ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ

Jeff York  0:14  
Welcome to Creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights. I'm your host, Research Director of the Deming center at the LEED School of Business at the ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ, Jeff York. And I'm joined as always, by my co host,

Brad Werner  0:29  
Brad Warner. Jeff, it's nice to see you. I'm the I'm the faculty director at the Deming center. But really, I still have they still have me on. Yeah, but you know that I'm an entrepreneur. Really looking forward to talk it today. We haven't been together in a while. No,

Jeff York  0:46  
not since last night. So we were I mean, he may not Mike right. Yeah. And Mike. Yeah, so we, we last night, we had the finals of the New Venture Challenge, which is the campus wide entrepreneurship competition at CU ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. I'm really excited because the First and Second place went to teams that came through my class last year. And then fourth place went to a team I currently have going this year. So so there's teams are if you check them out, they all have websites and all that good stuff. And they might even have Instagram, they're very hip young people. Can biotics is one that's robota sizing chemical experiments to make them 16 times faster. vitro 3d, which is amazing new 3d technology, 3d printing technology to do currently dental implants, but there's a lot of different things they could do. And then Burke, who are a young yerba monta company, and then one other one, one People's Choice, their name tissue form, and they are doing 3d printing of human tissue for drug testing. So you know, easy things I completely understand all of the science behind, but it was a good night for us. Great. You also had

Brad Werner  1:57  
a bunch of teams there. But the cool thing about it was, it's for two years, the last two years. It's been online. Yeah, it was over 1000 people show up last night where they really Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. We were you and I were hanging out in the balcony.

Jeff York  2:12  
Yeah, we were doing our Muppet Show routine, where we sit in the balcony and like nobody knows what the hell.

Brad Werner  2:21  
Anyway, anyway, it was a good event. What was the what was the grand prize?

Jeff York  2:24  
I think it was $45,000.

Brad Werner  2:26  
So is the grand prize going down? It started I think first time I saw it was 200 grand. And now let's see oh, I think it peaked

Jeff York  2:32  
like the first place prize. I think 200 grand was given away but the first place prize was 100 grand. I believe that was the peak year 100k. Total was given out last night. But you know, I don't I'm not a fundraiser, man. I don't know. But if you're out there listening and you're a particularly wealthy person who values entrepreneurship, then first of all, you'll want to, you know, invest in some bots to do reviews of this podcast on every possible platform to make sure it gets really high ratings. And then the second thing you could do is contribute in the New Venture Challenge. It really is a worthy cause. A great night and really exciting. Yeah, so here we are. We are at Franklin Garth brewery in lovely ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ, Colorado, frequent Garf. I'm super excited to be here. We have two guests. Today, we have Dan Garfinkel. He's the founder and CEO of Franklin Garf. I've been a huge fan of this beer for a very long time. Ever since I discovered it. I instantly buy anything I see in the store that comes out for them. I bring people from out of town out here. I just love the brewery. I love the space. I love the brand. And we'll let dental work. And we also have our special winner of a our first inaugural prize of winning a spot on the podcast. I will let you introduce yourself, sir.

Dan  3:52  
I'm Griffin balm. I'm a second year MBA students in the Leeds be Leeds School of Business.

Jeff York  3:57  
So yeah, tell us grip. How did you come to be on the podcast today?

Dan  4:01  
Yeah, so the Leeds School does a fundraiser every year where they're fundraising for scholarships for I believe under privileged, sort of scholarship funds underprivileged students. Yeah, underrepresented, underrepresented population. The right word. Yeah. And so there's

Jeff York  4:19  
me on the podcast and ever I always have the exact right word. Yeah.

Dan  4:25  
So there's a fundraiser every year and at the fundraiser. There was a sort of a silent auction to get onto the podcast. I think I did. I think I was the second bid, though. So there was a minimum. There was a minimum bid and then I went ahead and at the very last I figured what the hell I could win.

Jeff York  4:44  
Wow, you really know how to build up. Thank you. A really interesting background like Why were you particularly interested in being on a podcast about beer? Yeah, so beverages, entrepreneurial reason urgent action plans

Brad Werner  5:01  
that dropped but secondarily

Jeff York  5:02  
about beer.

Dan  5:05  
Yeah, well, I mean, the fun part about being out here and fingerling Garf. This is actually the first and only state side brewery that I've ever worked in. Dan, you may remember this. Yeah, way back in the day long time ago, I worked on the canning line, I would help do some camping out here. You know, did

Unknown Speaker  5:19  
you know that the podcast was here when you sign when you did the auction?

Dan  5:23  
No, they let me choose. And I recommended it.

Unknown Speaker  5:27  
That's okay. Full Circle. Yeah.

Jeff York  5:29  
Oh, good.

Dan  5:30  
And then actually, with all of the, the deep knowledge that I learned working the canning line, I went down and moved to Chile in 2017, and opened a brewery of our own. And it was it started in the like, sort of the second floor of a pizzeria. Tiny little place, plastic fermenters. You know, nothing, nothing fancy at all. Yeah. And then, by the time I left, we were the sixth largest craft brewer in in the country. So

Brad Werner  6:00  
that's awesome. That's awesome. And also, Dan, you're here. So Dan is the co founder, owner of Finkel and Garth, Dan. Yeah. Tell us your story. Well, we were Griffin. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  6:11  
Yeah, I think actually, I think you might have been a volunteer.

Dan  6:14  
I got paid, I got paid. I got paid in low film.

Brad Werner  6:21  
So how did what? How did you get into the beer business?

Unknown Speaker  6:25  
That's a great question. So well, well, I am all those things you said I am very much. I have a partner, which is my father. Actually, prior to last year, my brother was involved in the business as well, which is actually how I know Griffin and how he ended up coming in here and helping us out. But I started I was in New York City, living there. And I was in the tech world. And then my dad and I found ourselves hanging out and breweries around boulder quite a bit. And we just loved what we were seeing, loved everything that was going on about it. And rightly, we said, this looks like a lot of fun. Then we started looking at the landscape and what was happening in the beer world. And we thought that there was an opportunity to present consumers with a product like ours, which is approachable. We tell you exactly what the beer is on the can on the label. We wanted to be in this world, and what's better than being behind the bar and having some come in and drink your beer or being at a liquor store and somebody picks up a six pack. And it's a lot of fun. You know, the business as a whole. So when did you start? We started July 2014.

Brad Werner  7:31  
Okay, great, because but ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ is a crowded market as well, though, too,

Unknown Speaker  7:34  
is definitely Absolutely it's a crowded market. And there's a lot of really great breweries. Yeah. There's a lot of great breweries in the state as a whole. This definitely competitive, but it keeps us all on our toes. As competition increases, and everybody's pushing kind of the envelope of what beer is and what you need to do to stay relevant that it forces you know, the tide rises, or lifts all boats, right. Yeah,

Jeff York  7:56  
I remember when thinking Garf came onto the shelf, I moved here in 2010. And the thing I think you've had more or less the same branding the whole time, it might have changed.

Unknown Speaker  8:06  
Yeah, we have had pretty much the same branding. Since we started. We originally start with the labels, the one thing we did with a lot of our core beers moved to printer cans, right? That was kind of like a big change. And then as we started coming out with more and more limited release beers. Yeah, we started tweaking the backgrounds a bit and making them a little bit fun, so that you guys had the honey blonde in front of you.

Brad Werner  8:30  
Yeah, by the way, this is the first time I've ever had any of your beers. And I've already started so that's great.

Unknown Speaker  8:35  
So like that, that the background on that can you can see in the cooler over there. It's got a honeycomb background. It's the second from the bottom on the left. Cool. Yeah, I can grab a camera and show it to you in a second. But, you know, so So the branding primarily stayed the same, but we've tweaked the backgrounds a little bit and added a little bit of fun, right? But you know, everything about what we do is supposed to be very straightforward. Simple, easy to understand. So we don't really use a lot of fanciful names, right, the br is what it says it is. And when you're walking down the liquor store aisles we want you to be able to see it, as you're walking by and say oh, that's an IPA. Okay, it

Jeff York  9:13  
says this isn't called like, you know, the bee's knees.

Unknown Speaker  9:17  
That is that is called honey blonde comb or

Jeff York  9:21  
something.

Unknown Speaker  9:23  
So that there's it's a blonde ale and then we add wildflower and orange blossom honey, from a local purveyor. So honey is there on the nose and you get a cow on the back end. Very subtle. But going into spring, it's about as refreshing.

Jeff York  9:42  
A huge orange blossom. Honey fan is a boring adjunct. What do you think of the beer Griffin?

Dan  9:48  
I think it's great. You know, I mean, tickling Garf these beers have been around for like, as long as I've been pretty much drinking craft beer. Yeah, we're gonna be we're gonna be

Jeff York  9:56  
eight years old in July. That's really depressing. Griffin.

Dan  9:59  
Well, Minute. That's not as long as I've been drinking beer.

Brad Werner  10:06  
Sorry, your beers found around the United States just around boulder? No,

Unknown Speaker  10:09  
we are just in the state of Colorado. Okay. Oh, for the most part, the vast majority of what we sell is in the Denver boulder metro area. Really, we kind of go from Longmont down through Golden, and Eastern to Denver, we do have distribution through the rest of the state. But we we don't necessarily make enough of all these limited releases to go that far. So we kind of keep them focused. I mean, we were brewing 15 barrels at a time here. So we may after canning and pulling up what we need for kegs and whatnot, we're looking at about 150 270 cases of a particular style, right? And that's it.

Brad Werner  10:44  
So the strategy is to make small small batch,

Unknown Speaker  10:47  
small batch. I mean, it's all relative, right? I mean, Griffin was talking about making beer and plastic fermenters, right, we're not exactly doing that we are we're running 15 barrels. So 15 Barrels is about the equivalent of like 30, Kazakhstan kegs, I like to say, right, just to get people out there kind of an idea, some context. So but all said and done once we're done like centrifuging it and go through the packaging process and laws Yep. 150 175 or so cases beer. We sell it pretty much all ourselves. We do all of our own sales and distribution. Cool. We still have the van we we have we have the van the original van, we still have that one, the red one that looks like an old Woody. And then we have another one that at this point we need to vans going out there.

Dan  11:32  
There's a there's a liquor store on 16th Marion in Denver, that's joy, wine and spirits. They're great customer. You got to keep I go in there all that they're a great customer of yours because I live very close.

Unknown Speaker  11:44  
That's good. That's I will make sure they know that

Jeff York  11:47  
quarter liquor might have the same dynamic.

Brad Werner  11:51  
Yeah, I have to tell you though, for folks that are listening, this tasting room is worth a stop. And it's really cool.

Unknown Speaker  11:57  
For those that are listening, we have a wall of about 3000 cans. All the cans are the different colors of our labels. And we change the wall every so often. Yeah, every about three to four months, we change it. And they're typically some kind of old video game design, because of the shape of the can. And we're using the Kansas pixels. It's very much like an eight bit design.

Brad Werner  12:20  
Tell us about kind of the business model, though between tap room and canning because I'm thinking about boulder beer actually recently went out of business. Are they closed out?

Unknown Speaker  12:30  
Yes, yes. They, I guess they licensed their brand,

Jeff York  12:33  
their brand is being licensed to to be contract,

Unknown Speaker  12:37  
correct? Yeah, what we produce a split, the vast majority of it goes out the door in cans and package. And then we saw obviously through our Taproom we have some bars and restaurants that we sell to as well. But frankly, the cake business is brutal. So we really limit ourselves as far as who we work with in terms of bars and restaurants. But as far as liquor stores go, we're at about 600 liquor stores. A lot of whole foods as well. A few Safeways King Soopers Trader Joe's. But that's really been our focus, right the package. Everything we did as far as design was about being present there on the shelf and noticeable when you walk by. Yeah, and we have people honestly, frankly, a lot of people that have had the beer all over the state. But I've never been here. Interesting. And I think that's because of that shelf presence that we have. Right and that bold. You see it you can't help but notice that when you walk into a liquor, yeah,

Jeff York  13:30  
well, the thing I noticed about your brand is the style dominates the can like you were saying it's like it's yes, I can see from here these these can stack the wall. I can see what everyone is that's a free mailing. See, it's a logger is its IP. It's just right across the way. I think that's pretty clever. Because like, you know, you walk into the beer store. And in Colorado or ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ, you know, there's a section that's not just Colorado beers. There's sections like ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ beers. Yep. And it's overwhelming even for nerds like me, and you end up looking at but if you come in and you don't really know what you want, you probably know what style of beer you like, or you see the style. That's smart. I've never I've noticed the brand. I've never thought about it. It's really cool. Yeah, everything you

Unknown Speaker  14:09  
just said is exactly right. How do you how do you stand out? You know what you want? Right? But if you read out, you gave the example of 100 Blind being like the bee's knees. But if you saw the bee's knees on the on the shelf, you wouldn't know what type of style that is. Right? No idea. So this way we simplified and everything that we wanted to be at the beginning was this was I mean, eight years ago, right when beer was was pretty wild and still is to a certain extent now but how do you simplify things? How do you make it approachable? How do you make the new craft drinker say Okay, actually, you know what, I'm gonna pick that six pack right

Brad Werner  14:42  
so Chicago and one of my favorite beers is Gumball head, but think about trying to describe a gumball head is you'd

Jeff York  14:49  
have no idea.

Brad Werner  14:51  
But the you have the two components. Yeah, the design is great, but once they open up the can the beer is great too. And That's awesome.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
You get them to pick it up with the packaging, right? The liquids got to be good, too.

Dan  15:05  
Yeah, I think it also unless you guys, you know, the prominence of the styling lets you be a little bit more blurring and in what you actually put in the can, right like you guys have some of the more category like confused maybe or sort of spinning and interesting style or beers then you kind of see anywhere and you can kind of only get away with that, if you call some of your beers, you know, if you like gave it a sort of conventional brand name. And then it was just an IPA people would might be disappointed by what they had when they when they opened it up. And when you call it like a red rye IPA or whatever, lets you get to be a little more flexible. It seems like yeah, it's an observation.

Unknown Speaker  15:41  
I think. So. I think it goes both ways. It allows us to be a little bit flexible. But it also can be a little bit constraining. Because there's some breweries that make a lot of IPAs. So what are we going to put on our can to differentiate this IPA from that? And so I'm not saying this to take anything away from anybody else. Right, right. Right, right. For us, we're kind of forced to have a wide variety of styles because I can only put those three letters IPA on a can so many times, right. And kind of add on a modifier to that. So we've actually seen a lot of success with some of the more obscure styles like we made an English Porter that did really well actually our ESB it says ESB, right on the side of can. And it's amazing how well it does. Because you don't see a lot of ESPs out there and there might be names. But you don't necessarily know that they're USPS. Yes. Oh, I love USPS.

Jeff York  16:40  
Yeah, no, I was looking for it. Actually, you're it's a great point. I was looking at extra special bitter, British style USB. I was looking for some ESPs to do a comparison on and I think the only one I could find was like the the British classic. I forgot who makes that is it Fuller's that makes classic ESPN, UK?

Dan  16:57  
There are red hook one or was fat red?

Jeff York  16:59  
Make one? I think they

Unknown Speaker  17:00  
did one red oak I think is an ESP Yeah,

Jeff York  17:03  
I think it is. But those are like the two I could find.

Dan  17:06  
Those are scarce styles. It's actually pretty funny. Like, like the stylistic preference that you get in the US. And just like in Colorado that you mentioned, I'll be like in Chile, we had a beer, we you know, we brewed up a stout that I thought was a really great stout, but sold it a stout nobody bought it really didn't sell it at all, literally didn't didn't even change the keg just erased it on the chalkboard and wrote Porter sold like hotcakes. No kidding. 100% just brand and name and name, you know, like, we literally didn't did nothing else. And once it started selling, you know, we kept it we kept became one of our core styles. But

Unknown Speaker  17:42  
I'd be lying if I told you we've never done that.

Brad Werner  17:46  
So that actually leads to a good point, though. What about the differences between the brewing industry in Chile versus United States? I think that that could be kind of an interesting

Dan  17:56  
discussion. Yeah. I mean, it's a much less developed market for sure. You know, we were the only brewery really in our sort of region, we were I was in a pretty far flung Southern, very cold place. And we're one of only a couple kind of micro craft breweries in Santiago, Chile is a unique market. It's not a very big one. And like a third of the population lives in the metro region of the capital city. But I think one of the really cool things is like the culture of sort of like craft, and like artisanship. And that sort of thing is really rich and fertile in South America. Like, you have the artisan Yes. And all these sorts of places where like, there's just these sort of like craft markets, you can go buy wooden spoons from some little old lady, you know,

Jeff York  18:40  
like, whatever. And then that's like popular with the general population, right value that

Dan  18:45  
Oh, yeah. And so the idea of something being homegrown, being kind of made locally, not by some big dark corporation or anything like that. I would go down, you know, I mean, I was like this, like gringo living in no man's land. And I would walk into the bank and the lady was, you know, she would put her hands up and wave at me and, you know, bring me to the front and send me home with a little pen as a keepsake and stuff. Yeah, it was sort of a funky spot, but but, you know, I mean, competitively, you know, there's probably when I say that we're the sixth biggest brewery in Chile, by the time I left, we were probably about as big as you guys are now. You know, girls, were you doing? Yeah, we had a 15 barrel system. And we had fermentation capacity for probably about 150 or so. barrels. Something like that. Not actually

Unknown Speaker  19:29  
remember, they were right there. We have a 15 barrel system. We have 210 barrels from any capacity. Yeah,

Dan  19:34  
exactly. So you know, that makes you you're you know, we were the sixth biggest in the entire country today. You're maybe the sixth biggest in ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ County or something. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  19:42  
Wow. So the market as well.

Dan  19:48  
We were actually selling all so that the the sort of business model was a unique one we were selling all within a restaurant, capacity, or format, and it was actually restaurants that we own. So my business was partner was a restaurant or he had a series of restaurants sort of dotting the southern half of the country. And we sold all of our beer in on those planes. I mean, it was the unit economics. Were you talking about entrepreneurship, a thing that I think a lot of people don't understand is like you sell a six pack for, you know, by the time it goes through all the channels and all the handoffs and everything, you know, 12 hours, six pack, you maybe see 1000 Calorie for five bucks, something like that,

Unknown Speaker  20:25  
if you're lucky, right now with the way with the way supply chain is going I mean, just soft numbers, I mean, we print eight and a half cents can route 24 cents, again, breezy.

Brad Werner  20:38  
So how is the supply chain affecting you not just in Canning, but just in the entire process.

Unknown Speaker  20:43  
Everything's more expensive. I mean, we're eating a lot of that cost right now, right? If you look at my Atacand cost per case is three $4, a little bit more. And if I increased case, price, by that I'd priced myself out right on the shelf. A lot of the big guys have contract pricing on their aluminum, and they're able to get cans, the smaller, smaller guys were buying second, third, fourth, and we're trying to get them wherever we can. And that just adds to the other issue is shipping right now it cost a fortune. So I might find cans in Texas, for example. There's companies out there I've been buying cans from for years, but to ship them up here cost more to ship them than the CANS themselves. And so you started looking at these numbers and you're going well, holy shit, like, yeah, were you exposed to this? And I don't have a choice. Right. But you look at I mean, everybody increased their their case price in the last probably early to mid q1, everybody had to increase their price. Sure. But I don't think this is the end. I mean, it's just our prices are just going up the cost of grain the cost to get the grain here the cost of the aluminum. Everything is more expensive. The $10.06 Pack, I think might be a thing of the past. Fortunately, that's right.

Jeff York  22:00  
I think that's why, you know, if you really value craft beer, I mean, it's great to buy in the store, obviously you should do that. Yes, but going to your local Taproom and spending some money is an even better way to show support your local brewers like getting in there helping them as directly as you can and holding events. They're you know, leasing the place out for your wedding. Whatever celebrate you have taken a lot of people getting their buying pints.

Unknown Speaker  22:25  
Yeah, I think I mean, Griffin kind of alluded to this or spoke to her directly almost over the bar pints. Are the margins are great. Yep. And if you can sell everything over the bar that you make, I mean,

Dan  22:38  
you're I mean, you just make you make basically twice what you what you sell one pipe for it, your bar is worth 2x What an entire six pack is through a store, correct?

Brad Werner  22:48  
Jeff and I have been talking about this through the entire pandemic about community supporting local businesses, that it really takes a community to that we're very intertwined. And so if we can I agree with you, 100%. Jeff, if we can get more people to come in to our local tap rooms? I think we're doing everybody a favor. Yeah.

Jeff York  23:07  
I think a lot of people are aware of the unit economics and how that affects brewers though, like I mean, for a small brewery, the tap room is essential, and a huge part of their cash flow. I mean, I know I was getting ready to start brewery in Knoxville, I was like, Well, look, I can, I can keep this going for quite some time, just off Taproom sales, I'll actually have to sell and thankfully there you didn't have to go through distributors. So I could do a lot better and selling to local restaurants, things like that. But a lot of times the distribution alone just just is brutal on cake sales and then dealing with and then dealing with restaurants and things like that. It's a tough business. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  23:42  
This is a tough business. Anyway, you slice the beer business is an incredibly difficult business. And what we do here is essentially three businesses. We have the manufacturing side, we're making the beer, we've got the distribution side where we're out there selling and literally moving cases in our own vehicles. And then we have the taproom side, right the bar where we're managing this so yeah, it's it's a it's complicated, but it's fun. It makes it all worth it. And I think at the end of the day, nobody really gets into this business for the money. Yeah. It's just about you know, the love the beer, you love the people you love the community all together. That's that's what makes it all.

Brad Werner  24:21  
So where's your where's your tap room located? What are your hours? Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker  24:25  
we are in a little area of ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ, Colorado called gun barrel. We are down the street from the new Avery location. Probably not even a quarter mile down the street. We are open every day at 3pm and we close at 9pm during the week and we close at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. We got 16 Tap lines. They're usually all full. We do have a seltzer that we make just in house for the gluten free. And yeah, it's a fun place to come hang out. We got tons of games we got six packs to go it's we're dog friendly. We just As if they're on a leash you got a big patio we've got you know, you sit on the patio look do West see beautiful sunsets. It's

Brad Werner  25:06  
a nice place I bet Yep. I mean this is a great place to hang out so hopefully folks will come out here and try these beers and bottom line is the beers great

Jeff York  25:13  
well yeah, speaking of the beer well yeah, we've been through let's well yeah, you just drank them all. Yeah, I talked about stuff like this next one is a rice Assam Yes. That's

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
a Rice says this is

Dan  25:22  
the best beer anybody in ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. Anybody in the state of Colorado makes bars and for me this is like my favorite beer. You know, it's unique. It's a little something different. Saison Saison is a totally underrated and underexplored style in

Jeff York  25:35  
this day. Good man.

Dan  25:37  
Yeah, it's it's this is like our non my favorite one when you guys took it from from like a core brand to seasonal. I was crestfallen and I started stockpiling this when I can get it at Joy wine and spirits on six. You make sure you send them like a full pallet of this beer. Because I'm gonna go

Jeff York  25:53  
this one this is fantastic. I huge news like get some of that like, foreign blanket kind of bubblegum traditional Belgian Easter room. Right adds a really nice spiciness.

Unknown Speaker  26:04  
15% of that grain bill is a combination of flaked and malted rye.

Jeff York  26:10  
And the added flake Oh, yeah. Okay, so I got a little bit of a haze from the flaked, I guess. And yeah, and just really smoothness to it, I guess. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  26:18  
I wouldn't have picked up. I mean, as far as the beers you have in front of you, that couldn't be more different. Well, yeah, sure. That's

Jeff York  26:22  
the amazing thing about this. Man, it's like, I've tried, pretty much I see a new figure guard. I gotta get this. I can't believe I just I just buy it. And

Unknown Speaker  26:33  
I wouldn't ever be able to wait till the fall for that.

Jeff York  26:38  
Now here's the critical question. You guys do a pumpkin beer? No, no, thank God. We'll be back.

Brad Werner  26:46  
I've had so many fucking public. And we really likes pumpkin.

Unknown Speaker  26:54  
Can't get enough of it. Amazing. beers are coming out earlier and

Jeff York  26:59  
Oh, yeah. Well, it's because it's Halloween is like after Fourth of July in the stores. You got to start drinking. Well, this is exceptionally good beer. This is really nice. What do you think? I actually think it's great. You're not a big Belgian.

Brad Werner  27:13  
I am not at all but this this sour is different from some of the other sours that I've had before. That's why

Unknown Speaker  27:19  
that is definitely not. Okay. So.

Brad Werner  27:21  
So what are your thoughts on see? I'm a bourbon guy.

Unknown Speaker  27:26  
Then you'll like the next one will drink. Okay. Yeah. So the next one we have here. So the next one is our annual bourbon barrel aged Imperial Stout. This year we did. Yeah, well, you know, thank you. Why not? So there's a combination there of wild turkey and Breckenridge bourbon barrels.

Dan  27:44  
Wow. Man, and it really hits you with the bourbon. Right? And right, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  27:48  
I mean, it's like, Oh, that's good. It's fresh. We just packed it about a month and a half ago. This is obviously off the tap. So as it warms up, it gets kind of opens up a bit. And you should get kind of like a lot of the current kind of dried cherry. Plum. We got a nice vanilla note. And yeah, it's Redshirts.

Jeff York  28:11  
A lot of roasting is like the sweetness of it's much more than the roasting. It's good.

Unknown Speaker  28:16  
I mean, if you'd like bourbon, yeah, there we go. There you go. There's your beer bread.

Dan  28:20  
I'm very happy. And what is the state of the of the the barreling program now? The aging?

Unknown Speaker  28:25  
Oh, man, we got a lot of barrels going right now. We've been putting out actually one of the beers we did that recently. It was awesome was a barrel aged barleywine. That was one of those. Yeah, that was my dad's like we've got, we've basically done a verse. So this stout here is a totally separate stuff from our old milk stout. Yeah, but we've done a version of our oatmeal milk stout. That's the JBf gold medal winner that you see on the wall that and that one, we've actually started brewing it in a way where we can it's basically a double mash milk style, we brew what would normally yield 15 barrels of wort, we have to do it back to back because that amount of grain yields five barrels. Super rich, it's almost like it's like motor oil. Breakfast of Champions. So we do two we brew that twice, back to back, we pull from the the mash time we get about five barrels per per batch. So we'll brew it in the mash time we'll move five barrels of water over quickly do it again, move another five barrels over we get about 10 Total barrels, usually in the range of like 13 to 14%. And then we put that into barrels and right now we have that aging in actually I think we put that in wild turkey barrels as well. I think the wild turkey reserve barrels

Jeff York  29:44  
tastes great. And I'm just sitting here like making faces this is so good. So like this is fantastic. Yeah, I agree. It's really good. Any other upcoming interesting brews or events or things people should know about happening? Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker  29:58  
yeah. As far as brews, go, I know you guys like to Saison we are we don't have the rye Saison coming out, but we do have our dry hops Saison a little bit more springlike quite delicious. We've got our passionfruit hibiscus sour, which is awesome. It's a beautiful color. We basically let the beer when it's done for men and we let it sit on hibiscus flowers for a while you get a little bit of that herbal floral note to it. Really quite delicious. And the passion for it is just a passion for it. And hibiscus is great combination. We'll be having our anniversary party in the middle of July, please. That's an event to come out for we have food trucks here. Just about every night of the week. A lot of great ones. You know, some of the highlights have been Tamaki tornado, which is a great sushi truck. We have poor cub, we get things things out here, we've got passport truck, so you can always eat well, when you come out here. And then beyond that, I mean, I think you just kind of have to pay attention to our Instagram or social right, Jacqueline Garf. And see we're doing it's it's fun, because because we brew it such a small batch, we can really come up with what we want to do two to three weeks out. Wow. So cool. Yeah, that sounds great. So like today, we had a little production meeting and we decided we're going to brew a West Coast IPA. And we'll brew it in two weeks. Give us three weeks after that. It'll be ready, right? That's right. That's how fast we turn things around and come up with ideas and look at what's going on in the market and make a decision. And we're not really locked in because we don't print on cans for all of our limited releases, we can just a roll of labels. And this

Dan  31:35  
is what I thought was one of the most the coolest thing nobody was doing this before you were We

Unknown Speaker  31:40  
were the first eight years ago, we were the first ones to really start labeling beer because the minimums at the time, you had to buy 204,000 cans,

Jeff York  31:50  
we should probably explain a little bit for people that are so so frequent garbage cans are the label is not like embedded within the can or printed on the can. It's printed on a label that goes around the cat.

Unknown Speaker  32:04  
Sticker machine that. So it was actually quite a bit of work in the beginning, because we're doing this in line as we're packaging the beer, and you have a cold wet can that's condensating. Right. And so we actually had to work with the label manufacturers to figure out what adhesive we needed so that we could put the sticker on a cold wet can. And it took a few tries, but we got it. And ultimately now we work with a great company down in Centennial Colorado called Columbine label company. And they have the ability to basically they can turn I send them the artwork, they can get the label back to me within four or five days.

Dan  32:39  
And back in the day, when you were bad at the labeling, you'd send me home from the canning line with full beers. They weren't even mofos they just have like a label glitch. With a real whole beer.

Unknown Speaker  32:51  
Yeah, I mean, the labeling side adds a complexity, right? It also adds about six cents per can does it added cost. Because because the cam companies don't give you a deal on a non printed canvas that's to go through the same process. It was a cost. No cost more about a nickel to six and a half cents, depending on what you're doing. There's no other brand. I mean, you can That's it exactly.

Dan  33:19  
And there's no other beer out there where you can actually take it and slap the label on the ski pole, the ski lifts.

Unknown Speaker  33:29  
This is actually quite a funny story. So I'll tell you this. And then we can keep talking about. So I got a call here. There's a years ago, we were probably in business for about two to three years. And I got a call from somebody to the brewery and they said, Can I talk to your marketing director? And I said, Well, I don't really have a marketing director. But what can I help you with? Right? Marketing Director, CEO and janitor, and he said, Well, who had somebody on your marketing team put your stickers all over all over my house? Okay, I mean, oh my god. I'm not sure. Who would do that. Nobody else on the team who are Yeah, exactly. And so I said, Can you describe the sticker to me? And he said, Well, this one, this one says, you know, this one's got some letters on it says IP and a. And then this one here says, stout. And I was like, Oh, well, those happen to be our labels. I was like, can you tell me where you are? As they go? I got a house up on the Hill that I went off to college. And I said to I was like, Look, there's nobody on my team. It would be too expensive for me to go to cover your house, your balcony and everything with our stickers. Pretty cool. Sounds like you might want to talk to your tenants because it sounds like but yeah, it turned out the students that were buying our beer they were ripping the labels off and using them to cover their

Brad Werner  34:53  
picture of that and honestly, I

Unknown Speaker  34:55  
wish this guy was so mad. I don't think I'm going to

Jeff York  35:00  
Stan has been awesome talk. Thank you. For all the great beers. You're welcome. I'm

Unknown Speaker  35:04  
glad you guys are here.

Jeff York  35:05  
Thank you for coming and talking to us today. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. We had no idea that we had our guest was a former employee.

Dan  35:13  
I got a stump for stump for where the roots Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  35:17  
Fantastic. That's funny. I'll make sure it's actually ironically, how I know you is through my brother's lacrosse team. And funny enough, today is my brother's birthday. So okay, listening. Happy birthday.

Jeff York  35:31  
Happy birthday, Carrie. Nice, happy birthday. All right. All right. So actually, well, insight. If you put stickers on your product, and if your product is alcoholic, then there's a good chance that costumes will peel the stickers off and stick them on places and the good advertising for your guerilla marketing strategy. There you go. Actual insight is right here right here. Thanks to the creative distillation podcast. Man, this beer is just so damn good. I mean, it's like it's kind of almost hard to talk while I drink because I keep wanting to just talk about this beer. Like heavy mouthfeel too. Yeah, it's kinda like it's making my tongue slow. I think. I don't know. How strong is this? By the way?

Unknown Speaker  36:12  
That's a lot. Yeah. I think it's that one thing is 12 one.

Jeff York  36:15  
Okay, I'll just say it's not it doesn't have the burn or

Unknown Speaker  36:18  
anything. But no, it's smooth. It doesn't drink like a 12 percenter. Yeah, it really doesn't. That's

Jeff York  36:23  
why I was think it was like 8%. But I'm think I need to drink this a little more slowly than I am. It comes to us now to talk about watered down market growth, authenticity and evaluation of craft beer. And what's cool about this paper and why I picked it is because I think it's directly related to the conversation we were just having about being small, being authentic, appealing to customers in a way that you're not a mega Brewer. And there's this bit of a little bit of a fetish in the organizational theory and entrepreneurship intersection of research, where people go stay craft beer. This started probably about one two years ago. And about every two years somebody publishes another paper about craft beer. And I was like, Well, hey, you know what? We're gonna go this great brewery. Let's talk about this paper. The papers by Joel and Posner, Santa Clara University. Makayla does so say, North Carolina State University, Jay Cameron veer Hall at Tulane University and Katarina sic Kawika Academy if I pronounced your name wrong, I apologize. The University of Zurich Switzerland. Well, thank you, Brad. I appreciate that. So this paper is all about how evaluation of beer, particularly craft breweries changes over time. Let's do the title thing first watered down market growth, authenticity and evaluation in craft beer, Brad,

Brad Werner  37:40  
I can handle it. But it's still a little pompous. Jeff? Hello, Papa

Jeff York  37:44  
was pompous about the

Dan  37:46  
explanation here. I've actually always wondered this. Like, is there a reason for the long titles? Yeah, so why not? Just

Brad Werner  37:52  
you. Welcome back anytime?

Jeff York  37:55  
Yeah, well, I'm gonna explain this multiple times on the podcast. The the formula is you do some kind of pun, or some allusion to your paper. That is explaining, like, what actually happens in the paper, before the colon, and then you actually explain what the paper is about. After the colon. Right. I have no earthly idea. You know, what

Dan  38:22  
doesn't have anything to do? I've actually always wondered this, like Google, you know, getting cited is like the only the sort of currency? And is there like an SEO benefit? Where like Google Scholar, you show up higher when some, you know, graduate student is doing their lit review?

Jeff York  38:35  
Well, I don't think it's that I think you're trying to make the paper sound interesting by making it 35 words long, but making it 35 words long, because you know, that's what's watered down.

Brad Werner  38:49  
This is not an evaluation. Yeah. Right. One item I'd like to point out about this title, which I actually want to discuss. I want to talk about the authenticity, because I really think authenticity and entrepreneurship actually will

Jeff York  39:01  
insight. If your title is 35 words long, you'll get more citations. Oh, wait, that's right. Academics, not entrepreneurs. Embrace that window. That was alright. Sorry.

Brad Werner  39:11  
All right now, but the authenticity part is

Jeff York  39:13  
intriguing. And I think that's why that's why I brought the paper up. I think it's interesting, too. I think we've seen a growing desire in in younger people, certainly in my kids. And I think in my students, it's certainly it's just something that my generation as well, but but I've seen it more and more that people value authenticity and products and services, whatever they would rather buy something that's real, authentic and good than more of a crappy mass marketed thing. And

Brad Werner  39:39  
I also think that they can tie themselves to the authentic, authentic,

Jeff York  39:43  
it goes wrapped up in your identity, right? I'm a consumer of this authentic good. And you know, and it's interesting as we talk about authenticity, and craft brewing, I think that is a place and the reason this gets brought up a lot in the literature. That is a place where people have studied entrepreneurship requires Sometime, the emergence of the craft industry is held up as sort of the paradigm that the dominant paradigm of an industry that was based on authenticity, benefit from social movement like activities, as producers bonded together, and they said, We are presenting an alternative to what is the current offer?

Brad Werner  40:18  
I agree with that. 100%. And I actually think, just in a very narrow range, it adds value.

Jeff York  40:26  
Right. So getting into theory, so what do you think revenue? Do subtract so far?

Dan  40:31  
Yeah, I think there's an actual

Jeff York  40:33  
beer entrepreneur.

Dan  40:34  
Only comment, I would add is that, you know, it's kind of ironic that as authenticity, sort of has grown as something that consumers would value. Yeah, the craft brewing industry has been going through craft brewing, like the history of craft brewing is basically one of fits of expansion and contraction,

Jeff York  40:50  
much like professional wrestling, and just

Dan  40:52  
really like any capitalist. Right now, you know, the trend is definitely sort of contractive more than it is, you know, there was this huge growth. Oh, yeah, the

Jeff York  41:03  
90s was, like, insane. And then like, even even into the early 2000s, and now we're seeing some contraction and consolidation. But there'll be another and here's Okay, so So I actually do think this is an actionable insight. So I'm just gonna cut to the chase. Oh, that's that's not know what that's different. So when we allude to our actual insights, we're doing it specifically for the director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. At the Leeds School Business, Eric Mueller, who is a wonderful person, major support of the podcast and says, We got to hit an actionable insight on time. So Eric is always right. So I'm doing that as best I can. But here's the thing. So what is the cut to the chase? And then we'll talk about for some more. Brad, you said you want to talk about authenticity. Okay, so here's the insight. What they find here is that as a category gains more adherence, and particularly as members of the category, the craft beer category, in this example, gains more hearings, as a brand attracts more people doing in their case, they're doing the readings of beer on on online website about the range beer, those brands get penalized less for their inauthenticity. Now, Griffin give us some examples of inauthenticity in the craft brewing industry. I know you notice any

Dan  42:26  
sort of the quintessential example that I'm thinking of is when sculpin and bows point was the brewery that made sculpin one of the really great IPAs therefore the other grapefruit IPA was so good. And it was just super popular. It was it was really kind of a cult favorite. You know, like hop heads everywhere. Loved it, it was very out of sight like Hetty topper now exactly. grew out of San Diego, they had this great beer, they got bought up by Anheuser Busch for I believe it was $2 billion. For the beat, it was the biggest, you know, by far the biggest purchase of a new tracker ever. 2 billion of these big and you know, anybody who knew anything, would look at that and immediately think, well, they're buying the brand, right? Budweiser can go and make that beer, you know, 10 times and what they're paying for his brand and that was sort of The Harbinger I think of what has followed really a cascade of sort of acquisitions in the market. And, you know, you see a lot of kind of local ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ County breweries, not sprinkling Garf To my knowledge, but you know, have been snapped up by larger distributors and just bigger, bigger fish.

Jeff York  43:26  
Absolutely. So here's the here's the catch.

Brad Werner  43:29  
I did they did they did the diehard stick with them after the acquisition.

Dan  43:34  
Bingo, you know, bows point, I would say that sort of for the real beer heads, the guys who you imagine who have big weird looking beards that sit at the bar, and yeah, they're drinking older.

Jeff York  43:44  
So I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anybody even slightly like that.

Dan  43:48  
I would say that, that some of those people did sort of jump ship. But you know, I mean, if your interest is in sort of bottom line business, unequivocally, bows point got to benefit from all of Anheuser Busch is distribution and grew massively. It's still a great beer. I mean, even you drink it, is you gotta like beer on your face and say, Damn it, it still tastes good.

Jeff York  44:08  
Oh, it's delicious, right. And I think

Dan  44:11  
that that's sort of the upshot of this paper is that absolutely as rather this super popular really well known really good beer gets sort of dinged for authenticity, it actually ends up not working. Or it actually ends up not penalizing them so much because they, you know, they can appeal to a mass market. There are less discerning palates out there,

Jeff York  44:29  
Griffin, if you ever want to do your PhD, come see me my friend. You just gave us a big actionable insight right there. You're exactly right. That's what's cool. Guess what? According to the papers findings, they don't actually talk about Ballast Point and grapefruit sculpin and all that. But that beers ratings probably went up huge on beer advocate, even though they are violating the authenticity is no longer really a craft beer.

Dan  44:55  
Well in here I actually have an actual insight for both of you. i There's a An old research paper that came out of the Leeds School that I'm actually like a CA dot Donnie Lichtenstein. So Phil Fernbach. And Bart de Lange

Brad Werner  45:10  
do it was the one that read that

Dan  45:12  
I was the one who actually I collected data. And to project that we did was we compared sort of Consumer Reports, which we held out is x. Yeah. Remember, these are other people, these are smarter people than me, right? I was the research data. And they they gathered sort of Consumer Reports. So expert opinions that would say, you know, these would be like, really educated beer tongues, yes, in this example. And they compare them to Amazon reviews where anybody can read it, right. And basically, The finding was, there is no correlation. Amazon reviews are no way indicative of sort of, like expert opinion. And I would say the same is exactly true for this, right. Like as, as beers become more popular as Ballast Point, you know, as the example we're using here, became bigger and bigger. It got probably way, way, way more reviews. Yep. And your reviews may have gone up, but they were in no way connected to the actual quality of the beer, right? As told by a sort of excellent, the

Jeff York  46:05  
quality of the beer stayed the same. I was sure Anheuser Busch did change it. And I'm damn sure it doesn't say anything about Anheuser Busch on a grapefruit scope.

Brad Werner  46:15  
personal benefit that happens during ratings though, think about this, when you have something that's mass commercialized like what you're talking about going from craft to mass commercialized? Would people actually give it good ratings? Because they want to be drinking cool beer? Oh, I

Dan  46:30  
think spot on. Yeah, there is a sort of psychological benefit, right? Yeah.

Jeff York  46:34  
So there's two, there's two things going on. One is like the person who's actually descending craft, consumer, and for that person, the it'd be the opposite effect me going and giving a less positive rating to grapefruit. sculpin. For example, my favorite balance point bear saying like, this is yeah, this used to be great. But now it's owned by Anheuser Busch. And it's just a, it's basically a it's a sell out. And you know, and then I'll make up something in my brain about how the beer has gone downhill, which is, I'm sure not true, but, and I and I will gain authenticity and recognition by portraying myself in that way. But on the other hand, if I'm a noob, and I'm just like jumping on the bandwagon, like this beer is cool. Yeah, I'm like, I put my review of a great scope, and look how I could I'll go up, and I'm gonna do my one for Blue Moon next.

Dan  47:26  
Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the really interesting things about like, online sort of readings and all of that, like, you see Reddit, you know, like Reddit, karma, Reddit, it's, like, anonymous, like, there's no value in it. It's completely valueless. Right. But, you know, I remember like, when I was younger, I love doing like TripAdvisor reviews. Yeah. And it was because they gave me badges. They gave me these dumb made up badges, they gamified the thing for exactly, they gamified it and I totally bought it, you know, hook line. I was like 17, whatever. And yeah, I think that there is something definitely to the idea that online reviews, you know, can build can sort of build like a basically totally worthless and valueless currency that that people will trade

Jeff York  48:06  
on. I mean, you basically just describe social media. I mean. I mean, it's certainly basis and valueless to most people, but, but not to the

Brad Werner  48:20  
so in the beer industry. Let's let's get back on track here for a second, how important are those reviews?

Jeff York  48:26  
Ah, it's a great question. I don't know.

Dan  48:29  
I don't know what the status is now. I mean, there was a point in time where your beer advocate rating really matter, I would go into the store and I would you know, stand I would be standing there in front of a whole shelf and have five beers in front of me that I was sort of picking between now just pick whichever one had the highest beeradvocate squealy. Okay. I don't know if that's still

Brad Werner  48:44  
I don't know what it's only posers that are reviewing. I don't give a shit what they think.

Dan  48:52  
I would say that, you know, like, like, on the tinkling Garth point, like a lot of what I end up finding that I choose for when I'm like, at the store, buying buying beer is packaging. And like, sure I opened a brewery, you know, like, like, you know, I've been trained in beer and all sorts of stuff. And I would say that I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but it ends up really just being a packaging game for me.

Jeff York  49:14  
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big part of it. And I think there's been the movement towards four packs of 16 ounce cans, that being the premium that you now come to associate that packaging with a premium or beyond premium kind of brand. So those breweries are able to charge a markup, and they usually are smaller. Who knows, really, I mean, it could just be up to you. But so back to the paper real quick, though, I think the insight we can actually take from this, it's pretty interesting is that there's like this tipping point of authenticity. And if you're looking to be branding your product and you're in your business as authentic, you got to be super cognizant of that. Up until a point that's right. And then once you add the chasm, Jeff Yeah. It's really It's true. Actually, you're going from I'm surprised they don't mention that the paper that I recognize it, it's like go over those early adopters to the masses. Once you reach a mass audience, you're actually, and this is what I think was interesting about this because most of the literature and say, Yeah, you know, you're still going to be penalized for being inauthentic as you grow in one of these sectors. What this paper suggests is like, yeah, you know, what, actually, once you reach a mass audience and get to a critical mass, you're not going to be penalized. And in fact, according to the findings of the paper, you actually will get rewarded for being less authentic. Does that? Does that not I don't think you're rewarded for that says, Your reward through the mechanism of getting more growth and those kinds of things? Is that actually attracting more noobs?

Brad Werner  50:38  
Does that put it? Does that put a cap on creativity?

Jeff York  50:42  
Well, I think it does, in some ways. Maybe not? I don't know. I mean, that's a great question that I think would be good for further research, like, as well do these beers that get rewarded even though they are engaging in what they call authenticity violations, I believe in the paper, doing things like being acquired by a big Brewer or you know, other other things you're using, like making like rice beer and like doing doing stuff that's just not usually considered to be authentic in the craft brewing industry.

Dan  51:12  
See, I wonder if it's creativity limited, I wonder if it's often if the limiting factor in the creativity is authenticity, or if it's just sighs like, you know, Dan was talking earlier, they can go from like coming up with a with a brewery that or beer that they want to brew to it being in a can in five weeks, right? You just wouldn't ever find that. And it has, I think, you know, that's just can't do it, right. And there is something to be said for being smaller and more nimble and able to turn it out. And that just will lend itself more. One of my favorite stories that I always tell is, we had that same stuff that I mentioned earlier. You know, the porter that that I mentioned earlier, one day, I was pretty tired. I was brewing and I just forgot all of our dark dark malt I brewed I pitched my yeast I sealed, came back in the morning, found these big bags of all of our dark malt

Jeff York  52:00  
crowd and stuff like that.

Dan  52:06  
And, you know, we waited we let it ferment, we pulled it out. We sort of hooked it up looked at it said alright, that's our embryo.

Unknown Speaker  52:18  
Anything like that

Dan  52:19  
kind of, you know, I mean, you could call that creativity. I mean, just that those sorts of things where it's sort of cold that brick a lot. Yeah. Exactly. You know, that you just never get

Brad Werner  52:30  
let's talk about that Crossing the Chasm a little more, because Dan mentioned earlier about winning the gold medal at the Great American. Right. Is, is that the

Jeff York  52:38  
Is that why that's actually a mark of authenticity? In

Dan  52:41  
and that's expert opinion.

Brad Werner  52:42  
But does that does that also put you on track, though, that you're gonna, you're on? You're on on the way to get there?

Jeff York  52:49  
I think it helps. I mean, I don't know. I'm not. I wouldn't.

Dan  52:53  
I would say no. You know, the, like I mentioned earlier, there's a distinction between sort of broad market appeal an expert preference. Yep. And you know, getting a gold medal at the at the JBf. That is expert opinion. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. And if you put it on the can, you know, it helps, but in my experience, people don't yeah, it

Jeff York  53:14  
wouldn't make a big end up looking like a what's a Veer? Oh, space. It's like in the northeast, great gold metal, something. It's like, it's like a it's like, you know, the Schlitz or whatever? Yeah, gold metal beer, like, it talks about this award at one and like, 1820.

Brad Werner  53:33  
like crap, right? You got to bourbons, and you'll see recent metals. I know. And those are some kickass bourbons. Well, yeah, but they don't put it on the

Jeff York  53:39  
label. I mean, it's just well,

Dan  53:41  
and those are good. I mean, to be clear, JBf winners are really good. Oh, no, no.

Jeff York  53:47  
It's kinda like we were talking about the New Venture Challenge, right? It's like winning the New Venture Challenge is a huge honor and you get some recognition. Does that mean your business is gonna succeed? No, fucking. You always, always invest as much as possible. Yeah.

Dan  54:03  
There's something to be said. You know, there's something to be said specifically in beer like the American beer palette is so warped by hops and Yeah, sort of crazy idiosyncratic and its own ways. The hazier. There's a lot of beers out there that are jPf award winning beers that are playing on popular like people would much rather something that's a more broad market appeal. Like, the two tastes that Americans can recognize in beer are adjuncts like Coors Light, right? And hop. That's what you got. I mean, those, you know,

Brad Werner  54:33  
just seriously different profiles. Seriously different profiles, but

Dan  54:37  
also like a tiny fraction of what the whole flavor.

Jeff York  54:41  
Yeah, right. Well, you actually just described the two styles Brad can recognize is why I like this one, along with pumpkin

Dan  54:48  
and bourbon and Brad up got a good bourbon. Bourbon

Brad Werner  54:51  
stout. It comes it comes with a chaser.

Jeff York  54:59  
That's pretty So, is this a new style for you? Like, yeah,

Brad Werner  55:03  
I don't think I've ever had. Oh, I

Jeff York  55:04  
thought we had one. I think I think we had one at the end of like 15 other beers when brewery? Well, hard to remember. Yeah. Anyway, great, really interesting paper. Okay, here's, I want to flip it around just real quick. One more actual insight. I've lost my sound maker, to everyone who's listening. Pleasure, I'm sure. So here's the thing, as an entrepreneur, if this phenomenon happens, I'm gonna get you guys opinion. If this phenomenon happens, as you gain a mass audience, you no longer get penalized for your authenticity violations, because you've got this audience and they're, they don't really know how to evaluate your care anymore. Does that actually present an opportunity in the industry lifecycle for someone to now enter with a more authentic brand, and capture the audience that used to be paying attention to that brand?

Brad Werner  55:55  
So my, my thinking is yes to that answer. But I actually think that as you gain traction, by definition, your your authenticity is diluted.

Jeff York  56:07  
In any industry, right? Yeah. Especially consumer facing me. Really? I mean, if we're doing b2b Then do I really care how authentic you are?

Dan  56:16  
The one I keep thinking about here is Nike, right? Like, yeah, they are. If you talk to people, they would probably be perceived as among the most authentic brands out there. Right. But they're probably the most it neared brand.

Jeff York  56:29  
depends on your age. Actually. I found this out in the class. It's Patagonia.

Dan  56:34  
Again, though, super duper engineered. Right, like Patagonia. Totally. I mean, I wear Patagonia clothes, they're great. I still those are. They have brand teams, they have agencies, they're spending, you know, massive amounts of money on you is not a brand that is accidentally I

Brad Werner  56:49  
also have a culture that allows creativity. Well, they're

Jeff York  56:52  
also privately held, right? So it's a whole nother podcast. You imagine like you're gonna and you're the CEO of a publicly held company, and you want to go with like your big, black friday promotions don't buy our product and like, you know, the Wall Street,

Brad Werner  57:06  
or let's go on that lasts forever. So people only have to buy that. Right,

Jeff York  57:09  
right. I mean, it is i to buy Patagonia stuff. I think they're a wonderful company. But I think there's other outdoor brands that do just as much on the environmental front and getting the same credibility and credit.

Dan  57:22  
And I mean, there's, there's, you know, specifically in the outdoor world, I think also there's, there's a certain amount of sort of, like, how local can you get, right? Like, the coolest thing you can do is to show up to whatever you're up to, with something that like your neighbor showed. That's right.

Jeff York  57:38  
Mountain Standard is a local brand, my friend Jason found it. I mean, it was very cool for a while and they got a little more popular. Still Still a very cool brand and worth checking out. But uh, Okay, anything else you guys want to add about the paper or authenticity? And we pretty much covered it,

Brad Werner  57:54  
I think I think we've covered it. Authenticity counts,

Jeff York  57:56  
I think, yeah, authenticity counts. The only comment, that's actionable insight brand is like authenticity counts. But actually, it's paper showing, yeah, it counts for a while. But once you get to a certain mass, it actually doesn't matter anymore. And that's where I think there's actually a new I think if you're an entrepreneur looking at an industry where it's reaching that tipping point or segments rejected, I mean, and we see it's like we were talking about heavy topper earlier, I think Heady Topper is the Heady Topper is a band band, how do you make a good band and to Eddie topper is a brand a beer is the precursor of the hazy New England style IPA, brewed by a brewery called Alchemist in Vermont. They have not brewed a lot of it, they've not gone big, it's it's rare. It's an 18 ounce can, you're supposed to drink it out of the can. There's this mystique around it, and I saw it in the wake of Heady Topper becoming this unobtainable thing, all of these beers come out and 16 ounce can

Dan  58:56  
you know it would be a super interesting like line of research very authentic, the connection between like distribution and scarcity and authenticity, like yes to me. I think that you know what you're talking about there with Eddie topper is, it was it's super hard to get like if you score heavy, if I see Heady Topper somewhere I buy as much of it as I'm able to buy. Yeah, of course. And I and it's perceived as superduper authentic and it is good, tiny brewery in Vermont, you know, whatever. And like, you could imagine, you know, there's all sorts of like engineered scarcity that sure people have done marketers have done out there. And I think that it would be really interesting to look at sort of like how people perceive authenticity, relative to sort of

Brad Werner  59:33  
pride. I have one one kind of anecdotal thought about that is that in Chicago when I was there, there was a beer called Dark Lord, Dark Lord and there was they had dark lord day once a year and they would have 3000 people standing outside of the tasting room trying to buy the stuff

Jeff York  59:51  
Yeah, there you go scarcity. I think it's a great hypothesis. Griffin, it should be our first paper where you come to your PhD deal. So Griffin, what are your what do you have And you're a second year MBA is

Dan  1:00:01  
a second year MBA. I have a final job interview actually tomorrow. Oh, God. So you know, it's good that I've had several beers with you guys here.

Jeff York  1:00:10  
Perfect, perfect preparation.

Dan  1:00:12  
You know, I do digital marketing work now and, and I tend to work on sort of like software products and yeah, I'm hoping hoping to line it all up. I love Colorado. I'll be sticking around here. Not back to Chile, I will be going, you know, now it's like I could I get all this like agency, I can just say I will be working a remote job and I will be working remotely from Chile for a month or so a year. You

Unknown Speaker  1:00:35  
know, that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.

Dan  1:00:36  
Go back and see what's up.

Jeff York  1:00:38  
Really, you've done a great job is you actually our first non bird slash beverage owner. Guest ever really? Ever? Wow. We've never had anyone

Dan  1:00:50  
other than like, it's got to diversify your your entrepreneur

Jeff York  1:00:54  
actually want to feature more like the brilliant people that are coming through the lead school because we have so many students. And the entrepreneurial mindset of our students I think is just amazing, as you actually heard here today, so Yeah, Brad, any final comments?

Brad Werner  1:01:07  
Nope. I think that the demonstrators should be proud of this podcast today. And I had a great time.

Jeff York  1:01:16  
It's great to meet you. Thank you again for coming on. I mean, this is great. All right. So that is the creative distillation podcast. If you liked what you heard, please make sure you hit the little subscribe button on whatever platform you listen to your podcasts on. If you really want to help us out, write a review, say something good about us actually say something bad about us. It doesn't matter. Just write a review that would help us out a lot. And if you have questions that always you can write to CD that C as a green if D is a decision right to CD podcast and send all of your requests for funding to that because Brad answers that he'll be more than happy to meet with you about making an investment in your next venture. Griffin Brad has been a real pleasure. And make sure you get rid of garbage. This place is filled up as you hear in the background. get here early, grab a good seat, the guy wide selection of board games. It's a wonderful place to hang out and it's just been a pleasure being here today. Take care

Read more about Episode 28 of the Creative Distillation research podcast.