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Episode 140 - Lake Effect Brewing's Taproom Update (feat. Clint Bautz)
73 Plays5 months ago
This week owner of Lake Effect Brewing Company, Clint Bautz joins us again. We get the latest update on their brand new Avondale neighborhood taproom in Chicago. Including a chance for YOU to invest into the brewery (link below). To finish the show we grab an aged BA stout from Lake Effect out of Brandon's cellar.
https://invest.honeycombcredit.com/campaigns/lake-effect-brewing-company
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Outro and break music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Update
00:00:00
Speaker
This week we're joined by Clint Bouts to get an update on the new Lake Effect Taproom. This is episode 140 of The Molting Hour. What's the haps on the hops? Got yeast and species? This the molten hour where we talk about our drink and tell you what we think every other week. And if we get drunk, well, we might slur our speech. 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. When you're getting wasted, the molten hour here. People, people taking places. People, people taking places.
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to The Malting Hour. I am one of your hosts, Tony Bullock, joined always with Brandon Winninger. And we are joined with a special guest who, last time we were discussing, it's probably been, was it three to four years? About three years. That's how long the... Jeez, well, I mean we've we've mentioned him. Well, yeah throughout many episodes the clip bounce is here Lake effect. Hi Clint. Hey guys. Thanks for thanks for having me. Yeah, that's great. Welcome down here. Yeah, welcome back First time we I think we did it in the brewery right before the pandemic that was one literally days before the shutdown Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I think it was was it a Fanny's collaboration, too? Yep
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, we went there, we were at the brewery and the in the back, and after the event was done, we recorded an episode. ah say yeah I'll send you the link to that. see You can revisit that. It's it's very accurate because we're in the back room there. like Did you guys come to the new location? We've not been there yet. No, okay. I do see that the open house is Saturday. Yeah. I do want to stop by. Yeah, sure. it be the of the Saturday after this episode. Yes, after it's already passed, but we can still talk about that. yeah yeah But anyways, Clint, you are the owner and proprietor of Lake Effect Brewing, as we've mentioned before many times here and you've been on the show.
00:01:55
Speaker
um For those who don't know, who are listening, why don't you give us a little brief brief history of of where you guys started and and where you
History of Lake Effect Brewing
00:02:05
Speaker
are now. Because that's really what we're here to do. We're here to catch up with you because some things have changed since we last spoke to you. Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for having me on. and The history of Lake Effect. that's a lot i mean we've been u totally given We've been around for oh maybe like 12 years and we incorporated it in 2011 and our first beers were out to market.
00:02:33
Speaker
In 2012, we found a space in off of Montrose Avenue in like the Irving Park Mayfair area. and we It's a very weird corner. Yeah, it's Irving Park, Mayfair, Portage Park. Jefferson, some people view that, you know, closer than that. Yeah, I mean, depending on who I'm talking to, I'll say, oh, we're your neighborhood, you know, because there's like four, yeah it's like the intersection of four neighborhoods. yeah ah But yeah, just a little space in the back alley. I was basically just taking my home brewing and taking it to the next level at that at that point. So we just needed a ah small space and to hone our craft and to
00:03:21
Speaker
you know, figure out the business essentially. We had good beers. We didn't know very, you know, I didn't know very much about distribution and the business side. So it was a little bit of school hard knocks the first a year or so. But yeah. just cranking out beers in the alley. I walked around the neighborhood with with bottles of our beer giving them to different buyers at the different places. Sidekicks on Montrose was our first account in the neighborhood and you know I worked on them for you know several weeks with just
00:04:02
Speaker
taste this, taste that, and then we've been servicing that account like the whole time. I delivered a keg there for you once. That was one of the deliveries I had to make. Was that one of the hard ones? Yes. There's some steps involved. There's some steps involved, but I survived and so did the keg. right right um I didn't realize that was the like your first. that says ah that is That was the first in then in the neighborhood. Nice. Technically, ah the first one was a country club down like on the far south side. That's random. we have We had a connection there. and
00:04:42
Speaker
ah it wasn't We tried to create a cluster in that area, but it was just such a long drive because we deliver everything ourselves. So after about two years, we stopped going down there. It was just too burdensome. But yeah, we just we first did kegs and then we did bottles. Remember bombers? Yeah. yeah We were part of the bomber craze. we were Kind of missed bombers every now and then. They were they were fun to split. Yeah. yeah I mean, that was that was craft beer. I mean, you could look on the
00:05:17
Speaker
store shelves and it would just be as far as you can see, bombers. And mostly by a few, just a few of us breweries, because there was only maybe about 10 or 15 at the time. And Pipeworks was churning out a ah ah bomber ah probably every week, maybe even two or so. But yeah, so we were part of that. And then and then we started, at you know, everybody started professionalizing a little bit with doing like six packs. So we were doing a six pack, like 12 ounce bottles for a while. And then we got into canning and we've changed sizes in canning, 16 ounce. So we went to back to 12. And so went through all that. We opened a bottle shop in 2016 and that was a game changer. So we got a liquor to go liquor license.
00:06:15
Speaker
And so we had that in the back of an alley, so people were just coming down this this alley. Sometimes it was dark, sometimes it was scary. Come back here, it's fine. We've got to be here. Yeah, but over the years there, I mean, we had thousands of people Coming down that alley and and still this day, people were like, oh, you're the one with the alley. Like I've been to your place. And so, yeah, so we were doing that for a while with the shop and then our lease was coming up and I was looking for a place and we were going to move to this firehouse.
Relocation and New Beginnings
00:06:57
Speaker
and Jefferson Park. We teamed up with a developer and everything looked good but for some reason the city just really like lagged big time and you know it it took almost like five years before that that building was finally sold to the to the developer and by that time my lease was done. I had been 10 years in the back of an alley and so I had to ah had to get and get out of there and so I made a decision to to move to Avondale. and
00:07:37
Speaker
Found a nice small building. It was an old auto shop and in a ah very nice up and coming neighborhood. There's construction area where there's a lot of new restaurants and businesses. So even though the the firehouse was, you know, the hard Jefferson Park. it was It was tough to go, but I just waited so long. And so I think going to Abendell was a ah good move from a location standpoint and and finally to open the taproom. So that was the goal was to get the taproom open. Obviously, you know the most and important part is to you know reopen your business. Yeah, I mean, we we well, we got licensed to sell beer and deliver out to the accounts we were working with.
00:08:26
Speaker
I still don't have the any type of retail license so when we left the alley we had to you know abandon our retail licenses because that is locational based. and so But found this good location and yeah it's ah it's a little bit more expensive to operate there and we we need to do some work to the building. and so My wife and I before doing the brewery we were architects and
00:09:01
Speaker
We did the plans ourselves and we got that that's awesome got the building permits and we did the the plumbing so we could brew beer and and have all the drainage and everything. And yeah now we're at the next step where we're trying to finish the the tap room and get that get that open and and be underway. So to clarify, are you're currently brewing and going out distributing?
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, we we've had that license since last. We moved. We left Montrose in December 2023 and by March. I'm sorry, what was it? December, sorry, December 2022. And by March 2023, we had our state license and we're starting to make beer and distributing it out.
Current Operations and Distribution
00:10:02
Speaker
And most of the places that we distribute it to were a lot of our custom accounts of like the super super dog yeah beers that we make, Morton Arboretum,
00:10:15
Speaker
recess, chip-in. We do a lot of custom labels. and the super All the Super Nog labels are super cool. yeah yeah so Nothing against the other labels, but yeah i just they they really yeah they really i mean they really match up and you know sync up with Superdog it's the super dog theme to it. Yeah, so um yeah that So that's been the bulk of it and then some binnies locations Whole Foods We're on tap at a few bars On the northwest side some in Avondale. Yeah sidekicks as well
00:10:53
Speaker
um yeah it's always always always ah it's It's funny because when we went to Beer Under Glass, my father-in-law dropped me off at the metro station and apparently he looped around and he went down the alley thinking the brewery was still there. And then he was like, when I got back, he was like, what happened to that brewery? I'm like, they need to tell him the whole story. And I was like, And he was like, oh, so they're still around? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he loved, um, the, there was a, uh, a Scottish, um, it smoked? Smoked Scottish. like yeah Was it in the age, in the, I believe. onre yeah Yeah. That was like a weekend event. That was the one, like I brought him to a tasting. Oh yeah, and I was go him with him. Yeah, you were there. And we walked around and he's like, he loved that beer. Like he, like,
00:11:51
Speaker
does not stop talking about that bear. It's like such a love hate. If you later love that bear, they hate it. He like looped around, like, see if it was going to get anything. He's like, what happened? And I was like, I'm like, they're not out of business. He's like, he just relocated. Things will be back. um it's ah It's a washing facility now. So the costume shop, they expanded, actually. Oh, wow. And I'm not sure how they're doing now, but they were, they were expanding and bringing on a lot of people and they had taken on more business, like bought another company, I think, and they needed like a facility in house to wash all their
00:12:34
Speaker
rental stuff Rentals and costumes. and they They do like keep it in-house stuff for movies, mascots, all kinds of stuff. so They just needed that space. and they they gave us mean They told us like a year ahead of time. We had a year to find a place. yeah and so yeah we We started the search. and Avondale we came we needed a ah building that did not have any resonance above or anything like that and we needed like commercial zoning and we needed a location that did not have any liquor moratoriums because to lift or change zonings or lift moratoriums we just didn't have the the luxury or the time to do something like that. yeah And so when you look at a zoning map and and calculate all those requirements, there's really only like five or six places on the north side that meet that criteria. And so I was able to map that and like
00:13:39
Speaker
So it's either like Northwest Highway, there's some stuff up in like Edgewater on Broadway, some properties like that, like near like Chinatown North there. And then, yeah, and Avondale has had a couple of places like that. And yeah, not many other places, so that's why we... Got that spot there. So if you're ever looking to start a business, make sure you have the zoning. Do an alcohol and make sure you know you understand the liquor laws in the area. Another area is Albany Park, and we nearly moved in there. We negotiated it for like four months on a on a building there, and things fell through at the last minute. So Abadale is actually our second choice, but I'm i'm
00:14:31
Speaker
I'm actually happy we ended up there. It's it's a good area. it's nice to wait It's nice when things work out like that. Like you know like said, started at the firehouse and then looked into Albany Park and now end up in Avondale. I remember if it was in the email for the open house or the Facebook event or somewhere online, the sketch of what everything is supposed to look like with the actual brery of what you have. and and Oh yeah, like the renderings? Yeah, the renderings. I mean we were we were excited at the beginning when you know you're moving to the firehouse because finally have a tap room for Lake Effect to go and hang out and so you know seeing more development of it like so the renderings I'm even more excited to to check it out.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, the renderings, I love getting mileage out of that. my My wife and I, mainly my wife, put put those together. And yeah, they're they're pretty cool. And you know um we'll have those printed really big at our open house. And you can see ah them in the video on our crowdfunding page. the videographer did a really good job of like showing the existing and then kind of flashing to what it would look like in the future. oh cool yeah I thought that was really cool. That guy did that. He did the whole thing in like an hour. That's insane. i mean He was there for 45 minutes and recording stuff and you know the voice overs and all that. and then
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah, he flew the drone around and then he left and by the time I got home like an hour later There was already the file was already there. So that's crazy. Okay, that's that's yeah some serious if I getting in town with to say if i If I hired somebody and 45 they're like 45 minutes are done. I'm like, are you sure? that's Yeah, it was like so good. Okay. Yeah, I didn't make any changes yeah So let's talk about that. So yeah you're in the space you you're brewing you're distributing um So the next step is the honeycomb.
Fundraising with Honeycomb
00:16:44
Speaker
yeah isn Well, the next step is the taproom. But along with the taproom, you have a honeycomb fundraiser. So let's talk a little bit more about that.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, so doing construction in the city of Chicago is like really expensive. No, something's expensive in Chicago? Crazy. And it takes a long time. And so even though we saved some money doing the architectural drawings ourselves, it took about six months to get the drawings to the point where we could submit them. and then it spent a long time in review and the city was very slow but we also have like a team of people too like we have our our engineer and you know we just had a kind of and and the contractors and we had to get everybody on board so everything we did just seemed to take a lot longer than we thought and
00:17:44
Speaker
You know, for instance, just like finding a contractor,
00:17:50
Speaker
you know, we need, we you want to get a few bids, right? So sometimes just getting those bids based on our permit drawings, it would like, it would take two or three months just to get some numbers in that we can, because we have no, I mean, we had an idea how much it would cost, but we had no idea how these numbers would come. So we did get five bids and then edit in the end. And one was like so crazy expensive that I just like, we just laughed. Like we're like, this is stupid. But we had some others that were like,
00:18:32
Speaker
in our price range that we could raise. But yeah, it just took us so long going through. We had some rent abatement, but then you know, the wholesale business, you know, delivering to people's houses, or sorry, not to houses, del delivering to people, to bars and restaurants. For a small producer, it's not lucrative at all. In fact, you you if you don't have the retail components, such as your bottle shop and tours and
00:19:03
Speaker
and the people drinking on site, ah you're going to start going negative. And so that was something that we were we were seeing. We really needed those other streams of revenue and then compounded with the length of time to get through permits and to get the construction. you know, the contractors all together, it just about a year and a half went by. yeah And so we're just like, so all the money that we had to do the construction, you know, was starting to get get sucked away. So that's the reality of it. So yeah, we need to...
00:19:42
Speaker
figure out how to to raise more money. So we're doing a few things. One is we applied to a lot of grants. And we applied for a grant in August of last year with the city of Chicago that's called a the recovery grant. And there's like 500 people signed up for it. we we It has to be a shovel-ready project, and it has to meet a lot of different requirements, and we ended up qualifying for it and ultimately winning it. That's awesome. So what that grant does, it pays up to 75% of all construction costs that are qualified. so So we have that in the bag.
00:20:34
Speaker
Which is good. But the thing is, they don't just write you a check at the beginning and say, oh yeah, you know. You gotta do everything first? Yeah, you gotta do everything first. And so, so in a lot of respects, we're really just looking for some bridge funding just to get to that and and gonna able build a trigger of reimbursements back. So that was one thing we did. So we can check that box. And then the other thing is we do have some startup costs.
00:21:06
Speaker
Like the grant doesn't cover everything. You know, you need point of sale, you need you know your TV, you need your furniture, you know, different types of like exit, like fire extinguishers don't count the sign outside that that's not covered. Wow. So that that's another. You would think something like that would be covered because it's like it's mandatory. It's like a fire extinguisher. Like, OK. Yeah, it has to be something like built like part of the Building that can't be taken away. I guess that makes sense. So I think it does But I think that explanation I'm not saying it makes sense Yeah, so there's another like few tens of thousands of dollars there that we need to
00:21:56
Speaker
to to raise there. so so enter Now, we've looked at some loans and the thing with the loans right now is the interest rates are so high. so I was just going to say that's probably the worst time to hit to take a loan. Yeah. The loans are essentially would be like doing the whole project on a credit card and that's how the the rates are. so That is very difficult. I know other small business owners that are having issues with that as well. So we went to this platform called Honeycomb and I have a friend who has a pizza business in Florida. She did it and raised $85,000 and now she's open and doing her thing. Another brewery Temperance sp Brewing just did one and they were the first ones we we heard about because it was right after we talked to them.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, they were successful with it as well. And so what those are, there're what they did was they, what people do is they they see your plan. So everything's, they do like, there's a video and what you're trying to do and they see your plan and then they can donate or not donate, they're investing actually. and I was going to say, isn't that the big like the big Difference between some of these like yeah finding and things like that like you're actually investing into the business exactly so that what they have was like a loan so you're investing and then you're you're supposed to get the principal paid back plus a little bit of interest and the Payment terms are very generous. They give you a long time to do it and
00:23:35
Speaker
And so it's it's manageable. The interest rate is it's pretty decent. It's usually it's around 10%. And you have ah a pretty long payback. And then they have a second one, which is called equity raise. And so that is you're actually buying shares of those companies. And then when the company is stable and doing well, then you get distributions ah based on the performance of the company and how much, how many shares that you have of the company. So we did that route because
00:24:14
Speaker
our company already has a structure with shares so we were able just to set aside some shares that could be sold on cool on that platform. And so what Honeycomb does is they create this financial vehicle that allows just anybody to invest into their vehicle. So those are what you call unaccredited investors. So if you invest in the stock market, you anybody can do that because you're they've done their IPO and their you know they're they're official you know vehicles.
00:24:55
Speaker
So anybody can can invest in that as low as $100. As much as you want and and own the shares no limit on how much as far as how high you want to go We're trying to get well. Yeah, I mean the the maximum is a hundred and fifteen thousand so that's like a hundred and fifteen thousand units now Yeah, we have like a million units, so it's about eleven so I'm gonna part with the equity of like eleven and
00:25:27
Speaker
11.5% if we reach that and that seems to be a ah reasonable number and and yeah and and then someone from that honeycomb group will sit as the Honeycomb will be the accredited investor that is part of the the company. So anyway, so anyway we've never known this before. It's a fairly new product that they're doing. They've done about 10 or 15 of them. There was a brewery called Voodoo Brewing that did one and they raised like, I don't know, $400,000 or something. Wow. so That's pretty impressive. so Yeah, so anyway, we we said, well, why not? let's Let's give it a try. I was looking at like some of the other crowdfunding platforms and I just felt like this was better because we're actually giving you like, you're actually taking part in it and and being part of the
00:26:30
Speaker
the company and the journey and we're not just you know asking for... I mean, there's a time and a place I think to use those types of yeah outlets and those ah you know sites and and platforms like you say to to to raise money. you know It's not like a short term thing, which I think you still could have got something, but I think that this Approach is probably more appealing to people. Yeah, especially hope so I mean especially like if they were just gonna give me the money that do that that's all right i know yeah Yeah, I just i think it I think it's it's more appealing because like you said, you know You get a chance you're investing into it and becoming you know a part of it like exactly It's not just oh, here's my money and I can write off as a tax deduction and we've wanted to do something like this For a while. I think there were some laws that change that allowed
00:27:19
Speaker
companies like Honeycomb to exist and you know ah when you have the accredited investors First of all, you're by state law, you're only allowed, I forget how many it is, a certain amount on to invest in your company. so You can't take small investments like that. it's it's you you We need larger chunks of money. It just makes sense to do that. sure so A lot of times um when we we're talking to people, you know they just
00:27:56
Speaker
they were always under like the minimum that they could invest or they just can only do like 1000 or 500 or whatever. So this ah at least allows that. And that's that's what we're seeing people coming into the campaign. They're coming in and amounts like 250, 500, 1000. So you're seeing you're seeing that and and those are adding up to to something. So that's what we're trying to do. 50,000 is the minimum. If we get above 50,000, we get to use the money. Nice. And then 115, that's the top. And ideally, the higher up we are, the better. Yeah, of course. Because then we can use that to...
00:28:42
Speaker
as the bridge to trigger the reimbursements from the city and then the reimbursements from the city we can take and fold it back into some of the operating and startup expenses. ah So that's that's really interesting and that's it's cool to know that there's companies like that out there to not only just you know help another company raised money, so to speak, but yeah to help you invest into it. We'll put the link in the episode description and so that everybody knows where to go. And when we come back, we're gonna drink an older Link Effect beer that Brandon's been holding onto into his cellar.
00:29:27
Speaker
And we're back!
Tasting and Beer Memories
00:29:28
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. i Hope you enjoyed that ad. I forgot to do the whole 20-minute thing. That's all right. That's one ad. We're still sitting here with Clint from Lake Effect and Brandon has busted out a beer. When did you think, when is this from? I don't know, is there a date in here? I don't think it means the date was canned. It was in-house. I didn't even say 2021 maybe. Yeah, probably. That sounds about right. Yeah. So you've had this in your cellar, correct? Correct. What are we drinking? Imperial Beels of Breath, bourbon barrel aged Imperial Stout with chocolate and chilies.
00:30:05
Speaker
clocking in at 13% ABV. Wow. I like... for just and I'm feeling like I just couldn't complete a full sentence there. I just took a first sip. It's sweeter than I thought it was gonna be. I like that. ah There is a warming, yeah i'm i'm sometimes I'm sensitive because I think I have an acid reflux, I probably should go to the doctor and talk about it. But there's a warming that I'm not sure if it's, I don't think it's booze, I think it might actually be chili because it's not really spicy. I got it too. yeah I don't know if it's booze or chili but it's not like off putting, it's not like oh I'm uncomfortable, it's like a warming drink. Nice, nice. Yeah, um'm I'm eating this. sub
00:30:48
Speaker
this ah hot pepper beef jerky right now. You can give this one a try as well. Smaller pieces. But I felt like i I was feeling that warming even through that so yeah there there's a little bit there. Chili beers are are tough ones because you know you want to you don't want to blow people away with the chili flavor but you want to have it just enough where people get it, yeah and but one one of the beers, we'll try a little bit, I think has a nice balance of that, but yeah, it's nice that this has the warming and it's not gonna overpower you with that flavor. yeah And it is sweet, yes yeah, it's much sweeter than I thought. I was gonna say, I haven't had this does go well with any other jerky tonight.
00:31:37
Speaker
um It goes well with it, but there's there's the the spice is still coming through. No, I don't need any right now. Come on But the I feel like still comes through like Even like if you're calling this a three-year-old beer like that's what I was gonna say for it being aged. It's at least Two right at least have to be two years old 2022 would be the Very latest but now because that was when yeah, that was everything was wrapping up. Yeah over there. So I'm you probably You probably have finished doing all whatever barely just things yet. So and it's got to be at least three years old two or three years old Yeah, cuz we were trying to finish all the barrels at the end and I
00:32:23
Speaker
By the time we made it, we had no barrels, so it and that was 2022, so I think this is 2021. Oh yeah, I could really feel it, yeah, that. But yeah, was I was just saying during the, like it it is is a little thin just because of the type of yeast we use. We use like a high-powered Yeast that just it chews through everything and So it it does drink thin, but it's very strong at alcohol. Yes, and That's 13% right? yeah Yeah. Yeah, so we switched up we were using another Yeast before that didn't attenuate as much and so it left a lot more residual
00:33:08
Speaker
Body and sweetness in it and yeah, and it has to be 2021 because in 2022 We switched back to that use and the 22 ones are are thick just yeah we werere talking you're back to that like sort of that thickness, that viscous viscosity yeah that people people like. So this is for the person that wants to like pound it and go just as drunk possible. you you You know who you are. like You know who those people are. They yeah we know they buy it. They come in and they buy beer based on how high alcohol it is. yeah This one is um one's for you guys probably good for you. yeah
00:33:48
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's, it's funny drinking this with the jerky because this does pair really nicely. It almost makes me feel like I'm not drinking a barely stout as much as I'm drinking maybe like a sweet liquor of some sort. is very like But that's when you take that away though, you're just having it. it You do get like some chocolateyness in there. Like you can smell chocolate on there too. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's there. Brandon, I'm glad we saved this and we didn't just randomly drink it. Don't you still have a one of the Fanny's collaborations too, later on somewhere? I thought we'd drink it. You might be right. I always just think you have one of something else, just one more left, because you've had one more left for so long. Don't you still have one more King Henry left from Goose Island? Nope. I wish I did. So do I. That was great.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah like I'm impressed with how well this drinks and I mean I was not thinking that it was gonna be a ah bad beer but i'm I'm impressed with like just talking to you about like how you expected the body to be and everything else like it it holds up and it's yeah the flavors are all there yeah and i'm getting the spice and like i said i'm not i you're not partaking in the i'm not eating the jerky um i've eaten enough of that jerky um i'm gonna show this at work tomorrow um make them sweat in the hot but there's like literally like there's a subtle spice there's chocolate there's barrel there's
00:35:19
Speaker
everything you would want in a beer. like i'm I'm impressed. I'm glad this held up as well as it did. I'm bummed when this happens when you age a beer or you sit there for a while and you're like, oh wow, this is really good. But you only had one because it's hit or miss if you're aging beers. I don't really like. We've talked about this. You know, you should probably drink them fresh. Brandon has somebody that we can't drink them fresh. Yeah. Got a closet full of back over there. So many beers. You need a secret thumbprint. Mine are his to get inside. But it's a shame because it would be nice to have one more of these. Yeah. So if you guys have this lying around in your cellar, let us know. I'll have to look and see when I might.
00:35:59
Speaker
That's like, I feel like I saw... What do you got laying around? ah yeah I have the only beers I have... Actually, I was gonna ask this one. I have some wild ales that... Any of those scotch beers? None of those, but yeah, I have a lot of the wild ales, like the school of brats. Oh yeah. Those are... I have a collection of that at home. I like i mean like trying these like after a few years, but I really like trying the wilds too. I feel like they they evolve like as much as as these in a lot of ways. I think I remember one. It was maybe a year or two ago or something. I sent you a text that
00:36:42
Speaker
My brother Law and I opened up one of those like wine bottle or the, I forgot, this is the 375 milliliters when Pamplemousse was in that. Oh yeah. Original like label, the grapefruit label in it. Yeah. And it helped up great. Yeah. He was really good. That was, that's actually one of my, that's one of my favorite lake effect beers of all time. The Pamplemousse is just really tasty. I like that one, yeah. Falcon Dive is there too, but Pamplemousse is, that's pretty solid. Yeah, someone recently sent me an email with a picture of a one of our first wild ales from so many years ago. it was We call it VL Blonde. Yeah. And I remember we it was the first beer we... I think it was the first and next to last beer that we used wax on. Never again. We overdid it. The wax was like so hard to get off.
00:37:39
Speaker
and And so i he said he was going to pop it open. and I said, well, good luck getting getting through all that wax. It's a whole box of crayola crayons in there. I stopped doing the wax after a while. It was it was a phase for a lot of breweries. We're doing it for like a couple of years there. I mean, it looks, it definitely looks yeah cool. It's definitely a key ring. Yeah. Yeah. If I would say like an anniversary beer would be fun or like a special collaboration. But to just do it, to do it, it's kind of like, eh. We thought about our, I don't know if Brandon, you had ever thought of it, but brother-in-law Mike and I definitely had thought about, let's, you know, we should, for a homebrew, let's do, dip some of these and in the wax. I'm glad we never did it, because that would have just been... so but I mean, there's a trick to it. I mean, you gotta... Sure.
00:38:28
Speaker
You just got to you know make sure the last consistency is is right and it's not too thick. and you know that was hey We just cannot get those things off. It was such a great idea but it was such a disaster. so i i've I have a couple questions because I know a little bit I mean anybody who's been to your original location knows what kind of setup you had there in the back which I always thought was kind of fun because you said you know you went from homebrew to stepping up taking it to the next level and it literally was I mean I've ah ah
00:39:06
Speaker
It's been awesome to be there for brew days. I've helped mash out and then dump it into the fucking garbage can. That was fun. ah But also I've been there for bottling when you did the fernet stout. Yeah. I think I was done doing deliveries and I came back. It was like one o'clock. I think Eric was working there at the time and you had like I don't know, it was like seven. cause they they I don't think they were big bottles, where but they were bigger bottles. Maybe they might have, I don't know if they were bombers. I don't know. I can't remember size the size of the bottle, but it was ah like a seven or five to seven fill fill bottle filler. Oh yeah, four. we had four yeah Yeah, four Yeah, four head. That was the most fun and also stressful I've ever had filling beers because some would fill faster than the others.
00:39:53
Speaker
And it just seemed like you guys were able to like, you figured out how to to do that. I have to assume then the new facility, you're maybe stepping away from things like that. Well, I mean, bottling in general, but yeah. Yeah. but Like, i I mean, like more of the. ah homemade type. More automated. yeah Yeah, I mean every brewery and sometimes I help out other breweries and like i every now and then I'll go or to Illuminate Brewing and and help them with with canning.
00:40:31
Speaker
And they they have that same set up, that same machine. Yeah, actually. They don't, yeah obviously no one uses that anymore, but but said all the breweries had this little, and and we all, like, we built ours. And yeah, I think I have three of them. And for different size, you know, the 750, and then we got the 12 ounce ones. And then we had an adjustable one that we could do for all of them. And so, uh, yeah, I mean, we could do quite a lot on them. Uh, but yeah, I mean, you won't see that. Um, we have our, we do have a manual seamer, you know, that you can use for, for crawlers and, uh, and cans. And so we don't have a really big, like nice machine or anything for that. But when I'm really trying to do with the tap room,
00:41:24
Speaker
is I like to sell most of our beer in the taproom.
Focus on Taproom Experience
00:41:29
Speaker
I like sending beer out. I like you know i do like selling kegs and and cans and things like that, but it's it's something that balances the the activities in the taproom and the margins in the taproom are much better for for what we're doing. so the Being a small wholesaler and selling in the market, we're just too small to really make any profit off off of that. You really have to have an economy of scale to to really make that work and the distribution network. and We tried that for a while. and
00:42:14
Speaker
You know, it's just, it's tough, you know, we we need millions and millions and millions of dollars to really yeah do it right. And that's just something that just, I guess it'd be cool and everything, but it just just doesn't really, it doesn't really interest me. And what we've tried with it, it just doesn't but doesn't really yield any any major returns, does it say other than like marketing. It doesn't necessarily rule it out from the future, but it's probably best to just Focus on in-house stuff. Anyways, I mean, this is what you've been working towards when you were ready to have like yeah Yeah, I mean we would definitely send beers out Yeah as a way to sort of balance it but never as like a big move to be like Oh, we're gonna go big. We're gonna be in all these states and stuff. Like I just think that's
00:43:05
Speaker
I think that time is has really passed for river, and maybe it will come back again, but yeah, we're locating in a very busy neighborhood and a very big city. Yeah, there's a lot over there. I had another question about the taproom. I know originally when you were talking about the firehouse, there was an idea to have a kitchen. Now is that a thing you guys are going to have at the new taproom, or is it going to be a place where people can like bring food in possibly? Yeah so no kitchen there because at the location is it's too small for that but we have restaurants all over the place. There's one right across the street that we've been talking to where we could have menu items and people could actually order them and like just gather the the food just magically appears and I see that in a lot of tap rooms that visit it and so we're looking at doing
00:44:03
Speaker
doing something like that. In our plans we do have a ah space where a food truck can pop up and do that. So yeah we would be looking at a lot of pop-ups. That's cool. And like maybe on the weekends have some sort of you know like a lot of breweries do that. Yeah. ah Like I'll go over to Temperance and theyll oh yeah they'll have different food trucks or you know only on certain days you know because I think it's important to have and and we'll have some snacks that you can buy and in in our plans we do have like a space where we can put it like a little pizza oven oh cool as well and yeah so but yeah having a full-fledged kitchen
00:44:45
Speaker
We were talking about doing it at the firehouse. That was really a request from someone. and We really didn't want to do it. Fair enough. but yeah i mean yeah I just want to stick to the beer. yeah and That's what I know that kitchen would just give me a crazy headache. Yeah. Well, that's a whole nother. Yeah ah It's a whole nother side of it's another business. You know, not only are you you know You're focused on brewing and you know making beer and selling beer then all of a sudden It's like doing that and I'm running a restaurant and managing a restaurant and getting or getting someone to manage a restaurant Oh, yeah within you know the walls of your your brewery my nightmare like that I wake up cold sweat as
00:45:31
Speaker
me like somehow in the kitchen like cooking things. Like like complaining about their stuffed mushrooms or whatever that they're not well done or whatever. was that Just losing my mind and like just like running out of the place like. I do have another question. Now we just drank one of your barrel aged beers and we were talking about the wild beers. Is there going to be barrel aged things happening in the new tap room?
Special Release Plans
00:46:02
Speaker
There will be, but it's going to be scaled back. So like special release at tap room only type of deal, obviously. Cause I know you were talking about maybe not cutting back on the distribution specifically and focusing on the tap room. Yeah. The tap room, we don't have a lot of room for barrels, but we have some walls that we can put barrels on. Like back in the day, I used to have over a hundred barrels and the other room there. Yeah. I've got pictures. I've got pictures of the bedroom. We went big on barrels and
00:46:32
Speaker
That was cool for a little while. But that seemed to have been a bit of a trend or maybe there was too much of it out in the market. So, um, you mean too much barely to bear in Chicago. That's crazy. Yeah. There's a lot out there. Like you, you see, like, yeah, I remember, you know, Goose Island, uh, you know, bourbon County, like people clamoring over that. And then now it's like, there's still stacks of it. Like all over the city is Vinny has had a sale still has a sale going on last year. So, so, I mean, it's not, um,
00:47:12
Speaker
So we would have some for the taproom and we would just kind of gauge it based on how interested people are in it. And I also think the interest in people drinking barrel aged beers has gone down quite a bit. and I think it's. Yeah, they're they're big, crazy beers, you know. there's a Oh, we, Aggie's here, she's finally made it. yeah But yeah, we'll have we'll have a ah wall dedicated to it, and we'll probably be doing a lot of smaller barrels, like 30 gallon barrels, and that way we can do like different varieties and different sort of...
00:47:50
Speaker
takes on it cool and Explore like different options because we talked about you know, the the Scotch barrel then you know, the scotch bird yeah yeah I mean like you said love it or love it or hate it, but still I mean, that's a fun Small batch, you know if you get your hands on something like that and still be able to like, you know Try other things rum tequila and you've you've pretty much as far as I know you pretty much done everything. I'm pretty much done every barrel and And I learned, I mean, yeah, it was a fun. You know, I was learning not only about like what kind of flavors I can get from the beer, but I also was learning a lot about the spirits.
00:48:30
Speaker
themselves and you know trying different types like Madera wine and sounds a job Sherry. and yeah I made it made it my job. you know and I went to Scotland one year yeah and learned all about Scotch and visited Bunch of distilleries jeez, you know, what was you back in the days? that was awesome but is I want to go back there so bad and drink more Scott But yeah, I mean I would love to have all that and and if the interest in barrel aging, you know comes back The nice thing is this date has made it very easy to
00:49:19
Speaker
to to deal with the barrel aging. They have a like ah very cheap permit that you can get you can move your barrels to a warehouse. or like a lot of many different places. So even if we don't have the space you can go in the actual location, yeah, we can go to a warehouse down the street or if somebody has... i was a sam I'm sure there's some other ways you might have space for you too if you needed it. We just need a couple of barrels here. Actually, we're talking about restaurants there. I'm pretty sure there's, I don't know if i these it's, I don't think it's Korean barbecue, but as an Asian restaurant that I've been to where like you make your own stuff at the table,
00:49:58
Speaker
And it's not too far, I think, from where you're at. Like in Logan Square, probably? Yeah, probably closer over there. But that place was really good. I was thinking that would be a nice stop. Go there and then go to you. Brandon and I have talked about it a bunch. We're we're really excited to finally be able to sit with you in your tavern. Once everything's open, we'll we'll come there and and hang out and have a couple beers. And we'll we'll talk to you again so you can you know catch up. Indeed. Yeah there's a lot of good places around there. There's like the Avondale Bowl which was about a block from us. Really cool bowling alley that was restored in all its glory. It's it's beautiful and there they had this amazing bar. Fun fact, I i was talking to Garrett at Pipeworks and he was saying that that was one of the locations that they were
00:50:50
Speaker
thinking of moving to or having their taproom and very interesting like they were like really serious about it at one time and but yeah there's like so there's like a really great Polish restaurant Star Polska we have an awesome cafe across the street that roasts their own beans So like our intersection is would be like one of the best smelling intersections in that area. And there's just so much more coming. There's like a new restaurant Warlord, which is like, there's a line out the door every night that they're open. Like people camp out and stuff for it. It doesn't have any, there's no social media presence. There's no sign. It's just this,
00:51:36
Speaker
building and this facade and you'll see the lineup of people. They cook everything like on the wood fires. That's cool. It's pretty neat. Very interested. There's no reservations so you just show up and try and get in the first seating but their kitchen is open until like 2am. Oh that's cool. That's how I got in. I had to win at midnight. There was still a little bit of a wait.
Mention of Sleeping Village
00:52:04
Speaker
So there's a lot going on there. Sleeping Village is another great beer list but a really good concert venue. I've yet to go to Sleeping Village for a show. Yeah. The beer list there is fantastic. The beer buyer
00:52:20
Speaker
was he used to be ah beer the beer buyer over at Map Room and so he kind of brought his expertise in there. That makes sense. Yeah, he's got all kinds of good stuff over there. Like really rare and hard to find beers. Nice. Well, we're super excited. Thanks again for joining us yeah and sharing an update. It's nice to you know It's one thing to read things on social media and emails and everything. It's also nice to hear it from you know the person who's been living through it. um And we will post the the honeycomb link, like I said, for this of this episode and share it. And yeah, we look we look forward to drinking some more Lake Effect beers and and having ah having a beer with you in the taproom soon, man.
00:53:02
Speaker
Sounds great. Can't wait to have you guys. Brandon, you want to go on? No. No, I appreciate it. And I got a cat with me now. Brandon, hello everybody. Love you too, man. We'll see you guys next week. Cheers. wait
00:53:17
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. Dan can be found on Instagram as hip underscore underscore hops and to 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 Multing Hour.