Threes Brewing’s Josh Penney on the Lager Renaissance and Craft’s Resilience

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

[00:00:28] Justin Fante: A bi-coastal craft chat with Three'Davis Brewing head brewer, Josh Penney, next on the Brewbound Podcast. Welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. We are mostly regrouped from our wild road trip. I'm your co-host, Justin Fante, joined by...

[00:00:56] Justin Kendall: I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:57] Justin Fante: And Zoe Licata. How are you feeling, buddy? I don't think any of us are 100%, right?

[00:01:03] Zoe Licata: I'm doing the best out of the three of us, thank goodness. But I don't think my lungs have breathed properly since we left that Caesars Casino.

[00:01:11] Justin Kendall: Oh, man.

[00:01:12] Zoe Licata: But you guys have gotten really beat up.

[00:01:15] Justin Kendall: I'm a bad day away from going to urgent care.

[00:01:17] Justin Fante: I would support you seeking medical attention for this cold of yours. Yeah. And this is exactly what the people want to hear, isn't it?

[00:01:25] Justin Kendall: This is what they came in for.

[00:01:27] Justin Fante: This is what they came for.

[00:01:28] Justin Kendall: Yeah, well, I mean, you go to Vegas, you're stuck in a casino for three to four days, you don't see sunlight.

[00:01:34] Zoe Licata: No.

[00:01:34] Justin Kendall: There's smoke everywhere. And, you know, part of that's on us, but anyone who's been to Vegas knows you do not get out of those casinos easily. And then you come home and you have germ vectors that are living in your home who go to preschool.

[00:01:51] Zoe Licata: You created those things, man.

[00:01:53] Justin Kendall: I did, yes. I took part.

[00:01:55] Justin Fante: Yeah, I don't know if I brought the germs back or if they were already here, perhaps a mix of both, but I would not be awake and alive right now if it were not for the fact that my husband very graciously let me basically sleep all weekend. He had a second week in a row of doing baby gymnastics into swim lessons solo on Sunday morning. So big cheers to Ryan Corbett, but now he is also sick.

[00:02:20] Justin Kendall: I have a blanket on like an old person.

[00:02:24] Justin Fante: All right, well, this week's guest is Josh Penney, who's the head brewer at Three'Davis Brewing in Brooklyn, New York. You will hear it all in the conversation, but Josh is a very old buddy of mine. We have known each other for 15 years and basically entered the wild world of craft beer together as little babies back in Boston. And now he is, you know, running the brewing show at Three's after a long time in LA. So Josh, first of all, he's a delight. Second of all, he has really great insights on the difference in the craft industry between the West Coast and the West Coast. And, you know, he is able to kind of like see it all and has like some really interesting thoughts, I think.

[00:02:59] Justin Kendall: Yeah. It was a fun chat. I was your third wheel.

[00:03:02] Justin Fante: Yeah. Sorry. You were the third wheel. But at least I warned you in advance how that conversation was going to go. And then Josh actually happened to be in Denver. So Zoe and I hung out with him for a bit at GABF, which was great. He's a lot of fun.

[00:03:16] Zoe Licata: Yeah. He was working paired, right?

[00:03:19] Justin Fante: Yeah. So he went to threes from Highland Park where he tagged in for a couple of pouring shifts. which was nice. I know we stopped by Highland Park on our paired adventure. I want to say one of their pairings was pizza.

[00:03:33] Zoe Licata: That sounds right. I don't know. It's a blur. There were many pizzas, which we didn't talk about, but I feel like Mr. Bart Watson definitely had a hand in the amount of pizzas going on at Paired.

[00:03:44] Justin Fante: Oh, he did. I asked, noted Pizzaiolo, Bart Watson, if the pizza set up at Paired was up to his standards, and he was impressed with it. Really nice outdoor pizza ovens. But I also feel like there's a couple of things we didn't really chat about from GABF, but I had a great time chatting with the crew from Second Chapter, which is a brewery in Nebraska that used to be a library, which is super fun.

[00:04:10] Justin Kendall: It's a beautiful name.

[00:04:12] Justin Fante: Right? It just makes sense. And then I know there was that beer that I dragged you back for and several other people back for. Oh yes, Red Leg Brewing from Colorado Springs had the Blueberry Cobbler Sour Ale. Delicious. One of my favorite treats from my favorite bakery at the Jersey Shore is Blueberry Crumb Cake. This beer tasted like that. You got the crumbs and the cinnamon and the butter, but then the berry and it was tart. It was delicious. So good times were had still by this still recovering nerd. Feels like a million years ago. A million years ago.

[00:04:51] Zoe Licata: It was only like maybe two weeks.

[00:04:55] Justin Fante: Yeah. Well, by the time you are listening to this episode, you will be a day removed from the closing of the Brewbound Live early registration discount window. If you register before Friday, October 24th, you will get a hundred bucks off a ticket. So I would say join us in Marina Del Rey. What are you guys looking forward to about Brewbond Live?

[00:05:17] Justin Kendall: Our next announcement, which is Rebecca Dayanushunas is going to join us once again and be a presenter this year.

[00:05:26] Justin Fante: Amazing. I am psyched about that. Rebecca was on stage last year as part of a panel. She is the Chief Marketing Officer of New Belgium Brewing. Last year, she wore her Voodoo Ranger skeleton ugly sweater.

[00:05:38] Justin Kendall: That was great.

[00:05:39] Justin Fante: I know you're about to chat with her. Can you ask her to bring it back?

[00:05:42] Justin Kendall: I will. She might even have something to top that.

[00:05:45] SPEAKER_??: Amazing.

[00:05:46] Justin Kendall: I would believe it. So I had the pleasure of seeing her speak at the New Belgium distributor meeting, and she talked about the fun crisis that beer is in and how beer is missing that fun occasion. And I thought that that would be something good for her to share with our audience.

[00:06:04] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we're going to have a couple different conversations that touch on the various wide world of marketing and how you can use it in many different ways to help your brand. So there's definitely going to be diving into the little nuggets and really deep bits of what can help you and it's going to be a fun two days overall. I'm very excited to be back in Marina Del Rey.

[00:06:30] Justin Fante: Yeah, we are really marketing heavy this year from experiential brand storytelling. If you are on that career trajectory, if that's something you're interested in, if it's just a part of your job, like I would say make the investment and come join us because there's going to be so much to learn.

[00:06:44] Zoe Licata: Yeah. And then at a time when we know it's really hard to stand out and to make your mark on this still somehow growing marketplace, even though trends are all over the place. And so that's kind of the core place where people have been able to find opportunities to stand out, to find growth, to connect with consumers directly.

[00:07:06] Justin Kendall: I think there's very good reason that we're marketing heavy this year. For sure.

[00:07:11] Justin Fante: Well, let's get into the news. While I was still recovering yesterday, you guys handled like a title leave of it. So Molson Coors is going through another restructuring. I feel like, Justin, you probably felt as though it were 2019 all over again. What can you tell us about what's happening there?

[00:07:26] Justin Kendall: They are cutting 400 roles. Some of those are open. They said hundreds of those are open roles, but they are also letting some other folks go. And it's going to cost the company around $35 to $50 million in severance payments and benefits. And they expect this to be done by the end of December. And it is just another sign that new president and CEO Raoul Goyle is moving fast. I mean, he's three weeks on the job and he's already announced that they're taking apart this America's commercial organization that they had for the U.S. and Canada business units, as well as restructuring the overall leadership team, bringing more people onto that executive leadership team committee. This is a big one though. 2019 was, I believe, another 400 rolls that they let go then. And I think we were joking around if we had a dime or a nickel for every time yesterday. And I feel like Molson Coors and reorganization has been a constant during my time here. And I think I joined 2016, 2017, somewhere in there.

[00:08:40] Justin Fante: I believe you were 2016 because you're three years ahead of me.

[00:08:43] Justin Kendall: Okay.

[00:08:44] Justin Fante: Why I know your life better than you right now, I'm not sure. But yeah, I want to say it was like October 30th of 2019 and I had joined on October 1st of that year. So I had just gotten here and they were revitalizing and then they proceeded to talk about the revitalization program for basically every quarterly earnings call to come after that and still do. They keep saying that it's working, it's working. you know, the goals of the last time were to trim down the organization and then reinvest the savings from all of those cuts into other parts of the business. But they mostly were focusing on premiumization. They felt their portfolio was a little imbalanced and they wanted to make sure that they were spending a lot more time, money and energy on those, you know, more premium priced products, which we can talk about this if you want, but kind of stands in contrast to something that we had heard last week in Las Vegas. But as the result of those cuts, the last time they, what, they like closed like a whole business center in Denver, right? That was a big deal for them.

[00:09:44] Justin Kendall: Yep. Move. some people to Milwaukee, right?

[00:09:48] Justin Fante: Or to Chicago?

[00:09:48] Justin Kendall: Or Chicago, yeah. One of the things that you brought up here is that they talk about reinvesting that money in the beer portfolio, but also in non-alk energy drinks and mixers. And they have preached premium. And this is a time where a lot of their consumers are cash-strapped, right? They're in that cash crunch.

[00:10:12] Justin Fante: Well, I mean, what, like three-ish years ago, they cut a whole bunch of SKUs including a lot of stuff in their below premium brands. And they also, at the time back in 2019, they didn't really have an entrant in the hard seltzer world. So they developed Vizzy, which kind of crawled so that Topo Chico could run. You know, they've found some success there. They've played in a lot of flavor forward stuff with, you know, say like Simply Spiked, but they've also dabbled in Non-Alk with ZOA. They had a partnership with La Cologne, which I think has ended. But yeah, they've tried a lot of different things. They were kind of in like spaghetti on the wall mode. And I think now they realize that it's time to stop that. and put the spaghetti in the colander and let the water drain out. Unrelated to any business metaphors, you should always save some of that water. It is very starchy and important for sauce development.

[00:11:10] Justin Kendall: This is why the people come here.

[00:11:11] Justin Fante: This is why the people come here.

[00:11:13] Zoe Licata: The premiumization topic has come up quite a few times in the past couple of weeks and happened a couple of times at MBWA as well. Nick Modi brought it up that, yes, beer has been leaning towards premiumization, but hold your horses, don't go too crazy. Consumers' wallets are still pretty stressed right now. They're going to feel that. And then Constellation also brought up, they've had to do a couple price changes because they realized they were just pricing some things too high. It is still high-end beer for most of their portfolio, but they had to come down because the consumer is really second-guessing what they're spending their money on. And maybe they're spending just as much, but they're going less often now. And so it's become a factor that people have to consider now when I feel like just a year ago, we were talking about, oh yeah, premiumization, it's everywhere. Everyone is doing premiumization and it's not necessarily a guaranteed strategy anymore.

[00:12:12] Justin Fante: No, look, people who are low on money like beer too. So maybe have something they can buy.

[00:12:19] Justin Kendall: Yeah. That red flag for me is Constellation looking toward the lower end because I've got Bill Newlands in the back of my head, like high end, high end, all those earnings calls, you know, talking about the high end. So here we are and Constellation is going to have a value play.

[00:12:38] Justin Fante: Yeah. And they adjusted pricing on Oro, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:12:43] Zoe Licata: And when you're going up against McUltra... Oro and Corona Premier.

[00:12:48] Justin Fante: Yeah. Both going up against McLube Ultra. Yeah.

[00:12:51] Justin Kendall: I think they've got a new value brand too that they're going to be introducing.

[00:12:55] Justin Fante: Yeah. Zoe, that panel that you referenced was, you know, Nick Modi and Nadine Sarawat from Bernstein, and they talked a lot about what are the headwinds facing beer? Are they cyclical? Are they structural? What they landed on was most of this is cyclical. A lot of this is driven by the economy. People just feel like they don't really have the money. spend on extra things. And something that Nadine brought up that I thought was really smart is that, look at one of the brands that's actually a relative success story in domestic beer right now. It's Bush Light. Bush Light is doing well. There's enthusiastic fans. It's not one of those things where people are somewhat ashamed to buy an economy product. Bush Light has actual fans who are actually saying, I am a bush drinker and I am proud.

[00:13:39] Justin Kendall: A lot of them in this state.

[00:13:41] Justin Fante: Yeah, a lot of them in your state. Do you have the corn packaging still? Am I going to bring up old moons from the corn wars? Maybe we shouldn't.

[00:13:53] Justin Kendall: They definitely do corn packaging still. And displays. Big corn displays. Big.

[00:14:01] Zoe Licata: I mean, when you have people making bootleg Bushlight Apple merch, you know that people are proud to wear that brand around.

[00:14:09] Justin Kendall: in the market for a month and then sold out.

[00:14:12] Zoe Licata: The bapple.

[00:14:14] Justin Fante: What an unlikely success story.

[00:14:17] Josh Penney: This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at craftbrewersconference.com.

[00:14:37] Justin Kendall: Should we talk a little bit about this New York Times craft is dying? Oh God, I guess we have to. Yeah. Everybody's kind of covered it already.

[00:14:47] Justin Fante: I mean, that was the approach that I took in today's newsletter.

[00:14:51] Justin Kendall: I thought that was fair.

[00:14:53] Justin Fante: Right? So if you've been living under a rock, I envy you, but on, I think it was the 13th, the New York Times published an op-ed by a writer, I guess essay, I think this, this guy, Mark Robichaud had written for like the Wall Street Journal. I don't know that he'd ever been on staff at the Times, but he submitted an essay originally titled How to Save Beer. And then just went on, like, I want to know what time machine this man has. Cause if we could go back like 12 years, I would love that. I was skinny then, fewer grays, less wrinkles.

[00:15:30] Justin Kendall: I had more hair.

[00:15:31] Justin Fante: Right?

[00:15:31] Justin Kendall: I think.

[00:15:33] Justin Fante: Basically Mark's thesis is that craft beer is too reliant on IPAs. There are just too many damn IPAs. Everybody's sick of them. Nobody likes them. Nobody really wants to drink anything with this really high abrasive IBU. Also craft beer is too strong. Nobody wants these 18% ABV beers. Also the cans are cartoonish and the names are silly and he had some points there.

[00:15:54] Justin Kendall: I mean, it's a lot of old man yelling at cloud type commentary that is dated and ignores the fact that IPA makes up half of craft sales. So yeah, definitely abandoned that.

[00:16:09] Justin Fante: Right. It was like, buddy, just because you don't like these things doesn't mean that other people don't also like these things. So BA staff economist Matt Gasiak did a phenomenal job breaking down all of Mark's windmills piece by piece. using data as Matt tends to do and point on what you just said, Justin, IPAs are half of craft. Matt also kind of went into the fallacy that all a craft beer is irresponsibly strong. And a good nugget that I pulled out was that Matt found that only 0.8% of craft volume is 10% or stronger in ABV, which I think bears noting. He did mention that about a quarter of single-serve scans are 7% or above, which makes sense when you look at what's leading in convenience stores where the single-serve packages really dominate, and that's mostly New Belgium. What I think Mark isn't really realizing is that for all of these different occasions that he says people, you know, have and need states that consumers live in, There are craft beers for all those things. If you want a sessionable lager, you can find a craft brewery that makes that. If you want a fruited wheat beer, you can find a craft brewery that makes that. And if you do want, unlike Mark, if you do want a really like high ABV, high IBU, IPA, you can find a few. I think he just basically was writing this essay from a time machine in like 2015.

[00:17:36] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I think it also does point to that this is why Kraft kind of has a reputation problem is because a lot of people do share a similar sentiment to Mark where they think this is what Kraft looks like in 2025. That's not true. That's not the case. That's what craft grew a reputation around. And now it's trying to correct that. It's trying to market itself better. But a lot of consumers still think that's what craft is. There are people that I hear all the time. They're like, Oh, I don't want to craft beer. I don't like copy beer. I don't like IPAs. That's what they associate craft beer only as being. And so there's still quite a lot of work to be done of writing that reputation.

[00:18:18] Justin Fante: Spot on. Mark is wrong, but he's not wrong. Perception is reality. So this is what the people think. We've got a problem. The problem is that this one particular person gets to write in the New York Times. Not helping with that at all.

[00:18:36] Justin Kendall: It just feels like a pile on.

[00:18:38] Justin Fante: I feel like it was telling that they changed the headline of the piece.

[00:18:42] Justin Kendall: Right?

[00:18:43] Justin Fante: But it went from being how to save beer to something about silly names.

[00:18:49] Justin Kendall: are killing craft beer.

[00:18:51] Justin Fante: Yes. Silly names and like wacky labels maybe.

[00:18:55] Justin Kendall: Oh yes. The wacky labels.

[00:18:57] Justin Fante: The wacky labels. I believe Mark had one good line where he talked about how like the craft beer section of a store looks like a vertical Comic-Con merch table. Fair.

[00:19:07] Justin Kendall: Definitely fair. I mean, I've been in chain grocery stores where you wonder, how does any of this move? But the overall thesis seems to be off base. Time machine. Yeah. I would like one. Work on it.

[00:19:26] Justin Fante: Let's just get straight to our featured interview, which is with somebody who I think has a lot of great insights on craft beer and really sharp thoughts on where the category is going. And that is Josh Penney, the head brewer of Three'Davis Brewing in Brooklyn, New York. I'm super excited for this week's guest on the Brewbound Podcast. He is my old buddy, Josh Penney, currently the head brewer at Three'Davis Brewing in New York City, but Josh and I go way, way back. So it's so good to be together again. Josh, how are you?

[00:19:56] Los Angeles: I'm good. How are you, Jess?

[00:19:57] Justin Fante: Oh, I'm good. Thanks for asking. We've just been catching up a little bit, but I remember when the press release came through that Threes had tapped you for head brewer a couple months ago, six months ago. I don't know what time is anymore. And I was just like, that's Josh.

[00:20:10] Los Angeles: I know. It was crazy to hear her parking interest. And it was like, do you know, Justin Fante? I was like, that Justin Fante? I had no idea it was brewed down. That's awesome.

[00:20:19] Justin Fante: Oh, really? Oh, what a fun surprise.

[00:20:21] Los Angeles: I know.

[00:20:22] Justin Fante: Yeah. So Josh and I, we started on the same day as little baby tour guides at the Sam Adams Brewery, like a mazillion years ago. Well, like 15 years ago. God, I'm so old. Anyway, it's been so great to watch your career. Like I know you went out West and you were brewing at a couple of different breweries in LA. You came back to New York City last fall with your wife, Meg, who is an absolute delight of a human being.

[00:20:47] Los Angeles: who I also met at Sam Adams.

[00:20:48] Justin Fante: Yes, you also met at Sam Adams, look at that. But where were you in LA? You were at Golden Road, you were at Highland Park.

[00:20:55] Los Angeles: Yeah, Golden Road was my first, actually my first real brewing job. As you know, like I left Sam Adams, worked in Boston for a few years. I was talking to Bob Cannon about like his journey into the brewing space and what he did. And he was just saying, you know, Sam Adams is a bigger company now. It's not really like the scrub floors, clean tanks sort of thing, you know, go through the proper channels. did a couple, um, the pre-reqs for UC Davis, which is where he went as well. So I just did those locally at Roxbury community in Bucker Hill, just the math and science portion, and then applied, got in, but it was about a two year wait. So I was just like bartending and stuff in Boston. And then Megan and I got married. We drove cross country after that as sort of like our honeymoon. And then I went to the course at UC Davis. We were in Sacramento. We were living in a little camper trailer that we towed behind us cross country with our dog. And then. The course is about like five months or so, it's about 40 hours a week. And then my friend's now husband was one of the head brewers at Golden Road. And she was like, Hey, Golden Road's hiring. Like, I know you guys are looking at LA. And so I applied, went through the proper channels there and then got in. And so that kind of like is what brought us from Northern California down to SoCal, which is where we're looking to be. So I was at Golden Road for a little over a year and a half, and then We were kind of getting used to LA and didn't really know the landscapes. We're like, oh, we're in California. Let's go to the beach. So we moved to Long Beach, thinking it was going to be super beach town, which it kind of is. But the water is more for dogs. It's not a great swimmy type of town. And so when we were living in Long Beach, I was working at Beachwood in Huntington Beach. It's their production facility. We were there for just about two years and wanted to get back to the city because she was doing improv and these like comedy producing things and getting back to like LA proper just made more sense. And so I had been bugging Bob Coons of Highland Park ever since I was on overnights at golden road, just kind of like testing him, like, Hey, you guys hiring yet? And at the time they had the really small brewery in Highland Park behind the spark up in the CEO. And, um, they just weren't ready to hire anybody yet. And then they ended up opening up a facility in Chinatown. And right after it opened, there happened to be a position opening up because one of the brewers was moving to Japan. And so they basically had to fill that slot. And so I started at Hammond Park in February of 2019. And then I was there for five and a half years until just recently when we moved last year. That's a super long time. Yeah.

[00:23:31] Justin Fante: Well, so now that you've been back on the West Coast for a while, I feel like we, you know, Justin Fante I and our coworkers, Zoe, we track the news kind of all over the country, but it does seem to me like those are very different beer scenes. So what have you noticed that's different about the current craft scene in LA compared to New York?

[00:23:48] Los Angeles: I think initially the biggest surprise that I saw coming back here, which kind of makes sense, I think just due to our proximity, but I saw a lot more English beers. being made in New England and New York and on the West Coast that weren't as prevalent on the West Coast, at least. Like you'd get maybe like a mild sometimes, but a lot of people didn't really track, you know, what that was or how it could differ from something like an ESB. But then I come to New York, especially in being so close to Wild East, like they specialize in a lot of traditional English beers and a lot of Czech lagers as well. And so the first thing I noticed was just like the, Not everything was just like massively dry hopped and clear or hazy too, but yeah, it was like, it seemed to be like a wider range of things that were really appealing to everybody. Cause on the West Coast, a lot of it is like, yeah, you might have like a robust Porter, but then you have like six different IPAs. You have a bunch of different Pilsners, you know, West Coast bills being in there as well, but out here. that shift kind of hasn't really taken that strong of an effect. And more recently, even because we just got back from hops selection in Washington. And it was interesting to see because what I've kind of experienced here in New York is like West Coast IPA as a thing still doesn't really like grab people the way that it once did. I think when like Green Flash was around and they were kind of like really thinking that these were like California made beers that they were just drinking here. But like the transition of seeing like a West Coast IPA being made by a New York or someone in New England seemed to be kind of lost on people a little bit. It seemed like like they understood what hazy IPA meant because, you know, arguably it was created in New England, in Vermont. And then I think people are just used to like, oh, IPA is just not a hazy IPA. So it's like West Coast kind of fits in that realm, too. And I think there is like a lot more nuance for like people that want crystal malt still and the caramel and the classic sea hops with centennial cascade and things like that and I think it's like the West Coast IPA thing I think is starting to slowly trickle in. I just was expecting it to be like everywhere but it's it kind of wasn't.

[00:26:04] Justin Kendall: So let's talk about three's portfolio. And we did a quick spin through the website and it, it seems like loggers outnumber other styles by quite a bit right now. So how much does that change throughout the year?

[00:26:19] Los Angeles: As far as loggers go. So we have like four core beers that see the biggest distribution. So those are all made at Jack's Abbey, which is obviously like a logger focused. brewery that's been around, you know, forever making loggers. So we're very happy to have them as our sort of like contract partner to be able to get out of just like Park Slope really. Cause you know, we're pretty small here, but then everything else that comes through here, it's sort of like the specialty check loggers, anything that goes through our fooders, obviously here, a lot of our hoppy stuff. And then like things that we're trying out that are new, but as far as like the core beers go, Two of them are with ale yeast, two of them are with lager, but then there's also like a seasonal. So there's like a seasonal lager, like Volition was last year. We had like our summer lager this year that was just like light and dry up with Saphir and like super lemony, but didn't have lemon peel or anything. And so it's like, our breakdown is probably, I mean, it's kind of like a long winded way to get to it, but like I transitioned a lot of our beer into lager yeast anyway, cause that's what I was doing on the West Coast. So unless it's hazy. pretty much all of our beers are made with lager yeast. So I'm trying to like kind of separate those two things out and not really see like West Coast IPA made with lager yeast, counting it as a lager, even though it kind of goes through a similar fermentation. But I'd say like, as far as a traditional Czech pills or like a food or fermented Hellas or anything like that, it's like anything in our sort of like lager portfolio is probably like 75%, if not higher, I think. And threes to me, before working here, like I had known about them actually through Steal This Beer. We were talking about them before this started, but because they were like a New York focused group of people that were on that show, Three's was mentioned quite a bit. And then Highland Park actually did a collaboration with Three's right before I had started. And so that was like another intro to what their beer was like. And then during the pandemic, we did some case trades and things like that. So I got kind of used to like, oh, Three's is like a very, logger focused, precise sort of like technical brewery making really nice loggers. And they're like really honing in on that and not trying to get too far out of that. And I think when they first opened, they were very like saison heavy. But I think that kind of like shifted over time. And we kind of like willed these things into existence. And I mean, I'm here for it. Like, it's nice to be able to have beers like that, that are really well made and Those in my opinion are the ones that really show your prowess as a brewer because you can't really like hide behind roasted malts and like crazy dry hopping or adjuncts or anything like that. It's like it's all about the fermentation and selection of your ingredients and making sure that they all coexist in a peaceful way.

[00:29:10] Justin Fante: not to bring it back to our old lives, but I always remember telling guests while giving a tour, like a really clean, easy drinking lager is probably one of the hardest beers in the world to make. There's nothing else that can hide all flavors. I speak for the collective, I think, when I personally say that I'm really glad it feels like we're moving away from just like crazy stunt beers with the contents of a 7-Eleven snack aisle as adjuncts.

[00:29:36] Los Angeles: Yeah. I still see it, but not like I used to. So it's nice that we're like getting past this hype for the sake of like Instagram likes.

[00:29:45] Justin Fante: Yeah, like if that's what helps you get people in the door like once a quarter and you have to do it, I wouldn't begrudge anybody that. But I just think we all kind of circled back around to like, anyway, what you were referencing was the fact that we were talking about how, you know, we've all talked about craft loggers happening so much that the fact that is this the year of craft logger has become a trope? but it feels like we did it. They're here. So if, you know, if we're all like making wishes and waving magic wands, what do you hope is the next style to get the same like collective industry wish casting?

[00:30:19] Los Angeles: Oddly enough, I think it's probably something like a hot water.

[00:30:22] Justin Fante: Interesting.

[00:30:22] Los Angeles: The way that hops as an ingredient have advanced through hot products, whether it's like through terpenes or through things like hyper boosts that YCH carries. It's like, they're really dissecting down to like, the oil fractions and like the aroma capability of these products and making them more accessible and more flowable. And it's like the ease of use of them is really what drives, I think a lot of creativity too. And like, you can get little samples and like kind of test out small little batches and stuff and just the quality and the amount of work that's going into these and into the technology that creates them is like, I didn't think we would be here this fast. When we were just in Yakima, we toured the facility that YCH has that makes the cryo pellets. But they're making this new thing called Cryo Fresh that we had to use a version of a few years ago, where they basically take fresh hops from the field. They freeze the hops in liquid nitrogen. It's like sub 140 Fahrenheit. And they basically like shatter the outer leaves off and what they're left with, like the bract. And then they basically pelletize all of the oils that are still fresh that have been kilned or dried. And what comes out is this like crazy vibrant green pellet. And so it's giving access to areas that, you know, in Washington, they're so close to growing regions for hops that they can drive an hour or two, go get them using that same day. Whereas, you know, in other parts of the U.S., you can't really do that. So they're kind of advancing this technology so that you can get these things outside of their typical like window and they're delivered to you on dry ice and they're frozen and they're like in this great shape for you to then use and so I think it helps to boost creativity for people because they have a lot more access to this kind of stuff and so I guess kind of back to hot waters again it's like what they first started out as was like carbonated water that you make like a hot tea and then like try to mix it in but Due to the lack of fermentation, there's not like a lot of complexity that happens. There's no yeast interaction with them. They kind of fall flat. And so a lot of these hop products are really making it easy for brewers to experiment and get accurate flavors from hops. I'm hoping to see a lot more of them, which I haven't.

[00:32:45] Justin Fante: Well, I'm so glad you brought up Hopwaters, actually, because, you know, as we're recording this, it's September 25th. So the episode of our podcast that launched today is our conversation with Brandon Richards from Alesmith. And one of their new innovation products this year is a Hopwater RTD cocktail, which is just like, I feel like that's like completely full circle because Hopwaters really were brewery's ability to offer a non-alcoholic beverage to drinkers that they could make at home, which makes sense. And in the beginning, I was super skeptical of them. But then when I was pregnant, I was like, oh, I can still drink this. Like this tastes nice, somewhat reminds me of a beer. It's not close to being the same thing. So it's just funny to me that Al Smith was like, well, hold on. Let's just make a fucking cocktail with this stuff. I think that's like a new-to-world thing. I haven't heard of anybody else making them. Do you think that's an idea that has legs?

[00:33:38] Los Angeles: Yeah, first I've heard of that too. They're using their hot water as the dilution factor and they're adding, are they distilling now?

[00:33:46] Justin Fante: Didn't know they're adding vodka, right, Justin?

[00:33:49] Los Angeles: Yeah. I mean, that's cool. Here in Gowanus, we have canal water and it's just a shot of tequila with our hot water and people order that and they seem to like it. That's hilarious. When we met our old coworker, Brian, just came in over this past weekend and I was talking to his wife and she was saying when She was pregnant because they just, their baby's about a month old now. They just had a baby. Good for them getting out in the world. Jesus Christ. I know. He said he hasn't been in the city in like three years. But she said the exact same thing. Like she could obviously couldn't drink when she was pregnant. And she kind of scratched that itch. And she had our hot water. She really enjoyed it. So it's like, it's nice because it's for everybody. It's like, I understand the NA beer thing. I don't particularly like them. I think they lack a lot of complexity from, you know, a lack of full fermentation, but know, teach their own. So I just prefer the hop water route over any beer.

[00:34:43] Justin Fante: Yeah. It's been really interesting to me because I feel like I was such a doubter in the beginning of hop water days.

[00:34:49] Los Angeles: Yeah. They're definitely tasting more accurate to hops. They're not just like a fruit bomb.

[00:34:53] Justin Fante: Right. There's a spectrum. Like I feel like some are just like citrusy water and some are like Sierra Nevadas in particular is very much all like this is pine and resin and all of that.

[00:35:06] Los Angeles: And then Lagunitas is like peach seltzer almost.

[00:35:09] Justin Fante: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:10] Los Angeles: But then there's some that are like sweaty socks. And then it's like, you have like a lot of experiences, a lot of, a lot in between too. Okay.

[00:35:18] Justin Fante: Well, I mean, if Cicero never wanted to expand into like a hop seltzer appreciation certification track, they absolutely should call you up.

[00:35:28] Justin Kendall: So you mentioned contracting it at Jack's Abbey. How much of the production goes through Jack's Abbey? And is that primarily just the beers for distribution or, you know, what goes through there?

[00:35:42] Los Angeles: So the core ones, Gleet, Kiwanis Gold, Logical Conclusion and All or Nothing. Those are like the four cores that we have. Two of them being IPAs, two of them being, you know, lagers. And then like rotating seasonals like Volition. Endless Days, which is our summer lager that I can mention. Hereafter is our current Oktoberfest. So they kind of handle, because their systems are so big, you know, they're on a 60-barrel brew house, I think. They can put out a couple of batches that cover us for what we need for our distribution market. And then everything else here is like collaborations. Like we did one, we did a food or fermented fast beer with Zillicoa and Burial out of Asheville. So that came through here. But actually, interestingly, right about this time of year is that GABF is coming up. So we entered six different beers, and three of them were core. So we actually brewed Vleet here again. We did All or Nothing and Logical Confusion. And so it's cool to have those beers in-house again. And I'd never worked with contracts before. And our director of production, Matt Levy, handles that side of it. And so him and I kind of collaborated on recipes that already exists, like Leet obviously has been around forever, but if there's like subtle tweaks that we want to make, we've been able to do a couple of those batches here and kind of see how we like them and if we want to apply that. And then Jax is very open about like any slight process changes, any like ingredient tweaks or anything like that. So it's, it's been cool to see like things that we've sort of talked about in theory, then getting to experience the product once it's come out and be like, Oh, I'm glad we made that change. You know, the point is to like get as consistent as you can, but we're working with, I mean, we used to talk about this on tours, like we're working with raw materials that are grown in the grounds. Like we can only control so much. So we look for consistency, but also to never like rest on our laurels. We want to be getting better and better each batch.

[00:37:38] Justin Fante: So how does that relationship work? Do you come up to Framingham a lot or is that something that Matt handles?

[00:37:44] Los Angeles: He pretty much handles like all the contract stuff. Cool. I'll be looped in for any changes and stuff that are happening. Or if like Jax wants to try out a new malt for one of our beers, they'll send us some too. And we're like, we're a batch at first to kind of see how we like it before they make like a big switch like that. So it's a pretty cool, like relationship back and forth with like, obviously them helping us a lot, but then we're able to make little smaller batches to see if it's something that they want to commit to as well.

[00:38:10] Justin Kendall: That's cool on Silicoa too. Is that one of the first beers that they've collabed on since they've come back? Because they were nearly wiped out, right? During the flood.

[00:38:21] Los Angeles: They basically were wiped out. I went down in, it was actually right after I started here. They had like two different rounds of like lager brewers that came through actually, and like Trillium was in there and we, it was sort of like just to like bring some focus back to Asheville. You know, they were still in the, in a big rebuilding phase because Helena just hit, you know, like three or four months prior. And yeah, Zillicoa, like they're, some of the tanks washed into the French Broad River. They were finding kegs like miles downstream. A couple breweries got completely demolished. One of them, I'm forgetting the name of it, but they said that one of the train cars basically got washed into their bar and was like on top of where their bar used to be. You know, everybody went through it and there were different variations of that. And then burial was not as effective as everybody else. And so they kind of became this like beacon of hope for everybody. All the brewers had to start trucking in water to be able to brew with. burial kind of use their facility as like for Bruce like continue to stay afloat so like they could get a tank and like you know brew their beer so they could still get something coming in while they kind of like figured out what the next steps were but we can second wind which was that collab like a week before they opened because they just opened like I think about a month ago or so and actually burn pile is in a couple weekends first one since Helene, so it's going to be a massive one.

[00:39:46] Justin Fante: Wow, which I want to say it's like a year this week, which is just crazy. We keep in close touch with Leah Wong Ashburn from Highland. So it's just been crazy to hear. She and I talked, I want to say December, and I was like, hey, what message would you send to people who want to see the Ashland beer scene succeed? And she said, come visit. I was like, that's interesting because, you know, after a natural disaster, sometimes you hear that and sometimes you hear, do not come here.

[00:40:14] Los Angeles: I mean, that was a big thing they're talking about was like, you know, they missed out on a lot of tourism because of all that. So like a lot of the businesses were struggling, even if they didn't get directly affected by the storm, they were affected by the fact that nobody could get into the town or people were just weren't coming.

[00:40:30] Justin Fante: Yeah. A while back, Josh, when you were talking about hot waters and you mentioned that you guys do make a little bit of a cocktail in the tap rooms, what is it called? Gowanus water?

[00:40:40] Los Angeles: Canal water.

[00:40:40] Justin Fante: Canal water. I have seen the Gowanus Canal.

[00:40:45] Los Angeles: Yeah. It's tequila and plot twist, which is our hot water. Oh, delicious.

[00:40:49] Justin Fante: Well, so Three's has, you've got a bunch of locations, two in Brooklyn, one on Long Island, one at Moynihan Train Hall, which I only saw for the first time a couple of years ago. Having grown up taking New Jersey transit in and out of Penn Station, it was like mind blowing. What a beautiful facility that has become.

[00:41:09] Los Angeles: Yeah. And you can get a little paper bag.

[00:41:11] Justin Fante: Yes. Like so different. And you've got the seasonal spot on Governor's Island. How do your draft lists vary from place to place? Do certain beers do better at certain spots?

[00:41:22] Los Angeles: So Gowanus obviously is where our production facility is. It's where everything that we make comes through, you know, whether we're making it here or it's through Jax, like we always get the deliveries here. And so any new stuff that's coming out, you might not see it right away on draft at the other locations, but they always get cans the same week. And so here in Gowanus, like we have the most variety because we have the biggest tap list. And like, because it's all coming through here, it's like, this is sort of the hub, but then, you know, Greenpoint, our food partner there is Gothenburger down here. It's a grand army. So it's like the food is, is nice. Cause it's separate. Cause we don't have to manage that. We just sort of like help them run the kitchens. And then, you know, we have a full bar here. They have a full bar in Greenpoint. Greenpoint being, I guess, like our second largest, they would have probably, you know, the second most. And then Governor's Island, it being so seasonal, it's, um, we kind of rotate through and just like, the points have a good variety of all of the stuff that we have. So we might not have, you know, every saison that we make on Governor's Island. We might have had every lager, but we have a good smattering of like a few things from each type. And then similarly with Moynihan and out on Huntington as well. Huntington is similar to the train hall where it's like, a bottle shop that has all of our cans and then they have, you know, maybe four or five drafts. So a lot of it is like a focus on freshness, keeping things moving through. And we want to always try to have our core, at least like fleet on, if not a logical conclusion as well. So it's like kind of a moving target a lot. But the point is to have a good array of what we make. That must be really complex for you. Thankfully, I don't deal with a lot of the distro stuff, but that's on Lisa, who is our director. of ops. So she's organizing our drop-offs because we don't really self-distribute, but we just have a van that we bring to all the locations and then Union is our main distribution partner.

[00:43:21] Justin Fante: How's the on-premise doing in general? What are you noticing about bars and restaurants? I know Brooklyn had some pretty decent dedicated beer bars. Is that still the case?

[00:43:30] Los Angeles: Yeah. There's been one or two that have shut down, but I feel like that was quite a few years ago. But there's still like, you know, Gold Star and Beer Wax. And unfortunately, Beer Witch is not here anymore.

[00:43:44] Justin Fante: That sounds like a great place.

[00:43:46] Los Angeles: Tonight in, I believe the neighborhood's Crown Heights, there's a bar called Coven Haven. That's a beer bar that like we have an event with Allagash tonight. So the ones that are doing it well are doing really well. They're hosting events. It's nice when they offer. I mean, I know Chicago, they call them slashies, but like you can buy things to go, but also drink on premise there. I think just generally what I've noticed here in Gowanus especially is like, I always heard that summertime in New York is when it's dead. And we were still pretty busy throughout the summertime. A lot of that is because we have such big spaces that are conducive to weddings and different events and parties. We had a lot of those on the weekends and the evenings. And so we host a lot of people too, which I think helps to not only boost sales, but also get recognition. for people that might not have been here before.

[00:44:40] Justin Fante: That's great.

[00:44:41] Los Angeles: Yeah.

[00:44:42] Justin Fante: Regrettably, my town of Salem, Massachusetts does not have a place named Beerwich or Covenhoven. I feel like we are missing that.

[00:44:49] Los Angeles: Missing out.

[00:44:50] Justin Fante: Right? Man. I noticed on your website, you guys are hiring like an event sales manager. That's awesome. The professionalization I feel of, of taproom spaces has been very impressive to watch and it's just smart, you know, having planned a wedding. I know how much money you could charge for those things.

[00:45:06] Los Angeles: Yeah. And I mean, the space here especially is very cool. Greenpoint as well, because we have event spaces that are attached to it. So Greenpoint is above the taproom. And then here, we have a few. We have like the yard, which I'm looking at here. But then inside, in front is 9th Street Espresso, which is like our sort of coffee partner. But it's like, you can come in here from 8 a.m. to like 1 a.m. And there's always someone here, because whether like it's the coffee shop that's open in the morning, or you come into the bar, or there's an event in our little event space called Tiny Montgomery where we have bands play, we have like book readings, stand up shows, and it's a very multi-use space. I find it really interesting because I haven't really worked in a place that does those kind of things.

[00:45:52] Justin Fante: Well, Josh, one last thing before we let you go. I feel like it's important to end on a high note. What's making you feel hopeful about craft beer right now?

[00:46:01] Los Angeles: I think the continuing camaraderie. I mean, the outpouring of support that I saw when I went to Asheville and saw the devastation, but then also just like all the beauty of breweries gathering together and the community coming together. As difficult as it can be to brew in cities, there's always people that want to help you out. And we work in a very like communal type of industry that I don't see in a lot of different industries. And like, you know, because none of us are trying to buy for each other's space. It's like, we can only make so much. And so it's like, that kind of rising tide lifts all boats sort of analogy. Brewers are getting smarter about what they're making, but also consumers are getting smarter about what they're drinking as well. And I know there's been like a shift away a little bit from alcohol consumption to at least decreasing, if not completely getting rid of it. But a lot of breweries like us are like adapting to that space of like, you know, people don't always want to, slam 18% imperial stouts. Sometimes they want something that is super low EBV, which we do a lot of, or NA. So like the hot water kind of fits into that. I see a lot of breweries engaging with their community a lot more than I would have seen like 10 years ago. And I think it's really important that places have a sense of place and take care of their community and their surroundings because then their surroundings and their community help take care of them as well. I mean, I saw it through the pandemic being in LA, I can't imagine what it was like here in the city with it being so congested. But like, the only reason Highland Park survived was because people supported us. And like, we went to a just to go model just like everywhere else did. Three's went through the same thing here. And it's the people that it's all about. They really care for the people that make the stuff that they like to drink to.

[00:47:52] Justin Fante: That was beautiful, my friend. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure. And hopefully we can have a beer in person soon.

[00:48:00] Los Angeles: Oh, sure.

[00:48:01] Justin Fante: Well, that's our show for this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the Brewbound Podcast, please rate it five stars and leave a review on your podcast platform of choice so more people can find the show. As always, a huge thank you to Joe, Joshua, Ryan, the whole Brewbound BevNET technical team, and to Justin Fante Zoe for being the best co-hosts. We will see you back here next week.