EPISODE S.6, E.2

[BOOT, SCOOT & WHISKEY]

Toby (00:09):
Welcome back. I have a very special guest today who I’m glad I’ve recently been able to spend a lot more time with you in person, it’s the one and only, Brittany Drennan. How are you?

Brittany (00:21):
Hello. I’m well, thank you. It’s always good to spend time with you, man.

Toby (00:27):
Abso… I was going to say effing, but absolutely. Damn right, we had a really, really great time in Austin at the Texas Craft Brewers Annual Guild, I believe. Quite the turnout, I was really, really thoroughly impressed. Not that I was going into it thinking, I was hoping for the best, but honestly, being where we are in the industry, there’s question marks and I think a lot of people are focused on making great beer and doing what they got to do at the brewery, but super impressed with the amount of people that came out.

Brittany (01:00):
Yeah, that’s one thing about Texas, they show up.

Toby (01:03):
Damn right. There had to be, at least at the award ceremony, three, 400 people.

Brittany (01:12):
Yeah. I think attendance was over 600, easy. It’s an incredible event, every year never ceases to amaze me, the amount of effort and everything that goes into putting on that event, and everyone is just having such a great time, they’re so supportive of each other, the award ceremony, everything is just incredible.

Toby (01:35):
Yeah. And you and I were talking about this too, and I think it goes to show the optimism that I think is just generally across the board. The brewers, brewery owners and the industry is a lot more optimistic than they were probably a year ago.

Brittany (01:52):
I think so, yeah. It’s easy to go down that doom and gloom avenue when you start picking things apart, but in general, at least in this state in Texas, I’m based here, you’re based here, it’s very supportive and I think that as long as everybody stays positive and moves forward, we’ve got a lot of good things to look forward to.

Toby (02:18):
Yes, absolutely. Well, today we are going to be joined by Dustin “Cramer”, who goes by Cramer, who’s the production manager over at Arch Ray Resort, Jerry Elliot, the head brewer/distiller over there, and Abby Hime, and Abby, she’s at Great Heights, she’s running the front of house and then also on the sales team. But Jerry and Dustin, we’re going to call him Cramer here, I mentioned Arch Ray, they’ve got a distillery on site and a brewery, and they’re going to come on and talk about a collab they did back in October with our Pink Boots Malt.

(03:01)
And in case you missed it, last year we launched the Pink Boots Malt, it’s a craft-based malt product and really appropriate for both brewing and distilling. And each year, it will highlight a different barley variety and subtle differences in base malt and characteristics. And it was born from the idea to involve more members of the industry in our efforts to uplift women and non-binary colleagues as malt is a core ingredient for not only brewers, but distillers as well. So the cool thing is, with each bag purchased, and I got to say it’s a kick-ass bag, great job by the marketing team, but a donation is made to the Pink Boots Society Scholarship Fund.

Brittany (03:47):
Yeah. Arch Ray approached us at a conference actually, and they wanted to be the first to distill with our Pink Boots Malt, so we said, heck yeah, let’s do it. They’re about an hour west of Austin out in Hill Country, we went there with our Pink Boots, Houston chapter, booked an Airbnb for the night and had a full day at Arch Ray with their distilling and brewing team, did a tour and made custom hats, it was awesome.

Toby (04:17):
It sounds like a good time, and I’m sorry that I missed with that, but I’ll be back out pretty soon to check that place out, it looks awesome, but we’ll get a chance to learn more. But before we get to our guest, I want to take a moment to honor and remember James Fawcett. As the son of Thomas Fawcett, James played an instrumental role in our early success here at CMG, definitely helping to forge one of our very first malt vendor partnerships. Over the years, he became more than just a business partner, he became family to us, his passion, knowledge, and unwavering commitment to the craft left a lasting mark on the global brewing community.

Brittany (04:58):
Yeah, just an incredible human, James was one of our first podcast guests actually. Join us in celebrating his life in going back to listen to season one, episode seven: Straight from the Fawcett, where he shared his insights and stories.

Toby (05:16):
I had a long trip back from Austin, obviously, Brittany, I’m sharing some time with you, and I played that podcast and choked up a little bit, and he was a great guy and I really enjoyed his hospitality and just his vibrant personality, so he will be missed and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of James Fawcett. How about on a bright note, let’s get rolling on this, Brittany?

Brittany (05:41):
You got it.

Toby (05:43):
We’re going to jump right in here, and happy to have this awesome array of guests joining us on the BrewDeck today. We’ll start with the folks down at Arch Ray, and I noticed when we talked about the intro here, and I haven’t been to the facility here, I live in Texas, but Texas is so big it’s hard to get around everywhere, so Arch Ray is a resort, but you also have the distillery, which I believe is called Paul B and then Ogle Brewery, is that correct?

Jerry (06:14):
Yes, that’s correct.

Toby (06:17):
All right. Well, that’s awesome. Well, I know I’ve surfed around on the net and so it looks a really, really cool place. And Brittany, you could probably attest because you were there obviously. But let’s start with Jerry and Cramer, so how long have you all been in the industry, and specifically with the company?

Jerry (06:36):
I’ve been brewing and distilling professionally now for five years with a long background of brewing and distilling prior. We’ve both been part of this project, whether it’s consulting or billed out or employee with Arch Ray since 2020 when it was just blueprints.

Toby (07:03):
All right. And Jerry, you are the head brewer/distiller and Cramer the production manager, so you all are constantly working hand in hand I would assume, right?

Jerry (07:14):
Yeah, we’re just a two man team.

Toby (07:18):
That’s a lot on your shoulders for sure for two of you. And as mentioned, so brewery, distillery and winery on site, and I believe from what I see, you all have lodging as well?

Dustin “Cramer” (07:29):
We are working on the lodging part, as far as the hotel goes, we’ll have 120 room, four and a half star resort here on property, and then we have an RV Park that’s currently open with about 85 spots in there. And we’re working on the gated community just across the river, it’s all one property, but the river splits it, and we have 244 home sites over there that we have sold and a lot of those are going to be Airbnbs that will send people our way as well.

Brittany (08:12):
They also have a massive concert stage that has the ability to have tour buses pull up to it, right, guys?

Dustin “Cramer” (08:22):
Yeah. We have the largest amphitheater in the Hill Country, we hold 7,500 to 8,500 people depending on the configuration for the concert or event being held out there. But we got RV spots where the tour buses can just pull up for all the bands and their semis and offload here behind the concert, nice little green room for them to hang out in and some additional spots at the RV Park if they have additional needs.

Toby (08:51):
That sounds like my kind of place, sure. Well, Brittany, we should get the Country Malt Group band together and see if we can perform out there. I bet all of zero people would attend that show.

Brittany (09:01):
Yeah.

Dustin “Cramer” (09:01):
If you all work for beer, we’ll have you out.

Toby (09:04):
Right. Pretty easy to convince us to get out of town. So for those listeners, if you haven’t been out to the Hill Country as I believe Cramer mentioned, it’s just a beautiful part of Texas. Really there’s no words to describe that part of Texas and that part of the country, it’s just vastly beautiful rolling hills, just an awesome place to be and obviously if you’re out in town, look up Arch Ray and the guys, go out and see them. But going back to the nuts and bolts here, which came first, the brewery, the distillery or the winery out there on site or was it all at the same time?

Jerry (09:46):
On site, the brewery started off first.

Toby (09:50):
Okay.

Jerry (09:51):
The Arch Ray Resort’s owned by the Baxter family, which owns also a sister winery that’s been around for 15 years, so as that’s grown, they started planning to build this resort. We always say it was a natural progression, everybody was coming to their little tasting rooms and just asking the family if they had beer as an available option. And pretty soon, Mr. Baxter decided that we needed to open a place that had brewery, winery, distillery, restaurant, everything under the sun.

Toby (10:32):
Smart guy. Because we’re talking specifically today on the call about the Pink Boots distillation/collab you did, so I just want to focus on there, how big is the distillery? Or what are you all working with over there/production size?

Jerry (10:55):
We have a 500 gallon twin column hybrid still, so we did four batches of the distillation for the Pink Boots and have four barrels of Pink Boots single malt whiskey.

Toby (11:14):
Nice. And Brittany, you were able to join at some point when they were running that wash, is that right?

Brittany (11:21):
That’s right, yep. We were present from, I believe, mashing happened prior to us arriving at the facility, but we got to see everything in action.

Toby (11:36):
Brittany, just taking a step back, how did you know or get an idea that Arch Ray was wanting to do something with the Pink Boots Malt?

Brittany (11:50):
We have a conference every year here in Texas, it’s primarily a brewer’s conference, but we met Jerry and Cramer walking the floor, they came up to us, we had a bag of Pink Boots Malt on display and they were the ones that expressed interest and asked had anybody ever made a whiskey with our Pink Boots Malt, which was a Pilsner Malt before. And to my knowledge, no one had, so the idea took off from there.

Toby (12:22):
Awesome. And Jerry and Cramer, I know that you all sound extremely passionate about it and it was very exciting to be able to chat with you all over several months trying to organize and plan this thing out. So first of all, on behalf of Country Malt Group and Pink Boots Society, it’s really cool of you all to dive right in. So why Pink Boots and the Pink Boots Malt, was there a specific reason that you all were passionate about this project and Pink Boots?

Jerry (12:53):
Well, I frequently listen to the BrewDeck Podcast on my commute, so I’ve been aware of the CMG-Pink Boots Malt collaborations, so I was really glad to get a chance to participate in this and raise awareness and everything else for the Pink Boots Society.

Toby (13:15):
That’s cool, really, really nice. So tell us about the recipe style, you mentioned single malt, was it 100% Pink Boots Malt in there?

Jerry (13:26):
Not 100%, the Pink Boots Malt and distiller’s high enzyme malt comprise the bulk of the mashville. And then we added some specialty malts because being brewers we like to play with the flavor games and add a little bit of special touches here and there. We added some chocolate malt and some extra special malt, the extra special malt leans toward the toasted marshmallows and things like that, so it sounded like a great thing to have in a nice American single malt whiskey.

Toby (14:04):
Sure. And obviously, this is the first time that you all have utilized or messed around with the Pink Boots Malt, but is the chocolate malt and some of these what we call specialty malts, something fairly common in what you all are doing in your products now or was this a complete, let’s just have some fun?

Jerry (14:27):
It was a little bit of let’s have some fun. We know that a lot of grain characteristics go through the fermentation and distillation products like your sweetness from your corn and spicy rye notes. So we understood that some of the chocolate malts and things like that would play through and actually come out through the distillate.

Toby (14:52):
Nice. You mentioned marshmallows and some other things too, were there specific sensory notes that you could gather right off the mash that may have been different from some of your other runs? Anything that you could explain to the viewers and we can smell through our headsets here to get an idea of what you were working with?

Jerry (15:18):
Definitely the wash or the mash smelled of coffee, those toasted marshmallows and creamy chocolate, that’s how I would describe it.

Toby (15:32):
Nice, it sounds pretty appealing to me. Do you all typically ferment on grain or off grain, Jerry?

Jerry (15:37):
We ferment off grain for the whiskey programs, it’s a little bit easier with our equipment. Corn and those other things, you have to work really hard to get through the mash and broken down, so it’s a little easier for us to do a single bottle whiskey just off our brew house.

Toby (16:00):
I understand. Brittany, I want to go back to you, tell me about the experience, who was there at this event? Was it other folks in the Pink Boots chapter? Tell me a little bit about the trip and what this meant to you.

Brittany (16:21):
I’ve been a part of Pink Boots Society as a member for many, many years in many different chapters, and it’s not often where you do a collaboration outside of brewing, brew days are amazing, we love them, but it’s seldom when you have an opportunity to do a brew day in a different facility and see different equipment and in fermentation in general.

(16:56)
I went to our Pink Boots chapter in Houston and got a bunch of girls together or asked them to see if they wanted to join us for the distillation day. And a bunch of people said they wanted to go and I reached out to a couple of other chapters as well and we actually booked an Airbnb because it was about a four-hour drive from Houston. But we drove over, got an Airbnb for the night, and then showed up in the morning for the distillation day.

Toby (17:36):
Nice. And Abby, were you able to join on this or?

Abby (17:42):
No, I was I there present.

Toby (17:44):
Awesome. So what was your experience like? Similar to Brittany’s?

Abby (17:48):
Yes, very similar. It was actually my first time in Fredericksburg, so that was really cool. And just being able to be out at Arch Ray and see all the opportunities that they had ready to go out there was just so cool ,and how it was just a bunch of different things and definitely the amphitheater was awesome.

Toby (18:11):
Nice. Well, we might’ve mentioned it before, but Abby is a Houston chapter leader for Pink Boots and also slinging a lot of beers and on the sales team over at Great Heights there in Houston. So Abby, just for the viewers here, we talk a lot about Pink Boots and obviously our organization is heavily involved, but tell me a little bit more about Pink Boots, an overview and what the Houston chapter does as far as contributions and events, etc.

Abby (18:44):
Our Houston chapter, we’re very lucky to have a very active chapter, we have been able to brew with the Pink Boots Malt, my brewery in particular, Great Heights, we did one last year that we named Let Them Run Wild and it was a West Coast Pils, it was wonderful. We love that we are able to now use a malt, it didn’t handcuff us to a style because that Pilsen malt you can do a lot with and so that’s why we were just excited to have it.

(19:16)
The chapter here in Houston, we get together once a month, we’re really big on education. The Houston chapter actually just announced a scholarship opportunity, and that’s really what Pink Boots is about, is education to help elevate and advance us in our careers. The networking is incredible, so it’s a really great group.

Toby (19:41):
Yeah, I’ve met some really great people, Brittany being one of them, that is very passionate about it and as we are as an organization. So you mentioned trips briefly, and Brittany, correct me me if I’m wrong, but when we were in Austin last week, they were talking about some scholarship winners, did they win, or not win, earn a trip to Europe?

Brittany (20:07):
There are several different scholarship tracks, and I believe one of them is to come out to our facility in Vancouver as well. So there’s tons of opportunities and that’s really part of the reason the organization exists, is to lift up and give women and non-binary folk in the industry opportunities that they might not get elsewhere.

Toby (20:35):
You’re absolutely right. Because I do recall out in Calgary and in Pocatello where our malt houses are, we do malt house tours and education and there were a couple of scholarship recipients there, so really cool. So Jerry, Cramer, going back to you guys, tell me again what size batches you had and how many barrels did you end up filling with that?

Jerry (21:04):
We created four 15 barrel or 500 gallon washes for this distillation, and then when it was the finished product, we created four barrels, so they’re 53 gallons for the distillery barrels.

Toby (21:24):
Nice. Any particular or what kind of barrels did you use as far as wood?

Jerry (21:32):
We selected American Oak with a heavy toast and then they have charred heads, so we get to play with a little bit of the toasting and help create a lighter colored spirit. The heavy toast will bring the fur for alls and lignin compounds that we’re hoping will play really well. The caramel and the vanilla playing with the chocolate, the toasted marshmallows and we’re leaning heavily on those flavors.

Toby (22:08):
It sounds damn toasty. Did I say toasty? I did, tasty, toasty, it sounds good. It’s always challenging to do this towards the end of the day, and I think Brittany knows this, like when we start talking about flavor profiles of beer and whiskey, it just always makes me so thirsty, I’m counting down hours until I can enjoy one. So that sounds wonderful, Jerry, it sounds really good.

(22:35)
What are you all thinking as far as aging in barrels? Are you just going to play it by year and pipette it every year or so and come up with something that feels like it’s going to foot the bill?

Jerry (22:49):
Definitely a little bit of that. Right now, the plan is probably between 18 and 24 months before it’ll be ready for bottling.

Toby (22:58):
It sounds great. And I’m asking this because I want to invite myself out there for a potential release. Are you planning anything as far as maybe a release party or something along those lines to celebrate it?

Jerry (23:20):
Yes, absolutely. We’re thinking that might also correlate with our opening of the hotel as the build off finishes with that. But with our conversations with Brittany, we’re also planning on having a few Pete Lutz beers, we were talking to her about some of her favorite desserts. So right now, the two leading flavors I’m going to be playing with are vanilla and raspberry, so I’m going to try to pull off something nice to have beer as well as the Pink Boots whiskey.

Toby (24:03):
That’s a good idea. Maybe we can find somebody like a Pink Boots Band come out and play at that opening too.

Brittany (24:11):
One of our members in Houston is in a band, so we can ask her, I’m sure she’d be happy to.

Toby (24:20):
I don’t mean to put you on spot, Brittany, but aren’t you related to some pretty heavy hitters in the rock band era?

Brittany (24:27):
I am.

Toby (24:28):
No names mentioned.

Brittany (24:30):
No names mentioned, I do know some people though.

Toby (24:32):
Pull some strings to get some people out, cool. Well, I-

Brittany (24:37):
Didn’t you guys source a boot shaped bottle for this project too?

Toby (24:45):
… That’s cool.

Dustin “Cramer” (24:46):
I’m currently working on that, it’d be a custom mold, I’m trying to find a mold that already exists because it’s such a small batch, if we do a custom mold from scratch, it’s going to take a lot more of an upfront order to do it. So I’m still in the process of that, but that’s the plan, is to have a pink cowboy boot shaped bottle.

Toby (25:16):
That’d be really cool.

Brittany (25:17):
That’s awesome.

Toby (25:17):
I want to go back to Brittany too, Jerry mentioned your favorite desserts, we spent a lot of time together, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you, number one, eat dessert. But secondly, I don’t even know what your favorite dessert is, what is it?

Brittany (25:31):
Well, I think-

Toby (25:32):
Something with vanilla and raspberry?

Brittany (25:34):
… You put me on the spot with that question, nobody’s ever asked me that before. I definitely is like, I’m not a cake girl, not a cupcake girl, but if there’s a creme brulee on the menu, I order it every time if I’m not too full, so that’s what I went with.

Toby (25:53):
And I imagine that would be a great dessert for a nice whiskey, right?

Brittany (25:58):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (25:59):
Jerry, you may know more than I do on that subject, but it sounds like the two would marry fairly well.

Jerry (26:08):
Yeah, I believe so for sure, the caramelization for a creme brulee, yeah.

Toby (26:14):
Cool. So just going back to the spirit here in question, are you all just going to do a limited release sold only at the resort there or the distillery or are you planning on trying to get it out retail or is it too early to tell?

Dustin “Cramer” (26:35):
Initially, it would just be here at the resort, we can see how well the project does and look at doing some other things, also different types of products as well. I talked to Brittany, what if there was a pink booze vodka or a tequila? Just there’s all kinds of options that we could run with, and some of those products, they make more sense when you go into distribution just with price points.

Brittany (27:12):
You guys make RTDs too, right?

Dustin “Cramer” (27:13):
Yes, ma’am, we do. Right now we have a bourbon in Cola, old-fashioned, it’s got some bitters in it and we do a Moscow mule, a hard strawberry lemonade, and a hard peach tea.

Brittany (27:30):
I’ll do it all.

Toby (27:32):
That’s right, doing it up right, that’s great. Cramer, are you just keeping Jerry in line over there, is that what you do?

Dustin “Cramer” (27:40):
Somebody’s got to do it.

Toby (27:40):
You are right. Anything on your end to add about the experience?

Dustin “Cramer” (27:45):
I didn’t know, I thought it would be a little bit more detailed step by step and a lot of rules or whatnot to how the products are done. And it seems like the window’s wide open and using this platform and people being able to hear that they have options where it doesn’t all necessarily have to be Pink Boots Malts, but there can always be a Pink Boots project and use different mediums or whatever. So if we did a tequila using agave, then that’s an option as well.

Brittany (28:23):
I think that that’s an unfortunate misconception with Pink Boots in general, is that you have to use the hops or you have to use the malt. You don’t, as long as the money goes back to the society, you can have any type of product out there, it could be coffee, it can be just like you said. So thank you for mentioning that, that is something that gets lost in translation sometimes.

Toby (28:50):
Yeah, definitely other ways to support Pink Boots Society other than just purchasing the malt or the hops that we make internally or that we partner with YCH on. So I just appreciate the two of you really pushing for this project and really embracing us and Brittany and crew and the Pink Boots group to come out and help with this, it’s really cool that you all have been passionate about it and really wanting to do something to help support. So along those lines, do you all have any other plans for celebrating International Women’s Day? I think I was told that the ownership at your organization is a female as well, and I could be wrong.

Jerry (29:44):
Yeah, one half of the ownership-

Toby (29:45):
Of course.

Jerry (29:48):
… Sally and some of the managers were able to help in on our brew days prior to our collaboration with the Pink Boots group coming in. So they were able to help us do a little bit of the brewing processes and part of that. As far as the International Women’s Day, I think we have some things planned, I’m just a bit in the back busy with brewing and distilling, so I’m not sure what what all’s in the works, sometimes events come and go without me knowing.

Toby (30:23):
I can imagine, it happens over at our place too, so very good. Anything that the listeners should be aware of as far as coming to visit or anything we can plug? Any particular product that you all are working on other than this Pink Boots distillation run?

Dustin “Cramer” (30:44):
We do have a special release on the distillery side of things that should be out within the next 30 days roughly, working on the cola and getting all the labels and everything done for it, the product’s really close to being ready to be bottled. It’s a Madeira cask finished bourbon that we source some Madeira cask from a winery up the road from us, then we did some projects for them and traded things out and they gave us some barrels so that we could age some of our bourbon in it and we’ll release that here pretty soon, it’s tasting great right now.

Toby (31:26):
Great, very good. And Brittany, it looked like Abby had to drop off, I know she was busy actually literally working, serving beer at Great Heights. But just for her sake, I know that you spent a lot of time at Great Heights because no wonder they make badass beers, but they’re fairly close to you. So I just wanted to see if you had anything that you know or any of your faves over there at the Great Heights so for those listeners that have not been, can make their way that way and say hello to Abby and group.

Brittany (32:01):
It is our neighborhood, so that’s why we are there as often as we are to be clear. We do trivia there every Wednesday, it’s a good time. Honestly, that Pink Boots beer is probably one of the best and my favorite beers that I’ve ever had there truthfully, that West Coast Pils was incredible. I believe they’re planning on making it again this year, I know they’re planning on and using the malt in general. But they’ve always got a great lineup, they’ve always got tons of different styles on draft, Blue Tile is their main beer that they have out in distribution. But they’re incredible over there, we love them very much.

Toby (32:48):
Awesome. Well, Jerry, Cramer, thanks so much for joining us, and I really appreciate your participation in this, it means a lot to us and also the Pink Boots Society, so I appreciate you all coming on. And I look forward to coming out and visiting you all pretty soon.

Brittany (33:03):
Thank you guys so much for having us, we appreciate it, and it’s a unique experience that all of us we’ll never forget for sure, we had a great time and it was amazing to see you guys in action. And thank you for promoting the society and supporting it and being advocates, we appreciate it.

Jerry (33:26):
Well, thank you. And it was our pleasure to host the collaboration with you all, and I think everything went quite well, you all enjoyed a night in Fredericksburg and had some fun here at the resort, that’s what this place is all about.

Toby (33:40):
Perfect. All right, I appreciate you all.

Brittany (33:43):
Thank you.

Toby (33:44):
Well, I want to personally thank our guest today, Jerry Elliott and Dustin, AKA Cramer over at Arch Ray Resort, and also Abby Hime at Great Heights Brewing.

Brittany (34:00):
And as we get closer to International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, now’s the perfect time to add Pink Boots Malt to your next recipe. The current Pink Boots Malt features the Odyssey Barley variety grown across the Pacific Northwest. Originally from the UK, Odyssey is a well-established variety perfect for creating a well-balanced low-color malt. Its unique characteristics have helped to produce a low-GN high-extract Pilsen-style malt product of appropriate for a range of beer and whiskey styles. Contact your sales rep to learn more.

Toby (34:34):
We’re also ramping up on our biggest event season, the Artisan Distillers Conference, American Craft Spirits Conference, Beam Institute, and of course the Craft Brewers Conference, which is right around the corner. If you’ll be out and about at any of these events, please stop by to chat malt, snag some samples, we’ve got some really kick hats and beanies for that matter, we’ve got all things great, cheers to our marketing team, they do a great job. But come out just to give a hug, whatever, we want to see you all. We’ll be back next month for our annual Women’s History Month episode, be sure to like and subscribe to the BrewDeck Podcast so you don’t ever miss it. Brittany, thanks for joining.

Brittany (35:19):
Yes, sir, cheers.

Toby (35:24):
Holla at you soon. Bye, everyone.

Brittany (35:24):
Bye.