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Episode 109 - Midwest Coast Brewing Company
105 Plays2 years ago
This week we visit Chicago's Midwest Coast Brewing Company. We're joined by owner and brewer Cameron Compton, brewery manager Timothy Ficken and brewer and cellarman Kevin O'Brien to discuss the history of Midwest Coast Brewing and what to expect from them in the near future. Also, Dan's back.. so.. that's cool I guess?
Check out Midwest Coast Brewing Company:
https://www.midwestcoastbrewing.com/
To get tickets for Chicago On Tap 2023:
e.givesmart.com/events/uUN/
Also, if you send an email to info@themaltinghour.com you can request a promo code to save $15 on your ticket to the event.
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
Episode Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
First I'll say, great question, I was going to say B segway. A question B segway. He's right actually. I was trying to be nice. This week we're joined by Cam, Tim and Kevin of Midwest Coast Brewing. This is episode 109 of The Molting Hour.
Podcast Theme Overview
00:00:19
Speaker
What's the Haps on the Hops? Guy, he's that beast. This the molten hour where we talk about a drink and tell you what we think.
00:00:25
Speaker
every other week and if we get drunk well we might slur our speech got the gift of ab 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 about an hour here people people taking places
Meet the Hosts and Guests
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome to the vaulting hour. I am one of your hosts, Tony Gold, joined always with Brandon Winninger and Danny Paul. Welcome back, Dan. Thank you. Where you've been sick kids. That's it. I was sick. I was sick once. That's how long you've been gone. Yeah. We are here at Midwest coast brewing in Chicago and we are joined by if you guys want to go around the table. Sure. I'm Cameron Compton. I'm the owner and a brewer here.
00:01:16
Speaker
Timothy Ficken, I'm the brewery manager here. And Kevin O'Brien, I brew and handle this all work.
Origins of Midwest Coast Brewing
00:01:24
Speaker
Thanks guys for having us here in this gloomy Sunday morning, not so warm as it was yesterday. Perfect time for a brown ale that I'm drinking, I feel like. So we've been hanging out for a little bit this morning. Why don't you guys, whoever wants to go, give us a little bit of background on Midwest Coast.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, sure, I guess I'll take that one. So this brewery started on paper in March of 2017. It's when we first filed our LLC paperwork. It took us a little bit of time to get this place up and running and working through the city, working through all the building permits and construction permits and everything like that. Ultimately opened our doors in September of August, or September of 2019 was our grand opening.
00:02:09
Speaker
Um, you know, the whole idea kind of started with, we wanted to at, you know, at the time, if you think back about craft beer, a lot was going pretty wild. You know, it was a lot of, yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker
Which is great, by the way, a lot of new styles. Hazy's were all the rage at the time and still kind of are.
Focus on Classic Style Beers
00:02:30
Speaker
And we just kind of wanted to make good classic style beer, which we felt was kind of missing from the craft beer industry at the time. So that is what I say we focus on and what I say we do best.
00:02:43
Speaker
that is good,
00:03:08
Speaker
And then to go to like, you know, where we're at now, we're fucking smoothie beers. I'm not knocking that. I mean, people, I mean, that's fine, but there's a market for it. Yeah, there's a market for it. But it's nice. Like, I feel like being in Chicago, they have a chance or like the
00:03:24
Speaker
with so many breweries there's you can go to different places to get different things and you guys doing what you do here is a much welcome and needed type of a brewery i completely agree i mean i i got into craft beer 2010 2011 sometime around there so yeah that was the ibu wars how high can we get this
Popularity of Midwest Coast's Brown Ale
00:03:41
Speaker
number yeah so i still have a soft spot for those sure sure introduced me to them but yeah we just you know we english hails you know i got a german alt beer in front of me american browns
00:03:51
Speaker
Things like that. I'm a huge fan of brown ales. And anybody who listens to the show knows that I am. I try to talk to other breweries about making brown ales. And they just don't sell as well. But you guys seem to be doing OK, because I see it on the shelves and I get it. You can come here. It's our biggest wholesale beer in the wintertime. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's such an underrated style of beers. That's what introduced me to you guys. I remember seeing you as a brown ale. And I was like, what? And then
The Story of Brewing an ESB
00:04:18
Speaker
I saw that was an ESB.
00:04:19
Speaker
and I was talking to somebody who was working here the first time I came and they were like yeah it's an ESB but we call it an English sporting beer because when people see like extra special bitter they're like it's a deterrent because of the word bitter so it's smart marketing choice but I like that beer a lot too. Yeah that was a beer that ESB
00:04:38
Speaker
I think that's the only beer that we haven't tweaked the recipe since day one. Yeah, I think we, yeah, because we made it. That was like, you had your set of beers that you wanted to make. Yeah. Brown Ale's basically the same. Just kind of tweaked a little bit. Not majorly, but a little bit. But ESPN was, I think, the first one we sat down and did together. Yeah, so we sat down and it was funny. That was just a beer. He was like, what are you...
00:05:01
Speaker
We had 12 taps. We had six beers that you wanted to make. And we were like, all right, what else are we going to do to fill out the tap list? And I was like, well, I want an ESB because it's like my favorite spot. And at the time, we just kind of just stopped doing honkers. Good timing for you. For us, great timing. We also kind of thought, when we made it,
00:05:27
Speaker
I honestly thought if we were going to make it, it's going to be a tap root beer. It's going to be kind of probably a one and done kind of style and it is.
00:05:36
Speaker
We won an award for it at GBF a couple years ago. And it's year-round, our best-selling beer. I have a buddy. So I've been here for two of my birthdays. And I have a buddy who's from Stoke. And he's big into English beers. And I introduced him. I was like, we got to go to this place. I want to show you the USBs and stuff. And he loved it. So he was buying, I think he bought a couple packs to bring, because he lives up in Evanston. So it's a little bit of a hike.
00:06:05
Speaker
He said he was going to be looking for it, so it's got the approval of an Englishman. There we go. I've gotten that a couple times at some fests, and my favorite thing that they've told me, and they've all told me this, is this is really good. It's just too cold. I'm like, I wish we could sell it as a casket. No one would buy it or drink it.
00:06:27
Speaker
I mean, if you did a cast special, I'm sure you'd have some people beat. And we've talked about that recently, kind of just maybe a little bit. That would be fun. But yeah, it's always funny when they say that. I get that that's how people drink beer in England. It's not how it works in the US.
00:06:44
Speaker
So, when did you get into,
Kevin O'Brien's Brewing Journey
00:06:48
Speaker
did you start as a home brewer? Yeah. Actually, that's a good question to go for all you guys. You guys all started as home brewers, obviously, right? Kevin and I definitely did. Did you start as a home brewer first? Yeah, I mean, yeah. You've been in the brewing industry since you graduated college. Pretty much. I home brewed with a buddy in college, but I never really thought I was going to super get into beer outside of drinking it.
00:07:09
Speaker
I graduated, moved home, kind of was doing odds and ends, kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It's funny because that's like the opposite of what every home brewer thinks. They're like, I'm going to fucking open a brewery now. I made my first great batch of beer. No one's going to ever top this. Yeah, I didn't know, you know, I didn't know how to get into it. You know, I was 22 and who knows. And then, yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
I literally was sitting on the couch and my dad was like, hey, I was in Atlanta at the time because that's where I grew up. And my dad was like, hey, this brewery that I follow on Twitter posted a job posting. And I applied, got it, and I labeled bottles once a week.
00:07:52
Speaker
for a couple weeks and then they asked if I wanted to clean cakes. So I came in once a week to do bottles and once a week to clean cakes. And they did, a toasted coconut porter was their kind of big beer. And so they were partners with the restaurant next door and they were like, do you want to come in?
00:08:09
Speaker
every Wednesday morning and toast a coconut. I was like, sure. So I started to really lay my bottles, and after a few months, I was three days a week, then full time, and I was there for about a year. Moved up here, worked at Shore Fuse for about a year and a half.
00:08:29
Speaker
And I've been here ever since so it's going on going on four years this this Yeah, can I ask what the Georgia? Cherry Street room here in like North Georgia I'm from Florida They're really good they make some really good stuff I think they're barely they that us was the
00:08:54
Speaker
U.S. beer open competition. They won it like the Grand National Champion's while I was there and their barrel aging program is insane. Like they make some insanely good barrel aged beer. They're just small. They got two breweries in Georgia. They just opened a brewery in Chattanooga a few a little while ago. I can't recommend them enough if you ever see them.
00:09:18
Speaker
everything and they make everything very well. I'll have to keep that in mind. My sister lives in Georgia. I lived in Georgia for a short amount of time in like northern Georgia, like Fulton County area. That's where they are. Even easier now. I know where to go. I'm going to text my sister and tell her to bring me some beer. What about you?
Tim's Home Brewing Beginnings
00:09:39
Speaker
I started as a home brewer, literally just looking for weekend hobbies once I graduated college. My roommate and I at the time,
00:09:47
Speaker
I thought it would be something fun to try. At the time, there wasn't a lot of information on the internet about homebrewing.
00:09:54
Speaker
There was a, I had this theory that I would be brewing in the bathtub or something like that. Like I brewed that from someone. Yeah, never have, uh, to this day, which is probably good. Um, yeah, you know, the, the first batch we made was straight from a home brew kit. You know, we followed the instructions to a T wasn't bad, wasn't great. It was an Irish red.
00:10:19
Speaker
uh because it wasn't bad my roommate and I at the time got way too big for our bridges and figured we could do anything we wanted and made
00:10:27
Speaker
Cameron throws an American or an English brown ale as our second one and it was abysmal. We poured all five gallons down the drain. Probably an infection or something like that, we have no idea. It was terrible. So over the years just got better and better brewing, better techniques, understanding the ingredients a little better, understanding how they all go together.
00:10:54
Speaker
Ultimately, I was looking at leaving the company I was at when I was living in San Francisco and thinking am I just going to go work for another tech company? What am I going to do? And my older sister and then girlfriend, now wife, just ultimately pushed me like, hey, you've been talking about this for, at that time, seven years. Why don't you pull the trigger on it and see what we can do?
00:11:19
Speaker
so decided where we wanted to live. I went to work for kind of a year-long crash course in what professional brewing was like with a family friend of ours in Virginia, Charlottesville, Three-Nush Brewery, Great Brewery out there. A family friend of ours was the owner there, and he basically just let me come in for, you know,
00:11:47
Speaker
three, four weeks at a time over the course of a year and just get a crash course in every aspect of the world. That's nice. That's what it was like professionally. Yeah. I learned a lot from those guys. They do a great job. They're still doing a great job. They've got four or five locations around Virginia now. Cool. And maybe... I realize they're... Yeah, they've made a few satellite places out there, and they're just a very well-run business, and they make great beer.
00:12:11
Speaker
So yeah, I was kind of coming back here looking for places looking for buildings going out there for three or four weeks at a time.
00:12:20
Speaker
learning another aspect of the brewing industry and ultimately found this place and got the show on the road. So I don't want to skip you but we're not going to talk about you. Totally fine. You're up to set. You're the second half. You were in Sam Fran, obviously it's tech industry boom and then you were
00:12:42
Speaker
Working in
Choosing Chicago for Midwest Coast Brewing
00:12:43
Speaker
Virginia. Yeah, how'd you pick Chicago and then more specifically like Westtown your United Center? I know obviously now is the sort of like a oasis of breweries over here Yeah, but in 2017 it may not have been and I don't know when you found a spot But it may not have been as big I don't think at the time. No, so you still had goose on to her great central. Yeah those Great Central hadn't opened yet. I think we're going on tours
00:13:09
Speaker
So at the time there was a different breweries whose name was painted on that building which was like mines. Finch didn't move in there for a bit but yeah we so we sell in Chicago
00:13:26
Speaker
Ultimately, my wife and I didn't. We just wanted to get out of California. Which is the opposite of what most people in Chicago would want to do. Growing up there, the Bay Area had changed a lot. In some good ways and bad.
00:13:40
Speaker
It didn't seem like it was the same place we wanted to grow up. Susie, my wife, had never lived outside of California, really, other than being born in what's now Ukraine and then coming over here when she was about a year old. She never knew life outside of California. She wanted to try something new. I went to Notre Dame, so I had a ton of friends out in the Chicago area. We'd been out here a ton before. It's funny, we were looking at it back recently.
00:14:09
Speaker
Just think about where we wanted to live. Up until that point where we decided that it was going to be Chicago, we were looking back at photos in our iPhone or something. The whole spring, summer of 2016, we just realized we had been out here a lot. And according to the photos, they were all glorious weather weekends. We've been out here with friends looking at all these photos and drinking beers outside, doing all this stuff. And only in the past year, I was like, I wonder if all those trips had a lot to do with the fact that we were like, yeah, Chicago's pretty great.
00:14:40
Speaker
Chicago is great and at the time it seemed like it was really kind of this whole groundswell of breweries were getting ready to open or had just opened in Chicago and it seemed like it was going to be a big craft beer city which turned out it has.
00:14:56
Speaker
You know at the time I think Dovetail was fairly new and although like the guy I think was fairly new so it was just like all this like all these things were starting and it seemed like maybe there's something to Chicago in the craft beer scene and we decided on this neighborhood because yeah like Tim said there were there were breweries opening around here
00:15:17
Speaker
And we've gotten the advice from a lot of people that breweries do well in proximity to other breweries. We had a few different pockets we were looking at and just kind of the timing of when certain buildings were available and stuff
Brewery Building History
00:15:33
Speaker
like that. This building came up and was at a reasonable price that we could get.
00:15:39
Speaker
It's a sweet old building. It's nearly 100 years old. It's awesome. We talked about it before we started recording about what it looks like in here. The first thing I thought of, because I saw plants, my wife loves plants. She is the plant person in the entire world. If anybody loves plants more than her, I'd be shocked. When I walked in, I'm like, she would absolutely love just coming in here.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah. Other than that, the whole layout and the building itself when you guys were showing us, it's a fantastic spot. I think you guys chose the right place to be at the right time. Yeah, it's cool. We've seen this building a couple times and
00:16:19
Speaker
you know not that I'm huge into you know a fate thing but I just we just kept driving past here again yeah this one was pretty sweet like that was pretty cool and we'd see other spots you know in the neighborhood or out of the neighborhood and and uh we just find ourselves kept coming back here probably for a reason do you know what what was in this building before the brewery do you know so for I think that 10 10 or so years prior it was just kind of storage for um
00:16:47
Speaker
events company they would store all like they're broken down stages and lighting and that sort of thing here and It was vacant for a while before that and then I think from like the 50s or 60s to the 90s it was
00:17:02
Speaker
rust-proofing factory and then prior to that what it was originally built for in the late 20s we're not totally sure the records are not super great for the city of Chicago but we know based on some aerial photography that in like 1925 these were all single-family homes on this stretch of West Walnut
00:17:22
Speaker
And then by like 1929, which is a nice set of aerial photographs, we could find there are elements of this building. So it got built over stages. It's probably over 10, 15 years, something like that. What for originally? Not sure. Not sure. But here we are. Yeah. And I love the ceiling. The ceiling is going to sound weird, but it's almost like the bottom of a boat. I feel like I'm looking at the bottom of a boat.
00:17:45
Speaker
That's what it is. It's built the same way. It's built in a very similar fashion. I mean, you're the king of bottoms of boats. It's funny. We'll get into this, but looking at the ceiling, we were talking about the second floor. I remember just looking up, I'm like, where is there a second floor? And then you've got that whole other little side step. Yeah, a little side step that kind of
00:18:08
Speaker
builds out. But I guess that you know moves into the next question that you know you guys are you know you've been in here since 2017 and now you're expanding in within the building you kind of talk about the plans for that.
Expansion Plans and Customer Experience
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah so we have been we've been working on this basically since we open excuse me getting the ability to put a second floor and roof deck on this building we've got you know
00:18:36
Speaker
a killer view of the skyline from the west of the Chicago skyline. I mean, we all know Chicago weather was nice up till today. Once the weather turns nice in Chicago, people want to be outside drinking beers as elevated as they possibly can.
00:18:52
Speaker
And even today with it being like, you know, cloudy and it still looked nice going up. Clear day is what it's spectacular. Yeah. So we've been, we've been working with the city over the last three plus years now on getting all the various, you know,
00:19:10
Speaker
zoning stuff needed and all that sort of thing. All the hoops you gotta jump through to make it happen. It's a familiar story. We're getting close. We're hopefully gonna be able, we got one more hearing with the city on Friday and that's basically just a formality and from there we should be able to get our building permit and get started. Once we get that building permit, we can get Roland and the construction crew's ready to go.
00:19:38
Speaker
You know, it's the same guys who did all the original build out. They've given us like a 12 to 14 week build, so I'm hoping by late summer, early fall, we can get people up there. In TBD, it is the city of Chicago. Things could always come up, but the road map from here to there is pretty clear at this point, so that's awesome. I just gotta check a few more boxes.
00:20:04
Speaker
There's going to be a great indoor space up there. We have a ton of requests for private events, and we hate closing down the tablet. So that's going to be a really great opportunity to do private events, that sort of thing. And the roof deck is just going to be a really nice spot.
00:20:24
Speaker
Being able to have a second floor is for exactly like you said like private events is so awesome Yeah, that's what revs brew pub, you know, they do what they do the one on walking They do the actual weddings and stuff. I've been to two weddings up there And yeah, it's like never would have thought in a million years and so much fun But while we're waiting, we're just downstairs, you know drinking beers at the bar and then by the time you go upstairs I mean they don't have to shut anything down all the locals can still go and hang out there without you know having to
00:20:51
Speaker
find someplace else because it's shut down for events. It's a smart idea. I'm not sure we want to do weddings. I'm going to renew my vows here, thank you.
00:21:08
Speaker
Hey, Kevin. Oh, hey.
Improvements in Brewing Processes
00:21:10
Speaker
How are you? Good. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? To work with, did you start off as a home brewer, I saw? Yes. The reason I asked that, when Brian and I first started doing the show, the main thing was we're home brewers. So we talked about home brewing. And then it kind of built into while also talking to breweries. And then it turned into more of like, well, we're talking to breweries and people in the industry and drinking beer with them. So we always go back to that. Yeah. So I guess I was a little more circuitous to getting to home brewing.
00:21:38
Speaker
I originally got a beer as far as, you know, Cam and I are the same age. So we came up same time, like we were talking about the hop wars kind of everyone was all about hops, hops, hops. And so when I was getting into drinking,
00:21:51
Speaker
beer. It was more about the drinking side and not so much the actual beer side. And I had a buddy of mine who is now the head brewer over at Brother Chimp out in North Aurora, my buddy Sam. He actually got me into the beer brewing process. He was one of my friends in college. We were in school and him and his roommate were brewing beers a bunch and they wanted to upgrade to like a full like 15 gallon kegel system.
00:22:17
Speaker
And I was the only engineer that they were buddies with. And they were like, hey, can you help us? They were like a history major and an English major. Can you help us design a semi-auto with the pump system and everything? And I was like, sure. And so I did a crash course online of reading stuff, like how the brewing process works. Because at the time, all I was doing was really drinking, not so much making it. And so through that, I
00:22:41
Speaker
through Sam I learned the brewing process and then I had my college roommates were chemistry majors so they they brewed and I would like help them but never really got took my hands on side of it and kind of would pop in to help other buddies homebrew for the next five or six years I didn't really get into homebrew myself like dropper it's a
00:23:02
Speaker
of the
00:23:19
Speaker
And then, yeah, during COVID, I was working at a pharmaceutical like I did engineering and stuff for years and years and home brewed on the side and then working for a pharmaceutical company during COVID and decided I didn't want to live that life anymore and stay in that world and wanted to move and craft beer.
00:23:38
Speaker
Cam and Tim took a flyer on me. That's a problem. If you don't come right out of college or something, you kind of just have to assume someone's leap of faith, right? This'll work. Because all I'm saying, all I can tell them is, yeah, I've been home brewing for four years. Please, trust me. Be fair to yourself. He also worked on the manufacturing side of the farm here. The thing that he leaves out is, yeah,
00:24:03
Speaker
The processes are very similar, and a lot of the terminology was very similar, so when he came over and we're talking CIP procedures, SOPs, that wasn't a foreign language to you. It just was kind of teaching you how to do it.
00:24:21
Speaker
but with beer. Which is just a more relaxed version because you have to be way cleaner when you're making pharmaceuticals. Not that we're not clean, but like, we're not that level of, we're not wearing hazmat suits.
00:24:38
Speaker
going through, like, we're not doing that. So we can start. We can get really warm back here. We'll start in October. Yeah, so that's, yeah, I was home brewing, working, making drugs, actually working for a drug development company, and then decided to make my side gig, my, or my side hobby, my profession, they were
00:25:02
Speaker
They took the flyer on me so I'm very appreciative. We're pretty happy with that decision too. One of the biggest things Kevin's brought to us is
00:25:11
Speaker
Our biggest hole in our game after Kevin starting was our yeast management, for sure. And it sucks that that's your biggest hole, because that's one of the most important things you could possibly, if not the most important thing. It's also one of the biggest costs. It's a big cost. Yeast is so expensive. So Kevin's done a great job revitalizing our yeast management program, propping stuff up in a clean, sanitary way, getting to enough yeast cells to make good, proper beer.
00:25:38
Speaker
just here in-house as opposed to having to buy fresh pitches. Yeah, even the average beer drinker probably doesn't realize how important, I mean like I had a lot of beer nerds in general know how important the East is, and home barbers know, but like it's insane, like how much, I mean even just doing a simple experiment of like if you have your own house East or buying it, you know having two different strains and totally, I mean I couldn't imagine doing it on the level as you guys do of like making sure that like it's consistent, like it's your consistent strains that you're using.
00:26:08
Speaker
Do you guys have a house yeast now that you have been kind of cultivating? We have an American yeast, USO5, we use for pretty much anything American. It's the best. It's a workhorse. It really is. Everybody uses British 5 for their hazies, we use it for ESP, which helps prop it up for our hazies. Nice.
00:26:30
Speaker
But then, I mean, that's pretty much, anything else we kind of, we've started to kind of prop up from smack packs. If we're trying to do home for smack packs, if we're trying to do our one offs, like our Belgian beer, or like alt shop, like any of their alt
Seasonal Brewing Approach
00:26:51
Speaker
beer. Anything that doesn't really fit into the British or the USO5 is kind of,
00:26:58
Speaker
that we just do that so that we can table the money. And then we sort of keep a German logger stream going because our
00:27:09
Speaker
We do a different logger in the summer than we do in the winter. But we use the same e-string for it. So we just have to use it a lot less because that's what we're talking about before. Lagers take forever. Yeah, that's kind of a quietly rotating house east. We really don't have to turn over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
two and a half months, something about the longer he just comes up. Oh yeah, we should probably do that. We could make another one of them. Well, we're going to take a quick break because it's normal when we do it and now I've got an ad I have to run in between stuff for one more week. Yeah, we need another beer and we'll come right back and finish up the conversation here.
00:27:55
Speaker
Meals on Wheels Chicago presents Chicago on Tap, Thursday, April 27th at Theater on the Lake, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Join us for a night of beer and bites from over 20 of Chicago's top breweries and restaurants and help raise crucial funds to feed our neighbors in need. You'll get to try 60 plus of the local brews and sample delicious food all while supporting a good cause. This is an event you won't want to miss. To get your tickets, go to meals on wheelschicago.org, click on Events, and look for Chicago on Tap.
00:28:22
Speaker
And if you'd like to save $15 on your ticket with a promo code, be sure to email us at info at themaltinghour.com and put Chicago on tap in the subject and we'll send you the promo code. Cheers and hope to see you there.
00:28:38
Speaker
And we're back. Welcome back for years. I can't wait to go through it. I have to edit this today before I leave before. Yeah, welcome back. We're here at Midwest Coast Brewing. Dan, you just had a really good question.
Exploring Future Beer Styles
00:28:52
Speaker
Repeat. I was just asking if there's a style or anything that they're, like a direction that they're wanting to go. What's in the future as far as beer style? They go around the table, whatever one's warm they want to make.
00:29:05
Speaker
So I'm, I don't know if there's anything that I want to make. I'm really looking forward to our batch 500. You want to talk about what we've always talked about? So we're talking about doing an old school traditional, like, like, dark, like English, dark, English mild, like first runnings run off. Oh, yes. Boiling it, sending it into our small tank.
00:29:28
Speaker
and then finishing it up with a mile. Yeah, basically very old school. Very old school. English. Get two beers out of one, masterful. Yeah. Sure. And just, I just, we talked about that probably a year ago. And I can't wait for Batch 500 to get there. Yeah. Like 300 and something. Or 350s? We're probably a year-ish away. I mean, we're buffing up. We're definitely ramping production up. Yeah. But I haven't really.
00:29:57
Speaker
Oh, the one beer I'm trying to workshop for next Christmas is I want to do like a chocolate peppermint style. Yeah. It's my wheelhouse. I love fun shit like that. Yeah. That's probably what I have. And then I got Kevin working on it. I love it. He's tasked me with some experimental stuff that I'm looking to. I really want, I love the Twisted Pretzel beer from Shock Top when I was in college. It was like, it came out and it was great. We loved it. It just tasted like a really good pretzel.
00:30:25
Speaker
And then they stopped making it. It was great. And then they stopped making it. And Kevin is, I got Kevin workshop in that over. Which is funny because I've never drank it. I have no idea what it tastes like. So you're just guessing it. They don't make it anymore, right? No. Well, so it's funny. There's the, we got a box from somewhere.
00:30:49
Speaker
like a return or something it's literally the twisted pretzel case box we were talking about Monday and then we were looking at the date and we think the date was from like 2019 yeah so like but it was funny it was that we literally were in the in the garage that's it
00:31:07
Speaker
That's it! I never heard of this beer. We talked about it literally 24 hours later. We were in the garage and we found the box from it. Is it like an amber that they like... Yeah, it was... I don't know. I took a picture of it. I think it says like a Belgian something with... I didn't know Shocktop did anything else. There's a brewery seeds. Tony picked this beer up for me, but it's a kavassa they did with pretzels. Oh yeah. It's probably... No, I haven't opened it yet. It's probably like not as... What are you waiting for?
00:31:34
Speaker
I know. Quit sellering things. We should have brought it today. But yeah, it says, a Belgian style wheat ale brewed with spices and caramel malt and with artificial flavor added. So try to figure out how to do without the flavor. Yeah. That's me. I guess I'll let you. I mean, I got a list of crazy things. I'm interested to hear what Kevin's number one is, because I bet it's not this I'm aware of from mine.
00:31:55
Speaker
Well, I mean, we've talked about the beer we've always wanted to brew together, which is a dunkel. That's low-key my favorite style of beer. We find issues brewing lagers. I think we talked about it earlier before we were recording, but it's just difficult with tank space and whatever. We all chose alt beer over dunkel. Because alt beer could be brewed. It's a hybrid. It could be brewed. I think we'll get you all the else. We're going to get the dunkel into the schedule. Alt beer was our dunkel methadone.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah. It got us through what we needed to get through. Yeah. Scratches the itch enough for now. Yeah. But Dunkle is one, since I think day one that I was here that we talked about, I think Cam asked me, what beard do you want to brew? I want to brew Dunkle. Let's do it. The other one I really want to make, I mean Dunkle was the one I was thinking, the other one I really want to make, I think we're on the same page with this one today. Mexican lager.
00:32:48
Speaker
I thought you missed the shorts. See, this is my problem having to run the operation. I know, because they're all lockers. Good idea, guys. I'm like, however, so we'll get around. Is there anything longer than a logger that we could keep in its game? Because that's what I want to make next. Yeah. Let's make two lockers at the same time. Yeah. Blend them together.
00:33:10
Speaker
All those styles sound really good. Schwartzbeard and Dunkel also sound really good. I mean, Dunkel's are fantastic. They're so underrepresented. Nobody makes a Dunkel. Great Central is a great Dunkel. They have a great city. All their German styles. It's such an uncommon style. Honestly, Modela Negra is one of the closest things you can buy on a wide scale of a Dunkel.
00:33:35
Speaker
Did Dovetail have one? Dovetail does one. Did Double Clutch do a double? I think so. They do. I've never had it, but they definitely do. They definitely do one. Double Clutches. We had a lot of fun sitting and talking with them. That's probably the one place that Brandon and I went to did an interview. We had two beers during it.
00:33:58
Speaker
And then we sat there afterwards for another like two hours and we did say, we tried everything. Yeah, that's, that's a point. I need to make it up to, I have, it's great. You know, and you know, with the way prices are with things, uh, I was not saying it was expensive. I was like, okay, that's, that's typical. It's high.
00:34:17
Speaker
They give you so much food that we thought like when we were going to my brother-in-law's birthday He was doing a sketchbook at Skokie We stopped at Double Clutch first and we were ordering there's four of us and we ordered like a bunch of random appetizers when everything came out We're like, holy shit. This is way too much food that we ordered way too much Which is not a bad thing, but their food's really good. The atmosphere is awesome and their beers are just amazing
00:34:39
Speaker
It's a great spot to go to. So my dad is a Northwestern alum. So we go to Northwestern. And I'm an Illinois alum. So whenever they play in Northwestern, we always go there. And that's like the last year that double clutch has been our spot. Go up there. Like you said, the food is fantastic. Beer is really good. They won a bunch of awards. Yeah. I never.
00:35:01
Speaker
We've met the guy. If y'all met him, I've never met him. And then, yeah, we were sitting there at GBF and they just kept rallying off double clutch men.
00:35:12
Speaker
It was like I used to get up there. We were in the back yelling very loud for them when we were at GABF last year. Yeah, they let us into the awards ceremony, so we were screaming. Media passes, baby. They had stopped by our taproom literally the week before GABF, and then we were at GABF a week later, and just double clutch, double clutch, double clutch. They're great guys. Happy to hear that they won. And they weren't even there. Yeah, they were saying how they were being told via text, what's going on? What happened? Oh! Oh!
00:35:43
Speaker
But yeah, I think they're dovetail and double clutch. I don't know of anybody else that has a dunkle. Like, that is a great central. Every so often, once a year. Great central does their, you know, they're primarily a lot of contract stuff, but they do their, what do they call it? Their standards series or whatever, where it's like they brew their BJCP standards.
00:36:04
Speaker
and obviously they're german style blue so they do like they'll give you a dunkel you'll get a hefeweizen you'll get a i drank their weizenbach last night um like so they do like all of like the german bjcp styles and it's just like to style and their dunkel just like just like dovetails yeah very good i love when those come out over here yeah yes
00:36:25
Speaker
I was gonna say just kind of steering the conversation we were Before we started recording we kind of walked into the back and we noticed a couple of pointed out a couple barrels that you guys got sitting back there So what's nice to get a couple empties too? So what are the plans? I know I think you said an Imperial
Cautious Approach to Barrel-Aged Beers
00:36:40
Speaker
Scouts in one. Yeah, so escalating dares which is
00:36:44
Speaker
our hodgepodge imperial stout we've made it a couple times now and uh first time we made it was cam and i and we were like going through it's like we got like a half bag of a bunch of malls of like a bunch of different like german two-row american two-row like british pale mall and we're like we do this and we're like
00:37:07
Speaker
Imperial Stout, throw it all in. And so when we realized that we were starting to have a bunch of partial bags that we just haven't used in a minute, we're like, all right, Imperial Stout time. So the fun thing about that is it changes a little bit. We have a general kind of thing that we have going, but that beer will probably never be the same, which is kind of fun. And then, yeah, so we put that in. I forget what barrels those were.
00:37:36
Speaker
We barely won their beer a year We're supposed to try it. We're supposed to try it. We're actually we're I think we're sitting at like six or seven months We were supposed to try it Friday and we didn't We just the Friday day got it the day got away from us So we got to try that here soon just to kind of get the first step at it I'd like to do more barrel age stuff. It's just it's kind of
00:38:02
Speaker
One is space, and two is, I think if you're going to do it, you really need to do it. Do it. Do it and do it. Have a full program and a little meditation around it. I think we kind of do it.
00:38:19
Speaker
we want to do it so it's like but we're not we don't try to get ahead of ourselves we're trying to like bury ourselves and uh barrel each beer well it's not a bad idea i mean what you guys have now there's a couple barrels and then just something to throw on yeah we throw it on kind of a fun thing yeah we try to have my favorite thing is usually uh
00:38:36
Speaker
This happened a lot right when we opened, the number of people who would walk in here within weeks of us opening, asking if we had anything barrel aged. Do you know how this works? I don't know if they did. It's like, you know that takes like years. I got this home brew I did a couple years ago. And like our grand opening signs are still up. No, we don't have anything barrel aged. But yeah, so I mean, we try and do something
00:39:05
Speaker
I'd say we try to have one or two beers going. And then probably about every six months we try and put something in just to have it rotating. Like we said, a couple of us have said the reputation around it. We're not New Silent in Bourbon County. So people don't necessarily come here for that. But we want to have that option. One of my favorite things that I try to do, I love curating our tap list. I try and get it.
00:39:35
Speaker
It seems like it's all random, but we're very precise. Like in our conversations on, we have like Monday morning brewery conversations and we're talking about new beers. We do look at the tap list and we're like, all right, like what holes do we need to fill? We try to make sure we kind of have something on for everyone. It's impossible, but like, I don't know, man, it's pretty, but I think every try to not, you know,
00:40:00
Speaker
We try to not have a lot of like, I say this, at times we have five IPAs on, but we try to, but when we do that, we try to have like a West coast, a session, a Hazy, a double. So we try and like.
00:40:16
Speaker
We try to be, even in that, we try to be very spread out. Well, I was going to say, how many beers do you guys have on tap right now? It's 15 in a seltzer. So in five of those are IPAs, and the rest are all brown ale, ESB, cream ale, a kolch.
00:40:37
Speaker
You do a very good job. I think there's enough here that you guys have enough on tap that a mixed group of friends who maybe like two of us come in and we know what we're getting into. And there's other two friends who are just like, I don't really drink like the draft beer. You easily find something.
00:40:57
Speaker
at least two beers up there for them to drink and enjoy. Well, our number one seller in the tap room
00:41:05
Speaker
is almost always like if it's our hard-earned pills or whatever our lightest option is, both in color and ABB, almost always. That or hazy. That or hazy. Yeah, hazy will take that spot every once in a while, but... Fucking hazy. People like their crispy boys. Yeah. I don't disagree. I don't disagree either because especially if they're going to be here for, you know, two or three beers, yeah, maybe beer one is
00:41:31
Speaker
you know six and a half percent hazy but beers two and three are gonna be lighter yeah so you know we get a lot it's almost always the most that we sell in a day especially i'm like a busy secretary and then so that's the taproom can i ask so distribution wise are you guys self-distributed do you have a distributor what's your footprint we are self
Self-Distribution and Local Market Focus
00:41:50
Speaker
-distributing
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, our footprint is city Chicago and kind of the near suburbs. You know, you guys wanting to expand the down the line? It's a good question. You know, when we when we opened this place, the craft beer industry is in a very different spot. You know, and the guys I learned from, you know, were
00:42:11
Speaker
big into like spreading it far and wide, you know, three and a half, and they've done a great job of that. The timing of the industry for them worked in their favor as far as that. You know, the craft beer industry has more breweries open. It seems to becoming more localized. So we're kind of opened at a good time where we could have still picked our fate, whether or not we wanted to grow and become a big regional thing, which was our plan originally. But now I think with just how many breweries there are opening up, you know,
00:42:43
Speaker
It's harder to open a brewery now and then be really present around the entire Great Lakes region, right? Because all those areas we're trying to get into also have great breweries that are making great beer. And people want beer from down the street. It's very different from wine in that there are certain regions around the globe that everyone wants wine from. Beer's not like that. Historical, sure, people like their German beers and their English beers and stuff like that. But when it comes to craft breweries,
00:43:12
Speaker
people want their beer from down the street you know it's something that they can hold on to as like with some local pride so you know we've barely we're planning on making around 1200 barrels this year we're still a small brewery
00:43:25
Speaker
And we have barely scratched the surface in the city, let alone in the nearby suburbs. So I think our plan is to keep things pretty local for the time being. We can build a great little small business. Sure. There are still pockets in the city that we just, we don't have, we have anything. We can only deliver so much. We're trying to grow.
00:43:48
Speaker
not exponentially to a point we're trying to steadily grow aid and make sure that we can keep up because we don't want to get to a point where
00:43:56
Speaker
We make a bunch of beer, we distribute it to 300 places, and then they all run out, and we don't have enough to keep it. So it's draft lines. And then there's draft lines, which is another thing, because every bar only has so many draft lines, and there are a ton of breweries in Chicago. And so even when you get one, and even when a bar likes you,
00:44:20
Speaker
You should still rotate. It's hard to get a consistent draft line, especially as near a brewery. It is self-destruct. Yeah, we're not half-acre, we're not rev. Those breweries are always going to have a tap line. We've got to fight with them.
00:44:36
Speaker
I mean, just in this area, literally, on tour, just in like, that's the thing, in our immediate vicinity, you have on tour, Forbidden Route, all the breweries at District Brewery Yard, like, and then,
00:44:53
Speaker
So that's like, that's just here. If you want hyper local in Westtown. Three block walk. So you're looking at like your Westtown and then you got the breweries in Westtown. And then you got like Ukrainian Village, which is kind of which I'd say those breweries are all competing there. Well, that's just that part of Chicago. It's crazy. There's a ton of it's hard. A lot of competition. Yeah, for sure.
00:45:20
Speaker
but it's good, keeps everyone honest. Yeah, well that's the nice thing about having, you know, starting as a taproom and not just a brewery that's, you know, cranking out beers to just put on the shelves.
Taproom Experience and Strategy
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. Is that you get, which is why you said earlier, you know, don't want to close your taproom for anything. They hate it. I think there's still, I mean, craft beer industry is at an inflection point, I think, as it's grown so much over the last 10, 15 years, but I still think that, you know, there's room for
00:45:45
Speaker
locally producing kind of taproom-centric breweries. And I think all the data we see from all the brewing industry reports suggest that. If you want to make a nice place to be to drink beer, a physical location, there's still plenty of room for that. I think more people look to go to a taproom than to a bar these days. At least that's the way it seems. Yeah, there's always going to be neighborhood bars that people like to go with your friends or whatever.
00:46:15
Speaker
I mean, yesterday was the first time I went out for beers and it wasn't a brewery or a taproom. We ended up with beer on the wall. And that's a whole other story. It's a can shop and getting to try different beers. But any other time, I end up in a taproom. And I feel like that's the best way to keep your customers and to be able to have your brand out there without having to worry about over-extending yourself, like you guys said. It's definitely been the most, when you look at it, you talk to people, the most successful model is
00:46:45
Speaker
If you can sustain yourself in the taproom and then kind of slowly start to distribute, that's kind of what everybody is like. Because first of all, your margin is better. It's insane. So if you can keep that and then slowly start distributing out and out and out, then you've got to build that infrastructure out too.
00:47:09
Speaker
that's a good segue for another question I had was you guys I feel like you guys are like you're saying it's a good segue will be the judge will be the judge of that you haven't been on an episode for like a month so I feel like you guys sort of taking grasp of that like
Dog-Friendly Brewery Initiative
00:47:25
Speaker
dog-friendly brewery in the city and I know you guys have like your dogs on the glasses there's dogs on the t-shirts everything like is that like a marketing choice do you guys like have a background with dogs first I'll say good segue great question I was gonna say be safe
00:47:45
Speaker
I was trying to be nice. The dog thing, we're just dog people. We love dogs. I think you got three dog owners right here. Everyone here has got a dog. So many of our staff has dogs. I think we just put up a post recently on social, just like all the dogs and cats of Midwest Coast Brewing Company. And there was a ton. And we knew that we're allowed to have
00:48:11
Speaker
dogs in here you know we don't have a customer facing kitchen or anything like that so dogs are allowed and we love dogs and we you know we've partnered up with various dog rescues around the city to do events and stuff like that so we just we're just dog people like and it has turned out to be a great marketing aspect as well it's you know we
00:48:35
Speaker
As far as the beer goes, we're definitely known for being a good classic style brewery. But as far as our taproom goes, especially people who are not craft beer people, that's what we hear all the time. It's amazing how dog friendly we are. So that's kind of where it came from. And the dog on the glass, that's the dog I had growing up, which was Maverick, who was a really dumb,
00:48:56
Speaker
big lab mutt, 85 pound lab mutt that we had for 15 years, 14 years, whatever it was, grown. He was an idiot. He was an idiot. But he was great. I said it was my best dog. My cousin at a black lab. I was like, he's the biggest, dumbest, best dog in the world. Labs are either leading the charge, hunting down terrorists in caves in Syria, or idiots. Yeah, idiots. They're the kindest.
00:49:25
Speaker
Well, I have two kittens and we have a stroller for them because we're crazy at my house, so maybe I'll come by with them. We've had some cats. Yeah, we've had cats. Oh my god, this might be the one brewery I can have, like Laura. A fair warning, there will be a lot of dogs. They're fun. The cats have come in kind of like as we're walking, we really do take them on walks.
00:49:45
Speaker
Uh, like we've come across dogs the first time I was like terrified. I'm like, oh, what's going to happen? Are they going to freak out? Is dog going to freak out? And both sides have just been like, walk right by each other. And that was it. The cats were just like, oh, okay, cool. They know nothing else. I mean, we've had cats in here for sure. So think about like this, see that. So now I feel better about your segue.
00:50:05
Speaker
the fifth
00:50:22
Speaker
,
00:50:40
Speaker
I think we're on like four or five at this point. We'll let the parents of the dog come in, name like a single hop, they want to do hop smelling things and figure out what hop they want to do and we'll release a beer named after their dog with like a single hop and so like right now we have Ollie, we have another
00:51:01
Speaker
We have another one in the plans. Yeah. Well, I will start coming in more often with my cats until my cats have a damn beer. It's funny you say that. Our general manager, Ryan, told me a story this week that some guy was in here, I think Wednesday or Thursday, this week. I told you this. You told me the story. Yeah, but Ryan told me the story. No, I saw it happen. Okay. It was a conversation. This guy came in and our bartender was telling him about the dog series.
00:51:27
Speaker
And he was like, Oh my God, I have a dog. I used to name a beer after my dog. And it was like, first time you've ever been in here. You didn't even bring your dog. So you got to put in the, but you said it when I told you the story on Friday, you're like, they put in the hours and they probably paid for the beer itself.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. The owners, the owners have, they're all, they're all mug, it's part of our mug club thing for the most part. All those people have been mug club members. So that's really cool. That's been kind of how we got about it. So, and we have people asking when their dogs get to go next. I think, I think we're,
00:52:07
Speaker
have two more plan that gets us to eight and then we gotta do, then we gotta choose a new, we gotta kinda choose our next four.
Dog Series Beers
00:52:16
Speaker
That's kinda fun. Do you not let them pick like the same hop then? Or do you? Well so actually we did do, we actually were back to back Citra but the first one was more of like a Citra pale ale. So basically we kinda do a single hop, we let them come in, we let them smell a bunch of hops, choose what they want, and then we kinda are like,
00:52:36
Speaker
We took pale little IPA, West Coast War, hazy. And so we kind of let them kind of choose like what they drink. That's nice. Because that options, those options. Our last beer she wasn't, she doesn't like hazy's and up to, well.
00:52:52
Speaker
I guess no, we've kind of done a little bit of everything. But she wanted it about every style with the single hop. And so she was like, she's like, I don't know what it is, I just don't like them. I'm like, well, what do you drink? And she's like, I love when you guys do pale ales. She wanted something sessionable. Yeah, so we did like a 4.5% kind of pale ale, zitra beer. And so zitra's the way it is. And I think all those beers have moved really well because
00:53:20
Speaker
Our bartenders will, because they're in here all the time, our bartenders, when people order it, they'll be like, oh, I'll have an Ollie have another. And they're like, Ollie's over there. And so people are like, oh, I get to meet the dog that the beer is named after. Because they are big regular sports. How many of our bartenders? Everyone in the brewery is in.
00:53:41
Speaker
like either dog owner or cat owner. We're all friendly place. Oh, hell yeah. And are you guys like, this might be another Segway. Are you guys big sports fans, because now you have like golf? A plus Segway, yeah. Yes. Yeah, I mean, we are, I mean, the, if you're looking specifically at, like, Fruit and the Tea, which is our cream ale, you know, that beer we wanted, we talked about making a cream ale for a while.
Naming Beers with Sports Themes
00:54:09
Speaker
That was our sales rep. He just badgered us until we made it. Matt wanted to sell a creme ale for a long time and we eventually got around to making one. It's a crushable golf course beer.
00:54:25
Speaker
eight, you know, white beers on the golf course. But we all suck at golf. So, you know, if you hit one OB, you're hitting three from the tee. So that's why we named it in kind of a golf theme. I like that. Belgian base hit. Yeah, I think I remember seeing like the Belgian base hit the canned beer that's baseball beer. No, that's hanging curve. You weren't on the episode when we drank that, so it's okay.
00:54:50
Speaker
Hanging Curve, Tim named that one. It's because it's Blondale. Delicious. Because it's crushable. We were trying to appease the White Sox craft cave. Nice. What if we gave you guys a baseball themed beer that's light and they're like, they loved it.
00:55:18
Speaker
If you're at where the White Sox play. If you're at that place.
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, that was our that was on our spring beer episode random spring beers that we wanted to try Episode that was on there. It was really good. I had that one. He didn't know it was very good. Really liked it Dan do you have any more segues you wanted to get to? Did you ride a segway?
00:55:50
Speaker
Well, if there's anything is there anything else you guys wanted to throw out there about what you know, what's what's going on here? What's coming up? I was gonna bring up the mud club, but you kind of brought it up You guys want to reach that? I mean Do it it's funny We're pretty close with a lot of mud club members. I actually got invited to one of their weddings That's awesome
00:56:17
Speaker
They're actually good friends of ours. They were blowing up my phone earlier and trying to hang out outside of the brewery. We're like, we're trying to do something today. We haven't seen them in a minute, but our club members are great. Actually, Rick and Emily just got another puppy. So we've got a new, so I'm sure that'll be a future dog beer. We already did one for their dog, Boss. They were the first. They were the first. Resting Boss face. All of our dog name beers have been pretty good.
00:56:46
Speaker
Our mug club's been great. A lot of these guys helped us get through the pandemic. They drank here a lot by these windows, opened up in cold. Yeah, they're great people. I get stuck here a lot. I get off work and there's a couple of mug club members at the bar and the next thing I know, I'm three beers deep.
00:57:16
Speaker
All of our significant others have gotten the text I'll be home sued and then 45 minutes go by it's like, oh, sorry so-and-so insert like a beer with them it's like they come in it's like they come in shifts like I'm sitting here and then and then chasing Joe walk-in and then Rick and Emily walk-in as I'm about to leave and then you know, it's like
00:57:40
Speaker
I'm like, I can't get out of here. And they bring their dogs and then I want to play with their dogs. And then I go home and my dog is very upset. I think that I think it says a lot about the type of atmosphere you guys have here and the community that you've already kind of built.
Community and Taproom Atmosphere
00:57:56
Speaker
Around your tap room. Yeah, and that's awesome to hear and for someone who's only been here for the first time I already feel like I'm ready to come back as soon as possible Yeah, we don't like family day stuff, I mean that's another kind of under a
00:58:16
Speaker
represented a group of people who want to drink beers and they will drink beers at 9am on a Saturday because they can get out of the house. Super cool idea.
00:58:26
Speaker
Well, unless you guys got anything else you want to say, or Brandon, you, Dan, over there, segue guy. We're sad, you guys. That's it. Well, thank you guys for sitting down with us today. We really appreciate it. We had a lot of fun. It was fun to finally come here and drink some more beers. Brandon, love you, man. Love you, too, bud. Dan, welcome back. Thank you. See you in a month. Thanks for having me. And actually, we'll put your website up on this as well. So Midwest Coast here in Chicago. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Thank you.
00:58:59
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 individually on social media. Brandon can be found on Instagram as bmdub81, on Twitter, bdub81, and on Untapped as bdubdrinksbeer. Tony can be found on Instagram and Untapped under Ace of Hope Chicago. On Twitter, The Ace of Hope Chicago. Clark can be found as Clarkowski on all three.
00:59:26
Speaker
Dan can be found on Instagram as hip underscore underscore hops and hip hops on YouTube. 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.