Guess who bought BrewDog?

0:00Welcome everybody to the beer guys radio show. Thanks for hanging out with us for some craft beer and conversations. I am Tim Dennis Brian Hewitt. How's it going today? It's going. It's been a it's been a draining day, but a good day, but a good day. So draining good. Those have, you know, that's not too bad. Like I don't mind a feeling exhausted at the end of a good day. You know, it's much it's much better than feeling exhausted at the end of a terrible thing. So it feels different. It just hits different Brian. It does. It hits different. It does. My efforts were were great, but they went to a good cause and I was successful ultimately in that cause. So I'm happy with that. Yeah. It's nice. They'd have about two men. How you doing today? Paul and Count is very high today. So it is. I'm I'm a little out of it right now. I

1:03think some allergy medication earlier and I'm just trying I'm just happy to be here talking beer with you boys. Good stuff, man. I saw someone mentioned there were two tree pollens today in Atlanta that were extremely high and I can feel it in my throat a little bit like I don't feel too bad, but I'm a little scratchy. So y'all forgive us this week if we got a little scratch where I don't know. I don't think other places. I'm sure there are some other places, but most other places do not get hammered the way Atlanta area does with pollen and I've lived a lot of other places and I don't remember it getting quite as serious and heavy as as it does here. I the first time I ever saw the the image of like the tree shaking with a cloud of yellow pollen coming out of it. Was after I was here, but I saw that after seeing it settle like cars being coated yellow. Yeah. I'm from the Northwest originally. I never I've never seen or heard of that kind of thing. I'm like that's insane. I it's crazy down here in terms of quality. It is insane down here. I went on

2:07vacation one spring and took took one of my cars had the other one in the driveway when I came back. I mean you honestly couldn't see my vehicle and I had the vehicle was I think it was black either black or dark green or something like that, but it was covered covered with the greeny yellow pollen just absolutely like it had been abandoned. You ever seen those shows where they find a car in a garage and oh my dad parked this back in 87 and it's been here since then they could have done that. They could have done that with mine. I didn't have a car that my parents held on to me for a while. I'm part of a repy entry. So I know what you're talking about. But it was yeah, it was pretty gross. Absolutely. Yeah. Well good stuff guys. Wait Tim, how are you doing? I'm good, man. I'm doing fine. Yeah, that's you know my my day was crazy, but not bad. I didn't have as good a day as Brian, but I'll say it was a it was a decent day and I'm here, you know, but so we're rocking on. I'm in a good place. I'm in a good place today. So yeah, absolutely.

3:09Well guys, we had some fun. Something we haven't done in a while. We got together in bottle shared this past week. So we had fairly decent weather and we did a sour share and I think that's another thing that not just bottle sharing, but man, you don't have you don't have the soures like you did. What are we looking at 10 years ago now? Seven eight at least since the the sour boom there and probably yeah, yeah, we broke out some good ones. We had of course, we had canteon. We had dry fontanin. We had some aligash. I think we had one night that you brought back from alchemist one of their sours and child. Yeah, the strong. That was really tasty one. Just some really good stuff, man, really good. So we fired up the grill, burgers and dogs on the grill. We played some cards. It was all or we sniffed some perfumes, you know. So we did. Since Brian and I were there, we broke out about 60 different samples of perfumes to go along with everything else. So I think we had a pretty full day. We had quite a bit of stuff covered

4:11there. It it it was a feast for all of the senses, mostly mostly mouth and nose, but you know, all yeah, really. Oh, we had cigars. I forgot about we did. Yes, we got cigars too. Something else we haven't done in a while, but all in all a good time, man, it was nice to get together. Been a while since we've done that. So my favorite beer of the share was the dry font. And I think that when it's in the mix, it's pretty tough to beat that for me because I just really love their profile, their DNA, so to speak. Nate, how about you? What was your favorite one we cracked open? You know, it's really tough to say, but I think for me, I would have to hold in on that alchemist that wild child with the strawberry strawberry came through really nice and it created like a nice dark like pinkish reddish hue to the to the bear itself. And so that was just really tasty. I can argue with that, man. Can't argue with that. Brian, how about you, man? What was your favorite? I'm going to say it was the cantion because it's the first bottle I ever bought and like actually bought owned and then brought to a bottle share. I've had cantion a number of times,

5:12but it's always been something that I either bought it a bar or somebody else poured. But the one that was really the most exciting is when I was looking for bottles to bring, I didn't hold back. Like if I saw something cool that was spontaneous, wild, whatever mixed culture, that sort of thing, I just grabbed it. Usually I would back in the day, I would hold some back for the next bottle share. I have no idea when the next bottle share is happening, but the one that was the most exciting for me was opening the guard brewing. It's called fail. It was a like a I guess a wild logger. And somehow this thing is like 10 years old or maybe maybe like eight years old. Somehow it actually held up extremely well, drank really well, and it was about 5%. I'm like, man, the power of sour beers and their longevity is no way as a just a regular logger that would have been any good, but it was fantastic. And I was very impressed by that. And I was actually surprised to see that I still had it because it was a bottle I didn't had completely forgotten I ever wrote. So I feel like so I left the party a little before the festivities ended. I'm a little

6:18earlier out than the rest of these guys, but I don't think I was there for that one. I think that the guard must have got cracked after after I left. I think it may have. Brian, what was the I can't believe I'm forgetting their name right now, but the sour place out of Portland. Cascade. Cascade. So I got to say the age you know, those was disappointing because nearly all of them just lost a almost tasted like you just had a bottle of fingernail polish remover. Yeah, battery acid too. You know, I don't know if it was, you know, exactly what it was, but we had a we had a place here when we first got them in Georgia. They were what 30 bucks a bottle, I think yeah, 25 30 and some place got rid of some stock and they they were like half price or like $7. I think we bought two or three cases like we cleared out what they had because we were excited to have these nice hours and we dug into them a couple times and after about a year every single one was just the the fruit had been eaten up. They just they just did not and which

7:22was sad because they were really good. Bracingly sour and I actually was going to bring one, but I ran out of space. I'm like, I actually have a few of those left. What I will tell you is those are great for if if the beer hasn't gotten really off really badly off and I've got a variety of them. They're really good for like a mold wild ale like if you add this back put some spices in there and so you know, you know, it just I meant to do that. I've meant I've meant to do that the past couple of like winters and I guess I'm not technically out of time, but the weather outside is telling me winners basically better get a fast man. Maybe a crackwood open. It's still mull one just for the heck of it. Yeah. Yeah. That's like bribonic plague there from cascade. That was that was phenomenal. That was beautiful. I'm glad the impaylor. I think it was. Yeah. And I remember alligash their tierna. I probably still have three or four of those because that was one I loved and I'm like, I'm going to get these while I can. So I probably still have a few of those in the cellar somewhere. I'll have to see bring those around because I did end up opening

8:23mine. Unfortunately, it was completely completely flat. Oh, no. Okay. Was that the a moment? It was that the one we put in your your CO2 thing is it was the now that was an earlier one. You might have been the leopold from Westbrook. I think it wasn't leopold. Yeah. We turned it into. Yeah, we basically turned into a cream charger. Yes. That's what it was. CO2 charge with cream maker. And it was not super effective. But it was, you know what? ingenuity. It was not always come with 100% success right there. Yeah. It didn't recover it completely. But I think at the end, say of things adding it to the the whipped cream charger thing did improve a little bit. Made it a little easier drinking or a little better drinking there. If you'd like, if you guys ever fast charged a keg like with home brewing where you plug it in, rocket back and forth, rocket back and forth, I think maybe if you'd taken, you know, a good 20

9:26minutes or so to rock the charger back and forth, it may have actually taken on a little more of the carbonation there. But I think we just kind of we blew foam like you said, Brian, we kind of got milk opors out of it. It was better than it was straight out of the bottle. But it did not accomplish miracles there. We should have roared it. That was the thing, you know, in hindsight, we should have roared that beer. We should have done the milk opore wait for it to start to, you know, turn back into actual beer and then roared it and see what happens. There we go. Double it down. Double it up. Double it up. Well, moving on to the beers we are drinking now, Brian, what are your beers of the week? So I pre-gamed with victory victory brewing supreme up hills, which is a German pilsner made with check noble hops in German malt. So good beer, good beer. It's not going to it's not going to take my heart away from Bittberger, but it's a quality beer. And I like it because it's one of the beers that Jason Pellett and I used to talk about back in the day when he was around. He loved that beer. So he's around. He's just not

10:28around in the US. He's overdoing the hollows and Jason will be here for a little beer fast. That's coming. Oh, Willie did see that. So that you guys have probably heard us talk about that before, but little little beer fest, the good word burying puts on. They do small beers, just like it says, you know, lower ABV beers. And I just happened to see some chatter online today that it sounds like Jason Pellett who what's his new brewer's name, the hollows? The hollows, yeah. So he was with had orifice brewing here in Atlanta, then moved to the Netherlands and opened up the hollows there, but he'll be he'll be over here then. Anyway, every time I see that beer, I pick it up and I think about I was talking about it because we both like that beer. Right now, I'm working on scofflaw brewing's F cancer. That's a, you know, anyway, I'm an expletive deleted and think it's the phrase for that, but I got that from Mo Magnet. I think I don't remember where you got it from, but Hazy American IPA. What's that? Probably scofflaw. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah, basically loaded down with Citra and

11:29Izaka and all the proceeds or some some amount of the proceeds support the blood cancer United organization. So it's a it's a it's a it's a good it's a beer for a good cause. So yeah, I'm going to drink these kind of things. And afterwards after the show, probably with the Patreon folks post game, I'm going to do parish brewing infinite ghost. Yeah. If there's another ghost variant coming out, you know, I'm going to I'm going to get it. I'm going to drink it. And this is a New England double IPA. It's basically ghost in the machine super saturated with citra hops and citra terpenes, which you don't hear people talking about terpenes that often anymore. And I've actually had this one before and it's great. And I'm looking forward to drinking it again. So that is what I am drinking to superb man superb and Nate, you're on a white stripe week here. So for those that are are just dropping in Nate is doing a week on week off to be responsible with these drinking, you know, the government told us to drink less this year. So that's what makes it ambiguous. Yeah. And so he's on a white week. Why did we decide white stripe weeks or no account route? We decided

12:33to go with red stripe for for the alcoholic weeks, right? Or was it? Oh, you went red and white. I have to say I'm black and white. White and black. Just so we know what just so we stick to what we made up to go before. So white stripe week. What's you sipping on Nate? Yeah. So I had to run into my local Whole Foods store yesterday. And it's not some hot water on the shelf. And I hadn't had it in a while. So I've got their grapefruit flavor. And this is hot water. So it's got citra, emeralo, mosaic, and azaka hops in it. And you know, hot water is a little polarizing. But I actually like it a lot. So this is something that I do enjoy having. And it's a good alternative to beer without a lot of the heaviness. Brian and I visit visit at a brewery recently. And we won't put anybody's name on blast here. But their hot water was their best offering at the time. So we tried a few beers and that and that says as folks probably know if you listen to show while beer unfortunately doesn't agree with me like it used to. So I do not

13:35drink as much as I used to. So after sampling a couple of the beers, I got a hot water set down to have a drink. And I'm like, it's actually pretty solid. So you know, sometimes that happens. I have nothing against hot water. It was tasty stuff. Yeah. Brian, I think you had something to you were going to say there. Oh, you know what? I for a second, I forgot it. But I was going to ask my mic, Nate, when you were there in Whole Foods, you stopped by there. I said somebody talked about this. Did you see a non alcoholic Guinness? Because apparently people are complaining about it like having disappeared recently in the US market. I wasn't looking for it, but I don't work all seeing it. Okay. Yeah. Now it's just an isolated thing. Somebody said, man, I'm not seeing it anywhere. I'm like, is there a run on non alcoholic Guinness? I don't know what I will say when I went to go try and buy it for the 60 40. I must have gone to like half a dozen stores before I finally found it. And this was about a month ago. So yeah. I happen to have a contact at Guinness PR. I'll see if I can find out if they've limited distribution here. I'll see if I can

14:36get some scoop on this. And it could be just selling really fast. It could not keep you out. That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking there. So yeah, we got Dave chiming in here talking about hot water versus NAB. And Dave prefer he said he prefers he'd prefer a hot water to the NAB. So and talking about the stone collaboration. I remember that. I forget who it was, but I remember the bottles on those and seeing those. So yeah, yeah, to each their own. If you like it, drink it if you don't, don't that's totally fine. Totally fine. Guys, moving on with our headlines, I tell you this brewery Brian Nate, I'm sick of talking about them, but they keep having stuff happening. So they keep making it into our news. I feel like which one? I feel like that they actually too in this one. Yes, there's one. I feel like one of these folks needs to give us some money. One of these folks needs a sponsor is because I don't know, we don't always say kind thing. So

15:36but anyhow, we talked about Tillray last week and how they struck a deal with Karlsberg to beer, redistribute their beer in the US. And we we extended some kindness to Tillray for that move because we thought it would be good for keeping people working with the breweries they owned and using capacity. Well, well, Tillray bought Brewdog on the cheap no doubt. So the deal that came out sounds like they really got them from pennies on the dollar. And as you might expect, there's a whole lot happening because of this deal. Yeah, we were speculating a week or two ago in one of the previous shows. And I don't know if did we float the idea of possibly Tillray being a buyer for Brewdog. I know it ran through my head, but I didn't know that it was like very likely. So I didn't say anything. I don't recall. I don't I know that it did not cross my mind. I just never thought that Tillray would be in the mix for that. Maybe I should have. Yeah, I definitely didn't say anything. I thought the reason I didn't say anything is I was thinking, no, it's not very likely.

16:39I really thought this was going to be a play like for the people coming in the US market. Turns out the other way around. But yeah, so what's happening with Brewdog? Yeah, Tillray's buying them. And they're they're getting a fire sale price of 33 million pounds or about 44 million dollars for for Brewdog. That's million, not billion, 44 million, not 440, 44 million dollars for Brewdog. Just making sure people get that, which is a significant drop from the previous valuation of about two billion pounds or about 2.7 billion US dollars that I guess that was their high high water valuation. It's a staggering unbelievable 98 point 98% drop in valuation, which is insane. The to put it in, you know, put it in scale here, the equity for punk's program, the people buying into Brewdog, they raised over a hundred million dollars US. And that means they could have bought Brewdog outright twice for what they paid if, you know, some number of years

17:40ago, insane. Anyway, the deal gets Tillray, the Brewdog brand, the intellectual property, the Ellen, Ellen brewery in Scotland, I think you're saying, I'm saying, I feel like maybe it's a long, I don't know. And 11 pubs. So that's the UK and Ireland part of the deal. And that's now closed. Did you have your hand up to I did, Brian, but I think you're maybe about to get to it. So I'm just going to be quiet. Okay. Yeah. So that's the the UK and the Ireland part of the deal. Which is now closed. But the US and Australian business units are are being negotiated separately. It is expected that Tillray will also close on those within 30 days. There are no details about what might happen there in terms of price and things like that. But the Delray CEO commented that Brewdog's US business is about 20 million dollars. And it's not clear exactly what that means if that's worth or what the the amount of sales that they're making every year. But that's what he said in the US. There are six tap rooms, a beer hall and a hotel, which we famously

18:42talked about. There's also like a franchise owned location, which I don't know would ever be part of the deal. But there's no comments about the Australian part, but it is considerably smaller. And I think that I think that the CEO of Tillray was a little dismissive about what that was about. So I have no idea if they're buying that too or not. And speaking of the equity for punks investors as we expect it as it's been teased, they're not going to see a penny as part of this deal. Though it was reported by BBC the Tillray plan to continue key benefits for individual investors, including their bar and online discounts. So details about that are pending, but they say they'll contact investors as soon as possible. So their shares may not be worth anything at all, other than giving them continued discounts, you know, maybe the same as what they were getting or some portion of it. So they're not nothing, but they're not much, they're not worth much anymore. The administrators of this deal, Alex partners, say they, the deal, the sales saved 733 jobs,

19:43but the headlines are all talking about the 484 jobs that were lost in 38 bars that were closed, that were not included as part of the rescue deal. They say that there was significant interest in the company, but there were no offers that would have preserved Brudog in his entirety. So nobody was going to buy it outright, maintain exactly the status quo. There are also 18 franchise open, franchise operated Brudog bars in the UK, and I think across the globe, those are unaffected, they will remain in business, so they're not going anywhere. As for Tillray, are they part of the deal or are they being purchased? They're just totally sold out. I think the franchisees just continue operating the way they have and they stay open. I don't think that they obviously they have to deal with Tillray because they're leasing or whatever the franchise from Tillray because Tillray is taking over. I think that's how it works. I don't know. It's just a branding thing. I mean, unless they could be in the name, so who knows? All right. I'll bet there's some relationship that they're has to be with Tillray, but

20:44so as for Tillray, they say this acquisition accelerated their beverage strategy by years. I don't think they were expecting to do this. They expect the Brudog acquisition to be cash flow positive. That's the phrase sometime in fiscal year 2027. So they're expecting to turn this around and make some money off of it, or at least not be like hemorrhaging money. And they already plan to use the extra Brudog capacity to take brands like Shocktop, Sweetwater, Montauk, and Tenbarrel International. So those things will be brewed in the UK probably, or maybe Ireland. It also sounds like the Brudog Ohio location may end up and looking a lot of the beers for Karlsburg once that's acquired because they're already talking about that, possibly in to handle that that that capacity. So this is just Tillray's exploding. They're going to become ABNBef here in a second, you know? So I will just say this that I'm only basing this off of what I've seen and heard. I won't claim to dive deep into the inner workings of the brewery business. We see what happens here. We see breweries closing. We kind of

21:49see market trends a little bit, but as far as a business expert, acquisitions expert or anything like that, I'm most definitely I'm not. But we have seen what Tillray has done or haven't done with the breweries that they've acquired. I mean, we've seen, you know, that I don't know where their stock is right now, but I know it hasn't been doing anything. And this just seems like, you know, we talked about it, Brian, that yeah, Brudog was struggling, but they were still like the number three or number four beer in the UK, I believe. So yeah, I mean, that's still some good market presence, even if they aren't what they once were. You know, I guess that's some good market presence and maybe close those bars and that. So I hope Tillray knows what they're doing. Now, let's remember the Tillway is heavily invested into marijuana and it's possible they're all just stoned out of their gourds. I mean, yeah, there are business actions kind of look that way. So, you know, who knows what would come of it? It doesn't sound like a great move to me, but

22:51let's see what they can do and talk about cash flow positive. I mean, I guess if you get it for $44 million, you know, I don't know what operating costs are there, but yeah, we'll see. We'll see. It's this kind of capacity that they got for brewing is they got it for just next and nothing is don't get it, man. I can't believe that Brutal couldn't get a better like offer than this. I think it must be the promise of this plus all the US and Australian stuff and they couldn't get anybody to get close to doing all that. So it's pretty wild and I honestly, they're just I can see this working for them like they're they're they're they may be buying them stuff way out of an issue just by they now can put all of their stuff from the US over there in that stuff from over there over here and then do all the good time to do that. I mean, let's put it like this. We know the beer culture in Europe and we know the story of what happened when stone went to Germany and thought they were going to make, you know, make the waves. Yeah. Who is going to give

23:52a damn about shock top in Europe about sweet water in Europe, about montage in Europe. I mean, and it's no you have a few people because they're import beers. Hey, these are American import beers in that, but it will be a novelty, I think. I just don't, you know, maybe I will say this, the people that we have met from the UK at various beer events and things and the people that we know that go to the UK. It's not like American beer is taken over the shelves there. That's true. But your halts also have to keep in mind. They cut a lot of the expense that was that was weighing down. Brudog. So even if they were only successful in producing Brudog, the way it has been, as like the number three or four, whatever it is in the UK, they've lost, like they fired, like the union, I think, that was involved in it. Like most of those people are gone. That's expensive. A lot of those pubs that weren't making a lot of money. That's expensive. They all of the debt that the company had, like that's not getting paid back. I don't know what anybody's

24:53actually getting. I wonder how that works. Exactly. Yeah. They're getting all of these assets, all this capacity and the market that's buying the beer and they've dropped all the debt. They've dropped all the expense, the overhead of like, 484 people. They've dropped all of that. So they've erased all of that. And now they're looking at we've got all the stuff for next to nothing and we bought basically this whole market. See how they can't make money off of this. Well, here's a thing because in the UK, like all those bars, they were they were brutal going. Like, you know, that was a revenue stream. And I have to assume a lot of the revenue was coming from those. So yeah, they shed a lot of expenses by getting rid of all of those bars, but they also probably closed down a lot of revenue points there too. That's possible. And I don't know if those were underperforming too. I'm like, yeah, because they kept some number of what I say 11 13 18. All right.

25:5311 plus they kept 11 in big areas. They they dropped ones. And I mean, some of the areas I saw like leads. I know that I'm not even know the UK. I've heard of leads. So like they dropped some places that were big areas, but they kept stuff in London and they kept stuff in one in Dublin. And so they kept the really big areas that are likely to see a lot of foot traffic probably. So I think that I think this was a smart thing for them. I give it considering, but I'll actually remind me in one year to see how brew dog is doing. Five. Everybody will be everybody listening will be thanking you for that. Yeah, there we go. So let's see. Let's check in in one year and see if they how they did worth her predictions. So interesting. You know, I think it's fun to talk about and kind of see where it goes there, but I don't know, man, does it sound great to me, Brian? You see, it sounds like you think there is some potential there. So Nate, let's get the let's get the third input here. What are your thoughts on this? You know, I think Tillray getting brew dog for such a

26:55steel, you know, pennies on the dollar. Good for Tillray. Sorry, you know, it's very punk of brew dog to go out like this and not pay off their equity for punks investors. But hey, you get a discount at the tap room whenever you go in and get yourself a little pint. So I guess everybody's a winter and brew dog finally showed us what punks they are finally fine. Somebody in beer advocate had the best comment ever. Like they were warned. The definition of punk is to deceive or to trick. So boom, you're like, you bought it. This is how it plays out. You got punks. You got you got me, brew dog. I didn't see that one coming. I did not see that one coming. All right. Well, Brian, before we move on to our next story, which is a little more positive, how about we give a shout out to our good friends over at truck and tap. Yeah. Yeah. So inspired by our sour beer bottle share that we did this past weekend, I'm, I've decided my beer picks for the week will all be sour beers. Unfortunately, I don't see any creeks or lambics on tap at truck and tap right now. I have seen

27:56them in the past. Some mixed fermentation stuff. Some really cool stuff. Not this week, though. But there's no shortage of delightful, fruity kettle sourds to choose from. So I'm going with that. I don't think I've had any of these yet. So that makes this list just that much more appealing. So let's get into my beer picks for the week at truck and tap woodstock. I'm going with three tablets. La Modrina. It's a kettle sour that features black current pink guava and sea salt. I love guava in the right beer. And I this, this does sound like it's the right beer. So definitely getting that at the dilute location. I'm getting little nap from prairie artisan, which is a sour made with blackberry and limes, but to make things even more interesting. It's also condition on oak spirals. It sounds intriguing. The word is this one packs quite the tart punch. And I've seen pictures and it's a thick boy, too. It's, it looks like it's got some viscosity to it. A truck and tap alfreda. My pick is high wires push up orange sherbert sour. I've always been a fan of the orange cream sickle type of thing. So this one's a no brainer.

28:59It is described as creamy with vanilla zesty citrus and mellow marshmallow notes. Yeah, I'm definitely getting that. That sounds great. And finally, at the Lawrenceville location, I'm going with pontoons crushing crushing waves crushing waves seems to be a proud flavor favorite at truck and tap judging by the number of times I've seen it on tap there. But I don't think I've ever included in my beer picks. So that changes this week. Like the rest, it's a fruited kettle sour, but this one features fresh pineapple and tart cherries. And it sounds like a tropical island vacation in the glass. So definitely looking forward to trying that one out. And there you have my beer picks for the week. Get out there and have a beer or two. And as always, if you'd like to see the full tap list before stopping by, take a look at truck tap calm. The tabs change quickly. So you never know what great new beer might go on and which of these might go off. And if you'd like to see what food trucks are serving and what events are happening, like your trivia, your karaoke, your live music, or your St. Patrick's Day party, which is happening next week. That's happening. You can also find that at truckandtap.com. Everything you need to know can be found at truckandtap.com.

30:03So check that out. And thank you to truck and tap for your support. Thanks truck and tap. We love you. Good stuff, Brian. So moving along, some fun news out of Australia. We got a new hop variety, Brian. And as a hop fan yourself, I'm sure it's exciting to hear about new varieties coming out. But from the land down under we have Luna. Yes. Yes. Can you hear? Can you hear the thunder? I can. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, a new Australian hop variety, given how popular Australian hops are these days, that's big news. Or they're popular with me. So it's big news for me. I hope everybody else is excited about this. But hot products, Australia, HPA is what other currently known or often frequently known. They're the largest hopgrower in Australia and they have announced the naming of Luna, a hop variety previously called HPA 0333. So but the naming is only the only a significant milestone in the long road trip for the hop to get to this point. The hop got its start back in 2003 when it was born as part of HPA's hop breeding program. So it's been

31:08over 20 years at this point. Fast forward nine years to 2012 and Luna started making appearances in trial beers under the name HPA 0333. And now obviously this year has been given a name. The standout characteristic of this hop is it's all in one combination of mango, berries and citrus, which they say is uncommon to get all of these elements in a single hop. So it kind of does it all for you. Unlike the high intensity of hops like Eclipse and Vic secret, Luna is also priced for like a soft mouth feel and a kind of a smooth palette, making it versatile for more than just IPAs. And HPA's profile of the hop recommends it, you know, for use and logger styles in addition to various paleales and IPA varieties. So it can do all of those things. Luna is a third generation descended of the US hop liberty and the iconic Australian bittering hop, Pride of Ringwood. Have you guys ever heard of Pride of Ringwood hops? I never. Okay, good. It's not just

32:10me. No, it's iconic apparently. Yes, the court, maybe a little, maybe local love, Brian, maybe it's very popular there with the Australian turns out, yes, that's exactly what it is. Apparently it's used in a lot of iconic Australian beers like Victoria bitter, which VB, which I'd like to drink again. That's, that's kind of a legendary thing that I've always been on the lookout for. Carlton draft, Foster's logger and Cooper's pale ale, which Cooper's we have seen here. Hit and miss. So you've had it probably you just may not remember having ever had it. So that's, that's where you can find that. But yeah, Luna, look for Luna. It's coming soon to a beer near you. Good stuff. No, Brian, we've got some legislative news here, beer bills. And you know what? Real quick, this happened kind of quickly here as far as the news getting out, at least to my ears and that a little side side bar here here in Georgia, we had a bill go up this year and something we've been trying to do for a few years now is to allow

33:12our breweries to sell more direct to the consumer at the brewery for some limited self-distribution. Two things in a lot of states really get you are allowed to do because right now our breweries are are our breweries are limited to 288 ounces per person per day. So a case a case of 12 ounce can. So that's it. And you know, we will definitely take a look and see what we can do to do that again in future years, but it just didn't go anywhere. And of course, limited self-distribution for anyone kind of familiar with distribution and how it works, especially for small startup breweries, they have a difficult time getting a distributor a lot of times because they're just small potatoes and a distributor doesn't want to mess with them. But every beer sold outside of the brewery in Georgia has to have a distributor to get to where it needs to go. And this can give some ridiculous things like if a brewery wants to deliver a keg to a bar restaurant that is literally across

34:18a street from them, then if there's distributor, if this brewery is in the northern suburbs and their distributors in downtown Atlanta, they send a truck up to the suburbs, pick that beer up, I believe sometimes they have to take it back logging into the warehouse and then they truck it back up to that restaurant across the street. So breweries want the right to just say, I think they said something like within their county or a certain mile radius to do self-distribution. So, but we have both the distributor lobby and religious interest here that lobby against these things. You know, there was someone said that would make alcohol more readily available, would contribute contribute to more alcoholism. Of course that argument makes no sense at all. It's no difference in the amount of beer that's available. And you know, the buying from the brewery versus buying from a grocery store or liquor store or whatever. But the short of it is the billbeard die. They didn't move it forward for a vote. So we'll go back into it again this year. We've got a

35:20lot of our brewers fight really hard. I want to give a shout out to Thomas Monti at schoolhouse brewing. He's the he's the front line of the grassroots effort from the brewers. You know, he's he is engaging with people on Reddit, people on Facebook getting the word out there. Other brewers as well. Thomas just happened to be the one that I saw the most about the most news from this year and he really gave some deep dives, letting people know, hey, this is what's going on. And if you're in a state and you've ever followed beer laws distribution laws, brewery rights and all that, it's hard to win victories. They're very, very tough to win. You know, we had a couple small ones in like a 07 08 or 06 and 08 something like that. I think it's when they passed that, you know, that allowed for the limited distribution that we can do that allowed for our breweries to be able to sell food because before that they couldn't do that. So it did an increased our brewery count here in Georgia. You know, we had a nice little boom after that. And it's just unfortunate to fight that

36:21they've they've got to take with that. But that's enough on our personal issues. But I'm sure your state has similar fights there. So if you're not involved, take a look, see what's going on. Give them support, spread the word and call your call your lawmakers. Let them know how you feel there. So yeah, definitely. But with that said, Brian, something a little bigger than just our local ones, the cheers act is back. And that is a bipartisan bill known as a creating hospitality, economic enhancement for restaurants and servers. And it's back. It is back. It's it's been reintroduced. I think this might be the third time, but reintroduced to the US House of Representatives on February 20th. The bill aims to help bars, restaurants and entertainment venues invest in energy efficient sustainable draft systems. The the help comes in the form of allowing them to depreciate the equipment over 15 years, lowering their tax and income over the space of 15 years. And thus giving them an incentive to actually invest in these better tap systems, which are more energy efficient.

37:26The Brewer's Association notes that the high cost of maintaining and upgrading energy efficient lines remains a barrier to many small businesses. They're not going to shell out extra money to be environmentally conscious if they're just barely scraping by. The bill is a little different this time around, not in like significant ways, but the version this version of the bill targets a different section of the IRS code because the section it targeted previously is expiring due to another bill being signed. I think it was the the big beautiful omnibus whatever bill that happened in 2025. But I did a little googling about what makes a draft system efficient and sustainable because it's curious. And I guess it comes down to a few things best I can tell thermal efficiency and insulation. So you basically want to limit the unnecessary use of power for refrigeration as much as possible, like not having your fans running all the time, not leaking a lot of cool air. So that alone helps a lot. And I think there's a glycol systems that are more efficient than

38:27you know, like using fans and other things like that. There's more efficient gas management, everything from like generators to produce your own gas, what you would use to like there's systems in place you can put in place to prevent over over carbonation in the beers that you pour. So you're the people pouring your beers don't dump them because they're just all carbonation. You don't want that. You're losing a lot. That's wasteful. And then there's a more efficient tap lines that lead to less beer being lost or in cleaning, both the shorter lines and they're actually narrower to in some cases. And I read something about apparently there's some cutting edge technology that allows you to do some kind of an ultrasound process to help keep the lines clean that doesn't involve you emptying them. You still have to clean your lines occasionally just not as often. So there's a whole there's a whole range of things you can do to make your your draft system better. There's a lot of options out there. And if this passes you can have some you know, incentives like some tax breaks to actually put in a better system and you know do a better job

39:29with with your beer. So hope it passes this time. I think this is like the third time. Maybe it's the challenge. That's refrigeration is extremely energy inefficient. You know, whether that's a refrigerator, whether it's an air conditioner, what have you, just a super energy inefficient process. That's a I think a lot of people know I'm a recruiter in my day job. I do recruit for telecom. And one example there is these the cell sites of the base of a cell site. There's an enclosure there that they use. And of course that enclosure is filled with basically computers and electronic equipment, which generates a lot of heat. It has to be kept cold to keep running. So you know, some of the energy efficient projects they've done there is like putting a hole or cutting the hole on the side of the enclosure and putting it's essentially like a special exhaust fan in there to pull the heat out. I don't think it's just like a fan. I think there's more to it than that. But you know, the amount of that you can save when you think about all the cell sites across the whole country, you know, the amount of energy you save there

40:34really does add up just like this. We're talking about, you know, when you start talking about all the bars or a number of bars in restaurants across the country doing stuff more energy efficient, you know, it definitely adds up. So, you know, it sounds like a pretty good initiative to me. As someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. It was noted in the article that there are people that are like businesses that are dropping tap systems because they don't think they're, you know, not what they're cracked up to be. But we have a story that might change their mind about that coming up. Okay. We'll see what happens then. Brian, moving along, more beer status cells reports. We love talking about the data on beer cells. And this one's kind of from Bank of America. And they are saying that alcohol cells at bars are up. But drinking at home is down. And this seems like some of this kind of flip flop over the last few years. Like where people are doing their drinking? Are they going out? Are they staying home? So right now Bank of America says they're going out to the bar. Yeah. We had the pandemic in the past where you couldn't

41:38go out to the bar. So people were loading up and taking it home. So necessarily there would be a change here. But yeah, it seems that the rumors of the death of the bar, which we heard about right after the pandemic, they have been greatly exaggerated. According to the report from Bank of America, Predacard data shows that alcohol sales are on the rise at bars. Sales are up 4% since the beginning of 2025. But at the same time, retail purchases of alcohol continue to fall because people are, you know, drinking less at home. And there's a lot said about this. I don't know if it's you can prove it, but there's a social aspect here that plays into it and that they say that's the driving factor. I didn't see that like laid out like provably in the article, but I think that's probably part of it. Anyway, sales have been dropping for retail. Stuff you would buy and take home by roughly 5% since 2024. And this, this is all happening despite drinks at bars being significantly more expensive than, you know, you're at home options, which is crazy considering

42:39we've also had inflation issues going on. So things are really going up in price. But contrary to the reputation of being T totalers, Gen Z and younger millennials are just more moderates in their consumption of alcoholic beverages compared to older generations. At least that's what they're finding. They're still buying it just just not as much. But speaking of older generations, the number of frequent drinkers is on the rise for people 50 and older. And it's even going up significantly for people 65 and older. For that last group 65 and older, they're saying 2.8 million in that group started drinking regularly over the last decade. They went from not drinking regularly to drinking regularly. So some things got the people that senior citizens get hit in the booze and a very noteworthy recent example of growth in sales at bars happened on Valentine's Day, according to NIQ, which also does stats. This is not a bank of America here. Apparently, the number of people heading to bars and restaurants to celebrate Valentine's Day was up 24%

43:41compared to last year. And that's not just people going out to dinner. Neighborhood bars and sports bars were both up around 20% compared to last year at this time. So people are heading to the bar, man. They are getting their drink on. They are. We did, Brian. We went out for Valentine's Day. We did. Yeah. Kind of interesting story of being brief, but Brian's wife had to work. So they did something pre-Valentines Day. So we hung out on Valentine's Day. And I don't think at the time either of us realized it was Valentine's Day. So we just walked into this Mexican restaurant. We're like, Hey, two people. They're like, do you have a reservation, sir? I'm like for tacos. Do we need a reservation? And I think it was like 15 minutes later, it struck us. Oh, this is Valentine's. It wasn't nice. It wasn't upscale Mexican restaurant. So I think they had a lot of balloons too. There was a lot of hearts around. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't. It didn't click with us. So we went to another joint and had some nice tacos. It was a little less date nighty kind to taco joint. Yeah. But yeah, the AZ Kougars football, he's like, is that more trend of social drinking?

44:46Brian, I think you mentioned that. It does sound like people are becoming more social now. You know, I think that was part of the way going back out some and that's good. I think we still continue to heal from the plague. So people getting back into some normalcy. Hopefully, it'll get back around me because pre-COVID was good times. It was extremely social. Everybody was out all the time. So hopefully that is an indication of people going out and being a little more social because I think especially now, we probably all need it. Go out, hang out, have a drink, have a taco, you know, whatever suits your fancy. Yeah. And I keep reading about how Gen Z, especially is more experiential and like the importance of like the overall experience. Not just going there to drink, but like the people and everything else going on with it. So yeah, I think this, it makes sense as playing in. I don't know that these numbers necessarily prove anything to that effect. But I think the social aspect of it is important. And I think people are missing it and people are like, Hey, you know, I know the drinks are more expensive,

45:50but I want to hang out with some friends while I'm doing it. So yeah, you know, I wish there was more consistency on it because like we talked about, man, it's kind of back and forth. They'll say it's down. They'll say it's up this and that. But you know, we heard it was up, some for Super Bowl, you know. So, you know, seeing some trends here. So maybe we trickle up a little bit. Maybe we're headed in the right direction here. So hopefully, hopefully, man, get out there and drink. Brian, more good news. Man, we're just, we're just full of good stories this once of good news. It's things are up. Things are up. People are buying. Tears act is back. But in this one, a very fine brewery, Lawson's finest, they actually grew in 2025. Something a lot of breweries aren't done, but they had 15% growth in 2025. Yeah, despite all the challenges facing craft beer and how we keep hearing about, you know, people, the distributors are whatever, like they're buying less of craft beer. Man, Lawson's ended 2025 with a 15.8% increase in sales at grocery stores driven largely by their SIP series. That includes like

46:57SIP of Sunshine IPA, which a lot of people have heard of. I know that was one that was always excited to see a bottle shares because it's a little hard to get down here. It's still hard to get down here, honestly. But little SIP also is part of that. The brewery is currently the top performing craft brand in the Northeast fast moving consumer goods sector. Again, according to NIQ, which I mentioned them before, despite expanding all the way down to southern markets like Virginia, that's weird to think of Virginia's southern, but you know, we're really far south. And North Carolina, the brewery maintains a strict cold only requirement for its beer. And this is very interesting. They require cold storage, cold shipment, and cold shelving. And I have a lot of respect for this, and I wish more breweries had this requirement. And I think it's why they're doing so well. They're insisting their beer be maintained cold the entire way. And I know for a fact that some of these distributors are doing terrible things with craft beer. And they never have been doing great things with them. I'm not naming any names. I just know some have been, but Walton. Yeah. While we don't know the specific production

48:02numbers, Lawson's volume now places them amongst the top 50 independent craft brewers in the US. So I think it's a jump for them. I don't think they were ever in the top 50 before. And not only that, to capitalize on the stovepipe or the 19.2 ounce single serve trend, hashtag Long Bear Friday, baby. Lawson says launching a or has launched a high ABV Imperial IPA called Epic Sip Imperial IPA. And they did that back in October, which I would totally be all over if it were down here. But and and on top of all this, they have also improved their B Corp score, which is a certification that assesses and verifies a company's social, environmental and government governance impact against the B lab standards, the people who evaluate it. So they got a whole list of standards. So they've actually up their score and they're selling more and they're just they're kind of killing it right now. So Lawson's finest is I don't know. You got to watch them, man. Yeah, that's what when we talked to them, you know, they were talking about and speaking of energy efficiency, Brian, something we talked about earlier there,

49:05they have a solar bank on top of their brewery there. It's actually the largest solar canopy in the state of Vermont. So they said that I believe it's 90%. They offset 90% of their their power through their solar canopy there. They also manage their water, their wastewater, you know, so they're very green, very eco conscious there. So, you know, it's pretty cool, making good beers, seeing growth, being ecologically conscious there. It's all good stuff, man. You can argue with that. I want to say their B Corp score. I don't remember what it was was like 91.8 or something like that. Yeah. It's in the 90th percentile, which I think is difficult with all the things you'd have to do. So yeah, they may be the top on that too. I have I didn't look into that. Am I remember and correctly that at one time, brew dog was B Corp, but they lost it. They were right. Yes. They were and they lost that. They they did a number of things. They also did the whole we're paying everybody a living wage until at a certain point, they like, now we're not doing it anymore.

50:09Yeah. They were hemorrhaging money. So it takes you how much to live. Yeah. They're like, oh, wait, we didn't realize a living wage was that much. I'm like, yeah, if you looked around, have you looked at the price of your beer and also looked around because everything's really expensive these days. We had no idea that peasants needed that much to live. Yes. Crazy. Silly peasants. Yes. We're Brian moving right along. Another drink and holiday is coming up. Those are always fun, but St. Patrick's Day is coming up. And this year, the Guinness storehouse is just going to have a blow out of a party, a multi-day party at the Guinness storehouse. Yeah. All out, the Guinness storehouse in Dublin is extending St. Patrick's Day and they've never done it like this before I checked. They're making it into an eight day festival. It will run from Wednesday, March 11th to Wednesday, March 18th. The event sounds massive from everything I've read. It's the seven floors of the Guinness storehouse will be buzzing with over a hundred acts and entertainment as part of a ticketed experience when you go there. And there will be no shortage of traditional

51:11Irish music like every floor all over the place. I don't even know. These bands are going to be playing over top of each other. I don't know how that's even possible, but they're also going to have a special immersive area on the fourth floor dedicated to teaching visitors to speak basic phrases in Gaelic, which I guess is it's like Gaelic, but it's the Irish version of it. So they're actually going to have like real classes where people learn how to be semi-conscious, not controversial, but conversational. That's the word. Maybe controversial. Maybe I don't know. Maybe they'll fight. I don't know. There will also be a quote electrifying top secret gig that's a that's being announced in the coming days. But I think this got leaked out already. The secret gig is they're going to have a Welsh DJ duo named over mono. I've never heard of them. But apparently this is a big deal because Guinness typically favors like traditional Irish music in its celebrations, but they also get it. There are a lot of young G splitters out there.

52:13And they need to entertain them too. So they need the folks splitting the G. They want some DJ music. So they're going to get that too. So yeah, but not to bury the lead. There will also be a limited edition oyster stop pouring at the open gate brewery. And this is made with actual oysters. There will be no funny business, no no fakes on there. So I don't know if they've ever done anything like that, but they've been around for a long time. So maybe they have. But yeah, let's throw all out this year. Like a good time. I think this is a good time. Brian to throw some news of our own our Guinness related news to our own out there on our show. Our next episode where actually will be our San Patrick's day episode. We are going to be speaking with Colmo Connor, who is from the Guinness storehouse brewery. He's a Guinness ambassador. And he's going to be in the States. There actually be a New York City. So he will be joining us virtually on that. But we'll talk about some different things. Maybe get some Guinness recipes. We'll talk a little bit more about the celebrations that are having there. History of Guinness, anything. So

53:13you know what? If you guys want to know anything about Guinness, drop us a message. You know, let us know. We'll try and work it into that. But and related to that to fit his schedule, our live stream will actually be on Thursday next week. That is going to be Thursday, March 12th. Same time, seven o'clock, but we've got to move it a day to accommodate his schedule. We thought it was worth it. That that'll be a really good show. So San Patrick's day is always a good time. And Guinness is one of the one of the Macro beers we allow. We we we go with it, man. I know that people have had issues with them as being a macro. I've always loved Guinness. I've never not like Guinness to be honest with you. I think they're ones that you know what? All right. Talk about our our perfume addiction as well, Brian. They have what they call designer brands versus niche brands. And there's a few designers that get accepted by the niche nerds. So you know, I think it's like it's like that here as well. Yeah. Are you saying they're Tom Ford? Is that what's happening here? No. Louis Vuitton is really throw out. Louis Vuitton. Okay.

54:16Guinness is Louis Vuitton. They're kind of an interesting thing to to say though. Can you think of any other beers that that fall into that at the level that Guinness does? No. Nothing comes to mind. Not not quite like that. Yeah. I think Guinness kind of stands alone on that. You know, a good bit. So interesting. Good for them, man. Guinness is just just classic beer, man. Classic beer. Yeah. I'm a fan. I'm always going to have a Guinness, especially this time of year. Yeah. Lovely day for Guinness, Brian. Indeed. That's what they tell us. We all thanks so much for joining us hanging out that about wraps it up for this episode. As always, if you enjoyed or going here, we would absolutely love it. If you would tell a friend to listen to this show, share a tweet with a link to the episode, post them on Facebook, tattoo it on your forehead. Any of those is fine. We'll even need a QR code for the tattoo. Hit us up. We'll get you one. We'll take care of that. You know, if you you really dig us, please go to patreon.com slash beer guys. We would absolutely love your support. And we will get you some swag out. We'll get you into our

55:18discord chat where we talk about all kinds of stuff and you get invitations to the after party after each week's live stream. With all that said, we hope that you have a really, really good week and don't forget to drink well. Cheers.