, where's the cart?
[00:31:30] Jessica Infante: We could use a cart.
[00:31:31] Justin Kendall: That's right. Right. Right. Just a cart, a garage cart. Mobile beers. But yeah, garage beers over there. We'll see it.
[00:31:37] Jessica Infante: Oh, all right. Well, let's do that next because I could really use that.
[00:31:40] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:31:41] Jessica Infante: So you have been involved with the brand for a couple of years now. You didn't originate it. It started with Braxton in Covington. Yep.
[00:31:50] Justin Kendall: Yep.
[00:31:51] Jessica Infante: What made you want to do this? I know we've talked about that.
[00:31:54] Justin Kendall: Yeah, we have, but a little refresher. So, you know, coming from bourbon, I thought, you know, craft bourbon tasted like the other bourbons, just like more quality, more, you know, story, more origin, all of that. And I thought that was kind of missing from beer and like myself as I was aging. I was like, man, I just want a light beer, but I want that quality expectation that I have grown to appreciate from craft beer. So it was just this, what felt like glaring myths in light beer was a independent brand in that space. You know, 95% of light beer is produced by three companies. So it was like an independent would have a role here for the folks who are aging and are like, man, I got to I hear Coach Tebow tomorrow. I can't be so hungover. So yeah, light beer.
[00:32:41] Jessica Infante: Obviously, it's really resonating with people based on your volume gains. But another brand that rocketed up the top 50 this year was Outlaw. And I think the people are saying, yes, we want this.
[00:32:52] Speaker 3: Right.
[00:32:53] Jessica Infante: I think the people dabbled in the hard seltzers because they were finding similar attributes, lower ABV, lower calories. But I think what we're seeing finally is that people miss the flavor of beer.
[00:33:04] Justin Kendall: Sometimes you just want a beer.
[00:33:06] Jessica Infante: Sometimes.
[00:33:07] Justin Kendall: And I think that's great for the industry as a whole, whether it's light beer or another style of beer. I think just more things that attract people back to the category is great, kind of for everybody.
[00:33:18] Jessica Infante: I 100% agree. One thing that's really impressed me about what you guys have done is you've kept it really simple. You've got two flavors, original lime. Packaging is really easy. I'm psyched about the stubby bottles. So tell us about the, cause I love, it reminds me of drinking a red stripe, like on spring break in college.
[00:33:37] Justin Kendall: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, aside from, you know, craft quality, domestic drinkability, another layer that was like, let's make a beer that tastes like light beer used to be made. Yeah. My taste panel was actually my father-in-law and my dad. Perfect. You know, hey, does this work? And both of them were like, this tastes like beer tasted when I was in college. I was like, all right, I wasn't alive then. But feels like we maybe are on to something. Yeah. And so we always wanted to do bottles and we were we were concepting it and trying to put together what it would look like. in looking at old images of light beer bottles, that style of bottle was, you know, pretty popular back then. And so as an homage to that, that was kind of our driving force behind why that bottle shape.
[00:34:22] Jessica Infante: And are they going to be a permanent thing or is this just a limited time offering?
[00:34:27] Justin Kendall: Permanent.
[00:34:27] Jessica Infante: Nice.
[00:34:28] Justin Kendall: Very permanent. I mean, selfishly, I was like, I just want, I want a bottle.
[00:34:32] Jessica Infante: I love a stubby bottle. Six packs, 12 packs.
[00:34:35] Justin Kendall: Six packs right now, probably 12 packs shortly.
[00:34:39] Jessica Infante: How important is Draft for you guys?
[00:34:41] Justin Kendall: Increasingly important. We started very much as a off-premise brand. You know, that was kind of my background, was more grocery retail. But I think the on-premise is growing in importance in size. And as we evolve and we mature, if we want more people to be introduced to the brand, that's kind of a next evolution, next step we have to make.
[00:35:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Now, I mean, I know beer. And the conventional wisdom was always you trial on the on-premise, then you move to the off-premise. Is it the same in spirits?
[00:35:09] Justin Kendall: Very similar. Yeah. I mean, I think the only reason this worked off-premise was because of timing. Sometimes better to be lucky than good. You know, coming out of COVID, people were learning about new products in retail more than on-premise. And it was just a specific time window that allowed that to work. And that's changing. People are learning about things on-premise again. And I think that's why we have to put our time and energy into that.
[00:35:33] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Your CMO, Kevin George, was on a panel that I moderated at Brewbound Live in December. It's our annual business conference. And we talked a lot about just like the off-the-wall marketing that the brand has been doing. It's really fun. And you guys have found really, I think, unique ways to engage with the consumer. And I don't even, we don't even need to get into the Kelsey of it all because they're obviously a huge deal here, but you do really fun things on your own. What have been some of your favorite pieces of either like content marketing or other entrees to various niche consumer groups? Because I know that's a big one.
[00:36:10] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I just think it's the acknowledgement that we're in Liberia, which is the background noise. It's a reason for people to get together and we want to be the brand for people who are social connectors and like Having that blank canvas of just entertainment is a blast. I mean, every day we kind of treat our company like a writer's room, you know? Fun. Ideas kind of just emanate from what we do, you know? We always are like, do we have another thing? And something else always comes up. Someone we work with posted, if you make your license plate, Garage Beer will give you beer. And I couldn't believe it's like 84 license plates in a day.
[00:36:48] Jessica Infante: That's wild.
[00:36:49] Justin Kendall: From all over the country of people making Garage Beer license plates.
[00:36:52] Jessica Infante: And how much beer did you get that?
[00:36:55] Justin Kendall: A lot. There was a good amount of beer that was delivered to some folks.
[00:36:59] Jessica Infante: Because you see brands will do like if you get a tattoo of us, they will do something for you, which is just popular. The license plate thing is amazing.
[00:37:06] Justin Kendall: It was very funny. And I was like, I can't believe this many people were willing to make their license plate our brand.
[00:37:12] Jessica Infante: But they are.
[00:37:13] Justin Kendall: But they are. It's pretty fun. Yeah.
[00:37:15] Jessica Infante: What else can we expect to see from you this year?
[00:37:17] Justin Kendall: So we also have buckets, which are rolled out here. My operations partners here pointed out that we just delivered more buckets than we sold two years ago in our full year. So it's kind of a wild turn, like just that much interest in a new form factor. And in a way, like, I can't believe no one's really done that before. It's kind of a great summer pack. You just pour ice on it. It's fantastic.
[00:37:41] Jessica Infante: Hold on. Back up and tell me about the buckets, because my head went to on-premise.
[00:37:45] Justin Kendall: Yeah. So this is, it's a Home Depot bucket.
[00:37:49] Jessica Infante: Oh, the bucket. I've seen this bucket.
[00:37:50] Justin Kendall: Of beer.
[00:37:50] Jessica Infante: But tell our listeners, it's a Home Depot style bucket of beer.
[00:37:54] Justin Kendall: Yep. So we took what amounts to a five gallon Home Depot bucket, branded it Garage Beer, and it can be found in retail this month.
[00:38:01] Jessica Infante: That's wild. And how many beers is sold?
[00:38:05] Justin Kendall: 24. Just that ice.
[00:38:07] Jessica Infante: And which retailers did you target for this?
[00:38:09] Justin Kendall: So Sam's Club was one of them that was particularly interested, Kroger. I mean, they were available kind of to all customers, but there was a few that just kind of made more sense.
[00:38:18] Jessica Infante: Yeah, for sure.
[00:38:19] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:38:20] Jessica Infante: And what's your club strategy these days?
[00:38:22] Justin Kendall: I wouldn't say we have a club strategy. It's a tough channel to get into. Yeah, it's a very narrow focus business. I would say whatever's incremental, which is probably more Lime than original in the category. So I think we kind of lead with Lime in that channel.
[00:38:36] Jessica Infante: Interesting. Any thoughts on ever making another style?
[00:38:40] Justin Kendall: Depends who you ask. So Jason loves other styles of beer and we love the idea of doing some experimental things, especially here in Philadelphia. We have some other potential flavors that are coming out. So we'll have some things later this year that aren't quite ready to announce yet, but we'll have some other, other things.
[00:38:57] Jessica Infante: All right. I would like the exclusive on that when it's time.
[00:39:00] Justin Kendall: You got it.
[00:39:00] Jessica Infante: Thanks. I loved your Halloween pack last year. I thought that was really fun.
[00:39:04] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I had a lot of fun with that. That was like a childhood memory kind of coming out.
[00:39:08] Jessica Infante: Like the McDonald's Happy Meal buckets? For sure.
[00:39:10] Justin Kendall: Yeah, for sure. But the illustrator of Goosebumps did that package.
[00:39:14] Jessica Infante: That's incredible.
[00:39:15] Justin Kendall: Yeah. We reached out to him. We're like, we love your work. And the author actually lives in Columbus, RL Tyne. Does he really?
[00:39:21] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Do you know him?
[00:39:22] Justin Kendall: I don't know. But big fan. Big fan. RL, if you're listening, big fan. So he was like, I'm happy to do it. Would love to. And it actually got done two years ago, but didn't wind up on pack until last year.
[00:39:35] Jessica Infante: Well, because packaging is such a
[00:39:37] Justin Kendall: Yeah. It's a tough one. It landed in our hands like November 5th. We were like, we just missed it.
[00:39:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah. By like three months.
[00:39:46] Justin Kendall: Yeah. This art is great though.
[00:39:49] Jessica Infante: So while we're in Philly, have you seen Jason? Is he here?
[00:39:53] Justin Kendall: He's here. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. I will see him later.
[00:39:56] Jessica Infante: Very cool. What is your relationship like with them? Because I remember Kevin saying you try really hard to make sure it is not all them in your marketing. It's like, sure, like a 70-30 mix.
[00:40:06] Justin Kendall: Sure. I mean, they're heavily involved, which is great. Someone from our team hears from Jason probably every day. I mean, he's very, very involved. We talked to Travis and his team every week. They want to know everything that's going on and contribute. And like, we don't do a whole lot without their involvement. And so that part's great. I think they have phenomenal ideas and have loved and embraced the idea that they get to own a light beer company. And that's a fun playground.
[00:40:35] Jessica Infante: That is very fun. I just, my assumption always is you see a lot of, you know, celebrity-involved brands and my thought is always like, well, what really is happening? So I love that they are this like in the weeds with you guys.
[00:40:47] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:40:48] Jessica Infante: That's very cool.
[00:40:49] Justin Kendall: It's awesome. It's pretty fun.
[00:40:51] Jessica Infante: Well, let's zoom out a little bit. You're in all 50 states now. How would you characterize your wholesaler network?
[00:40:56] Justin Kendall: Yeah, so I mean, we're primarily a Molson Coors distribution network, except here, shout out to Stockertown, phenomenal partners here in PA. But we are primarily with the Molson Coors network and last year expanded to all 50 states. And this year, it's been an interesting kind of like, you figure out where you're really strong. And growing up, I mean, I would say last year was a little bit like a teenager with feet that are a little too big. You know, we're kind of tripping over ourselves trying to figure everything out and building the plane as we're trying to fly it. And this year it's nice to settle in and kind of know how to work with each of the markets that we're in and try to grow into that.
[00:41:32] Jessica Infante: What's your distributor feedback been?
[00:41:34] Justin Kendall: So like all craft breweries, you get these hot zones, right? And then other zones. And I think the biggest feedback is how do we do what you're doing there and there here? You know, we need that kind of energy and growth. And so we're trying to be a good partner and just replicate that wherever we are. But, you know, we're a pretty small team still.
[00:41:54] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Are you maybe 20 employees now?
[00:41:56] Justin Kendall: We're a little more than that. We're about 40 employees. Oh, wow. Congrats. Yeah.
[00:42:01] Jessica Infante: Thanks. The last time I talked to Kevin about this, it was like eight. Yeah. Yeah. He was like seven and I'm the seventh.
[00:42:08] Justin Kendall: Yeah.
[00:42:08] Jessica Infante: We were comically small for very long, which, you know, sometimes is good, but also like, it's just nice to get more voices in the mix and.
[00:42:15] Justin Kendall: Totally. A lot of smart people. I mean, honestly, I think I held that too close too long. And it's when I realized the best part of, you know, this business is getting great people and getting to work with awesome people.
[00:42:25] Jessica Infante: I feel like you learned that lesson much sooner than a lot of other people have learned that lesson. So congrats. Thanks. And you mentioned some hot zones. Where are they?
[00:42:35] Justin Kendall: I mean, pretty much Ohio to here, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, up to Michigan, down to Tennessee, kind of are our hot zone.
[00:42:45] Jessica Infante: Andy, I know you're so busy, so I am so glad you took the time to sit down and chat. And I'm glad you get to see CBC for the first time.
[00:42:52] Justin Kendall: I'm so glad I could too. And thank you for making the time. This is great.
[00:42:55] Jessica Infante: Thanks. 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 Kratchy. 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.
