Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Jeff Heck Full Interview

Transcript

Jeff Heck Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Listening makes us smarter, more connected people. It makes us
0:03
Speaker 1: better partners, parents, and leaders, and there's no better place
0:06
Speaker 1: to start listening than Audible. Audible is where so many
0:09
Speaker 1: inspiring voices and compelling stories open listeners up to new
0:12
Speaker 1: experiences in ways of thinking. Audible members now get more
0:15
Speaker 1: than ever before. Members choose three titles every month, one
0:18
Speaker 1: audiobook plus two Audible originals that you can't hear anywhere else.
0:22
Speaker 1: Members also have unlimited access to more than a hundred
0:24
Speaker 1: audio guided fitness and meditation programs. Audible delivers best sellers, business,
0:29
Speaker 1: self improvement memoirs, and more, all professionally narrated by actors, authors,
0:33
Speaker 1: and motivational superstars like Rachel Hollis, David Goggins, and Mel Robbins.
0:37
Speaker 1: Audible members can also get free access to the New
0:39
Speaker 1: York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post delivered daily
0:43
Speaker 1: to the Audible app. With a convenient app, members can
0:45
Speaker 1: access Audible any time at the gym, while commuting or
0:48
Speaker 1: on the go, and on any device will always pick
0:51
Speaker 1: right back up where you left off. Audible also offers
0:54
Speaker 1: free and easy audiobook exchanges. Credits you can roll over
0:56
Speaker 1: for a year in a library you keep forever, even
0:59
Speaker 1: if you cancel. Explore all the ways listening on Audible
1:02
Speaker 1: can help improve mind, body, and soul with entertainment, information
1:06
Speaker 1: and inspiration. You can get titles from your favorite I
1:08
Speaker 1: Heeart talent such as Chelsea Handler, Danny Shapiro, Charlemagne the God,
1:12
Speaker 1: and Bobby Bones on Audible. Start listening now with a
1:14
Speaker 1: thirty day Audible trial and your first audiobook plus two
1:17
Speaker 1: Audible originals are free. Visit audible dot com, slash I
1:21
Speaker 1: heart or text I Heeart to five hundred, five hundred.
1:24
Speaker 1: My next guest. Monday Night Brewing is an Atlanta based
1:27
Speaker 1: craft brewery. We're talking about beers. Yo. We They brew
1:31
Speaker 1: beers for weeknights, balance flavorful ales that pair well with food. Um. Interesting,
1:38
Speaker 1: We're gonna have an interesting completely or not. Uh. The
1:40
Speaker 1: idea for Monday Night Brewing grew out of a small
1:43
Speaker 1: Atlanta Bible study. We started brewing beer together on Monday
1:48
Speaker 1: nights as a way to get to know each other.
1:50
Speaker 1: You go to the website. They got it written right
1:52
Speaker 1: there on the website, it's stop telling you the truth.
1:54
Speaker 1: As they started building this up and started building their brand,
1:57
Speaker 1: Monday Night Brewing craft brewery, the CEO CEO in my
2:01
Speaker 1: studio right now, a Monday night brewing, Jeff Head, please
2:04
Speaker 1: work on the Monday the money making conversations like maybe
2:07
Speaker 1: I've had a couple too many beers. It's it's a
2:10
Speaker 1: joint in privilege to be here. Get straight. Please workome
2:13
Speaker 1: the money making conversations, same times the time. It's pleasure
2:19
Speaker 1: to be here. Can't wait. Now. You know, I'm from Houston, Texas,
2:22
Speaker 1: and I know in Houston, Texas, craft brewing is huge.
2:26
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's like it's a niche market. And
2:29
Speaker 1: sometimes if you enter this business, you know, everybody sees
2:32
Speaker 1: the big commercials on TV. You hear the bids, they
2:35
Speaker 1: hear the millers, they hear all that. You know, Corona,
2:38
Speaker 1: the little feet down there on the beach. You see
2:40
Speaker 1: those big commercials. But if you really go in the store,
2:43
Speaker 1: you can be mind blown at the options that you
2:46
Speaker 1: have so many options. There's so many options, and it's
2:49
Speaker 1: blown up in the last probably fifteen or twenty years.
2:51
Speaker 1: Years ago, Uh, there were just a handful of options,
2:55
Speaker 1: and they were a handful of big craft buries that
2:56
Speaker 1: had been around for a while who really set the
2:59
Speaker 1: stage for what has been an explosion over the last
3:02
Speaker 1: ten years. Even in the state of Georgia where where
3:04
Speaker 1: we're based, the number of crapperas has tripled just in
3:07
Speaker 1: the last five years. And that's pretty representative, you know.
3:10
Speaker 1: I think it's a couple of things. First, it's just
3:11
Speaker 1: a broader trend in food and beverage of local and
3:14
Speaker 1: craft and so people want something that feels authentic, that
3:17
Speaker 1: they can connect to, that feels connected to their community
3:20
Speaker 1: and to their u to their kind of their people
3:22
Speaker 1: in their neighborhood. And so that I think is a
3:24
Speaker 1: big part of it. Secondly, there's just people are getting
3:26
Speaker 1: better brewing. They're making really really good beers, innovating. America
3:30
Speaker 1: in the United States is really the center of innovation
3:33
Speaker 1: for beer right now. And for a long time, it
3:35
Speaker 1: was Belgium, it was Europe, it was around the world.
3:38
Speaker 1: And what what what we Americans have done with craft beers?
3:41
Speaker 1: Throw all the rules out the window and just be
3:43
Speaker 1: creative with with all kinds of different different parts of
3:47
Speaker 1: the brewing process. So so let me let's talk because
3:49
Speaker 1: you only here for two breaks. So part of the
3:51
Speaker 1: show's education, part of it is building communicating about your brand.
3:56
Speaker 1: Now is it technology is The reason that so many
4:00
Speaker 1: individual beers are being created and being sample is the
4:04
Speaker 1: technology now is is the same system it's it's beer
4:08
Speaker 1: is beer is basically the same process that has been
4:10
Speaker 1: since monks walked out with big vats of barley water
4:14
Speaker 1: in the middle of the forest and let wild yeast
4:16
Speaker 1: from the air come in and turn that sugar water
4:18
Speaker 1: into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Not much has really changed now.
4:21
Speaker 1: We're better at making sure it's we know what we're
4:23
Speaker 1: doing and and and processes are consistent, but it's basically
4:27
Speaker 1: the same. It's really been driven by consumers and by innovators,
4:30
Speaker 1: by people who have done really creative, interesting things and
4:33
Speaker 1: make beer that this tastes really good. I'm a start
4:35
Speaker 1: with the basic question what makes a good beer? That
4:38
Speaker 1: is all in the eye of the beholder, my friend.
4:40
Speaker 1: It's like where you look at the shilf, you see
4:42
Speaker 1: so many options. So you know, that's absolutely and the
4:46
Speaker 1: great thing about craft beers. We always like to say
4:48
Speaker 1: even within our our bery, when you come to our
4:50
Speaker 1: brewery will find anywhere between fifteen and twenty different beers
4:53
Speaker 1: on tap. We always like to say it our brewery, yep,
4:56
Speaker 1: we have two facilities too, breweries and both of them
4:59
Speaker 1: you can find fifteen twenty beers. It's untapped and we
5:01
Speaker 1: always tell people we will find a beer you like
5:03
Speaker 1: you just we all it's always our challenge. Okay, I'm
5:06
Speaker 1: not I'm kind of confused now, Okay, you just a
5:09
Speaker 1: small time right. Oh you know we're you know, we're
5:16
Speaker 1: dropping the drop of a bike. We we will make
5:20
Speaker 1: over a hundred different beers this this year. So now
5:23
Speaker 1: we have a handful of them that that are the
5:25
Speaker 1: vast majority of our sales. So about six beers for
5:28
Speaker 1: us make up about sevent our total sales. And then
5:31
Speaker 1: we have a lot of fun with the other stuff
5:33
Speaker 1: because that's our pipeline. That gives people a reason to
5:35
Speaker 1: come and visit our brewery. Um, and it gives us
5:38
Speaker 1: new ideas and research and development for This is a
5:42
Speaker 1: fun conversation because I think everybody who's listening to this
5:45
Speaker 1: call is going to be educated. And if you don't
5:47
Speaker 1: drink beer, I don't drink beer, So not because I
5:50
Speaker 1: don't like to, I just don't drink it, you know,
5:52
Speaker 1: So nothing negative. I just want to put that out
5:54
Speaker 1: there now. The fact that you say that, do you
5:58
Speaker 1: have you try to create and engagement. I always felt
6:01
Speaker 1: like beer is like a love affair people you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: you know, you know you'll see a female at the
6:08
Speaker 1: game swigging a beer. You know they're going to ball,
6:10
Speaker 1: you know. If it feels like that's a very conference
6:13
Speaker 1: zone for people to interact with. Absolutely, and that's the
6:17
Speaker 1: reason we started the company because we felt like beer
6:21
Speaker 1: is a leveler. It takes it takes balls down between people.
6:24
Speaker 1: And so we actually have a purpose statement that we
6:26
Speaker 1: uh that we talk about at every meeting we do internally,
6:29
Speaker 1: every meeting I have with the wholesale or with an
6:30
Speaker 1: account and our purpose statement is that we exist to
6:33
Speaker 1: deep in human relationships over some of the best beer
6:35
Speaker 1: in the country. So it starts with relationships. We want
6:38
Speaker 1: to be a place where people deepen relationships with each other,
6:41
Speaker 1: and so that's played out in really small ways in
6:42
Speaker 1: our business, but we think are really significant. So for example,
6:45
Speaker 1: when you come to our tap room, uh, you won't
6:47
Speaker 1: find you'll find some little tables of four or five
6:50
Speaker 1: tiana seat tables, but you also find big, long picnic
6:52
Speaker 1: benches because we wanted to force strangers to sit down
6:55
Speaker 1: next to each other and have a conversation and get
6:57
Speaker 1: to know each other. And beer is this this thing.
6:59
Speaker 1: If you're a CEO, or you're you know, a dockworker,
7:03
Speaker 1: or you're a waiter or you're, you know, the manager
7:06
Speaker 1: of a restaurant, it doesn't matter when you sit down
7:07
Speaker 1: with that beer over your hand. There's something where you're
7:09
Speaker 1: you're you're just you're just human beings. And we love that.
7:12
Speaker 1: My dad was a beer drink. He had he drunk
7:14
Speaker 1: the legendary Paps Blue Ribbons award winning award winning My dad, boy,
7:19
Speaker 1: he's drunk it us a Paps Blue Ribbons today right now.
7:23
Speaker 1: So I know about some beer drink, but I cut
7:25
Speaker 1: you off earlier. He was telling me about beer is
7:27
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the beholder. What makes a good beer? Yeah, yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: So there's some there's some basic principles of of making
7:34
Speaker 1: a good beer. So there are there are certain uh
7:37
Speaker 1: there's I think balance is a is a big one. Um.
7:40
Speaker 1: You know you want to you want a beer that's
7:42
Speaker 1: gonna gonna have a little bit of sweet, a little
7:44
Speaker 1: bit of bitter. You there's all kinds of but you
7:50
Speaker 1: almost made me make me want to sell. Hey, balance,
7:56
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I'm telling you you get just just
7:58
Speaker 1: that one little drop on your tongue and uh, it's glorious, glorious.
8:03
Speaker 1: And then the best part is after you have one
8:04
Speaker 1: or two, then you get down the conversation, you get
8:06
Speaker 1: talking about real life. That's where the fun really started. Yeah. Now,
8:09
Speaker 1: now now you know you have these you have tap
8:12
Speaker 1: and then you have this like some beer foam up
8:14
Speaker 1: and all that good stuff. What does all this? What?
8:16
Speaker 1: What does this? It's kind of like a world did
8:18
Speaker 1: you guys have? That's what I'm just enamored with this
8:21
Speaker 1: whole conversation because beer is like a world. You know,
8:24
Speaker 1: it's like you know, it's you know, you you have
8:27
Speaker 1: the big viking. Look you know that big mug. Did
8:30
Speaker 1: you come? And then you have this young lady which
8:33
Speaker 1: is nice beer and she sits on that's a that's why. Well,
8:38
Speaker 1: and the reality is you get you come to our
8:40
Speaker 1: So we have a tap him down in southwest Atlanta
8:42
Speaker 1: we called the garage. And in the garage, so in
8:46
Speaker 1: the garage, but you'll find is people from all kinds
8:49
Speaker 1: of different walks of life. So and you'll find uh,
8:51
Speaker 1: you know, you'll find the mom with their with their
8:53
Speaker 1: baby and a little baby carrier drinking a you know
8:56
Speaker 1: drinking a you know, a nice strong in Russian imperial
9:00
Speaker 1: stout and uh, and you'll find uh, you know, you
9:03
Speaker 1: find another group of you know, younger folks hanging out
9:06
Speaker 1: and drinking some sour fruited beers. So there's just things
9:10
Speaker 1: for everybody for everybody. And we're always surprised that the
9:13
Speaker 1: things that people don't let that those stereotypes they blew
9:15
Speaker 1: up pretty quick once you actually get people exposed to
9:17
Speaker 1: different kinds of things. They just don't know what they want.
9:19
Speaker 1: We don't know. We're talking in studio with Jeff Heck,
9:22
Speaker 1: he's the CEO of Monday Night Brewing. And you have
9:24
Speaker 1: two locations. Tell us about the other locations. Yea, the
9:29
Speaker 1: garage yet we open that just last fall, and then
9:31
Speaker 1: that facility we do barrel agd in sour beers, so
9:34
Speaker 1: we're doing all kinds of crazy experimentation stuff there. And
9:36
Speaker 1: the original location is on the west side of Atlanta,
9:39
Speaker 1: and that's where we do the bulk of our production.
9:41
Speaker 1: So most of the beers that we send out to
9:42
Speaker 1: it to the market through wholesale distribution are made in
9:46
Speaker 1: that in that facility, and then we have a tap
9:48
Speaker 1: room there. Um, it's about a mile and a half
9:49
Speaker 1: of my house where we actually started brewing beer in
9:51
Speaker 1: my Yeah. Yeah, and if it wasn't a hundred degrees
9:57
Speaker 1: in Atlanta in the middle of the summer. Um, but
10:00
Speaker 1: uh yes, So so that's that's where most of our
10:02
Speaker 1: staff are and where where are the bulk of our
10:04
Speaker 1: production is. Let's talk about the business side of this.
10:07
Speaker 1: That's what I created. Money making conversations you and entrepreneur
10:11
Speaker 1: and um, you have a you have like she just
10:13
Speaker 1: kind of came out of a Bible study, people talking
10:15
Speaker 1: together and and then saying, hey, you know you like,
10:19
Speaker 1: like I said, there's faith involved in that, going out
10:22
Speaker 1: on faith, believing that you you prey on something. But
10:24
Speaker 1: you have to have a you have to have a plan.
10:26
Speaker 1: How did this start? So we started actually the in
10:30
Speaker 1: that Bible study, there was about ten of us young
10:32
Speaker 1: guys in our mid twenties. We were getting together on
10:34
Speaker 1: Friday mornings, um, talking about you know, opening up the Bible,
10:37
Speaker 1: talking about God figuring out you know, figuring out life
10:39
Speaker 1: in our in our twenties. And but we didn't all
10:41
Speaker 1: know each other very well, and so we wanted to
10:43
Speaker 1: find a way where we could just get to know
10:44
Speaker 1: each other in a more laid back environment. And so
10:46
Speaker 1: one of our wives had gotten a homebrewing beer kit
10:49
Speaker 1: for us for so you can do at your house.
10:52
Speaker 1: You can, you can, you can buy the equipment and
10:54
Speaker 1: it's set up for your house. So so it's not
10:56
Speaker 1: too late for you. They're still you know, my wife,
10:58
Speaker 1: she had that little cocoa cold you can make coke,
11:00
Speaker 1: and she could she could do die coke. So it's
11:03
Speaker 1: kind of like that, yeah, except you need a turkey
11:05
Speaker 1: fryer so you you boil the water. Yeah, exactly right. See,
11:09
Speaker 1: it's a little more than that to boiling the water up.
11:12
Speaker 1: So when anyway we started, you're not gonna just slide
11:15
Speaker 1: past this home brewing thing and just turkey fire and
11:18
Speaker 1: all that. So we've got two minutes, a little bit
11:21
Speaker 1: over two minutes left. Tell us that this home brewing
11:24
Speaker 1: system works. That so people can hear that, and then
11:27
Speaker 1: we're going to translate to the big time where you
11:29
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, so you can, you can. You can
11:31
Speaker 1: buy us a small homebrew set up. And what you
11:34
Speaker 1: do beer is basically a process of boiling water and
11:37
Speaker 1: you add barley, different kinds of grains and you get
11:40
Speaker 1: the sugars, extract the sugars from those grains, you effectively, Yeah,
11:44
Speaker 1: so what you end up having is a sugary boiled water.
11:48
Speaker 1: And then what you do is you throw in hops.
11:49
Speaker 1: Hops are a cone flower that provide bitterness and flavor
11:54
Speaker 1: and aroma floral, citrusy kinds of flavors to beer. So
11:58
Speaker 1: you add those in while you're boiling the beer. Then
12:00
Speaker 1: you cool it all down, and then you add yeast.
12:02
Speaker 1: And yeast what yeast does is it's an organism that
12:05
Speaker 1: just eats through the sugars in the in the words
12:08
Speaker 1: that that's called that's what we call technical term for
12:10
Speaker 1: the sugary barley water, and converts those sugars into alcohol
12:14
Speaker 1: and carbon dioxide. So that's the way any fermentation process works,
12:17
Speaker 1: is it's yeast eats sugars and gives off alcohol and
12:20
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. So that same, those same rules apply to
12:23
Speaker 1: the homebrew set up and to the big setup that
12:25
Speaker 1: we have now where we're brewing. Every time, we brew
12:28
Speaker 1: ten thousand cans of beer um over the course of
12:31
Speaker 1: a single brew. Far as before it was maybe a hundred.
12:34
Speaker 1: So so so with that being said, so okay, how
12:38
Speaker 1: quick could you have could you drink that? How quick
12:41
Speaker 1: could you drink that that you have just made at
12:43
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what what would do
12:46
Speaker 1: is then that that little gathering on Monday nights grew
12:49
Speaker 1: what I'm saying I'm talking about. See you see I
12:51
Speaker 1: love people who know what they're doing. They just they
12:53
Speaker 1: just give so many steps. He just went from the yeast,
12:56
Speaker 1: they go add little hops. Okay, hey, we have not
13:00
Speaker 1: started drinking yet. When do you start drinking? Two to
13:04
Speaker 1: three weeks later. So so you let the yeasts eats
13:08
Speaker 1: through it. It takes two to three weeks for that
13:10
Speaker 1: to happen. Then you gotta then you gotta get it
13:12
Speaker 1: all carbonated up, and then you put it on a
13:14
Speaker 1: little tap and it's ready to go. But but what
13:19
Speaker 1: we like to say was after a little while, we
13:21
Speaker 1: were making more beer than a Bible study and good
13:23
Speaker 1: conscience could consume by itself. So we started having to
13:26
Speaker 1: invite our neighbors and friends and co workers over. So
13:28
Speaker 1: it became this gathering where on Monday nights, the whole
13:31
Speaker 1: street would be lined with cars. We have twenty to
13:33
Speaker 1: fifty people in my house, uh in the garage, So
13:36
Speaker 1: it became a place to exercise kind of hospitality and
13:39
Speaker 1: welcome people into our home, and it was it was
13:42
Speaker 1: really two of them, the garage and our trap West
13:48
Speaker 1: Midtown location. West Midtown. I'm having so much fun with you.
13:51
Speaker 1: He's the CEO of Monday Night Brewing. Um, keep winning, everybody,
13:55
Speaker 1: because I'm winning with this guy. He's convincing me that's
13:58
Speaker 1: a drink, but I don't. He's good. Keep winning. I
14:04
Speaker 1: am a studio with my favorite guests. I'm just gonna
14:07
Speaker 1: let y'all know that Jeff Heck, he's to see you
14:11
Speaker 1: on Monday Night Brewing because he's educating me. He's bringing
14:15
Speaker 1: me over to the beer side. It was really, you know,
14:16
Speaker 1: because I'm one of these guys. I'm hard. I'm hard,
14:19
Speaker 1: I'm one them stout guy. I'm old too, you know.
14:21
Speaker 1: I'm I'm old fogey. I ain't gonna change. You can't
14:24
Speaker 1: teach the old dog new tricks. Brother. You got me sniffing,
14:31
Speaker 1: so so I was all fair. I was talking about
14:35
Speaker 1: the beer starts sweet, and it just seems like the
14:39
Speaker 1: whole process is the unsweeten. It is that the is
14:42
Speaker 1: that true? That is that's one way to look at it.
14:44
Speaker 1: It's kind of like kind of like coffee, your coffee
14:47
Speaker 1: drinker drink. See, I like my I like my coffee strong,
14:51
Speaker 1: no sugar, no cream, like my beer strong. Absolutely. I
14:56
Speaker 1: mean I think what happens with sugar when you take
14:58
Speaker 1: sugar out, is it allow some of the other flavor
15:00
Speaker 1: uh to really manifest themselves. Let's come forward, Let's talk
15:02
Speaker 1: about some of the business side of let's do you
15:04
Speaker 1: guys are a distributor and uh at one time you
15:07
Speaker 1: could want to distribute. Now you can sails. That's a
15:10
Speaker 1: major change in your business model. Correct, yes, So so
15:13
Speaker 1: up until last fall, we were only allowed to sell
15:16
Speaker 1: our beer to a wholesaler and they could sell it
15:18
Speaker 1: to a retailer, so like a grocery store, a restaurant.
15:21
Speaker 1: But we couldn't sell directly to a restaurant or bar
15:24
Speaker 1: or a grocery store. We certainly couldn't sell directly to
15:26
Speaker 1: a consumer, including people that came in to visit our
15:28
Speaker 1: tap room. So the crazy thing was people come into
15:30
Speaker 1: our brewery, UH want to buy a beer, and they
15:33
Speaker 1: couldn't buy by it. They had wed have to send
15:35
Speaker 1: them down the road. Um. We we actually lobbied really
15:38
Speaker 1: hard to convince people with what has been shown in
15:41
Speaker 1: other states, which is if you get people to come
15:43
Speaker 1: into your brewery and take something home with him. They're
15:46
Speaker 1: gonna go by next time when they're they're not gonna
15:48
Speaker 1: come all the way back to the brewer. They're gonna
15:49
Speaker 1: go buy it from the retail store right down the street.
15:51
Speaker 1: So it ends up helping everyone. It's a chance for us.
15:54
Speaker 1: Our tap rooms and our breweries are the biggest marketing
15:57
Speaker 1: tool that we have because it allows people to come
15:59
Speaker 1: and experience our brand firsthand. And so uh so this
16:02
Speaker 1: was a really important tool for us to to allow
16:05
Speaker 1: people to to more freely and openly experienced what it is.
16:09
Speaker 1: And then the experience is coming in and experience and
16:11
Speaker 1: you're like you said, yeah, fifteen options right, yeah, roughly
16:15
Speaker 1: depending on the day. Yeah, each one has a different name.
16:18
Speaker 1: I'll have I'll have different names, Okay, okay, different recipes,
16:21
Speaker 1: like ricanes have a different name. Yes. So some of
16:27
Speaker 1: our big some of our kind of our core beers,
16:29
Speaker 1: we have one we call slap Fight. That's a that's
16:31
Speaker 1: an I P A I P A s are are
16:33
Speaker 1: are real, are real bitter. So we like to say
16:36
Speaker 1: that slap is gonna slap you right up on the face.
16:37
Speaker 1: It's gonna give you and give you a good and
16:39
Speaker 1: I'll wake you up a little bit. We've got We've
16:42
Speaker 1: we've got han Brolough. That's our pale ale um. We've
16:46
Speaker 1: got we've got drafty Kilt. Drafty Kilt is our scotch
16:49
Speaker 1: ail um. So we we love to have fun with
16:52
Speaker 1: our with our names. It's one of the one of
16:54
Speaker 1: the biggest best things about your your decision maker here,
16:58
Speaker 1: How did these names come about? And are just sitting
17:01
Speaker 1: around no matter as you did? Did the names come
17:04
Speaker 1: about when you sober or drunk? But hey, we're we're
17:07
Speaker 1: all about moderation, my friends. So uh, so I won't
17:10
Speaker 1: say we may have had a beer too. We may
17:12
Speaker 1: have had a beer too, uh, But then we always
17:14
Speaker 1: stem back and give ourselves a little time and see
17:15
Speaker 1: if it still sounds good the next morning. Let's put
17:17
Speaker 1: it that way. That's that's my rule of thun for life.
17:21
Speaker 1: Make decisions after you've given it a little time. Now
17:23
Speaker 1: you have two locations in the city of Atlanta. How
17:26
Speaker 1: does one um get your beer in their stores or
17:29
Speaker 1: in their businesses? Yea, So we sell to two wholesalers
17:32
Speaker 1: and then U those retail accounts. So if you're if
17:35
Speaker 1: you're an independent convenience store operator. You can call one
17:38
Speaker 1: of our wholesalers and they'll send the beer to you
17:41
Speaker 1: that we sell. The vast majority of our sales are
17:44
Speaker 1: are through the wholesale channel, and so, um, we will, we'll.
17:48
Speaker 1: We're in about three thousand or so depending on the day,
17:51
Speaker 1: different retail locations in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Uh so
17:55
Speaker 1: you can get us really in all three of those states.
17:56
Speaker 1: The pretty broadly the Kroger Public's, all the big grocery stores,
17:59
Speaker 1: all the restaurants, bars, the meage. How big is your play?
18:02
Speaker 1: It seemed like that be a great birthday party for
18:06
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve party location to come. Absolutely. We we
18:09
Speaker 1: will do about fifty weddings this year in our breweries.
18:13
Speaker 1: So we have a whole separate private event space the
18:16
Speaker 1: garage weddings. It blows my mind. That's somewhere. Uh there
18:20
Speaker 1: are that many people who convince their their mothers and
18:23
Speaker 1: mothers in laws that they to pay for a wedding
18:26
Speaker 1: in a brewery. Um, but they do and it's and
18:28
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. The pictures that we get from there are
18:31
Speaker 1: wonderful and something expect that business model, No, we didn't
18:35
Speaker 1: expect it. Nearly as much as we've as we've seen it.
18:37
Speaker 1: It's been a really helpful additional revenue stream and a
18:41
Speaker 1: wait place for just people to get in and experience
18:43
Speaker 1: our our brand who maybe not maybe not a big
18:46
Speaker 1: craft beer drinkers, but they get in, they see the
18:48
Speaker 1: space and they you know they're talking about they try
18:50
Speaker 1: some beer and then they uh. Each of our facilities
18:55
Speaker 1: are about twenty square feet. So the first one our
18:58
Speaker 1: original location, most of at his production area, so we
19:01
Speaker 1: will and we have a we have a big beautiful patio, uh.
19:04
Speaker 1: And then the second spaces is mostly uh a bar
19:07
Speaker 1: bar kind tap room and a private event space. Okay,
19:10
Speaker 1: here's the fun part about interviewing you. First of all,
19:13
Speaker 1: you love what you do, do it. It comes right
19:16
Speaker 1: out of your eyes. You're telling me just a brilliant story.
19:19
Speaker 1: So balancing your life. I always want to talk about
19:22
Speaker 1: balancing your life. Yeah you you you're a mile and
19:25
Speaker 1: a half away from one of your locations. That means
19:27
Speaker 1: that means that your hop skipping the jump from your
19:30
Speaker 1: job every day. You you almost can almost bring it home.
19:33
Speaker 1: How do you balance your life? Because you have four kids?
19:35
Speaker 1: Four kids? How do you balance all that? You know,
19:37
Speaker 1: that's a great question, and it's something I always struggle
19:39
Speaker 1: with personally. I worked in finance for about twelve years
19:42
Speaker 1: before I finally quit that and UH and came over
19:45
Speaker 1: to work for Monday at full time. And the real
19:47
Speaker 1: best blessing for me has been I have two partners,
19:49
Speaker 1: and so I would never start a business on my own, honestly,
19:53
Speaker 1: because I'm just too conservative. I'm more I'm more play
19:56
Speaker 1: it safe kind of guy. But I was able to
19:58
Speaker 1: have two partners who helped push me forward, help me
20:00
Speaker 1: take some risks, and so that's been the biggest help.
20:04
Speaker 1: So we we fill in for each other, we cover
20:06
Speaker 1: for each other. And then it's been learning that at
20:08
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I always like to step
20:09
Speaker 1: back and think, you know what is it what at
20:11
Speaker 1: the end of my life, and I are gonna regret
20:13
Speaker 1: that I said if I don't, if I don't spend
20:14
Speaker 1: the time on and UH, And it has yet to
20:17
Speaker 1: come up. I wish I spent a little less a
20:20
Speaker 1: little little less time with my family and a little
20:22
Speaker 1: more time at the office. Well, you know, that was
20:23
Speaker 1: something that I've struggled with, you know, early on, because
20:26
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you when I say that because you're
20:29
Speaker 1: younger than me when you figured it out. You know,
20:31
Speaker 1: because you get out there, you start getting success of
20:34
Speaker 1: fear sets in whether or not you can take our
20:36
Speaker 1: day off or ye, you've missed that opportunity to miss
20:38
Speaker 1: that that's terrifying, absolutely. And then they have that ballance
20:43
Speaker 1: and have four kids that love you and a wife
20:44
Speaker 1: who loves you. That's a that's the balance you have
20:47
Speaker 1: to maintain, you know. And I also think it's important
20:49
Speaker 1: to send the message. I want to send the message
20:50
Speaker 1: to my kids that the work's not a bad thing.
20:53
Speaker 1: And so one of the things I tried to do
20:54
Speaker 1: too is to bring them into the office with me.
20:56
Speaker 1: They'll come, my daughters will come in under the office
20:58
Speaker 1: and have lunch with me in my office. Um. And
21:00
Speaker 1: just trying to give them exposure to to so that
21:02
Speaker 1: they can see, you know, what does hard work look like.
21:04
Speaker 1: I don't want them grown up thinking that works bad
21:07
Speaker 1: or hear me talking about badly about my about my
21:09
Speaker 1: work as I love it. Um. But at the same time,
21:11
Speaker 1: I want to be able to um uh, you know,
21:13
Speaker 1: to spend enough time at home. And you know, now
21:15
Speaker 1: I get to have dinner with my family almost every night,
21:17
Speaker 1: and put my kids abad It's a lovely thing. You
21:18
Speaker 1: mentioned them earlier. You started a business with friends, Yes, okay,
21:22
Speaker 1: that could be good, that could be bad because one
21:25
Speaker 1: day you got to talk to your friends a little
21:26
Speaker 1: bit different. How does that balance work for you? We
21:30
Speaker 1: have been just so blessed in this because I think
21:34
Speaker 1: I say this about marriage too. I totally understand why
21:37
Speaker 1: marriage can be really hard, and I totally understand why
21:40
Speaker 1: business partners can be really hard. I'm really fortunate. That
21:42
Speaker 1: is actually a huge asset for me, both my marriage
21:46
Speaker 1: and my business partners. So the biggest thing we did
21:48
Speaker 1: is we learned to be really open and honest with
21:50
Speaker 1: each other from very early on, and to fight clean.
21:54
Speaker 1: So we fight about things, we argue about things, but
21:56
Speaker 1: we do it in ways that don't attack each other. Um.
21:59
Speaker 1: We really try to stay open minded about um where
22:01
Speaker 1: our idea, whether that our idea might not be the
22:04
Speaker 1: best one, and we trust each other a lot. So
22:05
Speaker 1: the three of us have very different backgrounds professionally. Jonathan
22:08
Speaker 1: is a marketing guy, Joel's really got an operations mind,
22:11
Speaker 1: and I'm more of a finance and strategy guy. And
22:14
Speaker 1: sot and and I love I love building culture. I
22:18
Speaker 1: love building culture. I've got a lot, a lot to
22:20
Speaker 1: learn about it, but but but I love it. And
22:22
Speaker 1: so one of the things we've learned too is to
22:23
Speaker 1: differ to each other in our areas of expertise UM,
22:26
Speaker 1: while not being afraid to speak our mind UM. So communication, communication, communication,
22:30
Speaker 1: UM and humility UH and acknowledging what you're good at
22:33
Speaker 1: and acknowledging what you're not has been incredibly helpful. And
22:36
Speaker 1: I'd say we're better friends now than we were when
22:38
Speaker 1: we met each other fifteen years. The business is about
22:42
Speaker 1: seven years old. We are celebrating our seventh anniversary um
22:45
Speaker 1: in uh in just a few weeks, the August fourth,
22:49
Speaker 1: the weekend of the fourth and fifth. Absolutely absolutely right
22:53
Speaker 1: down at the garage. I'll bring you some and I
22:58
Speaker 1: might maybe, maybe, how about you could use some of
23:00
Speaker 1: the beer as an ingredient in one of your of
23:03
Speaker 1: your I I used to win chili cook offs in
23:09
Speaker 1: college chili and beers. There you go. I used beer.
23:13
Speaker 1: I should use a little small bill of like beers.
23:15
Speaker 1: That's I never use water in my beer in brisket.
23:17
Speaker 1: So so I'm gonna come get some of your beer.
23:20
Speaker 1: I would make some of my ward will do something
23:25
Speaker 1: I've lied I have. You've had beer beer, but the
23:31
Speaker 1: record shown been drinking long. It's just a cup of
23:39
Speaker 1: my show and and wake me up. You've been drinking
23:44
Speaker 1: beer for a long time. My man. I want to
23:46
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on this. It's been a joy.
23:47
Speaker 1: It's been fun to tell us about your two locations.
23:51
Speaker 1: Two locations, uh, the Trapered Avenue location in the west
23:54
Speaker 1: in West Midtown and the garage down in Southwest Atlanta
23:57
Speaker 1: in the West End. UM both open seven days a week,
24:00
Speaker 1: seven days a weekend. You can go in there. You
24:02
Speaker 1: can sample, come in samples and beers, take home your favorites. UM,
24:06
Speaker 1: meet some new friends, get married. Absolutely, my man. I
24:11
Speaker 1: want to thank you great August August, first weekend in August.
24:16
Speaker 1: I will be there. Listening makes us smarter, more connected people.
24:20
Speaker 1: It makes us better partners, parents, and leaders. And there's
24:23
Speaker 1: no better place to start listening than audible. Audible is
24:26
Speaker 1: where so many inspiring voices and compelling stories open listeners
24:29
Speaker 1: up to new experiences in ways of thinking. Audible members
24:32
Speaker 1: now get more than ever before. Members choose three titles
24:35
Speaker 1: every month, one audio book plus two audible originals that
24:38
Speaker 1: you can't hear anywhere else. Members also have unlimited access
24:41
Speaker 1: to more than a hundred audio guided fitness and meditation programs.
24:44
Speaker 1: Audible delivers bestsellers, business, self improvement memoirs, and more, all
24:48
Speaker 1: professionally narrated by actors, authors, and motivational superstars like Rachel Hollis,
24:53
Speaker 1: David Goggins, and Mel Robbins. Audible members can also get
24:56
Speaker 1: free access to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal
24:58
Speaker 1: and Washington Post deliver daily to the Audible app. With
25:01
Speaker 1: a convenient app, members can access Audible anytime at the gym,
25:05
Speaker 1: while commuting or on the go, and on any device
25:07
Speaker 1: will always pick right back up where you left off.
25:10
Speaker 1: Audible also offers free and easy audiobook exchanges. Credits you
25:13
Speaker 1: can roll over for a year in a library you
25:15
Speaker 1: keep forever even if you cancel. Explore all the ways
25:18
Speaker 1: listening on Audible can help improve mind, body, and soul.
25:22
Speaker 1: With entertainment, information and inspiration. You can get titles from
25:25
Speaker 1: your favorite I heeart talent such as Chelsea Handler, Danny Shapiro, Charlemagne,
25:29
Speaker 1: The God, and Bobby Bones on Audible. Start listening now
25:31
Speaker 1: with a thirty day Audible trial and your first audiobook
25:34
Speaker 1: plus two Audible originals are free. Visit audible dot com.
25:37
Speaker 1: Slash I heart or text I heeart to five hundred,
25:40
Speaker 1: five hundred