EPISODE S.3, E.18

Grant: (00:10)
We are back with another episode of The BrewDeck Podcast. This week’s topic, talking all things brewer, social media. I’ve got my co-host with me today, Heather Jared, how’s it going, Heather?

Heather: (00:24)
I’m good, Grant. How are you?

Grant: (00:24)
Good. Doing well. Yeah. Looking forward to this episode. Kind of talking to a couple different great breweries around the country that have just wildly successful social media programs, and kind of what they’re doing to drive their taproom sales, their beer sales and everything else.

Heather: (00:43)
Yeah, it was actually a really fun episode to research, spending a lot of time playing on Instagram for this.

Grant: (00:51)
That’s right. Play on Instagram. Right on. Well, our first guest today comes to us from Martin House Brewing in Fort Worth, Texas. His name’s Shugg Cole. He’s the director of branding. How’s it going Shugg?

Shugg: (01:05)
What’s up? It’s going good y’all. Thanks for having me.

Grant: (01:08)
Yeah, absolutely. Shugg, that’s a nickname, huh? Is that your given name?

Shugg: (01:13)
Yeah, yeah, that’s my nickname. I used to work for a band and I was kind of like a roadie and did the merch and all that stuff, and on the bunk and the bus, that’s where I would hide all my candy. So they started calling me Shugg, like sugar. So it just kind of stuck.

Grant: (01:35)
That’s awesome.

Shugg: (01:35)
Yeah.

Heather: (01:35)
Oh, we love that.

Shugg: (01:35)
I still like candy.

Grant: (01:38)
I guess it’s almost that season, right? Halloween candy season.

Heather: (01:41)
Halloween season.

Grant: (01:42)
Yeah. So Shugg, can you give us a brief background about Martin House, the kind of the beers brewed there and the whole thing that y’all got going on?

Shugg: (01:52)
Yeah, for sure. So we’re in Fort Worth, Texas. We got our 10 year anniversary coming up in March, so almost 10 years old.

Heather: (02:00)
Congratulations.

Shugg: (02:01)
We started on.

Grant: (02:02)
Yeah.

Shugg: (02:02)
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it’s a big deal. So yeah, super proud of that. We started off with just four beers in our core lineup and maybe one or two seasonals over the first year and a half, two years. And since then we’ve evolved to a new beer every single week that gets distributed.

Heather: (02:19)
Wow.

Shugg: (02:20)
Yeah, so we’ve come quite a long ways, even with the styles of beer we used to brew compared to what we do now, and just the limits, or there’s no limits.

Shugg: (02:31)
So yeah, Fort Worth Texas, 10 years, Martin House, and we just make some fun beers.

Grant: (02:37)
Beautiful. Love to hear it. So you were saying kind of your beer styles evolved, these days y’all do make some pretty out there beers, pretty innovative in my mind. So your role with that, working on the social media platforms and the overall brand, do you do it all? Do you do the social media, the photography, everything?

Shugg: (03:01)
Yes, I do our social media, our photography, make the videos. I’m in charge of deciding on the beer launch calendar and what those beers are, what they’re called, the style. I work with the artist on what the art’s going to be, and so I work with the artist and I work with the brewers, and just kind of tie it all together so we have something that’s just badass that we can hand to our customers.

Grant: (03:22)
For sure.

Heather: (03:23)
So is that artist local to you?

Shugg: (03:26)
Yeah. Yeah. His name’s Donny. He’s been with us since the beginning. So his portfolio is pretty much every single piece of Martin House art, and that’s kind of cool too. He doesn’t have a website or Instagram or nothing, so you can just see his evolution of his art from their first beer Day Break, 10 years ago to the crazy two pack box stuff we’re doing these days. So it’s pretty cool to watch him grow over the years, but he’s the best in the biz. He’s amazing. Very fortunate to have Donny.

Grant: (03:55)
That’s all, that’s awesome. So just a local almost in, he’s like a private artist basically for Martin House, right?

Shugg: (04:03)
Yeah, he’s our in house artist. So he does it all, man, it’s crazy.

Heather: (04:08)
Nice.

Shugg: (04:09)
So crazy.

Grant: (04:10)
I think at one point I heard, and maybe this number’s a little off, I want to say, I heard John say that did like 74, y’all had 74 different beers planned this year. Is that right? Something like that?

Shugg: (04:22)
So we have a few different formats. Every week we release either a two pack, a four pack, or a six, or a six pack and 12 ounce, so that’s 52 beers. Then we also have a 16 ounce four pack and also a 19.2 ounce. So we’ll distribute over 60 beers this year. Different styles, different art, all over Texas. So it’s pretty wild.

Grant: (04:47)
Yeah, it sounds like it. So like

Heather: (04:49)
That’s ambitious.

Grant: (04:50)
Yeah. So with that many different artworks, kind of your launches and social media, that sort of thing, how do you stay organized? Like what do you.

Shugg: (05:04)
It’s absolute chaos. It’s on Friday trying to figure out, all right, what beer is coming out next week? Oh, cool. We should probably take a picture to promote that beer that’s coming out or make a video or something. And it’s just getting kind of tighter and tighter on the deadlines over the past few years with all the extra stuff we’re adding along with our, we have a sour seltzer out now too called Awesome Sauce, but with so many different SKUs, I mean, I guess we’re organized somehow, but yeah, it’s organized chaos.

Grant: (05:35)
Organized chaos.

Heather: (05:37)
So I was going to ask how far you plan this ahead, but you don’t necessarily plan that far ahead?

Shugg: (05:44)
Actually, today, we just finalized Q1 of next year. So we got all what we call the micro seasonals, the weekly beers. So all those are done. Which is great. But we’re never afraid to change it up, if we got enough lead time on packaging materials like sleeves, we sleeve all of our cans. So if we have enough lead time and we’re not feeling this beer, it was cool, it was a good idea five months ago, but things have changed. All right, we’ll change it up at the last minute. And I think that’s very important, that’s something that we do a lot.

Grant: (06:14)
So, that kind of brings me around to our next topic, if you will. So how do you stay original? How would you sum up Martin House’s kind of social media presence?

Shugg: (06:31)
I try and put the, we call them our customers, but our fans first. So I try and I just want every single person to feel important. So with that, it’s responding to every single tag, mention, comments, everything. And I don’t know, kind of developing relationships with these people who I’ve never even met before, but online we’re kind of best friends and that’s pretty cool. So that’s number one.

Shugg: (06:57)
And besides that, I just always try and give value to those people, give value to our customers, and that’s usually just try and make them smile. That’s it, that’s all it is. So, make them laugh. Yeah.

Grant: (07:10)
Yeah, yeah. I’ve followed y’all’s Instagram for a while and it definitely makes me laugh. In fact, since you’re probably on the other end of it, I think you’ve responded to some my comments on there, so it, you’re right, it is pretty awesome.

Shugg: (07:25)
Appreciate that.

Heather: (07:26)
It definitely has a personality and I like that. I think it’s definitely individual, and I think that’s definitely a tough thing for people to kind of get on social media, to actually show the real personality of the beer, the brewers, the people that work there.

Grant: (07:42)
Right. Yeah, like letting loose and not being too manicured, I guess. Just letting it all out there. So I mean, you guys use all these great memes, nineties pop culture effort says all this stuff to drive your brand and, it’s rad.

Shugg: (08:05)
Appreciate that. Yeah, it’s just like I said, if it’s going to make me laugh or it’s going to make me smile, then that’s kind of the demographic I go for is people who, kind of around my age, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger, but we grew up in the nineties and we like these movies and this candy and all this stuff. So it’s like, I’m kind of just targeting myself with everything and that makes it a whole lot easier.

Grant: (08:30)
It’s the same way that a lot of craft brewers kind of approach beers is they want to make stuff that they want to drink, and you’re like, I want to make social media posts and memes and marketing that I like, that’s cool. It’s like your own, you’re the barometer for that.

Shugg: (08:48)
Yeah, that’s it. It’s just about making everybody smile. I mean I even have this text app where I text them all, I’ll text them their birth, happy birthday every single day, or I’ll send out a mass text and just some little words of inspiration or whatever. And some people are like, yeah, that really made my day that, that was awesome, I needed that. So that’s a win in my book if I could just make somebody’s day or make them happy. So that’s the goal.

Heather: (09:10)
Do you think having that kind of interaction with your customers has like really helped build the business?

Shugg: (09:19)
Yeah, I mean there is die hard customers. It is, they’re the best. Like I said, it’s new beer every week and all we do to promote it is I post one picture, and then it’s sold out and then it’s on the next one. So there’s 2000, 3000 cases gone with just one picture because there’s so much loyalty. And they know something’s coming up the next week, they get excited about it, their beer, their beer fridge is over, it’s overflowing. They don’t even have room for the new beer, but they just are so die hard. So yeah, I mean, I tell them, I say, yo, you don’t have to buy this one. Wait for the next week, you know something else is coming, but they’re just, they’re so loyal. So it’s really cool.

Grant: (09:58)
What would you say launched your, I guess, beers or your branding, your social media presence into that next level? Was there any one particular beer or was there a post or, this is kind of off the wall question, but.

Shugg: (10:16)
Oh no, you’re good. I don’t know, it’s just been over the past few years. I don’t know, it’s like every few months I try and just be a little bit better and try and, I don’t know, just try and read everything and see everything and make sure everybody who comments or cares, make sure they get some type of response or even just a little like.

Grant: (10:36)
Sure.

Shugg: (10:36)
I guess it’s just gotten to be more and more important maybe after I’ve seen the reactions over the past few years. All right, they like that. Well then I need to go out and go comment on their post and just, I don’t know, I just want to do a little more because you can see, and you can see it in just their responses, they get pumped about it, so.

Grant: (10:55)
Absolutely.

Heather: (10:56)
So would you say it’s been really over the past few years that the social media presence has become increasingly important for the company?

Grant: (11:06)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean it was, I’d say yeah, probably around 2020, I mean,

Heather: (11:11)
Right around COVID times.

Grant: (11:12)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s when we started doing more of the crazy stuff that starts going viral. So then you need to be on top of more your comments and your likes and your mentions, good and bad online. So yeah, that’s when it got pretty intense, so.

Heather: (11:28)
I think that’s super important too, to not shy away from the bad comments.

Grant: (11:32)
Yeah. I was going to bring that up. I’ve seen on there where somebody, because it’s the internet and there’s always keyboard warriors that are always just trying to dunk on someone or whatever. There’s just a lot of people that are upset out there and I feel like they take it out over the internet or they try to. But one thing that I’ve noticed that Martin House does that I think is awesome is when somebody’s insulting, you’re just like, agree, yeah.

Shugg: (12:04)
Well, yeah, usually over the past, I don’t know, six, eight months, a year I’ve been dropping the hug emoji on everybody that says something mean, I just, here’s a little hug. So.

Grant: (12:15)
Here’s a hug.

Heather: (12:16)
It’s a little love.

Shugg: (12:17)
But it’s cool because if our other fans see that, I mean, I don’t even have to, not that I had to defend myself or the brewery, but they’ll start jumping on that person. They’re like, they’ll put them in line, which is pretty cool.

Grant: (12:29)
Absolutely.

Shugg: (12:29)
So our fans stand up for us. That’s awesome.

Grant: (12:32)
Yeah. Yep. That’s a real vote of confidence right there.

Heather: (12:39)
So would you mind me asking your background on how you got into being the director of branding? You mentioned that you

Shugg: (12:46)
Yeah, for sure.

Heather: (12:47)
Worked for a band before, that’s a

Shugg: (12:50)
Yeah, let’s see, I guess it was, I don’t know, eight and a half years ago or so, that’s when I started volunteering and then a few months after that I got hired. I really liked, we only had a couple beers out at the time, but I liked the beers we were making or they were making, and I liked the vibe. Only from the website, I was just like, these guys are kind of chill and fun. They’re not taking themselves too seriously. And then I got to visit the tap room and then I was like, I want to work here. So I started volunteering and a few months later after begging for a job, I finally got a job in sales. And that was interesting because there’s only six of us, but when I sold the beer, I’d have to deliver the beer I sold. So I always feel like I got tricked pretty good with that one.

Shugg: (13:34)
So you know, you sell three 50 liter kegs, so three half barrels, you got to go break your back and drop that off. So it was, yeah, it’s not like it is now, but I’m proud of that. So yeah, I did that for a few years, did sales. We grew as a company and pretty much off the bat I started taking over some of the Facebook and Instagram and stuff, but just so busy doing sales and deliveries and other things that that wasn’t really the most important thing at the time. I mean, it should have been, but it wasn’t. Then a few years ago I became full time marketing branding and I just started rocking and rolling with and having some fun.

Heather: (14:13)
Nice.

Grant: (14:16)
So are you, for the most part, you just self-taught, I guess Photoshop and the different editing programs and that sort of thing?

Shugg: (14:24)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I use Adobe Illustrator, I use that when I work with the artist and he makes all the bad ass art and sends it to me and then I kind of move stuff around and make it just fit perfectly and adjust a few things. So that’s what I use Adobe for. I also use it to make memes or just cover photos with some text on it, stuff like that. I don’t have Illustrator, I’m not really good at either of those. I just kind of get by. But you don’t, that’s what’s cool is, you don’t have to be making world class videos or super Photoshop images. You just need a, I don’t know, provide content that your customers can enjoy.

Grant: (15:05)
Absolutely. Yeah, don’t need anything too fancy. You can still pull off the comedy and the social interaction aspects of it.

Heather: (15:13)
So is there any advice that you would give to other breweries on upping their social media game? Give out some trade secrets?

Shugg: (15:22)
I don’t know. Like I said, it’s easy for me to get excited. I mean, I promote what I can get excited about. So that’s where we’re kind at an advantage is our owner of our company, Cody, he’s always, he’s given me freedom to work on the beer calendar and decide with the team what beers those are. So I think that’s something that’s different than a lot of breweries. I mean, you said a lot of brewers listen to this and I assume a lot of owners, so that’s where the owners are deciding the beers. That’s not really good for the marketer who’s ever running the social media if they can’t get excited about that.

Shugg: (15:57)
So, that’s a really big thing. The owner or the brewer can really this classic German style Dortmund or whatever, but they need to really let the marketer and the people doing the sales have a voice in it. I think when you do that, that’s when everybody kind of wins.

Grant: (16:15)
It’s when everybody’s like passion is at their highest for at their day to day at the brewery. Yeah, makes sense.

Shugg: (16:23)
But yeah, you just got to get excited about your customer. I mean that’s it, just try and make their day. If you do that, then you win.

Heather: (16:30)
I love that.

Grant: (16:31)
Well y’all have, y’all brewed some pretty wild beers. You, just different stuff. What was the, was that hot dog Water seltzer? Infamous.

Shugg: (16:42)
Oh yeah.

Grant: (16:42)
Hot dog water seltzer.

Heather: (16:44)
That one.

Shugg: (16:46)
Oh that was great.

Grant: (16:47)
So things like that I mean, is that something that you’re able to drive through social media and then get people into your tap room or your event or your festival, and then maybe they drink one or two of those and they move on to kind of a more traditional beer? Or is that kind of what you see?

Shugg: (17:07)
I mean, that one went viral. That was really cool. I didn’t really think it was going to go viral. The point of that was I was just trying to create a big, it was called Glizzy Fest. It was this giant event in our backyard that that’s my favorite thing to do is put on these big old events. And that was something that we could just kind of get my fans, the fans excited about was hot dogs at the time. And people still tag me every single day and baloney seltzers and the dude eating the, or using the hot dog as a straw at Yankee Stadium. Every single day they’re sending me hot dog stuff. So that’s hilarious. Before that we did, we had Creed Fest. We have a Creed cover band. So every day I get a Creed meme or something like that sent to me. So yeah, that just goes back to laughing and trying to make your customers laugh and I don’t even know what the question was.

Grant: (18:01)
So, okay, so many questions arisen from that. So the Creed Fest or the Creed event?

Shugg: (18:08)
Creed Fest. Yeah.

Grant: (18:09)
I’m sure you did some beers for that. Did they have Creed related names?

Shugg: (18:17)
We did. What was this year? I don’t know. I think last year was My Sacrifice and this year was something else. But no that was, I mean that was very, very little of it. We didn’t can it or do anything like that, but.

Grant: (18:31)
Gotcha.

Shugg: (18:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a small part of it. I guess I’m changing it to all the event stuff. It’s just the events, it’s crazy how you can, like we did Fyre Fest based on.

Heather: (18:41)
I saw that.

Grant: (18:42)
Yeah.

Shugg: (18:43)
Based on the infamous [inaudible 00:18:45] and it’s just, I don’t know

Grant: (18:49)
Do you a Ja Rule cover band?

Shugg: (18:52)
Oh man. What did I want to do? I was, oh, I was going to get a Ja Rule impersonator.

Grant: (18:56)
Oh that would’ve been awesome.

Shugg: (18:57)
They don’t have any of those in Dallas.

Grant: (19:00)
I guess he would actually show up to your event.

Heather: (19:03)
I was going to say, I feel like you probably could have got Ja Rule

Grant: (19:07)
Which is what was.

Heather: (19:09)
No, yeah it’s easier if you can have the full experience, the cool niche beer, but then all the other stuff to go along with it, that makes it a lot easier than just, I don’t know, releasing a ranch beer, buffalo wings or some of the other stuff we’ve done.

Grant: (19:21)
Gotcha.

Heather: (19:22)
Yeah.

Grant: (19:23)
What is your, out of all the wild like out there beers y’all done, what’s like the one, I mean, what would you say is the one that’s just like awesome? Your favorite one out of all of them?

Heather: (19:39)
I mean, hot dog water’s, that’s gross, that’s disgusting. That’s what’s great too. You go on ontap, it gets all half a star. Tastes just like hot dog water. That’s my favorite thing to see. But that’s another conversation.

Heather: (19:52)
That should be a five star review.

Shugg: (19:54)
Tastes exactly as advertised.

Heather: (19:56)
It’s exactly what they said it was going to be.

Shugg: (19:59)
We get that so often. Pickle Beer taste just like pickles. Half a star. But no, my favorite. I mean it’s got to, man, it’s everybody’s favorite around here. It’s the mustard pickle.

Grant: (20:14)
Mustard pickle, Okay.

Shugg: (20:15)
Mustard. Yeah, it’s kind of like a hot dog. I mean, just not like a hot, it makes you think of a hot dog, it doesn’t taste like a hot dog much. But yeah, it’s must, the Mustard pickle beer is amazing. And I’ll say that to anybody’s face.

Grant: (20:29)
You’ll die on that hill.

Shugg: (20:30)
Yeah, Yeah. People can hate on it or whatever it tastes, it tastes fucking awesome.

Grant: (20:35)
So I’ve never had that variation, but I’ve only personally, I’m, I’m a Spicy Pickle guy. Yeah. Count Me In.

Shugg: (20:41)
Oh nice. You’d enjoy like the chamois is really good, we just dropped that one.

Grant: (20:45)
Okay.

Shugg: (20:47)
All the fruity variants, I mean they taste awesome. They just taste like some fruited Kool-aid with a little bit of pickle. Yeah, I’m impressed that we’ve done so many of those and people buy them, they love them, and they love the taste of it. So that’s, That’s pretty cool. We’d never thought we’d be doing that with pickles all these years later. Wow.

Grant: (21:05)
Reminds me of how I would make a bloody Mary, like the spicy.

Shugg: (21:09)
Oh hell yeah.

Grant: (21:10)
Yeah. I know y’all have a Bloody Mary one, but I don’t know, the spicy one is what really did it for me. Cause I always loaded up with Tabasco.

Shugg: (21:17)
Yeah.

Heather: (21:18)
Okay. We’re going to need to get you guys onto doing actual Caesars like the Canadian Way. Not Bloody Mary.

Grant: (21:23)
That’s what I was going to say, Heather. Y’all call it Caesars, right?

Heather: (21:27)
Well yeah, it’s, we use Clamato juice, not tomato juice.

Grant: (21:31)
Ah.

Shugg: (21:31)
Yeah, that sounds fire.

Grant: (21:32)
That’s like a Michelada here, right? Isn’t that right Shugg?

Shugg: (21:36)
Yeah, we make a Salty Lady michelada which I think is the best michelada in a can ever and we made a Clamata clone and it is fire. Yeah, if you like Clamata, you’d love the Salty Lady Michelada.

Heather: (21:50)
I live my life off of Caesars. It’s like the best weekend drink slash hangover drink you can ever get.

Shugg: (21:55)
Yeah.

Heather: (21:56)
Super salty, little spicy. It’s perfect.

Grant: (21:59)
If I can score some, Heather, I’ll bring some to you.

Heather: (22:02)
Please do.

Grant: (22:03)
Yes. Awesome. Well, let’s see, Is there anything else you want to plug while we got you on the show Shugg?

Shugg: (22:12)
I don’t know, man. No, the

Grant: (22:15)
New festivals coming up, new beers, anything?

Shugg: (22:17)
There’s always something. You know, our brewery tour, that’s always a good one. That’s on October 29th. Saturday after Thanksgiving. That’s always a big ranger. But I mean, just at the end of the day, I want people to come to the tap room and have a beer and our pretty cool eclectic tap room, get a vibe for us, and then go to our gigantic backyard, and have a beer right by the river in downtown. That’s what it’s about, that’s all it’s about is drinking a beer outside with friends. That’s what we do. ¬

Heather: (22:43)
That sounds awesome.

Grant: (22:44)
Right on.

Heather: (22:45)
Sounds glorious. Well, everybody makes sure that they head over and check out Martin House’s Instagram account. Can you give us the @? Yeah

Shugg: (22:54)
@ Martin House Brewing.

Heather: (22:55)
There you go. Go see what Shugg’s been up to. It’s pretty awesome.

Grant: (22:59)
It’s always a laugh.

Shugg: (23:01)
Appreciate that.

Grant: (23:02)
Well, well thanks for coming on Shugg. It’s been a pleasure.

Heather: (23:06)
Yeah, thank you.

Shugg: (23:07)
No, thank you guys. This was awesome.

Grant: (23:09)
We have another guest from DSSOLVR Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina. Mr. Michael Siminak. He’s the co-owner and creative director at Dissolver Brewing. Thanks for coming on, Mike.

Mike: (23:23)
Oh, thank you so much for having me. So stoked to be chatting with y’all today.

Grant: (23:27)
Yeah. The topic this week is just social media and how it can drive your craft brewing business. I mean, just again and again, we got recommendations to have DSSOLVR on, and so we’re really excited.

Mike: (23:42)
Thank you. Me too.

Heather: (23:45)
Before we jump into all the social media stuff, do you want to give us a bit of a background on the brewery itself, the beers and all that fun stuff?

Mike: (23:54)
Oh, absolutely. So DSSOLVR Brewing, we opened up in December of 2019, but had been a project of mine and my business partner, Vince [inaudible 00:24:06], who runs our, who’s our head of production, like CEO, CFO, pretty much everything I don’t do, he manages the rest. But it started as a home brew project, probably like 10 years prior to that. And we both really got into craft beer working out of this small liquor store, or big liquor store I should say, in a Boston neighborhood called Allston. And became super enamored with the growing scene there, started home brewing and over the course of the 10 years prior to opening, kind of made our way respectively through different careers. So Vince made his way through a pretty awesome brewing career, starting with night shift brewing, made his way over to help open Lord Hobo Brewing, and then found his way to Asheville to work for burial and help burial open up their production facility here, as well as worked on their original system.

Mike: (25:11)
And while he was doing that, I was making my way through an advertising and marketing career. Working at a few different agencies outside of Boston, inside of Boston. And then lastly out of Providence, Rhode Island. And then along that way just working on different digital campaigns, social media campaigns for a variety of clients, including Progressive Car Insurance, Carnival cruise lines, Bank of America, Santander Bank, the Center for Disease Control, and then a few other smaller brands that I had a lot of fun with. Light life foods and vegetarian meats there. And Otis Spunkmeyer, when I was working for them, they were launching a retail side of their product versus just, so you could actually buy their baked goods out of as a competitor to little Debbie and Hostess and stuff like that.

Grant: (26:15)
Muffins to go.

Mike: (26:16)
Yeah, muffins and cookies forever there. But through that stretch there I got dip my toes into different sorts of digital and social media campaigns and mostly through that stuff I was working on the creative side. So I got the awesome job of creating cool visuals and stuff for all those clients. And when I first started in that area in social media, it was pretty much still all these platforms just using just image based platforms. No one had really added video to their sites yet. Not in a major way at least.

Grant: (27:02)
Right like no reels and stuff like that.

Heather: (27:04)
No TikToks

Mike: (27:05)
Yeah, no, yeah, not infinite amount of video you see today.

Heather: (27:10)
Yeah.

Mike: (27:10)
And at that point it was an easier thing to approach because I could work my magic in Photoshop and some of the Adobe programs to make still images. But then as these platforms started adding video, I wanted to make sure my skill set could cover that. So I started learning how to do motion graphics and video editing. Picked up a camera and started taking my own photography, started shooting my own videos, and was able to keep up and keep my skills relevant to the social platforms as they were growing.

Mike: (27:49)
I was part of the campaign that was one of the first video ad buys on Facebook, so you could blame the company I worked for for really pushing those pre-roll ads and stuff into your social media. But yeah, and then pretty much right around 2018, Vince myself got back together and started writing a business plan for DSSOLVR Brewing in Asheville. And after he moved down here, I got to visit and it’s so freaking easy to fall in love with this area. With the mountains, the sheer amount of beer down here, the.

Grant: (28:33)
Nice weather?

Mike: (28:34)
Yeah, yeah. Especially compared to New England, the weather is just amazing. We get an extra half hour of daylight too, just, which was super weird to get used to when I first moved down here.

Grant: (28:47)
Absolutely.

Heather: (28:47)
I feel like you guys are just rubbing that in a little bit now. Just coming from the north.

Mike: (28:47)
Yeah.

Grant: (28:56)
So how would you, anybody who’s seen your work so far with DSSOLVR, it’s such a really neat artwork that you do and all that, how would you, for anyone listening, how would you sum up your motif for your [inaudible 00:29:15]

Mike: (29:16)
That motif really pulls from the concept of DSSOLVR and our tagline is brewed until surreal. And the idea behind that is we’re going to keep this product line going and evolving and keep making these things and tweaking them until they’re essentially the best they can be. And that really reflects in our portfolio. We have a good number of repeat offenders, but we’re constantly bringing through new brands, really rotating through our tap lines and our different package offerings here. So I really wanted to position the brand as something that would allow me to dip my toes in all kinds of different styles, so as well as have the capability of bringing other artists to work with me, different brands.

Mike: (30:09)
So I think basing us in this kind of surreal vibe has allowed me to make a whole bunch of things that some of them look more heavy metal with skulls and flames and

Grant: (30:24)
Absolutely.

Mike: (30:25)
Grungy looking stuff. And then others are more maybe painterly and soft and feminine, while others will be alien driven and stuff like that. But positioning myself as that, as a surreal brand versus any one of those categories, that was definitely purposeful and trying to establish ourselves as not just one style, one type kind of brewery, you know? That makes sense.

Grant: (30:57)
Yeah.

Heather: (31:03)
Definitely does. I do want to ask, so you said you do bring people on to help you with this. It feels like there’s a lot. I feel like there’s a lot going on there. So you do, do you have a whole team that’s helping you with this?

Mike: (31:13)
Currently now that we’re doing well. We did open in December of 2019, so we got the full brunt of COVID right away.

Heather: (31:25)
Oh no.

Mike: (31:28)
For a new business. So there was definitely a period of time when it was just, and prior to opening as well. It was all myself building all of this brand material and our graphics for probably over three years or so. So that was prior to opening, then opening and then we struggled for a while. But I did have a couple of people that were interested. My wife is also a graphic designer, so she’s been able to help out with some projects here and there.

Mike: (32:04)
But now I currently have another junior designer working with me. I have a couple other illustrators that I’ll hit up, one a few more often than others. And then have another copywriter who’s also working on our press releases, but also is super interested in writing little video skits for us and other little projects like that. So the team is, it’s a pretty awesome creative team right now for something that we can do all in-house. It definitely helps us look as professional as possible and then also just hit it with a really strong creative bone here, so.

Grant: (32:58)
Yeah, I think it definitely shows, Heather and I were looking at some of the artwork and Heather was kind of the first one to point it out. But I guess when you do the grid view, for example on Instagram, you have all these different releases and different events, but you’ve made it into one mosaic?

Heather: (33:17)
Yeah, this blows my mind if nobody.

Grant: (33:19)
It blows my mind.

Heather: (33:19)
If anybody’s listening to this and has not gone and checked out the Instagram, go do it immediately. It’s years worth of Instagram posts that all feed into each other.

Mike: (33:30)
Yeah.

Heather: (33:31)
Where did that inspiration come from? How do you do that? How far in advance are you having to plan these to get all of that to work as one?

Mike: (33:42)
Yeah, it goes back, I think at least to 2017 or something like that. When I first started the connected grid project. I’d played around with some similar projects like that through my time working at the various ad agencies, but never to the detail and level I put into ours. It was always just like, oh, you can just blow up this one picture and you’ll get some part of it that looks right. And then other parts of the grid will look abstract and maybe they’ve carried copy over. I always, I thought that could be improved on. And that’s what we did with our grid is so, every single post kind of weaved its way in there, connected its way in there, but also could live on its own. So either as a little piece of video content or a carousel or anything that talks about our events and stuff.

Mike: (34:50)
And I did that for so long. And it was quite a project to do and was definitely, takes its time and takes a lot of pre planning. So it would at the minimum be at least like a week or two of thinking about what’s coming out sooner or later, and then weaving that in and then sometimes that gets messed up. So then you got to flex your creative muscle to make it work still, either breaking it in a way that still makes sense. But I did that project for a long time and fortunately I just recently stopped doing it. I announced what I was calling grid death, and essentially we’ve made it to this point of the company where I just can’t possibly keep up with it anymore.

Mike: (35:54)
We just announced our expansion plans for the space here, so that’s going to be occupying my time way more. So it was just the right time to kind of announce the end of that. But also has freed my time up with that to do other, get back to some other cool creative projects. So we’ve kind of put our foot down to do more video content and starting to kick back up our email campaigns and stuff like that. So where that goes away, we will still bring a high level of creativity to the other things we are producing.

Grant: (36:40)
For sure. Well.

Heather: (36:41)
Can you see how the use of your social media, obviously you have this very strong background in advertising and marketing and obviously saw the benefit of doing social media, utilizing social media in this way. Have you seen it be a big help for the success of the brewery?

Mike: (36:59)
Oh absolutely. Coming into the project and knowing we’re going to begin in Asheville with all these awesome brands around us and then even on just nationwide now, the sheer amount of brands out there, we really wanted to do all we could to distinguish ourselves and have something that was a little more stand out than your typical brewery project. And coming from my background, I knew social media could be a big play in that and essentially anyone that was going to meet us or hear about us, especially as we were launching up, they were going to see our digital face before they saw anything else. So I just wanted to make sure that looked as cool and professional as possible.

Mike: (37:59)
So I knew that that needed to be at a high level for us. And at that point I had a bunch of skills and the interest in getting the project going. So started the grid and I was like, yeah, this could be an interesting project to keep going until we opened up and then we did that, opened up and I kept doing it.

Grant: (38:28)
Just keeps going.

Mike: (38:29)
Probably, yeah, I couldn’t get away from it. But even prior to opening, we had the awesome chance to go and work with a bunch of different brands up and down the east coast and some in the middle of the country. And as part of that I wanted to document that and our social media was just by far the easiest way to do so, so started making these little documentary videos and stuff that were highlighting our different experiences and our travels around the country brewing with all these awesome brands.

Mike: (39:10)
So that really kicked off the look and feel for our project. And as we were doing that, people started really noticing it and then different publications, industry publications started picking up on that because it’s not everyone approaches it in that way or has the time or ability to do so. It definitely made a difference for us and helped open doors as we were getting closer and closer to opening up the brewery and tap room here in Asheville. So by the time we did open, people knew where we were and were really interested in trying our product. And then I really credit it to all that prior work to is definitely what helped us get through the pandemic, for sure. Especially in those earlier days where we had to closed down the tap room, which was our main source of sales and switch to fully, a full distro plan with just no draft included on that.

Heather: (40:25)
Yeah.

Mike: (40:26)
Was quite intense and credit all that groundwork. But prior to that and getting our brand established as getting us through that. I don’t know if people would’ve cared or to buy from us as much, especially being a new brand. There was definitely a lot of trust when all these retail accounts, alcohol was selling pretty well through the pandemic, but still to take a chance on a newer brand. Yeah, it was really awesome that people were so receptive.

Grant: (41:05)
That’s a great point that you made there, that really through social media that sort of thing. I mean these days, the kind of folks that are the demographic of craft beer drinkers, the first way that they’re ever going to interact with you is likely through something like Instagram or some kind of social media or online before they ever go visit you, right? That’s the very first thing. So you really have to nail it, like you said. Very cool.

Mike: (41:33)
Yeah.

Heather: (41:34)
I know it’s probably like picking your favorite child, but do you have a favorite post that you did that’s just sticks with you as your favorite one?

Mike: (41:44)
Oh geez. I feel like every other week I’m making my new favorite one.

Heather: (41:50)
I guess that’s also the joy of you creating them yourself.

Mike: (41:57)
And I keep learning new tools. So it’s like recently started getting more into 3D artwork and playing with my phone a little more. There’s this cool app on there called Polycam, it allows you to pretty much capture 3D models and 3D scans of different objects and you can put people in there too but it just comes out a little crude. But that’s been a lot of fun to play with. I’ve done a few projects where I bring in models I scan, some of the people we’re working with and then they become part of our label, which is the starting point for a lot of our graphics is we have a product, that becomes a label and then that label becomes, now I can take assets and pieces of that illustration or whatever I use to make it, and then that becomes part of motion graphics, or it ties somehow into a video that we’re creating with it. So I’d say some of the more recent ones I’ve done with that one.

Mike: (43:14)
At this point we’re releasing three brands a week and most of the times there’s at least one or two returning, but it could be up to three new brands when we do release. Now, I think at this point we’ve done over I want to say over 250 brands. So they tend to bleed together in my brain now. Yeah I can’t a favorite child at this point.

Grant: (43:43)
Fair enough.

Heather: (43:44)
That’s fair

Mike: (43:44)
I will always love our flagship kolsch, Thank You For Existing. That beer is just so crushable and easy to drink and I’ve always liked working with that brand because just the name alone allows us to go in a couple of different directions. We’ve branded a whole night here as Thank You Night, and that’s our service industry appreciation night. So we discount a bunch of our taps and stuff and that’s for everyone to enjoy, but it’s especially for our fellow service industry folks.

Grant: (44:20)
Right on, Thank You For Existing. Thanks for coming on Michael. Is there anything else that you want to plug? I mean obviously anybody out there listening to this should follow y’all’s Instagram just for your artistic inspiration. What is your Instagram tag by the way?

Mike: (44:34)
My personal one is @ Death Shakes. Death underscore shakes.

Grant: (44:40)
I guess you have your own artwork on there and then the ones that brewery is DSSOLVR?

Mike: (44:45)
@DSSOLVR yeah, but spelled in our interesting way. So.

Grant: (44:48)
Yes.

Mike: (44:48)
D-S-S-O-L-V-R. So only enough money in the budget for one vowel there.

Heather: (44:57)
I liked that, I read that one on the website

Grant: (44:59)
Like the metal spelling, right. I mean it’s kind of like Trve Brewing or something. Yeah, I dig it.

Mike: (45:04)
Yeah, definitely similar to that. Well thank you so much for having me today.

Grant: (45:09)
Yeah.

Mike: (45:09)
Love when people hear about us through our social media and stuff and I always like to say that the beer is way better than the graphics and creative I make. So please, whenever you can come check us out in Asheville, we’re pretty much right in downtown. And then we are pretty much distributed throughout the whole state here. So if you’re looking for it, there’s a good chance one of your local bottle shops have it and if they don’t let them know that they should.

Heather: (45:40)
They should stock it.

Mike: (45:41)
Yeah.

Heather: (45:43)
Awesome. Thank you so much.

Grant: (45:45)
My next guest is Andrew Copeland, the founder and sort of the moderator of Craft Beer Professionals Group on Facebook, among a couple other projects. How’s it going Andrew?

Andrew: (45:56)
Hey Grant, I really appreciate being here on the other side of the table. Thanks again for having me.

Grant: (46:00)
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it is kind of a role reversal here. I guess I’ve got to talk a few times on the CBPs kind of industry events, so it’s really cool. Yeah, the tables have turned.

Andrew: (46:13)
It’s less work for me honestly. I appreciate it.

Grant: (46:17)
Awesome. So for those out there listening, let’s just do a little bit of backstory here. What is the Craft Beer Professionals Facebook group?

Andrew: (46:27)
Yeah, so I got in the industry about five and a half years ago. I first launched my brand Secret Hopper, long and short, it’s a mystery shopping company for breweries. And I was shocked at that time that there wasn’t a place where people like you and I and brewery owners, tapper managers, brewers, could simply come together on the internet, because we’re spending way so much time on social media.

Andrew: (46:46)
So we launched Craft Beer Professionals in 2017 simply as a Facebook community to bring people together and we’ve grown to nearly 16,000 members over that time. And our goal is really just to keep education 100% free and accessible to all and give everybody the opportunity to learn something and have a conversation.

Grant: (47:02)
For sure before CBP. There still is to this day, I guess there still is kind of professional brewer and home brew talk and those things are great, but I would say CBP is kind of the first one that really took advantage of Facebook’s audio and video kind of aspects and really drove professional brewing that way, which is, yeah, did I get that right?

Andrew: (47:29)
Yeah, I mean there’s so many other great platforms that do have a wealth of knowledge and our goal is to be a place people can simply come to and ask questions and learn from others. I mean, there’s people who come to Craft Beer Professionals who probably never ever commented before, but there’s so many other great questions being asked. No matter when you come in, you’re going to learn something great about the brewing to business side of the industry. And a really neat thing is it gives you just the pulse of what people are thinking about right now. Their current pain points, the challenges, what they’re really proud of or what we could expect moving forward. So I think no matter when you know, you sign into your Facebook, whether you’re phone while you’re brewing or before you go to bed at night or when you wake up, you’re going to see something really neat to give you insight into what’s going on in our industry.

Grant: (48:12)
I would agree that I definitely follow it among some other ones, but I definitely watch CBP, people’s anonymous questions on there, does definitely keep me keyed into the industry and what professional brewers needs are. So yeah, I mean it’s great in that aspect kind of like getting it’s a neat like, where everybody comes together and talks about whatever the new brewing trend is and then yeah, it’s a great thing to do it more like live and less slow from some kind of 1990s coded forum, it’s a little more challenging to read through.

Andrew: (48:50)
Yeah, and some of the posts, the anonymous ones that you mentioned, there’s a love hate relationship I think a lot of our members have with those. But the other day there was one that I absolutely love following and it was anonymous posts that we put out for a member who they gave up drinking, they’re sober now. And they were looking for next steps in their career, and the community really came together with a lot of wonderful ideas where this person could stay involved or ways they can get support from the community just to help with the transition to whatever they end up with next. And it was a really powerful post to see just people come behind and want to see this person happy no matter what they ended up doing.

Grant: (49:28)
For sure. Yeah, I know what you mean when you say the love hate deal because yeah, people do like to pile on sometimes dog pile on, but I mean for the most part it, there’s so many people on there that you can ask a professional brewing question and get an answer. Sometimes it’s a smart-ass answer, but you’ll get an answer very quickly, which is great.

Andrew: (49:54)
And I think at the end of the day, everybody’s there cause they want to see the success of the craft beer industry. So I think we’re all in it together.

Grant: (50:00)
For sure, for sure. So one of the things that I notice a lot on CBP that’s a really great resource for brewers that are trying to open up, they’re starting out, like breweries and planning, I guess is what we call them. And do y’all do some special, I think y’all do some special events for breweries and planning, correct?

Andrew: (50:22)
We do actually, we’ve recently partnered with startabrewery.com and we’re going to be doing a once a quarter informational session on topics more targeted towards breweries and planning. So we definitely want to put out content that’s valuable for people, whether they’re just thinking about opening a brewery or to the brewer who’s been in the industry 25 years. But yeah, it’s really fun to hear the talking points on things to consider as you’re getting open.

Grant: (50:47)
Absolutely. So how do you, what are some of the ways that you keep CBP, how are you driving it forward? You were telling me a little bit before we clicked the record button here, but just for out those listening, what’s coming down the pipe?

Andrew: (51:06)
So when we first opened, our goal was to simply be a place to have conversations, to ask those questions, to learn from others. And we slowly added in more educational content, like once week style webinar presentations. And it’s funny to look at how these have changed over the years because with the pandemic in 2020 we saw people very active and able to watch live. So people were tuning in, asking questions while these sessions were going. But we’ve seen a shift over time as so while people can still watch these educational sessions live, we typically do them at least once a week. They’ve kind of changed a little bit to more so being a resource that people know are always there. So while the content is live, and I think it’s really important and neat to have live content because people are able to come in and ask a question.

Andrew: (51:48)
Like you know Grant, if you’re speaking at a virtual conference, someone can put a comment right in the chat and get immediate feedback from you. That’s pretty cool. I think that’s an important part of having things accessible. But with that said, a lot of people don’t have the time these days, so everything becomes a resource. So we’ve evolved a bit over the past few years as from going from this educational content we’ve done, we’re about to begin our sixth virtual conference, which is crazy to think about cause I think of all the technological challenges, we’re all learning about streaming audio and doing a virtual event like that in 2020. But now we’re about to begin our sixth virtual conference, that’s going to be October 17th to 19th. And one thing we’ve also added to the repertoire is we built this really neat virtual community. And to go on a slight rant for one moment, the first in person event we did, we hosted essentially a happy hour event at CBC in Denver in 2021.

Andrew: (52:42)
And being a virtual community, we’d never done anything in person before and we promoted it, it was at Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery, had no idea how many people were going to show up. The place was shoulder to shoulder for three hours. And my favorite part about this event was that there were people who had never met each other face to face. They only recognized each other’s names and little small circular pictures from the internet, but they all came together and they knew each other. It was super cool to see these people who had never met have so much in common and actually know who each other were, and be so willing to share ideas. So that kind of inspired us to do more in person events as well.

Andrew: (53:18)
We just finished up two in person workshops this past year in St. Louis and my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. Where the goal was to take these relationships we built on the internet and bring them together for intimate interactive workshops where you can learn from your peers and where a tapper manager say from Virginia can get together with a tapper manager in Texas who are all together in the same spot, and just learn from one another and grow to one another with one another and really just share beers together and just, that’s an important experience.

Grant: (53:45)
Absolutely. Yeah. That’s really cool the way it works out. You were talking about, there definitely are regulars on there who answer questions. I mean, I jump on there and answer here and there, but not nearly as many as some of the others. But there are some real professional, I mean, if you want access to somebody who’s been brewing for 15 plus years. They’ll just answer questions in their spare time on there. It’s pretty awesome.

Andrew: (54:11)
And I think that speaks to a lot of the value that become we’ve built as a community because it’s not just the content we’re helping organize, it’s every single person who comes to be Craft Beer Professionals, it’s contributing to the greater good at the industry. So it is really neat to see some of these industry icons just come in the comments and give their advice.

Grant: (54:28)
Yeah, it’s funny you see kind of, or at least I will, I’ll scroll my mouse over somebody’s name and I’ll be, oh they’re with so and so brewery. And then it’ll connect and I’ll be like, that’s literally the head brewer, owner of that brewery that’s like, that is their name. They are on there answering the questions or chemical company or whoever. It’s pretty awesome.

Andrew: (54:49)
No, I a hundred percent agree. It’s great to see all the faces on the internet, but it’s even more special sometimes to see them in person. But it’s really neat to see the community we’re helping build.

Grant: (54:59)
Excellent. Well I’ve never been to one of the in person events, but I hope to get to one eventually. Hopefully. I mean maybe this upcoming

Andrew: (55:07)
I think you might have to, because we’re going to be doing one in 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Grant: (55:12)
Okay, right on.

Andrew: (55:13)
I think you all might be in that area, not you personally, but.

Grant: (55:17)
Yeah.

Andrew: (55:17)
Some of the team.

Grant: (55:19)
Yeah, yeah. Well yeah, if it’s not me, someone for sure. Okay, well so tell me a little bit more about this. You mentioned a little bit already, but this fall virtual conference coming up?

Andrew: (55:30)
Yeah, so our fall virtual conference is this October 17th to 19th. And one thing we’re really proud of about our fall virtual conferences, it’s three days straight, just like you’re at a real conference. I know everybody doesn’t have time to sit for three days in front of a computer, but like we mentioned, all the content will be available forever following. So whether you can catch a session live and ask some unique questions or just want to go back and binge it after the fact. We start at 11:00 AM Eastern time on October 17th.

Andrew: (55:55)
It’s going to be three days straight, nearly 50 plus speakers on topics ranging from the brewing side of the industry to the business side of the industry. And to make it really easy, you can simply go to fall 2022 dot craft beer professionals.org. It’s fall 2022 dot craft beer professionals.org. And we like to keep things a little playful sometimes too. So what’s a virtual conference without a virtual conference t-shirt? So we always have a virtual conference t-shirt. you can RSVP and get your chance to, when you can view the full schedule, but get to brag that you were actually at some sort of virtual event by rocking the virtual conference t-shirt.

Grant: (56:31)
Absolutely, yeah. It’s like CBC, GABF, like, well more so CBC or World Beer Cup, but they put on great seminars and stuff. They’re awesome, I love those too. I love MBA. But one thing that anybody out there listening CBP is a value. Like it is, it’s quite a bit more discounted from those, the information is from a lot of the same people. Check it out because it is worth your time. And if you can’t make it live, then afterwards is good too.

Andrew: (57:04)
And I really appreciate that Grant because that really speaks to what we aim to do. I mean, not everybody for different reasons has the ability to go to in-person industry events. There’s a lot of barriers to entry for those. And with what we do in Craft Beer Professionals, whether you are the two day a week beer tender, or the person who’s been doing it for their entire life, there are resources that are a hundred percent free that can help make you more successful and better at your job and just give you that motivation to just keep learning and never stop growing.

Grant: (57:29)
Absolutely. Anything else going on you want to tell us about? What’s the trend you’re seeing on CBP?

Andrew: (57:35)
Oh boy, that is a loaded question.

Andrew: (57:38)
So one of my favorite things to do, it’s not fully answering your question, but it’s what I like to do, is each week we do a CBP newsletter that just recaps the most popular threads. And for me it’s always so fascinating to see what people are talking about. And we’ve seen a lot of people really enjoy these weekly emails we put out just kind of recapping the popular topics and this past weekend we’re, I’m not sure when this is going to air, but I’m speaking about early October, 2022. But the threads that were most popular were a brewery owner has a couple tap room employees that are stealing. And so the community came together to kind of analyze the situation, discuss ways to help prevent it. That was the most popular thread this past week. But the second most popular thread, completely different into the spectrum was about, there was a brewer who was thinking about salvaging some sour wart.

Andrew: (58:30)
Was it a good idea, bad idea, what they should consider? And people were jumping in and giving them honest feedback. And the third popular thread this past week was how to deal with some of the performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI, CSAX. So I think the fun thing of it is is there aren’t necessarily, these are the most popular topics we’re always seeing, but it’s more so getting that instantaneous pulse of what people are thinking about right now. Because it changes every weekend. It’s fun to have a forum where you can see what people are really passionate about or even upset about sometimes. So it’s neat to see people’s feedback and just the current pulse of what’s going on.

Grant: (59:10)
All right. Well, thank you for coming on today, Andrew.

Andrew: (59:13)
This has been a blast, Grant, and thanks for letting me come on from the other side of things. Once again, it’s fun to take this angle, and just answer questions rather than host

Grant: (59:20)
Trade them, trade back and forth. I think it’s not me, but someone from our organization’s going to be talking at the fall virtual conference here soon. So yeah, exciting as always.

Andrew: (59:31)
Yeah, always a pleasure working with you, you and everyone on the team.

Grant: (59:35)
Yeah, right on. Well, we’ll catch you next time. And yeah, if you’re out there listening and you’re not already a member, just jump on Facebook, join Craft Beer Professionals. I mean, you can’t go wrong.

Andrew: (59:46)
And appreciate [inaudible 00:59:48] and all that you do and I’m looking forward to beers before too long, Grant.

Grant: (59:50)
Right on. All right, have a good one, Andrew.

Andrew: (59:52)
Cheers.

Grant: (59:53)
Thanks again to our guests, Shugg, Mike, and Andrew for sharing their social media tips and techniques. Stay tuned for our next episode. Where we’ll take you live with us through Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. Also it’s award season again, we’re celebrating the best of the best. If you won gold at GABF, using base malts from Great Western or Canada Malting, we’re going to hook you up with a customized Filson vest as part of our gold medal program. Reach out to your CMG sales rep to claim yours. That’s all for now, see you in two weeks. Bye.