[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Next on the Brewbound Podcast, final thoughts on CBC, plus conversations with Carbon Copy, the brewers of PA, and Love City Brewing. Hello and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:23] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante.
[00:00:25] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:27] Justin Kendall: And this week we have a couple of interviews, well, actually a trio of interviews, very Pennsylvania-centric this week, which it's gotta be post-CBC, right?
[00:00:38] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we are now freshly off of our CBC trips to Philly. Positive vibes the whole time, and we recorded tons of conversations while we were there. So I feel like it's only appropriate that the first ones we roll out are our more Pennsylvania-centric conversations.
[00:00:54] Justin Kendall: And you're locking the spreadsheet next year, right?
[00:00:57] Zoe Licata: Yes, there's a habit of us going a little overboard with our conversations. There's just so many fun, fabulous people at CBC and we tend to fill out our schedule quite a bit. So hopefully you don't get too sick of us. We have a lot of great convos rolling out over the next couple of weeks.
[00:01:15] Justin Kendall: And we're going to start this week. You have a conversation with Carbon Copy co-founder Brendon Boudwin. Kind of timely, because he had some comments about Zoe and Justin the attitude from the past and how that just doesn't translate nowadays.
[00:01:30] Zoe Licata: Yeah. So Brendon and his fellow co-founder of Carbon Copy, their brewery was founded in Philly in 2020, but they have been in beer for a really long time. They've worked at tons of other Craft Brewers we list on that conversation. And one of the key drivers when they were coming together and creating their own space was they wanted a welcoming Craft Brewers environment that brought in folks that weren't necessarily the classic Craft Brewers drinker and somebody who was going outside of what he specifically called was the stone, you don't belong here type of commentary, which was timely as also while we were at CBC, as you heard last week, we had that stone news. So yeah, it was a really great conversation with Brendan and talking about running a brewery in Philly and starting it during the pandemic. So there's a lot of fun stuff going on in that chat.
[00:02:24] Justin Kendall: And we're also going to bring you a pair of conversations that we recorded during our Love City Brewing happy hour. I'm going to chat with Brewers of PA Executive Director, Hannah Ison. We're going to get into some of the programs that they're working on as far as updating the excise taxes and making sure Craft Brewers can use their tax credits. And then Jess is going to have a conversation with Love City Brewing co-founder, Kevin Walter. who's gonna talk about opening up a new tap room as well as the connections that they're making with consumers these days. So stay tuned for those. Just a heads up though, we had some audio issues at Love City. We had to chop these up a little bit. So if the conversation gets a little choppy, that's your warning.
[00:03:07] Zoe Licata: You've been warned. There's just too many amazing people at our event and it just messed with the audio.
[00:03:13] Justin Kendall: That's right. That's a good way of putting it. We also have some plugs. We are going to do our next event that we know of at Brewbound Live, December 9th and 10th. I wanted to sort of leave the door open because you never know, we might pop up somewhere else in between, but December 9th and 10th is Locked in Stone. We will be in Marina del Rey, and we have a couple of guests already lined up for that. Tulea Beer Company co-founder Tara Hankinson will be joining us. Very excited to have her on board. And, uh, we've got a lot more to come. So if you're interested in being a part of brew down live, hit us up at podcast at brew down.com and shoot your shot. We also have to plug our job board. Uh, a lot of shakeups last week at major companies from Boston beer to constellation brands to athletic brewing. And, uh, if you're looking for your next job, hit up brew bounds, job board, and see what's out there.
[00:04:11] Jessica Infante: Yeah, but more importantly, I think the Brubant audience is high performing and well connected and extremely well informed about the industry. So if you are hiring somebody and you want to get in front of the right people, I think we've got the place for you.
[00:04:27] Justin Kendall: Absolutely right. As are networking shows too, from Love City, because there are a lot of great people in that room. Great party. Become a Bruinbound Insider today because you're going to get all the news and we have a lot of news to jump into. And I think we should just get into our final thoughts on CBC. And Zoe, you did the lion's share of our Bart Watson coverage from the breakfast with the media to his onstage state of the industry. My big takeaway from the week was the Brewers Association is actively working to change the narrative out there. They are not happy with the mainstream narrative that has really focused more in on closures and sort of the declines in recent years. And Bart Watson really pushing that there's a lot of good stories out there that aren't being told. And he definitely stressed that to the media, which I think was met with some trepidation there and he also pushed it on stage.
[00:05:30] Zoe Licata: Yeah, BART has unintentionally become my CBC beat. I feel like I've covered BART for the past couple of years at CBC. And last year's main theme was, you're not going to be able to coast through this. This is kind of the new craft environment and everyone's going to have to figure out how to really navigate this new space. And this year was, okay, yes, there are some negatives going on, but also people have figured out, okay, we need to kind of change some things up and they're finding some growth and some success in that. So yeah, you could tell that Bart Watson getting a little frustrated with the amount of headlines that are out there, mainly from folks, not trade press, but kind of that more mainstream media saying, you know, beer is dying or Craft Brewers is dying. And we've seen those tons of times in the past. But he really wanted to emphasize there's still growth happening there within some of the negative numbers. There are still plenty of breweries that are finding ways to expand, that are bringing in new consumers, that are coming up with new products, opening new tap rooms. And so the theme throughout all our conversations about that past week was really, hey, let's try to highlight some of this positive stuff. Others can also learn from that and say, okay, this is what's working. How can we expand on that?
[00:06:43] Justin Kendall: How did you all take that during the media brunch? Because I spoke with some people who are not happy about it, and I sort of understand where he's coming from. He's been the numbers guy for a long time, and now he's in the main chair. And being in the main chair is different than being the numbers guy, because the numbers don't lie. And when you're leading an organization of 9,500 brewers, and they are each having varying degrees of success, and there's an overall number that gets compiled that shows downward trends, which we've seen in recent years, it can skew that way. And when you have closures that have outpaced openings for a second consecutive year, that's another point that people are going to latch on to. And we're not immune from that either. But there's also 39% Craft Brewers out there who are growing, and that's thousands Craft Brewers out there who have figured out a path forward.
[00:07:45] Jessica Infante: Yeah, Bart asking us, like the assembled mostly trade press. I know a few people in that room write for various kinds of publications. To me, at first it hit me like an appeal to like, you guys know this better than the mainstream media. So if you write it, they will follow. But that's not always the case. I thought he seemed a little uncomfortable making the request because I think he knows you're not really supposed to do that. If we're supposed to be operating as an independent press, you're not really supposed to ask us to do your bidding. You know, like I've known Bart for a long time. He seemed a little uncomfy making the entreaty that he did. But I don't know, guys, us writing glowing profiles is not going to change the narrative. No. And the other thing is that they have the ability to do this. They own craftbeer.com. Craftbeer.com commissions writers to write stories like BA, be the change. You could do it. Don't ask us to do it.
[00:08:44] Zoe Licata: Yes, and I think that they kind of were starting to get that rolling with what a lot of the messaging was at CBC. Bart acknowledged, you know, he's not telling us exactly what to write. But it's, at the end of the day, we are press. We need people to read our stories. We need to also tell the truth. So it's a weird mix of, we're going to have to put the stuff out there that's going to make people want to read it, and we're going to have to put stuff out there that's a reality of what's happening. Some of that's going to be good, some of that's going to be bad, but it's just, we don't really get to pick and choose. Yeah. He's definitely a mix of both. Yeah. I don't think he was necessarily asking us to ignore anything. It was more, hey, when we can highlight some good stuff. We really appreciate that.
[00:09:27] Justin Kendall: And I think we'd like to tell some of those stories that show a strategy that's working, that somebody else might be able to learn from, or something like that. Those are what's appealing to me on the better side of things, not just, whoa, look at all these barrels.
[00:09:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah. So you and I, I think probably unintentionally this week, both covered CBC seminars that focused a common brewery and that was Lawson's Finest Liquids. I think they're definitely somebody that makes our jobs a little bit easier in terms of sharing the good news. They've always had pretty good PR representation. But they're out here getting employees on panels at CBC to share insights and strategy. And I think that's something that's going to have to, we'll have to see more of that if, you know, Craft Brewers do want to learn from each other and grow. I think that was kind of the theme of last year's CBC a little bit. Like we're in this together, so we might as well help each other out. So it's nice to tell those stories and it's nice to be able to tell it in a way that works. Like you're never going to find a, I mean, this is a decade old example now, but say like a Hattie Topper, like the Alchemist Hattie Topper is like a cult followed beer. You can't replicate that, but there are things that Lawson's, which had a similar product in Sip of Sunshine, does in terms of using data, using chain relationships that are replicatable. Replicable? Look, I don't like being the Grim Reaper either.
[00:10:53] Zoe Licata: No, no one does. And we talk about it all the time. Is this all really negative news happening? It's not all bad out there.
[00:11:02] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, you'll hear from two breweries later in this episode whose breweries are doing so well, they had to expand.
[00:11:07] Justin Kendall: Yeah. And I understand his point too, where from the trade organization point of view, this becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy here, where you constantly talk about the negative. That's what's gonna be out there. So I understand where he's coming from there. But I guess we'll see where things go from here on that. As far as CBC goes, vibe is up, much different than Vegas, much different than Indy. And we will see if they can keep it going on into San Antonio next April, just after Easter.
[00:11:45] Jessica Infante: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd wager a guess that you would be able to find us at a networking party on April 4th.
[00:11:54] SPEAKER_??: Ooh.
[00:11:55] Justin Kendall: Maybe April 3rd, who knows? Who knows? Well, let's talk about RNDC and then get to these interviews because the big sell-off of RNDC is here following their California collapse, their sell-off to Reyes. And now we've got 17 control states that are on the move to Martin Yeti and also Washington, Oregon, and some type of agreement in Alaska with Columbia Distributing.
[00:12:25] Jessica Infante: This seems like very, very big news, the kind of news that you don't see often. And I realize that that's not helpful at all for me to say, but RNDC was the second biggest wine and spirits distributor in the country. And somehow they've now completely hit a wall.
[00:12:47] Justin Kendall: There's a book that's got to be coming on this because this is one of those companies that you think is too big to fail. Totally. And here they are just parting out everything that they own. If you can't make California work in BevElk, it's a grim situation.
[00:13:05] Jessica Infante: Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about this for, we're close to a year out now from when they announced they were leaving California. That really was probably the sign. And then the rest of it all just started to fall. Interesting news for Martinetti, they're huge here in New England. I think they rank as sixth largest spirits distributor in the country, operating just in our little corner. So this will give them a lot of new territory.
[00:13:29] Justin Kendall: And this isn't just territory expansion for Columbia, although Alaska would be new to them. It sounds like they're only picking up select wine and spirits producers. So there's going to be some people that aren't in the club.
[00:13:44] Jessica Infante: Yeah, which is a real bummer because, you know, I know breweries have the ability to self-distribute, which isn't always the answer, but sometimes it's an answer. I don't know that Spirits brands can or want to do that, if that's even a viable business model.
[00:14:00] Justin Kendall: So the next step in this is going to be the plain states, which I did not count them up, but we've got 17 control states plus three Pacific Northwest and Alaska plus 11, you know, I guess we can do our own math, minus California. But we'll see what happens with the Plain States and where they go and who the buyer is there. But next up on this, as far as we know, is Reyes closes next month.
[00:14:30] Jessica Infante: Wow. I mean, you'd have to think that the other major players are all going to take a slice.
[00:14:36] Zoe Licata: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Justin Kendall: Stay tuned to As the Middle Tier Turns. Anyway, let's get to our featured interviews, starting with Carbon Copy co-founder, Brendon Boudwin.
[00:14:54] Zoe Licata: We are here on the CBC floor with someone who knows exactly what it's like to operate a brewery here in Philly. And that is Brendon Boudwin, who is the co-founder, co-owner of Carbon Copy, who operates three tap rooms now here in this space. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us.
[00:15:11] Carbon Copy: Thanks for having us.
[00:15:12] Zoe Licata: Any Brewbound readers might recognize y'all's name because you took over the old Dockside place in, was that 2022?
[00:15:20] Carbon Copy: Yeah, it was Dock Street Brewing Company. They were at the location for about 16 years in an old firehouse out in West Philly. We took over in the summer of 2022 and we got open in December of 2022.
[00:15:35] Zoe Licata: And you all started your brewery in 2020, correct?
[00:15:38] Carbon Copy: Yeah, we quit our jobs mid-pandemic. We're ready to just take the leap. Not the best time, but it gave us some time to plan and think about exactly what we would want out of a brewery. We'd worked in the industry for a long time, brewing for several years before that, and just kind of needed to take the jump at some point.
[00:16:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah, you all have quite a resume of some names that are pretty familiar to folks in beer. You've been in the industry for a while now.
[00:16:07] Carbon Copy: Yeah, we've been around. Kyle started brewing at Three Floyds like 15 years ago. He started in the kitchen there and then went from Three Floyds to opening Four Pigs in Copenhagen. They sent him over there to be the opening head brewer. Then he was at Hill Farmstead for a little bit and then at Tired Hands where we had worked together. I started my brewing career at Modern Times in San Diego, and I'm from the Philly area, so I came back for a job at Tired Hands, and we got along really well, kind of saw things the same way, and kind of had a similar idea of what we wanted out of a brewery, and worked really well together, and I've been really close friends for at least since 2017 at this point, I think. So, it's been kind of all over, but It's great to finally be able to do our own thing.
[00:16:58] Zoe Licata: Yeah. For anyone unfamiliar with Carbon Copy, what is kind of the ethos of what your brewery is all about?
[00:17:05] Carbon Copy: We like to make intentional, consistent beers. We worked at a lot of places that did a lot of different kind of one-offs and, you know, that keeps people interested and it's great in some ways, but we wanted to design, you know, kind of the best or our favorite version of a certain beer and really, you know, dial in on that. So we've got almost eight beers that we brew consistently, kind of thinking about The way we brew things more in like a older like brew pub kind of model where, you know, there isn't just 10 IPAs or 10 lagers and one or something else. Right now we've got like a pale ale IPA, double IPA. We just did a collab pale ale. Always have a Pills, American Lager, a Whitbeer, a Dark Mild. So we really try to, you know, think about it how like an old beer bar used to where you're like okay we've got these different lines that that serve a different purpose yeah and kind of our favorite thing to do is brew beers that are you know under six percent you know somewhere in like the three to five percent is kind of where most of our beers live and We like beer, we like drinking beer. We want to be able to drink more than one. So we think there's a lot of styles that have a lot of flavor and are very approachable that don't need to be at such a high ABV.
[00:18:27] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Sounds like my type of place.
[00:18:29] Carbon Copy: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Zoe Licata: That's great.
[00:18:31] Carbon Copy: Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm biased. We've been made a bunch of stuff that we really like to make, but you know, it's cool. Like we have a wit beer on all the time. Yeah. I mean, a lot of places don't even think about brewing that. And we have people that come in and they'll be like, Oh, you have something new. That's cool. I'll have the same beer that I always drink.
[00:18:49] Zoe Licata: As you have made the transition now to being kind of owners and operators, what are some of the things that you learned in that transition?
[00:18:58] Carbon Copy: that it is really hard. And we do all the brewing, which involves brewing and packaging. I drive the spent grain to a farm school like 30 minutes away to every batch that we grain out. throw in my truck and then drive it over there. And for the first three years, we didn't have anyone doing any management, so we were doing all the managing. Our West Philly spot is kind of more like a brewery pub situation. They used to have a wood-fired oven at Dock Street. We wound up replacing that with a different kind of pizza oven. We operate primarily as a restaurant in that location just by way of how the space was set up and how people have been interacting with the space. So we've got our bar people and then we've got a lot of table service and we do pizza and stuff there. It really is a lot to manage and you get used to other people being able to do all these other things like when you're brewing your job is to brew or your job is to brew and manage other people but someone else is making sure that the taxes are paid or you might be ordering ingredients or someone else does that. Or if the dishwasher calls out, then you're the dishwasher. So like all those things where there's a million hats that you have to wear and a lot of them, even if you think you're prepared, something's going to come up. There's always a fire to put out. I had my off day on Sunday and I was at two of the locations at some point. Just that kind of situation where you always have to be on and you have a lot of responsibility and you're responsible for the livelihood of a lot of people, especially if you're a restaurant. So that gets a little, I mean, it weighs on you a bit.
[00:20:43] Zoe Licata: Yeah, it's definitely a high pressure situation for sure. But you guys must be doing something right because now you just opened your third location. Yeah. End of last year, beginning of this year. Yeah. What do you think has been what works well with your own premise locations? Why is that so successful to be able to expand like that?
[00:21:02] Carbon Copy: I think a lot of people, you know, they come from the beer side. We worked a lot of hospitality side as well. And especially in a small brewery, you don't realize your, you know, your primary function is as a hospitality company. Like if you're not full in on distro and you have a tap room or you have a restaurant, you're a hospitality company that takes another step to make the product that they're selling. And not as many people focus on that or they, you know, They don't think about, you know, what does the neighborhood need from us or how can we fill that need and exist within the neighborhood instead of, you know, only doing what like if we sell like cocktails, we make some wine as well. And we try to mix it up in ways where we have a little bit for everybody. You know, it can't be everything to everyone, but we have any options. We have some cocktails, some wine. We sell a lot of cider from our friends at Plowman. So. thinking about our space more as like a, you know, a neighborhood pub, like neighborhood centric spot. And it's worked out really well because all of our spots now have a good core of regulars and some of them are really into beer, but they're not all beer people. They're just people who are, you know, they like high quality things, things that are made locally. And we're able to be a space for them, even though they might not be like your typical Craft Brewers nerd type person.
[00:22:25] Zoe Licata: Yeah. It's been a theme that we've talked about with a lot of folks here is kind of having to reprioritize what your business is and hospitality is placed at number one. Like it's it's kind of the industry is doing a lot of transitioning over to to realizing how important that is, for sure.
[00:22:42] Carbon Copy: Yeah, and we design our spaces to, you know, feel more welcoming and like a place where, you know, beer used to be so intimidating and like the whole stone, you're not worthy, like it's just so stupid. Beer has historically been for everyone and it should be for everyone. And we're taking the extra step to do smaller batches and, you know, focus on high quality ingredients, but that's, still should mean that anyone should be able to come in and enjoy it and not feel like, oh, I don't know enough about this. I shouldn't be here. That's really stupid to me.
[00:23:17] Zoe Licata: I think so too. It's working out for you all because Kraft is in this rocky stance or period right now and you guys are still able to find growth in consumers. That means there has to be something right about that ethos for sure.
[00:23:31] Carbon Copy: Yeah, our Port Richmond location, we run the bar, you know, we have like a food partner there. So it's my mom's kitchen, they do Polish American food. So I think also offering, you know, the comfort of people who know our brand and our beer, they know what they can get there, but they go somewhere else and they have can have a different experience as well. Like the South Philly spot that we just opened, there's a little bit more bar, we're trying to figure out some more food there. But you know, we got hot dogs and fish and chips, but it's just tin fish and potato chips. So just trying to offer like a little bit something different at each location. So that way, you know, there's incentive to want to check another spot out.
[00:24:12] Zoe Licata: I want to make sure we touch on because we're in Philly and we have you here. What should folks know about the Craft Brewers scene here? How would you describe what it's like?
[00:24:23] Carbon Copy: The beer scene here is very mature. Monks has been around forever. Some of the, you know, I think some of the first Belgian beer that was poured was in the city. And we've always had a great distro. Like Russian River comes here and there are not many other places. And we were the first people doing the beer week. We didn't have as many breweries before, but now that whole landscape is changing and while it's great that we can have access to all these incredible breweries through distribution, there's more and more incredible beer being made in Philadelphia and more spaces that are unique and fun popping up in the city and putting out beer at a really high level. And people are still receptive to that. I think people see global or national trends. There might be a 400,000 barrel brewery that's doing less beer, and maybe people in Philly are drinking less of that. So it looks like there is less beer sales, but we've been selling a lot of beer, and I know my friends are selling a lot of beer. So people are still drinking beer, especially in a tough economic time. There's more affordable and accessible options. We have an American lager on that you can get. a $5 pint anytime, $4 at happy hour. You can do a $8 citywide, so a $5 pint and a $3 shot of whiskey. Our friends at Staker Vice are doing Creme Ale as their kind of baseline affordable beer. And people, I think, are realizing that, and they might come in and have one of those, and then maybe an IPA or a bunch of pills or something like that.
[00:26:02] Zoe Licata: Final question for you. What is something that is really exciting you about what's going on in beer right now or something that you're looking forward to in the future when it comes to either what you all have going on or just kind of the general industry right now? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit.
[00:26:19] Carbon Copy: I don't mean the shrinking in the way of market share, but the focus being put on people staying smaller and satisfying their local area and really putting focus on quality instead of you know, why did all these breweries grow to such a huge number? Because there was double-digit growth. And that's what business tells you to do is to just, we have this growth, we should grow. But then down the line, you're stuck with all this capacity. You're sending beer out everywhere. It's dying on the shelf warm. And, you know, people are looking more towards smaller and Columbia Distributing around their area or, you know, opening up multiple taprooms. I think that's great for beer because, you know, sometimes the best beer is the freshest beer. And like if you're not focused on sending beer here, there and everywhere, you know, that beer stays fresher and you're moving through it a lot faster. So I think that more pivot to smaller and local is, you know, how things started in this industry. And I think it's a good thing that it's going back to that.
[00:27:27] Zoe Licata: It's almost a bit of a more intentional business, right? Of not just kind of, we're vaguely doing this or kind of expanding out somewhere. It's like, no, we have a focus of who we want to be, who we want to target, and what we want to do. It's definitely more focused for sure. I think we said at the top of this year, if you take a shot for every time someone says focus, you might all be in a bad place. Yeah. Well, Brendan, I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming out and talking to us about this. Thanks for having me. And thank you for having us in your city.
[00:27:59] Carbon Copy: Well, I hope you enjoy it. And there's more than the cheesesteak at the roast pork sandwich. That's also great too.
[00:28:06] Zoe Licata: Noted. Thanks so much.
[00:28:07] Carbon Copy: Thank you.
[00:28:11] Justin Kendall: This is Hannah Ison. She is the Executive Director of the Brewers of PA. She's the Director of Brewing Ops for Zero Zeroday Brewing. And so I want to get a pulse check from you on the health of Pennsylvania brewers.
[00:28:27] Brendon Boudwin: Yeah, we produce a lot of beer here in Pennsylvania. It's a really friendly state to be able to open a brewery again and to be able to produce beer and that can be attributed to our state legislature and a lot of the regulatory framework that they have put in place for us. We have a really low excise tax here in Pennsylvania, so we're able to self-distribute and none of that came without work from the Brewers of Pennsylvania and the Guild. but it's not a coincidence that there are over 450 breweries operating in Pennsylvania right now. Times are definitely hard across the industry, costs are high, and I think we're seeing that, you know, in all industries, but There are definitely a lot of incentives for opening and operating a brewery here in the Commonwealth. And I think we have a really friendly legislature and administration towards manufacturing here. Yeah.
[00:29:46] Justin Kendall: Let's go a little bit deeper into that because you're working on a modernization of the excise tax credit program that would allow brewers in the state to really benefit because there are brewers out here that have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax credits that they're not able to use. And this modernization effort that you're working on would allow them to either sell those tax credits or get an extension on that. So you recently had a hearing with the legislature. What was the result of that?
[00:30:21] Brendon Boudwin: Yeah, so we just very recently had a hearing with the House Finance Committee this past Thursday, so what a better way to kick off CBC than do that too. But yeah, in 2016, the Malt Excise Tax Credit Program was created, and that program allowed breweries to, or malt beverage producers, to claim credits against upgrades and equipment and things that they were buying for their breweries. It's helped a lot of breweries be able to open, and it's also helped a lot of breweries be able to upgrade their equipment. The way that it's written though, a lot of breweries aren't able to utilize most of their credits. The excise tax is really low and this is a credit towards the excise tax. So like a brewery that produces a thousand barrels a year. The majority, overwhelming majority of breweries here in PA are a thousand barrels or under, but their excise tax credit is hovering around $2,000, but they could have like $200,000 in credits, but they're just sitting on those and not able to use them. So this bill is proposing to make those credits sellable to other malt beverage producers so they would be able to buy those credits that these breweries are sitting on. The breweries who have made those upgrades to their facilities would finally be able to see that money come back into their pockets and the breweries that do have that higher tax liability. they would be able to buy those at a bit of a discounted rate. The bill does make it to where they couldn't use those credits to offset more than 50% of their total tax liability. So the state is still going to see the taxes that they're paying. But it's one of those bills that really looks Craft Brewers of all sizes in the Commonwealth and could really benefit everyone and that's a really big thing here. I mean we have ginormous producers and then we have places that are producing 200 barrels a year that are sitting on $200,000 worth of these tax credits. So it is something that we're really proud of as a guild to be promoting because it's really looking at our membership and all of the breweries in Pennsylvania as a whole and really trying to find something that benefits everyone.
[00:33:13] Justin Kendall: Sounds like it would be a huge win-win for both sides here and really allow brewers to cash in on some of that that they haven't been able to do before. So as far as the status of that, it sounds like there's a lot of support for that in the legislature.
[00:33:30] Brendon Boudwin: Yeah, I mean, it's been really well received so far. The House Finance Committee had a public hearing on it on Thursday, which went really well. Representative Tabercio is the sponsor of the bill, but there are several co-sponsors on it, and we have support from both Democrats and Republicans, so that is super promising. They seem excited about it. It's a line item in the budget, so that tax credit is set at There's $5 million set aside every year, and that's in perpetuity, so.
[00:34:07] Justin Kendall: That's a huge amount of money.
[00:34:09] Brendon Boudwin: It is. And it's not all being utilized right now. So we really, really want to modernize this, update it and make it to where we are being able to spread that money across our industry as all of these breweries are continuing to make investments and keep on employing all of these people and just giving back to their communities, doing all of the things that breweries do. We really want to make sure that we can utilize that in a smart way.
[00:34:39] Justin Kendall: Thank you for doing this, Hannah. Please give it up for Hannah.
[00:34:46] Jessica Infante: My name is Jessen Fante. I'm the managing editor and one of the three co-hosts of the Brewbound podcast. And I am joined by Kevin Walter, the co-founder of Love City Brewing. So let's talk about number two location, which is doing a little bit of a trial run today for a food truck festival, right? But doors open on May 8th. What made you select this location in particular? And obviously you must be feeling pretty hopeful that you can open a number two. So what's driving that hope for you guys?
[00:35:13] Zeroday Brewing: We chose this place because it was a big open building, and we designed it so that it could be accessible to anybody. So everyone who comes in walks up the same, like, accessible ramp. Every place in the building is accessible. We designed our beer list to appeal to kind of anyone who might walk into the building, and we also, like, We have cocktails, we have really good wine. We try to make the place as accessible to anyone who come here, not just like beer, beer people. The spot up at Manioc used to be a place called Fat Lady Brewing, which was owned by a couple, another old building, super rad infrastructure.
[00:35:53] Jessica Infante: The very rudimentary understanding I have of Manioc as being somebody from New Jersey was that Manioc is kind of like the Hoboken of Philly. Right? Does that make sense? Like a lot of my friends that moved here, that's where they went first. So what I'm awkwardly trying to say to you is that I hope you have like a really like young and vibrant and like excited going out crew in the neighborhood to support you guys.
[00:36:19] Zeroday Brewing: And that's what we've been like the whole time we've been in construction up there. There's been people like stopping through trying to open the door. It's a lot of like young families, a lot of like young professionals. And they're just like, it's the whole neighborhood is just very vibrant. And we've got so much up there just in the time that we're in construction. Today, we open for a food truck festival, which is one of the biggest days up in Manioc. And it was doors were blown off the place. It kicked a lot of kegs. It was great.
[00:36:49] Jessica Infante: Amazing. Well, we've touched on this a little bit. It's no secret that times have been tough for Kraft lately. What is making you feel hopeful?
[00:36:56] Zeroday Brewing: As long as we are true to who we are and respond to the market, that there is still going to be a place for businesses like ours to fill the need that consumers still have. As long as we don't try to do anything too off the wall and get away from our core values, then I think we're going to have in the market. Something that's huge for us is also events and things like that. People need a reason to go out now. You see this a lot of demographic data, especially for people in their 20s. It's tough because they don't have the same kind of income and spend ability that we did in our 20s. So they need a reason to go out to a place. They need to feel connected to it ethically as well as just the place itself. So we feel like as long as we're true to ourselves, we have enough people that come are younger that fit that, that we could do that up there as well.
[00:37:52] Jessica Infante: And, you know, how is Love City evolving during this challenging time? I know you guys have been really forward thinking. So how are you putting it all together?
[00:38:00] Zeroday Brewing: Well, one of the biggest evolutions that we've had is, and anyone who's in the distribution game has probably seen similar things, we're down in distribution. So what we're trying to do is fill those gaps with new things that we can do to satisfy parts of the market that we haven't otherwise, and making sure that we're accessible and that's part of our messaging. So we're... really just finding ways to sell more beer over on bars. So opening the spot up at Manioc, looking at other locations as well, so that as things may naturally start declining with distribution, we can fill those gaps by a more profitable venue.
[00:38:40] Jessica Infante: What have you noticed about shifting consumer behavior? Are they coming in more often, less often, drinking more beer, ordering more food? What are you seeing out there?
[00:38:49] Zeroday Brewing: It's tough to make a kind of blanket statement about consumer behavior, but I mean, we all see the same data about like how expensive everything is, like gas is more expensive, raw materials are more expensive. So it's hard to say exactly what's driving people to come out to a place right now. But what we know is for us is to give them reasons to come out outside when they otherwise would maybe just stay home. It's really easy to just stay home on your couch. There's so much good Craft Brewers. There's so much good food that you can get takeout. giving them a reason to come out, things like this for Crap Guru's conference where everyone can get together, finding ways to do that with local groups. We have run clubs that come through. We have Dungeons and Drafts, which is like a Dungeons and Dragons theme. We can do that will create a reason for people to come and then enjoy the fact that they're here.
[00:39:43] Jessica Infante: So run clubs, Dungeons and Dragons. This is the new karaoke and trivia.
[00:39:49] Zeroday Brewing: All right. Karaoke and trivia still works too.
[00:39:52] Jessica Infante: Kevin, I think that's a great place to leave it. Thank you so much for hosting us. This is an awesome event. 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 Cracci. 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.
