EPISODE S.6, E.4

[GRAIN, GRIT & GROWTH: THE CMG JOURNEY]

Toby (00:09):
Welcome to another episode of the BrewDeck podcast. I am Toby Tucker here. Most, always, I was going to say as always, but it’s not the case all the time, with Heather Jerred. How are you?

Heather (00:19):
I’m here. Not always either.

Toby (00:21):
How things been on your end?

Heather (00:24):
Good. I mean, it is spring in Vancouver, so everything is green and the sun is shining, and that rarely happens, so I have to be happy. It’s the law. If the sun’s shining in Vancouver, BC, you have to smile.

Toby (00:38):
Nice. Well, it’s about 90 in Texas. It is really nice, but it gets hot in the afternoon and just found out yesterday, went upstairs like, “Damn, it’s like 95 degrees up here.” The air conditioner crapped the bed.

Heather (00:52):
Oh, no.

Toby (00:53):
Getting that replaced today, which is, yeah, pretty penny. I’m not too happy about that.

Heather (00:58):
But at least it’s happening now and not right in the midst of summer. I feel like that would be bad.

Toby (01:06):
That’s true. Yeah, you’re right. I like that you’re always looking at the bright side.

Heather (01:08):
Hey-

Toby (01:08):
The glass is always half full.

Heather (01:10):
… just trying to be an optimist number here.

Toby (01:13):
I like it. Well, this year marks a very special celebration for us here at Country Malt because CMG turns 30.

Heather (01:22):
30 years old.

Toby (01:23):
Did you know that?

Heather (01:23):
I did know that.

Toby (01:27):
In 1995, a father and son started with just six bags of grain, a homebrew grist mill, and a cargo van in the backyard shed in Champlain, New York with the dream of supplying the homebrew community with quality malt products. What began as North Country Malt has grown over the decades into the trusted partner we are today, Country Malt Group.

Heather (01:49):
So to celebrate this huge milestone, we have the absolute honor of sitting down with the founders, father and son duo Bryan and Claude Bechard on this episode to learn a little bit more about their journey and the evolution of CMG. The celebration doesn’t stop here, although it’s a great little celebration here. We are one week out from the Craft Brewers Conference in Indianapolis. Whoa, one week. To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we are throwing a big party on the first Tuesday at CBC. So make sure and come by our booth 3300 to learn a little bit more.

Toby (02:32):
As always, I’ve heard we have a stacked tap list of collabs that we did with breweries featuring 12 different breweries. Could be more beer, I don’t know. But there’s 12 different breweries that we’ve collabed with to bring that product for everyone to try at CBC. We’re also going to have some hard seltzer too, which is new. We’re also doing the live podcasts out there, which are awesome. Very fun. We’ll be back on the trade show floor recording these live. So come by, say hi, throw stuff at us.

Heather (03:06):
Throw stuff at Toby. Don’t throw stuff at me.

Toby (03:07):
Yeah, it’s always fun.

Heather (03:08):
It’s always fun. Yeah.

Toby (03:11):
Then always we’ve got, like last year we have puppies. You remember our furry little friends from last year? We’re excited to be sponsoring the Pause and Relax lounge again this year, meaning there will be therapy dogs at our booth. If you get tired of walking around and just want to hug on some puppies, we got them. So come see us.

Heather (03:28):
Definitely.

Toby (03:29):
Also, as always, well typically always, we’re always bringing some new products in launching at CBC. You may have heard we just dropped two new products from Great Western Malting.

Heather (03:42):
Yeah, the low color we just dropped and it clocks in under two SRM. I think I pulled a COA and it was 1.54 SRM. So it is the ideal choice for these IPAs.

Toby (03:57):
Yeah, next to no color contribution there. That’s cool.

Heather (04:00):
No, it’s great. We’ve had a lot of people really excited about this. So yeah, it’s perfect for any of those styles where you want low color, but a really great mouth feel and really great head retention without all the color. We also are dropping Chip malt, so a nice locally made from Great Western Malting, Chip malt, it brings the foam and body that we love. So it’s more cost-efficient, obviously, than bringing stuff in from overseas. So make sure you pop over and get a sample and chat with our salespeople about it.

Toby (04:33):
That’s some good chip right there.

Heather (04:37):
Oh yeah, that is some good chip.

Toby (04:37):
Sorry-

Heather (04:38):
Really doesn’t even have to [inaudible 00:04:39].

Toby (04:38):
… had to throw that in there.

Heather (04:43):
I have to start making a list of all of the Toby jokes so we can do a full re-enact at the end of the year of all the Toby jokes.

Toby (04:52):
That’s what we need is some T-shirts made with that.

Heather (04:55):
It’s some good chip. I think it might be a little late-

Toby (04:58):
I’m sorry.

Heather (04:59):
… your swag’s been ordered, however… So yeah, there’ll always be, of course, lots of hats and other cool swag, so make sure you come by the booth to grab that. Last but not least, as I mentioned, we are celebrating our 30th anniversary on Tuesday the 29th at Goodman House with some great beer networking and some nineties throwbacks. I’m just going to assume we’re just going to play a lot of Pearl Jam.

Toby (05:26):
Yes.

Heather (05:27):
Yeah.

Toby (05:27):
I would imagine.

Heather (05:28):
Okay, Good.

Toby (05:29):
I’m trying to think about… Yeah, I think we mentioned there. I’m trying to think about what I would even wear as throwback, right? So many different styles growing up.

Heather (05:38):
The really good thing about, I think for me, the nineties is always going to be grunge music. I love nineties grunge, so plaid, which I think we all own as working in the brewing industry. So I think we’re good there.

Toby (05:51):
Perfect.

Heather (05:52):
Lots and lots of plaid. If you want more details on, if you want to see our beer list, if you want to see anything else, head over to our website, countrymalt.com/CBC. Let’s dive in.

Toby (06:06):
Awesome. Today is a very good day for many reasons. Number one, here in Texas it’s sunny outside and good 85 degrees and just a great day. But even better day, Heather, because we have two legends joining us today.

Heather (06:22):
Absolutely.

Toby (06:22):
And they happen to be family. So really happy to have these two guys on to join us. We’ve had Bryan Bechard on the show before with Faucet, and I believe a couple other times he hung around with us. But good to have you back, Bryan, and we’re super impressed and glad to have Claude Bechard on with us as well, who is Bryan’s father who helped Bryan, or they joined forces together way back in the day and started Country Malt Group. So 30 years, we’re celebrating this year.

Claude (07:01):
Yeah.

Toby (07:04):
So yeah, let’s just dive right into it for the two of you. What were y’all doing before Country Malt Group came around and y’all decided to take that into the next step?

Claude (07:16):
Well, when I was younger, I drove trucks, 18 wheelers. I had two good truck driving jobs, and they both lasted 16 years. I went to work for a company called Smith Transport US Limited. It lasted 16 years. I got up to number 16 on the list, and the company had a big change of operations. We’ve had to move to Jersey City, New Jersey to keep my seniority. I said to Beverly, “There’s no way we’re going to raise these kids in New Jersey. I’ll find something to do.” As luck would have it, I got in from Buffalo Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Monday morning I was on a new job learning how to load cars. I did that job for 16 years. Started at number 87, got up the number of 16, and that 16 was a bad number. Then I jumped on my pension, I had enough time, and that was in the early nineties. Tom, Bryan’s brother, our oldest son, he kept saying, “Well, Dad, you need to do something. You just can’t sit around.”

(08:22)
I said, “Well, in the wintertime, I’m hauling fuel for Carl. I said, “With an 18 and just take it easy in the summer.” So he just kept harping about it. So finally I decided, well, what are we going to do? He says, “Well…” And Tom’s been a homebrewer for years. “We could start a malt business.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Who are we going to sell it to?” He said, “Well, there’s a few.” I said, “Yeah, you’re right. There’s a few.” So we talked about it for a year, 18 months, right Bryan?

Bryan (08:56):
At least.

Claude (08:57):
Yeah. Finally, I said, “Well, let’s do it.” So Tom and Bryan went to Blasberg, did the DBA, Claude Bechard during business as North Country Malt Supply then we started. We had, I don’t know, about a dozen bags of grain that I bought from Canada Malting, and we bought a van, a green forty [inaudible 00:09:24] van, three, three-quarter ton. It was overloaded right from the first day almost, and I came on that van and no customers, and that’s where we got started.

Toby (09:37):
So Canada Malting was the first malt brand that y’all brought in initially?

Claude (09:42):
That was the first one. I go to Montreal and pick up the malt, bring it back to the border.

Toby (09:47):
How was that conversation, Claude and maybe for Bryan, did you just… I mean, I’m sure the Google wasn’t too prevalent back then, but how did y’all get connected with CMC and decide to run up there and try to buy some malt?

Bryan (10:01):
Yeah, they were really close, that’s one of the benefits that we had. And we look back on it and yeah, we did a lot of things right. The market did what we needed the market to do, but there was some luck in it too for us is our proximity was ideal. I mean, we were close to the port of Montreal, close to Canada Malting in Montreal, and had a really good location to supply the mid-Atlantic states and New England. So we just made phone calls and that’s how we got in touch with Fawcett too. I mean, just using the phone initially, because like you said, there wasn’t a lot of social media and things along those lines. They were just developing for the most part when we first got going.

Toby (10:48):
Well, I’m bouncing all over the place. I think it’s so great to be able to have you two guys on. But Claude, you had mentioned 12 bags. You bought 12 bags and that’s how you got started?

Claude (10:59):
Yeah, I think we had about six bags of 2-row and a few banks of colored malt, and that’s what we had for inventory.

Bryan (11:11):
Simone 0758. Remember that was we always called it 0758, that was what Baird’s Pale was called back in-

Claude (11:18):
Yep.

Toby (11:21):
That that’s pretty cool.

Claude (11:24):
We got in touch with, how would I say, we had pretty good relationship with Carol Richards. She was the office manager there in Montreal at Canada Malting, and I would go up there in order to get malt, I’d have to go over there and pay her. Then I’d go to the warehouse, pick it up, come back home. Well, as time went on, Carol says, “If you would buy five tonnes, I can give you a whole lot better price.” I says, “Really? I don’t have a vehicle big enough to haul that.” I said, “I can do it. I think we making two trips on the same day.” So as luck had it, we knew most of the customer officers and there was a smaller border crossing there on Route 276. So what I do is go up there early, get the first load and come back and then go back and get the second load before that officer got done at four o’clock [inaudible 00:12:23] on the invoice all day. That’s what we do.

Toby (12:25):
So there’s no challenges at the border, huh?

Claude (12:28):
No. No, exactly. So one of these trips, you wouldn’t believe it, Toby, I’m on my way back and the van was on. You could tell it was almost the wheels are way up into the wheel wells. Along comes this Canadian Quebec, province of Quebec cop, and I can see him gaining on me. I’m going 55. Didn’t go very fast on the gas and blow every tire on it. He pulls up alongside of me, he looks, shakes his head, he kept on going.

Toby (13:02):
“What is that dude doing?”

Claude (13:03):
I never forgot it.

Toby (13:04):
Terrible.

Claude (13:07):
[inaudible 00:13:08] pull me over, but he did. He just kept going.

Bryan (13:11):
Same thing happened through the Adirondacks when I was driving with an overload.

Claude (13:15):
Oh, that was a good one, Toby.

Bryan (13:17):
[inaudible 00:13:17] pulls alongside, shakes his head and keeps on going.

Toby (13:20):
Oh, man. It’s funny you mentioned that too, because I would venture to say 75% of the sales team now has had to make milk runs out of their personal vehicles. Hell, I think I’ve seen Heather doing it before. Yeah. I had a pallet and a half stuck in the back of my pickup truck. Same thing, just the back wheels dragging ass.

Claude (13:42):
Oh yeah.

Toby (13:42):
Well-

Heather (13:42):
I think I had 20 bags in the back of my Subaru Forester. that’s running all little low.

Toby (13:47):
See what Claude you did to us? Yeah. We’re all going the Claude way.

Heather (13:52):
Still doing it.

Toby (13:53):
That’s right. Well, what about you Bryan? What were you doing before you and your dad decided to take this venture on?

Bryan (13:59):
I wasn’t long out of college. I had a business degree from LeMoyne College in Syracuse. Believe it or not, back then I was pretty decent at golf and I was trying to get on the tour, went to Florida, tried it, wasn’t successful, took a club pros job back in the north, and I’m like, well, I’d like to do something with my degree. Then really started paying attention to this business and working on it and working on it. I remember I got married in ’99 and told my wife from Syracuse at that time we’re moving up to Plattsburgh area, and she was like, “Plattsburgh? I don’t want to move up there.” So we got this business that I think is going to turn into something. I remember a year in, I said, “Look, I’m going to take a huge pay cut from golf and I’m going to go full time into this and really focus on it and see what happens.” Got on the road and started going to try and sell, and it really worked.

(15:00)
But we spent a lot of time developing the portfolio and that’s when we got Fawcett and we actually got, Soufflé was our first exclusive brand, which that was before Fawcett.

Heather (15:15):
That’s full circle.

Bryan (15:17):
Kidding, right? But then when we got Fawcett, Greg Noonan was someone who helped me a lot in the early days, helped us a lot. He was at Vermont Palm Brewery, and I just said, “What do you want?” And he really helped me with the portfolio and specifically with Fawcett’s brand. When we got that, then we got flat pallet pricing.

(15:44)
I knew we had something because we could be very competitive into New England, into New York, down into Pennsylvania, New Jersey area. And we had a portfolio that was pretty getting broader and broader all the time. So I quit that the job, but I had done it for… Well, we started the business in ’95 and I didn’t go full time in the business until 2000 because I had to eat.

Toby (16:19):
True. So I’m kind of bouncing a little bit place here, Bryan, because I’m excited. So for those 12 bags, did you have a first customer lined up or were you peddling out to breweries and knocking on doors? How were you all making those first sales?

Claude (16:35):
We didn’t have a single one Toby, that one.

Toby (16:38):
That was a risk. So how’d that come about? Just honestly out on hitting the road like we do now Bryan or Claude?

Claude (16:45):
Well, pretty much it, Bryan.

Bryan (16:47):
Yeah, and making phone calls. I did a lot of mailings and such to breweries as they were evolving and then following up with phone calls. Then occasionally we’d get in the car and do day trips. But our first customer is the place that Jeff Hughes started brewing at, at the original Saratoga, I think Saratoga Springs Brew Pub it was called.

Heather (17:12):
Was Jeff there at the time?

Bryan (17:14):
No, he wasn’t. But he did work there when we used to deliver malt to him. He always said that he couldn’t keep up with Claude on throwing bags of malt around.

Toby (17:30):
Well, I can imagine. Have the two of you ever worked together before this? Claude, you had mentioned Tom, Tom’s, Tom’s brother of yours, Bryan, is that right?

Bryan (17:42):
Yeah, Tom’s US customs agent, and he was well established in his career, and he’s eight years older than me and had a family. He wasn’t at a point in his life where he was going to take much of a risk. I was young and dad wanted something to do to stay busy and make a few bucks in the process. But it was fun. We spent a lot of time together and these are some of the greatest years of my life was spent with my dad. We never had an argument. We didn’t always agree on things, but we’d talk it out, we’d meet in the middle and off we’d go.

Toby (18:24):
That’s good to hear. I don’t know about you, Heather, but I would have difficulty working with my parents love them to death, but I couldn’t imagine.

Heather (18:32):
I can say this, they don’t listen to this podcast.

Toby (18:35):
Oh, that’s right.

Heather (18:36):
Yeah. That would not be something that would be the top of my list. Love them but no.

Toby (18:42):
Right.

Claude (18:43):
It was a great thing, really, when you think about it.

Heather (18:47):
So you had said Tom was a home brewer, and that’s kind of how that all got started. Did he just want cheap malt to home brew?

Bryan (18:55):
I don’t think so. I think he was-

Heather (18:58):
No, no.

Bryan (18:58):
… he was looking at it saying there’s an opportunity and it’s hard for home brewers to find proper malt. There was… And timing. I mean, it couldn’t have been better timing for us too. I mean, there was an evolving market. The craft market was starting to grow, and that was the market that we were looking to sell into. Not really the home brewers side of things, but-

Claude (19:24):
One of the best things we did, Bryan, is when we got those exclusive rights, that made such a difference. Nobody else was sell those products [inaudible 00:19:37] products that helped also.

Bryan (19:39):
We really sought out-

Claude (19:40):
[inaudible 00:19:40] Noonan, we were trying to sell Greg’s malt. He’s in Burlington, Vermont at the time, God forbid he’s passed away since, and we could not sell him a handful of grain.

Bryan (19:52):
Nope.

Claude (19:55):
So finally we decided well bring him some malt. He can make beer with it. So we sat and we brought him enough to make a batch of beer. Thomas Fawcett and Sons Malt. Well, when he got done making that beer, he calls us, “Where in the hell did you get that stuff?” We had him. He was hooked. Yep.

Toby (20:19):
Going back to this van, I know it’s CBC and we’ve got the pictures of that stuff posted up in a lot of places on the website and our product catalog, stuff like that. I remember when I was growing up, my dad had a chain of dry cleaners, then he had an old, old van. It was brown carpet on the interior and had this giant, giant picture of a mouse on the outside with his pants around his ankles. And the slogan was, “Drop your pants at the Tucker’s,” as the Tucker’s Dry Cleaners. But yeah, a lot of fond memories in that van. But Bryan, I think you were telling me a story, or maybe it was you, Claude, about some difficulties y’all have had and that van breaking down and there’s some good quality stories there. Secondly, do you still have that van?

Claude (21:08):
No. No. What happened there, Toby, that van, I don’t know how I did it. It never broke down on us. Right, Bryan?

Bryan (21:17):
It didn’t break down. I mean, it had some issues.

Claude (21:19):
Other trucks since then have though.

Bryan (21:22):
No doubt, no doubt.

(21:24)
The one issue I remember is I was bringing my wife, we were going to Syracuse for the weekend. That’s where she’s from. We got off at the wrong exit to go to Lake George, Brew Pub in Lake George and kept climbing this hill, climbing this hill. As we’re coming down the other side, as we were saying earlier, we obviously put a lot of weight in the thing, and I couldn’t get it to slow down.

Toby (21:50):
Oh no.

Bryan (21:52):
Before I hit Lake George, I put both feet on the brakes and all you see is smoke coming off. My wife is screaming, “We’re on fire.” We finally managed to get it stopped. But I remember when I finally pulled into the brewery, he goes, okay, let’s go load the malt over here. I said, “No, I need a few minutes here.” Went sat in peace for a few minutes and said, “Holy crap, that was close.”

Toby (22:18):
I wonder if they had the Oh Shit handles like they do nowadays in those vehicles where you’re just hanging on for dear life right above the door there.

Bryan (22:24):
It was not good.

Toby (22:27):
So how’d y’all get into milling, which has become a staple in what we do still to this day?

Claude (22:34):
A lot of people needed it done because depends on their community where they’re at. Some of them, it was like taboo for them to grist and put out dust and that kind of stuff. So we’d do it for them.

Bryan (22:50):
Yeah, it was a big deal. I remember initially we were like, “Oh, we got a mill. Oh, this is going to be a pain in the butt.” But I mean that’s what really built the business initially was that initial service fee for us and allowed us to keep putting money back in and buying in bigger scales, starting to create economies of scale for ourselves. But we had a mill that, I think it was a Jack Schmidling mill. It was like a glorified homebrew mill. It was interesting because we had different skill sets.

(23:22)
Mine’s more on the accounting and the marketing, and Dad knows how to fix or build anything. I mean, it was so amazing. So he put the mill together and built a hopper for it, but it would take two and a half minutes to mill a bag of malt. But when that thing was running, we knew we were making money, so we were pretty happy about it. But that was a big deal for us. Was that because hardly anyone else was offering that service. So to get into the brew pubs who didn’t want the dust in the breweries and in the restaurant areas, and like dad said there might be certain ordinances that wouldn’t allow them to have them. It was big for us to be able to do that.

Heather (24:06):
Yeah, definitely a game changer. Toby touched on the van. I want to touch on one other little iconic image that I’ve seen since I started with CMG. And that’s the shed, the mulch shed, which, if anybody has been to CBC and been to our booth over the past five years, we’ve recreated that or CBC Booth. Can you tell us a little bit about your shed?

Bryan (24:30):
Go ahead, Dad. You talk about that. It was in the back of your house.

Claude (24:35):
Oh, the shed. Yeah. Well, that’s where the first bags went in that shed. Well, naturally, that was our mower shed. So Beverly’s mother had room in her garage, so it was in the fall of the year, late September. I took to the mower over there, put in her shed in her garage, and we emptied it right out. There wasn’t a thing left in there. Then that’s where the grist mill went and the malt. Then at this point, it’s getting to the problem is being, the shed’s not big enough. So we rented some of those that cubicles that malt in there. A friend of mine, Champlain, had a trailer, 40 foot trailer. He says, “Can you use that trailer, Claude?” He says, “I got a bunch of junk in there.” He says, “I’ll take it out.” He says, “You might as well use it.” So we had malt in there, remember Bryan?

Bryan (25:34):
We would go everywhere. We’d touch a bag 10 times before we sold it initially.

Toby (25:39):
Just moving it around.

Claude (25:40):
[inaudible 00:25:40] where it was. Oh my God.

Toby (25:42):
Stash houses.

Bryan (25:43):
Exactly.

Claude (25:46):
Well, at first that’s all we had was the malt. But as time went on, we got into cleaning chemicals and got into adjuncts and Oh my God, name it. And when Bryan came up with that slogan, One Stop Shop, that’s where we made it.

Toby (26:03):
Still using that to the day. It’s great. It’s really good. So we’ve seen a lot of changes over the 30 years, Bryan and Claude. How did we get incorporated with other malting brands? Obviously the mothership of Great Western Malting and CMC. I know there’s a lot to what’s happened over the past 30 years, but talk a little bit about how we got to where we are today.

Claude (26:32):
Well, to me, the one that surprised me the most was Briess. He called us. Remember Bryan?

Bryan (26:41):
Yeah. There was a relationship with then Greg Freberg and the president or CEO of Briess. We started having those conversations and it just seemed to make a lot of sense for us to work together.

Claude (26:56):
You want to know if we wanted to sell their all. Sure.

Bryan (27:00):
And then with Bestmalz, that’s another brand in the family. We were selling Weisheimer initially, and they were having major quality issues. They used to have these yellow tags that were sewn into them with the name on them and nothing else. Then container would show up and all the tags are off the bags. So it’s tough to know, it’s a Vienna.

Claude (27:27):
Exactly.

Bryan (27:29):
Then customers started having issues brewing, and I just said, it’s time to look for something else. And at that time, I called Axel’s brother, Martin was running the business then and called him and said, “Look, we’d want to consider carrying your brand in North America.” That was, I don’t know what that was, probably 2005, maybe somewhere in that,

Claude (27:53):
Maybe that area. Yeah, probably before that, Bryan.

Bryan (27:56):
Yeah, it could be. That’s when we began selling that and we worked with them to develop their roastings in Germany. And that’s been a good relationship. Obviously Gilbertson and Page was a brand that we sold from the very beginning and from the adjuncts. Most of what we did and what we would add was it was a grocery store. We wanted to make the grocery store. I didn’t want to give customers a lot of reason to say, “Well, I don’t like what’s in your grocery store. I’m going to go somewhere else.” So we tried to carry a wide array of products and give the customer the opportunity to make a decision for him or herself, what they were looking for.

Toby (28:48):
Yeah, that’s a great model. It’s worked out well, Bryan. Who were the competitors at the time? I know you said Milling, y’all were the only ones doing that that you knew of, but who were some of your biggest competitors at the time?

Bryan (29:02):
Brewer’s Wholesale was the largest one on the East Coast, and that’s the predecessor to BSG today. And then there was Crosby and Baker, that was the original distributors for Wiremen and Muntins.

Claude (29:20):
Yeah, and then-

Bryan (29:23):
Remember Chris, Bryan?

(29:24)
Chris. That was Brewer’s Wholesale out of, I think they were in Newport, Rhode Island.

(29:32)
They were the largest players at that time, no doubt. Ten when they formed with BSG, seemed like it made sense for us to get larger too. If we wanted to take this model across North America, and it was right at the whole subprime issue to ’07, ’08, ’09, where we were really doing well with the business. But if any time the bank would’ve said, sorry, because loan access to money was getting tighter and tighter, it could have been a problem for us. So we wanted to get bigger.

(30:13)
We started what was then Mid-Country Malt Supply in Chicago, hired a fellow who I think both of Kelly Keele to work with us and off we went in Chicago. And then it was, “Where’s next? Where’s next?” But at that point, we had joined what was then United Malt Holdings, the predecessor to Grain Corp, and started to go in other directions. That’s when we changed it to Country Malt Group because we didn’t want to advertise them individually. What’s next after mid-country? Mountain country. So we changed the name to Country Malt Group and operated as one business at that point.

Toby (30:59):
Things have progressed, and now Country Malt Group is under the umbrella of the largest malting company in the world, so wow to how the progression is gone on about, and we’re a part of this very large organization.

Bryan (31:14):
No doubt. That was, like I said, like we said earlier, that was our first brand that we had exclusivity on. And I worked with, well, dad and I worked with a lady named Lillian Bruder in Europe. In France who actually just retired. So that was a great relationship.

Toby (31:37):
What have been some of your favorite trends in the industry? I know Bryan, in the thirteen-ish years I’ve been around, I’ve seen a handful of some trends and some craziness. What have been some of your favorites that y’all have experienced over the past 30 years?

Bryan (31:56):
The thing that I always was impressed by is initially it was Americans are going to start emulating British beer or Belgian beer or German or wherever. Then as the market went, the leaders became North America and others started trying to emulate what was happening here. That’s still some degree continues to happen, that what happens here first could carry over into other markets. But I always thought that was pretty interesting how it came full circle in that aspect where the followers became the leaders as it went on.

Toby (32:49):
What about you, Claude?

Claude (32:50):
Well, I have to mention Bryan’s mother. Cashflow was, as you probably guessed, a problem. Until way back way into 2000, probably about 2005, I never took a set out of the business. I put everything right back into it, and what we lived on was Beverly’s job, Beverly’s a administrator in the community. She was a very influential movement in the area, and that’s what we lived on. She made a lot of difference.

Bryan (33:23):
She did, and she allowed us to do things that a mom, a lesser mom or lesser wife might not have done. I mean, to take over part of the house was our office, obviously [inaudible 00:33:37] was there and we were very fortunate there, no doubt.

Claude (33:44):
Bryan, remember the time we had a load of malt over there at the Malterei Franco Belge, and I had to pay for it?

Bryan (33:55):
Yeah.

Claude (33:55):
I didn’t have enough cash to do it, so I thought, holy cow, she’s going to have a fit. I thought, well, I’m going down the village office and tell her we got to use that home equity loan that we have. Never used it, but we had it. I said to Bryan, I said, I’m going down there and tell your mother we’re going to borrow money on the house and pay for that malt. Oh, it didn’t go over that good, but she went for it.

Bryan (34:27):
Yep.

Claude (34:27):
Yep.

Bryan (34:30):
Definitely looking forward to paying that back pretty quickly.

Claude (34:35):
And they say that’s the worst taboo to do. Don’t get your health involved with the business that you’re starting. Well, we stepped over the line.

Toby (34:44):
Right. Now you can pay it off.

Claude (34:47):
Yep.

Heather (34:49):
What other challenges did you face starting the company that you didn’t really expect?

Bryan (34:56):
Well, whenever you start a company and you didn’t buy something that already exists, you’re starting from scratch. So you’re really… And typically, which was always a commodity type business prior, so what we saw, and Burrows Wholesale was trying to change this and so was Crosby and Baker as well, but it was always 2-row malt or wheat or a caramel malt, but it wasn’t Franco Belge Pale Ale or Thomas Fawcett Maris Otters. So we really sought out to brand ourselves because if we didn’t, typically in a commodity space, the deepest pockets are going to win and we would’ve failed quickly.

(35:43)
But we learned so much and we were lucky that the market did what it did. The market really, really allowed us to grow and experiment and to try different things. If they didn’t work, we didn’t get crushed by them because the market kept going. I remember it was almost a day in time. I remember it, I was going to play in a golf tournament in the afternoon, and we were getting busier and busier, and all of a sudden that day, and I think it was maybe in 2001, 2002, all of a sudden the phones just went nuts, and we just were so busy, and then it was nonstop. I was ordering containers left and right in the evenings and back and forth to Montreal. Then we put silos in, which was a big help to us, but it was almost a day in time where things really started to go for us. Then we started being able to put salespeople on the road, and the business really never looked back from that day, but the mistakes made, I mean-

Claude (36:58):
There weren’t that many.

Bryan (36:59):
Yeah, but we were lucky.

Claude (37:03):
Mm-hmm. Timing was great, you’re right. Timing was unbelievable.

Bryan (37:06):
Timing and location was-

Claude (37:09):
Yeah, location. Yep. You’re right.

Toby (37:12):
Well, if you were to go back and do anything differently, I know we touched a little bit on it already, but is there anything that you can point a finger at and say, “Gosh, would’ve done or should have done this,” or would’ve changed something you’ve done over the past 30 years?

Claude (37:29):
On my end?

Toby (37:30):
Sure.

Claude (37:31):
No, we didn’t make that many mistakes, did we, Bryan?

Bryan (37:34):
No, we were-

Claude (37:37):
We did it right.

Bryan (37:39):
Like we said, the market did what it did, and thank God for that. It was about building relationships, and we worked hard to build those. If we said we were going to do something, we did it and customers respected that. Even when we made a mistake, we fixed it and moved on and tried not to repeat it. The one thing that people have asked me through the years, “Are you sorry you sold when you did, if you would’ve held onto it?” At that time, it was exactly the right thing to do. Like dad said, we both had our houses on it, on the business. I had a baby and another one on the way, and it was that whole subprime issue where if they decided not to lend us money, we would’ve collapsed by our growth. So I never look back from that day forward, and I try to learn from whatever mistakes we make. God knows you’re going to learn more from those than the things do right, but I never dwelled on any of them. We just moved on and was never afraid to make the next decision.

Toby (38:42):
Well, I think a lot of that business acumen and the way that you guys approach the market and putting customer first certainly rode with us through the entirety of the 30 years and will continue to do so. I think it was a testament to the two of you in that we still have a lot of folks in the organization, still with the organization and take a lot of pride in being here and the history in it. So it’s really cool what the two of you all have put together.

Bryan (39:17):
Well, thanks, Toby.

Claude (39:17):
Thanks Toby.

Bryan (39:19):
Yep. There’s one person I want to mention here, and I’m sure many of our listeners will know. This gentleman passed recently and he was like a family member to us, James Fawcett from Thomas Fawcett’s and Son, seventh generation to run the business. Now his boys are the eighth taking over for their dad. He passed away recently. Truly one of my best friends and one of my best advisors. I mean, the things that we talked through the years about the business, and he of was son number three to my mom and dad through the years.

Claude (40:00):
You’re right there.

Bryan (40:00):
He’s a big loss and-

Claude (40:03):
Yes. Terrible, terrible loss.

Bryan (40:05):
Someone I think about-

Claude (40:07):
Nice man, nice family.

Bryan (40:09):
Truly.

Claude (40:10):
Yeah.

Toby (40:11):
Yeah. He definitely made an impact on the industry, especially here in the States with our team and a lot of folks in the market. So certainly is missed.

Heather (40:25):
I had the pleasure of having him up here in Vancouver for a week with me at the end of last year, and it was amazing, and everybody was just so excited to get to meet him. Just such a legend.

Claude (40:38):
Yeah, he sure was.

Bryan (40:39):
He was larger than life and just a joy to be around. His boys are outstanding young men, and they’re going to do a great job, but no question they know it, and we all know it they have big shoes to fill.

Toby (40:54):
Thinking back how many hamburgers and chicken wings you probably ate with that guy.

Bryan (40:58):
That’s all he would order.

Toby (40:59):
I know.

Bryan (40:59):
Him and Martin-

Claude (41:01):
Him and Martin.

Bryan (41:02):
… we’d go on the road and they’d look at a menu and, “I’ll get the burger.” I’m like, “Why the hell do you look at a menu? You know that’s what you’re going to get every time.”

Claude (41:12):
They say to Martin, “What do you want to eat tonight, Martin?”

(41:14)
“Oh, why don’t we got to Five Guys.”

Bryan (41:20):
Have a burger.

Claude (41:21):
A hamburger. Well, while we’re talking about James, we called him wanting to sell his products, and he wasn’t too excited about it. He told his father, “We need to get into the US market.” He says, “I’m going to go to a trade show that they’re having.” So sure enough, his father says, “Go over there and see what you’re going to do.” So he got over, goes back home. Father said, “Well, you just spent 5,000 pounds to go over there. Did you accomplish anything?” He says, “No.” He says, “Nobody can take a container load.” Our timing was perfect. We called him again, remember, Bryan? Or he called us, whatever, “You want to be my middle man?” Exactly, we want to be your middle man. That’s how I got started.

Bryan (42:16):
Then he came back with a price, and I said, “Well, you better rethink that.” He goes, “Okay.” Talked again a week later. And I said, “Have you rethought it?” He says, “I have, and I think I might raise it if you [inaudible 00:42:32].” Okay. So we came to a compromise and did exactly what he wanted and placed an order for some malt. He says, it was funny. He goes, “Well, I got another news for you. You’re going to pay for the first one before I ship it because I don’t know.” I said, “That’s fair.” Obviously, through the years that had changed.

Claude (42:51):
Yeah, we had no idea what he looked like. Then as it would be the trade show that year was in Portland, Maine.

Bryan (43:02):
Yeah, it was the last group mentioned.

Claude (43:05):
Yeah. We go over there with, my grandchildren called it the Mothmobile and brought some stuff with us, and James is coming over. So we were picking him up at the airport. So Bryan and I are there, can’t find James. So I walked down this concourse, come back, I said, “I can’t find him.” Bryan says, “Turn around, Dad. He’s right behind you.” Never forgot it.

Bryan (43:35):
Yeah. That was my wife and my first anniversary we spent at that trade show.

Claude (43:39):
Yep. Yep.

Toby (43:42):
No better place to be, I guess.

Bryan (43:44):
That’s right.

Claude (43:45):
Yeah. A lot of great memories.

Toby (43:48):
Any advice for your younger self?

Bryan (43:52):
I think the one thing that I wish I did more of is enjoy the journey more. I was so focused on growing the business, wasn’t that I didn’t take the time to, I guess, smell the roses or enjoy what we had done. It was more go, go, go, go, go. I would equate it to redlining the car all the time. Eventually, you got to take your foot off the accelerator, and that was hard for me to do, and I wish I would’ve done that.

Claude (44:26):
Well, Bryan, one thing you did do is spend a lot of time in airplanes.

Bryan (44:31):
No doubt.

Claude (44:33):
Unbelievable.

Heather (44:34):
So where’s your favorite place? Has it taken you anywhere really interesting, your favorite place that you’ve got to go?

Bryan (44:40):
I enjoyed a lot of the trips to Europe, but I enjoyed the last one I went, I got to go to Prague and the Czechomalt, and obviously I enjoyed the trips when I got to go to Australia. But the one thing I always enjoyed was going to James Fawcett’s house and spending time with him and his family. That was always a great time for me.

Claude (45:07):
Yeah, I’ve been to James’s house, beautiful home. I’ve never been to the new one where he lives now or did live, but he was a great relationship with us.

Toby (45:21):
Well, we’re ecstatic to be celebrating 30 successful years of what the two of y’all put together, and the time and energy that y’all spent doing it. Really, when I say legends, I mean the two of you had a big part of how the craft brewing movement evolved because of y’all taken the risk and really putting the effort into growing this business and this model. I would think you have a heavy part in where we are today as an industry.

Heather (46:00):
Absolutely.

Claude (46:01):
Right. Well, at first that was it, that was where [inaudible 00:46:09] manager officer, truck driver name it, and then when Bryan came on full time, when the money was there for him to take a paycheck, he just took it to the next level. That’s what happened.

Toby (46:20):
Yep. You’ve You’ve done a lot for us, Bryan and Claude both. So we’re going to be celebrating 30 years all year, I say.

Heather (46:30):
We are.

Toby (46:31):
We’re going to be doing a lot of it at CBC, right?

Heather (46:34):
As always, we will be celebrating at CBC. So we are going to be partying like it’s 1995.

Bryan (46:42):
Perfect.

Toby (46:43):
We’re going to dress up or what?

Heather (46:45):
I think I’ve never really moved away from the nineties in my attire, so I feel like I’m still going to be… I’ll be fine. But the first night of CBC, Tuesday April 29th from 7:00 to 10:00 at Goodman House Brewing in Indianapolis, we are going to be having our 30th anniversary party. And it is nineties themed. So I mean, I feel like you could just run with that.

Toby (47:12):
Sure. Yeah. I got to think about what I would wear. I don’t know.

Claude (47:15):
Remember, I got say something about this, at the trade show in Nashville? I don’t know what prompted it. Everybody had a shirt on with my picture on the front, and it was Claude for President. I don’t know-

Toby (47:30):
I remember that.

Claude (47:30):
… I never knew a thing about it until the last minute.

Bryan (47:34):
That was Ryan Hopkins idea from Yakima Chief, he was always [inaudible 00:47:42]. Yeah, that was dad’s 80th birthday. That was when the last time he attended one of our big trade shows.

Claude (47:51):
Yeah, I think that was the last one. I turned 80.

Toby (47:51):
That was a good night. Remember it vividly. Yeah, that’s CBC party for the listeners, just come by the booth if you’re out there. We are giving away free digital tickets to the party. So we got a lot of room for a lot of folks. Come celebrate with us on the 30th anniversary. Bryan, are you coming out?

Bryan (48:13):
I sure am. Yeah. I look forward to being there.

Toby (48:15):
Nice.

Bryan (48:15):
Yep.

Toby (48:15):
There you go. We’ll put you up on a pedestal or something in a cage.

Bryan (48:19):
Perfect.

Claude (48:20):
[inaudible 00:48:21] your shirt on, Bryan?

Heather (48:21):
Yeah, sure. Can we get a shirt with Bryan’s photo on it?

Toby (48:27):
A poll and see where that goes.

Heather (48:30):
Oh.

Bryan (48:31):
Wonderful.

Heather (48:32):
He went there.

Bryan (48:33):
Everyone will be gone in five minutes.

Toby (48:37):
We’re looking forward to it. Then we’ve got some catalog art that we wanted to show to you.

Heather (48:45):
So we are launching the new catalog. We’ll be out at CBC, so I’m going to share this. All right, so this will be Bryan’s first look.

Bryan (48:57):
That is amazing.

Heather (48:59):
So yeah, we got the shed, we’ve got the van, silos in the background.

Bryan (49:05):
I love it. That is awesome. I like the palette. And that’s exactly the idea is-

Heather (49:10):
Yeah, that’s very one-stop shop right there.

Bryan (49:12):
Shop. I love it.

Toby (49:14):
Oh look, it says Claude Street on the street sign.

Bryan (49:16):
Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (49:16):
It does.

Toby (49:17):
It’s awesome.

Bryan (49:17):
That is awesome.

Toby (49:20):
Really, really cool.

Bryan (49:22):
That building in the background definitely looks like our first warehouse, so that is pretty cool.

Claude (49:29):
Yep, yep.

Bryan (49:30):
Love it.

Claude (49:32):
That is a great facility, actually. We had the silos, the bagging system, the palletizer, shrink wrapper. Anything you need in that building is there.

Toby (49:43):
Great job to the marketing team putting this together. Yeah.

Heather (49:46):
Yeah, 100%.

Bryan (49:48):
Really good job. This is pretty cool.

Heather (49:54):
If everybody wants to actually see this, you have to come by and see us at the booth at CBC so you can grab a new catalog and come and see this along. I don’t know if Haley is going to put this on social media or not, but-

Bryan (50:07):
That’s awesome.

Toby (50:08):
Bryan, tell us what you’re doing now?

Bryan (50:09):
Well, I’m working on, the thing that always excited me is the entrepreneurial aspect of the business. So now I’m more stepped in the background, more consulting for the business now on looking for opportunities and what’s next on the R&D and business development side, which is great. That’s the stuff that I’m passionate about and what excited me when I was first building the business with Dad. That’s pretty exciting and exactly where I want to be spending my time at this point in my career.

Toby (50:48):
Anything you can share with us at this point or we’re going to leave that for a later date?

Bryan (50:52):
Oh, we’ll leave that for a later date as we’re looking at different opportunities. But obviously, it’s just different things that are built around the needs of the customers, the needs of what they have today or potentially the needs that we anticipate them having in the future. If I was going to close with anything, from my perspective, it’s thanking you and all the people in the business who… I mean, well, we’ve been very fortunate to surround myself by good people. Certainly my dad is one of those good people who we’ve enjoyed working with, but we have to thank the customers.

(51:30)
If it wasn’t for them who bought in and agreed and were willing to give us an opportunity, we certainly won’t be talking about this today. So thankful for those customers and for the vendors who chose to trust us as a good partner to distribute for them.

Toby (51:49):
A hundred percent. On behalf of Country Malt Group and the entire organization on our end, again, we thank the two of you for really, again, putting all you have on the line and building this great operation and great business that we get to work in every day. So thank you for the two of you.

Heather (52:09):
Thank you.

Claude (52:10):
Thank you for having me.

Bryan (52:12):
Yep. Thanks so much. This was very enjoyable to walk down memory lane a little bit here, so I look forward to-

Claude (52:18):
Keep me updated about the party, send me an email and two pictures.

Bryan (52:23):
Sure will.

Heather (52:25):
Absolutely.

Toby (52:26):
Thanks Claude. Thanks Bryan. I appreciate your time today.

Heather (52:31):
Thank you both so much.

Toby (52:31):
Happy 30th.

Claude (52:31):
Thank you.

Toby (52:32):
Again, a big thanks to Bryan and Claude for joining us today and sharing the story of how CMG came to be and for everything they’ve done for our industry. If you’ll be at CBC next week, which Bryan will be there, please come by our booth at 3300 to meet them and celebrate with us on this awesome occasion of 30 years. Don’t forget your digital ticket to our party on Tuesday at Goodman House. Visit countrymalt.com/CBC for more info.

Heather (53:05):
One last thing, it is along with CBC, it’s of course World Beer Cup. You know what that means? It is gold metal vest season. So if you make a beer with great Western malting or Canada malting base malt and you win gold at the World Beer Cup, you’ll be getting hooked up with a Filson vest. So make sure to contact your sales rep for more information and good luck to everyone that has entered. I think that’s all we got.

Toby (53:33):
Yeah, let’s see everybody in Indy. Come out and see us.

Heather (53:35):
See everybody in Indy. Bye y’all.

Toby (53:37):
Bye Heather.