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Episode 72 - Old Irving Brewing
141 Plays3 years ago
This week we stay in the neighborhood and visit one of our favorite local breweries, Old Irving Brewing. An early morning visit on Monday, we sat down with Trevor Rose-Hamblin (co-founder and headbrewer) and Maatther Moldenhauer (sales director and social media guru) to discuss the history of our local brewery.
https://www.oldirvingbrewing.com/
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Outro music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Imaginary Show Ads & Character Names
00:00:00
Speaker
to see ads of yourself pop up for just a pilot. This show doesn't exist. Fred and George. It's correct. Fred and George? Yes, there you go. Fred and George. That's what I'm here for. Is that their real names? No, that's their character's names.
Clark's Fact-Checking Role
00:00:13
Speaker
That is why. James and Oliver Phelps, if you wanted to get that. Oh, look at you. That's right. That's why we brought Clark under the show so he can fact check things for us. There you go. That's great. That's pretty much
Meet Trevor Rose Hamlin of Old Irving Brewing
00:00:22
Speaker
it.
00:00:22
Speaker
Brandon, I see we're already recording. Yep. Alright, so we're gonna go straight into this. This week we speak with head brewer and co-founder of Old Irving Brewing, Trevor Rose Hamlin. This is episode 72 of The Malting Hour.
Introduction & Show Overview
00:00:38
Speaker
This the molten hour where we talk about our drink And tell you what we think, every other week And if we get drunk, well we might slur our speech Gotta get a cab, the friends who wish you had Join us for a drink, join us for a laugh Time is never wasted, wait you're getting wasted The molten hour here, people, people taking places People, people taking places
00:01:02
Speaker
Welcome to The Malting Hour.
Recording & Scheduling Insights
00:01:04
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Tony Goldt, joined always with... Brandon Winninger. And to my right, sitting way too close, Clark Fettred. Why did you seem so scared about that? Maybe I should get a little further away. I think so. Sorry. Well, this is, you know, I don't know when this is coming out. We have so many, I think we're going to push this one up a little bit, but this might be our very first episode of 2022.
00:01:26
Speaker
depending on where our schedule aligns here. So this is exciting because we're sitting here in the neighborhood. We're actually between all three of us.
00:01:37
Speaker
It's kind of like a central location between the three of us.
Excitement at Old Irving Brewing
00:01:40
Speaker
We are sitting inside Old Irving Brewing, and we finally made it here. And who are we joined with today? Trevor Rose Hamblin, head brewer and co-founder of Old Lobby. Fantastic. Would you like to throw your name in the hat as well? He can just jump on. It's all right. Hi there. This is Matthew, sales director.
00:01:57
Speaker
sales director and liquid mage for old Irving. The good news is that the two mics between you guys actually pick up a lot, so this is gonna be fun for me to edit later. But yeah, we're excited to be here. For those of you who have listened to the show, you know, we have had a handful of old Irving beers and...
Favorite Beers of 2021
00:02:15
Speaker
Just a handful. More than a handful. You know, I just want to make it sound like we're obsessed, but we kind of are.
00:02:21
Speaker
Clark, was it on your list for your top years for 2021? Was that this year or last year? Yeah, was it? Well, we'll have to go to the tape. I believe a triple beezer was one of my top ones. Yeah, that's right. You don't have to say that just because he asked you right in front of us. No, I wouldn't have asked had it not just been fresh in my head because we just recorded it yesterday. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but yeah.
00:02:45
Speaker
That was it was one of his last year was yeah It was another triple very heavy. Yeah, he just likes drinking your big old. Yeah, that's cool Actually, one of our Brandon one of our favorite beers from you guys is the pros are the cinnamon pros cinnamon pros so good hilarious beer
00:03:02
Speaker
We had done kind of a version of the, what was the, we toast. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. So we kind of tried to do something like that and it was okay when we had, it was shortly like two months afterwards, they came out for the first time, we had it and like this is exactly what our beer should have tasted like. This is what we wanted. You guys were going for that flavor and ice tumbled on that flavor. Oh fantastic. You can get into that later if you want. That's a story behind that one. Fantastic.
Old Irving's Neighborhood & History
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, why don't you guys tell us a little bit about Old Irving for those who do not know, and if you don't know, you're missing out. Yeah, and yeah, for any of your listeners who may not know the area, obviously Old Irving is the neighborhood that we are currently in. I mean, just barely though. So a lot of people get confused, they'll drive here and be like, you're not on Irving Park, or you're not, you know, it's like, no, it's Old Irving, that's the neighborhood.
00:03:54
Speaker
We are actually on Montrose. Sidekicks, the 4 a.m. karaoke bar across the street is Mayfair, technically. So, within feet, still in a way. It's like my actual neighborhood where I live were two different wards. On my side of the street, I have one alderman, the other side of the street has a totally different alderman. Yeah, Chicago makes a lot of sense. So, this is Old Irving Park. Some cool little bits of history about Irving Park. It is actually named after Washington Irving.
00:04:21
Speaker
famous writer who wrote Sleepy Hollow and so the we have a little quote on the wall they who drink beer will think beer that's from Washington Irving. I'm learning a lot about this neighborhood. Thank you for filling me in on where I live. Yeah there's a funny I mean there's this cool little little tidbits you know I mean
00:04:38
Speaker
When you go up to the bar in the tap room that the bar top is all like old train car flooring because we're right down the way from the Blue Line but also Grayland Station the original station that kind of connected Old Irving Park to downtown
00:04:54
Speaker
is the whole reason that people kind of migrated out here and kind of started up kind of like a second downtown area with the six corners where Milwaukee and Cicero and all that meet right there in Irving Park. The real six corners. The real, the OG six corners which you know I'm sure it was really impressive in its heyday and they're always like trying to rebuild it the new you know they're just trying to like make it back to what it was but when we moved into this area I mean it was just really apparent that there was
Old Irving's Origin Story
00:05:22
Speaker
one dense population. I mean like if you look back in all these neighborhoods there's tons of beautiful homes, there's tons of people and more importantly people in our demographic. Absolutely. People who like beer and also you know like there's a lot of great stuff around here but we felt like the one piece that was kind of missing was exactly what we do which is kind of like you know brewpub a little elevated with some like you know craft beer and everyone should have that joint like right down the street from them and then
00:05:49
Speaker
Um, so we opened up in 2016, uh, very unsure of ourselves and how it was going to go. And, uh, that night we did like 800 covers or something like that and we're like, Oh, okay. I think people were pumped. And, um, and then, you know, we kind of started off on, on the track of, all right, we're a brew pub, you know, and we're going to make, you know, great, great food, great beer. And then we kind of designed the brewery though, to be able to produce.
00:06:18
Speaker
I think it was kind of one of those things where we put it there just to be like, you know, maybe people will like our beer enough where we can put it in cans and maybe try to distribute
Brewery Growth & Distribution
00:06:25
Speaker
it. And then, you know, we started getting some traction and then, sure enough, now we're distributing. We're in all of Illinois, all of Wisconsin. Matthew's helping to grow our brand here and doing an amazing job. We're about to hire another salesperson. Obviously, it's been awesome.
00:06:41
Speaker
Oh, all right. Well, that's it for the interview. See you guys later. So that's great. So what was your kind of going into the history of you personally?
Trevor's Journey with Beer
00:06:52
Speaker
What's your history with beer? Sure. Well, it's been an arduous journey with beer.
00:06:58
Speaker
It started at a very young age in an abusive way. We're on three 30 racks of bushlight and then fill them with bricks and put them on sidewalks in East Lansing, Michigan and wait for a drunk to come along and kick it. And then I would scream bricks in box until I puked from laughing.
00:07:21
Speaker
Uh, that's actually not untrue. Um, but I, you know, I love craft beer. I'm from Michigan originally. I moved out here, uh, 12 years ago at this point. Um, being from Michigan, I, you know, you get your first sip of like Oberon or two hearted.
00:07:37
Speaker
For me, it was like my first love was this place called Crunchies in East Lansing. They had schooners, these big freaking mugs of this craft beer that was chocolatey and decadent and high ABV. So they only let you have one, but I knew the bartender, so he let me drink more than one. And it was dragon's milk. And I was like, oh, it's so good. And I didn't know craft beer could do this. And so, you know, it was unspecial. I think it was like
00:08:00
Speaker
eight bucks for one of those things. And I would drink two and be, whoop. And I was like, that's amazing. I only spent $16. And I don't remember much. And my mouth tastes like chocolate and bourbon. This is a fun thing. So that's kind of where it started. I had a childhood friend whose dad put on the Michigan craft beer festival down in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
00:08:25
Speaker
and he was an avid home brewer and he always had beer on tap and I just was like he was like a renaissance man I thought that was just like the coolest thing to be able to drink Lewis's beer and so I always like really admired that stuff and then you kind of skipped down the road a little bit wasn't great in school so obviously I did the the thing that people who aren't great in school do I went to culinary school there you go I got to do a trade profession which hey man no sweat
00:08:49
Speaker
came out to Chicago. I'd worked in kitchens all over Michigan, you know, kind of working lines wherever I could, busting suds, doing the whole, you know, that whole thing that chefs do. You start when you're like really, really young to help your parents out and stuff. And, you know, you got, you know, we're a poor family. And so,
00:09:05
Speaker
You know, I worked my way through and then my buddy Garrett, whose dad was like the editor in chief at the Chicago Tribune. I'm working at a country club with this dude and he's like a genius. And he's like got his own website. He's making this amazing food. And I was like, this guy knows what's up. And he was thinking about going back to Chicago. You know, I was like, hey, I want to go to Chicago. I like it there. My friend's there. Let's go.
00:09:28
Speaker
He's like, I'm going to culinary school. I'm like, which one? And he's like this one, Kendall College. I was like, all right, I'm in. And so I came out, went to culinary school. He linked up with a restaurant called Moto. I followed him there. Moto ended up being this like an amazing experience. Like we got a Michelin star eventually while I was there.
00:09:48
Speaker
I worked my way up from the kitchen to the, I was actually a lead line cook on the meat station of a fine dining restaurant as an intern. So I was a six month intern. At the end of that six months, I was kind of like lead line cook. And then they, their cross-stream program, they put me on FOH. And so then eventually I served bartend and became a manager. Then it was,
00:10:10
Speaker
a GM and then I'm helping literally running the entire game there yeah and then eventually I was doing like the books and like you know I'm helping Homero Cantu run his empire and one day the dude just looked at me and he's like
00:10:22
Speaker
what is it you want to do? And meanwhile, I'm like, I'm the GM of a fine dining restaurant. There's not many more demanding jobs except for the chef of that establishment, because clearly those guys are the hardest working people, right? And I was still taking my mornings and going and apprenticing with breweries. I had this like secret love affair with beer and I had an area where I could do it.
00:10:49
Speaker
My boy is at Flossmoor Station. Bjorn, Quinn, and Bill. If you don't know those names, you probably should. They're amazing guys. Bjorn Johnson is one of the main brewers at Goose Island now. He's absolutely amazing. Quinn does R&D for them. He wears a lot of hats. And then Bill Savage was the director of the entire barrel warehouse for a while. So he was running that whole thing. Now he just went out to Michigan to work for Virtue Cider.
00:11:18
Speaker
But these amazing people trained me in the morning. So I'd go in the morning, early as hell, mash in, dough in, grain out, put on a suit, put on my earpiece, and go and serve people overpriced food. That's how I learned the craft. And I did it for free beer, which is great. And then eventually Omar was like,
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, you really like beer. What do you want to do with that? And I was like, there's like no brew pubs. At that time, there was very few brew pubs in Chicago. So there's a huge opportunity in Chicago because I feel like it's like trembling. Like there's all these breweries, right? You got the pipe works and you got all these guys who are like, you know, building the foundation of what I think is going to be really big. I'm like, we should, you know, get in there and do the food and the beer thing together.
00:12:01
Speaker
And he's like, all right, let's do it. And so we started that path and eventually met my business partner, Jeff, who just happened to live right across the street from him. After going down the road of a ton of different investors and different people who would sign up and log out and everything else. And this guy, Jeff, just kind of, he had it. And when I mean it, I mean money. But he also had this really great personality that was
00:12:29
Speaker
clearly something that me and Omar were missing. We're both creatives. We're both, you know, dreamers. And I think Jeff had that, um, had that more organized, you know, kind of approach to things. And I think he actually saw it as something bigger than either Omar or myself could have ever seen it. Cause he, we wanted to start a small system way smaller than this. And Jeff was like, why? We should make it bigger. He's like, just in case, you know, and he kind of wanted to err on that side, which,
00:12:56
Speaker
You know, two dudes, Omar was basically homeless when he was a child. I was a poor kid. You know, we come into things, you know, with a shoestring budget and, you know, kind of have to think small with hoping that it goes bigger than grow from there. And Jeff is just like, yeah, don't worry about that. Let's go. And he organized some investors and got them together and Omar passed away.
00:13:17
Speaker
We weren't sure if we were going to keep the business going or not.
Choosing Old Irving's Location
00:13:20
Speaker
We did. After one drunken night at what is now Twisted Hippo, but at the time was... One of the 12 break rooms? No, break room. I was going to say break through too. Break room brewery. It was kind of like our battle call. All the investors were amazing. We sat down with them and they stuck around.
00:13:41
Speaker
I guess now the rest is history. That's my full history with beer. That was the best run through of someone's history. We've had plenty of interviews. I'm not knocking anybody else that's been on the show. We love them all. We love all of you. They've been on the show. Thanks a lot. But that was very, very good. Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate hearing all of that. There was a lot of history summed up in a nice long
00:14:02
Speaker
We didn't say anything except for, okay. I'm sure people who listen to us sometimes like not hear us. You can ask my wife, I'm a good talker. So we should have you on the show more often. Got it. Wow. That's a lot to kind of take in, but we're thrilled that you're here. All three of us, we really do love what you guys do here at All Herve.
00:14:29
Speaker
And I will say not I'm not taking away from me or you Brandon, but I do know that Clark really is like a huge fan of Father's Day's birthdays. I'm looking at my check-ins. They're like, oh I was here on that important day. I was here on that important day Oh, right. I remember that one where I we appreciate it and it never gets old hearing it You know, I think because it was such a long and arduous journey to get where we were. I mean I
00:14:50
Speaker
I just mentioned some of the stuff, you know, there was still so much like so many other like little stories like involved in that that just were really, really tough. I mean, we could talk about the last year, we could talk about all this stuff. But to hear that someone likes our beer is just awesome. And it's always it's never not shocked. Like we when we put out Krampus this year, like we made twice the amount. And my business partner is like me in a lot of ways where we're like, we don't want to like
00:15:15
Speaker
we made plans for the extra liquid because are we really going to sell it all? And I think after that first hour of it being on Osner, we were like,
00:15:23
Speaker
Oh, oh. Okay, cool. Good thing we made all of that. Yeah, because we don't really get outside of these four walls. We kind of have like this like square three or four miles that we kind of like operate in, but we don't really understand the outside world. It's a bunch of numbers and Matthew coming in and telling us about stuff. You know, it's like someone's going to be able to dissect it all. That's right. Exactly right. I feel like I just get to tell a lot of stories that you guys are like, sure that happened. We believe you.
00:15:50
Speaker
Well, I would, you know, circling back around just to the building here, you know, was this the first choice of where you guys wanted to be? Were there other neighborhoods that you guys were looking at? You know, there probably were, you know, we looked at a couple of other spaces. This one was the one, though, I think Jeff, myself and Omar, when he was still with us, we looked at and it just felt like a brewery.
00:16:14
Speaker
It was in the neighborhood. The actual LLC name is Trip Brewery LLC because Omar and Jeff live on Trip. Oh, nice. And eventual partners are of ours, Mathias Mergis and Focar, who did an astounding job helping us open up and get going. Mathias and his business partner, Brian, live right down the street on Trip. I'm the odd one out. I'm also the youngest. So I was living in an apartment. Chef, right? Working for free at breweries, working for beer. It doesn't really afford you the kind of housing that those cats had on that block.
00:16:44
Speaker
But I did live very close, so I was living in Irving Park as well. And when we all got here, we all loved the neighborhood. We knew it intimately, right? We knew the area.
00:16:53
Speaker
Um, the only thing about it was, you know, there's not a lot around here. I mean, it's, you know, it's a lot of, you know, shops for cars, but we had sidekicks across the street, which I adore. And then we have the blue line and we know those things are smart. And we know, and, and, you know, Jeff, uh, his background is in real estate. And I think, you know, if you're going to invest in an area, this is a smart area to invest in, whether you're a homeowner or a business owner, because you're right along the blue line.
00:17:19
Speaker
You're right near the airport. It's kind of right in between the suburbs and downtown, so you can kind of catch both, which makes for some very interesting kind of array of humans. When you're in Logan Square, you get a very specific kind of human being. When you're out here, you get everybody.
00:17:38
Speaker
But the neighborhood is just, it's so awesome. I mean, between the churches and kind of how they play into the neighborhood, Father Dom, down at St. Ed's, you know, we work together a lot on things he loves like Belgian beer and trampet style ales. Of course. Of course. He's a priest, you know. So that part's really cool. St. Viator, who's extremely connected to the neighborhood.
00:18:03
Speaker
They do the beer and barbecue challenge every year, so we're very intensely connected to that. And it's probably the first time in my life I've really had that sense of community in a neighborhood ever in my life. I thought it would be when I bought a home or something like that. I bought a home. I don't even know my neighbor's names. I know one guy is a cop, the other person's Polish. Well, that's not true. I know Chris. Chris is awesome. You always want to know the cop. But around here, I know everyone's names. I've never felt more a part of something.
00:18:33
Speaker
really really heartwarming to kind of know all these people intimately.
00:18:36
Speaker
and to see them come in and enjoy and be thankful that you're here. And we saw it no more beautifully than when the pandemic hit. And we were doing curbside pickup. And it was like a frickin' Portillo's. We had cars wrapped down the street. I'm running. I mean, I lost. I wish I could get those steps in still. I lost 20 pounds running out to cars. I mean, it was terribly stressful because this is not built to be a Portillo's. We've never done anything like that. And we were losing our minds. And we're terribly inefficient.
00:19:05
Speaker
But each one of them would say something like super nice, you know, we just want you to be here when this is all over, you know, and that was like, damn, like that was that was pretty cool because it was really hard. But you get those little love the neighborhood taking care of it, you know. And the building itself, you know, you can kind of see as you look around the beer hall, obviously this I'm from Michigan.
Pandemic Adaptations
00:19:23
Speaker
I like beer gardens. I think we all do. We don't have an outside space. So we got the big glass door that opens up.
00:19:28
Speaker
The garden lights that Rachel Kral from FC Studio was brilliant enough to put in to kind of tie that in. And that's Matthias's wife. So she does all kinds of designs. She designed like own an engine, Billy Sunday. She's got a great eye for design.
00:19:42
Speaker
And with this, it was very minimal touches, right? Like we kept a lot of the original tile work. I don't know what that was. That could have been like a bathroom back in the day, but it's just like this patch of weird tile. I've never noticed that patch of tile. Yeah, it's just kind of there. And then the brick here is what they call Chicago brick. So the same brick that's inside of this building, you actually see on the outside of that building, it's the most common type of brick in Chicago. And then of course, you got these dramatically high ceilings, which thank God for that because I am out of space on the floor. I just got a lift that can lift things up really high.
00:20:11
Speaker
Sweet. So I'm going to be storing things upward. And then of course you have the tap room, kind of more of the bar feel. It's kind of more of the family feel. And then we used to have a game room. Now you'll see it's very full of cans and it's now kind of an extension of the room. I was going to ask about that. I noticed that there was like, oh, so we're not playing bags and sitting over there anymore. I was about to say, my sons are going to be. Yeah, your sons are going to be obsessed. I know. It sucks because the kids love that area.
00:20:35
Speaker
Um, but you know, during the pandemic, uh, we had, I think three beers and cans. I think we had like Della Beezer and ancient magic had just dropped at that time. And it became pretty apparent pretty fast when people weren't going out anymore, that the drinking didn't stop at home and it escalated. And so it was like, Oh God, we need to package more beer. And so I was spending a lot of my time running food and doing all that stuff and trying to make sure that my team wasn't bent over in fear from an infectious disease and
00:21:04
Speaker
you know, kind of putting myself out there and running and trying to run as much food as possible too. When people got a little bit more comfortable than going back and then being like, okay, we need to redesign this whole thing. And so this big beer hall that's meant for seating people got cleared out. We had just stacks and stacks and stacks of grain and cans and I had ordered ahead and we just started cranking. That's when OIB really changed in to kind of what it is right now, which is, you know, a manufacturer and starting to put cans out there.
00:21:31
Speaker
It's interesting to hear because we've checked in with a handful of breweries and how they handled everything throughout the pandemic. One being your neighbor's lake of flint. We've talked to him a couple times during the pandemic as well. And just hearing how
00:21:51
Speaker
Everybody had to adjust, and I'm not saying that everything was positive, but something like growth is such a nice thing to hear. I kind of change things for you guys in a positive, and just having to adapt has made, it seems like, a lot of these breweries that we've talked to,
00:22:11
Speaker
just forced themselves into something that maybe they weren't necessarily ready for, but wanted to do. And a positive has come out of that. So that's awesome to hear. And I hope that for a lot of other businesses as well. And I reckon brewers and people who start breweries are usually pretty industrious folk. Absolutely. So you give us some lemons. We'll make some really weird lemonade. Not just regular lemonade. It's like alcoholic.
00:22:40
Speaker
Slightly busy. Maybe there's another fruit in there. Probably a puree, yeah.
Beer Styles & Experimentation
00:22:47
Speaker
Cool. So as far as when you're starting off the brewery, I guess my question is, was there an idea or, I guess, what was your idea for the type of beer that you wanted to put out? Did you have a certain style that you wanted to stick with, or did you want to just kind of run the gauntlet and kind of just try everything?
00:23:08
Speaker
So, um, that's a really good question. I think probably the latter, I think probably just wanted to run the gauntlet and try everything and see what stuck. We started off, um, before we ever opened, uh, Jeff bought this like really awesome rig. It was basically the same as our brew house. It's a three vessel vessel brew house that was on the stand, um, from more beer. It was awesome. It had a bunch of automation, something I would never buy as a home brewer because it was like $7,000. Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
but we set it up in Jeff's garage and I like basically he had like pegboards in there and everything and I just set it up like a brewery. Him and his wife still joke their garage has never been so clean because I would clean the floors at the end of the day just like a brewery the whole nine because you know I was starting to get paid at that point to start doing R&D for when the brewery finally opened so I was like I'm going to take it seriously and I would come in and I would brew proper beers and all that stuff and his daughter Avery would help me out once in a while with like cleaning pots and stuff and
00:24:02
Speaker
So we kind of came up with like our original six in that garage And you know it was kind of ran the gamut from you know Darker things that were maybe a little bit popular at the time waiting on almost not being popular
00:24:14
Speaker
like a black IPA. We have a love for black IPAs. I actually like black IPAs. Yeah, if they're done right. Absolutely. I think we've said that recently. If they're done right, they're really good. Yeah, the bad ones always seem to dry out your palate like a frickin' desert between the roast malt and the hops. There's nothing thirst-quenching about that. But it's amazing how many beers actually stuck around from that time. We still have Delo, which we created at Jeff's house.
00:24:43
Speaker
It was the first logger I ever brewed, which we know it's ale or lager, whatever you want to call it. And then Sentinel, which was our IPA, which we kind of call the protector of the brewery because that's the one we brought to our investors. So that's still here. And then Rat Pack was supposed to be a part of the original six. I ended up brewing because it was like really cool an idea, really kind of complicated to brew. But that one still makes an appearance every now and then.
00:25:10
Speaker
But it's funny, like we didn't really have I think an identity when we opened up at all. Like we didn't we didn't know who we were. You know, I knew that I knew that I had a culinary background. There were other people knew that too. So people knew you can see some culinary ingredients. But really it was a matter of just like trying out a lot of stuff and learning over those first couple of years.
00:25:29
Speaker
before something hit and what really helped us kind of create like a destination was it was one of our business partners Rod Zach who is old friends with Jeff and is just
Creating the Beezer Beer
00:25:39
Speaker
really great guy one of the investors it was right down the street from here he's a huge beer nerd this guy travels all over the country for beer you know he's a guy who waits in lines I was never that type of beer nerd I liked
00:25:49
Speaker
beer, but I liked the beer I could buy at the grocery store, not waiting in lines. That's me. Yeah. So I, you know, he was this guy who was bringing all these hazies to me and I was just like, what the heck is this? At the time, you know, I was a purist before I, I really knew what I was doing. And I was just like, I'm not making any hazies or whatever. I do stupid hazies. And then I had a couple of them. I was going to get into that. Yeah. I'm glad you transitioned into that. This is delicious. And I really started getting into them and he kept on bringing me. So I had my favorite breweries that I really liked that made them. I said, okay, I'm going to make a hazie.
00:26:19
Speaker
But I did it begrudgingly and I called it Trendy with an I. It was between that and Lenny's. I was being very kind of a thick-headed about it. And my idea, my original idea was for every new one that we made, we'd add an I. And Jeff hated that idea, but I wanted eventually, like if we got to 10, just have like 10 I's on it.
00:26:41
Speaker
Um, it became pretty apparent pretty quick that that's what people wanted. You know, people were coming in for each release and some of them would drop clear. Some of them were not right. It was really an experiment that everyone was willing to be elaborate for and give me their honest feedback.
00:26:55
Speaker
And no one seemed to mind. And that was the coolest part. So the guests were giving me real time feedback, whether it was on tap or directly to my face. And eventually it became clear that that had to become a beer. Right. So we went and we wanted to get the name trademark because at the time we thought we had to get every name trademark. Yeah. You know, we had a really good lawyer friend, Brian Tihan, who was part of folk art, who's just getting these things trademarked. And I had a bunch of adults in the room telling me, I got to get things trademarks. I'm like, all right, we got to get things trademarked.
00:27:20
Speaker
So we tried to get that thing trademarked. There's a freaking wine company up on the north side here that I've never heard of called Vintrendy. Super cool people. I called them up and I said, hey, apparently your name is too close to my name to get trademarked. Can I trademark it? And they're like, absolutely.
00:27:36
Speaker
didn't matter the patent the trademark office was like hell no it's still too close and we're like all right back to the drawing board and so I think I was looking up Jeff and I Jeff is a very organized person like I said so he's got a spreadsheet for everything it's an ongoing joke here at the brewery like oh you got a spreadsheet for that he did he had a spreadsheet of names every name you could think of and he would just add new things that he would hear out in public or whatever and
00:27:58
Speaker
I found this old, tiny name for the nose, which I thought was cool from the 1920s. It was Beezer. I was like, I'll hit you in the beezer, see? And I thought it was kind of cool. It's a lot of aroma hops in that beer. So we landed on Beezer. And I said to Jeff, I remember when we were coming up with the name, I said, Jeff, you just got to say it a bunch. And so Jeff was at home working out. And he's like, Beezer. Beezer. On his phone, recording it. And then he was walking the street, Beezer. Beezer. And I was just like, because he wasn't sure. I was like, that's weird.
00:28:28
Speaker
But all right, and that's kind of where we landed on it and And yeah, then you know you fast-forward a little bit of time. We kept on like tweaking that recipe Like and just like it was it all of a sudden it became all the things I loved about brewing craft beer in the first place which was you're always chasing something you're making like these tiny little details and turning the knobs and you're learning more stuff and I was spending like nights like
00:28:52
Speaker
I'm not kidding when I say I was losing sleep over this beer because I wanted it to be so good. And I'm talking to the OGs. I'm talking to the guys who made the original Hazys.
Beezer's Award-Winning Success
00:29:01
Speaker
Roger Kuzalles, right? When he came up with, what's the name of it now? The Trademark Infringement Beer.
00:29:12
Speaker
It's not Squirt, but it's like the Squeeze It. When he was over at, you know, and people were like, why not for Squeeze It? And BJ, that was over at Forbidden Root when they were making their OG hazy's. I was talking to these guys and each person had a different thing. And then, you know, you read these articles where all these brewers are trying to explain exactly how it's happening. But in my mind, I'm like, they're all brewers. So, you know, it's a little bit of science and a little bit of bullshit.
00:29:37
Speaker
I keep on like falling down weird rabbit holes still remember pretty haze machine when I made that thing and it dropped out beautifully clear and I was like
00:29:43
Speaker
The first time I'd ever put haze in the name of a beer and I was like, ah, shit, damn it. I think the same thing happened to one of the first hazy beers I tried to do. Because I was like, yeah, I was not sold on hazy beers when I first coming out. I'm like, yeah, this is a gimmick. I'm not interested. And one of my relatives, Paul, I was brewing with at the time, he's like, you got to try them. You got to try them. So I finally did it. And I was like,
00:30:07
Speaker
Okay. I get it. I get it. I get what's good about it. But yeah, my first, I think the first attempt I had, it was not, it was not hazy at all. It wasn't until we talked to Eric Flores over at Whiskey. It was another percent attempt all the time. He's amazing. He gave me the most, the best, you know,
00:30:28
Speaker
Advice, thank you. Thanks for myself. Best advice on how to not only get it hazy, but why it's hazy and why you're getting what you're actually trying to obtain, which is that silky smooth mouthfeel. Yeah, exactly that, right?
00:30:46
Speaker
We're always chasing that thing. I think for me, at Moto, one thing that we did there that if you don't know what Moto is, it's a fine dining restaurant and it was what we call avant garde or molecular gastronomy cuisine. The whole point of the experience.
00:30:59
Speaker
was to give you something that looked like one thing, but tasted like something completely different. And once I got myself in that mindset and I said, I need to make juice, you know, so what is juice? And I literally took like a refractometer and I took orange juice to find out how sweet it was. Um, and then it was about viscosity. What color is orange juice? How do I get that color in term of SRM to my recipe? And it was literally just trying to emulate juice, right? Cause that's really what you're trying to do. And to get the kind of sweetness that you want,
00:31:24
Speaker
At that time, you know, uh, I just didn't want to use lactose to get there. So I started, uh, just knowing what we know. Right. And I was talking to Lance from Omega, getting information from him. So I introduced some dextrin malts and I'm doing high mashing. And you know, now, now we're talking about chloride to sulfate ratios. And I'm just learning all this stuff. And we had a pretty good product. You know, Beezer was pretty good. It wasn't great.
00:31:47
Speaker
And so I remember in 2019 I made one last little touch and it was these two big things that I did and that was I upped the chloride to sulfate ratio and I changed the amount of dextromalt that I was doing. It was something like that. And in those two changes, that product that came out, we really loved and people responded really well to it. I'll never forget Bob from Alarmist was down here and he goes, 2019 gold. And he like was drinking. I was like, shut up. They had just won gold in 2018. They were the first gold.
00:32:16
Speaker
the metal ever on the hazy category. I'm like yeah right yeah that's gonna happen you know because it's a little bit of luck right it's a little bit of luck and a little bit of talent in those competitions and sure as hell we go and I mean it was so funny when we were at JBF I took my team because I just wanted this new team that I was kind of
00:32:33
Speaker
creating and putting together to go out to Denver just to see Denver because it's beautiful I loved the first time I went you know and I didn't win a single award you know 2017 so this is two years later didn't enter anything in 2018 2019 took the cast just to show them a good time you know get them really high and be up in the mountains
00:32:53
Speaker
And we were, I sat us in like the very, very back of that auditorium and we're watching, you know, Kevin Carey win gold on his, you know, on his Imperial pajamas, uh, barrel age. And we're, I'm freaking out for Kevin. I'm so happy for him. And we get to the end and of course, you know, we, we haven't won anything yet and Hazy's last category. So we're packing up, you know, we're getting ready to leave and, and everything else like that. So I'm getting my coat around and I put us in the back so we could be closer to, you know, bars and beer and getting out because I hate crowds.
00:33:22
Speaker
And they say Beezer, you know, and I kind of go numb for a second. And I'm like, someone else called their beer Beezer. That can't be real. And then all of a sudden, Tim, who's here right now, just does this, Tim rises up from his seat and I'm like, Oh, this is happening. And then finally, we're sitting there all hugging each other and the guy behind us, you should go get your award.
00:33:47
Speaker
And then like salmon upstream against humans because everyone's the last category or like walking up, excuse me, I have to get my season. Yeah. So we go up there to accept our metal and like no one's there anymore, but it was cool. Me will Tim and Brittany, who was our salesperson at the time up on stage and.
00:34:05
Speaker
It was awesome. Get off the stage and the first question I'm asked is if I have lactose in it. Josh from the Tribune comes up and he's just like, oh, just real quick. Is there lactose in that? Yes. No, there's not Josh. No, no lactose in Beezer.
00:34:24
Speaker
So that obviously, I think that's a really long way of answering your question of like, that's where the identity started and we were like, all right, cool. And then it was me and Jeff sitting down like, what kind of styles do we want to do that we're going to actually put out to market?
Craft Beer Trends & Innovations
00:34:39
Speaker
Now, the stuff we do here is, I break it down like this. We do your classics.
00:34:44
Speaker
Classically and we try to like really stick to it if we're gonna do a run high school about beer. We're gonna do it. I don't know it's gonna be proper We're gonna logger it. We're gonna pour over it because that's what brewers drink when we make loggers. It's like It's like dressing up for your friends, you know, you're I don't necessarily need other people looking at me. I just want my friends tonight But it's true though, it's like when we when we make our loggers we're making
00:35:14
Speaker
to impress each other more than anything else. I mean, if people start liking them and start buying the crap out of them, it'll be so nice. We actually saw a ton of them at the pub, which is awesome. I think this is very much a logger area, and I think loggers are on the rise, especially when you see these amazing logger houses opening up, whether it's Dovetail or...
00:35:33
Speaker
Goldfinger. Oh my god. Have you had the beers from Goldfinger? A friend just brought me a four-pack the other day. I'm so excited. Get out there. Go to Goldfinger. But I mean, you have all these great loggers, so we're in a logger town. And whether you know it or not, Lake Michigan actually kind of has like a perfect water profile for loggers.
00:35:53
Speaker
So this is maybe why I didn't know that about the loggers, but I didn't I know I just know in general being as a home brewer Chicago water is like the easiest to work with it's so good And so yeah, so if we're gonna do classics we're gonna do them classically We're gonna do some stuff that's in vogue whether it's hazy's or fruited sours, you know style it's all that good stuff and then there's a paddle your own canoe area where I really want to kind of still be able to experiment because I
00:36:20
Speaker
That's still a big part of who I am. I want to kind of like push the boundaries a little bit and make myself uncomfortable. Got recent gamble-hearted beer that we made with our friends to the far north, Hammer Heart Brewing. That was so far outside. I'd never used Smoke Mode before. Smoke Mode scares me. Scares you.
00:36:38
Speaker
Well, it's not it's not something that's friendly to a lot of people. You've got to be very careful with it. And I think they sensed my fear. They can smell it. You know, they're like, we use smoked malt mullver things. And I'm like, you know, Austin is like a black metal band. And, you know, they're they very much don't care about what you think. They're going to make beer that they like. And if you want to drink it, drink it. If not, fuck off. They don't care. And I love that about them. But
00:37:02
Speaker
I'm in Chicago and it's a very competitive beer market and so it's like you know you make choices like that it's always very scary and you know what though once in a while you just got to go for it and we went for it and the beer you know we made a barley one that's 12.5% it dried out and I was like screw it if we're gonna go that far let's use this new yeast I haven't used before unless there are some weird mushrooms at it that tastes like maple syrup.
00:37:22
Speaker
And they were like, okay, we didn't mean to go that far, dude. I'm like, while we're at it, while we're at it, we're also going to buy some fucking maple syrup barrels in some port barrels and we're going to double age that shit and blend it. And they're like, all right, dude, you can calm down now. So.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah. That sounds fantastic. Actually, the bass is doing okay. Usually smoke beers just get ripped apart, no matter how good they are. But people have been pretty amendable to it. There's some guy, you always have these local craft beer pages where these guys always give their two cents on. Someone actually said,
00:37:58
Speaker
Gammaharted is fire and I couldn't believe it and of course every comment under that was like man. It was okay It was kind of smoking bad and I was like I just kind of came in I was like, you know I'm gonna tell them exactly what we did to make that because I think if you have that perspective of like it changed Yeah, we're like hey you guys seem to like mostly like our beers This is what we did though And it was you know, very fun and very uncomfortable and I gave him like an overly just you're a craft beer page Yeah, you want to know about craft beer? Here's a big-ass paragraph I'm gonna take the time to show you guys exactly what we did, you know
00:38:24
Speaker
I have a hard time being, I can't imagine what it would be like being, you know, having a brewery and seeing, especially just on, you know, threads and Facebook pages like that. Me personally as someone who enjoys just buying beer, I get tired of it. I'm like, I don't give a shit about what you guys are saying. Most of the time. I think I learned something a long time ago. I've been screamed at in every language, right? Because I've worked in kitchens my whole life. I've had frying pans thrown at me, knives, you know, like...
00:38:50
Speaker
Yeah, I've had my one of my chefs like used to take plates that I would make if I was up late with whoever was on my station, like smashing in, you know, in sinks and stuff. So it's like, you know, if someone wants to give me their lighthearted feedback on a media site, that's fine with me. And I think, you know, I always told my team members when I was in restaurants, I tell people here too, it's like, look,
00:39:10
Speaker
We all don't like these things. It's not easy to take feedback or criticism. And yeah, a lot of it is bullshit. But if you sit there and you don't allow it to be such a negative in your life and you can use it as a tool, like you can look for trends and you can look for things that maybe a lot of people are saying and you can really guide you. You don't want to let it over guide you and you certainly don't want to go chasing beers that maybe you're not passionate about or something like that, but definitely use it as a tool for growth.
00:39:34
Speaker
instead of letting it get the best of your ego. So you guys making a brood IP anytime soon? No, absolutely not. Yeah, I'm glad that trend went away. Yeah, people told me about it and I was like bone dry. If there's something I know about the Midwest, people don't like bone dry things. These kids were raised on Faygo and like super sweet drinks. RC? Yeah, and RC Cola and stuff. This is not the area for dry. But yeah, yeah, I just I wouldn't let that stuff. It was actually funny,
00:40:00
Speaker
One of the guys from one of those pages, he comes in here all the time, he's a really good guy, he's been a craft beer lover forever, was sitting at the bar with me one day and we were just chatting and this guy kind of inserted himself into the conversation, just started giving me his feedback on some of the beers that have changed over time and how he didn't like it.
00:40:14
Speaker
I just sat there and I was kind of agreeing with him and Abel keeps looking at over at me like, he's got y'all, his mouth is agape, he's just like, oh man, it's about to go down. I was just like, no, dude, it's all good. I was like, what did you like about the last one? I just kept asking questions and Abel was like, I can't believe you just sat there and took it. And I was like, what? He was just giving me like feedback. It's all good. And I never, the guy didn't even ask who I was. That's the funniest thing. He didn't know I'm a guy making the beer, so I just kept on listening.
00:40:39
Speaker
Then he'd eventually like answering his questions enough where he said, wait, are you the brewer? And I'm like, I don't really brew it anymore. I mean, I write the recipes, but the guy about there brews it. So I mean, he'd probably be the one that would get offended more than me.
00:40:52
Speaker
Well, before the question I'm going to ask, did you guys, I feel like I'm... No, I had many questions that he just kept rolling with and answered them without even me asking. Okay, so I'm a talker, I'm sorry. No, no, this is going to be so great for me to edit, thank you. Because I don't have to do much. I do have a question, but we were talking about, you know, all the other beers, and one of our favorite beers, we kind of touched on it, was Krampus.
Krampus Beer Evolution
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah. So I kind of wanted to get into that and how that came to be. Sure.
00:41:19
Speaker
As you said, you guys made more this year and that's great. I know some other people that we follow on social media feel like it's...
00:41:31
Speaker
it's cool that it's still kind of like another radar beer that's just like, I feel like cool for our neighborhood. Obviously we would love to see it, you know, to a certain degree, love to see it, you know, where everybody, I like that I can get my hands on it. But how did that beer come to be? Cause we feel like it's just, uh, uh, an amazing barrel age stout, which you guys do with the variants and, uh,
00:41:53
Speaker
I feel like it's very underrated and she gets more props. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Especially with being just like, you know, in Chicago. Totally. Barely city. Well, yeah, exactly. And I think that's probably why we fly under the radar in a lot of ways. But yeah, Krampus, you know, was a thing I originally made. It was like one of those tie-ins where we talked about the fact that I got a culinary background and I really wanted to introduce like the food beer thing. I don't think there's no better place to do that than in the dark beer realm.
00:42:22
Speaker
Um, and I didn't, I don't know if pastries were exactly like crazy popular at that time or anything like that. And I wasn't really going for that. I was going for just a really nice dark beer. But the whole idea was, you know, basically Santa gets cookies and milk. Um, Krampus gets a really high ABV beer that tastes like cookies and milk. So the whole grain bill was created around, um, a chocolate chip cookie. Uh, you know, just a classic chocolate chip cookie. So.
00:42:48
Speaker
You've got lactose, you've got your milk for the cookies and milk piece or the butter or whatever you want to say in the, in the, in the cookie recipe, you've got chocolate malt, which is your chocolate. Obviously you've got your, uh, at the time I was using crystal malt. I don't anymore, but that was kind of acting as like your brown sugar area. And then, you know, really meaty base malt, um, like, like high grade, you know, like cake flour or something like that. And that was our, uh, Marisotter, um, base malt.
00:43:13
Speaker
When we first made it, it was like 6%. And then we made like a higher ABV version. We actually, starting to barrel age it was only because we happened upon some barrels from our friends at Fu. So the first year was in a few whiskey barrels. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And they were tiny, like the 15 gallon barrels and I lined them up along the fence on the floor.
00:43:33
Speaker
when it was cute when we used to have floor space back there. And we really liked what came. I mean, we were all surprised. We had like a two head, uh, HDP filler that we were filling off of. And you know, we had introduced, I think maybe we only had like a couple of different styles and you know, we were, we didn't even have a plan for like how we were going to get it into people's hands. We just said, okay, we're going to put it on social media that we're going to sell it on this day. Each bottle was hand dipped and you know, people came in and
00:43:59
Speaker
My friend Aaron calls me, who's like my wife's best friend's husband, and he's a huge beer guy. He's like, hey man, when does the line start? When we released it. And I was like, what? No, dude, you just come in and buy it. And so like that day, all of a sudden, I'm like, all right, we have to actually like maybe think about this a little bit. And sure enough, like a little line formed and people like lined up for it and got it. And I was like, okay, well that rolled. Let's do that again. And so each year we've tried to kind of change the recipe a little bit to be different. This last year,
00:44:27
Speaker
I've got this amazing brewer, it's his day off today, but his name is Will Robertson, and he is very science-minded. He's a little bit older, he's seen some things. He's been a home brewer forever, and we had been talking to some other brewers about this boil-down method, kind of more viscous work.
00:44:46
Speaker
and things like that and he'd kind of mapped it out and I started kind of picking these new ingredients that are going to add more chocolate profile so I try to get like more and more chocolaty every year and so we've just kind of been making little tweaks as we go along but this year 2021's brew was probably my favorite tasting wort of them all. It was super viscous. We introduced some chocolate rye this year. The barrels that we got in this time we just filled them.
00:45:12
Speaker
Are these really awesome Elijah Craig barrels where each one has like?
00:45:18
Speaker
cup to like two cups of whiskey in the barrel like when they they were super wet you know and so yeah when we pop the buns on like they almost hit the ceiling yeah that's how that's how pressurized and how put together they were so we did that some barrel stuff that we did like we have some rum barrels that I'm definitely backing up with more whiskey barrels just in case it doesn't work out but the plan is to take these four square rum barrels the white head ones that you see down there
00:45:43
Speaker
and do like a cocoa Krampus, but we'll see. You know, if it doesn't work out, we can maybe do something else with it. But we're definitely starting to have fun. Now that I have my stacker, we're going to be kind of maybe growing that Krampus brand a little bit, but we're also going to be introducing some more barrel aged beer because I'm like obsessed with it now. And so I want to do more like barrel aged barley wines, barrel aged stouts, barrel aged quads, you know, all that good stuff and just keep stacking barrels. I was lucky enough to get Marty's ear the other day from Revolution.
00:46:11
Speaker
when they did their release and that dude he just is so nice he like has given me tips and he was here for the Krampus release like that night like I saw him I beeline to him like I was in the middle of a conversation someone's like what the hell man I was like sorry I gotta go I sat down with him and I started talking to him because I you know he just makes such great barrel-aged beer and so
00:46:30
Speaker
Ah, it's been a fun kind of experiment. And then all the variants are just plays on cookies that I like. Like this year's peanut butter no-bake. My mom used to make like a no-bake cookie with peanut butter and oats and everything and it already has oats. So all the bases are there's vanilla, there's chocolate, there's everything else. It just made sense to introduce some peanut butter.
00:46:46
Speaker
And so if you want, here's the secret. If you want to know what kind of variants I'm going to do of Krampus, follow my stouts throughout the year because that's where I kind of test out all the variants to make sure that they're going to work because I'm not going to be experimenting on Krampus. So, you know, ancient magic, you know, you saw the peanut butter there, you know, you'll see coconut stuff coming out, things like that, you know.
00:47:11
Speaker
And so this year, you know, I think next year, I think we're so obsessed with just doing like a nude Krampus. I think Maplewood actually had the same idea. They just did a neat.
00:47:20
Speaker
I thought that was a good name for it because all I could think is like Krampus Newton. I'm like, you got to get that out of your head. You need a better word. And Maple was like, neat. And I'm like, that's awesome. That's a way better word than mine. Like naked Krampus. I mean, naked Krampus is kind of fun, though. Yeah. So no adjuncts at all. And just do like barrel of beer in time, which I'm excited for. So yeah, man. It's been a fun journey. Can you speak to?
00:47:42
Speaker
the brainy barrels that we had this year that was kind of unknown but I think that's kind of where this led to and where this idea is. Speaking of neighborhood guys, some neighborhood guys opened up a distillery called Star Union Spirits out in the burbs. I'm struggling on which burb it is because they all, I don't know.
00:47:59
Speaker
I moved straight to Chicago. I did not stop at any burbs on the way in. Peru. Good move. Oh, it's in Peru. Oh, there you go. In Peru. That's an easy one to remember. I gotta remember Peru, Illinois. That's all right. Anyway, these guys are amazing. Bob Windy, he comes around repping all the time.
00:48:14
Speaker
He brought by this Apple Brandy barrel and he's like, maybe you can put something in it. I had some extra Krampus, I threw it in it, forgot about it for two years. And John, the mailman, which is a mailman named John, who we really like. He's an old hippie, big long beard, super nice guy, and always shares massive whales with us. Finally, one day at the bar, I was like, hey man.
00:48:34
Speaker
What's up with that brandy aged Krampus? And I was like, oh, you know, I don't even know. So I went in the next room and pulled the sample for him and I and I said, that's awesome. I was like, we're not going to do anything to that. And so we put it on tap, you know, for the first couple of days. And it was kind of a fun thing for us to do. And I guess we're going to be getting in some more brandy barrels to do some more kind of cool stuff with that and maybe throw some stouts in there. So.
00:48:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was the first non-adjuncted Krampus. First one ever. Yep. I missed that one. It's funny, it's like anybody who's in the industry and loves barrel aged beer really loved it. And then like other, you know, people who really like to have the other Krampuses with the big, you know, other flavors going on weren't as big of a fan, but I really loved the barrel character, the brandy character. I thought it was very cool. So yeah. Yeah, actually,
00:49:20
Speaker
We were talking about some of our favorite beers that we had over the year. One that ended up on there for me was when Revolution did their Apple Brandy by the way. It was really good. I think Apple Brandy and just Brandy in general is a good barrel. Which is so funny because you would never imagine, right? You don't think of Brandy when you think of this stuff, but it makes sense. Yeah, it tastes really good, especially when they're high ABV beers. Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
00:49:44
Speaker
That's fun. Did you say Clark? Did you have the Apple brand? I did not. No, but you made it seem like you did. I was just saying, I'm sorry for you that you didn't get a chance. I'm sorry for myself. I was here for the Krampus release. Like I was here doors open. I was walking in, found a
00:49:59
Speaker
Luckily found a spot at the boat. I was coming to pick mine up. What was it, Tuesday? Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, I'll just show up a couple of minutes after they open. No one will be here. I'll walk in and walk out. And I show up, and it's packed. Literally, like 12, 15. You're surprised. We were surprised. My front of house staff was really surprised.
00:50:15
Speaker
That night, I think the next day, I talked to Scott, who's one of our servers. He's this really awesome guy. I'm like, hey, Scott, what did your pedometer say yesterday? Because I'm like, I want to run. And he's like 26,000 steps. He's like, yeah, and I worked at double. I was like, oh, my god. So he was looking a little worse for wear on Wednesday. He's like, I'm a little tired, dude. I'm like, yeah, no kidding. You guys were rocking. And yeah, and of course, we added that whole crap as carnival thing, which was cool. Josh, our new general manager, and this girl, Jen Den Rider, who's absolutely amazing.
00:50:44
Speaker
Uh, she's one of our bartenders, but she also has this like, um, windy city devil, white city devil, uh, candle company, but she organized everyone to like make this, uh, Krampus market, which was so cool. Almost like a Chris Kindle market in the back of all these artists. They were so cool. Uh, she organized the whole thing. It went over great.
00:51:03
Speaker
Apparently a bunch of those guys had a really great day, so we got to support local artists. That's cool. They're just freaking awesome, so yeah. Hopefully we're going to keep doing that. I was about to say, I assume that'll come back. Oh yeah, she brought her own dude dressed as Krampus, who honestly was a little creepy, but I'm just kidding. This is the perfect way for that, but even we had Hexa, who now does a lot of the coffee for our beer,
00:51:26
Speaker
All of it. They've got all of it. Parker's like my coffee BFF. Yeah. Hex is awesome. And people just loved him. And he brought like 30 bags in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday. Yeah. And he had to send someone to go get more coffee. Oh, wow. That was awesome. You guys have never had his coffee.
00:51:43
Speaker
I want to make sure that next year I have the day off so I can come in for that. These guys were sending me, you know, that they were there and like, it was crazy. It's crowded. He was there drinking. I'm lucky that I work from home and literally just walk over here. And a lot of people, you know, and the funny thing is like, we're so easy going unapproachable. If you see us back there at any time, having beers at the end of the day, which usually happens approximately at 4 p.m.
00:52:06
Speaker
People can just wander back all the time. It's crazy. People don't even realize we're usually drinking something weird. Someone's brought in a bottle somewhere, and we're very open and inviting. Anyone who's around, you know how the craft beer industry is. Anyone who's around is getting a beer. Especially on days like that, I'm trying to get people out of that area. So I'm like, come on, come back. I've got a couple barrels we can drink right here. Let's go. Yeah.
Future Plans & Expansions
00:52:28
Speaker
Well, we I could I feel like I could sit here and keep talking because I feel like I do have more things that I do. But we're going to wrap it up here. Cool. And maybe we'll I got one more question before we do so. Sure. I think maybe if you're interested, we'd love to come back maybe sometime early.
00:52:45
Speaker
Like I said, I think this is going to be maybe the first episode of 2022. So later, we'll say later this year, sometime in 2022, if you want to sit down and talk again, because we got some more of what I'd like to talk about. Yeah. I mean, we're doing some big things here in 2022, really expanding where I wanted to go with the last question was what do you guys have planned for 2022?
00:53:05
Speaker
We're finally very organized. When we first opened up, me and Jeff were kind of doing it all. We had people kind of helping us out on the brewpub side, but really on the distribution side, everything like that. We didn't have the kind of help that we have now. Matthew has been an absolutely key integral piece of helping us organize.
00:53:25
Speaker
communicate with our distributors and make sure that we're approaching the market in a smart way. Being able to do that and being hyper organized also means that I get to kind of, you know, I know when those beers are happening, which means I've got more room for fun experimentation. So I'm really excited to introduce a lot of new beers. There's going to be some repeats from last year, but we're going to keep on throwing out new, creative, fun stuff. A lot of collaborations coming up. We actually have one coming up to brew next week.
00:53:54
Speaker
with phase three. Um, so my point is, I think I've got enough cool street cred to hang out with cool kids. So you know, you sound was cool enough to do one with me. Um, you know, I've had, I've had, uh, you know, a few breweries in here, illuminated, uh, maple wood, you know, these, all these awesome breweries. And now I really want to continue that and really push it even harder this next year.
00:54:14
Speaker
And so it's like every brewery I come into contact with in my collaboration. What are we doing in collaboration? Setting up one with more as well. So we're trying to... Broken Bridge we had last night. Dude, that was awesome beer. That turned out great. Clint nailed it. And Clint, just so you know, Clint is the guy that he's done a collaboration with everyone. Everyone who started a brewery.
00:54:36
Speaker
Clint was always the first guy to be like, let's collab. He's the nicest dude. Go out there, support him, buy his beer. But yeah, that's kind of the whole thing behind 2022. We want to get really hyper organized. We want to get more representation out there.
00:54:49
Speaker
And then we would just really want to push quality as always, make the best possible product we can. So yeah. Awesome. Also going to let us make even more loggers, more time in tanks. Oh, that's a big one. Yeah, we're growing our logger program. Oh, nice. We're going from 30 barrels to 60 barrel batches of that. We're going to be pushing those out on the market because we love them and they sell fast.
00:55:09
Speaker
Perfect. You can't go wrong with that. And the lagers here are good, because when I have people that are not craft beer drinkers, this is the place we always come. And I'll say, try the lager. I guarantee you will like it. And it's like the gateway for them. That's the whole reason we carry Colsh. We don't carry any macro here. There's no secret macro behind the bar. Sometimes there's some highlights in the back, but that's for me. You're not allowed. You can't have it. You can't have it. All right, it's a champagne of beers. I love it.
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, thanks
Closing Remarks
00:55:40
Speaker
again. We really appreciate you guys taking the time today to talk to us. Thanks a lot, guys. It was awesome. We love coming here. We love your beers. Love everything you guys are doing. And I feel like this conversation was great now. I love this place even more. Thanks, man. Appreciate that. Hell, yeah. Brandon, love you, buddy. Love you, too, man. Clark, can't believe you're still here. So many shows in a row. We're going to end that. Thanks, everybody. Bye, guys. Later.
00:56:04
Speaker
This has been The Malting Hour. Be sure to follow us on all social media by searching The Malting Hour and at themaltinghour.com. You can also follow us on social media platforms individually. Brandon can be found on Instagram as bmdub81. On Twitter, bdub81.
00:56:19
Speaker
An untapped, B-Dub drinks beer. Tony can be found on Instagram and untapped under Asafelp Chicago. On Twitter, TheAsafelpChicago. Clark can be found as Clarkowski on all three. Be sure to subscribe, like, and rate the show on your preferred podcast listening platform. Until next time, cheers from all of us at The Malting Hour.