Revised Craft Production Data, Plus Chats with Victory and Odell

[00:00:00] Jessica Infante: Craft production numbers in 2025 might be a little bit better than previously reported. Next on the Brewbound Podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata. Zoe, it's a girl's day.

[00:00:27] Zoe Licata: How you doing? Good. Yeah. Justin is off to Chicago for Beer Marketer's Insights. So it's just us this week.

[00:00:34] Jessica Infante: It is. He should be on the ground by now. I don't think that's too long a flight for him.

[00:00:39] Zoe Licata: Yeah.

[00:00:39] Jessica Infante: But yeah, I'm sure he'll have all the news and goss for us when he's back in a couple of days. Other than that, it's the two of us and we've got another duo of conversations had at the craft brewers conference in Philly in April. This week, you're going to hear from Bill Kovaleski and Joe Slavik of Victory, who I chatted with. Great time talking to them. And it was just fun to speak to like Philly area brewers while CBC was in their hometown. We had a nice chat. Victory's turning 30 this year, so lots to discuss. And then Justin, I believe, talked with Smitty from Odell. That is, of course, Eric Smith, who is the CEO at Odell Brewing in Fort Collins. So two like really OG standard bearers of the first wave, the second wave of craft. I don't really know anymore. It's been a doozy of a week for us, right?

[00:01:35] Zoe Licata: There's been a lot going on. I mean, we say that every week. feels like extra right now.

[00:01:41] Jessica Infante: That's extra deucified. Well, what we're awkwardly talking around here is that, you know, we knew this was coming and today we got a, just before we hit record, an email from the PR firm that represents the Brewers Association acknowledging that, yes, it's not just our imaginations. The May, June New Brewer Magazine, the annual industry production report had a decent amount of errors in it. And this, I think, started becoming apparent to us when, you know, the new brewer is the BA's six times a year, bi-monthly. Every two months, the BA publishes this magazine and the May-June issue always has all of the industry data. And we refer to this thing all year long. We all probably have it saved on our computer desktops. It gets the work out. And it is where the BA collects production volume from all of its members. So it comes out on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Zoe, you in particular spend a lot of time with it. You and I tag team top 10 craft brewers, then you did top 50, and then you did regional breweries outside the top 50.

[00:02:50] Zoe Licata: Yep. And then Justin also had the kind of big beer that isn't necessarily defined as craft by the BA.

[00:02:59] Jessica Infante: But is by Cercana. So we first noticed that something was afoot after we published our story about the top 10, which, you know, original data from the B.A. had shown that Yingling was down 25 percent. Yeah. Which is a lot. But we even thought that at the time that we emailed and said, hey, What's up here, the complicating factor here with Yingling is that since 2020, they've had this joint venture with Molson Coors where the Yingling company themselves brews and produces and sells beer. It's basically like east of the Mississippi and the Molson Coors JV handles territories west of the Mississippi. They've done some territory swapping here and there, but it's basically a good rule of thumb for it. You know, we did even ask, like, hey, does this number include JV produced beer? Does it not? We got told, nope, that is everything all in Molson Coors brewed, Yingling brewed, given to us by Yingling. And so we said, okay, and we went with it. only to hear from the fine folks at Yingling that no, that is not true. So the updated number, the correct number for beer that Yingling has produced was 2.44 million barrels, which was having them down 4%, which is way different than being down 25%. Yeah, the BA's number that they originally had run for yingling was more than 500,000 barrels less than what yingling brewed.

[00:04:26] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I cannot stress enough how much fucking beer that is. So much. And the consequence of that is not just in yingling's numbers, but that also affects Personally, I hate being wrong. I hate it.

[00:04:51] Jessica Infante: I hate it so much.

[00:04:58] Zoe Licata: I will admit when I am wrong. It's tough when you ask just will you do your job to check and then it still turns out it was wrong. Right. But we have updates for everyone and we'll continue to update you on what actually was happening. And the yingling number wasn't the only number that was off. We also have since learned that some of the numbers were different for New Belgium and Bells. That was due in part to some reporting of non-beer volume. The real numbers for New Belgium was just over 1.26 million barrels and Bells was over 408,000 barrels. And in a positive spin to this, it means that Kraft's total volume last year was a little bit better than initially reported. We were down 4% instead of down 5.1% as initially said. So it actually was exactly the same as 2024. It's 20% better than we thought. Yeah.

[00:05:56] Jessica Infante: It's just, I don't know, I feel like we've been really kind of through it here in the past month where we as the trade press get asked to tell happier stories and it's like, okay, well you guys start.

[00:06:07] Zoe Licata: You had a better story to tell. We could have, yeah, we could have told a happier story if we had these numbers. Right? So it's still, I mean, it's still the loss of about a million barrels of beer compared to 2024. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, but it is better. It's down 4%. Another one of the big changes there is the total volume decline for all regional breweries is also different. So that was initially reported as down 5.9%. And with these new numbers, it was actually down 4.1%. And we know those are the breweries that make out the majority of volume, so of course that is going to follow similar trends to the overall craft number.

[00:06:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah, a quick refresher if you don't spend a ton of time with these classifications is that regional breweries are those who sell most of the beer off of their own premises through distribution and make more than 15,000 barrels of beer a year. Micro breweries are breweries that make fewer than 15,000 barrels, but still primarily sell through distribution. And then you've got the two classifications of craft brewers that sell mostly on premise, that's tap rooms. And brewpubs, the differentiation between those two is that brewpubs offer significant food service and taprooms do not. And the number of breweries in all of those buckets is kind of fluid because if you make 16,000 barrels one year and 14,000 another, obviously that would bump you from a regional to a micro. But if you install a kitchen, then you become a brewpub. Those things are changing all the time, but last year, as Zoe, you just said, regional breweries produced 4.1% less beer than they did the year before. Micros were down pretty big, 8.9%. Taprooms were down 3.9% and brew pubs were down 1.7%. So everybody is down, which shouldn't be surprising to anybody.

[00:07:56] Zoe Licata: Yeah. A couple other changes that we've since learned and the VA has given us a statement on all of this and they acknowledge, you know, there's always some changes and adjustments that are made every year as they collect more information. But this one was, quote, more extensive than usual, unquote. So that's why we're having all these changes. Another one in favor of Kraft was that retail dollars were down 2.8% last year instead of the first reported 3.6%. So we totaled around $28 billion versus the initial report was $27.8 billion. So some more sales in there than initially thought. And share was up slightly more than initially reported. So originally it had it about flat at 24.6% of total beer dollars. Now we know that Kraft was actually at 24.8%. Just a couple little, little points.

[00:08:46] Jessica Infante: Yeah. There's like a crazy lady voice in my brain that keeps saying, well, what if the originally reported number for yingling was the yingling brewed beer, not including the Molson Coors brewed beer? I don't know what that would mean for everybody and everything, but I just keep thinking about that. And the bigger question for us at least is if this many things are wrong. What else was wrong in the past? What else? Right?

[00:09:10] Zoe Licata: There are definitely have been times where a brewery has reached out and said, hey, you know, this estimate that was in there isn't actually right. And this is what we actually produce. So these numbers are a collection of what is reported to the B.A. through this annual production survey that they do and numbers that are collected through government sources like the T.T.B. And so some breweries are estimates and some breweries are actual reported numbers. And we've gotten corrections from breweries before of like, hey, this is actually what's happening. But like we said, this is a totally different, more extensive change than in the past.

[00:09:42] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And so if you notice your volume number was wrong in that spreadsheet or in the new Brewer Magazine, drop us a line. I'd love to know.

[00:09:51] Zoe Licata: Yeah. News at Brewbound.com. I think your assumptions about the Molson Coors numbers could be pretty accurate, especially given that the jobs changed as well. The number of jobs provided by craft beer production went up. So that could be, you know, they're counting some of those Molson Coors folks that weren't counted before. The number of jobs that craft breweries provided last year was 191,000, which was down 3% compared to 2024, or down about 6,000. The previous report had it at 189,000 jobs, which is down 8,000 or down 4%. Yeah.

[00:10:31] Jessica Infante: The funny thing here to me is that Yingling aren't, they're not even VA members. You know, they've only been like in the BA definition since I think that change happened in 2014. Yeah. You know, Justin and I chatted with their team and just kind of, you know, we had a whole conversation around what happened and how is this happening? And they were like, yeah, we didn't even really know that this happened. They go out. Yeah. And you know, they are in, but New Belgium and Bels are out. We don't make these decisions. We just report on them. So it's been, you know, a real thumper of a week around here. I don't even know if that makes any sense, but.

[00:11:08] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Really want to emphasize that these are numbers that we use all year round. So when there's a big mistake like this, it makes it, we're trying really hard to get everything corrected and make sure that you all have the most accurate information as possible. And we're going to have updated reports on the site and notes in any previous reports. So you can make sure you have those up to date.

[00:11:27] Jessica Infante: Right. And the best way to make sure that we have the most accurate data normally is to participate in the BA's production survey. So when you get that email from Matt Gaciac, respond to it, give them your numbers. And then when we eventually write about your brewery, we'll have the right numbers and then we'll all be happy. Well, we'll all be satisfied with the truth. We might not be happy about the numbers.

[00:11:48] Zoe Licata: We're not just reporting on these numbers. These help us inform, hey, are there breweries that we should be paying more attention to? Are there folks that we should be connecting with to do some features on or maybe get on a Brewbound live panel? So this is stuff that we use for things beyond just the numbers reports too. Totally.

[00:12:05] Jessica Infante: All right, I think we've got to move on to the middle tier, right? Yeah. Yeah. Which would be enough on its own. Right. So Reyes' deal to acquire 11 markets from RNDC, which we've been talking about since it was announced in mid-January, that is finally closed. Done. Great. Over with. Reyes' biggest deal in its history, which is kind of crazy because they are enormous dealmakers in the space. So there is that. Then in the Sheehan Network, TJ Sheehan, which is part of the Sheehan family companies, they're a lot smaller than they used to be for a variety of reasons, but this is their branch in central New York, acquired Eagle Beverage. So it's a AB on AB deal in the, I am going to say the greater Syracuse area, but it's obviously much bigger than that. I just happened to attend the university. And then in the PAC Northwest, Columbia took a 30% share of Hayden in Idaho. Columbia has been interesting in this several month sprint of distributor news. They've taken on some brands from RNDC in Washington and Oregon, and also some assets in Alaska.

[00:13:17] Zoe Licata: Yeah, the middle tier continues to make headlines.

[00:13:22] Jessica Infante: If you wanted to buy companies, I would say during this current iteration of the DOJ, now would be the time if you just One, to let your deals close and, you know, sail through without any. Yes.

[00:13:34] Zoe Licata: And that's something we've been told is definitely a factor. We're not just guessing. That's a real thing going on.

[00:13:40] Jessica Infante: A real thing. Zoe, you did our monthly report on Circona's craft reporting. What did you notice?

[00:13:46] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it wasn't super sunny. Sorry, BA. So this kind of encompassed end of April through to mid-May and crafts declines got worse. They accelerated ahead of what was Memorial Day, which isn't included in this data, but we know from weekly scans also wasn't super great for beer. So, through the four-week period that this report covered, dollar sales was down 4.6% and volume was down 6.8%. The previous report from Circona that this is from had dollars down 2.3% and volume down 3.8%, so it's a pretty significant acceleration in losses. There were some folks that were still able to find growth and actually accelerate growth in the period, which is pretty notable. It's not just that they weren't able to sustain things or like they had slightly less growth in a harder time. They are continuing to find more and more sales. Some of those callouts include Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, Sierra Nevada's Hazy Little Thing. Elysian Spacedust, you know, is an AB brand. Laguidina's Little Something Something and Georgetown Bodhisattva IPA. So those are all folks that are within the top 25, 30 brands that were able to not only find growth, but really continue to find momentum despite the segment's overall trends.

[00:15:12] Jessica Infante: Dude, but like, not for nothing, I don't think you need to apologize to the BA for any of this because most of these brands are not their members.

[00:15:19] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's true. Unfortunately, yeah, these are not included in the B. I said these are owned by other folks. So the overall craft story continues to be pretty negative after it started to look positive at the start of the year. And I think it's leading more and more to us coming to the conclusion that a lot of those trends were because of the soft comps from 2025, beginning of 2025. And so the summer is going to be really interesting to see how that plays out. if things are going to kind of balance back out or if it's going to continue to trend downward.

[00:15:53] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and that's kind of what we saw in Cercana's weekly report on Memorial Day weekend, which was pretty bad. Spirits grew in dollars in volume and no other mega category did that. Wine and beer were both down in both metrics. RTDs were up in dollar sales, but down in volume. And Cercana mostly attributed this to the terrible weather. Was it bad? It was bad. I mean, it was bad.

[00:16:21] Zoe Licata: In here, it was bad. Here, it was bad. In England, it was... It's always bad Memorial Day weekend, though, I feel like, every year. One thing to watch, or there's a couple of things to watch. One from the Cercano report was Voodoo Ranger's new G-Force Supercharge IPA that launched earlier this year has already cracked the top 30 overall for craft beer, which that's pretty big. It does seem to be doing it slightly through cannibalization of other Voodoo Ranger brands, but that is purely a C-Store play. That was created to be in 19.2 ounce cans in C-Stores. We're still seeing that is working for that brand family. And it's not just in C stores, but those dollars are contributing it to be in the top 30 overall. So that's pretty big. The other thing that just are paying attention to data wise, Three Dirt Beverages had a webinar last week now or a couple weeks ago. And they noted that a lot of the craft dollars that are being lost are going to domestic super premium brands.

[00:17:27] Jessica Infante: McUltra and what else?

[00:17:29] Zoe Licata: Exactly. Mainly McUltra. That is what's happening. Although McUltra Zero, they're also including in that, which is driving a huge portion of that segment's growth. Like 44% of that is coming from McUltra Zero. Interesting. Yeah so there could be some positives happening for beer as folks aren't necessarily leaving the category but it still continues to be folks leaving craft for other segments. The dollars and just spend and you know people's wallets is really a factor that we're going to have to continue to watch this year because Depending on what economists you ask, how much of a factor that is changes, but it's definitely having an impact on what segment consumers are picking from.

[00:18:11] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Interesting. In the weekly Circona reports, I've noticed High Noon has been down pretty much all year. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy because I know they had called out various other spirits-based seltzers saying that that subsegment was up, but that's the biggest one. And they've been down, I mean, this past week that ended in the middle of Memorial Day weekend, high noon was dollar sales down almost a percent, volume down 3%. Then you see in the same competitive set, neutral, which is from Anheuser-Busch, is up 13% in dollars, 12 in volume. Carbolis, similar boat, up 26% in dollars, 27% in volume. Interesting that, you know, I think the prevailing story we hear about RTDs is that the youngest group of, you know, legal drinking age adults doesn't like bubbles, but those two things are both pretty carbonated and they're doing all right. So I would love to know who's buying them. Like who is the carbless drinker versus who is the neutral drinker versus, you know?

[00:19:16] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I'm really curious, too. I feel like a lot of it just factors out, especially in like venues and things, just what's there. I don't know if there's a lot of loyalty once you go there. It's just whatever is available. And so I'm sure a lot of those deals are helping as well. I'm curious to know how much of the High Noon impact is folks wanting more fuller, bolder flavors and they're going to the, you know, the hard teas and things instead. And how much is the price point? Because High Noon is not cheap. So are there some of these slight like a dollar or two cheaper for a four pack or an eight pack and folks are going to those instead?

[00:19:55] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that's a great point. I don't think we talked about this in the pod last week, but Memorial Day weekend, I went to see Bruce Springsteen for the 16th time because I'm a crazy person. And the options at the booze stand by our seats were either a tall guy of Sun Cruiser or a tall Surfside Strawberry Lemonade. So I had had two of those and they were $24.99 each. Yeah. Like, I was expecting it to be bad, but oh, it was bad. Our first round was one of those surf sides, two large McUlcha drafts and one large Bud Light draft, because there's just two of us, so you can only get two drinks per person, plus tip, which they take tip based on like the standard 10, 15, 20%, which is kind of, oh, we're not at a fine dining restaurant, this is the TD Bank Garden. What is happening? 97 American dollars. Crazy. Wild. One round. One round. Was a hundred bucks. Look, we used credit card points on the tickets and the hotel stay, so had to splurge somewhere. And I guess it was on extraordinarily overpriced beverage alcohol products. Great concert.

[00:21:05] Zoe Licata: Contributing to the industry.

[00:21:07] Jessica Infante: I do my part. Zoe, thank you for joining me on this adventure. We covered a ton of topics and hopefully there are fewer errors next week. And with that, let's get to our featured interviews with the team from Victory and Odell.

[00:21:25] 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.

[00:21:44] Jessica Infante: Hi, we are live in the Brewbound podcast on location studio here on the trade show floor at Brew Expo America, part of the Craft Brewers Conference. It's Brewbound managing editor and podcast co-host Jessica Infante, and I am thrilled to be joined by our guests right now. We have from Victory Brewing, founder Bill Kowalewski. Bill, how you doing?

[00:22:03] Speaker 2: Doing fantastic, Jess. Welcome to Philadelphia.

[00:22:06] Jessica Infante: Oh, thank you. It's so good to be here. And you are joined by your Director of Brewing Operations, Joe Slavik. Joe, how you doing?

[00:22:14] Speaker 3: Great. Great. Happy to be here.

[00:22:16] Jessica Infante: Oh, well, it's so good to be here with you guys. And as we were just talking before we went live, I grew up across the river, so I'm always happy to be back in this neck of the... I'm happy to be back in Wawa land, always.

[00:22:26] Speaker 2: Wawa land, yeah, for sure.

[00:22:28] Jessica Infante: And hopefully, this is the first recording we're doing in the studio this week, and I hopefully do not continue to talk about Wawa, but...

[00:22:37] Speaker 2: You know, you made me pause when you said something about partner in crime, because I'm like, you know, Brewbound researches everything so well. What have Joe and I done together that I forgot?

[00:22:46] Speaker 3: I know, right? Yeah. I was always told, if you can't be good, don't get caught, so... Ooh, by a parent, probably. That was my mom. Oh, yeah.

[00:22:55] Jessica Infante: Moms always know. They know. They know.

[00:22:57] Speaker 2: They do.

[00:22:58] Jessica Infante: It's wild. So, I don't have that level of, like, mom skill yet, but I assume it will come, because, like, my own mom, I think, could have been in the CIA.

[00:23:06] Speaker 2: We'll never know that, though.

[00:23:08] Jessica Infante: No, never. You guys have been together a long time. Joe, you are celebrating 11 years at Victory. Correct. And Bill, you are celebrating 30 years with Victory.

[00:23:17] Speaker 2: 30 years of Victory. That is a feat. That is a feat. A few can do that, I think. But it's all been so incredibly rewarding to look at it from, you know, through the lens backwards and seeing all the amazing talent. like Joe that we've grown and see all of the folks that have had fantastic experiences generated from these amazing beers that we've made and our hospitality. So yeah, 30 years is not a blur, but there's blurry parts of it for sure.

[00:23:46] Jessica Infante: Oh, I bet. I mean, your victory is older than my, uh, my teammate Zoe Licata. So.

[00:23:52] Speaker 2: Oh boy.

[00:23:53] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I would love to get, well, we'll talk with Zoe later about what it's like to be younger than the industry you're covering. But, you know, earlier this spring I was at the New York State Brewers Guild Conference in Albany and their keynote speaker was Rob Todd, founder of Allagash. And Rob talked about, they're about the same age as you guys. I think they, they hit 30 last year and he sees, this riot as having like a few distinct periods. There was the beginning when it was tough, he calls it the grind. Then there was the boom times when everything took off and everything was great. Then there was COVID, which was its own beast. And now there's now. Would you say that kind of rings true with your experience at Victory over the past 30 years?

[00:24:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, I think that part of what Rob was speaking to is we were essentially alone in the early stages. We were trying to build enthusiasm for these products that we naturally had enthusiasm for. It was going well, but it was thin, very thin level of existence. And then it picked up momentum, but the momentum it picked up brought so many new people to the fold as well. Then it really changed and COVID was poorly timed. 100%.

[00:25:03] Jessica Infante: right? You guys had just opened a couple new taprooms right before COVID, right?

[00:25:08] Speaker 2: No, actually, we were very stable at that point. Well, through ABV, we were gradually growing, gradually growing, and COVID wasn't that much. Obviously, it was a huge change of operations, but it wasn't a setback, let's say, for our hospitality. But I feel that when I said it was poorly timed, I was thinking more of You know, the brotherhood and sisterhood of craft brewers. There's so many young companies that had recently entered at that time and they were being handed the biggest challenge of their lives. And that was unfortunate.

[00:25:40] Jessica Infante: Not really related, Andy, but thank you for saying sisterhood in there. I thought that was very nice and inclusive of you. Well, so to me, the Philly area has always been like a hotbed for craft beer and like Philly's always been a great beer town. How would you say that has changed over the years?

[00:25:56] Speaker 3: I think overall, the craft brewing community has gotten a lot tighter. Obviously, there was a lot of distancing through the COVID periods, but I think that picked back up right afterwards. I know a ton of brewers, different breweries throughout the whole area, and everybody's always very supportive of each other, and they're trying to work together, talking about collaborations, what they can do, this and that. So I think it's been really good in the Philadelphia area. I think everyone really kind of, I don't know, gets behind each other.

[00:26:31] Jessica Infante: You've got to, especially when the way that your business, your products are being sold is through people coming together.

[00:26:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:26:38] Jessica Infante: I mean, we just heard a great keynote speech from Will Goddard, which all about hospitality. What were your takeaways from that?

[00:26:46] Speaker 2: I think that, you know, the simple focus on a direct connection with the person that you're focusing on, be it the customer, your spouse, whomever, that obviously makes so much sense all the time. But for him to use that, for him to draw illustrations of why that is powerful in a business sense, I think was, was really profoundly impactful.

[00:27:11] Jessica Infante: Joe, how about for you, anything that struck you?

[00:27:12] Speaker 3: I actually missed it.

[00:27:12] Jessica Infante: I got here late. Oh, good for you. Look, somebody's got to make the fucking beer.

[00:27:17] Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep. You know, just tagging something onto what Joe had contributed about the Philly community here. We're also very fortunate in Pennsylvania. Our guild was formed in 2011. So not real early, but our guild was very, very active in keeping the doors open and giving everyone a reason to join. We don't have 100% membership, but expanding beyond the Philly environs, we have a very strong guild and we have a very helpful guild. We really are looking out for one another, as Joe had said. And sometimes people need that business perspective to make the time and write the check to be a part of a guild.

[00:27:56] Jessica Infante: And Hannah, the guild director, was at our event last night. We hosted a networking party and a podcast recording at Love City, and she just has so much enthusiasm. But she's also, she's not a full-time guild director because, you know, some guilds can do that and some guilds can't. And I think she would probably... probably love to be, but what were the days like before the guild?

[00:28:18] Speaker 2: Well, there actually were two guilds. So I go back to 1997 when myself, Artie Tafoya at Appalachian, Carol Stout, Tom Kehoe at Yards, we put together the Pennsylvania Micro Brewers Guild. You remember when we were micro brewers, Joe? Yeah. Not to be opposed, but Yingling was part of a guild as well. And in 2010, there was some challenging legislation proposed which would have taken away self-distribution rights for brewers. And I got a call from Dave Casanelli from Yingling, and he's like, have you seen this? What should we do about it? And that actually caused the formation of Brewers of Pennsylvania, where the two organizations became one.

[00:29:04] Jessica Infante: Wow. How much self-distributing have you guys done in your history?

[00:29:08] Speaker 2: for three or four years, but it was phenomenally important because no one wanted to pay what they needed to pay for our beer at a wholesale level. So we had to go out and prove that there was a market for it. And then all of a sudden they got it.

[00:29:22] Speaker 3: When you guys first started out, trying to push craft beer at the price of what it cost to make craft beer was probably a shock to most places, right?

[00:29:31] Speaker 2: Fourteen bucks a case. That's the highest I could get from a wholesaler. So we had to do it on our own.

[00:29:37] Jessica Infante: Wow. Well, it's like whenever people are shocked that N.A. beer costs as much, if not more.

[00:29:42] Speaker 3: So much work goes into it. So, you know, we've played around with that idea. I know some of our sister brands, Southern Cheer, and they've played around with the idea before. And it's definitely something we would like to explore, but also it takes a lot of work and there's a lot of precautions you got to take along with it. So.

[00:30:00] Jessica Infante: Yeah, well, Joe, since you're here, let's get into the beer. I know that you guys have done really well with the Monkey family, and that kind of functions almost as its own brand family within. How does that interplay with the rest of the portfolio? How do you guys look at innovation for both?

[00:30:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously the Monkey family is our bread and butter. Gold Monkey, Sour Monkey, Berry Monkey. We have Mary Monkey, Tiki Monkey, and over the years we've had so many. And it definitely pays the bills, but it doesn't distract us from innovating on other brands. We have some great beers that Bill and Ron have put together over the years, Prima Pils, Dirt Wolf, Summer Love, awesome beers. And most recently, Prima Light. Yeah, I don't think it distracts us from anything, but I think it does carry the weight and lets us continue with the innovation of creating new beers and looking at different styles.

[00:30:57] Jessica Infante: Well, because the interesting thing is the Monkey family is all really higher ABV, which is a good place to play, but you also need to balance that out.

[00:31:04] Speaker 3: Everybody seems to like the 9.5. Me as a dad mowing the lawn, I can't be drinking that every day. So I go for some of the lighter stuff and I'm sure there's a lot of other people in that same position. Yeah, no, it's definitely, you gotta watch it. As we used to say, respect the monkey.

[00:31:22] Jessica Infante: That's amazing.

[00:31:25] Speaker 3: And yeah, just drink responsibly.

[00:31:29] Jessica Infante: So what are you like most fired up to get into the brew house about these days?

[00:31:33] Speaker 3: I mean, just looking at new inventive ways we can make some great beers. You know, when you go into the brew house, it's the same process for any beer you make really, right? We have our malt, hops, water, yeast. It's how you can play with that to make something new and innovative. So it's always trying to push the boundaries of what we can do. You know, like I had mentioned earlier, Prima Lite is one of our newest brands. We got some slack for that when we first put it out. You hit the message boards, everyone's like, why would you do that to Prima? But if you drink one, you'll understand, it really hits. And we did push some boundaries with that.

[00:32:11] Jessica Infante: What's the ABV on Prima original?

[00:32:14] Speaker 3: That's a 5'2". 5'2", yeah.

[00:32:15] Jessica Infante: Which isn't crazy, but after a few, when you reach a certain age and you have a toddler that wakes up at 5 a.m. Yeah, yeah. And what's the ABV on Prima light? 4'2". amazing.

[00:32:26] Speaker 3: Yeah. Not a big difference, but you know, but it's a difference that makes a difference. It makes a difference. Yeah. So, um, yeah, no. So it's like, it's finding ways that we can push what we've been very successful with in the past and make something new, like doing that with Prima. So. Those are the things that get me excited. Obviously, you know, working with my brewers is fantastic. They're a great group of guys and girls that we have at the brewery and we're very lucky to be able to work with some awesome people.

[00:33:00] Speaker 2: The whole team has been handed a great opportunity to create the monkey family because I think that our audience doesn't really realize, I think, the full genesis of it. I mean, a Belgian-style triple is a simple beer overall with great complexity to savor. But it also works as a base level for tremendous flavors to be built upon. And we first learned that within 2002 when we did a bottle condition golden monkey that had been aged in Chardonnay wine barrels.

[00:33:32] Speaker 3: The white monkey. Yeah, that was fantastic.

[00:33:34] Speaker 2: And so the way that the monkey liquid took to this other flavor overlay was just spectacular. And that's what got us going down that path. I mean, I know the name golden monkey is fun. And so it's also fun to say witty monkey and to say sour monkey and building these brands is, is really fun on the brand aspect of it. But the fact of the matter is we keep, the brewing team keeps finding ways to overlay flavors into an incredible base product. and broaden it. So it kind of we weren't monkeying around, so to speak. We were just trying to bring new flavor into this thing.

[00:34:12] Jessica Infante: I feel like you guys did yourself such a favor. You gave yourself a gift with Golden Monkey because then you were just able to iterate this really fun, memorable name. But how do we land on Golden Monkey to begin with?

[00:34:23] Speaker 2: So we landed on Golden Monkey because my business partner, Ron, he and his wife had their honeymoon in, um, in Belgium. And they were in a very good decision. They were enjoying themselves in Bruges and they knocked on the door of a brewery that was closed on a Monday. I think it was de Goedenboom. And, uh, they got invited in. They got a tour. The brewer sent them with a couple of bottles of his triple. Um, they opened one to celebrate the birth of their first child. I hope I'm getting all this right with the numbers of the kids, but anyway, by the time they got to kid number three, they were out of triple.

[00:35:01] Speaker 4: Oh no.

[00:35:01] Speaker 2: And we were getting closer to the birth date and Ron's like, dude, we gotta, we gotta brew a triple. And so we did. And 50 barrels was the fastest selling of any beer that we had ever had in the tap room. And I was responsible for coming up with the branding names at the very least. And, um, I just went with golden monkey and Ron approved of it because with the Belgian yeast strain, with the German malts, the process and the product that go into it was all of premium, so that's golden. And then when you open your second or third one of these, you understand the monkey part. So it was a little bit of a warning to people without coming out and saying, you gotta get ready.

[00:35:43] Jessica Infante: I love that. What year was this?

[00:35:44] Speaker 2: That would have been 2000, oh no, no, it was earlier than that, 98?

[00:35:50] Jessica Infante: I love when like something works in the beginning and it just evolves with you.

[00:35:55] Speaker 2: Right. Oh, yeah. Right. Well, and it's funny you say it that way, because we have found that it is a very there's a lot of loyalty to this beer. People typically purchase it for maybe the wrong reasons. They spot the ABV. They think the name looks cool. and usually at a college age, let's say. And what they find is that it never lets them down. It grows with them through all of their life changes. And that's another reason why these iterations make sense for us, because we can give them new chapters to the story.

[00:36:26] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and then it's the monkey that they trust and know. And it just signals to them that this is your beer and this one's a little different.

[00:36:34] Speaker 3: You're going to like it. I mean, there's a monkey for everybody at this point.

[00:36:37] Jessica Infante: My family's boat was called the Barrel of Monkeys.

[00:36:40] Speaker 3: Oh, that's great.

[00:36:41] Jessica Infante: I want to say we got it probably in like 98. It was my brothers and my cousins were little and it was a bow rider. So it was always just going to have a bunch of little boys in it. So the name just made sense. But then when my dad would have to radio other people to meet up, other people have a barrel of monkeys to like, blah, blah, respectable boat name. And then other people get on the radio and be like, hey, the radio is not a toy. So. I have a lot of affection for for the monkey film, but. One thing we also talked about a little bit before we started recording was that this is 10 years now for Victory and the ABV Collective. And I feel like you guys were really forerunners. You had an idea and you saw something about teaming up with other fellow breweries somewhat in your region to get together and share costs and services that just made sense. So 10 years in now, what advice would you give to other breweries that are about to embark on the same partnership?

[00:37:36] Speaker 2: I'll start it off, Joe. I'm sure you'll have some good observations. You know, one of the things that's interesting when you're in business and you're seeing the landscape evolving and you're sensing changes ahead and you start talking to people that have the same theories as you, You have to pause. First of all, you get really comfortable with like our new equity partners and, um, Finn and Sarah from Southern Tier. When we talked about this potential partnership, we all were convinced of certain things that were going to occur and we want, we were excited to do them together. Then you have to worry like, well, are we all just crazy? Are we all just convincing ourselves? Is this just bias confirmation going on? For us, it turned out not to be, but you may have other observations.

[00:38:20] Speaker 3: No, I think, I think, uh, it was a good decision. I think at first, um, a lot of people were like, what is victory doing? Um, I'm sure that they probably said that about Southern tier too, you know, cause. But when you look at it from a bigger picture is we're two very different breweries, different styles, different customers. And one thing that I think ABV has really done well throughout this whole process is we're not just bringing anybody in. they're doing it with a purpose. So first, obviously, Southern Tea was a part of it. Then we were part of it. Two very different brewing companies, different drinkers. Then we brought in Six Point from New York, different styles. They did a lot of hazies, a lot of stuff like that. We're very traditional. And then most recently, we brought in Bold Rock, and that's a different sector. It's not beer, but from a business standpoint, it hits a lot of different avenues. And I think they did a really good job of being selective of who they brought in, when they brought them in.

[00:39:23] Jessica Infante: And then I know you all have like a like a family tap room in Charlotte. How is that? What's it like to what's that experience like for consumers?

[00:39:32] Speaker 2: We do. We're just hanging out with Adam, our Charlotte brewer. It's a good playground for people to come and acclimate themselves to the brand. Charlotte, the city was a growth market for a lot of people from Western New York, also from the Philadelphia, New Jersey region. So there was a familiarity to landing the brands there as well. So it's worked out really well. And Adam is making some of the most exciting beers in the whole organization. And so it's nice to have that playground there in Charlotte.

[00:39:59] Jessica Infante: That's how does that work? Does he he just does like kind of R&D work, puts it on tap and then.

[00:40:04] Speaker 3: All of our breweries kind of work independently. So, you know, whether it's Adam and Charlotte or Isaac and Red Hook or Tim and Philly, we kind of give them free reign to do whatever they want to do. Obviously, there's some oversight from a branding standpoint. Are we naming it the proper thing? You know, that kind of thing. But yeah, it's used as an R&D brewery really all of our locations from the, you know, Philly to Isaac and then down in Charlotte. It's, it's an opportunity to really just make something cool. We don't put a lot of restrictions on them from financials obviously. 10 pounds per barrel dry hop. I might say something, but overall, you know, they're, they're free to do what they want and you know, things aren't always going to hit. Sometimes they'll flop. Um, but Adam down in Charlotte, he's done some awesome beers, won some awards. Uh, you know, he's very proud of what he does down there and uh,

[00:41:00] Speaker 2: And from a hospitality standpoint, one other thought is we watch how specific styles work in some markets and don't necessarily work in others. So it gives us a lot of latitude to play around and tinker things to make sure that our direct-to-consumer operations are as strong as they can possibly be.

[00:41:17] Speaker 3: And what might work in a taproom doesn't always work big market either. You know, we see a lot of like, we don't sell a ton of monkeys out of the taproom because it's 9.5. Right.

[00:41:30] Speaker 2: Respect the monkey.

[00:41:31] Speaker 3: Respect the monkey. Exactly. Yeah. It's not always going to hit, you know, outside big market, but local it's regionally, it might work out really well.

[00:41:39] Jessica Infante: Awesome. How much communication do you have regularly with the other brewers in the, in the fam?

[00:41:44] Speaker 3: With, uh, uh, other locations? Uh, probably weekly. Yeah.

[00:41:50] Jessica Infante: Awesome. I think that's a perfect place to leave it. Thank you both for sitting down to chat. It's been so great to catch up with you.

[00:41:55] Speaker 2: Our pleasure, Jess. Anytime.

[00:41:57] Speaker 3: Our pleasure. Yeah. Thank you very much.

[00:42:01] Speaker 2: This is Justin Kendall with Brewbound, and we are on the Brew Expo trade show recording episodes of the Brewbound podcast. And my next guest is Odell Brewing CEO, Eric Smitty-Smith. Good to see you again. Good to see you, Justin. It's been a while. It has, it has. It's great to catch up. We were talking before we started here, and I asked you if you started at Odell when you were like 14 years old or something, but you've been there for 33 years. Yeah, so I just celebrated my 32nd anniversary, so yeah, starting on my 33rd year in the industry, so. Congratulations, man. Thank you very much. You're going into, is it year seven as CEO? Yes. I was kind of co-CEO with Wynn Odell in 2019. And then my first year on my own was the COVID year. So that was a joy. Oh, man.

[00:42:52] Speaker 4: That's right.

[00:42:52] Speaker 2: And it's been a ride ever since then. That's wild. Oh, yes. So how are you feeling? How are things going? You know, we're feeling pretty good. You know, I think we've gone through our bumps and bruises just like the industry itself has. And I think we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel and we're having a good year. We're having a good Q1 so far and really finding our path of where we need to head. What's driving that good Q1? Q1 is our core brands. You know, I mean, you read it in all publications, including yours, that focused on the core. You know, distributors are telling us that. Retailers are telling, you know, they're cutting SKUs and whatnot. So we had a pretty large portfolio. And so it takes some time. You can't just cut everything at once. So it's been that slow methodical of getting rid of brands, getting rid of packages, putting our emphasis on the right brands, the right time and the right places. What are the right brands at this point? Well, still the lion's share of it is Odell IPA. Our family IPAs, we're seeing a lot of growth from that. 12-packs, 6-packs, 19.2s in the C-store finally. And then Mountain Standard as well. You know, we have Hazertag and then we have a new modern IPA as well. And then 90 Shilling. And then it rounds that out along with our Lagerato, which we're in the, you know, in the lager space and that's done. We've probably had that out now. three, four years now. It's doing really well. It's kind of still growing after four years. Great name. Yes. Tell me about modern IPA because that just hit in March. Yeah. Yeah. Just recently. So we've always had a lot of IPAs that we've rotated through the years, but they've been on the little higher end on our limited series, like Price Point and of like Mercenary and things like that. And what we're hearing back from retailers, distributors, is we need another core, need a core brand, core price IPA. And so we've been developing that in our pilot systems in Denver, in Sloan's Lake and Five Points and back in Fort Collins. And that brand really came from a lot of innovation on the floor here today. The, you know, hop breeding company with YCH, with Abstracts, using those hop oils where they bring out a lot of aroma. A little less bitterness, you get some sweetness, but the aromas you get from that, and they kind of replace a lot of the pellet hops that we would normally use. It's lower ABV, so it's 5.8%, just like Firestone back in the day with the Power of the Pale Ale Sierra. We all love pale ales, but the consumer likes IPAs. So it's brewed to be an IPA, but it's a little more sessionable and drinkable. We're people coming back to that now, so. What kind of flavor are we getting from it? A lot of citrus flavors. Uh, I think the, the term we've used a little is a little sauv blanc. It's, uh, something that I think the more and more I drink of it, it changes. And, and some of those hop extract oils and stuff, right away out of the tank, uh, when you first package it, it changes a little bit. So I think it, it improves, uh, even, even with age after a week or two. So. That sounds delicious. I gotta try that. So I was just out in Colorado late last year and I swung by the taproom and I just missed you. But just a beautiful space, beautiful outdoor space. It was such a chill day. I just loved being there. It was very serene. Well, and that's what we like to do. We have our spaces, the two in Denver, one on Sloan's Lake, one in the Five Points District as well. But Fort Collins, you know, is our home and we have a winery that's next door and we're able to kind of incorporate our winery with our brewery. You know, we have food trucks, but we're looking at bringing some of the food in-house ourselves like we've done in Denver. We just had our five-year anniversary at Sloan's Lake. And so we've learned some things on the food side of things. We're taking some steps there so we can maybe pour our wine in our Denver locations. Every state has different laws and right now with our manufacturing license doesn't allow us to do that in those spaces. What's really working in the tap room right now? What are you hearing from consumers on what they want? Wow, it depends. Each location is a little different. I mean, obviously, IPAs, people want what's new, what's next. But they want some choice. We've done some things. We dabbled in kombucha back in the day. We've looked at N.A., but we're not a national brand. It's difficult for us to play in that space. So we were still looking into that. We had a family of sours. We're kind of bringing that back a little. We have just a couple, Sippin' Pretty and Sippin' Blackberry, that are kind of true to us and what we're doing. I think offering all those varieties, we never came out with a seltzer as a, as a brewery, but we do make some in-house and pour them on draft as well. So that gluten-free, N.A., high ABV, low ABV, we kind of, you know, you need something for everyone. Yeah, you really do. You got to cater to everybody. You sure do. Well, we talked a little bit about a Lagerado, but you've got a program that's going on with that, a river protection front. Yeah, Protect Our Rivers, they're an organization based out of Colorado. We've worked with them for about the last seven years, I think, with river cleanups. We just did one last Saturday, and we had the Earth Day celebration. We had about 70 vendors on site. With Protect Our Rivers, we're going to put their logo and tell their story, have a QR code that for people to learn and be able to go out and clean up rivers, not only in Colorado, but in a lot of markets we're in. And they've taken that organization, I should know this, but how many states they're in as well. I think they clean up rivers as far as Florida, places we don't sell beer as well, but it's something that our brand Lagerato just fit with the brand and people love to get outside and after they, you know, picking up some trash and cleaning up the rivers, enjoy a few beers, so. Who wouldn't love that? No. Well, I want to get into a little bit about what's going on in Colorado and your boots on the ground. You're living this right now. We've seen a lot of consolidation in the middle tier there, a lot of shakeups going on. Tell me what you're seeing, what you're hearing and how you're feeling. Well, we're feeling good. We're definitely keeping our ears to the ground of everything that changes. Our largest distributor partner is Breakthrough Beverage. They distribute our beer on the Front Range and into the mountains a little. We have two Anheuser-Busch distributors on the Western Slope and in the Central Mountains. And then we do our own self-distribution in Larimer County around Fort Collins. So we kind of play in all spaces and so there's with Reyes coming in with Southern coming in there with Eagle Rock going away there's just a lot of unknown for a lot of brands but we're strong with Breakthrough they have a good beer book they have you know Guinness in Denver they have all the Wilding brands things like that, but we do well in the spaces that we sell our beer now. So we're sitting back, just taking the punches as they come and see what lands. But right now, we're really happy with our partnerships. Do you hold strong on self-distribution or do you look to, you know, if there's a brand that ends up on the outside looking in, does that become an opportunity for you to possibly distribute some other brands? It does. We've looked at that in the years past, but never really found the right fit. I mean, Larimer County isn't Denver, isn't Colorado Springs, so it would have to be a fit where it's something that worked for us and worked for whatever partner we would. So we're always open to that. Again, with the state laws and things like that, with maybe looking at a brewpub operation versus a manufacturing license, that kind of limits our scope there too. No, when I started, you know, 32 years ago, my first job was delivering beer. I would pedal sales off the truck. So that is kind of true of how Doug O'Dell started as well in his yellow pickup truck and delivering to accounts. And it's something that's near and dear to us. And we really kind of understand and we can speak the distributor language by being a self-distributed brewery as well, just like New Belgium does in our hometown and Sierra Nevada does in Chico as well. We had a conversation with Bart Watson this morning and price came up when we were talking about where the consumer is going. And in the past, he's talked about the consumer gravitating to other types of beverages. But he's talked a little bit more about price being an issue with the consumer that right now, just in this inflationary environment. What are you seeing and hearing from your retailers and your wholesalers as far as what they want from you and how you sort of make everything work for everybody along the chain? Oh, definitely. We have those conversations constantly. We're always looking at our margins, our distributor's margins, retailer margins, and trying to align that together. We have brands across the spectrum. We have high-end brands that sell for $16, $17.99, a six-pack with our sour freak. to LaGuardia, which is more value priced in there with Mountain Thyme and Montucky and things like that as well. So we're really keeping a pulse on what's going on in the market with different brands. But there is that tipping point in core brands where people kept going up and it reached a point where people went a little too high, I think, in my opinion. But we're doing everything we can to be as efficient as possible with our pricing and making sure that we're profitable for ourselves, but also our partners. I had a conversation with Anna Nottestay from Eco Beverages earlier today.

[00:52:08] Speaker 4: Used to work for us.

[00:52:09] Speaker 2: Yeah. And we were talking about the extended producer responsibility that's coming up. And Colorado is one of the states. Are you tracking this? Is this something that's on your radar? And is it something that's manageable, a concern? Oh, we're keeping a pulse on it for sure. We're a member of the Colorado Brewers Guild, being the largest independent brewery on the Guild in Colorado. But Shani and her team do an incredible job of keeping a pulse on things. Ryan O'Dell is our representative on the Government Affairs Committee. So, yeah, we're lockstep with watching everything there, but we also love to give back to the planet and do everything we can to give our part as well. educating legislatures on, they just think, oh, a nickel, but a nickel, a six pack adds up to 20 cents a case. And then every distributor, retailer, all that wants a piece of that too. So it ends up being a little more than when someone just looks at it as a nickel only. So it's interesting discussions are being had for sure, so. Yeah, it's a discussion that I don't feel like we're hearing a lot of at the moment. At least it's hit my radar, but I don't know that it's a conversation that I'm hearing very often right now. No, they're the lobbyists and there's a lot of things that are done behind the scenes that, you know, it's kind of a wait and see. But things are happening. I think it happened in Oregon first. Rod's a little closer to it than I am, being in the meetings and whatnot every day, but it's something we watch excise tax, we watch everything. Everyone wants their little piece, so we're hyper aware those things can change on us all the times. Well, we're four months into the year. We've got eight months to go. What are you excited about and what do you think is going to drive the business the rest of the year? Well, I think our partnerships with our distributors. I was in Texas last week with Minnie Keith. We're starting to have our mid-year meetings. We do them in April, May, before the busy season, and just making sure we're aligned with what we're trying to do. The right brands, the right prices, the right places, and making sure that they're putting our best foot forward every day when they're going to market, because our distributors are out there every day, and they're very important to our business. Well, I appreciate it, Smitty. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Justin. Great to see you again.

[00:54:37] Jessica Infante: 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.