Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Crafts and Conquer.
Speaker: I'm your host, Michael, and I want to welcome you to our second episode of this fun adventure through the world of craft beer and board games.
Speaker: This week, we have a really good interview for you.
Speaker: We're going to be interviewing Taylor, the owner of Boards to Beers in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker: It's a board game cafe that has over 400 board games, also offers some snacks and drinks, and just looks like an amazing place to hang out.
Speaker: So I hope you enjoy the interview.
Speaker: This is going to be amazing.
Speaker: We're going to learn what it's like to run a board game cafe.
Speaker: Welcome to Crafts and Conquer.
Speaker: I'm Michael, and I am very, very excited to be joined today by Taylor Herndon.
Speaker: Is it Herndon or Hendon?
Speaker: Herndon?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: See, I said it right the first time.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: She is the owner of Boards to Beers in Memphis, Tennessee, a board game bar.
Speaker: So Taylor, take it away.
Speaker: Tell us about yourself.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: Thank you for having me, Michael.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: So yeah, I started Boards to Beers in December of 2019.
Speaker: It was a Kickstarter, only the second Kickstarter for a bar in America at the time.
Speaker: And so I started it after my father passed away in July of 2019.
Speaker: He had cancer, passed away very suddenly.
Speaker: And so that kind of kicked me into gear to stop sitting on my butt and being miserable in my day-to-day job.
Speaker: And so I just ran with it.
Speaker: And when I started my Kickstarter, I had an event at the Memphis Botanic Garden where I worked at the time.
Speaker: And I was like, you know what, let's just see what happens.
Speaker: I want to see how many people would actually be interested.
Speaker: We had 250 people show up.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Was it a board game event?
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: It was a board game night.
Speaker: And we were launching our Kickstarter and it was the first time that we released our merch.
Speaker: So we did like t-shirts and hoodies and things like that.
Speaker: And it was a huge turnout.
Speaker: We only had about 300 games at the time, and so we brought a variety of those.
Speaker: We had a food truck, but yeah, 250 people showed up.
Speaker: So shortly after Kickstarter funded, and then in February of 2020, the infamous year, I signed the lease for my building.
Speaker: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that in a second.
Speaker: In March of 2020, we had a kind of a soft like preview party for everyone that got to come see it was the day before St.
Speaker: Patty's Day.
Speaker: And so everyone got to see the building.
Speaker: And then finally, we opened up in August of 2020.
Speaker: So yeah, due to a small thing that happened.
Speaker: So you, so your preview party was March 16th.
Speaker: The reason I know that is it's my birthday at March 16th.
Speaker: That's why it's funny.
Speaker: And that's how I judge my COVIDness because I like, I had my birthday, I bought a new car and then went to work four days later and got told, Hey, by the way, we're all laid off.
Speaker: Have a nice day.
Speaker: We don't know when we're coming back.
Speaker: I worked in a hotel industry.
Speaker: So it was like, bye.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we, I was an event coordinator at the time at the Memphis Botanic Garden, and we were told, well, you'll be pulling weeds for the foreseeable future so we can keep you on staff and you are essential now.
Speaker: So it was a little weird.
Speaker: So how did your landlord work around that?
Speaker: Did they give you some slack because of the fact that you couldn't bring any funds in?
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: We are with one of the largest companies in Memphis when it comes to commercial real estate.
Speaker: And they did help us out a little bit.
Speaker: They extended our lease about six months.
Speaker: But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't help too much when it took us – we're into our third year now and things are still trying to get back to normal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I completely understand that.
Speaker: So where did the passion for board games come from?
Speaker: So I am actually an only child.
Speaker: So I grew up not being able to play a whole lot of different things.
Speaker: I played perfection and a couple of small games with my mom.
Speaker: My dad was never into games though.
Speaker: And then I met my husband now and he is one of six kids.
Speaker: And so when I first started going over to his family's place, it was just games all the time and just complete chaos compared to what I was used to.
Speaker: So I was always the quiet one and here I am in a family of six and they're just chaotic.
Speaker: But it was the board games that we all played together.
Speaker: I was like, everyone has very different backgrounds.
Speaker: Even though they're from the same family, they're all very different people, but they're so happy when they're playing games.
Speaker: And so seeing that, and then we got into it more and more when we started dating and then got married, we started getting board games pretty regularly.
Speaker: And then we started buying games for our friends for Christmases and birthdays and all these things.
Speaker: And the joy that it brought to people was just like none other.
Speaker: You don't really see that anymore, especially when you go out because...
Speaker: you get all these people they're on their cell phones all the time and they're like zombies sitting from each other so it just I admit I'm bad at that too sorry yeah I'm bad at that too I like I'll go to one of the local breweries here in Sanford I'll I admit it I take my earphones especially if I'm just by myself and sit there and listen to a podcast or music and I completely don't connect yeah it's so easy to do it's crazy and we don't even think about it anymore yeah
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what were the first board games that kind of got you excited?
Speaker: You know, besides perfection, we all remember perfection.
Speaker: Actually, I don't know if kids know perfection.
Speaker: I don't think they make it anymore.
Speaker: But I remember that game because you could play it by yourself because you had the timer and the thing would jump up.
Speaker: And how many of us put it all together just to watch it explode and not actually play the game?
Speaker: That's, you know, I'm sure you did that.
Speaker: I did that.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And how many of us got anxiety from that game too?
Speaker: Oh, that and Simon.
Speaker: Those are the two games that would drive you.
Speaker: Simon was the other one that would just absolutely that noise would just be the worst.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So when I was younger, I was really into Bop It because that was another one that you could play by yourself.
Speaker: But as I got older, so when I was in high school and got into college, I was very much into we played Dominion a lot.
Speaker: So that was my first deck builder that got me into deck builders.
Speaker: And then King of Tokyo was a huge one.
Speaker: And that one's still to this day, one of the most popular ones in the bar because it's so easy to teach.
Speaker: And no matter how into games you are, you're going to enjoy that one.
Speaker: It doesn't take a lot to learn or play.
Speaker: So that one's huge.
Speaker: And then, of course, you know, I got into Catan and a couple of the other ones.
Speaker: Takenoka was one of my favorites when my husband and I got married.
Speaker: If you're not familiar, it's a tile placement, worker placement sort of situation, but it's adorable.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: It's things like that that kind of got me further into it.
Speaker: It was definitely a gateway drug because, you know, we're at 2,000 games now.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: You've got 2,000 games for yourself or for the bar?
Speaker: For the bar.
Speaker: So our collection at the start was about like, I think when we started, we had the 450 or so.
Speaker: And then we just celebrated our third anniversary in August.
Speaker: And so now we are over 2,000 games.
Speaker: Are you obviously actively looking for games?
Speaker: Are you on Kickstarter?
Speaker: Are you looking for stores?
Speaker: How are you picking the games for the bar?
Speaker: So nowadays, I'm a lot more picky with what comes through the doors because we do have a lot of duds.
Speaker: I mean, everyone has those duds in their collection, but they still get played.
Speaker: That's the great thing is no matter what we bring in, it's going to get played.
Speaker: But right now I do a lot of Kickstarters.
Speaker: Since we were a Kickstarter, it's very important to me to keep that going.
Speaker: And so we actually partner a lot with local game makers that are doing Kickstarters.
Speaker: So I'm very into that.
Speaker: I've
Speaker: I've backed like five Kickstarters in the past week.
Speaker: It's a problem.
Speaker: It is very much a problem.
Speaker: And so Kickstarters are huge.
Speaker: But then BoardGameGeek with their ratings, I get on there if I'm shopping for games or if I'm in a yard sale or something and see something.
Speaker: If it's not above like a six, I don't even pick it up anymore.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Actually, it was funny.
Speaker: Abduction was the first board game I backed on Kickstarter.
Speaker: I'm late to the Kickstarter party, but it was the first one.
Speaker: I've done two more since then.
Speaker: I'm always looking around to see what's out there.
Speaker: But yeah, it was the first one and I got it and it was a smash.
Speaker: And that was the same idea of going, huh.
Speaker: What else is in here?
Speaker: And you start looking around.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets dangerous.
Speaker: Be careful.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: My wife and I play at least once a week and we play a lot of Arkham Horror.
Speaker: We love Arkham Horror.
Speaker: We bought three of the expanses so far.
Speaker: That DC Deck Builder, Marvel Champions, stuff like that.
Speaker: We love Pandemic.
Speaker: I love Pandemic.
Speaker: We play that every so often.
Speaker: So I'm excited about that.
Speaker: So thinking about your game collection.
Speaker: So you've got 2000 games.
Speaker: What do you think is your most unique game?
Speaker: Oh gosh.
Speaker: That is such a hard question.
Speaker: So one of my personal favorite unique games, because it's out of print now, is Spirits of the Wild.
Speaker: It is a two-player.
Speaker: You are collecting gemstones and you're trying to fill out your board that's in front of you and you're going, each player has the exact same board and it just depends on your strategy.
Speaker: but it's a great game for any couples that come in.
Speaker: We have a ton of couples that we've introduced it to, and it's just so easy to get into, and it's beautiful.
Speaker: And so that one's been one of my favorite unique ones because you can't find it anymore.
Speaker: I actually spent $75 on a copy of it at Gen Con last year.
Speaker: It was at a flea market.
Speaker: Someone had it, and I splurged on that because I haven't seen it out in the wild in forever.
Speaker: And so I got my second copy and it's being hidden in our home right now until we find sleeves and everything for it.
Speaker: It's going to be our home copy because that was one of the first two players Drew and I got our hands on that we fell in love with.
Speaker: So that's an interesting question, actually.
Speaker: So, you know, somebody comes in to boards the beers, may not have a broad board game knowledge, you know, may think, oh, I've never I haven't played him since I was 12 and I played Monopoly.
Speaker: What questions do your staff ask?
Speaker: Like, how do you find somebody?
Speaker: Because again, with 2000, you have every mechanic in the world that you can play with.
Speaker: You have every type of game, cards and dice and all this stuff.
Speaker: So how do you start narrowing that down?
Speaker: You personally, how would you, if somebody walked in, what would you ask the question?
Speaker: It's tricky.
Speaker: So when someone comes in, I, being an only child, I feel like I have this superpower of reading people because I've, I'm a people watcher.
Speaker: And being in the event realm for over a decade, you have to learn what people are into just by talking to them briefly.
Speaker: So when someone comes in, I ask generally what kind of stuff they're into.
Speaker: And if they're not into games at all, then I'm like, OK, well, what shows do you watch?
Speaker: What do you like to do?
Speaker: And what catches your eye?
Speaker: Things like that.
Speaker: And then I go from there.
Speaker: So generally when they come in, I ask them, okay, what have you played before?
Speaker: And a lot of times it is like Monopoly or Uno or Catan.
Speaker: And then I go from there.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, well, let's do a step up from that.
Speaker: So if they're into Monopoly, I try and get them to do some other sort of like territory control game where it's a similar mechanic of you having to pay each other or collecting cards and things like that.
Speaker: With Uno, I usually do set collectors like Ecosystem or we have a new one called Toil and Troubles.
Speaker: It's very similar.
Speaker: And if it's a beautiful art style as well, I think it captures people a little bit more.
Speaker: And so I've just I've gotten to where I can just talk to people for just a little bit and be like, hey, try this out.
Speaker: But it means a lot to them when you're willing to sit down with them and teach them to even if they don't think that they're going to be into it.
Speaker: As soon as you sit down with them and talk to them and create that new relationship, they
Speaker: go through it and they actually enjoy it afterwards.
Speaker: And if they don't, then they're like, hey, well, this wasn't really our jam.
Speaker: What else would you recommend?
Speaker: Yeah, but you do the style where you pay once when you come in, unless you have the membership, and then they can play as many games as they want and stay as long as they want, or do you have time limits on the tables?
Speaker: Yeah, so they can stay as long as they want.
Speaker: So it's a $5 library fee to come in.
Speaker: We have our memberships.
Speaker: We have family, individual, and couples memberships a month, a year, and I just added six months yesterday, actually.
Speaker: And so they can do all that, and if they have a membership, it gets them discounts on events, so we do special events as well.
Speaker: But they can come in.
Speaker: They can play as long as they want.
Speaker: We don't really want to...
Speaker: We don't want to put a time frame on it because, I mean, you can come in, you can play Twilight Imperium.
Speaker: I mean, we have it on the shelf.
Speaker: It takes hours.
Speaker: We've had a group that's played it and they were there Saturday and Sunday playing.
Speaker: And so the great thing is they come in and they they're if they're going to be there, they're going to be eating, they're going to be drinking, ideally.
Speaker: If not, that is I mean, honestly, that is where we make our money is the beer.
Speaker: We are bored to beers, so it just kind of comes in the name.
Speaker: But we just want people to be there and be happy.
Speaker: If they're there, then they're less likely to be somewhere that's, you know, Memphis is a hard city to live in.
Speaker: There's a lot going on.
Speaker: People have gone through a lot, especially since COVID.
Speaker: And so the idea is that our space is like a living room.
Speaker: They come in and they instantly can relax.
Speaker: They don't have to worry about anything outside.
Speaker: So if they want to spend all day there, then be my guest.
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Talking about the beer.
Speaker: So do you have drafts or is it all cans and bottles or how are you serving?
Speaker: So we have four drafts at all time and we try and keep it as local as possible.
Speaker: So the great thing is I'm very much in the beer realm as well as the board game realm.
Speaker: And so I know my beers.
Speaker: I enjoy drinking it as well.
Speaker: So I know a lot of the brewers in town.
Speaker: And so I get kind of a heads up about what's coming out.
Speaker: So I can kind of plan accordingly on the local side of things.
Speaker: But we have four drafts at all time.
Speaker: And then we have cans and bottles that are like, we have a Scrabble board in the back of our bar that is our beer menu.
Speaker: And then all of our seasonal items, they just kind of go like on the bar just so, cause they change out so frequently.
Speaker: But that's, it's kind of like the board games when people come in, they're from out of town.
Speaker: We are very much a tourist spot.
Speaker: So they come in and they're like, well, I'm not from here.
Speaker: What kind of beer should I get?
Speaker: So it's kind of like the board game question, like, okay, well, what do you like?
Speaker: Yeah, I do that a lot with my friends.
Speaker: I'm the beard snob slash expert and I always get that, like, well, what should I drink?
Speaker: I'm like, well, what do you like?
Speaker: It's a loaded question.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm on untapped and my number is way too high and, you know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker: So what's your favorite style of beer?
Speaker: Like if you were going to sit down and play a game, well, okay, if you were to sit down and play a game right now, what game would you play and what kind of beer would you drink with it?
Speaker: This time of year, I'm very much a stout gal, so anything dark and heavy.
Speaker: Lately, I've been wanting to play more of Wonderland's War.
Speaker: It was one of my first Kickstarters that I ever backed, and I Kickstarted it way before the bar was even an idea, and it didn't show up until like two years after we opened.
Speaker: So that is like my go-to game.
Speaker: I'm a huge Alice in Wonderland nerd, and it just has literally every mechanic that I enjoy.
Speaker: It has bag building, it has card drafting, it has...
Speaker: player-player combat.
Speaker: It's everything that I enjoy.
Speaker: I would probably be drinking a stout and playing Wonderland's War right now.
Speaker: I completely respect that.
Speaker: I am a big beer, dark beer person.
Speaker: I go out with my friends and
Speaker: They're like, oh, I'll have that one.
Speaker: I'll have that one.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, I'll take the 13% barrel-aged porter that has the chocolate and the strawberry in it.
Speaker: My friends look at me like, we just started.
Speaker: I'm like, that's a starter beer.
Speaker: It's only 13%.
Speaker: That's not crazy.
Speaker: I'm not doing like a 19%.
Speaker: I'm not into the meads.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Let's start up.
Speaker: I'm not picky when it comes to beer.
Speaker: I like pretty much anything except I'm not a huge IPA fan unless it's a hazy beer.
Speaker: I used to really, really love them.
Speaker: And I still do.
Speaker: I do enjoy them.
Speaker: But more and more over time, I've gone more to the doubles and the imperials.
Speaker: That's really what I enjoy more.
Speaker: I'll drink the really piney ones.
Speaker: I've had some that literally you feel like you're sucking on a pine cone.
Speaker: And love them.
Speaker: I think you know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you open it up and you swear you hear birds singing, you know you've got a tree beer and you pour it.
Speaker: And that's why I love IPAs because they look so clean.
Speaker: especially the light, really nicely filtered ones.
Speaker: And you'd sip it and you're like, where did this come from?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Just like, just like the weirdest beer to me.
Speaker: So you're, I don't understand white stouts at all.
Speaker: I love them.
Speaker: But how a beer that can be golden and clear tastes like a stout completely boggles my mind.
Speaker: And they're so rare to find, especially around here.
Speaker: The only time I've ever gotten them in is if I've ordered from a distributor.
Speaker: And I mean, they are pricey too because they're hard to find.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think they're hard to make.
Speaker: I think that's part of it is they got to be real.
Speaker: So what are from your favorite local breweries in Memphis?
Speaker: My favorite local brewery is Hampt Line.
Speaker: We go there every week, actually.
Speaker: So we do trivias on Thursday, live trivia with Challenge Entertainment on Thursday nights.
Speaker: And after everyone closes up, we take a big group of our regulars and we go and swarm the brewery because they're about five minutes away.
Speaker: And they stay open late for us.
Speaker: And they're really amazing.
Speaker: They open shortly after we did.
Speaker: So it's just been like a little family that we've built there.
Speaker: and so we go every thursday night and they finish their trivia and we just all hang out sometimes we play games with the bartenders that are on staff i know the owner very well and so it's just a something special but besides that um i mean i love all of our local breweries but soul and spirits has become one of my favorites they're fairly new and then um meddlesome cooper house project we have some good beer in memphis
Speaker: Yeah, I moved to Orlando probably about 25 years ago.
Speaker: Actually, no, it was 25 years ago.
Speaker: God, I've been here too long.
Speaker: And I got here as the beer market started to take off, and I got into craft beer.
Speaker: And everybody's like, oh, well, your beer can't be that good.
Speaker: And I say the same thing.
Speaker: I'm like, no, no, no, we've got really good breweries.
Speaker: I think it's become universal that every town now, every major city has at least three or four that you can go, no, no, they're incredible.
Speaker: Like, they are amazing.
Speaker: So how many breweries do you think are in the Memphis area now?
Speaker: Are you in the 20s and 30s?
Speaker: No, we're not that high.
Speaker: We probably have, I think we have about 12 right now.
Speaker: We're getting another one in Collierville, which it seems like it's not a lot, but in the beer realm here, it's a lot.
Speaker: Because I try and partner with all of them, and at this point, I can't juggle them all.
Speaker: We have a mobile trailer that we started up in February.
Speaker: And so I try and take them out to the breweries and I'm like, I can't come to you.
Speaker: I'm so sorry.
Speaker: Like I only have four days out of the month that I could do this.
Speaker: You take games.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: So you basically make a mobile game out of it and take it to them.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's the first of its kind.
Speaker: It's board to beers on wheels.
Speaker: But we have two big cabinets full of board games.
Speaker: And we also carry our merch and we take it to breweries and we pop up and we don't charge the breweries anything because they help us out so much through the year.
Speaker: And so it's important for me to get back to them as well because we're in this together.
Speaker: Plus it's promoting you.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So it's free promotion.
Speaker: It's like a rolling billboard, honestly.
Speaker: And then we get events out of it.
Speaker: I mean, we've had people that have come and they've learned about us at the breweries and then they end up booking us for events for.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So you do private parties.
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we do like wedding rehearsals, receptions.
Speaker: We do team building events with like St.
Speaker: Jude.
Speaker: We've been a lot of those.
Speaker: We've done just private parties, things like that.
Speaker: Things with Botanic Garden, all the breweries, different festivals like Pride Fest and Comic Con, stuff like that.
Speaker: What's the weirdest thing you've done?
Speaker: Like, what's the thing that you showed up and went, oh, okay.
Speaker: Oh, that's a tough one.
Speaker: Honestly, it's probably just the board game conventions we go to.
Speaker: Those things can get weird.
Speaker: You see all types of things there, but...
Speaker: That would probably be the one.
Speaker: One of the coolest events that I actually attended with the trailer was honestly Pride Show.
Speaker: We were right by the drag show stage.
Speaker: So we got to watch the performers all day long.
Speaker: People came up and everyone was so nice.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: It was really fun.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: When you're picking beers for your bar, are you looking for certain styles?
Speaker: Are you just taking whatever sounds good?
Speaker: How are you picking those?
Speaker: I pick them based off of what's weird.
Speaker: We have a lot of people that love the weird, unusual things, and I try and get things that no one else in Memphis carries, or very few people in Memphis carry.
Speaker: You are speaking to me.
Speaker: I love the weird...
Speaker: so we have gotten some strange beers in this past winter we had a wickles pickles beer it was a collaboration between high wire and wickles pickles and so it was a pickleback yeah pretty much it was a pineapple pickle sour it was the weirdest beer i've ever had i tasted it yeah i think it like broke my brain i was like i don't what am i doing what is this
Speaker: It was like sweet and tart.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was in a pineapple tart.
Speaker: So then the pickles are, Oh, that is, it was so weird.
Speaker: So we do stuff like that.
Speaker: And I go to a lot of beer festivals.
Speaker: I bartend at all the beer festivals in town.
Speaker: I've been to the untapped festival in North Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker: And so I try and get around and do that because I want to know what's on the market, what's coming out.
Speaker: And if I don't have access to it, I want to try and get access to it.
Speaker: So Urban Artifact, they're up in Ohio.
Speaker: They specialize in sours.
Speaker: Like we're a huge sour bar.
Speaker: I love sours.
Speaker: And so we didn't really have a brewery here that specializes in sours.
Speaker: And I met them at Untappd.
Speaker: Scotty is their owner.
Speaker: And I emailed them.
Speaker: I was like, hey, we've got to get you in Memphis.
Speaker: He's like, well, I don't have a distributor.
Speaker: Can you like send me a list?
Speaker: And so I sent him and he signed on with one of our distributors.
Speaker: And so now I get to get all the specialty beers from them.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker: They have some really neat beers.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So I also love sours too.
Speaker: I've had some beers that are just, you know, sour to the point.
Speaker: And I try to introduce people to sours.
Speaker: I see if you agree with this.
Speaker: I have what I call the three sip rule for a sour.
Speaker: So if this first time says you're drinking a sour, even though I do this when I order a brand new sour I never had before.
Speaker: I take three sips within like seconds, but like take a sip moment, take a sip moment, take a sip moment.
Speaker: Because in my opinion, the first sip will usually blow your palate out.
Speaker: The second sip will start to melt.
Speaker: And by the third sip, all of a sudden, all these beautiful flavors come out.
Speaker: And I don't feel like you can sit on it as sour.
Speaker: You have to drink it at a decent pace to keep your tongue almost overloaded so you can taste it.
Speaker: Because I have tasted amazing.
Speaker: I've had mango, watermelon, marshmallow ones.
Speaker: And all of a sudden, you start tasting that sweetness and stuff like that.
Speaker: But you can't just sit on it for like an hour because it'll ruin it.
Speaker: Yeah, I do the same thing.
Speaker: And even with some like barrel aged beers as well, I have to do that.
Speaker: But when we do, we do tasters for people if they're unsure about a beer, because that's one of my favorite things is to find a non beer drinker a beer they like.
Speaker: It's like a game for me.
Speaker: And so I make sure if they're doing a sour or stout, I give them a heavier pour.
Speaker: I'm like,
Speaker: Taste it a couple times because I tell them, you know, the first time you taste a sour, it's going to punch you in the mouth.
Speaker: That's exactly what I do.
Speaker: And you're not going to taste anything.
Speaker: So really give it a chance to do that.
Speaker: And so it's, yeah, I, I completely agree with all of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you had an oyster beer?
Speaker: I have not.
Speaker: I've had an acorn beer.
Speaker: An acorn?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Fermented acorns.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I've had three different oyster beers, and they were all interesting, very briny and salty.
Speaker: It was definitely, it was, it's the kind of thing where, again, like you said, I look for the weird.
Speaker: Like, I'm the guy that shows up, and I'm like, what's on the menu?
Speaker: And I'm looking for everything that's different that I've never had.
Speaker: And that's why I use Untap.
Speaker: People think I'm crazy about it.
Speaker: And I rate my stuff, but I can't remember what I drank.
Speaker: So half the time, I have to look it up and go, oh, yeah, I've had that.
Speaker: Yes, I've had that.
Speaker: Yes, I've had that.
Speaker: Okay, so where was your craft beer awakening?
Speaker: Do you remember when you first realized beer is more than just Budweiser and Bud Light and all the main brands?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So I kind of skipped my domestic stage in my life.
Speaker: So I'd never had that stage where I liked Miller Lite and Bud Light at first.
Speaker: I didn't even get into them until I started drinking craft beers because I was very much a wine fan.
Speaker: or liquor gal.
Speaker: And so late in college, I had my very first gotta get up to get down, which is a local beer.
Speaker: It's a coffee milk stout.
Speaker: And it just blew my mind.
Speaker: After that, I was like, this is it.
Speaker: That's all I'm drinking.
Speaker: So anytime I would have a drink, it would be got to get up to get down.
Speaker: It was very heavy and it has caffeine in it too.
Speaker: So I would kind of catch myself off guard and have one at like 10 o'clock at night and be like wired until 3 a.m.
Speaker: And so that was my gateway beer.
Speaker: And after that, I started getting a lot more into the beers.
Speaker: I don't know what it was, but
Speaker: I didn't have a taste for it for so long.
Speaker: And then I started doing all the weird and unusual beers and I found sours and it was all over after that.
Speaker: What, like, what do you think is your favorite beer?
Speaker: Can you peg one down or?
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love a good amber, so I'd have to say we have a local amber here called Fireside that I will drink if I'm going out to the bar and I'm not having to pour my own beer.
Speaker: That's probably going to be one that I get off draft.
Speaker: I don't care for it in the can, but I'll drink it off draft any day.
Speaker: And still got to get up to get down is by far one of my go-tos.
Speaker: I mean, that one has a special place in my heart, so I'm never going to abandon it.
Speaker: So in the board game world, I read a lot of different stuff.
Speaker: So people always talk about game mechanics.
Speaker: And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm assuming you understand game mechanics are how the game operates.
Speaker: So let me ask you some questions about game mechanics.
Speaker: Number one, what is your favorite mechanic?
Speaker: So it's changed over the years.
Speaker: My most recent favorite mechanic is actually bag building.
Speaker: I feel like it's a newer thing.
Speaker: A lot of games don't use it because the math behind it is crazy.
Speaker: You really have to dive into the math world for that.
Speaker: And so like Quacks of Quedlinburg, Wonderland's War, the new, let's see, Orleans has a great bag builder mechanic.
Speaker: So those are really fantastic.
Speaker: I also just enjoyed- You've never played one.
Speaker: Oh, they're great.
Speaker: I highly recommend them.
Speaker: You play them.
Speaker: It's definitely a little bit of push your luck, but you can kind of-
Speaker: change it up based off of a strategy that you want to go with.
Speaker: Like, so a lot of them will allow you to take chips and tokens out of your bag.
Speaker: So you really build up that perfect bag if you want, but you can also throw someone in that's never played one that has no idea what they're doing strategy wise, and they still really enjoy it.
Speaker: So it's like a deck builder, but you're just dropping the chips in a bag and pulling them out.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a deck builder with chips that you don't get to see.
Speaker: So it's very much a push your luck sometimes, especially at the very beginning of a game, because you have the crappy pick of the beginning of chips, and you don't have very many options.
Speaker: So that's really great.
Speaker: And we actually have a new one that we demoed.
Speaker: So we get a lot of demo games in that we do for companies because I volunteer for a program called Double Exposure and Envoy.
Speaker: And so they sent us one called Life of the Amazonia.
Speaker: And it says Gorgeous Games by Bad Comet.
Speaker: They just released a new Kickstarter actually last week, which was one of the many that I backed last week.
Speaker: And so it has all these beautiful wooden components and you're drafting these different
Speaker: tokens to be able to buy components.
Speaker: You're trying to clear out five of the animals out of the pool.
Speaker: And so the way you do that is you're getting these, you start with your tokens, of course, and you're upgrading them and you can really do any strategy possible.
Speaker: I've seen all types win.
Speaker: So that's really great when you can get to the end of the game and be like, I have no idea who's going to win this.
Speaker: Like that's why it is great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's your least favorite mechanic?
Speaker: Social deduction.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Trying to read the other player and figure it out.
Speaker: Yeah, I will play them.
Speaker: I've kind of fallen out of wanting to play party games just because doing this for...
Speaker: this long with this many people, a lot of people come in, they were, they're like, Hey, jumping on this party game with us.
Speaker: I'm like, please don't make me.
Speaker: But I will play them.
Speaker: But social deduction, I have such a hard time keeping a straight face when I'm lying.
Speaker: And then when I do keep a straight face, I feel terrible.
Speaker: So I like, just don't like that component about it, but there are some social deductions like phantom ink,
Speaker: that I really enjoy because you're working as a team.
Speaker: So if it's a team, social deduction is great.
Speaker: But other than that, I don't really care for a co-op, honestly.
Speaker: Like I want to be able to be in it for myself.
Speaker: If I mess up, it's on me.
Speaker: Like I don't want to have that player that's telling me exactly what I need to do on my turn.
Speaker: I want to just like go for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My wife and I play a bunch of co-op games and we play a lot of competitive game too, but a lot of co-op and we enjoy it because we can, you know,
Speaker: gets frustrations out.
Speaker: And you're like, no, do it this way.
Speaker: Do it this way.
Speaker: We have some people that come in and I know specifically not to show them a co-op.
Speaker: And then I know specifically to show others only co-ops because they're either like super competitive and they can't handle like a competitive game or they just, they need that extra help from like some more advanced players to be able to get through a game to sit down and play.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love the games, especially the co-op games that are,
Speaker: sort of like pandemic and Forbidden Island and stuff like that, where I always say there's 37 ways to lose and only one way to win.
Speaker: And you could have lost halfway to the game and never realized it.
Speaker: And you keep playing the game and you're like, oh, heartbreak.
Speaker: We did get a new co-op game in a couple of weeks ago that was also a demo.
Speaker: It's called Tesseract.
Speaker: Um, it's by Smirk and Dagger and it is so cool.
Speaker: I've never seen a game like this before.
Speaker: It actually has a lazy Susan in the game.
Speaker: And so you have this beautiful test rack made of dice and it sits on this lazy Susan and you can rotate it around.
Speaker: So all the players have access to all the dice.
Speaker: It's like, it's out of this world.
Speaker: It's so cool.
Speaker: What do you think is an overused mechanic right now?
Speaker: Uh, deck building, honestly, you see it so much.
Speaker: I think it's,
Speaker: very much a go-to mechanic, which deck builders are fantastic.
Speaker: I don't have anything against them, but I think they are one of the easier ones to make, especially any card game you come across is generally going to have that deck building mechanic.
Speaker: And then just the party games are very, very overmade at this point.
Speaker: It's very hard to come across a party game that has a theme or a mechanic that you have not played before.
Speaker: It's almost impossible, especially like when we go to conventions and things like that.
Speaker: I'm always on the hunt for new party games because they do really well in the bar.
Speaker: And every time I see one, I'm like, oh, this is exactly like this other game we have.
Speaker: Like, why do that?
Speaker: So how do you maintain the games?
Speaker: Like, I'm assuming having games out with beer, you have issues.
Speaker: So like,
Speaker: Do you waterproof them?
Speaker: I've seen waterproofing stuff.
Speaker: Do you sleeve everything?
Speaker: How do you control that?
Speaker: It kind of depends on the game.
Speaker: So if it's a Kickstarter, we generally try and sleeve it because it is a deluxe copy.
Speaker: If it's just a generic any day, like grab off the shelf sort of game, then we don't really focus too much on sleeving it and we don't waterproof it or anything.
Speaker: But thanks to COVID, I never thought I'd say this.
Speaker: But thanks to COVID, we actually started a quarantine for our games because we had to keep them off the shelf a few days to the health department was just like, you need to figure out something for this.
Speaker: And so we did a quarantine.
Speaker: We would keep them in the back the rest of the weekend.
Speaker: They could only be played once out of the weekend.
Speaker: And then we would reshell them the next week.
Speaker: And so we actually kept that.
Speaker: We use one of those rolling library carts and people return their games to them.
Speaker: And it really now is just to help us make sure that if a piece is on the ground, we know exactly what game it's going to go to because it's on the return shelf.
Speaker: So that helps us keep up with games.
Speaker: If a game wasn't boxed properly, which we have no idea how hard it is for people to re-box certain games.
Speaker: So that is one thing.
Speaker: I have a problem re-boxing my own game.
Speaker: I've got several games.
Speaker: I literally open them up and I'm like, oh man, I didn't organize this.
Speaker: I got to reorganize it.
Speaker: I mean, it's like we look at a game sometimes and the box will be like halfway on and we're like, uh-oh.
Speaker: And we can get it out there like, how does this make sense?
Speaker: So that has actually helped a lot.
Speaker: And we even have a Lost Pieces return bin so that if you're playing a game and you notice, hey, this is missing, you can go to the Lost Pieces bin.
Speaker: But my husband has two 3D printers, so we've used that to help us replace pieces.
Speaker: And honestly, we've only had to replace one game, knock on wood, since we've opened.
Speaker: So, and that's what the library fee is supposed to cover.
Speaker: If you have a table of six people, well, that's 30 bucks.
Speaker: So ideally that's going to replace whatever game they spill on.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: I like the idea that you can only play the game and it goes away because that means every time you come in, if your favorite game is gone, now you have to find something else.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: With 2000 games, I could see a lot of people just coming in.
Speaker: They just keep playing the same game over and over and over again.
Speaker: Well, and they tend to come in and they'll grab a game they know.
Speaker: they'll grab Uno or they'll grab Scrabble.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, I get this is where you're comfortable.
Speaker: And this is, you know, I understand that it's very overwhelming to walk in.
Speaker: I mean, even when I'm reshelving games or trying to pull a game off, it's overwhelming.
Speaker: I mean, it's just walls of board games.
Speaker: And so I try and tell people, you know, yeah, that one is in quarantine right now.
Speaker: You can play it if you really want to.
Speaker: But how about you try these other ones that are similar to this game?
Speaker: So it really does push those other games off the shelf, which is helpful because a lot of people are like, why do you need that many?
Speaker: It's like, well, they actually get played.
Speaker: Like you have no idea the types of games that get played that I never thought would be pulled off the shelf.
Speaker: So it's like, okay, great.
Speaker: Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Speaker: Plus you're exposing them to new stuff and new things and you never know what somebody's going to fall in love with.
Speaker: I mean, I look at this way, even the worst games have fans.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's kind of how we look at it with some of our duds.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that one.
Speaker: You're duds.
Speaker: That's a good way of putting it.
Speaker: Same thing with beer.
Speaker: You said right now stouts and porters.
Speaker: So in sours, I'm assuming is your overall favorite?
Speaker: I think the older I get, the least I drink sours, it seems like.
Speaker: It's almost too overwhelming now because I have a membership to Flying Saucer, which is a local bar that you drink a certain amount, you get a plate on the ceiling.
Speaker: So I'm working on my plate.
Speaker: So when I go in, I've noticed that I'm not going towards sours as much.
Speaker: I don't know if I've had just too many in the past few years.
Speaker: So I'm still going for those weird beers, but the darker ones, the maltier ones.
Speaker: I've noticed with sours, I feel like two, three years ago, there were some amazing sours out there and there still are, but they took off in a way that a lot of breweries started trying to make them.
Speaker: And they're so tough to make that the market has been flooded by very mediocre sours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm always looking for the new ones.
Speaker: So when I have a bunch of mediocre ones, I agree with you.
Speaker: It turns me off where it takes me maybe a couple more trips to go back to try a sour because I've had sort of okay ones.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I think that's the problem I've faced the past few times I've gone to try a new sour.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, no, that's terrible.
Speaker: Like, why do I keep doing these?
Speaker: Yeah, I had that with the Sweetwater 420s.
Speaker: And like, oh, God.
Speaker: It was not sours, but they've just got that 420 hop in them, and it's so potently weedy.
Speaker: What's your least favorite style?
Speaker: What's the one style of beer you will not drink?
Speaker: It would probably be IPAs.
Speaker: If I could pick not to drink a beer ever again in my life, it would definitely be an IPA.
Speaker: We have so many people that love them, so I carry them all the time at the bar.
Speaker: And they'll ask me like, oh, how was this?
Speaker: And I have to be like, it's great if you like IPAs, but I can't give you like a super honest opinion.
Speaker: I don't personally like it, but like I do appreciate a beer for what it is.
Speaker: And I will taste it and be like, okay, these are the flavors that you're going to taste.
Speaker: So I can at least take myself back enough to be able to do that.
Speaker: But like my mom, she works for us and works for me.
Speaker: And so she has started to bartend.
Speaker: She got her ABC license.
Speaker: She does not like beer.
Speaker: And so she makes a face like certain people order a beer.
Speaker: She'll make a beer face is what we call it.
Speaker: And so I'm like, Mom, stop doing that.
Speaker: Like the customers are going to think that all our beers are bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: what what do you think that's something in the beer world that's being overused oh overused um trying to think right now honestly it might just be sours i mean like i had a sour a couple weeks ago and it was so sour to the point where i think it damaged my taste buds like yeah it's possible it was sour to be sour like a
Speaker: to the point where you can't handle it.
Speaker: And I think that is getting overdone.
Speaker: It's like, you don't need to release a beer to be over the top.
Speaker: You need to release a beer to be enjoyable for people to come back to it.
Speaker: And so we sold it in the bar and like some people liked it, but it was the longest lasting keg out of the four that week.
Speaker: And it was because people would have one, they couldn't even finish their whole glass because it's like a soap in her mouth.
Speaker: And it's like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a rough.
Speaker: Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker: And I agree with you.
Speaker: Right now, I love barrel-aged beer, but I feel like everybody's barrel-aging stuff and no one's taking into account what shouldn't be barrel-aged or what to barrel-ize something in.
Speaker: I've had some weird ones that like, oh, I aged this porter in...
Speaker: a peppermint, you know, snap barrel.
Speaker: And you're like, why?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What purpose of that is there?
Speaker: And you taste it and you're like, this is horrendous.
Speaker: I agree with you.
Speaker: It's like everybody went, Ooh, we can barrel age and barrels have gotten so much easier to get that.
Speaker: It's just like, don't barrel age in anything.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: We actually have an entire beer festival here called Taste the Rarity.
Speaker: It's from Wiseacre puts it on.
Speaker: And it's an amazing beer festival, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: But it is based all around a barrel-aged beer that they do.
Speaker: So then every brewery that comes tries to, you know, recreate their own barrel-aged beer.
Speaker: And I have never spit out so many beers in my life.
Speaker: Like, I thought I was committing alcohol abuse because I was spitting and pouring these beers out all day because they were so bad.
Speaker: There used to be a festival here in Orlando area that was really interesting.
Speaker: And I forgot the exact name of it, but basically what it was is they would bring in like eight or 10 local breweries and they had a series of ingredients.
Speaker: So you had a main ingredient, a secondary ingredient, a hop and a grain.
Speaker: And they would randomly pick them.
Speaker: And whatever the combination they got, they would have to go out and make that beer.
Speaker: And it was sometimes they were good.
Speaker: And sometimes you felt bad for them.
Speaker: Like I remember one year somebody got like broccoli.
Speaker: I think it was like broccoli, peppermint.
Speaker: And I forgot the Hobbs.
Speaker: But it was just like, but they had, you know, the idea was you see what you can do with it.
Speaker: And who, yeah, sometimes variety is not the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker: I've had a seaweed beer before.
Speaker: That's how I felt about it.
Speaker: Like I, it was, it was bad.
Speaker: It was in Pennsylvania.
Speaker: I was there for a convention and we went out drinking one night and the bartender was, I was like, you know, what's your, what are your weird beers?
Speaker: And he was like, Oh, I have one for you.
Speaker: And he was like, it doesn't,
Speaker: get sold very often.
Speaker: I was like, well, you're losing me as you're talking to me.
Speaker: So luckily I just did a small taster of it, but I'm really glad I didn't have to like wipe the poor beer off of this guy's face because I definitely kind of...
Speaker: It sounds like you like the taste.
Speaker: I love a flight.
Speaker: I am a huge flight person.
Speaker: I show up at a brewery and the first thing I ask is, do you have flights?
Speaker: And just start marking them down.
Speaker: That's exactly what I do.
Speaker: I'm like, you get to try so much more that way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'll do two or three.
Speaker: I went to a brewery up in Buffalo, New York, Thin Man, which they kind of spread out.
Speaker: And I walked in the first time and my brother and I are there and we're visiting.
Speaker: I got family up there and
Speaker: They go, oh, you know, can we get a flight?
Speaker: They're like, yeah.
Speaker: Like, how many do you have in your flight?
Speaker: Because I've seen four, six, eight, whatever.
Speaker: They're like, well, the board holds 18, but you don't have to get all 18.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, how many beers do you have on tap?
Speaker: Like, well, we have 18.
Speaker: That's why it's 18.
Speaker: And my brother and I both went, okay.
Speaker: So literally it's this giant tap board.
Speaker: That's how Hampline, they have 12 taps and they have flights that hold 12 beers.
Speaker: And like, that's brilliant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: So, all right, before we finish up, I want to do some rapid fire questions with you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're going to have some fun here.
Speaker: So this is whatever comes to your brain first.
Speaker: You know what is, okay.
Speaker: First off, what monopoly token are you?
Speaker: The hat.
Speaker: Hat.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That's a different one.
Speaker: That's, that's, I like that one.
Speaker: The hat of the dog.
Speaker: Hat of the dog.
Speaker: I hear race car, stuff like that.
Speaker: So if your games were children, which means you would have a lot of children,
Speaker: Who's your favorite?
Speaker: Wonderland's War, absolutely.
Speaker: The really complex children.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: If you could only have one cellar beer forever, what would it be?
Speaker: Stouts.
Speaker: Stouts.
Speaker: Sith or Jedi?
Speaker: Sith.
Speaker: Sith.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: This is the one that I love the most.
Speaker: If you can invite one person to join you at Boards and Beer for a game and beer, dead or alive, famous or not, who would it be?
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: That's such a good question.
Speaker: It would probably be...
Speaker: Honestly, for some reason, Harry Houdini.
Speaker: I've had to talk about him a lot the past couple of weeks and it would just be really cool to have a famous magician there.
Speaker: And there's so much behind his story.
Speaker: Or Justin Timberlake.
Speaker: He's from Memphis and I keep really hoping he's going to wander into my bar one day.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Taylor.
Speaker: This has been an amazing conversation.
Speaker: If you're in Memphis, Tennessee, definitely check out Boards to Beers.
Speaker: Any last words?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: Come out, see us.
Speaker: We always have special events and I will definitely drink a beer with you and play a game with you.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: I'd like to thank Taylor for joining us today.
Speaker: It was a great conversation with her talking about her history with beer, board games, the cafe.
Speaker: Love the fact that she's a dark beer girl this time of year.
Speaker: It speaks to me.
Speaker: If you're in the Memphis area and you want to check them out, go to their location at 2867 Polar Avenue, obviously in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker: They're in the Chickasaw Crossing Plaza.
Speaker: They are open Thursdays through Sundays.
Speaker: Hours vary, mostly afternoon, but they are open late, which is kind of cool.
Speaker: They're open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, so you can go hang out.
Speaker: If you're interested in being a guest on the show and you have connection to board games, you have a connection to craft beer, you're in that industry, or you just love, or you run maybe D&D at a bar, and you want to talk about that and your passions and how you do it and why you do it, contact us at craftsandconquer at gmail.com.
Speaker: That is craftsandconquer at gmail.com.
Speaker: And remember...
Speaker: May your pint glass always be full and your dice roll true.
