This is Beer in Front, part of the Odd Pods Media Network. Sometimes
the beer in front of you is the best one yet. I'll talk about
some old school beers that maybe you've forgotten about, some new beers that have
the potential to be a classic. I'll also talk to various people around the
beer world and get their stories all about beer. That's Beer in Front,
and it's coming up now. Welcome to episode one hundred and ninety seven,
the February nineteenth edition of Beer in Front. I'm your host, Dave's Alaturus,
and Beer in Front is a proud Odd Pods Media Network member. I'm
a big fan of kombucha. I drink it, I used to brew it
myself, so I'm gonna mix things up on the show this week. I'm
going to talk to Becca Sps. She's the founder of Mortal Kombucha. They're
based out of Colorado. Mortal makes some great taste in kombucha, and I
figure we drink enough beer, so let's talk about something good for our inerts
to offset this. It's also flagship February and I'm going to have a classic
beer review up later in the show. I want to thank you for listening
If you'd like to support the show, check out patreon dot com slash Beer
in Front for more details. Next week I'll talk to Lars from Momentum Brewing
out of New York. Momentum is making some great na beers and we'll chat
about how they got started. Next week will be the podcast fourth anniversary.
In two weeks after that will be episode two one hundred. I'm gonna split
the difference and have an anniversary one hundred and ninety ninth episode in two weeks.
I've also I've talked about hop Water as before. I'm gonna make my
own from scratch, so check out the YouTube page to see how that's coming
along. And I know what you're thinking. The show's called Beer in Front.
You went from dry January, to a kombucha show, to a non
alcoholic brewery, and now Hopwater. Trust me, it just seems like everything
happened all at once. Shows more focused on beer will be back in a
few weeks. But I do like talking about other things besides beer, so
shows like this will continue, but regular beer shows will return in a couple
of weeks. This week, I'm not talking about a beer, but another
fermented beverage Kombucha is a fermented, sweetened black tea mixture with plenty of good
bacteria for your inerds, and let's face it, our inerds need all the
help they can get after drinking beer all day. Mortal Kombucha is founded in
twenty and seventeen and is based out of Boulder, Colorado. They make a
plethora of flavors and they also have hydration packets. Joining the show now is
Becca Sheeps, who is the founder of Mortal Kombucha. Becca, thanks so
much for coming on and talking about some bucha. Thank you. I guess
you beat make two products good for drinking too much beer. Yes, they
like a powdered pedialyte, So yeah, hydrate you as luck. You need
that before you start, so you should have some of that. Then anybody
should have that in their backpack before they go to a festival or something along
those lines. Yeah, we're beer adjacent for sure. Yeah. How did
you get started with Mortal? My background is the creative director in advertising,
and I've worked on a lot of package good products and I kind of I
was having like a Borderer line meltdown and Aloid's doing everything and everybody else wan
it and I was like, man, if I started something, I just
would I started making puns, Mortal Kombat, mortal kombucha, and I just
thought like, man, wouldn't it be funny to make an aggressive kombuja Because
to me, kombucha was not just this hippie yoga drink. It was it
was adjacent to energy drinks because it was fusy, it was explosive, literal
lady. Yeah, and I drank it and replacement, like you know,
I replaced coffee with it at times. So I just thought like, let's
make it. Let's make aggressive kombucha more like an energy drink. And I
thought that was a funny name and built a website for it, mopped up
a product for it, talked about it like it was real. It was
all like fatalities and finish finish him kind of or finish it. I thought
people knew it was a joke, but I did have an e commerce part
of my fake website. People bought it, and I got home one day
from work and was like, so I started kombucha company today. I told
my husband, and we should figure out how to meet kombucha because I had
like seven orders. Yeah, So we went to a brew supply store because
I was like, thank you, ferment this stuff, and I think a
beer maker should know how to do this. So I went to Vision Quest
and Boulder. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they were
awesome. They told me how to make kombucha and like what to buy.
I think I left there with like a jar and some temperature strips and the
they told me to go across the street to Barnes and Noble and get this
book of how to make kimbucha. The first page said, you're it takes
three weeks. So I emailed my seven orders and I said, your kimucha
will ship in three weeks, and you know what could go wrong? What
could go wrong? Oh plenty? Yeah. But yeah, so from there
somehow made a real product. Yeah. Now we're a Bello nationwide and grocery
stores. Yeah, I know. I used to make it a couple of
years ago and snopped because like the whole apartment smelled like feet, so I
had to stop making it. But yeah, I think my my husband was
definitely happy when our like eight hundred square foot house no longer had glass jars
like everywhere and like little stops of paper up like when to switch what we
do not make it like that anymore. It is in a very wonderful commercial
facility in Eagle, Colorado. What I like about like the packaging design,
Like some kombucha companies look either very corporate or very like hippie like you mentioned
earlier. Yours looks very fun and something that is eye catching and like,
if I'm going to see this, I'm going to grab that as opposed to
some sterile, corporate looking kombucha. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean
that was the whole point. I was like, if you look at drinks
and that are popular, like let's just look at the Mountain Dews of the
world, and the pepsis the liquid death, you know, obviously, Like
it's like the same idea where it was like drinks are just like mini billboards.
They're like putting on an outfit and they're like saying like this is who
I am, this is what I want. So it just is very weird
to me. I think more and more than natural food industry is doing that.
But you know, in twenty seventeen, it was like you were a
natural brand and you used muted colors and green and brown or you were bad
for you and you're a soda and you're doing Mountain Dew Code red or whatever,
which is a delicious drink. And I just thought like, well,
Mountain Dew Code Red over here at least knows what they're doing, because they're
still in a lot of this stuff, So let's be more. Let's play
more like them. Do you how long did you homebrew before you went big?
I like a month or so? Okay, oh no, no,
no, I made it in our house illegally because we were selling to stores,
so leat that out. Yeah, probably for like half a year.
And then we got into we had to figure out kegs because people wanted kegs,
and I remember googling like how do you fill a keg or something,
and went back to Vision Quests asked them a bunch of questions. And then
that's when I realized we're going to need a lot more refrigeration than I have
in my house that I don't want to keep buying like that cheap, five
hundred dollars ugly white refristrator from a home depot. So we moved into a
commercial facility halfway through twenty thirventeen, but a very small one. Yeah.
I like the flavors that you have here. Just looking at the website,
they look fantastic. Now did you come up with all of the flavor profiles
yourself? Yeah? Again, it was that same idea where it was looking
at soda, looking at sour beers. Okay, that was a lot of
it, walking the aisles of Walmart and being like, what is trending in
juice? Yeah, because you know, the whole idea was like, this
is a drink with a image problem, not and because people were making like,
you know, dirt mushroom ashwagonda lion being break ea root and no one
wants that doesn't sound fun and you're gonna ask me to spend five dollars on
that. So if the drink is gonna be you know, somewhere between three
to five dollars, like, let me know what it's gonna taste like,
was my idea. So made them very easy. So there's a margarita flavor,
there's a watermelon mint. It's like flavors, they're just a little weird,
but you know what you're gonna get, Okay, So, and what's
the price point? Like on the website had shown about four bucks a bottle.
Yeah, so we're in stores anywhere from a brown we all oftener two
for six, but anywhere from around three forty nine to for ninety nine ups
like maybe a really specialty store. Okay, when you were coming up with
flavors, like I know when I was making it myself, there were some
flavors and I thought, oh, this is going to be good, and
then like you drink it and you we're like, oh no, this sucks.
Were there was there any combinations You're like, oh no this, we
need to dump this. So I think this is like I have a couple
of superpowers, and one of them was I like figured out what tasted good
with kombucha, and it really was. I think I'm a size on and
sour drinker, and that base were is very similar to kombucha. So it
was like we always needed is there a ginger or a citrus because it just
cuts that yeastyp fermanty kind of taste. So a lot of the flavors that
we came up with always were like that. The only like flavor that never
made it commercially was a flavor that was called Nay pomegranate, So I it
was a pun that I was like, I think this will be really good.
So it was pomegranate in cayenne flavored kombucha. It actually tasted great,
but it was being made when we were homebrewing, right, and we would
reduce pomegranate juice in cayenne. And this is also why I am no longer
the brewer. I naypalmed basically like tear gas my apartment multiple times by boiling
the reducing too much down. And literally I'd walk into my house while I
was simmering and it was tear gas and there's just like snot and mucus and
you had to drop to the ground and like army crawl over to the stove
because you could see the layer of smoke. So we weren't responsible enough to
make that labor anymore. Yeah, well that's good, and I hope you
got out of your lease okay without yeah security. Yeah, yeah, we
mentioned before you make hydration packets. When did that start? That is brand
new? It it launched two weeks ago, all right. And so basically
my background, I'd come from sports and fitness and exercise personally, like I
erased collegiate crew. I was a competitive professional cyclist for a bit, and
I love I just love exercise so it was something I always wanted to do,
and basically as Mortal grew, it's like, okay, we have this
kombucha. Not everyone likes kombucha. It's refrigerated product, it's hard to move
around. What is shelf stable and what also makes sense for the brand,
which our tagline is fight death and for me, that is fighting the death
of yourself in a sport, basically so bonking or whatever. So we're gonna
slowly roll out a line of sport nutrition products. And the first one is
a hydration you know, so it's like a Gatoray but it's a powder,
but it's really clean ingredients, it's certified safe for sports. And the flavors
again are just very understandable. We have a margarita, a berry, and
a mango. Okay, cool, you're in your face, very sweet.
You can dilute them. We have a salt, a very salty version,
and a regular electrolyte version and there their eyewall bone them. I'm very obsessed
with them at the moment. Now are those available in like the same retail
locations where you could pick up the kombucha or just mail order. Right now,
they are only available online at odeed dot. So we're testing the flavors,
making sure we have everything down before we bring to retail, like big
mask retail. They are available for a wholesale for like bike shops and you
know, running stores and kind of smaller retail, but we're not trying to
bring them to like a Safeway anytime soon. All right, Yeah, Yeah,
I'll definitely have to pick them up because I mentioned those are always in
my bag when I go to like a beer festival, I'm like, all
right, let me get this first. Let me get some electrolytes in my
system before I go. Yeah, And we did make some cocktails with them,
so I haven't mixed them with beer yet, but I did mix them
with a little bit tequila. All right, Yeah, get your buzz,
get your electrolytes at the same time, like a yin yang neutralizes. Yeah,
I saw you came up with an aluminum bottle. How did that come
about? So it's like all the same. One of the biggest things was
glass bottles are heavy. They kombucha also, because it's a live drink and
we use real fruit, it ends up having a lot of sediment and goofy
icky stuff that like people are like oh old grouse yea. So I was
like, man, how do we not show people that? Because we do
filter out everything, but there is still sediment because it is a living drink.
So there was a couple of things we were trying to solve. Also,
it's a drink that people really enjoying the summer and want to take places
and do things, especially older you want to go hike. It is not
fun hiking with a glass bottle. So there was the idea. There's a
lot of push, hey, go to cans, go to cans, go
to cans, But for me, cans just never made sense for kombucha,
especially the price point. I wanted to keep it at sixteen ounces. I
don't feel good selling people something that's twelve bounces for three dollars and fifty cents
or more. So I was like, I wanted to be sixteen ounces,
but a sixteen ounce can. Now you have to drink that whole thing at
once, or you're going to be carrying this like stinky kombucho with you as
you want to hike, or it goes flat and or warm, and kombucha
does not taste good flat or warm. So it had to be a bottle
and so finally when Ball came out with those aluminum bottles, I was like,
Wow, this is amazing. We need to move it into this bottle,
Like this makes so much sense for kombucha. And then it was the
logistics of that I don't even want to go into because it was a very
like PTSD year of how to put it in there. But my dreams came
true. We figured out how to get it into a bottle, and I
think it's the product looks even better it pops. It makes sense for the
how people consume it. It's better for the environment. Yeah, on like
so many levels, from how much it costs to transport it around because it's
so much lighter, to how it can recycle and it's recyclable because even glass
bottles to have a plastic cap. Now we don't even have a plastic cap.
Did you kiss off the homebrewers because now they can't use your kombucha bottles
when they make their own. It is funny. We have received a few
emails from companies being like, what are you doing with all of your extra
glass bottles we have? Yeah? So I haven't like no, yeah,
So I've been like, we don't have any Yeah, but we Yeah,
they're just gonna have to use bigger jars or someone else's bottles, but you
can re steal them. So, but they it is a single use aluminum.
Okay, Yeah, technically that is a single use aluminum. Mm hmm.
Yeah, I mean they look really good. I can't wait. You
know when we were emailing, I'm gonna be in San Diego next week,
so I'll have to pick it up there and throw some blue ice things in
my suitcase, so I could, you know, bring it home with me.
So I'm looking forward to trying the aluminum bottle myself. Yeah. I
actually also think it for some reason, the Saint Labor's tastes better. Okay,
I don't know why. I think the mouth feel on an aluminum bottle.
I like it. I really love it. Yeah, so very excited.
Do you distribute all over because I know, like the one spot that
I could walk to, I guess they were out of it so they didn't
have it. So, but do you distribute nationwide? Yeah, so we
distribute nationwide the aluminum bottles. Right now, we're on exclusive with Sprouts,
so they're in a lot of states, not every state, but then or
once our exclusive is up with them. Sometime in the spring. We will
start getting our aluminum bottles to more stores. But we're nationwide, im at
gott major retailers and you know, small co ops and things like that,
all right, cool, like yeah, can you get it at like big
places like Whole Foods. We are only in certain regions and old foods all
right, So not nationwide and hold, but there's on the East Coast,
we're in food towns in California and like kind of that West Coast area where
in a lot of the retailers and specialty bagy tailers like your Lapsin's and Jimbos
and things like that on top of the sprouts. Yeah, and then I
think at the Midwest it's basically mostly sprouts. Okay, yeah, Woodman's things
like that. All right. You mentioned like you used this for an energy
drink. Now, I was always under the assumption in the kombucha head less
caffeine than even like a cup of coffee. So what's the caffeine level instead
of having like a coke or a mountain Well, it's gotta be a lot.
Let's sit a mountain dew. But what's the caffeine levels like in the
sugar levels. So there is tech there is I can't I can't say no
caffeine, but the cat there is not caffeine in it. There's probably as
much caffeine as in a decaf coffee, all right, So it's the you
do brew a tea, but then in the fermentation process it's the caffeine or
alphianine I think it is in that spurs it. So you actually like eat
the caffeine away as you're fermenting that. I'm probably like gonna get people emailing
you that I'm saying the wrong things, but basically that's what happens. So
you're yeah, good, but yeah, so there's basically no caffeine in it,
but there is other enzymes and probiotics that kind of make you feel energized
from the drink. And then sugar wise, our drinks have pourgrams of added
sugar because you need sugar to be the energy for fermentation and any But then
the drinks range from fourteen to nineteen grams of carbs, the rest coming from
fruit, so there is anywhere from like fifty to seventy calories per sixteen ounce
serving, so we try to keep them low but not no, Yeah,
that makes me because we are making real kombuja. Yeah, when you add
sugar and you're adding natural fruit, there's naturally going to do sugars, but
not all sugars are bad for you. So yeah, so the goly programs
of added sugar all right technically Yeah. Well I love the website. I
love you have like this gene fond workout video like outfit on like one of
the pictures. The website is great, the design is great. Did you
do all of this yourself? I my mind when worked with amazing illustrators.
The person who does all our little fruit guys that does our hands grapic fruit
is an amazing illustrator out of the UK called Dan. His names Dan Evans
and he's he Just when I found him, I was like, you are
seeing into my brain. And then I work with another duo, this guy,
Taylor Cruise and Daniel Paisley for the website to kind of get what's in
my head out. So they're the they're the engineers and graphic artists and designers
behind it all. Cool. Yeah, well, I'm really looking forward to
having this myself. I'll have it. Like after this interview, I'm going
to pick them up next week and then I'll talk about it on the show
afterwards. But yeah, please, I'm sorry, I can't send you any
We don't. We don't ship it anywhere because the logials sticks it. Yeah,
and yeah, the leather ship it cold too, so yeah, but
no, I'll definitely pick some up. But you got to check their website
out. It's drinkmortal dot com. They have all their products there, a
great merch section as well, so check out drink Mortal. They have the
thing where you could find it in your area. So if you're looking,
I hey, where can I pick this up? It's right there on the
website. They've got a nice little white almost rolling stones like logo icon when
you're searching, so I like that as well. But Becca, thanks so
much for coming on and talking bucha. I'm looking forward to having it.
I think I think I want to go with the power melon. I don't
know, like I'm going to peaches if they have peach peach go peaches,
be crazy. That's everyone's favorite right now. We can't even keep it in
stock, all right. I got to see also with like TSA, I
mean, but wait to my suitcase how much I could bring back. But
I'm looking forward to trying Mortal kombucha. Awesome. Thank you. Hey,
I'm pants Saran, This is Stevie and I'm Aggie and we are bfytw podcast
all about playing games and having fun. Our games are usually based on British
panel shows and game shows, but we'll play anything that captures our attention an
imagination. Why it's right there in the title. You'll never guess what the
F stands for. I was going to bring back some Mortal kombucha. However,
with my look, that would have not survived the flight home from San
Diego, so I had it in the hotel room there. I didn't bring
a mic, so I couldn't record it, but I picked up the watermelon
mint one and it was really good. I picked it up as sprouts over
there in the the aluminum bottle that we were talking about. So if you
like kombucha, I would definitely give Mortal a try. All right, it's
flagship February. I'm gonna have Sierra Nevada's hail Ale. This first came out
in nineteen eighty. I don't think anyone, or probably ninety nine percent of
the world never heard of Cascade Hops until they had the Sierra Nevada pale Ale.
I'm not sure if it's their biggest seller anymore because the hazy little things
are all over the place. But still, the Sierra Nevana pale ale is
a classic. It's been around for forty four years for a reason. It's
that good. And let's crack it open. The Serra Nevanna pal al has
a nice golden color on here, good foam. Just get that nice citrusy
behind aroma here. It's just a perfect pale ale. Now this checks in
at five point six percent alcohol, has thirty eight IBus and with all of
the IPAs out, you think thirty eight IBus are nothing, But back in
nineteen eighty thirty eight IBus that blew people away. So it's been a while
since I've had the Serra Nevana paal ale. If you see it, put
it in the cart. It's as great now as it was forty four years
ago. So once again, if you see the cer Aaron Nevada Paleo,
you need to grab it. All right. That's going to wrap things up
for this edition of Beer in Front. I thank you very much for listening.
I want to thank Becca Sheps, who is the founder of Mortal Kombucha
for coming on and talking about their great product. If you'd like to get
a hold of me, please email me Dave atbeerinfront dot com and I'll see
you next week where I'm going to talk to Lars over it Momentum Brewing,
so look for that. Remember sometimes the beer in front of you is the
best one yet. Okay, we'll see you all next week.