This is Beer in Front. Each episode I'll bring you the latest and old
and new school beers. I'll bring on people and breweries from across the country,
as well as featured beer from the great city of Chicago. That's Beer
in Front and it's coming up now. Welcome to episode one hundred and sixty
four of Beer in Front. I'm your host, Dave's Alatorus and Beer in
Front is a proud member of the Odd Pods Media Network. I have a
really good show, nice interview that I had with Larry Horwitz. Larry is
over at Crooked Hammock Brewery. They're out of Delaware and Myrtle Beach. I
had a couple beers from them that were both spectacular, great interview, a
lot of fun talking to Larry, even though we had some Zoomies shoes,
so forgive the zoom issues, but that was just a lot of fun for
all the dads out there and single moms raising kids alone. Hope everyone had
a great Father's Day weekend. We didn't do much here. Moira did not
get me a gift. She didn't even let me sleep on Father's Day.
I don't have any children. I have Moira, Rose and the little gangster
did like shakers and started licking her paws at six in the morning. So
that was my Father's Day gift from Moira. I'm recording this. She's laying
on her bed next to me. Is she just looking up at me like
you're a dick? But I hope everyone had a good Father's Day out there.
If you'd like to support the show, head over. It's a patreon
dot com slash Beer in Front. You could support the show for as little
as one dollar or a month, or if you can't do that, I
totally get it. I still appreciate you, and I appreciate you listening.
Just give a five star review, like follow me on Instagram, TikTok,
all that other stuff YouTube, follow me at Beer in Front if you could
like and subscribe there, that helps the show and the algorithms get more people
to watch this nonsense. So I appreciate all of you out there. Over
the weekend, I stopped off at Dovetail, one of my favorite spots,
and they had a toast and it was the Polish Beer Day Rosious Kia,
so I had one of those that was phenomenal. Grab myself a T shirt.
So that was a lot of fun. There's a ton of stuff happening
where in the summertime. So whether you're in Chicago or anywhere around the world,
go out find yourself for brewery. Everyone's having festivals get togethers, so
please head out and support your local brewery. Remember last year when I did
an episode from the Shower and I did a shower Beer. Ruby and I
were out yesterday. We were walking around Lincoln Square and we went into this
little local shop and there's a soap from a company called Soap Distillery. They
make a bar of soap called shower Beer. So I'm a Duke Cannon guy.
If any guys are out there and you have Duke Cannon bars of soap,
they're big. So when this bar of soap runs down a little bit,
I'm going to go have to pick up a shower beer bar of soap
and maybe do another episode in Beer News. Illinois passed. They did this
on May twenty six, but I just saw it. They passed an emergency
order restricting crossover beverages like your sunny d and then the hard Sunny d the
Mountain dews where you have to separate them. You can't place them side by
side. I know a few other states are thinking of doing it, and
really they should. I was reading over on brew Bound that and I didn't
realize this New Jersey. The craft breweries there have a lot of restrictions,
and there's some laws that are going through the state Assembly that's going to help
them, Like some of them will allow them to have food trucks and vendors
on site, and they'll be allowed to have like special events like most bars
or breweries they have, like trivia nights or like yoga on weekend. I
guess New Jersey can't do this, but there's some bills going through the Assembly
that hopefully will allow New Jersey to catch up with the rest of the world
here in Chicago. On Friday, June thirtieth, half Acre Brewery in Vienna
hot Dog they're gonna have their annual only Gold celebration. If you go to
half Acre, you could pick up a good Chicago style hot dog and only
gold lagger. That's always a fun time. The beer is great, and
who doesn't love a hot dog? No catch up? Read over on my
Beer Buzz that Ale Smith out of San Diego. They're going to have a
couple new variants of their speedway style which is a winner. They're gonna have
a barrel aged version coming out and an Afa Gatto which is going to have
some coffee vanilla beans from Tahiti that looks really good along with the barrel age,
so look for that coming out in the fall from Alesmith. Finally I
reached out to them. I don't know if they're gonna listen to me because
I'm just a jackass in Chicago. But Bill Gates, he threw some money
behind this startup company that is making a beer from wastewater that is like stuff
from your shower. So it's called Epic One water Brew. It's going to
be a colch style ale made from purified shower, laundry and sink water.
I've reached out to them. I'm hoping that they send me a can because
I'll try it on the show and talk about it. But I don't know.
I mean, there's some days I skip a shower and not a lot,
you know, one day a week I skip a shower. I hope
they used the water from not that day. But there's a new beer coming
out with recycled shower water. If you're interested in it. It's called Epic
One water Brew. Hi I'm Tina how Tomeo and I'm Hilary Dougherty, and
we host The Muck Podcast, where we discussed the dark and sometimes weird true
stories in American politics. Etina, did you know that Elvis crashed the Nixon
White House for the sole purpose of getting a DA badge and it worked?
Or how a gun control advocate senator out of California engaged in gun trafficking with
notorious gang leader shrimp Boy Boy I remember him, Okay, So you know.
We cover all of that and more from Malady's madness, mischief and murder
in US politics, and we also host a bi weekly interview segment called Little
Muck. We interview politicians, journalists, activists, and others who share their
experiences in politics. Find The Muck Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and
check us out on social media at the Muck Podcast. All right, welcome
back to the show I'm having on right now from Crooked Hammock Brewery. He's
the head of brewing operations, Larry Horwitz. Crooked Hammock just put out a
new beer last week called Hammock Light. This is a lagger four point two
percent. I'm looking forward to cracking us open. Larry, how's everything going
this afternoon? I'm doing great? How are you, Dave? Excellent?
Thank you. Crooked Hammock has three locations, two in Delaware, one in
Myrtle Beach. Can you tell me about the brewery? Yeah? Absolutely,
Well, first I'll tell you that Crooked Hammock is a division of Lelita Hospitality,
so there are actually more hospitality businesses and involved with us, and we
sell beer that we make a Crooked Hammock at almost all of our locations,
which is awesome. But we're are you know, we're a backyard cookout themed
hospitality business, a brew pub if you will, for those of us at
a certain age that has been around since twenty fifteen. We have three locations
and all three of them have a brewery and a brewery on site. Our
original location from twenty fifteen is in Lewis, Delaware, right on your way
into town there off at nine. Then we're in Middletown. We have a
very beautiful, large location there with a huge backyard. We literally have an
AstroTurf backyard full of full of games for kids and adults. I mean that's
that's our stick, right, Yeah, you know, easy drinking backyard beer
for backyard cookouts. And of course our third location is right on the inter
Coastal Waterway in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and oddly at the moment
it's our physically largest location and also our busiest location, although we are very
very busy, especially you know, Memorial Day just came and went and it's
officially you know, open for business. Season at the beach Middletown is interesting.
It's busy most of the year, but of course it gets extra busy
when the weather gets great because we have such a large outdoor space there.
We brew all of the beer we serve at crick at Hammock locations at Crook
at Hammock, which is I won't say that's terribly unique, but I'm pretty
proud of that. Right. We don't serve anybody else's beer unless it's a
collaboration or a special occasion and we have you know how it is, we
don't do this thing, and except when we do, yeah, right,
you know, occasionally we invite our friends, especially in Lower Delaware, to
come by for ourn event. We do an event every year called Beer Drinker's
Choice, which is basically a popularity contest of all local brewers, which is
kind of fun. You know, are you cool dressed up in costume and
drink beer? Yeah? You mentioned like the big holiday weekend. Has everything
in your locations? Has it rebounded from twenty twenty, We'll be back in
full swing. Yeah, you know. So we just had the Crack Brewer's
Convention in Nashville, and that's kind of where I look to for industry trends
and averages. And you know, all the numbers are saying a lot of
the same thing, which is the world is looking a whole lot like it
did before the whatnot, and we're seeing the same thing. You know.
Obviously, we believe people are being a little more cautious than they would have
been before, and the world is certainly a different place than it was.
But sales are back and our guests are coming back, and we're seeing the
crowds, especially in Lower Delaware and in North Mertle Beach, we're seeing the
crowds start to show back up. So our traffic counts, which we watch
pretty carefully, are on trend with about three years ago. All right,
awesome, Well, the newest beer you have is Hammock light Logger. I
mentioned in the intro. This is a four point two percent ten Ibu beer.
Why don't you tell us about that while I crack it open. Yeah,
you want to make the noise there by the mill. Absolutely that never
gets old, never, never a minute. And thank you for pouring that
in a glass to make my heart happy when you do that. That's awesome.
So you know, obviously we're Brere that started in a beach town and
we were absolutely ridiculously busy for the first re us we were open because you
know, as as my leader and one of our founding owners rich which Rich
G will tell you, he said, you know, we opened a brewery
with one ton abandoned and lots of hubris. We had no idea what we're
doing, and we did it anyway, and aren't we all glad that he
did? And so they just got overwhelmed and that meant that there were some
limitations that the relatively small seven barrel brewhouse that's installed and Lewis could support,
right, So we were really ale heavy for a long time. Um and
as we expanded, you know that I don't want to say that that slowed
us down any because you know, we've been very successful with sour beers,
and with hoppy beers and with the ales we've brewed m But you know,
I think we all kind of know the crispy boy phenomenon is real right now
and folk are looking to drink clean, crisp, crushable lager beer. And
so you know, I'm I'm a relatively new addition to the Hammock team.
I've been there since the end of the last year, and you know,
we've been working together to say, all right, well, what can we
how can we take our portfolio and create even more products that our consuming public
want to drink? And I am super passionate about Logger beer in general.
I mean I cut my teeth in the industry working for arguably the single largest
manufacturing beer in the world. And of course I've worked for craft breweries all
across the United States for the last thirty years. Most famously for me,
early in my career, brew that doesn't existing work called Hosper Brewing Company in
Columbus, Ohio, which at the time, and I'll date myself here by
telling you that I started working there in the early nineties. You know,
they were making exclusively Logger beer, and that was really strange because who did
that, right. I mean most of us who've been around remember the times
when you know. I have a good friend who was the brewer at the
John Harvards in Cambridge Square and they had two for manners, right Like.
He's like, we'd brew beer on Monday and we'd be selling it on Saturday.
And I'm like, beer takes at least two weeks to make. He's
like, yeah, it does, doesn't it. I'm like, all right,
well that's interesting. So you know, this tiny, little, tiny
little brewer was passionate about logger beer. Is one of the reasons I got
a job there. My boss at that time was a man named Alan Young,
who, interestingly enough, just retired from the industry. But he's like,
you know, logger beer is a special thing, and and I don't
want to call myself a Deutsche file, but I definitely have great respect for
the lager beering traditions, especially of Southern Germany. So all throughout my career
I have focused on making these kinds of styles, and of course, you
know, as as a journey person brewer, I think it's important that we
represent just about all of the style categories that our customers are going to be
interested in. But I'm pretty excited to see the market. You know,
we live long enough the clothes that used to be hip hip again. So
the beer that I used to make a lot of is suddenly very desired by
customers. And so we've kind of got this interesting crossroads where my taste and
desire around manufacturing are starting to meet the consumer desire. Obviously a lot of
other beer in our portfolio, but we sat down and said, okay,
well what are we missing? You know what, what could we do here
that would really get people excited about our brand? And I looked at the
portfo and I said, I mean, it sounds kind of interesting for us
to discuss it, but we are missing a premium American lager beer. And
everybody said, well, you know, we have made longer beer in the
past, it's been popular, it's done well, and said, well,
let's get this thing into development. So for the first three months of this
year, my team worked really hard to try to find the right base malts
and to try to find the right continental European hops and choose a yeast.
And it was a very thoughtful process, which I'm proud of the team for.
You know, I've got three guys who work in lead positions for me,
Mickey and Lewis Brandon in Middletown and Kyle in South Carolina, and these
guys are solid, solid executors. And as a group, we built this
product and we started rolling out trial batches of it as early as February and
it landed kind of weird is right now, which is, you know,
while we talk about it as light lagger, and it certainly is by all
meaningful and legal definitions, it's a beer withsome flavor in it, right,
I mean you can taste the malt here. This is common right, and
there's it's got that bready biscuity flavor to it. But it's clean and crisp.
And you know, I am a die hard fan of South German noble
hops. You know, the aroma hop in that beer is Hallertel Middle Frew
And while there's you know, it's funny because for the last twenty years of
my career we've been talking about dry hop editions and pounds for barrel. Right,
Like you know, when we make a new England I PA that will
roll pretty soon, it's going to be an all the time beer for us.
And we're debating whether it gets three pounds for barrel or four pounds for
barrel. Right, that's a fun debate. Right, it's good, but
it needs some more. How much more? I don't know. A bunch
of a couple glows keep going, Yeah, where's the diminision? Returns on
beautiful hops? Right, So the lightlogger worked its way around to the to
the product you're drinking right now, and then we made another what I joke,
but it's almost true. You know, we made a bold decision.
We filtered the beer. And I know that there are a lot of beers
out there who think that's blasphemy. And I look at it like this,
If you're a carpenter, filter is like a ball peen hammer for a carpenter,
right, Like it's just another tool in the box. And well,
it's not always appropriate for every project you work on. There are times when
there is nothing that will replace that tool. And in this case, I
think that the style definitely deserves the level of clarity. I mean, you
know, are we we're just audio? Are Yeah, we're just audio,
but I'll keep the video. But yeah, this is crystal clear. It's
a beautiful golden color. I mean it's a little darker than if you're thinking,
if you're listening to the show, you're thinking of just Macro. No,
this is a lot darker than that. But it's just a beautiful golden
color. Yeah. So you know, the alcohol content and the hop content
looks like you would expect from a domestic premium, you know. But we
were intentional about the choice of the Pillzar malt. It's in that beer because
I don't like beer that doesn't have flavor. Right. It can be crisp
and clean and light on the palette and still be interesting and and have something
that I look forward to get another one, right, and selfishly, you
know, I'm a man of a certain age. I want to be able
to drink three or four of these bad boys at home, not driving,
and you know, so some of my taste obviously drove where this landed.
But it's great because my team all when we got finished, and I think
it was a good bit of work by everybody. We got finished with the
project, and you know, you're holding a version of it right now that
we're really proud of it. Everybody was like, yeah, man, I
mean I think we feel like we've figured out how to how to manufacture yellow
beer. You know, and I think that that's an awesome story. But
the real story here is that our customers have been asking for this product,
right, and you know, I think we got to own that a little
bit where sometimes in the crafty industry it's felt to me like we can exclude
people, right, And our brand is not about exclusion. Our brand about
is about finding people where they are and bringing them beautiful, well made products
that will help them enjoy their life, so hopefully in a backyard and hopefully
you know, in a hammock. And this beer seems to be well for
that. It is right now and all three of our locations are number one
selling product after really only one week. And you know, it could be
argued that one would expect that, but I didn't necessarily expect that. You
know, we're known for our sour beers, We're known for our hopey beers.
So it was like, well, we'll see how the how our diehard
fans feel about it. But they're telling us what their wallets that they really
dig it. Then I'm stoked about that. Yeah, And it's like this
would be the perfect beer, you know, And I'm not close to Delaware
or Myrtle Beach, but sure, for me. I think this would be
like the perfect beer. You're having a backyard barbecue. You're throwing some brots
and burgers on the grill. You could sit there and work the grill all
day. Have a couple of these. You're not going to get hammered.
You're not going to get bloated. It's a really good beer tasting this.
It only has ten IBus but you notice the hops there. The hops aren't
hidden at all. It has a really nice taste. I love the hops
that you use. You know, a middle fruit is great. I work
with a few different hop suppliers who'd do really great work for us. But
you know, every once in a while, somebody will come to me and
say, hey, I've got this hot it's just like alagile middlefrud. And
I say, that's interesting. We'll we'll do trials because I believe in trying
new product right. And nine times at a time I come back and say,
well, I see where you're going there. But you know we're still
gonna get medal fruit right. And you know we're working on our contracts to
make sure we can ensure a supply of that. You know, it doesn't
necessarily always have to come from the south of Germany. But at the moment,
I believe some of the best noble hops are coming from that region,
and we've got relationships that are that are keeping good hops coming to our way.
You know. I'm sure we will brew Logger beers with other hops,
and maybe even the yellow Logger beers with other hops, but there's just no
substituting that, you know. I say that Aroma for me is cedar and
wildflowers, and it just tastes Deutsch it to me, right, Like,
you know, when I think Bavaria and the Leader Hosing, which you're in
the closet behind me, I think of a beer that tastes like this.
You know. I'm also a fan of Hellas, and this beer is not
a Hellas. Somebody asked me about that recently. They're like, is it
Hellas? And I'm like, it's funny to think that. I mean,
it definitely looks like a Hell's from across the room, but I think there's
a pretty substantial difference, oddly enough, between these two relatively like yellow beer
styles. And we will definitely make some Hellas and the not so distant future,
But Hello to me is more is more multi, right, softer,
and part of that's because of the hard water and Munich and in the south
of Germany, but it's not Hellis and I'm glad to say that we can
actually show the difference in that now. And I mean you picked up on
the hops already, right, yeah, you know it matters. Also,
hold that glass back up for me. I want to see how the foam's
doing. Nice, It's still there. Okay, foam still there, you
know, having it in the Tiku glass here or Taku glass if you will.
I don't know how they I don't know how they pronounce it, but
I love the glass. Yeah, it's a great glass. No, it's
really it's just a rock solid beer. Like we have a brewery here in
Chicago, dub Tail, that just does traditional German laggers. You know,
I put this up there with Dovetail. This is something I would drink all
year round. Speaking that is this going to be a year round beer?
Is this this going to be like a summertime deal? This is a forever
product for us. And when I say forever, I don't necessarily mean forever.
But you know, my my marketing team full of solid, solid people
working hard who also love beer. They're like, so can we can we
stick with this for like two maybe maybe three years? I was like absolutely,
Yeah, there you go, you know, and I'm all again,
I'm happy to report that our customers are into it. So you know,
we wouldn't keep doing it if if if the people who are yeah, no
one bought it. But you and I, it's not gonna You're not keep
it around for three years exactly. You're a Chicago landmarker, right, correct?
So I grew up very near you used to skip school to go to
Cubs games? Oh yes, I actually as we talk later this afternoon,
I'm heading to Wrigley Field. There's a beer festival that they're doing in this
city, be a different location. So the first one is in a couple
hours at Wrigley Field, so I'll be heading there to have a couple of
different Chicago beers. Is this part of faubab No, This is it's done
by the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild and it's just like a Friday night flights and
they go to different spots in the city and just you know, there's thirty
different Chicago area breweries. So it's not a bad deal thirty bucks to get
in and get you food trucks and samples of thirty great beers here. That's
a good deal. These days, beer festivals have gotten kind of weirdly ubiquitous.
You know, the Chicagoland area has always had some really solid, solid
brewers. I think back to the Mickey Finns days yea. And of course
you know the Peace crowds just killing it. You get the Rev dudes and
the Goose Island crowd. Regardless of their current status, acquired or otherwise,
they've always made great beer. And and I'm an Upper Midwest guy, so
you know, it's one thing. I was talking to somebody recently because NA
show is in the National Restaurant Association. Show was in Chicago recently, so
we had a bunch of people out there and I was like, did you
go see a game and the Socks were play and the and the and the
Cubs weren't Like we went to Socks game at LAH didn't count? Yeah,
it doesn't count. Yeah, it's all over on the South Side anyway.
I don't I'm not a Socks fan. I can't help it. It's I
like the Cubs from back when they couldn't win. Oh yeah, I mean
I remember, like I used to cut school in the late seventies early eighties,
myself and I went to Lane Tech, which is only like a mile
and a half down Addison, So I would cut school at Lane Tech and
just seek my way to Wrigley Field watch the really bad early eighties Cubs.
Oh yeah, yeah, you know. We would come to town to watch
the San Diego games and they just get hammered every time. Oh yeah,
you know the Padres were at that time had a picture called Goose Cossage.
I don't know if you remember this guy. Yeah, he was with the
Cubs one year after after his prime, but yeah, Goose was Goose was
the best, you know. And my pop takes me to the game.
We sit there and they just get hammered, right, and so would heat.
There's I don't know if it's still there because I haven't been in Rigneyville
for a couple of years, but there used to be this little Uh Sausage
and Peppers joint right behind home plate with a Pepsi sign on it, like
a corner bodega kind of situation, and we would always hit that spot for
a beer in a sausage before you you will not recognize it. The whole
area is so corporate it's been taken over. You literally would not recognize it.
In the last ten years, it's like totally different all the way down
the third baseline. Last I was there, they had a whole like lifestyle
experience going on outside. Right, there's uh, you know, AstroTurf and
whatnot. And I was like, where do you get where where's a man
get a where's a man get a firebrew beer around this town? Right?
And they're like, well, you know, we got both kinds and western
yeah, right, Like, but I can't get a strows Like, yeah,
probably in a can somewhere in the stadium, but no, not here.
Yeah, stros is hard to find here. I did a show last
year on beers that our fathers drink for Father's Day and stroll. My dad
was a strolls guy, and it took me a while to find it.
But I didn't manage to get my hands on a stroll was to have that,
you know. I lived for a long time in the Philly metro area
and Stro's built a plant in Foglsville, Brannesville. The plants now owned by
Boston Beer Sam Adams, and that's the last place. I know they were.
They were burrowing stros and they still got those fired kettles in that warehouse.
And one of these days I'm hoping that the Boston Beer people actually make
a beer on them, you know. Yeah, we'll see, we'll see
if they bring it together. It would be fun if they do. But
man, I you know, the Upper Midwest is a blast for me.
And every time I fly through now, I try to try to hit the
publican and the airport. Yeah, those guys usually have a decent representation at
work. I work right by the public and I work at O'Hare. So
next time you're flying through, come check me out. Oh definitely. Yeah.
We all spend way too much time in that airport, right. Yeah.
So you know, we've been talking about Hammock Light, which I'm stoked
about and thank you for I'm very happy to hear that my team got your
beer. I was a little worried about that. Yeah, no, it
came. I came back from vacation Monday and it was on my doorstep.
My neighbor picked it up for me, and so it's good I had this.
I had the peach a day ago, and I really enjoyed the peach
as well. That is an awesome beer. It's it's it started out as
a local specialty product for us, obviously in Myrtle Beach. The beer that
you're talking about, we call Myrtle Peach, right, which is basically as
a peach as a peach wheat beer that's got decent amount of hops in it.
Yeah, nobody was looking. We snuck a bunch of hops into it.
That's a kind of the brain child in my lead brewer in Myrtle Beach,
a guy named Kyle Shug. And you know, it sells outrageously well
in Myrtle Beach for reasons that don't surprise. Don't surprise anyone. Cut Myrtle
Beach in the name, but we move a little bit of it in Delaware
two just because the product is beautiful, you know. And there's a spot
where if you'd told me twenty years ago that I would be excited about making
fruit beers. You know, we all remember the days where everybody and their
brother had a raspberry wheep beer on tap and they were all pretty terrible.
Yeah, you know, flavoring was coming from the same two places, and
it kind of tasted like a cross between Vick's formula forty four D and the
hop water right, but the whole world around fruit and fruit flavoring available to
the craft beer community has gotten so much better in the last ten years.
And the fruit and the fruit flavoring that we use in that beer just really
makes my heart happy. It tastes like peach in a good way because it's
got peach in it. And you know, some of the experimental hops that
are on the market right now are really accentuating those flavors. And when Kyle
came to be with the idea for that beer, I was like, yeah,
I feel like this could work for us. I can tell you right
now it's our drive brand in the wholesale market down in Carolina, and it's
selling it faster than we can make it, which is a great, great
situation. I mean, the craft beer market is mature, out and gone.
I think are the days when you can just hang out a shingle and
do well. And I'm glad to say that our company seems to be competing,
you know, And a lot of that is credited to our strategic leadership
group who said, hey, we want you to make great beer, and
I said, well, you know, there's some costs associated with that around
training and ingredients, and they said, we can figure that out, but
what we need is world class liquid, right, And I'm stoked that we're
really putting out stuff that I didn't curate what they sent to you. I
knew we were going to talk about light, but he said, hey,
I few some peach in the box, and I was like, that's awesome.
Yeah, good job. Now outside of the peach and the light lagger
that I'm having here, you mentioned earlier that you do a lot of sours
as well. We do, so you know, we're in the part of
the world where especially milkshake sours, aggressively fruited fresh fruit editions, a lot
of lactose, some kettle sour, and some exogenous ours are really popular.
And you know, we started making them as early as twenty fifteen, and
our customers were just like, yep, don't stop. Do more of that.
It's an interesting segment. You know. In general, I would say
that I'm a fan of beer flavored beer, right, I mean, the
Hammock Light is a great example of that, and even our hoppy beers,
I think our beer flavored beer. But this has given us an opportunity to
really experiment with some awesome ingredients, and on the supply side, the suppliers
are doing just like the flavoring business are doing a way better job of providing
really interesting and creative stuff. So, you know, we've made beer with
kalamassi, with Yazoo fruit, with you know, with jack fruit, all
the berry fruits and pulpy fruits that you would expect, and these fill an
interesting spot in our lineup because you know, when you think of the beach,
what do you think of, right, we think of blender drinks and
Herta glasses and and you know these aren't exactly that. They're definitely still beer,
but they play in that space a little bit. And I have allowed
the teams that I'm working with to be really creative. And somebody will come
to me and say, hey, you know, this isn't exactly in the
same bucket, but it's close. How do you feel if we, you
know, built an espresso martini beer And I'm like, well, we can't
call it that for legal reasons. I'm like, but really, I'm really
interested in that. Or somebody will come to me and say, hey,
you know, I just got back from Michigan and I was at a place
called king Orchards and they have this stunning dark sweet cherry situation going on,
and I be like, yeah, I'm here for it. You know.
We spend a lot of money on that product, and I think it's worth
it because it creates a whole other experience. Right, this is a beer
that's that that is frew forward as a category, but it's sour enough to
be refreshing. And you know, I've heard a lot of people say,
well, that's that's beer for ladies, and I'm like, yeah, well
then call me a lady, because yeah, because I'm here for it.
You know. We I think this year will make at least forty different versions
of that kind of product, right, just based on whatever's fresh and beautiful
that we can lay our hands on to put in the beer. And we
can we can't a whole series of those throughout the year under the name Brand
New Day, So you know, this is an opportunity for us to make
sure that we have something in our lineup all the time. But there's usually
more than one around and I'm happy to say that the style seems to have
landed in a spot that people understand and they appreciate. So we're going to
keep making those as long as the customers want to drink. Now, I
mean, you sent me some cans. Do you distribute in those areas?
Or how far is a distribution chang we do? You know, a lot
of people will send beer far into the world. It's the you know,
inch deep, mile wide or inch wide mile deep scenario. We're closer to
the ladder. So we have strategic reasons to want to distribute beer in the
wholesale trade, and most of that is around two ideas. One of them
is that, you know, the communities that we tend to operate in are
relatively small, especially in the off season, and we've got relationships with bars
and restaurants that want to support us and we want to support them. So
this gives us an opportunity to sell beer to those people. Also our wholly
owned subsidiary restaurants. So you know, we have a taco concept called Taco
Riho, which makes awesome La style tacos. We sell beer there and at
a place called the Cantina. So we have a big chilcer of cantina at
the beach in Indian River Inlet right on the ocean in the Delaware Seashore.
State parks, and of course we have a location in I'll call it downtown
rohob with Lewis on the way to the beach that are popular. So we
in Delaware specifically, we can't self distribute, which you know, I'm an
advocate for small breees being able to self distribute. But in the meantime,
we have a great distribution partner who helps us put beer locations that are important
to us. And in addition to that, we sell a little bit of
beer into the wholesale trade, mostly for marketing reasons. You know, our
model is mostly designed to say, hey, come to us and drink fresh
beer at the brewery. But you know, we're working our way out of
it a little bit, and partly because some of our guests, I said,
listen, I live an hour or two away, and I'd love to
be able to drink this beer when I'm not at the beach. Yeah,
And so we're starting to explore that. In Myrtle. Similarly, we're distributing
beer as false far south as Pauli's Island, and we're basically at the state
line, so really not much north of us, but local markets almost exclusively.
That could change in the future. You know, we're not built for
that right now. I don't have a problem with that. I think that
sometimes people really want to focus on getting their beer across the country, and
in the current business paradiamondcraft beer, I'm not sure that's as relevant as it
used to be. Right It's people are very interested in what's going on in
their backyard, and I think with good reason. And I also think that
leads to higher quality beer because it tends to n you know, it's not
as far away from the brewery, and and that matters. I mean,
you know, I want I want to drink fresh beer, and I want
our customers to be able to drink fresh beer too. Yeah, and you
have more control of it if you just keep it in your area, as
opposed to sending something to California where who knows how you know you got We're
going to have a two month old beer that just might not be as good
and not drink it anymore, you know. I mean the beer you're drinking
right there, it's delicate and wants to be fussed over a bit. And
the sour the fruited towers, you know, also also need careful attention.
And we all know hoppy beer I mean the freshman better. Yeah, New
England ipa doesn't want to be two months old. You know, I'll drink
a well made New England ipa at that age, but I'd rather drink it
the day it was packed. Yeah. You know, people don't seem to
be standing in the line for beer anymore. But you know, if you
told me you were going to release beer I packed this morning this afternoon,
I might consider it. Yeah. I know, we have a place here
hot butcher, and yes, it's out there, like two days after they
can it, so you could just look on the bottom of the can.
It's like, oh yeah, this is fresh. Yeah that's the best,
right, put the can over and you're like, yes, I win,
I win beer, winning it beer today. Yeah, you know they're you
know, the large domestic international brewing company that I worked for many many,
many years ago spent a lot of time trying to teach people what fresh beer
tasted like. And for the most part, mainstream macro consumers are drinking beer
that's somewhere between you know, four and eight weeks old, and it turns
out that a lot of people got trained to like the flavor of for eight
week old beer. You know, I'm a fresh beer guy, always have
been, so that makes me happy. So, you know, we may
expand our distribution as we continue to build cricket haamming locations. You know,
we're growing not aggressively but on a nice steady pace, and I could see
us having more locations near the beach in the southeast in the next few years.
And to that end, we might then increase our distribution footprint, but
mostly it's going to be focused on the hospitality businesses. I'm looking at your
background now. You mentioned ditching school to go to Wrigley Field. Your background.
You went to the University Wiscon. I spent time at University of Wisconsin
in a continuing education program sponsored by the Master Bears Association of the America's.
I kind of grew up on the campus of Ohio State. My father's faculty
and professional staff there, So you know, some of my college was you
Wisconsin, most of it was in Columbus at Ohio State. And of course
I've attended a couple of different trade degree programs that you might be aware of.
The I'm a graduate and now a current teacher at the American Brewers Guild,
and I've done the CBOL classes as well, which you know right there
in beautiful Chicago. Yes, I'm old enough to have spent time learning about
beer at the Goose Island Brewery under the Tutela. Just some really smart people
and plus eating and drinking my way through that section of town has always been
fun. And then after that, just many many years of being in the
business. You know, I don't know how it happened, but we all
got to a certain age, right. I was in this discussion with one
of the wonderful young man who worked for me recently, and he's like,
you know, we're talking about malt for this for this light project, and
he's you know, we have this wonderful array of beautiful domestic and continental logger
malt to look at. And he's like, man, I just wish we
had more choices. And I kind of giggled and he's like, well,
what do you mean, And I'm like, well, I remember working for
a craft brewery in the Midwest and driving up to Chiltern, Wisconsin to buy
malt from Roger Breese to bring it back to the brewery, right, you
know, And when the question was raised, what kind of malt did you
use? First of all, nobody asked it because he had like two choices,
right, And thanks to Roger who was with us no longer, and
a woman that he hired many years ago and named Maryanne Gruber, who said,
hey, you know, instead of selling commodity malt to the three largest
brewers in the world, why don't we start making specialty malts for small brewers.
And I you know, they didn't have to do that. I don't.
I'm not sure that it was a smart business decision for them. I
hope it was. But you know, there are a bunch of us in
this industry now who are very thankful of that. And the world has changed,
and now I can pick up the phone and get malt from all across
the planet from about four different suppliers. And I mean, we are really
lucky living in the heyday of raw goods for making beer. Anyway, Sorry,
we were talking about school. So I've spent a bunch of time on
that campus. My sister actually got her PhD there and taught there for many
years. You know, we're a family full of over educated people. I
like going to school, yeah, you know, but I love Madison.
My brother in law brew beer for some time at the great Dane there,
and of course you know, Dan Carey and I are friendly, and there's
just something amazing about a brew like that, right, this is a very
interesting model. You know. Famously, New Glaris doesn't distribute beer outside Wisconsin.
No, I have. Twenty years ago they stopped, they stopped brewing
here. I was talking to people from Great Lakes yesterday and I was telling
them like, they only came to the Chicago market. It was twenty years
ago because New Glaris pulled out, so the distributor replaced the New Glaris stuff
with Great Lakes. So we were talking. I'm like, yeah, it
was twenty years ago. They just pulled the plug on Illinois. Just said
now we're staying in local in Wisconsin. Well, Dan was like, listen,
I don't think I can control the quality of my beer in that market.
That matters to me. You know, if you've ever been in New
Glaris, first of all, I encourage a trip. It's like going to
the Church of beer. Right. Yeah, it was phenomenal. He's fun.
They make beautiful, beautiful products, but the place is just gorgeous.
Yeah. You know, he's got all that tiled floor and those copper onion
dumb kettles. It's just man, you know, there's a guy with some
heart. His whole family is into it too. What else are you drinking
these days that you're into a lot of local stuff coming back from California society
I really like. So I managed to grab some of that to bring home
with me. That's always just a rock solid ipa. I love going there
to San Diego, so I had to make sure I threw some of that
in the suitcase. I you know, I still like my barrel age stuff,
but it's getting a little warmer here. You don't really don't want to
have a barrel age beer when it's eighty five degrees outside with Chicago seventy percent
humidity. So I've been doing a lot of laggers. Just picked one up
today from Off Color that's in the refrigerator now called Beer for Bags. So
they have a great series with this has you know, the Bags game on
there, the Cornhole game. So that's a six percent malt liquor. But
everything Off Color puts out is generally phenomenal. So I'm looking forward to having
that later tonight. The season for cornhole, right, Yeah, And I
was just at a cornhole tournament. Oddly enough. I'm into leisure sports.
Yeah, I'm getting frisbee golf is the thing here, and I think that
might be not leisurely enough for me. Yeah, what else do you have?
Do you have anything new coming down the row? I mean, obviously
this is the newest beer, and you want to give this a chance to
breathe. But what else do you have that's coming up? We have two
more core products to roll yet this summer season, and we're very excited about
all three of these beers. Right, So, obviously you're a drinking the
one that we've been working on the longest, and for reasons that we all
understand, takes longer to make Lagger Beer. It took more development time.
But right behind it, we have a beer coming out called Wide Eyed Wit.
I am passionate about not just Lagger Beer, but in general classic continental
beer styles, and Pierre sell Us is an inspiration to me. So we
are burring a beer in tribute to the original cell Us White that is spiced
the way you would expect, and again made out a beautiful continental malt with
some domestic malted wheat and unmalted wheat products in it. And it has been
a roaring success for us as well. So we've decided to add wide eyed
wit to our core portfolio, and that's going to roll for us around the
July fourth holiday. Here at the beach, July fourth is kind of the
peak peak summer season. You know, everybody's working into full vacation mode.
Water's warm, and the beach is sunny and sandy, and you know it
again straddles that line I think between beer flavored beer and interesting and derivative and
fruity that of course is unfiltered, and we've brought in the traditional garden yeast
that sells us so famously isolated and used to put it in your did you
sneak that? I love that story, right, it's so old school.
I'm I'm friends with a couple of microbiologists, and one of them, Dirk
Bandiac famously of molts, of course, told me once actually at the University
Wisconsin Medicine. He's like, you know, the only time you see a
brewery microbiologist wear a tie is when he's going to visit a competing brewery.
And I said, Dirk, you got to tell me more. He's like,
well, we swile everything with our tie and then we go home and
figure out what yeaess is floating around in that brewery. I'm like, that
is super sneaky and I'm here for it, right, And I said you
do this in Europe too, He's like, no, yes, right,
I mean I think we all know the story of Anton Dreer and and and
the son of who's the famous Munich brewer that was running Polanna at that time.
Anyway, Anton Drea and his buddy for Munich would created a cane that
had a little vial in it so that when they visited breweris they could sneak
yeast and take it back and work with this uh sexy new quality instrument called
a microscope that they'd all just learned how to use during their kind of brewer
apprenticeships around Western Europe. And so the idea that that we borrow yeast aggressively
from other places is pretty awesome. There's there's a decent you know, we
all know that PCR and gene sequencing is uh, it's pretty mature, but
it's relatively new. Well, Dave, after our brief commercial break, yeah
right, we didn't get the we didn't even get the wrap it up music.
No good thing I could post that at this. Yeah, yeah,
that's awesome, right yeah. Um, so we talked about all kinds of
stuff, but we were talking about Anton Dreer and the development of stealing east
from other brewers. Put that, put that in air quotes, right,
Oh yeah, no, it's just borrowing. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
I love it. People are always like, where did you invent the
idea for that? And I'm like, you know, very few things are
new, yeah, especially in brewing. Yeah, it's very very few.
I have a good friend who who beer in Frankfurt for a lot of years,
right, and and he's like, the funniest thing about especially bring beer
in Germany is he's like, nobody talks about recipes. And he and I
asked the guy who I was working with. He said to me, why
is it that nobody talks about recipes? And he's like, well, we
don't talk about recipes because we all use the same recipes, you know,
which is not exactly true, but you know, he's like, no Bavarian
brewer has to be taught the recipe for hellas because we kind of all know
it. Yeah yeah, yeah. He's like at that point, it's execution,
right, you know. He's like, there are subtle differences, but
they're very very you know, they're mostly about how the beer gets brewed,
not about where we buying malten, where we buying hops. Yeah, I
thought that was very interesting to think about the idea that here you have a
relatively narrow item and there could be so much variability even inside of that idea.
And I like it. You know, I'm the city of Bomberg is
one of my favorite places on the planet, famous of course for rash beer
and the home to one of our favorite multipliers, of the Environment Malting Company,
and and we're you know, I'm touring the town with the with the
Vironment family, Sabine and Thomas Cross Ronman, and they're taking me from bree
to brewery, which is awesome because there's seven of them, you know,
with a walkable distance, and you know, we're drinking basically the same beer
over and over with obvious and noticeable differences, but the style is the same.
And they make the malt for all these breweries, right, so they
know how the beers are made. And I'm like, they're all the same,
and they're like no, yes, yeah, like yeah, that's great.
You know, it's all about execution. So we were talking before we
got rudely interrupted by the zoom gods about new beers down the road, and
you were talking about the new Belgian anything else that is coming up. So,
you know, we make a lot of New England style IPA and one
of the things that our customers are told us is they're like, we love
that and we love the variability, but it would be awesome if we had
a New England IPA or a beer we can count on, right, something
we can look forward to. So we're doing that. We we have a
beer coming out pretty soon called Sway, and it's gonna be New England style
American IPA that we make all the time. And you won't be surprised to
learn that the beer has been designed around our hop contracts. You know,
we have really really solid access to some beautiful hop and and you know,
the hop business has gotten interesting for the most part. I'm really happy with
that industry's ability to keep us in supplied with beautiful oil. But you know,
we make a lot of beer. So we've been thoughtfully developing a beer
that should roll out in the month of August. We don't have a date
for it yet, but you'll see test patches of it floating around. But
all the guys are stoked about that too, and I think that if our
consuming base is any reflection of what I think they like, they're going to
be into it too. We're always going to continue doing derivative IPAs, you
know, new stuff, new hops, single hops, single malt stuff.
But I'm excited about those two. And then of course we haven't really I'm
going to let you in on a double triple insider secret, which is that
you know, we now have filters in the technology to clarify beer. That
we're going to dip our toe into the seltzer business a little bit for a
couple of reasons. One, you know, gluten free, low car slightly
better for you, products of interest to a lot of us who are trying
to be you know, a little less fluff. Yeah right. And also
because you know, um, the consuming public is really aggressively getting marketed to
by the spirits companies, and they're they're taking the business a little bit away
from us and deluding the deluding is not really the right word, giving more
products for consumers to enjoy. So you know, we're gonna we're getting into
that business a little bit. We've I've done that in my past quite a
lot. So I'm I'm stoked we're gonna We're gonna have information around that come
fall um Seltzer's a really interesting category, right because people are like, well,
isn't that just like vodka in a can? And I'm like, well,
except that we brew it. You know, it's not it's not made
least involved. And yes, it's a little more than getting your soda stry
in canister at wherever. Yeah, you understand exactly. So we're excited about
that too. And as a matter of fact, we were trialing some test
patches just today flavor panel and uh. And you know, my my predecessor,
a wonderful man named Ryan White, was headed to a concert and he's
like, hey, I'm an to Crowler that like, I think I think
that we can make that happen for you. Yeah, so you know,
and of course, all of our locations are going to be brewing one offs
and interesting and creative small batch beers that come out of the minds of the
lead brewers of Cricket Hammock and and I think that if you pop into one
of our places throughout the summer, you're going to find at least one or
two beers that are compelling and interesting to you. You know, we're working
really hard to get the quality of all of our products up. This is
sourcing more thoughtfully raw goods and being intentional and thorough and careful with our procedures
and and I'm just seeing really great stuff come out of out of the brew
kettles from my team. So you know, I encourage you, if you're
in the area to visit and see the food coming out of the kitchens and
see what my brewers are into. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to
make you know, be mentioned earlier that you know, I work for an
airline, so I could definitely pop down and you know, visit at least
one of the locations, if not hit both Delaware and Myrtle Beach. Are
those are those spots? Are they open year round or is it like more
touristy? So, you know, we are because we are kind of tent
pole businesses in the markets that we operate, we stay open year round,
partly for our staff. You know, it's very hard to make money in
the off season in the resort town, but we think it's a commitment to
both the locals and to our staff, and they often overlap. Yeah,
but you know, we run successful businesses at a time of year when a
lot of people close down, and I understand some folks. Some folks just
need a break, you know, or find it very difficult to pay the
light bill. But I'm happy to say that we're committed to being open year
round, So that makes that makes me happy. We do do a little
bit more interesting promotion in the off season, so I always encourage people to
pay attention to our social media feeds, especially especially outside of center. Yeah.
Actually, while I was trying to hunt you down after we got kicked
off, all right, all right, let me find your name on Twitter,
and there's another guy who was like Brewer. I'm like, okay,
this has to be the guy. No, it's not him, all right,
I'm standing my message. Yeah, that's all right. It could have
been interesting. Maybe you make any friend, right, Yeah, I mean
he's got Brewer in his name. He's probably a decent hue. How might
this has to be the guy? And I'm looking at the picture and I'm
like, now he's out of Ohio and yeah, no, this isn't the
guy. Sorry, Yeah, I'm in Delaware now, So The good news
is Michael finally popped up his head and found both of us. Yeah.
Perfect, Well, well, Dave, I'm gonna have to scoot, but
I'm so glad that we got to connect and kind of put a bow around
our conversation. Yeah. Absolutely, anything else you want to talk about while
I got you, No, just real quick, you know, for people
that are listening, and I'm gonna have this in the peach on the show
later to give you more in depth review, throw something up on YouTube,
but definitely Hammock light Logger is a winner. I think you're gonna like it.
It's from Crooked Hammock Brewery. Larry, thank you so much, sir
for coming on. I really appreciate it. David, love what you're doing.
All right, don't stop, and I appreciate you having me. We
look forward to maybe hoisting a point with you if you can get to the
beach. Absolutely, I'm down for that, all right, Larry, took
care of yourself, Sarah, We'll see you later. Thanks man, all
right, take care all right. The next one from Crooked Hammock is we
talked about it earlier, Myrtle peach. This is a peach wheat ale five
point five percent alcohol seventeen ivus. On the can, it says sun in
the sky toes in the sand doesn't get much better. Well, that is
true, So let's crack open myrtle peach. As I'm pouring, I get
a huge whiff of peach aroma. It smells lovely, nice color. It's
a wheat beer, so it's not clear like we were talking about with the
other beer. This is a wheat beer. But nice foam here, huge
peach aroma. That's phenomenal, really wonderful peach flavor. Not fake like peach
ring candy or something like that. This tastes like a nice ripe peach.
It tastes delicious. I don't know what I should have asked Larry when he
was on almost And maybe it's me. I'm almost getting a little cinnamon out
of this, and it could just be my taste buds, but I think
this is spectacular. This is another one that is like the perfect summer beer.
So if you're in the Crooked Hammock area, by all means, put
myrtle peach in the cart. It's that good. I'm gonna have some more
really good carbonation here, nice mouth feel. I get a tiny little bit
of bitterness at the end. Not a lot. There's only seventeen IBus here.
I'm still trying to figure out and put my finger on it what that
taste is, if it's a cinnamon or if it's just the peach. I
should have asked him. I should have asked them what was in it?
But now it's really good. By all means, Crooked Hammock is a great
brewery. I like what I've had so far from them. I need to
get me out to Myrtle Beach or Delaware and have some more of these fresh
on tap. So once again, if you're in the Delaware or Myrtle Beach
area, you definitely got to find Crooked Hammock Brewery. Oh that was a
lot of fun, and I apologize for the zoom issues we had, but
I really want to thank Larry Horwitz for coming on from Crooked Hammock. That's
spot I need to get on a plane and go to. If you're in
the Delaware, if you're in the Myrtle Beach area, by all means,
hit them up. The beers that I've had are both great. I think
you're going to enjoy them. I also want to give a big shout out
to the PR person, Michael Gregor. Michael was the one that got Larry
and I hooked up, So Michael, I know you're doing a lot of
hard work, so Michael, I appreciate you as well. Next week's show
is going to be good. I'm going to have the ciscerone people on.
We're going to talk about the ciscerone program, and I'm taking the test,
so by the time this comes out next week, I will hopefully be a
certified beer server. I'm looking forward to that, so stay tuned for that
next week. That should be a good one as well. I hope everyone
has a great week. I will see you next week on the show,
and remember sometimes the beer in front of you is the best one yet.