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Episode 102 - Howard Street Brewing (feat. Chuck Patella)
128 Plays2 years ago
This week we sit down with Chuck Patella of Howard Street Brewing to learn about the most northern Chicago brewery in Rogers Park.
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Break and outro music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Introduction of Chuck Petella and Howard Street Brewing
00:00:17
Speaker
This week we sit down with Chuck Petella of Howard Street Brewing. This is episode 102 of The Malting Hour.
00:00:24
Speaker
What's the haps on the hops? Guy, ease that speech. This the moat now 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. The way you're getting wasted. The moat and I would hear people, people taking places. People, people taking places. People, people taking places.
00:00:52
Speaker
Welcome to the Malting Hour. I am one of your hosts, Tony Golic. Join always with... Brandon Wininger. And to my right, Danny Pollard. Hey, Dan. How you doing? Doing well. How are you? Nice. It was fun driving in with you. Yes. Made me stop and get you a breakfast sandwich. I did. It was delicious. Hey, Brandon. How are you doing, buddy? Good, man. How are you? Pretty good. Well, we are here. Where are we? We're not in Evanston. I'm Rogers Park.
00:01:15
Speaker
I probably should have woken up a little bit more before I did this, but we are... Maybe you should have gotten coffee at Nunka Dona. I drink coffee on the way here, but here we are now on our first beer of the day. We're here at Rogers Park and we are joined with... I am Chuck Patella from Howard Street Brewing Company. We are sitting in Howard Street Brewing. Thank you for allowing us to come in today and wanting to be on the show. We appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. We're excited about coming out here. You and I met
00:01:45
Speaker
This is going to be another thank you to my buddy Joe or our friend Joe Steigerwald who works for Crush by Giants and Dry Hop and Corridor. He needed a volunteer or some volunteers to help pour beer at the Friday night flights.
00:02:05
Speaker
And I volunteered, came out there, it was a great time. And Chuck, that's where I met you, man. You was towards the end of the night. Yeah. That was feeling pretty good. Yeah, we were getting into some beers by that point, for sure. It was fun. And we got to talking and learned a little bit about you
Chuck's Brewing Journey and Howard Street's Inception
00:02:23
Speaker
then. But why don't you give us the story about you and Howard Street and how it came to be. Sure. So I was an avid home brewer for,
00:02:33
Speaker
10 to 15 years I'd say, somewhere in there. So we're really all started. I used to go to Rock Bottom after work. A lot of stories start with Rock Bottom. Me and this English guy would go over to Rock Bottom and we would spend way too much time there.
00:02:50
Speaker
because our building was right across the street. So that's really kind of what got me into craft beer. And then he wound up having a place in Michigan, so we would do all these trips. So we would start at Rock Bottom, we'd go down to Flossmoor Station, then we would go to Three Floyds, then we would stop at Shoreline, then we would go to his cabin.
00:03:10
Speaker
And then we would go to Kalamazoo. Oh, wow. And like, just make a weekend out of the whole thing. That's a very similar. It all just starts at rock bottom. It's very, so are the other, uh, Michigan. That's a, that's similar to what, uh, one of the other hosts, Clark and I do, he's, he's got a cabin or a home up there in, in Michigan. And he and I will do a trip like that. These guys are going to experience the summer coming up because I'll tell you guys after my off, off mic.
00:03:42
Speaker
And that's where we get murdered. What part of Michigan? St. Joe's. Yeah. Oh, that's such a great little town. That's awesome. Well, because you mentioned Shoreline and my wife and I, we stayed in Michigan City for our anniversary two years ago. Everybody thought I was going to murder her because I felt like this secluded Airbnb.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like, in the woods. And it was awesome. It was a very nice place. I didn't murder her. It's good. Yeah, it's great. But we stopped at Shoreline. And one of the things I really like about Shoreline, I throw it out there. They are fried pickles. It's a giant fried pickle spear. And I had a barely aged beer that was also very good there. But anyway, sorry. I have been there, too. Oh, really? Yeah. Because my cousin has a cabin in...
00:04:26
Speaker
Michigan and they're in South Haven? Yeah. Everyone's got cabins in Michigan. Not me, but I wish. One day. You know somebody. I have a malting hour cabin. You want to help us set up the new malting hour studios? We'll set up a one barrel system in there and just rock it out.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, so, you know, I eventually just started going to more invertebrates and reading all the books and doing all the stuff. I would, you know, I try to get
00:05:02
Speaker
into the back rooms of all the breweries that I made it to every time I could and just really studied the craft real hard. And then eventually decided that I was going to do this and I haven't looked back. Nice. That's good. Yeah. Well, when do you guys, when do you guys officially open
Challenges in Launching Howard Street Brewing
00:05:20
Speaker
up? We opened
00:05:22
Speaker
Memorial Day weekend of 2022 this year. So we've been open for about six months. And I know you guys, this has been in the planning for a while. So when did you like get the ball rolling with it? We filed our LLC in 2019. Like, it took forever. There was a lot of construction issues.
00:05:39
Speaker
One of our investors, he'll never listen to this, one of our investors chose terrible people to work on this place. And it was exhausting. During one of the inspections, the electrician came in and was like, you're going to have a fire. And I'll pass you, but just know that it's real crap. And I was like, all right, we'll fix a few things.
00:05:58
Speaker
Nobody wants a fire. No, no, it's not what I want at all. And, you know, just getting everything built out and we built a lot of this ourselves, like we built this whole bar ourselves and the sign.
00:06:12
Speaker
The main just we had a fire wall issue and like things were just terrible for a while But we got through it, you know, it just took a long time You guys you guys have a sign over here. Thank you for everyone who supported a crowdfunding crowdfunding campaign It looks like there's a lot of names. So it seems like you got a lot of backing from the community and everything
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, we did. I think we had about 80 people that donated to us. So the factory theater, the reason that I'm here in this location is my wife is the co-artistic for the factory, co-artistic director for the factory theater next door. Nice. And she actually is writing a play that's going up in February, which we're all really excited about. But here, I used to bring my homebrews over there, and then eventually the kegs just started being empty.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I was like, well, maybe there's a market here for this kind of thing. And it's worked out great.
Community Support and Crowdfunding Success
00:07:06
Speaker
So we're actually connected through that back hallway. So we can actually give people plastic cups and they can go see the show. And then it's just like beer for the beer for the play. So yeah, we raised about ten thousand dollars through that campaign.
00:07:21
Speaker
And they all went to that all went to our fermenter. So we have five SS brew tech fermenters down in the basement. Oh, nice. Yeah, I was gonna ask where because I walking in and I'm like, wow, it's that's not a lot of space. Where is everything? Yeah, the brew kettle, like the brew house is up here and the bright tanks are right there. And then we have the walk in. But most of the stuff happens downstairs in the dark dingy basement.
00:07:47
Speaker
Oh, just like most Homer. Yeah. Not much has changed. Which I think that's what you and I, we talked about that at the Friday Night Flights. I don't remember what beer it was that I had there. It was an IPA. I think it was the Rogers Proud. Yeah, because I think I was like, you know, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. It reminds me of zombie dust a bit. And you had said that it was like pretty much the same like hop profile and it was kind of an inspiration, especially
00:08:14
Speaker
with home brewing that that beer was kind of, and now when you mentioned your stories of going up to Michigan and stopping at three points. It was a pale ale or an IPA? Well, I mean, it was a pale ale. Okay. That was more of a zombie dust joke, sir. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, I think Gumball Head actually was the beer that
00:08:34
Speaker
really opened up. Yeah, that's what we talked about as well. Just that hot profile was just amazing to me at that time. Those beers, I mean, still have a very special place in my heart. Granted, they are now more readily available, which I think is cool.
00:08:49
Speaker
But man, there's a lot of beer out there right now,
Exploring Howard Street's Beer Offerings
00:08:52
Speaker
so. Yeah. So we're drinking, what are we all drinking here? I'll start with what I'm having. I'm drinking a cat named Poodle, which as you have said is named after your cat named Poodle. Correct. It's a fantastic IPA by the way. Nice. Thank you very much. What house did you use? Citruc and Mosaic. Yeah, there we go. That was the first time we've been open for six months.
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, we have an IPA where we're using mostly like Centennial and Cascade and Amarillo, but
00:09:24
Speaker
This is the first time we did the Citro Mosaic. Because it was time. Nice. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, like with the other IPA that you're talking about using, you know, Centennial and Amarillo, those are like, you know, classic. The old-school hops. Yeah, old-school hops there. Which is funny because I remember when I'm home brewing, when I discovered Amarillo, I was like everything I was going to do, like an Amarillo Pale Ale, you know, IPA, just all Amarillo.
00:09:47
Speaker
My brother-in-law, I think, did an Amarillo wheat beer called an Amarillo Slim or something like that. It was very good. This is a nice... Dan had said, you know, it looks like it's malty and it is. There's a nice sweetness to it. I like the hot profile in here, man. It's really tasty. Nice, thank you very much. Dan?
00:10:09
Speaker
I have the Stick'em Up alt beer, and it is also very delicious. I told Tony as soon as I smelled it, it smells like a brewery. I just love the malt smell of it. It's very good. I get a little bit of a fruit character on it, which I don't know if it's like the yeast. I think that's from the yeast, yeah. I think because the alt beer is fermented,
00:10:32
Speaker
a little lower than normal ale temperatures. So I feel like the yeast did something there to bring out that. Yeah. And it's very subtle. It's very good. I don't mean to say it's overpowering with it, but I do love just the smell of it and the taste of it. I love all beer, so it's a good one. Nice. Thank you. I dip my nose in this beer. I smell it. Yeah, it smells like a brew day.
00:10:54
Speaker
You know, like when the work is done, it's really good. I'm going to try some dance when he's not looking. Brandon, what are you sipping on? I am drinking the Pale Moonlight Belgian Strong. It's an advert. We're not doing ads right now. I'll take it. So my advertising, what do you want to do? I don't think we're recording at the time. I had mentioned so at the end of every year we do our own little award ceremony.
00:11:24
Speaker
where we kind of talk about our favorite beers of the year. It's called the Maltese. I had a resolution. We all come up with like, what's your beer resolution for the new year? And this year was to drink more Belgians. And this kind of hits all the notes that I like in Belgian beers. Getting like, it's not so much banana. It's like, it's in there, but
00:11:49
Speaker
the maltiness and there's like some clove and there's some, um, what's that other, like, I'm like, I can't remember the word I was thinking. It is just so everybody knows it's, this is like 10 45, 11 o'clock in the morning. We're all, we're all getting Sunday morning. Everyone's a little foggy. I mean, but regardless, I mean, for,
00:12:10
Speaker
I love Belgian beers and this is perfect for what I like. It is like when we did, we peeked in when we were outside at the, what you have on tap here and you cover a wide variety of styles and there's no repeats.
00:12:29
Speaker
which is nice. Yeah, it's nice not to see like five IPAs. Yeah, five hazy IPAs. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's, that's a focus. And I think, I think we take a little bit of a hit for that, honestly. Sure. I can see that. But, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to just brew a bunch of the same beer. Like, I don't want to do that. It's fun. Right? Yeah. I mean, that it just gets old and stale. And I mean, for the brewer, I would say that's so much, I mean, you know, there's an audience for IPAs everywhere, but like,
00:13:00
Speaker
If I walk into a place and it's all IPAs, I'm less likely to stick around longer and drink something. Right. I mean, I could see if there was like, you have two IPAs. You have the IPA and a hazy IPA. I feel like that should be enough. When we were at Double Clutch in Evanston, we were talking about what their hazy, cute little hazy coop or whatever. Yeah. I thought maybe the bear. Their one hazy IPA that they made because they were,
00:13:28
Speaker
I forget the story, but it was like, gotta have a hazy eye. More or less he felt strong armed. And it's funny because in the description it says hazy IPA and all their other beers, being German styles, there's like these full long descriptions. It's so funny.
00:13:44
Speaker
But it is one of the beers that they sell a lot of. Even though they are their primary focus and they won awards for their German styles, they had to have it. So, I mean, you do have, I mean, having two IPAs, one being a regular, one being a hazy, it should be enough. But I mean, you got a Pills, just Saison, and you're drinking the Ras Berliner, salt beer, ESB beer, the Belgian Strong. Vienna. Oh yeah, Vienna. Oh, I missed, how did I miss that?
00:14:12
Speaker
to the top. That's why. Oh, because I saw Aerys's pedestrian. Yeah, and then we always have a, we don't make cider here. I'm not even going to pretend like I know how to do that. So, you know, we always have an Aerys cider on tap, whether it's a pedestrian or the GG or something, because they're amazing. And now it makes, as I say, now it makes, oh, we were supposed to go.
00:14:34
Speaker
We didn't. Now it makes sense why Harris would be here as we spoke about where we all live. So now it's pretty far out for Harris. Like, I'll have them out here. How is the Berliner that you're having? You're having a Berliner. Tell us about that. Yeah. So this was our first beer that we added fruit puree to, which we were super excited to try and figure out. And it's worked out great.
00:14:57
Speaker
We've only done, this was also the first time that we added lactobacillus outside, because we're on such a small one-dural system. When we would do our mango sour, we would actually buy probiotic from Whole Foods. There you go. So a mango probiotic. So I made my sour, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still the home-reel here. Yeah, right? I like that a lot. But that is not cost-effective. No.
00:15:24
Speaker
You know, we, I tried to talk to that company and see if they could do like a bulk order of all that stuff. And they were like, no, we don't do that. I was like, okay, well, time to adult a little bit. Put on my big boy broom pants. And so we added the lacto and then.
00:15:41
Speaker
It's soured real nice and then we just added like a pail of raspberry fruit puree. It's a beautiful color. It's pretty, it tastes amazing. It's like a Sour Patch Kid in your mouth. I'm gonna have to have a sample of that. And it's only like 3.8% like it's nice and easy. That's the best thing about Berliners, you know? Great flavor and low alcohol. You can drink those all day, maybe like on a hot summer day when you're sitting in your yard, you know?
00:16:09
Speaker
No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the official multi-hour cabin beer. We better get started on this cabin. We're investing a lot into this just in this one episode.
Community Feedback and Engagement
00:16:25
Speaker
So with the community here and like sort of what sells the most for you guys, like what kind of response have you guys seen for
00:16:33
Speaker
It's been awesome. So we are, you know, Peckish Peak is right up the road, but they are in Evanston. So we really are the most northern brewery in Chicago. And this neighborhood is was desperate for something like this. There was a restaurant up the street, like a few doors down that that tried to do something like this.
00:16:54
Speaker
I don't think they were beer focused enough and that model didn't really work for them. Very nice people. But my focus here was really to hire incredibly smart bartenders that know exactly what they're doing and how to help people understand beer more. That was a big focus for me. Because I think when you're running a brewery, there's a lot of people that come in that don't know anything about it.
00:17:17
Speaker
that we have, who has now become a regular, that only drank Mama Light with a shot of whiskey. And now he comes here and he tries all the beers and he comes here like twice a week and he loves it so much. That's great. And it was just like seeing that sort of conversion and him really appreciating. Yeah, it was really cool. So the neighborhood response has been awesome.
00:17:38
Speaker
What sold the most recently is our Dark Link Stout. It's gone, because we're out of one barrel. We actually just brewed it at Sketchbook on their seven barrel. So we have 7.4 barrels of that going over there, because it sold super fast. My kids sold out really quickly. It's funny to know that a stout is what was going for you. It's been a little chilly. It's that time of year. Yeah, it's true.
00:18:07
Speaker
Not really getting to talk to anybody who's recently opened a brewery. What is it like trying to find people to work? You mentioned that you were trying to find good bartenders and do their stuff. How do you go about that? Are you posting on job lists?
00:18:23
Speaker
is our head bartender and she works most days that were open. She came in, she was at Tapville Social in Evanston and she just came in one day and I put something on culinary agents and she saw it and she came in and like
00:18:41
Speaker
it was a match immediately she had the pilsner and she was like i would love to work here that's awesome i was like all right great that's awesome uh and then there's you you i mean you have to pay your people what they're worth too i think that's a huge yes part of it and we don't have
00:18:56
Speaker
turnover, you know, we've only been here for six months, but nobody's left yet. And I think that's something. Yeah, that's because I firmly believe that, you know, you have to pay people what they're worth and what they deserve. And that I think that's the industry is missing that in some places. And I think that's why there's a lot of turnover.
00:19:15
Speaker
Everywhere I feel like that's kind of getting missed and I feel like Not to get you know into politics, and I'm not I'll get it. I'll talk about whatever you want. But you know I do think that we're seeing more of that obviously in all sorts of industries where Pay is being you know
00:19:37
Speaker
Needs to come up more to what people are doing and people need to be paid for what they're doing and instead of it just being like well This is what you're getting offered because that's what I'm giving right, you know, right you paid for what you're worth then yeah, it's cool to hear it does so it feels yeah, no, we're like the social hour, but it's like like a Generational absolutely. Yeah, it is it is instead of accepting just what you're being handed. It's
00:20:03
Speaker
asking for and requiring what you deserve. And that's how it should be. And I work, so I have a full-time job in the tech industry because this place isn't quite there yet.
Values in Employment and Work Environment
00:20:14
Speaker
But the technology culture I think is
00:20:21
Speaker
You have to be good to people and you have to pay people well or you won't be able to hire anyone. So I think coming from that culture has been really beneficial for me to understand how I want to run this place. I want that open culture. I want everybody friendly. I just want a super healthy work environment. And I think the tech industry has to do that or they'll fail.
00:20:46
Speaker
I'm in the manufacturing industry and that is something that I can say that my actual job is doing that and it's awesome to see. It's a family owned business that is somewhat bigger but it's nice to be a part of a company that recognizes that. It needs to happen in every industry and it's cool that you're implementing that here in your own business while
00:21:11
Speaker
you know, wanting it for your other job. Way to go on two jobs, by the way. Overrunning a business. And two kids. Oh yeah, that too. That's another job as well. It's cool. I want you to sleep. Yeah, I was going to say, when do you sleep? Do you ever take a break? No, I don't. There's always something to do. That's awesome. But I make sure to like,
00:21:31
Speaker
You know, I make sure to go play football outside with my son and play video games with my daughter. I definitely try to make time for my wife, but it's just hard. It's a good thing to have a good team around you so you feel comfortable delegating things.
00:21:46
Speaker
that type of thing to open yourself up that way. Yeah. I was talking to somebody last night and they were like, you're not there. Like you're letting, you're not watching. I'm like, no. I hired the right people. I hired the right people. So I don't have to worry about it. They're incredible. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. And that's a good feeling. And plus, like you said, your wife is next door as well, right? So do you guys get a chance to see each other often because of that? Well, he's a full time job.
00:22:09
Speaker
I'm just saying. Well, we both work from home, so we see each other all day. Yeah. Dan, in your face. Usually if she's here, I have to be home, though, because of the kids. Yeah. Because we have an 11-year-old and a 7-year-old, so. They can watch themselves. They're fine. Not my daughter. No, no, no. She's a hot mess. My son would be fine.
00:22:33
Speaker
She fell down the stairs yesterday. She's just a disaster. Wow, good for her. Is she the 11 or the 7? She's the 7-year-old. She's amazing. She sounds like a little badass. I mean, fine. Yeah. When we had our first one, people were like, this is not normal. Eugene is such a perfect, amazing child. And everybody's like, that's not. That's not usually what happens. And then we found out with Georgia that, oh, yes, here we go. There it is.
00:23:01
Speaker
Well, I think we're probably at the halfway point. Gotta be pretty close. My eternal clock is telling me so. So we're gonna take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about the future and what else is going on here.
00:25:01
Speaker
And we're back! That was a good segue there, Brandon. I'm glad you thought of that. Because I did forget that we are in a place that is going to be open up and doing business soon.
00:25:18
Speaker
Sorry. I want to make sure that you're done. That was sketchbook. We're going over there to push water around today to get more familiar with this. Let me touch your water. Are you guys going to the Evanston or the Skokie? Evanston.
00:25:33
Speaker
So they let us, we're renting out the seven barrel brew house from them. Oh, nice. So we can start our distribution network. Cool. Yeah, which is a good segue. Yeah. Dan, why don't you go ahead. Well, no, go ahead. No, no, please. So you guys are going to be distributing. So obviously now we know you're going to be brewing out a sketchbook.
Expansion Plans: Distribution of Flagship Beers
00:25:57
Speaker
And what's the plan? Are you thinking like cans, bottles? You guys have your lineup set?
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, we have our flagships that we know that we're going to be doing over there. We have six beers that we're going to be doing over there. We're going to be doing the Dark Link Stout, the Rogers Proud Pale, the Red Ride PA, Red Ride Redemption. Yeah, I know exactly what that is. I got that reference. I'm almost done with the game. Nice. The prologue. I had to stop. Again, I don't have time for anything fun anymore.
00:26:20
Speaker
That game though, I mean, side note here, totally nerdy. I was part of a dad gaming group on Facebook. That's amazing. It's very supportive of dance playing video games. I love it. It's the most positive group I've ever been a part of. It's less toxic than any beer group I've ever been a part of. No one shits on anybody for anything. But someone had posted about finally gonna start Red Dead and I was like, congratulations on losing all of your free time because it really is like
00:26:45
Speaker
A time sucker in the best way. It's a great game. Yeah. Yeah. I started playing, um, what's the Dark Souls style game? Uh, yes. I know a game. Valhalla or Valheim. It's a fucking difficult game. Yeah. I played that game for three hours and I realized what it was going to be. And I was like, nope, I cannot do this. See you in five years. Destiny and Destiny 2 were my, this is all I do for a living.
00:27:11
Speaker
Well, that was why I was able to play Madden, and I'm not even a huge Madden fan, but I realized it was a game that's easy to get into and be like, okay, I played a football game, I can stop. The same thing with the NHL games. Like, oh, I can start a season, I can come back two years from now, and I can just pick up the season. Wait, sorry, you were talking about your flagship years? I'll talk about video games all day long. That's another podcast.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, so darkling for I just proud Snappy come back and better late than never and This is what happens Larry. So nice. That's gonna be our
00:27:49
Speaker
our distribution beers. We're starting with Dark Link that we brewed that there on Thursday, so that's fermenting nicely from what I hear. I haven't been over there yet. We'll see you today. Real quick, I'm gonna get nerdy. Sorry, one more. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you gonna say what I'm gonna say? I just put together what the Stout's name is as being Dark Link, sorry. Oh, that's not? No, that's not, but the Dark Link is Legend of Zelda. It is. Reference. I need to let my brother-in-law know that, Mike.
00:28:13
Speaker
because his son has just fallen in love with the Zelda games. Because they're amazing. I'm probably going to get a switch at some point sometime in my later life. Breath of the Wild, I played it with my son. It was amazing, dude. It was so much fun. I was abounding, okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to fire up my Nintendo when I get home and put in my original Nintendo.
00:28:31
Speaker
I have the SNES. Get on my power glove. Oh, yeah. I do have a power glove. I've got the SNES classic, and I still play A Link to the Past. I'm in the middle of the best Zelda game. Best Zelda game. So coming back to the beer, I think. But this is going on the naming thing. This is what happens, Larry.
00:28:49
Speaker
Is this a reference? It's a movie reference. It is? Yes. OK. Do you guys know the movie? No. The Big Lebowski. Ah, that makes sense. This is what happens, Larry, when you fuck it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or when they do it on TV, it's find a stranger in the Alps. Oh. This is what happens, Larry, when you find a stranger in the Alps. Well, I have a hard time of not relating something when I see Larry to Larry David. So right away, my brain was like,
00:29:17
Speaker
See, I thought you were going to go leisure suit Larry. I also thought about that. I also thought about that. I'm in full circle. Over and over again. This is great. Sorry, Dan. I know. It's from, like, 86. It's OK. I know the leisure suit Larry thing. The Sierra games were the whole important part of my life. King's Quest. So much fun. Oh, god.
00:29:40
Speaker
You guys want to take a break? So okay, so Dark Link, I'm sorry, obviously that's so is there like are they so obviously there's an order to what's coming out Dark Link gonna be where we started with Dark Link because there's no dry hopping and we wanted to just
00:29:57
Speaker
Get it out and see what that does. And that's the one that's also been selling the most right now. So we do have it. We did distribute six dolls to our public house and to Jarvis Square Tavern, which are local Roger Park bars. So they did buy a couple of things. They actually have our English IPA keeper.
00:30:18
Speaker
On tap now, and we're out of it here, so I can't wait oh wow to go over there and drink it again nice really good So you guys are self destroying that yeah, we're gonna do self distro for a while until I collapse That was how I got the job at like in fact I was delivering beer to like binnies and other places all day long I would start at like
00:30:40
Speaker
at nine o'clock in the morning and come back to the brewery close to like three or four. And if there was a, like I said, the bottling day, it was like I was done at 12, but oh man, good luck. Good luck. Yeah. I don't even know how I'm going to do it with the job. Like I'm going to be taking meetings in a car, like in a van, right? Like I'll be doing my meetings from the van. Perfect. It'll be fine. So yeah, we're going to start with kegs and bars and we're going to see what we can do here. And in Evanston, we're going to try to capture this little area and see if we can distribute those kegs.
00:31:08
Speaker
I do have a few friends that work at a few bars so we're going to be okay to start and we'll figure out how to grow it and see what happens. Next after that would be canning for sure.
00:31:24
Speaker
at the Evanston location? So, yeah. So basically, I mean, at Skokie, they just bought Giant. Like, they bought a 20 barrel and... That Skokie location is so awesome. ...a new everything and, like, it's amazing. I haven't been there yet, but I know it. Really? The one we went to? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's... We're there for... We were there a couple times. We were there for Mike's birthday. Mike's birthday. And then I went there for Oktoberfest this year, which is... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. And they had a ton of bands and, like, that space is awesome. Yeah, it's so cool. And they... Food people, like, I'd say food trucks, but...
00:31:53
Speaker
They actually just have pop-ups inside the bar. Yeah, the rotating kitchen. Yeah, rotating kitchen, exactly. And for Oktoberfest, they had stuff outside from, I forget the name of it, but they have some deli hot dog place. It was really good. Nice. Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, so they do. There is a disassembled canning line over there at the Evanston location. And they, I do have a labeler in one of the rooms too. So I was talking to Caesar about that and, you know, maybe renting that from them or doing mobile canning for a little while. Yeah. You know, I don't know. Yeah, like when that time comes. Yeah. It's exciting. Yeah.
00:32:33
Speaker
Caesar's an awesome guy. He's amazing. He's someone else I met through doing beer festivals. Yeah. Well, he recently got voted on to the. Yeah. I saw that. Super cool. Yeah. Yeah. I met when sketchbook first open. I actually have one of their original like small tap handles. It was like just a circle that they made and they had left.
00:32:54
Speaker
This festival and that was still there and I was like well, I'm not gonna leave it here There's like there's not even a threading inside. It's just what this Lily just twisted on It's like eating away the wood and I just I left it cuz I'm like, that's a piece of like, you know It's got the old logo on it. Yeah, super cool. Yeah, so I before I moved to Portage Park I lived in Andersonville. So like when sketchbook opened that was like
00:33:13
Speaker
the closest craft delivery at the time. It was like another one that closed for, it was like something to do with dogs, I can't remember, but it's like, it was open for a short time. Their hazy IPA was the first hazy IPA I think that I tried, that I was like, oh shit, I like hazy IPAs. What the fuck, what's the name of that? Something about low clearance or something? Yeah, something about, yeah. Low clearance, I think is what it's called. It's very good. Yeah. Their beers are awesome. Their beers are awesome and they are, they really are amazing people. So they came in here,
00:33:44
Speaker
The weekend we opened. They all came over. I was going to ask, a lot of the stories that we've heard
00:33:50
Speaker
Well, mainly, I mean, throughout the whole Chicagoland area. But with Double Clutch, they had a lot of support from Temperance, and they had support from Sketchbook, and guys like that. So how was it for you guys, like you were saying, when you opened up Sketchbook Canyon? Everybody, you know, we've had some people from Alarmist in here, some people from Goose Island. Like, everybody is just so incredibly nice. Hopefully not Gary. What's up? Hopefully not Gary. Oh, no, no, we haven't had Gary come in. Yeah, people talking in.
00:34:18
Speaker
Hey, JW. What's up? Oh, yeah, we're just doing a little podcast. You're fine. No, you're totally fine. Welcome. Hey, what's up? Nice to meet you. Come on in. You're fine. I'm going to leave this in. You're here. Now you have to talk. JW, everybody. Everybody. JW. Hey, JW. Go pack up. This is one of the awesome bartenders that we have. Shut up, Dan. That shows up in his Packers gear on Sunday. And I actually really respect it. Good job on the win last week.
00:34:49
Speaker
So yeah, the community has been so amazingly
00:34:55
Speaker
helpful and responsive. Basically, we're getting a master's level course on how to scale up to a seven barrel. Because he knows everything that he did wrong. And he's helping us just scale our recipes and use the system and teach us everything. And we're brewing with Eric, who used to brew at Haymarket. He's the head brewer over there. And everybody has just been so friendly. Dan over there is awesome. He comes in every now and again. It's been great.
00:35:22
Speaker
that's awesome it's a good good experience to have you know friends in the in the game and i think that's what you know out of all the years of home brewing and then going to events and like hanging out with brewers and stuff like everybody's just always so helpful and friendly it's it's an incredible
00:35:41
Speaker
industry like it's just how willing people are to help and talk and hang out and do podcasts and talk about beer like it's such a fun that's one of the things that sort of drew me into craft beer when i started getting into it because it just seemed like it was such like a communal group so it was like every i mean it was like so great to hear the stories about oh yeah this brewery is opening like let's invite them to teach them something or like in your case
00:36:04
Speaker
to upscale and use their system. So it's like, it's the cool community. So yes. Are you saying that you found out that if you drink, people will be your friend? Yes. So questions.
Strategic Positioning in Chicago's Brewing Scene
00:36:19
Speaker
So based on the location, you're the northernmost brewery in Chicago, where literally, Evanston is across the street.
00:36:27
Speaker
What was, you know, you had the idea to do this, was this always the area that you were looking into or was it, you know, did you look into other places? Yeah, so we actually, I was going for a much grander place, right? Like I was trying to do something that would have been around like $500,000 to a million dollars. Couldn't get the funding for it, because it turns out they don't want to just give money to like people who work in tech. Wait, what?
00:36:57
Speaker
Um, so, you know, uh, there was a place I've always looked like north for sure. Um, because there's no breweries up here, really. Yeah. Uh, you have Evanston, but like even Edgewater doesn't have a brewery and there's some great bars in Edgewater like Bearden Valley. Yeah. Which is, which is surprising. Like you'd feel like at this point now, how many breweries we have in Chicago, the Chicagoland area.
00:37:19
Speaker
There would be one just about every neighborhood right right and i think that's where it's getting to yeah like i think it's going that direction especially with the closures that have been kind of happening around the industry which totally sucks. You know i think we're in a really good position to start as small as we are and then try to build the brand around.
00:37:41
Speaker
what we're, where we're going. It feels like you have to do it that way, like grassroots sort of growing. That's what I was gonna say, like this, I love the size of this place and I don't know how to describe it to anybody listening. It's 37, we got 37 seats, right? It's small, but like in the best way possible where it's like, you could fill this place up and
00:38:07
Speaker
But it's still comfortable. And I feel like this, if I, right now, if I were to start a brewery, this is the size that I would want. And I want to go this route, because I feel like, number one, it's the safest. No, right? Right? You don't have to buy enough more, you can chew. But I mean, again, going back to how many beers you guys have on tap, location, you're right by the Howard stop. Yeah. That's a red line for you folks.
00:38:31
Speaker
What folks what are you talking about the folks that don't live here? They don't even know what the other color lines would be then man Okay, what so well do you know what this place was before I think it was a real estate office I mean there was there was a drop ceiling on that half this wall wasn't there yet The Peru wall with the windows wasn't there
00:38:52
Speaker
We had to finish out this wall. Obviously, the bar wasn't here. The biggest problem we had was that pole. We were like, how do you deal with a pole in the middle of a room? And the architect was a genius. Like, it's perfect. The bar is connected to it, yeah. This is good.
00:39:08
Speaker
Um, and also like the thing that I love most about this taproom is this bar and how complete strangers wind up being friends when they leave because you're, you're forced to engage. I mean, it's a small place and it's not like a big long bar where you could get away with like, you know, you can sit on your phone and there's times where I've been at a bar by myself.
00:39:28
Speaker
because I'm lonely now I'm joking if I was waiting for somebody and like it's easy to just pull out your phone and just sit there but here it would almost be like a little awkward like Dan even though I know you and I don't like you but if say we didn't know each other
00:39:41
Speaker
And we sat here and I sat down here and you were there, I would most likely because of how, it would be awkward for me not to talk to you. It is a nice like social kind of making of a social situation. All you have to do is bring up Star Wars and people are talking for three hours. Oh shit, this is my bar.
00:39:59
Speaker
Everybody starts debating and like talk we had a whole thing about like if we were gonna cast a female Indiana Jones like who would that be? Question I was a big fan of Scarlett Johansson. I think she would do a great job as Indiana. I could see that It's time for Harrison Ford to wrap it up though. Yeah. Yeah, that guy's old I mean they aged like it looks like it's gonna be the aged for like 90% of the new film and
00:40:17
Speaker
And why do we need a new Indiana Jones film? Stop the aging people and stop making Indiana Jones films. I'm with you. Just watch the old one. I think Chuck and I are becoming best friends. And you've been replaced. That was a quick jump from Star Wars to Indiana Jones. I'm Team Star Trek.
00:40:36
Speaker
So like my one Star Trek story The one day like I couldn't so I used to do marketing for Fisherman's that was up in Jeff Park. Yeah, it was a bar and I had helped them market an event and I had to be out of town for it and Will Wheaton showed up and was drinking at Fisherman's I was like son of a bitch one time I couldn't be there and I'm not a huge start Star Trek fan, but
00:41:01
Speaker
Well Wheaton fan though. I'm a huge Stand By Me fan. That's one of those, I've seen that movie a hundred times. Yeah, who hasn't? Dan probably hasn't. I've never seen it. He's 19 years old. We were recording an episode. He's not really 19, he's definitely 21. He's definitely in his 30s. We were recording an episode a couple weeks ago and we were running, oh it's during Halloween and we were like
00:41:27
Speaker
I had, I put a TV over my bar where we record and I was starting to play all these Halloween movies. Don't play that yet. I haven't seen it. It was like Gremlins. And I was like, don't play this yet. I haven't seen that. I'm like, these are every fucking classic horror movie. And he's like, it's on my list to watch. I'm like, you got to get watching, man, because we're going to start watching things here. It's also Christmas time. It's movie time. Have you seen a Christmas story? Yeah.
00:41:49
Speaker
Okay, sure. Hey, Jay, can you just hold off on the water? Are you sure? By the way, one time, you'll have to come by the multi studios, which is in Jefferson. Is that in the cabin? Tony just inviting people to Brandon's house. I do. That's what I do. I mean, but
00:42:09
Speaker
Chuck, I feel like would fit in there. I would absolutely love to hang out. Sit in the bar there, man. We'll have to brew something, and then we'll have to come by and hang out there. That sounds great. I have a question about, so what are you looking at for, by the time this comes out,
Future Aspirations and Self-Distribution Understanding
00:42:25
Speaker
it's January. This is January 2023. New Year's resolutions has been made. You obviously have distribution coming up. What else are you looking forward to for the future of Howard Street here?
00:42:38
Speaker
Collecting a salary would be really cool. That'd be cool. Good luck with that. I heard that's a fun thing to wish for every year. No, I think I am so excited to see what we do and where we go. I mean, I don't know. You can stare at numbers and you can write your business plans and you can do all the things, but until you're out in the field implementing what you're doing, it's
00:43:03
Speaker
You just don't know. So I think I'm just super excited. We got this place running, right? Like this has been running for six months. It runs really well. The beers are coming out great. Super excited about that. I think the next six months are really going to be about understanding how to be a self distributor. Sure. Like figure that out.
00:43:21
Speaker
So I'm just staring at it. He's putting candles into those jars. I was looking at those jars. I'm like, what are those jars for? Putting candles on. And now I'm like, what are those candles? Because I'm sure my wife would want those. The chargeable candles. This place is cool. Wait until he turns them on. That's the best part. Does he snap and then they all turn on? Oh, it's a button.
00:43:44
Speaker
And they flicker. This is the first time we've done a podcast over candlelight. So looking around, I see you guys do open mic nights, board game nights, trivia night, and that you have a membership program. So what's the membership program involved? Is there anything that you guys do here?
00:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's super easy. You can get 6 to 24 growlers depending on the tier. So there's the seller, the brewer, the brewmaster, and the quality controller. And each one has varied discounts. We're not like, you have to get one growler. We're not sticking to any sort of rule.
00:44:25
Speaker
We ask that nobody just get six growlers out the gate, you know? I'm here for my six growlers. Yeah, like, no. But everybody's been really cool. I think we're almost at 10 members now, you know, and we're building a brand and we're slowly building it up. But every every day somebody signs up, it's a huge win for us. That's really cool to hear that, like you specifically said, like you're up to 10 people. Like it's nice to know like how
00:44:49
Speaker
in touch you are with like everything that's going on here like you said like you can't be here all the time but you saw that like you guys are obviously very very new and it's it's fun there's been a couple breweries that we've had the opportunity to come to like as they've been newer so it's been it's been fun hanging out and talking to you about this and I really like the spot man the beers are good the curmudgeonly Carl Vienna is a winner nice I love it thank you so much really good Vienna beer and I did enjoy the Cezanne
00:45:16
Speaker
Nice. I'm still not sold on Cezanne's, but it was delicious. Nice. Dan's going to have to help me get back into liking Cezanne's. There's a spice to Cezanne's. So Scratch is probably not going to be on your list of favorite breweries to go to. Probably not. Yeah, it's on my list. I've never been there. I've been down there. So my wife's family is from down there. And they took me there last summer. It's awesome. I want to go. So it's in like Ava, Illinois, which is like southern Illinois. What's that, Murfreesboro? Oh, Scratch. Yeah.
00:45:43
Speaker
The only reason I know about scratch brewing is Michael from Hopleaf, like loves the hell out of them. And so much so that him and his wife drive down there to pick up their kegs so they can tap it at the bar. Wow. And he's posted pictures. I'm like, that looks like just such a chill spot that like.
00:46:01
Speaker
very rustic it's in the middle of the woods like yeah literally just in the middle of the woods and it's this this like the tap room is almost like a cabin and you know their brew house next time we go camping we'll go down there they forage for a lot of their ingredients yeah they harvest everything from the lamp right why aren't you working on i need well i need to get down there so i actually got to see them speak and try a bunch of their beers because they did this like stein series where they brew things
00:46:27
Speaker
In like a kettle, but then they throw like hot stones in hmm Yeah, it's like an old like I think Norwegian something like that The beer temple, but it was like it was so good kind of caramelizes the sugars. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I've seen like what like like box Yeah, what I was gonna say is how far I don't know if you said it already How far is that place from Springfield?
00:46:52
Speaker
Oh, so you go to Springfield. Oh, it's it's it's a good little ways. Yeah. I mean, it's like how many hours from here? He goes just like five and a half to say he goes to Springfield pretty regularly. So my question was like, hey, take a little extra trip, a little extra trip from Springfield. I mean, as a family who live in Southern Illinois, that's about six hours away. So yeah, I mean, probably go there. Yeah. I mean, it's on the list of like.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah. All right. We'll do that. That place is incredible. We'll let you know. They're making cool beer. I'll go down there. Don't they do like bread and stuff? You don't have free time. Right. You work from the car. You work from the car. I was supposed to go for Christmas and I haven't figured out how to do that yet, so.
00:47:32
Speaker
Well, Chuck, thanks a lot, man, for inviting us here. This is awesome. And everybody in, especially in the Chicagoland area and surrounding, come over here to Howard Street. It's awesome. Nice little place, good beers. Wait, real quick, Dan, what beers did you end up, Dan ended up getting a fucking whole flight here because he's not driving, lucky him. So, yeah, they do flights. I did, so originally I did the Alt beer and then I did the ESB, the Vienna, the Saison, and the Belgian Strong.
00:48:01
Speaker
Do you have a favorite? I mean, it's not saying one's better than the other, but you personally have a favorite. He's sipping everything at once, not giving a chance to this palette to be fun. I think the Saison is my favorite on that list.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah, the Cezanne is like a good like yeasty Cezanne. I'm still thinking like the alt beer might be my favorite of the bunch. And I really like the Vienna. Like Tony said. Vienna is awesome. And I said this off mic, but I
00:48:33
Speaker
I throw it up there with Dovetail's Vienna Lager, which is fucking delicious. Yeah, super good. And I love the color on it. Yeah. That's just, I mean, Vienna Lager is what made me realize that I like lagers, because not all lagers have to be light and crisp and fruity. Right. It's fantastic. Right. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. And we'll probably come harass you and maybe come brew a malting hour beer with you, man. I think that'd be amazing. We'll get set up and get it done. We'll do it. That'll be a lot of fun. You guys got anything else you want to say?
00:49:04
Speaker
No, but I do want to ask if you can throw out where people can find you. So the address and... Oh, yeah. Brandon's really good at that. I'm like, go find him, guys. Howard Street, we're out of here. Good luck. There's an internet place. Google. Go down Howard a half a mile before you hit the lake. If you hit the lake, you've gone too far. I forget that this show is supposed to supplement just having to Google something. We'll give you all the information here.
00:49:28
Speaker
So you can follow us on the socials at Howard Street Brewing.
Where to Find Howard Street Brewing
00:49:32
Speaker
So whether that be Instagram or Facebook, we're on there as Howard Street Brewing. We are located at 1617 West Howard Street, which is just like two blocks east of the Red Line. You can take the train here, everybody. Red Line. We're right off the Red Line. Or off the Yellow Line. Yeah, and our website is harrodsstreetbrewing.com. And we have all of our updated beers are on that website. Any events that we have coming up and all that stuff.
00:49:57
Speaker
Awesome. Well, we look forward to drinking more of your beer and continue success to you. This is awesome. And you're a nice addition to what is already a thriving Chicago beer scene. And we wish nothing but the best for you, man. Nice. We look forward to you helping us build that multi-hour cabin. I can't wait. It's going to be great. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Brandon, love you, man. Love you too, bud. Dan? You fucking lush. Thank you.
00:50:29
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.
00:50:56
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.