EPISODE S.7, E.1

[BREWDECK WRAPPED: TOP 5]

Heather Jerred (00:00:05):

Welcome back to another episode of The BrewDeck podcast. I am your host, Heather, and I am joined by Matt and Brittany. Hi, guys.

Brittany Drennan (00:00:13):

Hello.

Matt Sprinkle (00:00:14):

Hey.

Heather Jerred (00:00:14):

Happy New Year.

Matt Sprinkle (00:00:14):

Happy New Year, guys.

Brittany Drennan (00:00:16):

Happy fricking new year. Although it is bizarrely warm here in Texas. So I feel like I’m in the Upside Down. I don’t know what’s happening.

Heather Jerred (00:00:25):

Did you watch the final? I mean, you’re saying Upside Down. I’m just going to assume you watched the final. You haven’t?

Brittany Drennan (00:00:30):

I did. It was amazing.

Heather Jerred (00:00:32):

It was so good. I’m just going to go into a Stranger Things chat now. It was definitely how I spent my New Year’s Eve. And that’s the lame I am. I sat at home and watched Stranger Things. [inaudible 00:00:44].

Brittany Drennan (00:00:44):

Yeah. Well, I feel like we’re all growing together in age and our New Year’s Eves are getting quieter and quieter. So I feel like some of-

Heather Jerred (00:00:52):

So fine.

Brittany Drennan (00:00:53):

… our listeners probably can relate to that.

Heather Jerred (00:00:56):

Some of them are boring just like us.

Matt Sprinkle (00:01:00):

We had a 9:00 PM toast for champaign at The Whale, the craft beer bar here in Asheville. So it was perfect.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:05):

Cutesy.

Heather Jerred (00:01:06):

That sounds amazing.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:06):

I love that. It’s always weird, the ball drop because we’re an hour behind the East Coast, so the New York City ball drop is … We always have to watch it at 11:00, and then do it again at midnight.

Heather Jerred (00:01:19):

Yeah, we’re free hours behind over here.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:19):

Exactly.

Heather Jerred (00:01:19):

Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:22):

Yeah. Does Vancouver do any dropping things from the sky?

Heather Jerred (00:01:26):

I don’t know. I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t-

Brittany Drennan (00:01:27):

[inaudible 00:01:27].

Heather Jerred (00:01:27):

… think I’ve gone out for New Year since I moved to Vancouver. This is my fourth or fifth.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:33):

Wow.

Heather Jerred (00:01:34):

I’ve really not been here because obviously I travel a lot or I know last year and this year both, I wanted to get really early morning hikes and so I have to start my year with the hike. So I am in bed way before midnight, because that is me.

Brittany Drennan (00:01:46):

I know that Orlando drops an orange.

Heather Jerred (00:01:50):

[inaudible 00:01:50].

Brittany Drennan (00:01:49):

And I saw that Tucson, Arizona drops a Taco Bell taco. I don’t know if that’s true. It could have been AI. Who knows anymore?

Heather Jerred (00:01:57):

I want to believe that that’s true. We don’t really have Taco Bell up here. There’s a few locations, but it’s very rare to get Taco Bell in Canada. So anytime I go to the U.S., Taco Bell is a stop I like to make.

Brittany Drennan (00:02:10):

Do you have any weird ball drops, Sprinkle?

Matt Sprinkle (00:02:13):

We watched the 1990 to 1991 New Year’s on the big screen at the [inaudible 00:02:18].

Heather Jerred (00:02:20):

Who was hosting it at that point in time?

Matt Sprinkle (00:02:23):

It just felt right.

Brittany Drennan (00:02:24):

Wasn’t it Dick Clark or whatever? Or is that no?

Heather Jerred (00:02:28):

[inaudible 00:02:28].

Brittany Drennan (00:02:28):

I don’t know.

Matt Sprinkle (00:02:27):

It probably was Rob Gronkowski and whoever else is doing it now.

Brittany Drennan (00:02:34):

[inaudible 00:02:34].

Heather Jerred (00:02:34):

No, I’m fairly certain it’s Anderson Cooper and-

Brittany Drennan (00:02:40):

That’s on CNN. That’s a news. No, the ABC main one was Ryan Seacrest.

Heather Jerred (00:02:47):

Okay.

Brittany Drennan (00:02:47):

Anyway.

Matt Sprinkle (00:02:49):

Andy what’s-his-face who hosts The Housewives things.

Heather Jerred (00:02:52):

Andy Cohen.

Brittany Drennan (00:02:52):

Cohen. Yeah.

Heather Jerred (00:02:55):

Shout out to Andy Cohen and all Bravo shows that that suck my brain cells out of my head. Love it.

Brittany Drennan (00:03:02):

Okay. We should get back on track here.

Heather Jerred (00:03:03):

We should probably get back on track.

Matt Sprinkle (00:03:03):

Let’s do it.

Heather Jerred (00:03:05):

It is season seven of The BrewDeck podcast. I can’t believe we’re at season seven. I said I feel like you’ve been doing this forever, but it also feels very new. Yay. Welcome to season seven. As is tradition here, we do a countdown of our top episodes from last year. So we’re going to jump into that in a bit, but let’s do a little housekeeping, new products. Sprinkle, what have we got that’s coming down the pipe?

Matt Sprinkle (00:03:29):

Well, exciting for us. We’ve officially launched Fonio for purchase in the U.S. Fonio is a naturally gluten-free ancient grain from West Africa, giving brewers a true non-gluten base for beer and fermented beverages. Yolélé’s pre-processed Fonio integrates easily into the mash, doesn’t require milling or special equipment, making gluten-free formulation far more streamlined.

Heather Jerred (00:03:54):

That’s exciting. So reach out to your rap about that now, but that’s me. Whoa, wow. Sorry about that. Some more exciting news. 2025 crop your hops have started to arrive in the warehouse. So check with your sales rep for our available varieties. Note, we are doing spot hops only moving forward. So we have a really well curated portfolio of hot varieties. So make sure to reach out to your rep to find out what we’ve got in.

Brittany Drennan (00:04:22):

You may also have seen some emails come out from us and social posts, et cetera. But our Czech Malt brand, this is a discount reminder. From now through February 28th, our Czech wheat, Vienna, and Munich malts are all 10 cents a pound off regular based pricing.

Heather Jerred (00:04:39):

That’s huge. Well, let’s dive into the episode. We’re going to recap our top five episodes from 2025. Let’s go.

Brittany Drennan (00:04:48):

Coming in at number five and most popular episodes was our season six, episode four, Grain, Grit and Growth. In this episode, we learned the history of CMG from the founders and how it came about in celebration of CMG’s 30th anniversary. Here are Claude and Bryan talking about the idea of CMG and its launch.

Claude Bechard  (00:05:10):

I said, “Well, in the wintertime, I’m hauling fuel for Carl.” I said, “With an 18 and just take it easy in the summer.” So he just kept harping about it. So finally I decided, well, what are we going to do? He says, “Well …” And Tom’s been a home brewer for years. “We could start a malt business.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Who are we going to sell it to?” He said, “Well, there’s a few.” I said, “Yeah, you’re right. There’s a few.” So we talked about it for a year, 18 months, right Bryan?

Bryan Bechard  (00:05:44):

At least.

Claude Bechard  (00:05:45):

Yeah. Finally, I said, “Well, let’s do it.” So Tom and Bryan went to Blasberg, did the DBA, Claude Bechard doing business as North Country Malt Supply, then we started. We had, I don’t know, about a dozen bags of grain that I bought from Canada Malting, and we bought a van, a green 40 [inaudible 00:06:11] van, three, three-quarter ton. It was overloaded right from the first day almost, and I came on that van and no customers, and that’s where we got started.

Toby Tucker  (00:06:25):

So Canada Malting was the first malt brand that y’all brought in initially?

Claude Bechard  (00:06:29):

Yep. That was the first one. I go to Montreal and pick up the malt, bring it back to the border.

Toby Tucker  (00:06:36):

Well, I’m bouncing all over the place. I think it’s so great to be able to have you two guys on. But Claude, you mentioned 12 bags. You bought 12 bags, and that’s how you got started.

Claude Bechard  (00:06:47):

Yeah. I think we had … what was it, Bryan? Six bags of 2-Row and a few bags of colored malt, and that’s what we had for inventory.

Bryan Bechard  (00:06:59):

Yep. [inaudible 00:06:59] 0758. Remember that was … we always called it 0758, that was what Bairds Pale was called back in-

Claude Bechard  (00:07:06):

Yup, yup.

Toby Tucker  (00:07:09):

That’s pretty cool. So I’m bouncing all over the place here, Bryan, because I’m excited. So for those 12 bags, did you have a first customer lined up, or were you pedaling out to breweries and knocking on doors? How were y’all making those for sales?

Claude Bechard  (00:07:28):

We didn’t have a single one, Toby, that one.

Toby Tucker  (00:07:30):

That was a risk. So how’d that come about? Did you just honestly out on hitting the road like we do now, Bryan or Claude?

Claude Bechard  (00:07:38):

Well, pretty much it, Bryan.

Bryan Bechard  (00:07:39):

Yeah. And making phone calls. I did a lot of mailings and such to breweries as they were evolving and then following up with phone calls. And then occasionally we’d get in the car and do day trips. But our first customer is the place that Jeff Hughes started brewing at, at the original Saratoga, I think Saratoga Springs Brew Pub, it was called.

Heather Jerred (00:08:04):

Toby touched on the van. I want to touch on one other little iconic image that I’ve seen since I started with CMG, and that’s the shed, the malt shed, which if anybody has been to CBC and been to our booth over the past five years, we’ve recreated that, our CBC booth. Can you tell us a little bit about your shed?

Bryan Bechard  (00:08:27):

Go ahead, Dad. You talk about that. It was in the back of your house.

Claude Bechard  (00:08:31):

Oh, the shed. Yeah. Well, that’s where the first bags went in that shed. Well, naturally, that was our mower shed. So Beverly’s mother had room in her garage. So it was in the fall of the year, late September. I took to the mower over there, put in her shed, in her garage, and we emptied it right out. There wasn’t a thing left in there. Then that’s where the grist mill went and the malt. Then at this point, it’s getting to the problem is being, the shed’s not big enough. So we rented some of those that cubicles, had malt in there. A friend of mine, Champlain, had a trailer, 40-foot trailer. He says, “Can you use that trailer, Claude?” He says, “I got a bunch of junk in there.” He says, “I’ll take it out.” He says, “You might as well use it.” So we had malt in there, remember Bryan?

Bryan Bechard  (00:09:30):

We would go everywhere. We’d touch a bag 10 times before we sold it initially.

Toby Tucker  (00:09:35):

Just moving it around.

Claude Bechard  (00:09:36):

[inaudible 00:09:36] where it was. Oh my God.

Toby Tucker  (00:09:38):

Stash houses.

Bryan Bechard  (00:09:39):

Exactly.

Claude Bechard  (00:09:42):

Well, at first, that’s all we had was the malt. But as time went on, we got into cleaning chemicals and got into adjuncts and oh my God, name it. And when Bryan came up with that slogan, One Stop Shop, that’s where we made it.

Matt Sprinkle (00:10:00):

Coming in at the fourth most popular episode is our Pride Month special, Pour Some Pride On It, season six, episode nine. Here at Country Malt Group, we are proud to be part of a global family of brands, Souffle Malt. Together, we are committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our entire organization. We also strive to create and uphold an environment where everybody is safe, welcomed, and has a sense of belonging regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, or their personal beliefs. We kick off our pride episode with Sarah and Loretta, the founders of Dyke Beer, who talk about their efforts to build inclusive queer spaces within the craft beverage industry through the Dyke Beer brands and exclusive events.

Heather Jerred (00:10:43):

… scheduled to come and join us. I know you’ve got a lot of stuff on the go. Before we dive in and talk about the beers, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves, how you got into the craft beer industry?

Loretta Andro Chung (00:10:53):

I got into the craft beer industry because I like beer. I also have done some home brewing. So I was doing more of it, and I just wanted to see how it’d be to brew beer and make something that was going to taste better than we have at our local bars because a lot of lesbian bars just have your run-of-the-mill beer. So we wanted something more upscale.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:11:18):

Absolutely. And Loretta and I first started as friends and as I guess business partners, volunteering for this organization called Dyke Bar Takeover. We were basically popping up throughout a few bars in New York City. There weren’t a lot of parties at this time. This was pre-COVID for sapphics, dykes, lesbians, transgender, the queer community. And so through that project, once COVID hit, we were like, “How do we make this our job? We’re having so much fun creating these parties for queer people and having these queer artists showcase and giving money to queer mutual aid.”

(00:11:51):

And the idea of Dyke Beer came up, of creating actually a physical product to be able to sell and have as a business and create this cool business for the community. And as Loretta said, a lot of the bars didn’t have great craft options. A lot of it is PBR and Coors and Miller and this sort of thing. And so we were really excited to create something beautiful and fun for the community. I ended up going to Cornell Brewing School, did some home brewing as well. Since then, we’ve been creating even more pop-up parties, the beer and a little bit of a line of march as well.

Brittany Drennan (00:12:23):

Hell, yeah. So what is the history behind why you chose the name?

Loretta Andro Chung (00:12:29):

There are several reasons. One big one is an ode to the Dyke March that has been around for 25, I think 27 years now. I’m not sure exactly, but it started in the ’90s just to give visibility to queer women, lesbians and show that we exist, we’re here, and we’re a variety of looking people. We’re not just butch. We’re not just femme. We’re the whole gamut of it. And I think that there had been a long stereotype of what a dyke was.

(00:13:07):

And back in the ’50s, ’60s, it was used as a slur the same way that gay or fagot was, and sometimes it still is used. So it is a way to reclaim the word. And a lot of queers in the community identify as queer. They also identify as dykes. I have bi friends who identify as dykes. It’s a very loud, expressive in-your-face word that has a lot of power and history behind it.

Heather Jerred (00:13:38):

I love that. How has the craft beer community in a whole responded to Dyke Beer?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:13:45):

Well, we got a good response. We’re part of the New York City Beer Guild. There’s about 80 or so members of local breweries. They’ve been great to us, I think because New York is so queer-friendly. There’s so many various queer bars. We have an LGBT Center. People know queer people, and it feels like people can be out here in the city. I don’t know as a country how people are reacting to us really. We don’t tend to get many hate comments on our Instagram or in our email or anything, because right now the political plane of the country is under Trump and seems very conservative, and people vocally have spoken against queer rights. And there’s a lot of laws right now, especially against the transgender community happening in almost every single state right now and at federal levels as well. And so it’s really a time to show that you’re queer, you’re proud, you’re out.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]And I have to say, this Pride has felt a little weird and a little scary, to be honest. I went to an event at Stonewall in the Village, and I mean, that’s the birthplace of some of our rights right there.

Heather Jerred (00:14:56):

Pride movement.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:14:56):

It’s a really big symbol for us. I was walking down the street and I was in leatherwear. I was in an ACT UP shirt that has the pink triangle, which is our queer Holocaust symbol on it. I remember people were actually crossing the sidewalk in front of me, afraid to go near me.

Heather Jerred (00:15:16):

Oh my God.

Brittany Drennan (00:15:16):

What?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:15:16):

The whole city had been so gentrified that I was the biggest freak apparently in the neighborhood.

Heather Jerred (00:15:23):

In the village.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:15:24):

In the Village going to Stonewall, going to a party. And I’m really into wearing the leatherwear this year, I think, because there’s a few conservative queer people who are against leather at Pride and just being like, “Look, you can wear what you want. You can express your way how you want.” Leather families are really important to certain queer people. And so just being out there and being supportive of the whole community. You can’t just pick and choose and say, “I can get with cisgender queer people, but not transgender people.” That’s not how it works. It’s the whole thing, the whole LGBTQ-plus-plus-plus. And so I think we really stand for that. I think that’s a huge thing about being a dyke too. That’s part of the radicalalness. That’s part of the equality. There’s a lot of statements about, “I’m non-binary and a dyke.” “I’m transgender and a dyke.” And people talking about their stories of those two words connecting in some sort of way and those identities going hand in hand.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:16:19):

I think it depends where we go. And it’s always a surprise to know who is comfortable with even the name Dyke Beer because there are, and I’ve talked to some men that feel like they can’t say the word because it would be insulting. And I just tell them, “If you don’t say the word with a malicious tone of voice, you can just say, ‘Yes, I’d like some Dyke Beer.'” Right? It’s fine. I’ve had good conversations with bar owners where they’re asking, “Why is it Dyke Beer? Why do lesbians need their own spaces? And don’t we have gay marriage equality? Aren’t you guys equal?” And it’s been nice to have those conversations just to let them know what our community needs. And for us, Dyke Beer, we’re not only creating beer, we’re also creating spaces for queer women to just hang out. Whether you drink beer or not, it’s just more to be in community.

Brittany Drennan (00:17:11):

That’s awesome. Well, yeah, speaking about the beer, the first beer that you created, was it Belgian style saison; is that right?

Loretta Andro Chung (00:17:19):

That’s correct.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:17:19):

Yes.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:17:20):

That’s our staple beer.

Brittany Drennan (00:17:23):

I love a saison.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:17:24):

Me too.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:17:26):

I love a saison. It’s literally my favorite. And we don’t really have a mass marketed one. We don’t really have the American saison. And it’s funny, I’m sure you guys have gone to Belgium because you’re part of this podcast, and you really like beer.

Heather Jerred (00:17:26):

Yes.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:17:40):

But even in Belgium, when you order from Delirium or you order from a place with a lot of different beer styles, I remember I was like, “Just give me every saison you have on the menu.” And they only gave me four different beers, and one of them was Saison Dupont of course, but I was really shocked that even in Belgium, they don’t have a lot of this excellent style brewed beer. And I was like, “Wow, what a swing and a miss. I can’t believe this.” Whereas if you asked for an IPA here, you would get-

Heather Jerred (00:17:40):

25 million.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:17:40):

… 100,000.

Heather Jerred (00:18:05):

Yeah.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:18:09):

I’m going to just say, I think it’s the most underrated beer in the world.

Brittany Drennan (00:18:12):

So is that why you chose that style for the first beer?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:18:16):

I think part of that, and I wanted it to be, and Loretta too, easy drinking, light. So you’re talking about an audience that’s used to drinking a lot of watered down loggers, that drinking Bud and drinking Coors and drinking PBR and this sort of thing. So not to go aggressive or scare people right away. Our second beer is a gose that has lingonberry, raspberry, and hibiscus in it. And so that is a completely different palette changer. So I think we wanted to go a little softball with our flagship ale, our first ale and just be like, “Hey, craft can be really good, and this is a great beer style to show how good it can be.” Especially if you’ve never drank craft beer before, this is a great introduction.

Brittany Drennan (00:18:55):

Yeah, definitely. And you released a Mexican lager too?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:18:59):

We do. That’s our newest one.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:19:00):

We wanted to do a light beer. So our Mexican logger is also called Dyke Light. I just wanted something crisp and refreshing for the summer. Also, a lot of our customers have been asking for it because they are used to drinking loggers.

Heather Jerred (00:19:16):

So you had mentioned the Dyke Bar Takeover series, and that’s how Dyke Beer was born. Can you tell us a little bit more about that program?

Loretta Andro Chung (00:19:25):

So that was started about 2017. What we would do is we would take over a bar as soon as they opened, 5:00 PM until 9:00 PM, get some local performers, charge a door ticket, pay the performers, and then whatever was left over, we would donate to a mutual aid, our local nonprofit. And it was just a way for us to have our own space and not have any cis guys hitting on any of our community. And we had a variety of bands, singers, kink workshop, rope tying workshops, all kinds of different things just to bring people together. And then COVID hit, so we stopped doing that then.

Heather Jerred (00:20:05):

Can you mention some of the organizations that you did donate to, the proceeds from these events?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:20:10):

I remember we definitely did SAGE. We probably did the LGBT Center at some point. We did a Mariposa organization that, God, there was a hurricane that decimated some of the island LGBT Centers in Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. And so it was rebuilding that area. So sometimes it would be after a natural disaster, we would also give to wherever that natural disaster was.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:20:34):

Right.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:20:35):

I think at some point there was something horrible that happened at a gay bar in Denver somewhere, remember?

Loretta Andro Chung (00:20:41):

Yes.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:20:41):

And we gave to that cause, but it usually was political.

Heather Jerred (00:20:46):

How did you get the word out about it? Was it just social media and was it like day of, you were just like, “We’re going here today.”

Sarah Hallonquist (00:20:52):

Gen Z is going to laugh at this. A little bit pre-Instagram, we were still on Facebook, so we were putting up pictures on Facebook. And then Friends and Lovers was a bar that we took over a lot. So they allowed you to do a printout and put it in the window. So I guess people walking by this obscure bar in Crown Heights could maybe see it in the window as well. I would be on PowerPoint, uploading photos from different people, sending it via email of being like, “Show me your photo of you playing a guitar.” And figuring out what fonts to use and how to shift everything. And Microsoft doing it super bad, of course, and being like, “Oh my God, I have to make this slide all over again.” It was painstaking and hours long. I couldn’t believe how much easier Instagram was after doing this.

(00:21:38):

And I’m sure we reached way less people and it had to be word of mouth after a while, but it was really homegrown. Dyke Beer’s always felt a little bit ziny in the way that we’ve advertised. So the Dyke Beer logo on the can looks like a label maker label to give homage to that homemade Dyke Bar Takeover thing we were doing.

Brittany Drennan (00:21:59):

You guys host other events around New York City. Can you tell us a little bit about them and why it’s so important to create those?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:22:07):

Sure. Right now we are in the midst of Pride, so we have a bit more programming. We usually do this Bingo at the Bush thing, which is a free event, which is great. There’s a lot of events that have a cover, and it’s just like silly, fun prizes that usually have some sort of queer joke to them or it’s physical cans of Dyke Beer or something. It’s really different because our host, Gabby, is so funny and she asks everybody’s sign, everybody’s pronouns, everybody’s name. If you mess up in Bingo and you didn’t really get it, she makes you do a walk off to a dance song.

Heather Jerred (00:22:08):

Walk of shame.

Brittany Drennan (00:22:08):

Amazing.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:22:45):

Fight for your life. She’s had two people, she’s like, “Let me see your Hinge if you’re single. Is somebody else on Hinge?” It’s crazy. It goes above and beyond what Bingo is. And so I think people have met friends and felt a real sense of community. And we have actually a group of regulars that keeps going back. It’s like being at somebody’s wild house party or something. One of our clients is Kick Axe. That’s an ax throwing bar. So we have a dyke ax throwing thing. A lot of people love this, that it’s not just like, “Oh, go in a bar and sit down and maybe meet somebody or maybe be shy.” The activity forces you to talk to people or experience some sort of joy. Or even if you’re in a couple, it’s like, “Oh, let’s just do something that’s different.” And so we get a mixed bag of singles and couples that go to that event and some people really bring a ton of friends. We usually get about 100 people that end up showing up to Axe.

Brittany Drennan (00:23:35):

Wow.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:23:35):

Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (00:23:36):

I’ve never made one of those stick.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:23:38):

I’ve never tried.

Brittany Drennan (00:23:39):

It’s atrocious. I don’t know what I do if I can’t … Yeah, that one’s not for me, but that sounds really fun.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:23:49):

It feels really good. And I mean, we definitely have the traditional dance party too. I mean, the thing I think if you are listening to this and you’re like, “Oh, I’d like to create parties in my town or something like that.” You have to listen to what the people actually want. You have to pull people and see from different generations, different walks of life, what they’re actually looking for and then do that. Because we’ve actually had a D&D day too. And I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons, but man, it was a different crowd than the dance parties, and they showed up for D&D Day. It’s great to create these different doors for our community to walk into and have some enjoyment in their regular hobbies or new things they want to try in their life and also be doing that in a safe queer setting and maybe meeting friends and maybe meeting potential lovers.

(00:24:36):

That’s awesome for me, is like, I never wanted to be cliquey. I never wanted to be the meeting girl crowd. I want people to be able to meet at the beer event and be like, “Wow, I met my lover, my best friends. I felt so good there. They’re cool parties. I just feel good.”

Brittany Drennan (00:24:50):

You can sit with us.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:24:52):

You can sit with us.

Heather Jerred (00:24:52):

Exactly.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:24:55):

You can come alone, sit, sit with us. But we also did a sip and paint as well, and that was at a female owned wine bar that loved our beer. So she carried female-made wines and Dyke Beer, and people could draw and mingle. I think we have a variety of events just to try to be inclusive of everybody and also try to be inclusive of different ages, which is a little bit more challenging because for the most part, the bar scene, the queer dance parties, you have your 20-year-olds and early 30s coming to those. But for queer women that are in their maybe late 40s or 50s, they might not necessarily be wanting to have a dance party and come out at 10:00 PM. So we also try to do events in the daytime as well.

Heather Jerred (00:25:47):

That’s great. So I asked how the craft beer community responded to Dyke Beer. How did the community respond to Dyke Beer? Obviously you’ve built a great community there. What was everybody’s reaction when you first came out with it?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:26:01):

It was overall positive. I think we are in some gay, cisgender male bars as well, and they seem to really enjoy the beer if they enjoy craft beer. We haven’t heard anything bad from any walk of life in the queer community. Everybody’s been really cool, really nice to us. I think there’s such a limited amount of queer-owned businesses in the world. Also, there’s such a limited amount of dyke bars in general. And I would even say gay bars. Even though there’s way more gay bars in the world, when you compare it to straight [inaudible 00:26:32] bars, there’s way, way, way less. And so there was a poll done that in America, only 5% of beer companies are owned by women and something like 0.03% are owned by queer people. So that’s a staggeringly low number on both accounts. Other people seeing us and being like, “Oh, hey, I see myself represented in this company.” I think that’s cool for a lot of people.

Heather Jerred (00:26:58):

Were there any kind of existing brands that inspired your approach to Dyke Beer?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:27:03):

That’s actually a great question I’ve never received before. I guess Gay Beer was around, but it was a little bit different. They created a really light logger and they didn’t really create a fleet of beers like we did. They always just had the same 12-ounce can. That was the only other queer brewery that I really know of or saw there. Brooklyn Brewery did a collaboration with Stonewall at some point, and that was maybe the only gay bar I saw in collaboration with a beer brand. And so I think I was inspired and Loretta was inspired too by not really seeing ourselves in the world. It didn’t exist. There wasn’t lesbian beer, there wasn’t sapphic beer, there wasn’t Dyke Beer. This was a brand new thing. And later on, I found out that Queer Brewing Co was in London, but it’s not really available here too much. And so yeah, it’s really a new landscape in this field.

Brittany Drennan (00:27:57):

I would love to know from either of you, both of you, if there is a specific moment or event that made you feel like you were making an impact.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:28:08):

I have a few. One time we were in Queens and it was Open Streets Sunday, and we had a few volunteers and two of my volunteers were trans. One was a trans guy, one was a trans woman. We had just come out with our gose, which we call the Tall Girl Gose. And the can is purplish pink, and you have two dogs and a cat and they’re all dressed up in drag. And it was an ode to all the tall girls in the world because 16 ounce cans are usually called tall boys.

Brittany Drennan (00:28:38):

That’s amazing. I love that.

Loretta Andro Chung (00:28:41):

That was our ode to the tall girls in the world that feel either unseen or neglected. And it was just nice to hear, especially from this trans woman that she felt included in our events, and that’s why she wanted to help out with us. And she was just helping out serve beer. For me, that was like, wow, me and Sarah as Dyke Beer, we’re having an impact on community that they can actually feel included. And I think that’s one of the best things for me, because there still is a high suicide rate within the LGBTQ community. Even though it is more mainstream now, it is hard to be queer and also depending on your family. We are privileged that we are in New York City because there are just so many options and places to go.

Sarah Hallonquist (00:29:31):

I think for me, there’s been a couple things. There was one time last year during Pride, I was checking the Instagram and we had reached over 500,000 accounts. 500,000 people at some point had looked at Dyke Beer, which was absolutely insane to me that it reached that level of people or that there were that many eyes on the product. There was one cute wholesome moment. I was doing this ping pong dyke night at Katch Bar in Astoria, and there was this girl Who came in and she was like, “I just turned 21, and I drove here from Long Island, and you’re the first event and you’re the first bar that I wanted to go to when I turned 21.” I was like, “Oh my goodness, get out of here. That’s so sweet.” And I felt so bad because I was still setting up.

(00:30:17):

It was still so early in the event. There weren’t that many people. And I was like, “Oh, there’s going to be more people later, but I think you should go to the dyke bars. I think you should go to Cubbyhole or Ginger’s, or you should absolutely check those out too.” But I thought that was extremely sweet.

Brittany Drennan (00:30:32):

I know you’ve got a busy Pride Month, obvi, but what’s next for Dyke Beer?

Sarah Hallonquist (00:30:37):

We’ll probably have less events after Pride. We really go crazy in June and then maybe doing Bingo, maybe doing a couple things in July, August, that sort of thing. We’re not brewing any new beers right now. We recently came out with a Mexican logger, so we’re still promoting that guy, still doing our thing.

Heather Jerred (00:30:53):

I think it’s just amazing. The spaces that you’re creating and the community that you’re creating, and I know in this political landscape, it can be incredibly difficult. So I feel like community is just so important.

Matt Sprinkle (00:31:04):

Next, we sit down with Molly Flynn, founder of the Reflections Project, a movement aimed in de-stigmatizing mental health within craft beer through creating opportunities for connection and dialogue.

Heather Jerred (00:31:15):

We want to talk about this project that you’ve been working on for the past little while called the Reflections Project. Can you tell us a bit about it, how it got started?

Molly Flynn  (00:31:23):

It actually took me a really long time to come up with a name for it. My end goal is to create a nonprofit for mental health in the beer industry, beer and service industry, but focusing more on beer just because that’s more what I know. My goal is to provide connection, communication, creative outlet. There are a ton of resources that are out there that people either don’t know about or they’re shy or scared to use. So I’m trying to just make that more approachable for people. So that’s what the Reflection Project is. I’ve had a few events over the last couple of years. I’ve done some collab beers. I’ve done shirts. I’ve done events, and I would like to travel to Beer Fest and just set up a table, maybe pre-Beer Fest and do a discussion. I just did one here at my job. We released a beer. I did a little discussion. Actually had a pretty good turnout for being still pretty new here. I had about 20, 25 people show up, so it’s pretty awesome.

Brittany Drennan (00:32:22):

And was it just a panel where people came and asked you questions, or were you talking about the organization, the beer specifically?

Molly Flynn  (00:32:31):

I did a fundraiser for NAMI, which is a National Alliance on Mental Illness. They’re great. I’m not familiar with the people that work at the one here, but I have worked with the one in Miami for several years. They’re all over the country, so they offer free resources to individuals and families. So anyway, my beer, we donated a dollar per pint to them. I talked about what I’m doing, and I’m going to try and do maybe a monthly meetup where it’s not necessarily always at a brewery, but maybe we can go to the river or go to a different bar or go somewhere that’s not a bar, just to get people to open up more a little. And I think it helped. I left it open. I told a little bit of why I’m doing it and why it’s so important to me. So other people want to talk, show them like, “Hey, it’s okay. We’re all going through stuff.” To normalize talking about it.

Brittany Drennan (00:33:26):

Oh, yeah.

Heather Jerred (00:33:26):

Yeah.

Molly Flynn  (00:33:27):

I believe in therapy 100%, but you don’t always necessarily need a therapy session. Sometimes you just need to vent to people. There are different levels to it.

Brittany Drennan (00:33:37):

Yeah. It can be intimidating too. Being around people in the same industry, there’s a lot of pressure around drinking and things and having to do events with that involved, that that’s an amazing idea is to get people out of the breweries and out into the world and just fostering discussion, healthy discussions. That’s incredible.

Molly Flynn  (00:34:00):

Yeah, exactly.

Heather Jerred (00:34:01):

Yeah. I like the way that you said to create connection because I think that’s a really big thing too. And I know for me sometimes when I try to talk to my friends that don’t work in the industry about what’s going on, they don’t always really get it because it’s not doing exactly the same thing. So I’m very lucky. I have friends like Brittany that I can talk to about stuff, but being able to speak to people on that same level as you, I think is really important.

Brittany Drennan (00:34:24):

What inspired you to focus on mental health specifically within our industry? Was it a personal journey of yours or someone else that you know that inspired that?

Molly Flynn  (00:34:36):

I have my own mental health issues that I deal with stemming from things that happened. I was in a very abusive relationship in high school, so that caused PTSD and anxiety that still carry with me. When I moved to Florida, I really wanted to help other people. So I started working with this domestic violence shelter in St. Pete CASA, and they’re amazing. I worked with them for seven years and done fundraisers for them. That led to, within the industry, I travel all the time for Beer Fest, as you know. You see me everywhere. And I try to meet new people every time because we all have our group of friends that we hang out with and stick with, but I try to just always talk to someone from a brewery that I don’t know or get to know someone that you just see each other at all the parties, but I’m like, “Well, who actually are you as a person?” And so from speaking with people over the years, I realized, man, a lot of people are really going through it too.

(00:35:39):

And we have to go be on at all these parties and all these events and all this traveling. And it’s fun, but it gets exhausting. And honestly, it was mostly men. I mean, we’re in a mostly male dominated industry, but it was a lot of my male friends that were opening up to me and I’m like, “Man, people need a place or space to talk.”

Brittany Drennan (00:35:40):

Absolutely.

Molly Flynn  (00:36:05):

So that’s what really motivated me to start working on this thing.

Heather Jerred (00:36:09):

No, it’s so important and it is. It’s the things that we don’t talk about so often. It’s the things we don’t publicly speak about a lot. And I think it’s really important that we start actually putting it out there more because I think more people are going through it than we think, than we know. So what steps do you think breweries can take to foster healthier workplaces in the mental health sphere?

Molly Flynn  (00:36:32):

I think fostering an environment where I know a lot of places say like, “Oh, open door policy, this and that.” But then it’s like, how open is that door? To really be able to connect with your employees and have an understanding, “Yes, I’m your boss, but also we’re both humans and if you need to talk about something, we can talk or if it’s bigger than something we can solve, here are some resources.”

(00:36:59):

Businesses should be better about offering insurance or helping pay for counseling services. Some of the big things we need to watch out for are burnout. That’s huge. You hear that word all the time, but it’s real. The employees here have a little corner where they can go and not be bothered by anybody, and that can help during your shift if you’re starting to get overwhelmed or something. Can’t always cry on the walk-in because sometimes there are other people-

Heather Jerred (00:37:00):

What?

Molly Flynn  (00:37:30):

… in there crying too and you’re like, “I just need my corner right now.”

Heather Jerred (00:37:35):

I feel like you haven’t worked in a service industry if you haven’t cried in a walk-in cooler at some point in time.

Molly Flynn  (00:37:42):

There are a lot of little things that businesses can do, but a lot of stress comes from finances or lack of. So I think helping with the insurance or resources would be a great-

Brittany Drennan (00:37:54):

Coming in at number three for most popular episodes this season was our Live at ADI episode. So yeah, we attended the ADI Conference in San Antonio this year and spoke to three different people from three very different parts of the industry for some knowledge and perspective. Tim, the distiller for Ranger Creek, Erik, the president of ADI, and Rob, the liquor lawyer.

Heather Jerred (00:38:16):

The liquor lawyer.

Brittany Drennan (00:38:17):

Here is Tim on his favorite specialty malt used in his White Dog experiment with our crystal malts and some nuances between all of the specialties.

Tim Crofton (00:38:27):

… be really impressed with that.

Geoff Fischer (00:38:28):

What’d you think of the special Belgium malt?

Tim Crofton (00:38:30):

For me, out of the six I did, that was my favorite really just because it lended itself I think to the base malt so well. You get a lot of that like stone fruit flavor off the White Dog, which is always something I’m driving for when I make single malt. I can taste that grain sweetness. The mouthfeel’s great. The aroma’s great. And also my conversion on that, that special B was super high. Comparatively, it converted very easily. It was very easy to use grain. It’s something that we have already looked into maybe making a special recipe for, for our whiskey club that we have at Ranger Creek-

Brittany Drennan (00:39:05):

Nice.

Tim Crofton (00:39:06):

… to see how that ages and goes on to become a single malt.

Geoff Fischer (00:39:10):

What would you say any differences that you really noticed? I mean, besides the obvious, right? Chocolate’s going to be chocolate or …

Tim Crofton (00:39:17):

Yeah. The obvious ones, chocolate’s chocolate. I will say I use a decent amount of crystal malt. The crystal 120, crystal 150 to me were a little bit different. That is a pretty high, good crystal malt, a high number crystal malt that I think really changes the game and the way I think about using crystal malt as a distiller for my single malt. So I was really into that, interested in how that’s going to play out. Really excited to see how that ages. The pale chocolate, we do some chocolate malt stuff. We have a smoked single malt whiskey that we use mesquite smoke for at Ranger Creek, but I use chocolate malt for, but I use a more dark chocolate malt for, and I’d be interested to see how my recipe changes using maybe some of the pale chocolate, bringing out a little bit more of a milk chocolate or brighter chocolate.

Brittany Drennan (00:40:01):

Here is Tim talking about regional weather patterns and how they affect whiskey production.

Geoff Fischer (00:40:06):

One of the interesting things you bring up, and you talk even about Scotland or Kentucky who are now in Texas, and one of the things we talked extensively about last night, of course, is what’s going on in the barrel, right? The maturation. And as much science as we know about it, there’s a lot that we still don’t know. But you talk about the different climates for each one, right? So the heat, the humidity, the changing of the seasons and how things are just different here in Texas, right? Texas is still different than Kentucky and Kentucky is different than Edinburgh or Islay, Scotland and what they go through and how the spirit is maturing in there. So I love the idea that there are communities or regions now, like Texas, that are developing whiskeys that fit. They’re unique and different. And I think a lot of it has to just do with the community and the climate and everything else that’s going on and the sharing of that.

Tim Crofton (00:41:01):

Yeah. I think we’ve always known that regionally and community or weather-wise definitely affects the way that whiskey develops flavor and characteristic. I think as we move into hotter and more humid climates, we’re seeing that more abrasively expressed. I think Kentucky for a long time was one of the hotter, more humid places that it was being made as compared to maybe Japan and Canada and Scotland and the UK, which all make great stuff, but it definitely isn’t getting as hot or as humid as it does in Kentucky. And then I think Texas is just a step up from that. We have really-

Brittany Drennan (00:41:37):

The wild temperature changes and swings. 24-hour swings.

Tim Crofton (00:41:39):

Pretty wild weather. Yeah. Where we can have freezing temperatures in the morning at 80 degree temperatures in the afternoon and then go back down to 40 degrees in the evening, which really just drives a lot of movement of that whiskey in the barrel. Some of those secret things we don’t know yet that we’re still trying to figure out what’s happening in the barrel, but we know there’s some chemical exchanges happening. We know that humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, air exchange, all that stuff matters, right? And Texas has a really unique expression of that. And so I think our region’s doing something cool. We’re leaning into what is good for Texas and good for Texas whiskey by embracing the fact that we have that weather as compared to trying to emulate maybe somewhere else.

Brittany Drennan (00:42:18):

We sat down with Erik, president of ADI and asked him his thoughts on the state of the industry.

Heather Jerred (00:42:24):

Can you tell us a little bit about the state of the industry? Are we still growing? And talk a bit about the challenges that we’re seeing out there right now.

Erik Owens (00:42:33):

Yeah. So on the keynote yesterday, I mentioned 2024 numbers. And in 2024, we were down 1.1% in value, but up 1.1% in volume. I’d call that pretty flat, but it’s funny because you’re looking at the major trends of all brands in America, and a lot of those are … High Noon moves a lot of volume, right? And it’s one of the number one growing brands out there. And so it’s really more, when you’re looking at that, it’s more trends of the big multinational corporations. When I walk around and talk to some distillers, some distillers are down, a lot more distillers are out of business, but I’m actually surprised there’s a lot of distillers that are flat and/or still growing. And I think that’s the right people, the right place, the right business plan, the right branding, and can still manage to keep growing even in these turbulent times.

Brittany Drennan (00:43:33):

Like the special sauce.

Erik Owens (00:43:36):

Yeah. And what is it? I don’t know.

Brittany Drennan (00:43:37):

Yeah. Nobody knows.

Erik Owens (00:43:38):

When you see it, you know, but you know. Yes.

Brittany Drennan (00:43:43):

Right. There’s a lot of talk right now, and it’s happening in beer too, there’s a lot of discussion about just people drinking less in general. What are your thoughts on that?

Erik Owens (00:43:50):

Yeah. So we had Brian Krueger from Bump Williams Consulting, and he was talking a lot about those. And he actually did provide survey data on that. And there are young people are drinking less, and young people are switching to cannabis seltzers as alternatives, which they view as healthy. Yes, I guess. I mean, maybe, but the perception out there, I guess, is more than what is reality.

Brittany Drennan (00:44:22):

Right.

Erik Owens (00:44:22):

Not that I hope people drink, but I do think drinking has been part of human culture for as long as we’ve been humans.

Brittany Drennan (00:44:32):

Ever.

Heather Jerred (00:44:33):

Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (00:44:34):

We also asked Rob, the liquor lawyer, to weigh in on the state of the industry, and here is what he had to say.

Heather Jerred (00:44:40):

So a big reason Chris, who is our rep down in your area, thought that we should talk. He said you had some really big insight into what the challenges craft facilities are facing right now, some of the biggest challenges they’re facing in the U.S.

Rob Pinson  (00:45:00):

Yeah. I mean, Tennessee’s probably doing okay, but the … Excuse me. Consumption of alcohol seems to be down. A lot of people like to say and panic over, yeah, this Gen, is it Z? I can’t remember. The A’s are the really little kids. The Z.

Brittany Drennan (00:45:00):

The Alphas.

Rob Pinson  (00:45:21):

I’m an X, so I’m way back there.

Brittany Drennan (00:45:24):

[inaudible 00:45:24].

Rob Pinson  (00:45:25):

Yeah. The As can’t drink yet. So it’s the Zs. Everyone’s saying, “Oh no, Z, drinking in Generation Z is down by half.” But you really need to look deep at the numbers because half of Gen Z still can’t drink or a third of them. They’re still coming of age. And so I think the data’s still incomplete. I did hear from one group at the latest Tennessee Distillers Guild meeting, it was, I think someone with Nielsen, they had done some research and had tried to take into account that under 21 portion of the generation, and they said it’s still kind of down, but not as bad as you think. But the biggest trend they were seeing was people are drinking fewer drinks, but they’re going higher quality. So instead of having three or four medium level drinks, they’re having two high level drinks.

Brittany Drennan (00:46:21):

Interesting.

Rob Pinson  (00:46:22):

Which helps those that are making the high level drinks, but it’s still overall volume, your overall volume will be down. So I think brands probably will need to start focusing on, “Yeah, it might be a higher drink. Let’s make sure we get a higher profit margin because there will be fewer drinks of it.”

Brittany Drennan (00:46:40):

Well, do you feel like the people that are drinking less that turned 21 in and around the COVID era just weren’t going out and socializing, obviously, going out and sharing drinks with friends, which was a big part of our 20s, but they didn’t physically have that. So I think that maybe that’s where the dataset is coming from. And then you’re right, the following generation will have hopefully more of a typical 20s experience.

Rob Pinson  (00:47:17):

Yeah, COVID probably impacted that somewhat. I mean, I think with COVID, I drank more.

Heather Jerred (00:47:24):

I was going to say.

Rob Pinson  (00:47:27):

One, because I was like, “I don’t know if I’m going to have a job in two months or what my job’s going to look like. The kids are at home all day.” That’s another reason to drink. What? Who said that? Yeah, just being stuck at home all the time, I guess. Here’s the spiel I give of my practice, the alcohol law practice is recession resistant because in good times people drink. In bad times, people still drink. They just change how they drink. So in COVID, we saw people not going out, but they purchased more from liquor stores than they had before, or convenience stores or grocery stores or wherever. So the source of where they got their alcohol changed. And we might be seeing that again with this alleged potential recession. I see conflicting information on that, so I’m not going to opine, but people are worried.

(00:48:26):

I know lots of companies are cutting staff or pulling back expenses just to be safe, like we did with COVID, tighten the belt in terms of budgets. And so yeah, maybe people aren’t going out again as much just because it’s expensive and they want a cheaper option of drinking at home. So I think that’s one of the issues facing distilleries. I think the other is, I’m not going to say tariffs. I’m going to say the uncertainty of tariffs. Right? It’s 50% and then delayed and then 40%, but now it might all be illegal. Right? And so they go away. Businesses like certainty. They like predictability. And the whole tariff situation, I’m not taking sides or being political. It is very turbulent right now. Right? It’s hard for businesses to predict what it’s going to look like in two to three years. I think that’s part of the problem.

(00:49:26):

With fun footnote, it came out late last week, everyone’s drinking less except Tennessee. We are year-over-year up 7%. We’re doing our part.

Heather Jerred (00:49:38):

Number two on our countdown, that was Barley and Boss Moves. This is episode three. This is our Annual International Women’s Day episode, and we gathered women from all different areas of our businesses. We were joined by Alli Nimik, Director of Commercial Sales for CMG, Dana Lukens, Chief Transformation Officer for CMG, Jamie Beyer, Production Planner for Great Western Malting, Olena Waddingham, Grain Elevator Manager for CMC. And I was joined by Abi Conner to help with hosting duties. So take a listen as we chat about making space for ourselves in all areas of this industry.

Abi Conner  (00:50:13):

So as women in the industry, what are some challenges that you face and how did you handle them? Anyone want to speak up first?

Heather Jerred (00:50:13):

This is a safe space.

Abi Conner  (00:50:25):

This is a conversation.

Heather Jerred (00:50:26):

Yeah.

Abi Conner  (00:50:27):

It’s a tough thing to be a woman in the beer industry and that’s no matter what capacity it is.

Heather Jerred (00:50:33):

Yeah. I think on all sides of our company, in the corporate role, in the elevators, in the plants, in the sales role, we tend to be a minority all over the place. So yeah.

Dana Lukens (00:50:45):

Yeah. I can start. I mean, I think I’ve had actually some really interesting conversations as of late in light of what’s happening around us as well. And I think part of the challenge of being in an industry or being in roles where you don’t have a lot of representation is that you’re singled out with how you react or how you act, and it makes you stand out, and it’s usually with a negative connotation as opposed to just being different. And if you think about it, if we had more representation, the kind of behavior traits or kind of characteristics would just be normal. It would just be part of our every day, right?

(00:51:27):

And so I think for me, the challenge, and especially when you’re young and impressionable and you’re trying to make sure that people understand your value and that you do stand out in a positive light, I definitely found myself trying to be … trying to conform more so from a personality and just reaction and communication standpoint. And as I’ve gotten older, I’m definitely like, “That doesn’t work for me really.” Everybody has their personality and the older you get, the more self-aware you become and the more just confident and proud of who you are and what’s brought you to where you are. And so I think for me, that has been the continuing challenges to remain just authentic to who I am and know that it will land differently because of who I’m around, and that’s okay. And just to ensure that you just stay true to who you are and just understanding that it is going to look different because you are different, and that’s fine.

Alli Nimik (00:52:38):

I can jump in and in similar fashion. I think for a long time in my career in this industry, I was the only female in the room. I was the only female at that brewery. We were knocking on the door at trying to grab business. And I’m lucky I grew up with an older brother who I was always trying to tag along, be with his group of friends. So I think it wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable situation for me to be in, to be that single lone female, but that being said, I do feel like I’ve had to prepare better for those conversations, make sure I knew the ins and outs of that brewery, knew what they were going to be looking for. So my prep work was probably two or three times the amount of time I actually spent with that brewer at that brewery, just making sure I had everything ready to go so I wasn’t laughed or at or just discounted overall when I walked into that brewery.

(00:53:43):

So I think though the interesting part is coming into those situations and having that preparedness, it sure made everybody recognize you very quickly and want to work with you very quickly. So a downside and upside on both ends, but definitely we’re seeing more women in the industry, and it’s nice to not be the only one in the room these days.

Abi Conner  (00:54:12):

Definitely. I can speak on that too. I have four brothers, so I was prepared for it as well, but it is wonderful. There are times when I’m at work and I’m in meetings and it’s more women or all women in a meeting or where we all gather together, and it just makes my heart swell because it’s wonderful to have that support. But I’m also making notes. Be true to yourself and be prepared. I like that.

Alli Nimik (00:54:36):

I will also say too, that when I started at our plant in 2008, I would say 95% of our front office, especially on the grain side, the grain input, the grain logistics, dealing with the wheat board that was still around at that time in Canada, those were all women. So there are some real pioneers to the start of this huge craft brewing movement. And I think without them handling a lot of those finer details, that we wouldn’t be where we are. And I think that is sometimes also forgotten about even in the early days. They’ve been there on the back end making sure things go as they should.

Heather Jerred (00:55:16):

We also asked the women what advice they would give to their younger selves. Let’s take a listen to what they had to say.

(00:55:23):

So last question for everybody. What advice would you give your younger self?

Alli Nimik (00:55:29):

I would say just don’t be afraid to take those jumps, take those opportunities. You can create so many yourself. Sometimes they’re given to you, and you just have to jump in head first and see where it takes you. You’re going to get a learning experience out of it, win, lose or draw. So I would have probably taken a few more opportunities that I maybe was a little shy to or a little nervous about.

Olena Waddingham (00:55:55):

Oh, I agree. I would think I should have been more confident 20 years ago.

Heather Jerred (00:56:03):

I think we could tell all 20-year-old women, be a bit more confident.

Speaker X  (00:56:05):

Yeah, definitely.

Jamie Beyer (00:56:07):

You’re worth it. That’s true. You got to say what you want. Say what you want. And if you don’t know, that’s okay too.

Dana Lukens (00:56:14):

I think I agree with everything that was said. I would say the same. It’s just go for it because the worst that can happen is just not as catastrophic as you think. And I’ve learned so much more from the things that didn’t go well, and that sticks with me probably more than the things that have, right? So I think, yeah, just go for it and remember to look around as you do it, because there’s so many things you can learn from other people. And there’s so many great things out there. I think I was very laser focused on what I thought success was. And I mean, I’m like the kid that did not really have so much fun in college because I was so focused on grades and all this stuff. Right? And so I regret that because I did not have as much fun as it sounds like so many people did in their college years, but I would say just to relax a little bit and enjoy the ride.

Jamie Beyer (00:57:08):

I think advice for myself that I still need to take would be the value you can get from a professional organization or a trade group because there are so many jobs associated with a business, so many crazy facets of how things work that you just like, you don’t know about sometimes. And so it can be hard to know what job you want if you don’t know what jobs are out there. So you got to get out there and meet people and learn about the different jobs that can be options and think about what might be good for you.

Heather Jerred (00:57:42):

And that was a big reason we wanted to do this podcast and why we asked to come on because we all have different backgrounds. We all work in very different facets of this industry and of this company. And there’s so many things to be done in this industry. I think it’s really important for people to realize what is out there.

Dana Lukens (00:58:00):

Absolutely. And I think it’s a really interesting point because I agree. I didn’t know that there were these supply chain jobs or these operations jobs. You think about how you get into what your path is. A lot of it’s like, “Oh, my dad did this or my brother did this.” And I mean, I think it’s for young girls and young women, they’re like, “Oh yeah, my teachers are women, my PAs are what …” It’s the traditional things that they see, and they can see themselves in because that’s what the experience is. I think that’s also part of what we need to get. We need to get out there. We need to get out working with kids and introducing our jobs so that they can just be on their radar of aspiration or curiosity at the very least. So I think that’s a really good point. Yeah.

Heather Jerred (00:59:01):

Yeah. Representation really does matter. It really, really does. Hard to see yourself in an industry where you don’t see anybody that looks like you.

(00:59:08):

And our number one most listened to episode of the 2025 year. Can I get a drum roll please? Perfect, was Wheat and Other Good Chit. In this episode, we talked to some people from inside our own house, Mike Heinrich, Paul Bacon, Tyler Schales, and Abi Conner. We launched two new products at CBC this year, low color wheat and chit malt, both from Great Western Malting. And this team came on to chat with us about what it takes to create these new malts, as well as chat about what they can do in your brewhouse. Take a listen here while the team chats about what it takes from start to finish to create a new product like this, and they talk a little bit more about the low color wheat.

Tyler Schales (00:59:49):

Yeah, I bet start to finish it’s probably about six to eight months, IDing the fill of a portfolio out for our customers early on mid-year last year and then wrapping our heads around where we wanted to hit each of these products as far as specifications is concerned and then delivering that on a silver platter to the Vancouver team and letting them run wild and make a product and land on something that’s really quite usable by the consumer, customer and great, great place to be.

Brittany Drennan (01:00:30):

Is that a typical timeframe, Tyler?

Tyler Schales (01:00:33):

Yeah, I’d say this was a little bit more accelerated generally speaking than some of the other development processes. I wouldn’t call them really, really challenging malts to make. It’s a lot of controlling modification Mike will get into and changing kilning recipes. But yeah, I would say it was an accelerated process. There was a will and a want by us to provide this solution to customers, and it happened pretty fast.

Toby Tucker  (01:01:11):

Yeah. And I would say that I would assume with the build out and construction of the innovation center there, that’s helped to expedite historically what our timeline is to go to market with these ideas, right? Because you can produce these and start on very, very small scale and then apply them on a lot larger scale in one of our malt houses.

Mike Heinrich (01:01:35):

Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right, Toby. We rely on what Paul’s doing in the innovation center to really inform how we need to scale this up for full commercial production. So MIC’s integral to getting these products launched timely and without mistakes.

Toby Tucker  (01:01:52):

That’s right, right? If you start small and work, scale it up on a larger basis, you’re saving a lot of time and energy and making sure whatever you’re putting through on a large scale is going to come out fairly similar to what Paul and his team put together. That’s good. Let’s start on the low color wheat side of things. Is there a difference in working on the low color wheat compared to, let’s say, a red or white? I mean, is there a difference in this particular product or malting in general when it comes to a red or white wheat?

Mike Heinrich (01:02:35):

Yeah. So red wheats are typically, they’re hard red wheats, and white wheats are typically soft white wheats. We use soft white wheat at Great Western Malting to produce both our wheat malt as well as this low color wheat malt. We had just had a ton of fun making this because I’ll just start with maltsters, our job is to create consistency out of a wide variation of raw material that we see come in.

(01:03:03):

Barley is subject to growing conditions every year, and we as maltsters have to take that variation that’s coming out of the field and create consistent, predictable products with it for our customers. This is fun because we get to do something out of our normal lane and really try to hit some targets to create these new products that are outside of the normal. So we really grapple onto projects like this and have a lot of fun.

(01:03:29):

I’d say that what makes this really a low color product versus a regular white wheat malt is really what our targets are throughout the process. So starting from, whether it’s steeping, germination or kilning, there’s modifications to those recipes across the board versus a regular wheat malt. So you can think of this almost like we’re making a Pilsen, but instead of utilizing a barley to make a Pilsen malt, we’re utilizing a wheat to make that Pilsen malt. So what that means is we can, as Tyler alluded to, we control modification. We control how advanced we let that malting process get. So we restrict it is what we do with the Pilsen type product. That means we’re targeting a little lower steep out moisture. So when we go to germination and we go to kilning, we have less activity within that kernel, and we control the amount of soluble protein that’s produced.

(01:04:26):

We control a lot of aspects of that biochemical process that really is what malting is. So ultimately, when this goes to kiln, we can apply a nice light, gentle temperature, bring our moisture levels down, not develop a ton of color and really model this out very similar to what a Pilsen style would look like. So we’re very excited about what that can contribute. And it sounds like with the brewing styles that are out there today, this could be a really, really good fit for a lot of our customers. So we’re seeing a lot of traction pick up quite quickly on it, which is great.

Toby Tucker  (01:05:01):

Yeah, perfect fit. And I just want to jump back to something real quick, because I’m not sure that most of our listeners know the difference between a red and a wheat. I mean, you mentioned soft white versus the hard red, but when you say red and white, it’s not a color thing, right, Mike? It’s not one’s red and in color, correct?

Mike Heinrich (01:05:20):

A hard red wheat is a little darker in color. It’s not stark red by any means, but if you were looking at our-

Heather Jerred (01:05:28):

It looks a little pink though, doesn’t it?

Mike Heinrich (01:05:29):

Yeah.

Heather Jerred (01:05:29):

Maybe that’s just almost like placebo effect when somebody tells you it looks like something, but it looks a bit pinkish to me when I’ve seen it.

Mike Heinrich (01:05:39):

And if you had a pile of a soft white versus a hard red, you would be able to visually tell the difference.

Toby Tucker  (01:05:45):

Okay. Interesting. All right, thanks.

Heather Jerred (01:05:45):

Where is this wheat sourced from?

Mike Heinrich (01:05:51):

So all of our wheat is sourced from the Pacific Northwest, just like our barley is. This wheat specifically, I believe is from the Palouse growing region area within Washington, just a few hours north of the malt house here in Vancouver, Washington.

Toby Tucker  (01:06:07):

Oh, that’s great. That’s cool.

Tyler Schales (01:06:08):

Yeah. I could add a little bit to this as well, when we’re talking hard red versus soft white. Generally speaking, hard reds hold higher protein content. They are stronger with gluten presence. Soft white’s opposite side of the spectrum, lower protein content, weaker gluten. Hard red wheat is generally used for food products, I would say more than brewing needs. It’s a robust and nutty flavor, drives really great characteristics in breads and yeast leaven products. Whereas soft white wheat, in our eyes suits the bill more for a brewer, milder, sweeter flavor. So it works really well through the malt house, but that’s a little bit of a differentiation there, not not talking about color and the name, but also the characteristics of each of those products and what they contribute.

Mike Heinrich (01:07:11):

And just to build on that, Tyler, you’re exactly right. The protein content to make a low color product or really any type of low color or Pilsen product, maltsters will preferentially select low protein raw material to produce that product. And that’s because throughout the malting process, that protein that’s embedded within these grains gets solubilized, right? That’s part of the malting process. And that soluble protein is one of the primary components when you go to kiln and start applying temperature to build color. So as maltsters, we need to ensure that we’re always using the right raw material so that our process flows smoothly and makes a consistent high quality product for our customers. So in this case, to make a low color Pilsen, we would absolutely want to use a soft white wheat versus a hard red just on protein content alone to ensure that we’re hitting the right spec and getting the right performance out of the product.

Heather Jerred (01:08:07):

We are so lucky to have professional maltsters on this episode. So let’s take a listen to Mike Heinrich explain how chit malt is created. And then Tyler, give us a great breakdown on how chit malt is used to promote head retention, mouthfeel, flavor, haze potential, and fermentability.

Toby Tucker  (01:08:23):

Let’s take a step back and talk about the chit malt. What exactly is chit malt, and how’s it made? Very broad question I know, but just anyone can fire off if they’d like to.

Mike Heinrich (01:08:37):

Yeah. So chit malt is a highly under-modified malt, relatively under modified malt. It’s made out of barley. And it’s interesting to me as a maltster because every malt that’s produced under the sun goes through the process of chitting. That simply stated that’s chitting is what occurs typically up in the steep tanks of malt house. And the chit, when you’re looking at a barley kernel, looks like a little white nub of growth on the distal end of each kernel. And what that white nub is really the coleorhiza sheath, which is covering the first pair of forked rootlets, which is just hidden and protected underneath it.

(01:09:23):

As maltsters, that’s really a signal to us to get that we’ve achieved what our targets were in steeping and that grain needs to get down into a germination vessel because as soon as that coleorhiza sheath ruptures and the first two rootlets emerge, that grain’s respiration rate, i.e. it’s consumption of oxygen, its release of CO₂, its release of heat, normal malting process type things, we need more airflow. That needs to be in a germination bed so that we can give the grain what it needs so that it malts gently and ultimately leads us to kiln with the right profile. So we hit all of our quality parameters.

(01:10:05):

What’s different about chit malt is that we’re freezing that process. We’re really holding back on germination. So we’re getting that chit to appear up in the steep tanks. We’re bringing it down into a germination vessel just for a light kiss of germination, and then it’s kilned very, very gently. And it’s kilned gently so that we stabilize that package and bring our moisture content down, of course, so that you’ve got a shelf stable product with which can ship to breweries.

(01:10:35):

But we’re holding back that modification so that there’s a really rich package of insoluble protein and all those wonderful things that promote body and mouthfeel and head retention in your beer. And we’re not solubilizing all those proteins, which is what would happen if we were to say germinate that malt for four full days. So this is a malt that we’re steeping. We have a very controlled restricted germination on, and then we kiln really gently for a very long time so that we keep that color low and stabilize that package for our brewers. That’s an interesting malt. I’d say every malt hits this step at some point in its process, but chit malt is isolated and brought down and really preserved as a package a little bit sooner than a normal seven-day malt would be.

Toby Tucker  (01:11:25):

Okay, good. Well, you mentioned body, mouthfeel, head retention, and I guess those are the qualities as a brewer in using a chit malt, but maybe this is a question for someone that’s a little more seasoned on the brewing side, but how should it be used? Is there a typical percentage in the grain bill, particular style of beer that this would be used in?

Tyler Schales (01:11:54):

Yeah. Yeah. I could jump in here from a brewer’s perspective with these types of ingredients, chit malt, and we’ll bring Dextrin malt into the mix as well. There’s five, call it four or five major aspects that these malts could contribute towards. Like we said, foam and head retention, quite important, mouthfeel, flavor impact, haze potential, and then of course fermentability, how much you could actually get out of it from a yield perspective on alcohol.

(01:12:31):

So chit malt targets beers that you want long-lasting head retention, I would say due to the intact proteins that exist that Mike just explained. From a mouthfeel perspective, it doesn’t build a full creamy body, but more a silky body with a subtle touche, without any sweetness associated with it. So it really does provide a different style of body than a Dextrin malt does. From a flavor impact perspective, it’s super neutral. I would say it’s when you don’t want the malt to interfere with everything else going on in the beer, you use chit malt.

(01:13:19):

It contributes a really kind of stable haze. So a lot of times chit malts are being used in things like hazy IPAs because of the different size proteins that can interact within the brewing process and fermenting process for a colloidally stable haze. And then from a fermentability perspective, we’re talking semi-fermentable. It will still contain some unconverted starches. So there will be some of that malt that won’t be able to convert to alcohol, but it does provide a little bit of a bump on the fermentability table as well.

(01:14:01):

So this malt specifically was designed to target Pilsners, New England IPAs, sessionable beers. I would say on average it’s used maybe two to 5%, but I’d say you can go as high as 10% in some scenarios. And that’s why we made it. With the haze craze out there and Pilsners on the rise, this is an excellent product that will provide some really great characteristics in brewers’ hands.

Heather Jerred (01:14:40):

We also talked to James Bridwell, head brewer at Definitive Brewing in Portland, Maine, and territory manager at Patrick Sylvester. James has been utilizing the Great Western low color wheat in his hazy, and he shares his experience with it in the brewhouse and its effect on the final product.

Toby Tucker  (01:14:55):

Tell us about the experience you had brewing with the low color wheat.

James Bridwell (01:15:01):

We use a fair amount of it in our base hazy recipe. And so I wasn’t too concerned, especially out of the bag. Once I got into the bag and held it in my hand, I was like, “Oh, this is literally this is just wheat. There’s nothing really to worry about.” So we just straight hot swapped it for all the wheat that we were using already, and then also pulled out the malted oats from our recipe as well and just swapped it with that. And immediately, once I started transferring over into the kettle, the liquid was … I mean, immediately paler, was noticeable in the kettle already. But from the get-go, you could see it definitely dropped the color of the beer a fair amount.

Patrick Sylvester (01:15:56):

James, what percentage of your grist would you say you’re using on that?

James Bridwell (01:16:03):

Of adjuncts or just the low color?

Patrick Sylvester (01:16:05):

Of just the low color. What was your usage on it?

James Bridwell (01:16:08):

About 12%, I think.

Patrick Sylvester (01:16:12):

Okay, nice.

James Bridwell (01:16:12):

Yeah, 12.

Patrick Sylvester (01:16:15):

So not overbearing. Both [inaudible 01:16:15].

James Bridwell (01:16:16):

Yeah, it’s definitely not a huge amount between … I mean, it’s probably about half of all the adjunct percentage.

Patrick Sylvester (01:16:24):

That’s awesome. And you were using Canada Malting white wheat prior, right? It was a direct swap for that?

James Bridwell (01:16:30):

We were using Canada Malting red wheat.

Patrick Sylvester (01:16:33):

Oh, that was a red wheat in that recipe. Okay, gotcha.

Toby Tucker  (01:16:37):

And then did you say oat malt, you pulled that as well. So replace the red wheat and the oat malt in this particular beer with the low color wheat?

James Bridwell (01:16:51):

That’s correct. Yeah. I figured if I was going to see what it could do for the color of the liquid and actually get a feel for the malt, I might as well just swap it out and see what the perceived differences were. I didn’t really tell Mike or anyone. I was just like, “I’m just doing this.” [inaudible 01:17:15]. Sometimes you got to go for it.

Toby Tucker  (01:17:18):

Oh yeah, I hear you. Which particular beer was it? Was it a staple in your lineup that you said, “Hey, I’m just going to give this a whirl with the local-“

James Bridwell (01:17:28):

No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not that bold. I’m bold, but I’m not that bold. It was just a one-off hazy. We’ve got our standard hazy grist that we do for … I mean, any hazy that comes through our pipeline is like a bass grain recipe. We don’t really skew from that too much unless the beer just calls for it. So we had a one-off beer coming down the pipeline, spirals, and I just straight swapped it. And then coming out the other end, we got excellent feedback in the tap room. And once that happened, that’s when I was like, “Hey, Mike, I made the swap. Can I just make the swap for all of our hazies?” And he was like, “Yeah.” He said, “Yeah, the beer tastes great. The beer looks great. Let’s keep moving forward with it.”

Toby Tucker  (01:18:28):

Nice.

Heather Jerred (01:18:30):

So obviously we’re seeing a change in the color of the beer. Did you notice anything else in terms of mouthfeel or clarity or anything like that?

James Bridwell (01:18:40):

No. I mean, it performed exactly, like I said, a straight swap. Texture of the beer still stayed the same. There’s no mouthfeel change. We kept everything we wanted to keep the same and changed what we wanted to change.

Toby Tucker  (01:19:06):

[inaudible 01:19:06] color change.

James Bridwell (01:19:07):

Yeah, it was just a drop in the color of the beer. I mean, we’ve had Paul who drinks our IPAs every single day. Well, he’s the guy who works here who’ll come up like, “This is a good batch of particles. This is a good one. This will hit this time,” and nothing. It’s just the perception of drinking the beer stayed the same. Just on the bar, it just looks better.

Heather Jerred (01:19:42):

That’s it. That is a wrap.

Brittany Drennan (01:19:45):

I guess people really love good chit.

Heather Jerred (01:19:47):

Who doesn’t love good chit really?

Matt Sprinkle (01:19:48):

It’s honestly the best chit.

Heather Jerred (01:19:50):

Man, it’s the best chit.

Brittany Drennan (01:19:51):

Well, thanks for tuning in, everyone. We’ve got some-

Heather Jerred (01:19:52):

Dates.

Brittany Drennan (01:19:55):

… very exciting things planned for 2026. Be sure to like and subscribe to The BrewDeck podcast so you never miss an episode, and keep an eye out. I think we’ll have our cameras turned on every once in a while. Keeps them on their toes.

Heather Jerred (01:19:55):

Ooh. Thanks, all.