140+ Years of Malting in Wisconsin w/ Briess Malt & Ingredients Co

David: 00:00:04

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.

David: 00:00:08

We're continuing our conversation with Ron and Jordan from Briess Malt and Ingredient Company.

David: 00:00:14

In this episode, we've got Ron talking about the entire over a hundred years of malt making at Briess.

David: 00:00:21

Enjoy.

Ron: 00:00:21

The

Ron: 00:00:21

Manitowoc malt plant.

Gary: 00:00:23

This seems like a good opportunity then to get into the fact that this is a pretty old company.

Gary: 00:00:28

I mean, you guys have been around a while.

Ron: 00:00:29

It is, yeah.

Ron: 00:00:30

Starting, uh, as early as 1876 in Eastern Europe the Movia region of the Czech Republic, where at the time they were growing a lot of barley and so it was natural for an import export business to develop there and first generation Ignatius Briess.

Ron: 00:00:49

Built a Malthouse and started producing product and shipping it regionally and then eventually around the world.

Ron: 00:00:55

And third generation Maltster.

Ron: 00:00:57

Eric Briess then immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, and then he settled in New York and he's the one who formed a relationship with Chilton Malting company.

Ron: 00:01:11

So, he started procuring malted barley from there and then shipping it around the world.

Ron: 00:01:16

He was a global malt broker trader, and then, uh, he started roasting product at the Chilton Malt House as early as 1953, going back to the early days of what Jordan was talking about a minute ago with that roasting operation at Manitowoc.

Ron: 00:01:33

So that was happening already in 1953.

Ron: 00:01:37

And then eventually Roger Briess, the fourth generation owner, took over in the early 1970s, and he eventually bought the Chilton Malthouse in 1978 and in 1978, the other thing that happened that was super significant for craft brewing is that that was the year that home brewing was legalized.

Ron: 00:02:03

That was President Jimmy Carter that legalized home brewing in 1978.

Ron: 00:02:08

So for a lot of things that happen that are significant in society, there's sort of that one trigger point that's the launchpad for those things to happen.

Ron: 00:02:18

And that was, it was that legalization of home brewing.

Ron: 00:02:21

And then in the late seventies and into the early eighties, there were some guys who were home brewing mostly in their basement or their garage, or an old warehouse, something like that.

Ron: 00:02:33

And at the time Briess was the only malting company supplying malt that brewers could use.

Ron: 00:02:41

Because think back to that era where around Wisconsin, for instance, you still had Blats, Schitz, Hyman's, Old Style, Stross over in Michigan, Hams and Grain Belt up in Minnesota.

Ron: 00:02:55

Those brewers were all big enough to take full truckloads of malt into a silo.

Ron: 00:03:00

But if you were brewing in your basement or garage, you couldn't exactly take a full truckload.

Ron: 00:03:05

And Roger Briess understood that.

Ron: 00:03:08

And so he developed these 50 pound bags of malt and made malt accessible to home brewers that then started, uh, making their beer commercially available to retailers or in, in tap rooms.

Joel: 00:03:23

So in other words, you sparked the craft beer revolution.

Ron: 00:03:26

We did.

Ron: 00:03:27

Yeah.

Ron: 00:03:27

Roger Briess personally leading the company was one of the, just four or five people who were there in the early days of the craft beer revolution

Joel: 00:03:37

because we, we interact just as a frame of reference, we interact with 50 pound bags.

Ron: 00:03:43

Sure.

Ron: 00:03:44

Mm-hmm.

Ron: 00:03:44

Yeah.

Ron: 00:03:45

Still today.

Ron: 00:03:46

Yeah.

Ron: 00:03:47

And, you know, thinking, thinking back and, and rewinding the clock, uh, Roger Briess, I. Unexpectedly passed away in 2001 and we had a celebration to commemorate the 20 year passing of Roger.

Ron: 00:04:02

And we did some interviews with some of those legacy brewers that were around at the time.

Ron: 00:04:07

And, uh, I'll give an example from talking with David Grinnell at Boston Beer, and they've been pretty successful.

Ron: 00:04:15

They have with that Sam Adams brand and a few other things.

Ron: 00:04:18

They certainly have, right?

Ron: 00:04:18

Yeah.

Ron: 00:04:19

So this is what David said because he was there in the early days of Boston Beer.

Ron: 00:04:24

He said in the early days, Briess was the only game in town at Boston Beer.

Ron: 00:04:29

We were so immature as a company.

Ron: 00:04:31

Roger Briess was there holding our hands.

Ron: 00:04:34

You guys were the complete package.

Joel: 00:04:38

That's a fantastic quote.

Ron: 00:04:40

Yeah, it it is.

Ron: 00:04:41

And.

Ron: 00:04:42

It's hard to imagine that now with all the resources and suppliers and whole supply chains that are set up around craft brewing.

Ron: 00:04:50

Uh, but those were in the early days when nobody even really knew what craft beer was in this country.

Ron: 00:04:56

Or this is an example from Charlie Papazian who was the president of the Brewer's Association for quite a while, and on

Joel: 00:05:03

every guest we've had when we've asked them my signature question, who's on the Mount Rushmore of brewing in the United States?

Joel: 00:05:10

Yeah.

Joel: 00:05:10

Charlie is always on that list,

Ron: 00:05:12

right?

Ron: 00:05:13

Yeah, undoubtedly.

Ron: 00:05:15

And so what he said about Roger Briess was he said, craft brewing was like a dark cloud.

Ron: 00:05:22

You couldn't get people to understand, distribute, or sell it.

Ron: 00:05:27

Roger Briess and Ron Siebel of Siebel Institute were the first industry people who threw their support wholeheartedly behind what we were trying to do.

Ron: 00:05:37

They could see the ideas floating around the room were something they wanted to be part of.

Ron: 00:05:44

And I think, you know, today as craft breweries get started, there's still so many great stories of craft breweries that start really every brewer and every brewery has a great story.

Ron: 00:05:54

And there again, it's kind of ideas floating around the room that seems so compelling that people wanna be part of that.

Ron: 00:06:01

And so Briess was in the early days and with those brewers and many more like Sierra Nevada or New Belgium or new GLADiS, we still have relationships with all those customers and are just proud to continue to serve them.

Joel: 00:06:16

I want, I want to pivot to that in a second, but I wanna point out something that I think Gary's thinking, which is that we do so much history on this podcast, but Ron came in and just did it way better than I've done it.

Gary: 00:06:30

Maybe we should get Ron to be a cohost.

Gary: 00:06:32

Yeah, yeah,

Joel: 00:06:33

yeah.

Joel: 00:06:33

I just, uh, Ron you're in malted milk balls, buddy.

Gary: 00:06:37

Oh, malted, malted milk balls.

Gary: 00:06:38

I could, I could bring those every week.

Gary: 00:06:39

I, I did have a question.

Gary: 00:06:40

So the initial, when they came to the United States, were they like the American representatives of a European company or acting kind on that behalf, or did they start a

Ron: 00:06:51

new business?

Ron: 00:06:52

It really became an American based trading company.

Gary: 00:06:56

Do you still have any ties with Europe in terms of, I don't know, any legacy type

Ron: 00:07:01

At this point?

Ron: 00:07:02

We do not.

Ron: 00:07:03

No.

Ron: 00:07:04

It was such a long time ago, and Eric Briess came over to the United States in the early 1950s, and at that time, really in that 10 years after the end of World War ii, there was so much disruption to industry and supply chains and business relationships that it was really kind of a fresh start for Eric and.

Gary: 00:07:27

Bruce malting.

Gary: 00:07:28

One of the things we've talked about in this show is that there's been a rise and fall of brewing in America over the last a hundred years.

Gary: 00:07:36

You go back a hundred years, you had community breweries, especially in places like Wisconsin.

Gary: 00:07:41

Appleton had a brewery, Oshkosh had a brewery, couple breweries.

Gary: 00:07:45

Point I think is one of the legacy, you know, holdovers from that period.

Gary: 00:07:49

Right.

Gary: 00:07:49

And then there was a period of consolidation where it just kind of went down to like Miller, Pabst and a couple very big breweries.

Gary: 00:07:56

And then you saw this revival with, with craft breweries.

Gary: 00:07:59

How has how did Briess ride that wave?

Gary: 00:08:03

Were they giving malt, were they providing malt to a lot of the big brewers?

Gary: 00:08:08

Did the, I know you mentioned that the craft brewing revolution was that kind of, did that revitalize the company?

Ron: 00:08:14

Yeah.

Ron: 00:08:14

That, that was really the spark for Briess to enter brewing in a big way.

Ron: 00:08:20

And Roger, as we talked about a minute ago, was part of that early nucleus of folks who started craft brewing.

Ron: 00:08:28

And he just a hundred percent believed in it and embraced it and thought like, this is, this could really be a thing.

Ron: 00:08:36

And I think some of those folks back then just saw.

Ron: 00:08:41

What quality beer could mean for this country and how different that would be from what was currently being brewed by the mainstream brewers.

Ron: 00:08:49

The macro loggers.

Ron: 00:08:51

Yeah.

Ron: 00:08:51

Right.

Ron: 00:08:51

The macro loggers.

Ron: 00:08:53

Mm-hmm.

Ron: 00:08:53

And so Roger and Briess as a company really threw our weight fully into craft brewing.

Ron: 00:08:59

And from those early days, in late seventies and early 1980s until the early nineties, Briess was the only malting company in the US supplying craft brewers.

Ron: 00:09:12

That's how different the business model was of what the company was doing.

Ron: 00:09:16

I mean,

Gary: 00:09:16

we're, we're talking beer, beer, beer, but what percentage of your revenues or your sales, say at that point, or say before craft brewing were coming from the brewing industry versus today?

Gary: 00:09:26

'cause obviously there's non-beer related malt sales that you guys are doing.

Gary: 00:09:31

What percentage of your business is that?

Ron: 00:09:33

Right.

Ron: 00:09:34

Back in those days, I don't know.

Ron: 00:09:37

I, I haven't seen any numbers of that very high, I would assume, or I'm not sure.

Ron: 00:09:40

It's always been a blend of some brewing ingredients and food ingredients.

Ron: 00:09:46

And we still have a significant food division that sells ingredients for things like bakery products, granola bars, cereal pretzels, things like that, along with malted milk powder.

Ron: 00:09:57

Oh.

Ron: 00:09:57

That has a variety of applications.

Ron: 00:09:59

So yeah, it's best's in the world.

Ron: 00:10:01

Thanks.

Ron: 00:10:01

It's always been a blend mm-hmm.

Ron: 00:10:03

Of brewing.

Ron: 00:10:04

So, is most of

Gary: 00:10:04

your business now beer?

Ron: 00:10:06

It still is brewing, yes.

Joel: 00:10:08

Yeah.

Joel: 00:10:09

Do you still have would you say breeze is still the, and again, we're not talking about the base malts, but the, that 20% of a grain bill, you're still.

Joel: 00:10:23

Providing that for most of the country's craft brewing.

Ron: 00:10:27

Yes.

Ron: 00:10:27

We are in more than half of the craft breweries in the country based on estimates.

Ron: 00:10:33

We've, which is a huge number.

Ron: 00:10:33

We've huge number.

Ron: 00:10:34

Yeah.

Ron: 00:10:34

It is a huge number there.

Ron: 00:10:36

There are 9,500 craft breweries right now.

Ron: 00:10:39

Uh, a number that has flattened out during the last, uh, one or two years, and we are in more than half of those.

Ron: 00:10:45

And you guys have probably seen this too, that when you go around to breweries, you might be in Montana or Florida or North Carolina or Virginia, and you'll see Briess bags.

Ron: 00:10:58

Yeah.

Ron: 00:10:58

Uh, sitting there by the brewing operation and the tanks.

Ron: 00:11:01

Right.

Joel: 00:11:02

Well, and as we were talking about before we went on air, when we had Charlie Bamforth on who's the Popa foam, and, you know, he's now head of quality control at Sierra Nevada.

Joel: 00:11:14

Uh, he mentioned you guys multiple times in the interview.

Joel: 00:11:20

That's cool.

Joel: 00:11:21

Yeah, we've had a long term relationship with him and not even just the malted milk balls, which is again, another topic that, that he probably mentioned off air 20 times, you know, 'cause he was trying to get us to send them some malted milk balls, I think.

Joel: 00:11:34

But yeah.

Gary: 00:11:37

Where do your 50 products come from?

Gary: 00:11:40

Let's say you want to, oh, that's, I was wondering that too.

Gary: 00:11:42

Let's say you want to make Puerto Rico your 51st one.

Gary: 00:11:46

How do you determine it?

Gary: 00:11:47

I mean, is it demand?

Gary: 00:11:49

Are people saying we want this, or is it you monkeying around saying, oh, we could do something like this here people try it out.

Ron: 00:11:55

I,

Gary: 00:11:55

I would

Ron: 00:11:56

say it's mostly based on customer demand.

Ron: 00:11:59

And Jordan May want to chime in on this too, but what we have been really closely connected to our customers for a long time and pride ourselves on listening to them in terms of what their needs are.

Ron: 00:12:10

So just using an example of that, for instance a few years ago.

Ron: 00:12:15

Hazy IPAs became super popular.

Ron: 00:12:18

And some of the ingredients that are really good for adding haze are non barley.

Ron: 00:12:23

So things like oats or wheat.

Ron: 00:12:25

And one of the products we introduced six or seven years ago is blonde roast oat malt.

Ron: 00:12:32

And that's been super successful as an ingredient that brewers use to add haze or for instance, one of the, one of the malts that's, uh, one of the malting styles that's been popular in the US for quite a while is, um, some of the heritage barley varieties from Europe.

Ron: 00:12:53

Thinking marotta or golden promise.

Ron: 00:12:56

And some of those malts can be a little bit more difficult to get or complicated or the supply chains have lengthened out and that doesn't always work for brewers timetables.

Ron: 00:13:08

And so there was demand for domestically produced version.

Ron: 00:13:12

That had those characteristics.

Ron: 00:13:15

We're working now with a heritage barley variety that we're malting in that same way to deliver the bready character along with some honey and floral notes that is just like an English

Gary: 00:13:28

ale malt.

Gary: 00:13:29

So back to the hazy thing.

Gary: 00:13:32

Someone's making a hazy, IPA, they come to you.

Gary: 00:13:36

Do they say, I want a malt made of oats or wheat?

Gary: 00:13:41

Or do they come to you and just say, Hey, can you make, give us something that has haze and you say, okay, we got a product for you.

Gary: 00:13:47

Like, is there an RD branch of Briess that you guys are working on new stuff all the time?

Gary: 00:13:53

Yeah.

Gary: 00:13:53

This, this is the r and d

Ron: 00:13:54

branch right

Gary: 00:13:54

here.

Gary: 00:13:56

But

Ron: 00:13:57

I, I would say it's, you know, it's, it's sort of a conversation between the customer.

Ron: 00:14:01

Like, have a and breeze, like we need for something

Gary: 00:14:02

hazy.

Gary: 00:14:02

What can you do?

Gary: 00:14:03

And then you just figure it out.

Jordan: 00:14:06

It's often a blend of that, right?

Jordan: 00:14:08

So we're always keeping an eye on what's happening in the industry as, as anyone who provides products to the industry would, right?

Jordan: 00:14:14

So, um, we're looking at what's currently happening and we try to see how we can provide, or what our products can provide to meet those needs.

Jordan: 00:14:25

And we've got a, a one barrel pilot brewery that we're lucky enough to produce beer in pretty regularly.

Jordan: 00:14:31

We've got a great team in Chilton Dan Bees and Scott Heimer.

Jordan: 00:14:34

Scott is a big hazy, IPA fan.

Jordan: 00:14:37

He's actually, uh, tweaked his recipe a number of times.

Jordan: 00:14:40

He looking for any reason to practice.

Jordan: 00:14:42

And, uh, so, we'll, you know, as things change in the industry, we're always evaluating our own products, how they can be used, and then also looking for alternatives that we can potentially use to either do better or provide something unique, uh, and interesting to a different style of beer.

Joel: 00:15:01

So you mentioned supply chains where I'm assuming these are coming in by train.

Joel: 00:15:08

Uh, yes.

Joel: 00:15:08

At some level where

Ron: 00:15:10

ship isn't it also some comes in by ship, but mostly by rail because of the relationships we have with growers in Wyoming and Montana.

Joel: 00:15:21

So that was my question.

Joel: 00:15:22

So the bulk of this two row barley, which is kind of the base ingredient for your 50 products Yes.

Joel: 00:15:31

Minus the oats and stuff that you

Ron: 00:15:32

Yeah, a few oats, a little bit of wheat.

Joel: 00:15:34

So that's coming from Wyoming, Montana,

Ron: 00:15:38

yes.

Ron: 00:15:38

Big Horn Basin.

Ron: 00:15:39

Uh, it's known as, and it is one of the premier growing regions in the world.

Ron: 00:15:44

It has warm days and cool nights, and it's dry in general, so there's less disease because of moisture issues.

Ron: 00:15:54

And particularly in Wyoming, a lot of our growers use flood water irrigation so they can bring it in, in, in these channels and get water to the base of the barley plants in the exact amounts and the exact time that they want it to.

Ron: 00:16:10

So it's really a perfect growing region.

Ron: 00:16:14

And, uh, we, we've got those relationships with 300 established barley growers.

Ron: 00:16:20

A lot of them are third or fourth generation that they've been out there, which is super cool.

Ron: 00:16:25

And, bringing up their kids for a love of barley and farming in that region.

Ron: 00:16:32

And then as part of that, we also have an elevator operation out there with several million bushels of storage.

Ron: 00:16:40

And then that rail line connects our Wyoming operation with the Manitowoc malt plant.

Gary: 00:16:47

Oh, I, and so we're

Ron: 00:16:47

bringing in cars year round.

Ron: 00:16:48

I love

Gary: 00:16:49

logistics.

Gary: 00:16:50

So you're literally storing a ton of barley out west.

Gary: 00:16:55

Yes.

Gary: 00:16:55

And then just bringing it to you kind of on an as needed basis throughout the year?

Gary: 00:16:59

Yes.

Gary: 00:17:01

That's cool.

Joel: 00:17:02

And you, because you are so comfortable with the growing conditions, with the climate, with the agricultural practices, this is probably why the, the product that you're consistently turning out is in half of.

Joel: 00:17:18

Craft breweries in the United States.

Joel: 00:17:20

Yeah, I mean the, the, the difference, because you guys are like the gold standard and there's clearly a reason for that, that you're controlling it at, at every interval,

Ron: 00:17:29

right?

Ron: 00:17:30

Yeah.

Ron: 00:17:30

We have full control of the supply chain all the way through to packaging and you know, i, I, it's, it's sort of obvious that when you're making a, a food or beverage like beer, that the raw materials that you use really make a difference.

Ron: 00:17:46

And having seen some other malted products, uh, our malt is cleaner and more consistent and higher quality.

Ron: 00:17:56

And we get feedback from customers all the time that they do notice that when they've brewed with multiples or they do sensory evaluations and they get cleaner, better, more consistent results with Briess Malt.

Ron: 00:18:09

Earlier

Gary: 00:18:09

you said you could make about a million pounds of malt a day.

Gary: 00:18:14

I'm still overwhelmed by that.

Gary: 00:18:14

Help me visualize that.

Gary: 00:18:16

Like how many train cars is that?

Jordan: 00:18:19

Depends what rail line you're talking about.

Jordan: 00:18:20

We need a wipe, we need a whiteboard.

Jordan: 00:18:22

We do.

Jordan: 00:18:23

I'm gonna start drawing a picture.

Jordan: 00:18:24

I'm getting itchy, but, so that's the capacity of of the plant when it was at its peak.

Jordan: 00:18:28

We don't operate the entire campus.

Jordan: 00:18:31

So there's room for expansion yet, but in a typical day we can make close to 750,000 pounds, I believe it is.

Jordan: 00:18:40

I'd have to math it out, but roughly.

Jordan: 00:18:43

Typical rail car that we receive is about 200,000 pounds.

Gary: 00:18:46

So three to four a day.

Gary: 00:18:48

Yeah.

Gary: 00:18:48

Rail cars.

Gary: 00:18:49

Yep.

Gary: 00:18:50

And are you mostly, is, is your market mostly craft beer, smaller breweries, or do you also work with some big boys as well?

Jordan: 00:18:58

We do work with some bigger breweries.

Jordan: 00:19:00

But, uh,

Gary: 00:19:00

Bigger Sierra, Sierra, Nevada

Jordan: 00:19:02

type brewery.

Jordan: 00:19:03

That's our primary, not like Miller,

Gary: 00:19:05

Budweiser.

Gary: 00:19:07

Yeah.

Gary: 00:19:07

Do they do their own malting?

Gary: 00:19:08

I don't even know how they would do that.

Gary: 00:19:09

Yeah.

Jordan: 00:19:10

So, uh, the larger breweries do a majority of their own malting.

Jordan: 00:19:13

Right?

Jordan: 00:19:13

So, the facility that we purchased in Manitowoc, formerly was owned by Anheuser-Busch.

Jordan: 00:19:19

Right.

Jordan: 00:19:19

So they they had closed it a number of years ago and then we ended up purchasing it when we had the opportunity because it worked out a lot.

Jordan: 00:19:27

I'm guessing they're just trying to

Gary: 00:19:28

mass produce the same thing over and over and over.

Gary: 00:19:30

They're not.

Jordan: 00:19:31

Yeah.

Jordan: 00:19:31

You can imagine a facility that was designed to make 1.8 color base malt doesn't necessarily make, 20 color Munich malt as easily.

Jordan: 00:19:41

So, you know, obviously the facility had to go through some, we had to change some things and make sure that we could produce all the.

Jordan: 00:19:48

All the diverse products we needed to make in the same, uh, in the same ways, which poses a lot of really interesting challenges.

Jordan: 00:19:55

It was, oh, thank you.

Jordan: 00:19:57

It was great to be a part of because, uh, we could go through, at the time when we purchased that facility, we also had a Malthouse in Waterloo.

Jordan: 00:20:04

So at one time we were operating three malthouse of which we need all the products that are being made at the facilities to match the same flavor profile.

Jordan: 00:20:13

Because analysis is one thing in terms of color that you can measure but a lot of stuff doesn't show up on a COA.

Jordan: 00:20:21

Right.

Jordan: 00:20:21

What is the flavor in the aroma, which is critical to your finished beer?

Jordan: 00:20:26

Uh, how does that match?

Jordan: 00:20:27

And you're using three different water sources potentially a different style of drying in terms of a double deck or a single deck kiln.

Jordan: 00:20:35

And we've got, we had to go through the, the challenge of making sure all our products could match at all, all three facilities.

Jordan: 00:20:43

Um, and that was part of that was.

Jordan: 00:20:46

Expanding our sensory team, doing formal training with a larger team to make sure that we could ensure what we sent out the door from three facilities all match the same profile.

Joel: 00:20:58

If I wanna, oh, Ron, I'm sorry.

Joel: 00:21:00

Go ahead.

Joel: 00:21:00

I, I

Ron: 00:21:00

was gonna say, uh, as a result of all that consolidation, one of the things you guys may know because you're local, is that Manitowoc is the specialty malt capital of the world.

Ron: 00:21:13

This is the official proclamation, and it, uh, speaks to some of the things we've been talking about tonight.

Ron: 00:21:20

That going back to the early days of craft brewing industry in the us, Bri was there and has grown along with it, largest product line, highest quality being in more than half the 9,500 craft breweries.

Ron: 00:21:36

We have a center of malting excellence in Manitowoc, of which Jordan is a member.

Ron: 00:21:42

And then, uh, we're also involved in the community.

Ron: 00:21:45

Are there other malts

Gary: 00:21:46

in Manitowoc?

Ron: 00:21:47

There are not.

Ron: 00:21:48

No, I didn't.

Ron: 00:21:49

But there used to be it, it has the great history going back more than a hundred years to that malt plant that we're in right now.

Ron: 00:21:56

And I brought along this, uh, beer case where it was known as Malt City long ago.

Ron: 00:22:04

That was before malting operations moved toward the West, kind of like the dairy industry that now most barley is grown in the Western us whereas back in the 1940s, fifties, sixties, a lot of barley was grown in Wisconsin to feed, uh, the large breweries here.

Ron: 00:22:22

But that has evolved over time.

Ron: 00:22:24

And now most of that's done in the West.

Ron: 00:22:26

But Manitowoc has been known as Malt City for about a hundred years.

Ron: 00:22:31

And we're proud to carry on that tradition.

Joel: 00:22:33

So we have a. Pretty loyal listener base who show up you know, from different parts of the country.

Joel: 00:22:42

We've had someone from San Francisco, we've had Minnesota.

Joel: 00:22:45

Yeah.

Joel: 00:22:45

We've had people

Gary: 00:22:45

take detours of several hours

Joel: 00:22:47

Just to come.

Joel: 00:22:48

And, and

Gary: 00:22:49

because they were podcast listeners, right?

Gary: 00:22:51

Yeah.

Joel: 00:22:51

Because they wanted to meet Gary or, Bobby or myself or whatnot.

Joel: 00:22:55

If some of the, the folks who are listeners is there a visitor experience at either Manitowoc or Chilton that they could see how, how the sausage is made, if you will, can they see anything if they were to come there?

Jordan: 00:23:13

Uh, that's, well, tours are one of the favorite things that I, I do.

Jordan: 00:23:17

Where you get to share what you do with, you know, the world.

Jordan: 00:23:21

I, I think we should

Joel: 00:23:22

go.

Joel: 00:23:22

We're totally going.

Joel: 00:23:23

Yeah.

Joel: 00:23:23

Unfortunately.

Joel: 00:23:24

I mean, it's a hundred percent we're going.

Jordan: 00:23:25

Unfortunately, they don't, uh, the facilities are not designed for tours, so.

Jordan: 00:23:29

We don't do public tours, uh, but we do occasionally do smaller tours for brewers and customers

Joel: 00:23:37

for VIPs.

Jordan: 00:23:38

Yeah.

Jordan: 00:23:38

Yep, exactly right.

Jordan: 00:23:40

Um, we do a molten brew workshop once a year where we bring in for like

Joel: 00:23:44

lay people, just normal people.

Jordan: 00:23:46

Uh, well, typically it's but people in the industry.

Jordan: 00:23:48

Yeah, people in the industry.

Jordan: 00:23:49

I'm pretty sure Bobby was there one year.

Jordan: 00:23:51

He probably was.

Jordan: 00:23:52

Oh yeah, I think so.

Jordan: 00:23:52

He doesn't need

Joel: 00:23:53

to go again, so, no, he's, we're just gonna go in his place.

Joel: 00:23:55

He's been there.

Gary: 00:23:56

We could bring a camera and do a video for the, the Patreon supporters and, uh Right.

Gary: 00:24:02

Who the way are getting a a do you see the beer Yeah.

Gary: 00:24:06

That Bobby made?

Gary: 00:24:07

Yeah.

Gary: 00:24:07

Yeah.

Gary: 00:24:08

We have a special beer that was for the podcast that he brewed.

Joel: 00:24:11

I look at it this way.

Joel: 00:24:12

I mean, if, if Bobby really wanted to go to the malting workshop and to get malted milk balls, he would've come,

Jordan: 00:24:20

he'd be here today, right?

Jordan: 00:24:21

Right.

Joel: 00:24:21

He would, and you know, he's not here.

Joel: 00:24:24

You know, because he is not here.

Joel: 00:24:25

What the hell is going on with the malted milk balls?

Ron: 00:24:30

Well, we, we have had those for a long time.

Joel: 00:24:33

Can I make a proclamation?

Joel: 00:24:35

They're one of the top five things that Wisconsinite can put in their mouth.

Ron: 00:24:40

Yeah, I agree.

Ron: 00:24:42

They are, they're amazing compared to the normal level of quality of malted milk balls such as whoppers.

Ron: 00:24:49

And, uh, we have had malted milk powder and made in our plant for a long time and making malted milk powder that goes in the center of a malted milk ball isn't something that many companies do because you have to be able to process grain and dairy in the same building, and that's difficult to do.

Ron: 00:25:09

But we do that at our facility here in Wisconsin and we, we provide that malted milk powder to a candy company and they make those malted milk balls for us.

Ron: 00:25:19

And we don't want to be in the malted milk ball business.

Ron: 00:25:22

We give, I mean, if you don't wanna make

Joel: 00:25:24

a ton of money, I get it.

Ron: 00:25:25

Right.

Ron: 00:25:25

We, we don't, they're just goodwill.

Ron: 00:25:28

Uh, we share those with our brewing customers.

Ron: 00:25:31

The only place they're sort of officially available is Vern's Cheese in Chilton right around the corner from our company office.

Ron: 00:25:39

They are available at Verns.

Ron: 00:25:40

I

Joel: 00:25:40

have been to Verns Cheese.

Joel: 00:25:41

We're taking a road trip to Verns Cheese.

Joel: 00:25:43

How far

Gary: 00:25:43

is Verns cheese from here?

Gary: 00:25:45

Door to door.

Gary: 00:25:46

30 minutes.

Joel: 00:25:46

30, 32 minutes?

Joel: 00:25:48

Yeah.

Joel: 00:25:48

Yeah.

Joel: 00:25:49

Mm-hmm.

Joel: 00:25:49

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Joel: 00:25:52

As I mentioned to you off air, we had Charlie Bamforth on and you couldn't get, like he was talking about those, like, he had just had 'em yesterday and I think he, it had been some time since he had had 'em, but that was a powerful thought for him.

Joel: 00:26:10

They are that good.

Ron: 00:26:12

Yeah, they're that good and that different Yes.

Ron: 00:26:14

From, from what people are expecting with any type of candy.

Ron: 00:26:18

They're, they're just something really special.

Ron: 00:26:21

And so we're, uh, glad to have those and glad to share them with our friends in the Craft brewing and food communities.

Joel: 00:26:27

And you brought some for the folks here, but not for Bobby and Allison.

Ron: 00:26:33

We did actually.

Ron: 00:26:34

But if they don't listen to this podcast, you don't have to tell them.

Ron: 00:26:37

Never

Gary: 00:26:38

gonna see it.

Gary: 00:26:38

This gets edited out.

Ron: 00:26:39

Yeah.

Ron: 00:26:39

We're

Joel: 00:26:40

right.

Joel: 00:26:41

Like we control the keys to the kingdom.

Jordan: 00:26:43

Yeah.

Jordan: 00:26:44

Yeah.

Jordan: 00:26:45

So you take that Yeah.

Jordan: 00:26:47

With your statement and he agrees.

Jordan: 00:26:49

Totally.

Ron: 00:26:51

Right.

Ron: 00:26:52

And if there were a craft beer festival that you didn't know about in this area, would you wanna know about it?

Joel: 00:26:59

I, I would

Ron: 00:27:01

Because we have one in Manitowoc.

Ron: 00:27:04

Just a stone's throw from the malt plant every year.

Ron: 00:27:07

We have a craft beer festival with about 30 of our customers from around Wisconsin.

Ron: 00:27:12

And we pour craft beers all afternoon.

Ron: 00:27:15

Every brewer brings four beers.

Ron: 00:27:16

So the quick math on that is there's 120 different beers to sample.

Ron: 00:27:21

And so that's a great starting point.

Ron: 00:27:23

And as you would expect, there's also some food trucks, some live music, a couple of charities on hand, like Lake Shore Humane Society with a few puppies.

Ron: 00:27:32

And, uh, it, it's a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon this year.

Ron: 00:27:36

It's on Saturday, August 2nd from two o'clock till five 30.

Ron: 00:27:40

Okay.

Ron: 00:27:40

Downtown Manitowoc,

Joel: 00:27:41

We need to, yeah, that's Mile of Music here.

Joel: 00:27:44

That's a tough day here for us.

Joel: 00:27:47

It's because we'll have I don't wanna say the number because of the fire department might be listening, but there will be a lot of people in that space.

Joel: 00:27:57

But we, we need to be a part of that, I think at some level.

Ron: 00:28:00

Yeah.

Ron: 00:28:01

And any craft beer festival is a great thing for the industry.

Ron: 00:28:07

Yes.

Ron: 00:28:07

Just getting craft beer in front of more people.

Ron: 00:28:09

Right.

Ron: 00:28:09

And discovering how awesome it is.

Ron: 00:28:12

Some people think they're not beer people, but maybe they haven't had an imperial stout or a, uh, wheat beer or a sour or something like that, that's different than what their experience with beer has been previously.

Ron: 00:28:27

Right.

Ron: 00:28:27

It's not just laggers and pilsners and so it is a celebration of that.

Ron: 00:28:31

Right.

Joel: 00:28:32

As awesome as beer festivals are, you guys are more awesome.

Jordan: 00:28:37

Well, thank you.

Joel: 00:28:37

You, thank you.

Joel: 00:28:38

I mean, you personally and breeze in general, i'm thank you for being here.

Joel: 00:28:44

This was totally enlightening and thanks for taking the history job at mc Flesh Men's.

Ron: 00:28:49

Glad to do it right.

Ron: 00:28:51

I love history.

Ron: 00:28:52

Right.

Gary: 00:33:03

Alright, well that will conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.

Gary: 00:33:06

The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kal.

Gary: 00:33:08

Without David, there would be no show.

Gary: 00:33:10

Remember to subscribe to the show on your preferred podcast player so you never miss an episode.

Gary: 00:33:14

And join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and support the show over on Patreon, where you can listen to bits that don't make it on the air, as well as get opportunities for beers that are only available to Patreon supporters.

Gary: 00:33:27

Links to both of these are in the show notes, and until next time, please remember to respect the beer