EPISODE S.4, E.16

Toby (00:09):
Well, hello everybody. Adam, how you doing?

Adam (00:13):
Wonderful, Toby. And yourself?

Toby (00:15):
I’m pretty good. It’s good to have you aboard the Starship BrewDeck podcast, if you will. If that makes any sense.

Adam (00:24):
It does, and I’m loving it so far. Three of them’s down so far. We’ve got Pride, we’ve got The Water Chemistry, and we have Veterans Blend. And it’s all over the place.

Toby (00:35):
And we twisted your arm to do the little teaser that we put out on social. And I love it. It was like H2Whoa!

Adam (00:41):
If I can’t do a good dad joke, then why am I even here?

Toby (00:47):
Well, happy to have you and I’m excited about this episode. We’re pretty much talking… Well, it’s all about around the Veterans Blend, which we do every year with our partner over at Yakima Chief Hops. It is an annual program. This is the sixth year.

(01:05)
And what happens is, US military veterans in the brewing industry across the nation, they all come together. It’s at the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, which was what? A couple months ago.

(01:17)
And they decide what blend they’re going to have for what we call a Veterans Blend Hop. And this year’s mix, if you will, or blend that was decided on by those veterans, it’s pretty unique. So Citra, HBC 638, Talus, and Sabro. It sounds pretty awesome, right? I see here a zesty combo is expected to offer bright citrus including lime and grapefruit and subtle herbal notes in pine.

(01:53)
I don’t think I could have written that or said that any better, but it definitely wraps up what those four hops can combine. So I’m looking forward to what the brewers do with it.

Adam (02:07):
Yeah, there’s some pretty exciting opportunities there for sure. Yeah, it’s really cool this year, too, because when you purchase the Veterans Blend, we’re donating $3 per pound to Homes For Our Troops. And these guys are a national nonprofit. They build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post-911 vets.

(02:28)
So since 2004, the Home for Our Troops has built over 360 specially adapted homes for veterans with 70 projects currently underway. It really does go a long way to help these vets, the men and women that put themselves in the front line, to actually get their lives rebuilt again.

Toby (02:49):
Yeah, that’s awesome. Really, really cool. And I’m looking forward to talking to them today.

(02:52)
So that being said, Bill Ivey, Dianne Travers, and Sergeant Tony Doyle from Homes for Our Troop. We’re going to be talking to them here shortly. And then Devin Hamilton and Quatro Wilson from Paradox Brewery are also going to jump on to chat with us a little bit, too.

(03:09)
So before we dive right in, though, Adam, I want to send a special thanks to all the veterans on behalf of Country Malt Group and the rest of us, and all active duty and their families for their service and sacrifice for our country and what they’ve done.

(03:25)
So let’s just dive right into it. We are excited to be joined by a pretty full house here on the line. So, happy to begin the podcast talking ultimately about Veterans Blend, but excited to have some folks from Homes For Our Troops on today.

(03:47)
And I’ll just start right at it and do some introductions and we’ll go from there. So Dianne Travers, the Fundraising Events Coordinator over there. Is that right, Dianne?

Dianne (03:56):
That is correct.

Toby (03:58):
And then Bill Ivey, the Executive Director of Homes For Our Troops. Hey, Bill.

Bill (04:03):
Good to be on here with you.

Toby (04:05):
Yeah. And then last, but certainly not least, Tony Doyle. How are you, Tony?

Tony (04:10):
Doing pretty good. I appreciate you having me.

Toby (04:12):
Yeah, no problem. I should have put Sergeant in front of that.

Tony (04:17):
That’s all right. Retired.

Toby (04:18):
Well, very good. Well hey, really, really happy to have you on and talk a little bit more about the organization there, what you do. And obviously Tony being on, and I think he was the recipient of what Homes For Our Troops does.

(04:37)
So it’s really glad to have everybody on today. So I guess we’ll just start with Dianne, then move to Bill and Tony.

(04:43)
So Dianne, tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do over there at the organization.

Dianne (04:48):
Well, I’m the Fundraising Coordinator, one of three, and I have been around Homes For Our Troops since 2008. I’ve held several different positions there, so I’m a little bit like a bad penny. They can’t get rid of me.

(05:06)
I’ve left and come back. This is my third time coming back. I’m now working remotely down in South Carolina. And I love this mission. I left and worked at another position for another company that was a for-profit and I thought, oh, this is terrible.

(05:24)
So here I am, back again.

Toby (05:28):
I like that term, like a bad penny. That’s the first I’ve heard that. I think I could say that about myself, so it’s all good.

(05:36)
Well, thanks Dianne. Appreciate you joining.

(05:38)
Bill Ivey, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Bill (05:41):
I spent about 31 years as an Infantryman. When they kicked me out from being too old, I continued to do that with an Army unit that let retired guys be part of the unit.

(05:54)
And when I gave up the war fighting business, I got a call from the president of this organization. Said, “Hey, be an Executive Director.”

(06:03)
I said, “Great, I’ll put the word out to all my buddies and see who’s out there that was interested,” because I’d lined up a job in Atlanta, was going to actually work and live in the same place for the first time in about nine years.

(06:16)
He said, “No, I’m talking about you.”

(06:17)
I said, “Aren’t you guys Massachusetts?” And I guess from the way I said it, he sensed the disdain on the location. But he said, “Just come on up, check us out.”

(06:28)
He knew that would sucker me in. And he said, “Just need you for three years.”

(06:32)
That was in 2014. So I’m a little bit slow. I am an Infantry guy. Still working on, but like Dianne, I love this mission. I love the team we’ve got here and I love working with the veterans like Tony.

Toby (06:46):
Very good. Tony.

Tony (06:49):
Yes, sir.

Toby (06:51):
Tell us about yourself.

Tony (06:52):
So I joined the Army right out of high school. I’m a backwards grunt, so I went maintenance first, then infantry. Was injured, retired, did a lot of things after the military.

(07:06)
Found out about Homes For Our Troops and received my house in 2017. And I’ve been doing everything I can do for their mission voluntarily ever since.

Toby (07:20):
Yeah, Tony. And you’re a fellow Texan, is that right?

Tony (07:24):
Yes, down in the San Antonio area.

Toby (07:26):
Yeah. Great. Perfect.

(07:28)
Well, so yeah. I’d spent a little bit of time on the website and know a little bit about the organization from prepping for the podcast with the rest of our group here. But can y’all tell me, and maybe it’s Bill, maybe it’s Dianne or even Tony, but just give us an overview of what the organization does.

Bill (07:48):
Sure. Homes For Our Troops mission is to build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for the most severely injured veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts in order to assist them in rebuilding their lives. So, it kind of gets to our tagline of Building Homes, Rebuilding Lives. And that leads into the main thing that makes us different from other nonprofits that build homes for veterans.

(08:17)
We stay in contact with our guys and gals for life. So we don’t say, “Here’s the keys, good luck. Have a good time.”

(08:25)
We say, “Here’s the keys to your new home. Welcome to this family, and we’re going to be there for you whenever you need us down the road.”

(08:32)
So I have a six person staff section. All they do is stay in contact with the veterans to follow up, just regular check-ins, help them with a problem, whatever the case may be. We link all of our veterans with a financial planner on a pro bono basis for at least a three-year period so that when we donate the home to them, although there’s no mortgage, they still have property taxes, they have insurance, they have normal homeowners’ maintenance. We want to set them up for success going forward and enable them to be a responsible homeowner.

(09:05)
Another thing we do that makes us different from other organizations is we build where the veteran wants to live, which is why we have built 360 homes to date in 45 different states. Because we don’t figure it makes any sense to build an adapted home that’s completely accessible to a veteran in a wheelchair someplace where he or she doesn’t want to live that. Really is not going to help them rebuild their lives.

(09:28)
So we go forward doing that. That’s the whole mission of life, is to get these guys and gals into a completely accessible home and then stay in contact with them to them as they rebuild their lives.

Toby (09:40):
So, that’s interesting. It’s not just building a home, it’s just continuing that correspondence and that work to rebuild it from ground up. So yeah, that’s awesome.

(09:51)
And Tony, I was watching the video that they had on the website, which by the way is HFOTusa.org.

(10:02)
And you were talking about a lot of the challenges that you were having, I guess, prior to 2017 in a two-story house and some of the challenge in just daily living.

Tony (10:16):
Yeah, so I’m an amputee, left side above the knee. Not having that knee is a challenge in itself, but then you throw a second story in there, having to go up and down stairs and then…

(10:31)
So I was injured ’05, but in 2011 we had a child as well and we lived in a two-story house. So think about a one-legged guy trying to go up and down stairs with an infant. And that’s a little scary, but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.

(10:49)
Mama’s not always home and everything. So there’s a lot of barriers when it comes to typical housing that you end up in after a life-changing experience, such as an injury in combat. So you just got to work around it sometimes until something like Homes For Our Troops comes along.

Adam (11:08):
And Tony, Adam here. How did you connect with Home For Troops?

Tony (11:15):
So there was a long process with my connection and I had some other friends that had benefited from Homes For Our Troops and gone to their key ceremonies and kickoff ceremonies and things like that.

(11:39)
And at the time I technically didn’t qualify. However, the government finally came to and changed their ways so that I would actually qualify for the SAH grant, the Special Adaptive Housing grant, that HFOT needs as well to move forward.

(12:01)
So I did finally qualify for that and applied for the program and was accepted eventually.

Toby (12:08):
Yeah, that’s good stuff.

(12:09)
And Bill, how many of y’all have on a waiting list to take advantage of some of these specifically adapted homes?

Bill (12:19):
We currently have 71 projects ongoing, 19 of those who are in land search looking for land where the veteran has told us he or she wants to live. The other 52 are in various stages of construction. We’ll finish one in two weeks in Florida, or permitting plans, engineering, whatever the case may be.

(12:38)
So we have 71 right now. We have about 20 veterans waiting to come to our Veterans Conference, which is the final step in our application process. And there’s over a hundred other veterans we’re talking to that are at various stages just starting their application process.

(12:58)
We estimate based on the VA numbers that when you take the numbers I just gave you out of the mix, there’s probably another 800 and 900 veterans that are severely injured from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts that still need adapted housing. So got a pretty big workload in front of us, so we got a lot of work to do.

Toby (13:19):
And on the ground, people actually throwing around hammers and sawing on the boards and stuff. Are those all volunteers, too?

Bill (13:27):
That’s a great question. No, that’s not our business model. We hire custom home builders around the country because we’re building home we expect our veterans to live in for the rest of their lives. And so we want it to be a high-end, well-built home.

(13:44)
We have found out over the years that using volunteers to build homes makes everybody feel good about themselves, but it’s not the best and most cost-effective way to build a high quality home. So we use custom home builders, but we use volunteers for the landscaping. So that way folks can roll up their sleeves, lay some sod, plant some bushes and trees. And the home’s ready to go when we turn it over to the veterans.

(14:05)
So that’s our business model. It gets the folks involved. It’s the landscaping aspect of it and leaving the building to professionals.

Toby (14:13):
Yeah, no. That makes a lot of sense. I wouldn’t want Adam Wilson here building my house.

Adam (14:17):
No, it’s terrible, terrible idea all around, actually.

(14:18)
I’ve got a question here, actually. This one probably for Dianne. Just as we speak about the cost of all this, and I mean with how many projects on the go. As the Fundraising Events Coordinator, how is it that you guys raise money for this?

(14:36)
I know. I mean, obviously, the Veterans Blend program, which we’ll get into here in a minute, but what other programs do you do as well?

Dianne (14:44):
Well, we have several other fundraisers that, like you, are a third party fundraiser that they’ll come out and do anything from a lemonade stand to a golf tournament. We have so many of our fundraisers, they come back every year. We have this one… These two ladies that live in Florida. They’ve been putting on a golf tournament. They just hit their 10-year mark and went over a million dollars that they’ve raised over the 10 years.

(15:17)
So it can be any type of fundraiser. So we talk to people, we call everybody back. Anybody that comes through our fundraising email or if they call, we make sure we call everybody back because there’s a lot of great ideas out there and you can take anything that you love and turn it into a fundraiser.

Bill (15:38):
Pretty amazing.

Toby (15:39):
Yeah, it really is. Really is.

(15:43)
So going back to, I guess for Bill, obviously there’s… When it’s specifically adapted homes, right? It’s something that y’all built for Tony specifically might be completely different than the needs of another veteran, correct?

(16:02)
So I guess where I’m going at, what are some of the unique adaptations or some of the unique builds that you’ve done for veterans based on their needs?

Bill (16:13):
So the basic home model that we build has over 40 major adaptations to make the home completely accessible to an individual in wheelchair. Most of our veterans are multiple amputees, single amputees like Tony with limb salvage on another limb, paralyzed or blind.

(16:33)
Now we’ll do some tailoring depending on the injuries. So for example, most of our homes, countertops are a little bit lower and they’re roll under. For our blinded veterans or our double arm amputees, they prefer the normal level countertop, but we still make them roll under so that at some point should they lose their mobility in their legs as they age, they’ll still be able to use their wheelchair or roll under and be functional at the countertop.

(17:01)
Roll under sinks, roll under stove top. The roll in shower is one of the big features that our veterans really like because they can roll in, transfer to a bench from their chair, take a shower without relying on somebody else, set the temperature to the exact temperature they want on a digital thermostatic valve and not have to rely on someone take a shower. When they’re done, their chair’s not wet. They dry off to get back in the chair and they’re back off to roll around the house and doing what they need to do.

(17:31)
We put a wrap around the sidewalk on the home so the veterans got full access to the entire home from his or her wheelchair. Pull down shelving in the cabinets, pull down shelving clothes racks in the closets. So again, it’s all designed so that the home is completely accessible to someone in a wheelchair.

(17:51)
Little things that most folks don’t think about. Light switches are a little bit lower, electrical outlets a little bit higher so they’re right at wheelchair level. Windows are framed a little bit lower and they slide left so that you’re not stuck with a window in the up position and you can’t reach it to bring it down. So we modify our homes a little bit every year based on veteran feedback because although I can look at a set of plans and say hey, that makes sense to me, I don’t spend my day in a wheelchair.

(18:19)
But guys like Tony who do come back and say yeah, that wasn’t such a good idea. Don’t do that again, or you need to change that. Or hey, here’s a feature you might want to add in the future going forward.

(18:33)
One of those features is a full home generator that we only used to put in homes for veterans that needed medical equipment 24/7. But then we’re talking to veterans, said, yeah, why don’t we do this for everybody because folks will lose power as all of you living in Texas know, A couple of years ago the ice storm knocked out a lot of power stations, but our guys with the generators were the guys in the neighborhood with homes that had power.

Toby (18:58):
Yeah, those really make a lot of sense and kind of learn as you go and adapting to the needs of each individual. So that’s awesome.

(19:10)
Tony, what has this specifically done in your work with the HFOT and the updated adapted house done for you and your family and your daily life?

Tony (19:23):
So well… We have four, five, I don’t know, maybe six sessions on this or, I mean that’s a lot. That’s kind of a loaded question, but there’s a whole lot

Toby (19:38):
I tend to confuse everybody on the show, so don’t worry about it.

Tony (19:41):
Well, there’s just so much that I can talk about because everything in this house has helped me, myself, personally. The roll under stuff and everything. But it’s not only helped me, but it’s helped my wife, her sense of… Not to say trust, but her anxiety level is reduced because I’m not in a place that’s where I’m going to fall downstairs and I’m not going to slip in the shower and fall in, break my neck, and be stuck there or something.

(20:20)
So not only for the veteran, but it helps the whole family. My son has prospered. He’s not worried about dad so much and then he’s gotten into things where he’s done fundraisers for Homes For Our Troops as well. So he’s starting to get that sense of, well we really need to give back to these guys, at 12 years old.

(20:46)
So there’s a plethora of things that this has really done for me. It’s opened up new career opportunities for me. I got my real estate license after receiving my home and everything. It’s done a lot as far as things in my life and my family’s life and especially my wife’s life.

(21:13)
She went through a lot having to take care of a guy like me, stubborn, hardheaded, not a very good patient in the hospital. But now she can relax and chill out and she can take some trips and things and just kind of oh, okay. I’m okay because I don’t have to worry about him burning the house down or not being able to do laundry so he is wearing the same shorts for three weeks while I’m gone somewhere.

(21:44)
Something like that. But it’s done a lot for the family.

Toby (21:48):
No, that’s awesome. Well you mentioned your real estate license it. Am I right that you’re going back to school to get your master’s degree as well?

Tony (21:57):
That was the plan prior to hitting real estate up. When I moved into the house six years ago, nearly six years ago, the plan was to do my masters and possibly onto my PhD in history and maybe teach at a college or something like that.

(22:17)
But things change and I had an opportunity to jump into real estate and find some purpose in helping veterans buy a home that may not necessarily realize they qualify for a VA loan.

Toby (22:39):
Good stuff. Good stuff.

(22:44)
So maybe a question for Dianne. How did y’all come in contact and start the involvement with the Veterans Blend on the hop side with YCH this year?

Dianne (22:59):
My understanding is that the veterans that brew the beer, I think that they vote on the nonprofit that is going to receive the funds from that year. Because I think this is the sixth year that they have done this and they’ve donated to military charities. So I think we were voted in for this year.

Toby (23:27):
Oh, cool. And I know, Adam, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe that we do have a specific group of brewers that also decide on the hop varieties in that blend, right?

Adam (23:41):
You are correct, sir.

Toby (23:43):
Yeah. End of the day it’s a nice little blend for those of y’all that know a little bit about hops, specifically in a beer. But Citra, HBC 638, Talus, and Sabro, and the goal is to get, what? 11,000 plus pounds out the door into the hands of breweries and facilitate 100 unique brew days with breweries. So pretty cool.

(24:12)
And I can tell you, Dianne and Bill and Tony, that we have a lot of people behind the scenes here that’ll try to get every dollar we can to your organization. And if you like beer, it’s pretty cool that we can get some of this out in the hands of any and all breweries we can. And there are quite a few veteran-owned and veteran-operated breweries that will be participating in the brewery this year, so go good stuff.

(24:42)
Bill, before you came on, we were told that you are a heavy beer drinker. Those are the exact words by Dianne.

Bill (24:50):
My job keeps interfering with it. But yes, that would be my beverage of choice when I’m not working and sometimes when I am.

Adam (24:59):
Hey there we [inaudible 00:25:00].

Dianne (25:00):
And now I may not have a job.

Toby (25:00):
All right.

Adam (25:00):
Goes around, comes around.

Dianne (25:00):
Thanks for ratting me out.

Adam (25:07):
So how can we, as Country Malt Group and our partner breweries, continue to support veterans aside from the Veterans Fund?

Bill (25:19):
I’ll tell folks there’s three things they can do for us as Homes For Our Troops. Number one is welcome our veterans into your community if we’re building near you. That veteran could have lived anywhere in the country, he or she wanted to live… And they chose your neighborhood or your town or your state. And that type of support community is absolutely vital to our veterans rebuilding our their lives, which is really our main mission, which is helping them to do that.

(25:49)
Number two is tell people we exist. We work very hard to keep nearly 90 cents for every dollar that we spend going to the mission of buying, land building specially adapted homes, and helping our veterans rebuild their lives. So you can do the math. Even after you guys do the math, that doesn’t leave a whole heck of a lot for marketing or advertising.

(26:11)
So rely on companies, individuals, other organizations to get the word out, whether it’s through great opportunities like this podcast, whether it’s through occasionally free advertising, whether it’s co-branding with a corporate partner, or folks just spreading the word to their networks through social media, their neighborhoods, their church, their school, their families. Whatever the case may be, where they work.

(26:36)
Getting that word out, of course, doesn’t cost us anything. And we know it’s a slower way to grow your business, but we think it’s the right way to close the business because we want to be able to look our supporters and our donors and our fundraisers in the eye and say thank you. And out of every dollar you just raised for us or donated to us, 88, 89 90 cents is going to the mission and not the overhead.

(26:59)
Of course, the third thing folks can do is like this, fundraise for us or donate. But number one thing anyone can do for us is support our veterans and welcome them into the community, because that’s key to helping them rebuild their lives. Of course, getting the word out about us spreading that awareness.

Adam (27:16):
Amazing.

Toby (27:17):
Yep, a hundred percent. And with that, on behalf of me, the rest of Country Malt Group, we appreciate Tony and Bill your service to our country. It means a tremendous amount. And for those that want to learn a little bit more about Homes For Our Troops, again the website there is HOFTusa.org. That’s HFOTusa.org.

(27:44)
And Dianne, it sounds like that you welcome any and all calls or ideas regarding some fundraising activities and events at any events that brewers and distillers and other craft beverage makers can come up with, right?

Dianne (28:00):
Absolutely.

Toby (28:01):
Very good.

(28:03)
Well, I really appreciate y’all’s time and hopefully we can hear the cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching as the dollar amount goes up that we can assist in moving some money y’all’s way and continue to keep building those houses for our veterans.

(28:17)
So really appreciate your time, Bill, Tony and Dianne, for coming on and really look forward to continue to help out your organization.

Dianne (28:27):
Thank you for having us.

Bill (28:27):
Thank you so much.

Toby (28:29):
We are here with the gentlemen, couple gentlemen over at Paradox Brewery, Devin Hamilton and Quatro Wilson. The reason we had them on, because they’re just cool dudes. I can look at them right now. The other reason is their brewery is actually a certified veteran-owned brewery. Correct guys?

Devon (28:49):
Yeah, that’s correct. We’ve been certified veteran-owned for I think about three and a half years now.

Toby (28:56):
Very good, very good.

Adam (28:59):
So I’m going to… I got to ask a question right away here, Toby.

(29:01)
How does one become certified veteran-owned?

Devon (29:06):
51% of your ownership has to have served in the military. And beyond that, you have to do a bunch of paperwork and everybody’s service has to be confirmed. They want to know what everybody’s rank was, where they served overseas, if anywhere. Basically they want your entire military history.

Toby (29:28):
Quatro, is that your real first name?

Quatro (29:32):
No, my real name’s Dalton. D-A-L-T-O-N. But they call me Quatro here because I was the fourth guy to start working here back in the olden days.

Toby (29:41):
Really?

Devon (29:42):
Quatro has a good origin story. Quat started moonlighting with us just washing kegs. You’d start at seven o’clock at night after your main job and then he’d wash kegs until midnight or one in the morning.

(29:55)
And kind of in typical Paradox fashion where if you do a good job at something, we keep finding other [inaudible 00:30:01] for you to do until you aren’t good at it anymore.

Quatro (30:05):
Yeah. Until you’re a production manager, apparently.

Toby (30:08):
There you go. Yeah.

Devon (30:10):
We worked Quatro, started in washing kegs, got them into transfers, then we needed somebody to brew.

Quatro (30:16):
Yeah. There was a lot of, it was born out of necessity. But yeah, no traditional brewing degree on my account. It’s just that-

Devon (30:23):
School of hard knocks.

Quatro (30:25):
… Yeah, hard knocks.

Toby (30:26):
That’s like most breweries. Yeah, and so cool. Quatro is a Production Manager and Head Brewer. And then Devin, the Director of Operations over there.

(30:34)
Wow. I appreciate y’all’s time in jumping on. How did y’all get started in the beer industry?

(30:41)
Yeah, Quatro, we got a little bit of history on how you worked your way through. But let’s start with you Quatro, and tell us about how you got involved in brewing and what you do now.

Quatro (30:51):
Sure. Yeah, I mean beforehand, before I started actually working in a brewery, I was kind of a layman brewer, helping my friends package, bottle, and stuff like that. Nothing crazy. Mostly awful beer, but you got to start somewhere.

(31:09)
And then went to the restaurant industry, decided that sucked. And started washing kegs for this guy at our old location, which is in Schroon Lake, much smaller than our current location.

(31:23)
Basically started washing kegs, cleaning floors. And like I said, out of necessity, “Well, we need some guy to do dry hops. Can you do dry hops?”

(31:30)
Like, “Sure, yeah. I’ll learn about it.”

(31:33)
Transfers, do that and then start brewing. And then eventually just kind of fell into the know it all, do everything, production manager point of view.

Devon (31:45):
The big thing with production manager came and we were building the new facility and that’s when I left the old facility, at all. I was up here full time, but that old facility still needed to run.

(31:56)
So we just tagged Quatro in as the most experienced guy at that point to keep it going.

Adam (32:01):
And where’s the new facility located?

Devon (32:04):
We’re 15 minutes up the road from our old facility, but we’re right off exit 29, off I87 in North Hudson.

Adam (32:13):
Okay.

Toby (32:13):
What about you, Devon?

Devon (32:15):
I’m here because of a home brewing problem that got out of control, really.

Toby (32:19):
Sounds familiar.

Devon (32:21):
I was… Way back in the day, I was going to school at U Albany for History. Didn’t really know what I was going to do. I was doing a lot of home brewing. I failed an entire semester of all of my college classes because I wasn’t doing any of my actual work. I was sitting in the back of lecture halls reading brewing books.

(32:38)
And at that point I decided, well, clearly I don’t want to do this history thing, so I might as well try to get a job in a brewery. And I applied all over the place. I got to cut my teeth at Adirondack Pub and Brewery down in Lake George. Moved up and down the East Coast for a couple years after that, before I landed here at Paradox.

Toby (32:57):
Awesome.

Devon (32:57):
And then for my tenure here, I started off as our first head brewer, really the first professional production hire we had.

(33:06)
And then similar to Quatro, there was a need to do some sales stuff, so I would jump into sales and then jump back out. There’s a need to do some graphic design work, so I’d jump in and do that and then dip back out. When it came time to get the new facility online, it was a lot of sourcing of equipment, doing equipment layouts, and things like that. And then when it finally came time to get this place built, I was here as a technical advisor type of deal, I guess. Just watching the equipment go in, make sure everything was on the up and up.

(33:38)
And then once we got up here, we have 35 employees right now. We kind of just needed somebody to handle the sheer volume of people.

Toby (33:48):
Well, we talked a little bit, briefly, about the certified veteran-owned, but let’s talk a little bit more about you and your brewery’s relationship with the veteran community.

(34:04)
Obviously being owned by veterans is huge enough, but specifically what is y’all’s relationship and the brewery relationship with the veteran community out there?

Devon (34:18):
Yeah, so every year we always try to do a couple different things. So, I guess I can just list them off. We’re pretty involved with West Point downstate.

Toby (34:33):
Oh, yeah.

Devon (34:33):
Every year for the Army/Navy football game, we donate some products. We do a white label of our ParaHelles, our German style Helles lager, called Go Army, Beat Navy. We do the can up in that Army digital camo and go full send on rooting for the Army. We’re mostly an Army house. Sorry, Navy Vets.

(34:58)
In the past, specifically with the Veterans Blend for the past couple years, we’ve done a beer called Drop Zone, which is kind of… It’s basically the same base recipe as our ParaHelles, just amped up a little bit to take that hop load of the Veterans Blend a little bit better. It seems like a lot of the time it gets skewed towards being more useful for IPAs and Pale Ales. But we’re a pretty big lager house, so we wanted to get it into the export Helles.

(35:26)
So we just have to use a little bit lighter of a hand with it because it’s going into a lager to get to the place we want to be. So White Label Drop Zone. This year we did another beer called Captain Jack, which is in conjunction with the National Desert Storm Memorial. You guys were kind enough to donate the malt. YCH donated the hops. Our label supplier, Sheet Labels, donated the labels.

(35:52)
So we are really able to just cover the cost of the aluminum on this beer and get as much donation out to the National Desert Storm Memorial as we can. Then lastly, we do a lot of events in activation, kind of in market surrounding Veterans Day every year, tap takeovers, stuff like that. And obviously we do the veterans and first responders discount. They get 15% off on our tasting room all the time.

(36:20)
Yeah. And then the last thing is, the other… Last veterans cause I’ll tell you about for now at least, is with our Go Army, Beat Navy beer, we do that beer to support building Homes for Heroes, which is a 501C three charity that builds a new home for Disabled combat veteran every 11 days.

Toby (36:44):
Wow, that’s cool. It’s interesting you say that because we actually just got off chatting with the folks over at Homes for Troops, which sounds somewhat similar, right? Yeah. They build specifically adapted homes for disabled veterans and it’s really, really cool. So something similar?

Devon (37:04):
Whatever the adaptation needs to be, be it wider doorways, lower countertops or something like that.

Toby (37:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was really cool talking to them and hearing about the different ways that they specifically adapt certain needs of each and every veteran to how, ultimately not only build the home, but build their lives and just kind of start from scratch and make things easier.

Devon (37:28):
Sure, I got one more veterans’ charity that I almost forgot about, and I would’ve been remiss to forget this one. But this year we also teamed up with the PGA of Northeastern New York to do a white label treatment on our pilsner. So that’s called Patriot Pilsner. We’re doing that in conjunction with the PGA of Northeastern New York, our largest wholesaler, Saratoga Eagle Sales and Service and ourselves.

(37:55)
And what we’re doing is we’re taking a portion of the proceeds from each case sold, donating that to the PGA Hope Foundation, and what hope does is get veterans into adaptive golf. Wow. So it’s specialized instruction to take whatever adaptation they may need, be it like mental, physical, if it’s hearing loss, vision loss, loss of a limb, whatever the case may be, and help them get into the game of golf.

Toby (38:24):
Got That’s awesome. Really cool that y’all are doing that.

Adam (38:26):
I mean, it sounds like you guys are four

Devon (38:30):
Or five veterans Charity, so

Adam (38:31):
Yeah, it sounds like you’re constantly working on something at all times by the sounds of it. Is that fairly accurate?

Devon (38:39):
Yeah, pretty much. And I mean there’s other causes we support too. We’ve done stuff to support Health of Pollinators. We do ‘We’re all different and that’s okay,’ every year to support the North Country Gender Alliance for LGTQ causes.

(38:56)
We definitely do a decent amount to try to give back. And the easiest thing for us to generally do it is to either make a beer or make a white label so we can utilize it to get out there and preach the good word about these organizations.

(39:11)
But selfishly to sell a little bit of beer, too.

Toby (39:13):
Oh, yeah.

(39:13)
Well, you mentioned, historically, you brewed lagers with the Veterans Blend, is that right?

Devon (39:25):
Yep, yep.

Toby (39:25):
All right.

Devon (39:26):
That’s right.

Toby (39:27):
So this year, are y’all planning on doing the same? It looks like the hop blends, the Citra, HBC 638, Talus, and Sabro?

Devon (39:38):
We’re still tossing out what this summer’s going to look like on the pilot system.

Quatro (39:43):
We just got a new pilot system, basically. We’re working off a 40 hectoliter brew house, but we’re able to brew 10 barrel batches now, which gives us a lot of room to experiment.

(39:54)
I don’t think we’re… I mean, we might go the agar route again, I was thinking more of a paleo kind of thing because of that talus and that citra in it.

Toby (40:04):
Yeah. Yep.

Quatro (40:05):
I’d like to go a hazier route with that. Some super chill, easy drinking pale ale kind of thing. And to try to feature those hops. A nice thing about the lagger route is that if you do it delicately enough, you can really get a taste of what that blend’s all about without it being overpowered or too grassy or too much.

Devon (40:31):
The key is that light hand though, because you start to step over that line with a blend like that and a light lager base-

Quatro (40:39):
Yeah-

Devon (40:39):
… You’re done for it.

Quatro (40:40):
You can end up with a hoppy mess for sure. And the same thing goes for anything really. But yeah, I’d like to do a nice pale ale what I was thinking about today, thinking about this podcast.

Toby (40:51):
Yeah. Is there something specific that y’all do every year for Veterans Day? I mean, you guys do a lot. I mean, you just went through a lot of the stuff you do, but is there something specific?

Devon (41:00):
We don’t have a tradition or anything specific. [inaudible 00:41:06] we try to do. We always do some sort of ‘For Our House,” be it a beer release and a food pairing or food pairing or a charitable product or something like that.

(41:18)
But we try to mix it up every year.

Toby (41:19):
Okay. Yeah.

Adam (41:24):
I’m seeing on your desk there, right now you’ve got three different beers plus that Patriot Pilsner you just pulled out. What are those beers?

Devon (41:33):
These are all specialties and seasonals. Our big seller’s going to have enough legs to stand on their own, so I don’t typically bust those out for too much marketing activation. But all the way over is Captain Jack, that beer we did with you guys, the collaborative maibock.

(41:51)
In the middle, we got the Great Cultures Fair of Blood Orange. That’s our seasonal, our summer seasonal this year. That’s been flying.

Quatro (41:59):
Yeah, Blood Orange Cul’s just… People seem to love it a lot.

Devon (42:03):
And then all the way on the other end is the beer we did with the North Country Gender Alliance, which helps LGBTQ kids just, in general, with support and things like that in the Adirondacks specifically. And that beer’s called, We’re All Different and That’s Okay.

Toby (42:22):
That’s a great name.

Devon (42:23):
One of our brewer’s daughters actually did the label. She made the drawing her own accord one day and we decided that it looked cool enough to be a beer label. So we scanned it. Quickly realized that a scan does not have the resolution needed to go on a beer label.

(42:40)
So we went in and remade the drawing. So we had to have her draw some hearts and stuff like that.

Toby (42:53):
No, it’s cool. It’s sounds like y’all participate in as much as you can, which is really cool, and I find that a lot in the brewing community.

(43:04)
So yeah. Really, really happy that we get to connect with y’all. So that maibock on the far left I’m looking at, with the… I guess we sent out some grain for that.

(43:15)
Do you remember what that malt bill was? Curious.

Quatro (43:20):
Yeah, I can pull it up real quick, too. I mean it was a decent amount of Vienna and Munich. It’s on a darker side, so pretty heavy dose of Munich in there.

Devon (43:29):
The other thing that was cool about the Captain Jack is we’re not the only ones brewing this specific beer. We didn’t even, technically speaking, write the recipe for it.

(43:38)
The idea with this beer is that it’s one of those where they’re trying to get breweries kind of all over the country to work off of one recipe and everybody release their own iteration.

Toby (43:49):
Very cool.

Devon (43:49):
So Old Republic Brewing down in Texas actually is the brewery that wrote the recipe. I’m blanking on her name, but the woman who owns that brewery, her father was Captain Jack and he was the first casualty in the first Desert Storm. He was a marine helicopter pilot.

Quatro (44:13):
Yeah.

Toby (44:14):
Wow.

Quatro (44:14):
Yeah.

Toby (44:15):
That’s cool. Sounds similar to what we do for Rising Hope every year, Adam. Right?

Adam (44:19):
Yeah.

Toby (44:19):
So yeah, the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation where we just… This year, I think we have two recipes though, one out for the West Coast and one out east. But it’s very similar. It’s similar recipe, all similar ingredients and people just go at it at the brewery.

(44:35)
And so what else y’all got going? Anything y’all wanted to plug, as far as the brewery or anything upcoming?

Devon (44:44):
Oh, yeah. We’re coming up on our 10-year anniversary at the end of July, so that’s big deal. We’re entering our second decade of existence. So ahead of that, we are completely… We’re doing a full soup to nuts rebrand, so keep an eye out for new Paradox packaging.

(45:06)
We have changed up our logo, we’re changing up our core packaging, specialty packaging. Basically everything, ahead of this 10 year.

Quatro (45:15):
Yeah. Big change. Biggest change we’ve done in a long time, I think.

Devon (45:20):
For sure.

Quatro (45:20):
Yeah.

Adam (45:21):
Is this your first major change as far as marketing labels and such go?

Devon (45:26):
Yeah, so we did a brand refresh back in 2017 and it was just some tweaks really. Right? This one is the first time we’ve really sat down and kind of thought hard about who our target market is, what we need to do, where we need to be, and how we want to position the brand.

(45:49)
And then let design influence that, rather than the other way around.

Adam (45:56):
I feel a whole other episode having a boat here just on marketing and rebranding.

Devon (46:05):
Yeah, this has been a process.

Quatro (46:07):
Yeah, I’m sure you could talk a lot about it.

Devon (46:11):
I could talk for… I mean, it’s basically what I’ve been working on for the past four months.

Quatro (46:17):
Yeah.

Toby (46:18):
That’s awesome.

(46:19)
So the ownership on the veteran side, do they come up quite a bit? And I assume they like beer. They probably wouldn’t put the money into the brewery if they didn’t enjoy a beverage.

Devon (46:29):
Our president and principal owner is… He’s flopping around here somewhere.

Quatro (46:33):
I don’t know if he’s mowing the lawn or something.

Devon (46:36):
[inaudible 00:46:36] knock on my office door. And we both gave him the eyes, like the go away eyes.

(46:43)
So our owner, Paul Mrocka, is still involved in the day-to-day.

Quatro (46:46):
Yeah.

Devon (46:47):
Of the business.

Quatro (46:48):
It’s impossible not to have him here most of the time.

Devon (46:50):
Yeah.

Quatro (46:51):
Yeah.

Toby (46:52):
And he would brew beer out on the lake? Or am I way off here?

Devon (46:56):
No, he used to brew beer on Paradox Lake. Did a little bit of brewing at our old location. And here, he just does stuff.

Toby (47:05):
Mows the yard.

Devon (47:06):
Mows the yard.

Quatro (47:08):
Yeah.

Toby (47:08):
Let me ask, do you pay him to mow the yard?

Devon (47:11):
He is not a sit still type of guy.

Quatro (47:12):
No, no. He’s a big idea guy, too, so he is always got something cooking.

Devon (47:16):
Yeah.

Quatro (47:16):
For sure.

Toby (47:18):
I think most veterans are usually very regimented and do not sit still throughout the day. Yeah?

Devon (47:26):
No.

Quatro (47:27):
Yeah.

Devon (47:27):
Definitely does not sit still. We try to tell them that if you’re going to be the idea guy, that’s great, but you’ve got to be cool with a 30% success rate.

(47:38)
You can’t be the tons of ideas guy and the only good ideas guy. Those two things are mutually exclusive.

Quatro (47:44):
Sure.

Devon (47:45):
You’ve got to pick one. Some of our investors who are also veterans… So we have one couple who half of the couple is a veteran and they live local, so they’re usually here every weekend and a little bit, maybe dip in and out throughout the week, but definitely every weekend.

(48:02)
And then most of our other investor group who are veterans are kind of scattered around the country. Some in North Carolina and some in Nevada.

Toby (48:13):
Yeah. I’m excited to see what y’all come up with as far as the Veterans Blend this year. And hopefully Adam and I, and Cheyenne, will have the ability to either make a trip way up there or we’ll get a mysterious package arriving at our doorsteps, because it sounds like it’s going to be awesome, whatever y’all are up to.

Quatro (48:37):
Be careful what you wish for.

Devon (48:38):
We’re only 90 minutes from the Champlain Warehouse.

Quatro (48:41):
We are, yeah.

Toby (48:43):
I’m going to hold the feet to the fire that you deliver those wonderful folks up there, a little taster of it. That’d be great.

Devon (48:48):
We brought stuff to the warehouse before, but I don’t feel like it gets past the warehouse.

Toby (48:54):
No, you just get… As soon as you get in the door it’s gone.

Devon (48:56):
Yeah.

Quatro (48:58):
I don’t know where it goes.

Toby (48:58):
All right, fellas. Hey, I really appreciate your time. And for those that are up in the North Hudson area, go see Devin and Quatro. Tell them we said hello.

(49:07)
And I appreciate y’all’s time and good luck with the marketing rebrand and all that stuff, and I look forward to meeting y’all in person, hopefully trying out some of that beer.

(49:17)
And I will follow up with you to see what y’all did with the Veterans Blend and tell ownership that we, on behalf of myself and Adam and Country Malt Group, we appreciate their service. It means a lot.

(49:29)
And y’all make it a great rest of the day.

Quatro (49:32):
Awesome, man.

Devon (49:33):
Sounds good.

Quatro (49:34):
Thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity.

Toby (49:37):
Well, thanks again to all of our guests today. Dianne, Bill, Tony, Devin, and Quatro. And Adam, you didn’t do a bad job either. Thanks for joining us. I think we’ll keep you around.

(49:50)
Yeah. So join us in supporting Homes For Our Troops to further their mission of assisting US veterans in regaining some of their independence and giving them the ability to rebuild their lives.

Adam (50:01):
And don’t forget to contact your CMG rep to pre-order the Sixth Annual Veterans Blend prior to August 28th and start planning your Veterans Brew day.

Toby (50:09):
Yeah, absolutely. Any… Sorry to cut off. Any dollar we can get towards that organization is super helpful.

Adam (50:16):
I completely agree.

(50:18)
And we’ll be back with another episode in about two weeks to chat pilsners. As well, we’ll have our… We’ll have Ask Abby. She will be on with us to offer any technical questions you have on any of our product recommendations.

(50:33)
So submit those questions on our Country Malt Instagram or email us at thebrewdeck@countrymalt.com and we’ll answer them on upcoming up episode.

Toby (50:42):
Sounds awesome. And for those of you that are not subscribed, be sure to do it wherever you can subscribe so you don’t ever miss an episode.

(50:50)
And we appreciate everybody’s ears again and hope to see you and hear from you here pretty shortly. Cheers, everybody. Bye-Bye.