Episode 123
Gary Arndt on Beer, Host of Everything Everywhere Daily
We turn the tables on Gary Arndt! Beer drinker and idea man. Allison, Bobby, and Decker ask about his favorite podcast moments, curiosity driving his wildly successful podcast, and what's next for him.
Listen to Gary's podcast: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer
00:44 Naming McFleshmans Bits
01:51 Gary The Idea Guy
03:02 Why Podcasts Open Doors
06:34 Beer Learning And Buzzwords
09:43 Curiosity And Quantum Detour
10:21 Marketing Reality And Stairs
12:33 Mastering Many Beer Styles
14:51 Careers Focus And Entrepreneurship
19:04 Exit Plans And Employee Ownership
21:29 Gary's Most Memorable Podcast Moment
22:42 Water Chemistry And World Beer Cup
24:20 Gary's Favorite Guest
27:02 Gary's REAL Memorable Moment
27:48 Threading the Nerd Needle
29:04 Podcast Growth Plans
30:28 Completionist Club
31:54 Live Show Tour Ideas
34:50 Gary's Last Travel Goals
37:48 Marshall Islands Stories
41:10 Everything Everywhere Beer
42:32 Support us on Patreon!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Bobby Fleshman - https://www.mcfleshmans.com/
Allison Fleshman -https://www.instagram.com/mcfleshmans/
Joel Hermansen
Gary Ardnt - https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.huss.52/
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow - https://davidkalsow.com/
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Decker:I am Decker, and usually I have to start a, uh, a thought as to where Gary has been.
Decker:But Gary has returned from his many adventures.
Decker:And, uh, he is here to talk to us.
Decker:But before we say hello to Gary, of course, we've got the, uh, the namesakes of where we are.
Decker:We've got Bobby and Allison from McFleshman's.
Decker:Hello, everyone.
Allison Fleshman:Hi.
Bobby Fleshman:How's it going?
Bobby Fleshman:It's all right.
Bobby Fleshman:Thanks for asking.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison's back.
Bobby Fleshman:I don't know who's been gone longer, Allison or Gary.
Allison Fleshman:I think Gary's been gone longer, 'cause I've been here when we were very excited to hear Artemis going to find Gary on the moon.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Yes, we were in the
Allison Fleshman:closet the last time- Gary's here
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: we were in, in studio
Allison Fleshman:for
Gary Arndt:that, so.
Gary Arndt:That's true.
Gary Arndt:Yeah, McFleshman's is a combination of your names.
Gary Arndt:You know, like how when, uh, Ben Affleck and, uh, Jennifer Lopez were dating, they were Bennifer?
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Oh.
Gary Arndt:There was a brand like- They could have been Angelina.
Gary Arndt:Yeah … Ballison.
Gary Arndt:Ballison.
Gary Arndt:Oh.
Gary Arndt:What were
Decker:you thinking calling it McFleshman's?
Decker:What- It could've been
Gary Arndt:Ballison … what's the NASCAR reference?
Gary Arndt:Alli- Ally … Bobby Allison is a race car driver.
Allison Fleshman:That's true.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Bobby Allison.
Allison Fleshman:I
Decker:like Ally way.
Decker:Well, I thought you meant like it, it was spelled Bobby backwards by Bobby Allison frontwards.
Decker:It's the same thing as Bobby Allison backwards, though.
Decker:Oh, what's that called?
Decker:Like a race car.
Decker:A palindrome?
Decker:Oh.
Allison Fleshman:I think it was a palindrome.
Gary Arndt:There was an episode of Saturday Night Live where Ben Affleck was the host, and he came up with a, a host of these names for women if he should ever date them in the future.
Gary Arndt:Mm. And one was if he ever dated Marcia Gay Harden- Oh, no
Gary Arndt:it'd be Ben Gay.
Gary Arndt:That's
Allison Fleshman:fun.
Gary Arndt:Nice.
Gary Arndt:Oh, use it for all of your itches.
Allison Fleshman:So, I got nothing.
Allison Fleshman:Nope.
Allison Fleshman:No, you can't follow that.
Allison Fleshman:We don't have
Bobby Fleshman:enough pop culture to-
Allison Fleshman:Not enough … to
Bobby Fleshman:interject another one.
Allison Fleshman:So I guess we're gonna talk to Gary.
Decker:Yes.
Decker:So Gary- Tell us about yourself, Gary.
Decker:In the beginning, I'm sure it was dark.
Decker:And then there was light.
Decker:And then there was light.
Decker:And then there was light.
Allison Fleshman:So, okay, I'll just jump in.
Allison Fleshman:So Gary has been such a fun pers- So this episode, I think we're hoping to just chat with Gary, ask him questions and such, but there have been so many times now, I can count at least on one hand, if not more, the number of times Gary is leaning across the bar and he goes, "You know,
Allison Fleshman:you know, you should- Well, you should
Allison Fleshman:you should do this," or, "You should do that." And years ago, he was like, "You know, you should, you should start a podcast." Then he's like, "You should, you should put stairs right here.
Allison Fleshman:You know, you should market yourself better.
Allison Fleshman:You know, you should fill in the blank," and Gary has come up with it.
Bobby Fleshman:And I always feel in- like, vindicated when I have an idea that Gary nods about.
Allison Fleshman:Yes.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Like, I always think this is crap until he nods- That's so true … and then I can, then I can hold that over Allison's head.
Bobby Fleshman:But, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And then I say, "It's okay." Ideas
Gary Arndt:are cheap.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Execution is everything.
Allison Fleshman:Follow through, man, right?
Gary Arndt:I can come up with any idea in the world, but ultimately, you guys are the ones that have to pay the bills And so it's easy to just say stuff.
Gary Arndt:That's
Allison Fleshman:true.
Gary Arndt:But it's a lot harder to actually do stuff.
Allison Fleshman:But Gary, you s- you helped us launch this, um, along with David, our producer and it's become a thing now, which is like, uh, there's a lot of listeners and things, and so one, thank
Gary Arndt:you.
Gary Arndt:Well, that's what I thought it would, you know-
Allison Fleshman:Yeah
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: I d- I started doing a podcast back in 2009 called This Week in Travel.
Allison Fleshman:It was myself and two other co-hosts, and we'd have like one guest on the show.
Allison Fleshman:And we made, uh, if I had a dime for every dime we made, I would have zero dimes.
Allison Fleshman:That's a lot of dimes, man.
Allison Fleshman:We made nothing off the show.
Allison Fleshman:But from doing that show, we did keynote addresses at like seven different conferences.
Allison Fleshman:We met everybody in the travel industry.
Allison Fleshman:We had we could talk to anyone.
Allison Fleshman:Just like you guys have talked to Ken Grossman and all of these top people- Mm-hmm … in brewing.
Allison Fleshman:It opens up all these doors.
Allison Fleshman:It gets people to know who you are and really all you gotta do is just sit around and shoot the shit.
Allison Fleshman:I mean- It's amazing, yeah
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: and once you gain, and you've been doing it now for two years, you gain that momentum.
Allison Fleshman:It's, it becomes a very powerful force and there's people out there that only know you from the podcast.
Allison Fleshman:They've never set foot in McFleshman's.
Allison Fleshman:And I know just anecdotally there have been many people that for whatever reason, they're in Appleton or they're coming by this part of the world, they need to stop in and have a 547 and check things out.
Allison Fleshman:Yep.
Allison Fleshman:And that's something that most breweries don't have.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, when I go to Beer Fest, it's surprising.
Bobby Fleshman:I'll bring it up to other brewers thinking no one knows about this show, but everyone knows about it.
Bobby Fleshman:That's amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:They all listen to it.
Gary Arndt:And that's- They all wanna be on it … you know, the difference between a show like this and like a show like mine, I cast a very broad net.
Gary Arndt:Right.
Gary Arndt:Right?
Gary Arndt:I'm trying to appeal to a very large audience, and you guys are appealing to a very niche audience, but if you can be influential within that niche, there's a great deal of, of power in this.
Gary Arndt:And, you know, the actual cost of this is pretty minimal.
Gary Arndt:David says we're- David … show
Allison Fleshman:me the money.
Allison Fleshman:David's like, "We were gonna talk about that next episode actually." David's eyes.
Allison Fleshman:Oh my God, I love you David so
Bobby Fleshman:much.
Bobby Fleshman:Speaking of, speaking of which, subscribe.
Allison Fleshman:Subscribe.
Allison Fleshman:Leave a comment.
Allison Fleshman:Please subscribe.
Allison Fleshman:Support us on Patreon.
Allison Fleshman:Which really- Yeah … support us on Patre- Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.
Allison Fleshman:Ooh, I broke the cardinal rule.
Allison Fleshman:Is it time?
Bobby Fleshman:Oh my goodness.
Bobby Fleshman:Is
Allison Fleshman:it bedtime?
Allison Fleshman:That was the bedtime sound for my kid.
Allison Fleshman:Um, sorry David.
Allison Fleshman:I now owe you even more money that I can't pay you.
Gary Arndt:This
Decker:is
Gary Arndt:wonderful.
Gary Arndt:Add editing to that list.
Gary Arndt:So I'm, I'm glad you guys, uh, did this.
Gary Arndt:I mean, I think it it, it's an- just another thing that separates you from other breweries, and I think that's kind of, uh, there's a lot of average breweries out there.
Gary Arndt:And this, and it's also a way to showcase what you know and what makes this place different.
Gary Arndt:I- That the, the expertise and the science background and the approach to it.
Gary Arndt:I learned so much about what you guys do, and beer in general, from being on the show.
Gary Arndt:And there were just so many times where you'd just say, "Oh yeah, well, we, you know, do that."
Gary Arndt:It's like I had no clue what goes into brewing a lot of stuff This is
Bobby Fleshman:Gary's way of compensating for our lack of ability to self-market.
Bobby Fleshman:To do stuff.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Decker:Well, this is what I was gonna- Self-promote … I'm, like, uh, I'm new as the, the host.
Decker:I was a listener of the podcast before I've, I was even on it and then now I'm here.
Decker:And, um, you know, talking with or listening to Gary through all the other podcasts, you're a very curious man who always is… You've got great questions and great insight as to what it is that they're saying even if it might be something that's like whatever science nerdy thing is that they're bringing up.
Decker:So I think that's a really, uh, like a untouchable type of thing that you brought to the podcast.
Decker:What is it that you have taken away from the podcast that's something you, when you went into it, you didn't expect you were gonna get?
Gary Arndt:I didn't know much about beer.
Gary Arndt:In the course of traveling around the world, for whatever reason, I got invited to tons of vineyards and wineries, and everyone was always so proud of it.
Gary Arndt:And it's become more of a thing, especially in the United States, where every city is proud of their craft beer scene.
Gary Arndt:But I didn't know a lot about beer other than the, the basics of, of what most people know.
Gary Arndt:So just learning about what goes into it and what goes in the process of brewing.
Gary Arndt:Decoction.
Allison Fleshman:Decoction.
Gary Arndt:That's… It's, uh, one, it's a thing.
Gary Arndt:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:Didn't know that.
Gary Arndt:It i-
Allison Fleshman:it is a thing.
Gary Arndt:But the extra, you know, and the extra effort that goes into… I studied economics, one of the many things I studied, and there's something called the decreasing rate of marginal return.
Gary Arndt:So if you've ever… Like, the difference between- Which is decoction
Gary Arndt:say, an average person and, like, a really good high school basketball player.
Gary Arndt:They'd get their clock cleaned by the high school basket- who would in turn get their clock cleaned by an NCAA Division I player, who would in turn get their clock cleaned by someone sitting on a bench in the NBA, who… And get their clock cleaned by LeBron James, right?
Gary Arndt:And there's these huge differences between these different levels, but kind of the differences are actually rather minor, right?
Gary Arndt:But the effort that goes in to making these very small incremental improvements becomes more and more enormous the better you get.
Gary Arndt:So what would it take for someone to make a shitty home broom- brewed beer?
Gary Arndt:You look at what goes into making a beer here, you know, to, to get an extra 1 or 2% better may require a lot more work.
Gary Arndt:And like I said, and, and I've said before, I, I'm just amazed at what goes in to making beer here, what the process you go through.
Gary Arndt:Everything about conditioning the water, the different types of hops, the different types of ferm- you know, ferment, everything.
Gary Arndt:I had no clue.
Bobby Fleshman:And consistency- No clue … is everything.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I, I mean, I didn't- Yeah … I didn't know everything that went into it, which is why I've always said that's what you need to do for marketing, is just tell your story.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:'Cause a lot of people don't know that.
Gary Arndt:Big breweries have tried to do this.
Gary Arndt:Beachwood aged, fully kroizened.
Gary Arndt:I don't know what kroizening is.
Gary Arndt:Right.
Gary Arndt:I'm sure, I'm sure there's a, a, a definition for it- There is … but most people don't know.
Gary Arndt:There are at
Bobby Fleshman:least three of them, yeah.
Gary Arndt:But there's things like that where they say it.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:But being a smaller brewer, I think you could go into more detail.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And they're, they're just kinda… Tho- those are just buzzwords and they just kinda punt them, make a commercial out of it.
Bobby Fleshman:They don't go into details.
Bobby Fleshman:No one cares.
Bobby Fleshman:It's… But here, that's what we live.
Bobby Fleshman:You know, that, that… We mean it when we say something like kroizening.
Bobby Fleshman:That's a whole thing.
Bobby Fleshman:We could do a whole…
Bobby Fleshman:We should do a whole episode on kroizening.
Bobby Fleshman:We should do
David Kalsow:a whole
Bobby Fleshman:episode on kroizening.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, I would love to do that.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh my God.
Bobby Fleshman:We're gonna do
Decker:a whole
Bobby Fleshman:episode on
Decker:kroizening.
Decker:Two hours-
David Kalsow:We could do
Decker:two
David Kalsow:hours … about.
Bobby Fleshman:So I don't know that they're doing much service for what we do because they're just creating the buzzword, the thumb scroll of the day.
Bobby Fleshman:But yeah, we, we, that's how, that's where we live.
Bobby Fleshman:We're a brewery for brewers and I think this podcast has been has signified that as much as anything we've done.
Allison Fleshman:But I think Decker- Yeah … puts a, a good point on Gary's role in the curiosity because I have seen when Bobby talks to folks about the beer, you, you look at their eyes.
Allison Fleshman:Now he's not good at looking at people's eyes when he talks.
Allison Fleshman:But sometimes they glaze over and it's like he could say kroizen and then he keeps going and they're just not interested.
Allison Fleshman:But there's something- That's why you're here . Yes.
Allison Fleshman:You and me.
Allison Fleshman:There's something about the innate curiosity I think that Gary brings.
Allison Fleshman:He's like, "Well, well tell me more about that." But he… There's like a, a tell me in a way that it makes sense for, for just general listeners and I think this is where your experience with your podcast has been very helpful.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:I
Gary Arndt:always have to put myself in the position of someone who doesn't know.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:one of the other things I think I appreciate, Gary, is that you also in- our discussions on this podcast, you have pointed out all of our faults of marketing or lack thereof.
Allison Fleshman:But in it, you've also come with it a, a realistic expectation of what's actually possible.
Allison Fleshman:And I think that's one of the hardships about owning a small business is that so many people are like, "Oh, well you know what you should do is this.
Allison Fleshman:You should do this.
Allison Fleshman:You know, you should do that.
Allison Fleshman:You should do this." But y- you even started this conversation with, "Yeah, but execution is hard." And so I appreciate the reality of, like, when you were like, "You know, you should put a staircase in your,
Gary Arndt:in the tap room." But in, in, in the case of the staircase, I think there was an, an immediate benefit.
Gary Arndt:This basically made- Exactly … this room usable.
Allison Fleshman:Right.
Gary Arndt:Where before it was really kinda-
Allison Fleshman:It was secluded … nicely, yeah … and it wasn't really accessible.
Allison Fleshman:And what's funny is that Bobby had actually already designed it.
Allison Fleshman:I had
Gary Arndt:forgotten.
Bobby Fleshman:It had been years since
Gary Arndt:I- To be honest, I thought when I first came in here, I saw the mezzatine, and I'm like- Yeah
Gary Arndt:I assumed that that was part of-
Allison Fleshman:Where it was gonna go.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah … yeah, the staircase.
Gary Arndt:Certainly
Bobby Fleshman:it was, and I had totally slept on it and forgot about it.
Bobby Fleshman:Gary,
Allison Fleshman:should, he should be- But we got here now, so now we have a staircase.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:So you were talking about, like, the little things that we do here and how it is, what it takes to get to this level.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm thinking about Chuckanut Brewing Company.
Bobby Fleshman:They were always talking about the… Gary was talking about, like, the, to get from this level of basketball player to the next.
Bobby Fleshman:They say there's no secret except that everything they do is their secret.
Bobby Fleshman:And, and whether we're… You know, we're talking about the marketing side of our business, but what Gary has helped us do is get the word out about those little things that we could never tell across a bar.
Bobby Fleshman:I think that's what this podcast has been able to do, is tell, ed- the world about these little things that we do that add up to who we are
Decker:Yeah, he's helped you tell the story of your beers, which I think, as Gary has said many times, just tell your story and, uh, I mean, that's what makes a lot of the things interesting and why local beer is more interesting than the oak wood saturated whatever-
Decker:type of thing.
Decker:Beechwood.
Decker:Yeah, there you go.
Decker:Beechwood.
Decker:See, we get it wrong, but- And- We know stories
Gary Arndt:now … the, I should say the other thing I've noticed going to other breweries, they have a very limited selection of beer compared to what you guys have.
Gary Arndt:You guys have a lot of- I mean style-wise … you have a lot- Yeah
Gary Arndt:of different beers on tap, all of which are made in-house, and I can't think of anybody that has this many beers on tap.
Gary Arndt:So it's not that you're just putting in extra effort to make a, a couple, you know, select number of beers.
Gary Arndt:You're doing it for a wide variety of beers, and you're developing a mastery in an enormous number of styles- Yeah
Gary Arndt:which is something that's very unique.
Bobby Fleshman:And I've said it 100 times on this podcast, I don't just make a beer because we need that beer on the, on the menu.
Bobby Fleshman:I will go and I'll research what it means to be that beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Sometimes we actually invent a beer, a beer style, and, and I, and I think we execute on it.
Bobby Fleshman:I, I'm looking at Allison, you may be thinking about our Irish blonde.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:We've been talking about the Irish blonde lately.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Allison Fleshman:Bobby and I- Yeah … have been having long conversations about the Irish blonde, about how whether or not it is a style, is it not a style?
Allison Fleshman:Did he invent the style?
Allison Fleshman:What does it mean to invent a style?
Allison Fleshman:And but before that, the, the research that Bobby would do for any particular type of beer, goodness gracious, there are so many books.
Allison Fleshman:Like John Palmer's Out- and, uh, Classic Styles.
Bobby Fleshman:That's where you begin.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, he's how to brew, and then Ray Daniels and Randy Mosher
Allison Fleshman:and- But like the, but just like the chapters and chapters on like one particular st- and it's ridiculous that we have like, a, an entire, you know, two or three textbooks on the IPA or two or three textbooks on the lager.
Allison Fleshman:And Bobby not only reads them, but studies them, and I think that that's something that not many people have noticed.
Allison Fleshman:But Gary, you are both so well-read and traveled and studied because you've studied so many different disciplines that I think it-- I mean, you're, you're practically an academic and, or you are an academic.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, but
Gary Arndt:in what department would they put me?
Gary Arndt:That's the-
Allison Fleshman:I know, exactly.
Allison Fleshman:Right?
Allison Fleshman:Like the ultimate interdisciplinary.
Allison Fleshman:So I think that, that you have to, like, to know an academic, you have to kind of be one, and I think that's one of the things that you have brought so far is to like see Bobby's Venn diagram of like- not only academic abilities, but also his, his focus that, that it comes out in the flavors that are pretty darn hard to reach that ti- top tier.
Allison Fleshman:I mean-
Gary Arndt:One of the reasons I could never do what you do, and one of the reasons I never became an academic, even though I thought about it at a time- Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:You were very close
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: yeah, I was gonna go to Caltech.
Allison Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:I can't focus on one thing, and that's really what it requires-
Allison Fleshman:Mm-hmm
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: to have a passion- Yeah
Allison Fleshman:and to get deep, deep, deep.
Allison Fleshman:And m- my knowledge base is very broad.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I know lots of stuff, but there's a lot of people out there on any one thing that could, you know, that know far more than me.
Bobby Fleshman:And that, and that, that's what I've told Al over time, and everyone that knows me.
Bobby Fleshman:They're like, "How did you do all these things with your life?"
Bobby Fleshman:Nope, just focus.
Bobby Fleshman:That's been my strength.
Bobby Fleshman:I just, I'm able to focus on one project after the next.
Bobby Fleshman:Even though I've had three careers in my life, basically, there's, there's been a hyper-focus throughout those periods, for sure.
Gary Arndt:I've had multiple careers too where I've completely reinvented myself.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:But they usually last about four years.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And so I've, I went from being a debate coach to an internet entrepreneur, going back to being d- a science student, to teaching myself photography, and then now s- kinda starting this podcast.
Gary Arndt:And at every step of the way, you kinda have to, I, I basically start from zero, or close to zero.
Gary Arndt:Like, I knew nothing about photography before I started.
David Kalsow:Hmm.
Gary Arndt:And I went from like, "How do they do that?
Gary Arndt:That's amazing," and I would study a photo and was like, "Ah, I see how they did that." And then I eventually realized that it wasn't, you know, the camera settings and all this.
Gary Arndt:It was, "Oh, he sat there for 30 days and waited for this moment." That's how it happened.
Gary Arndt:But see, you, you had all these life
Bobby Fleshman:experiences, and I relate this to myself, where it made these career changes happen and, and fruitful, I th- I would think.
Bobby Fleshman:Y- you just cannot connect… There's no linearity to this.
Bobby Fleshman:It, it, it seems to be that you draw on your own experiences whenever you tr- venture into a new-
Gary Arndt:Everything, I think-
Gary Arndt:chapter … I think helps.
Gary Arndt:But I remember I was 20 three, 24, and the internet was becoming a thing.
Gary Arndt:I started this business- Who's doing the
Bobby Fleshman:math now?
Gary Arndt:And it was like, so I had this friend who started a, a, a, had a product that hooked up databases to the, the web, which at the time in the '90s was hard to do.
Gary Arndt:And then he had c- people that came to us like, "Oh, we would like our business to have this," but he didn't wanna do it, so it's like, so he said to me, he's like, "Do you wanna do it?" So I'm like, "Sure." And then I hired a friend who had a friend, and then sure they were like, "Well, how do we handle payroll taxes?"
Gary Arndt:And I'm like, "I don't know."
Decker:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:And so I had to figure that out, and I asked someone who… And then every step of the way it was just, "Well, how do you do that?" "I don't know." Well, it turns out there are companies that do that for you.
Gary Arndt:Right.
Gary Arndt:I didn't know.
Gary Arndt:You can get ADP and other places.
Gary Arndt:And so everything is solvable, but- Yeah.
Gary Arndt:You have the fearless entrepreneur personality.
Gary Arndt:It is a personality.
Gary Arndt:Oh, yeah.
Gary Arndt:I've met, I've known many brilliant people in my life who could not do it.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And it had nothing to do with intelligence.
Gary Arndt:It had everything to do- Yeah … with personality.
Allison Fleshman:There is the gusto to jump off that cliff, and you need to have it.
Gary Arndt:I have a willingness to be poor.
Allison Fleshman:There it is.
Gary Arndt:Equals willingness to be poor.
Allison Fleshman:Is that what it, is that what it is?
Allison Fleshman:Oh, it's so true.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, wow, yeah, Bobby, we have that.
Allison Fleshman:It's like, "That's cool." Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:I think
Allison Fleshman:that would be- Like, every dime we
Bobby Fleshman:own is in this brewery … every business owner ever, except for the ones that get in and out after a year.
Bobby Fleshman:When I,
Gary Arndt:when I had my first business, I was the lowest paid person in the company until the day I sold it.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:That's about, yep, par
Gary Arndt:for the course.
Gary Arndt:That's right.
Gary Arndt:Because that was where y- you, you had payroll to, you had to meet every two weeks, and the easiest way to meet that was to cut any money that
Allison Fleshman:I got.
Allison Fleshman:Your own salary, yep.
Gary Arndt:So.
Allison Fleshman:Bobby is still that way here.
Allison Fleshman:Yep, that's true.
Allison Fleshman:I don't mind sharing that information.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, we hope we're building a brand for the long haul.
Bobby Fleshman:You
Gary Arndt:gotta be getting equity.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, exactly.
Gary Arndt:That's right.
Gary Arndt:Like I said, I was the lowest paid person- Yeah … until the day I sold that
Bobby Fleshman:business.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Gary Arndt:exactly.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:And that's- Yeah … Bobby and I keep saying, "I make the paycheck, he makes the retirement." Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:So that's, that's the role.
Allison Fleshman:You're the breadwinner.
Allison Fleshman:I'm the breadwinner, you're the bread maker.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, bread maker.
Gary Arndt:Well, there's, there's a lot to be said for that approach.
Allison Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:Building equity, you know, that's, there is value in that.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Allison Fleshman:Let's hope.
Gary Arndt:The one thing we haven't ta- It's not looking good … we talked about marketing, the one thing we haven't talked about is exit plan.
Allison Fleshman:Ooh.
Gary Arndt:What is the future?
Bobby Fleshman:Well- What's that?
Bobby Fleshman:What is the
Gary Arndt:future?
Gary Arndt:30 years from now Jade takes over
Allison Fleshman:Jade takes over Well, it- If she wants to … it, it's her,
Gary Arndt:it's an option for her of course, but she's seven at
Allison Fleshman:this point I mean, we talked to the Yingling sisters and, you know, they- Yeah
Allison Fleshman:whether or not that they wanted to or not, it's up for debate.
Allison Fleshman:But, you know, they all came back to it.
Allison Fleshman:If Jade wants it, it's hers.
Allison Fleshman:However-
Bobby Fleshman:Well, and, and it was, uh, August Schell, they make their kids go into the world and they discover the world and they come back.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a very Amish way of life Like Rumspringa?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Go work at The Gap-
Bobby Fleshman:… and then come back.
Bobby Fleshman:Exactly.
Bobby Fleshman:And then they come back and decide whether they wanna actually do it after they've seen the world.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Decker:The company I work for does that with their kids, but they do it the opposite way, where I think they send them in to check out, like, the radio world and the publishing company to see if they don't want to be a part of it.
Decker:Oh, that's fair.
Decker:Mm-hmm.
Decker:So then they get scared and go and do their own thing.
Decker:Yeah.
Decker:I'm pretty sure that's what they do
Gary Arndt:But the, the point being that's something at least it, it shouldn't be top of mind, but it should be in the back of your mind.
Bobby Fleshman:It is and it was in the beginning, uh, on my mind.
Bobby Fleshman:I thought how in the hell can we have a- Mm
Bobby Fleshman:a building, a company, a brewery named McFleshman's?
Bobby Fleshman:First of all, it's made up.
Bobby Fleshman:Secondly, it's kind of a name and, and whenever you do something like that, does that mean we have to be attached to it for it to have value?
Bobby Fleshman:I thought about that for a long time.
Allison Fleshman:You really struggled with that too- Yeah … 'cause you didn't want to have your name attached to it at all.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:It, and I, I've gone full circle.
Bobby Fleshman:I think people can separate the founders from the name.
Bobby Fleshman:I think that seems to be okay.
Gary Arndt:Schlitz Beer was sold very early on by the guy named Schlitz.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And it was owned by another family for over a century.
Gary Arndt:It just becomes a name at that point.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:So that's good to hear.
Bobby Fleshman:It leaves us some opportunities but if anyone's listening to this podcast or knows me, my focus is on the staff, the owner, the, the people that work here.
Bobby Fleshman:We want them to have the ability to own this company and determine its future.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Employee owned
Allison Fleshman:is the ultimate goal.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:That's my bigg- that's my exit strategy, all things being equal.
Bobby Fleshman:Now, Jade might be the CEO and everybody might… My daughter might be running the show here but-
Allison Fleshman:Eh, but the odds that you're born into… Like, I don't know.
Allison Fleshman:That,
Bobby Fleshman:that you
Allison Fleshman:love to
Bobby Fleshman:do- Like, she's
Allison Fleshman:gonna earn
Bobby Fleshman:it … what you're born into.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:If
Allison Fleshman:she wants to come in and ca- take it, she better damn well earn it.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Decker:Well, get her in the brew house.
Decker:Yeah.
Decker:Right?
Decker:Stirring some mash.
Decker:What's she doing?
Allison Fleshman:Well, and start learning about the IPA water treatment and all
Bobby Fleshman:that I guess.
Allison Fleshman:Okay.
Allison Fleshman:So m- may I ask Gary then, we've had so many different podcasts that you've guided us through.
Allison Fleshman:Memorable moment that comes to mind?
Bobby Fleshman:Cannot say Rhinehessenbraut.
Allison Fleshman:No.
Bobby Fleshman:But, well you- Why
Allison Fleshman:can't I?
Allison Fleshman:Okay.
Allison Fleshman:You can't help me.
Bobby Fleshman:Fair.
Allison Fleshman:You can't tell-
Gary Arndt:I understand the, the issues involved in, in serving food in an establishment like this Oh,
Allison Fleshman:yeah
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: but you really need to consider
Allison Fleshman:Oh
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: the Reinheitsgebot.
Allison Fleshman:Putting, it doesn't have to be- Reinheitsgebot … an everyday thing, but just occasionally it's a winner.
Allison Fleshman:It's, even if it's something you just do for pub clubbers, however you manifest it.
Allison Fleshman:Reinheitsgebot for the win.
Gary Arndt:It's such a good idea.
Bobby Fleshman:We're, we do it anyway, so- Yeah … it's a matter of just making it happen out front of house.
Allison Fleshman:Well, and I mean, there are health codes and things that you have to follow and such.
Allison Fleshman:Not
Bobby Fleshman:if you give it away.
Bobby Fleshman:They don't listen to this.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:W- and we, yeah, we give it away.
Bobby Fleshman:They just tip the bartender
Allison Fleshman:Okay, Reinheitsgebot … just to tip.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Other ones?
Bobby Fleshman:That's the only one he re- he wants to recall.
Allison Fleshman:Well, you tipped the-
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Well, that's the biggest one.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Th- there's just been so many smaller ones.
Gary Arndt:Like when you were talking about the, the, what you do to the water.
Gary Arndt:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:I had no clue.
Gary Arndt:And, and the thing is I think that for a lot of, you know… I, I don't know how many breweries bother to do that.
Gary Arndt:Maybe they may do some basic water treatment, but trying to actually develop the same water chemistry as what you'll find in the cities in Europe where these beer styles were developed, I don't think many people do that.
Gary Arndt:And that's that, like I said, the, the, the marginal benefit, the effort you have to put in to make it that much better-
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah
Bobby Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: is something I think that people just need to know.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, this week is the, the, the big conference for all the craft brewers.
Bobby Fleshman:It's happening right now.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, CBC, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Our, our GM's out there- Craft Brewers Convention
Bobby Fleshman:and our financial advisor's out there.
Bobby Fleshman:Everyone's out there w- on my behalf while I'm back here welding a trailer so we can sell beer at the farmer's market this year.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, quit bitching
Allison Fleshman:about it.
Allison Fleshman:You're fine.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, that's happening.
Allison Fleshman:He was mad he couldn't go.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, they're-
Allison Fleshman:I said no
Allison Fleshman:… Bobby Fleshman: they're, they're gonna be there during the World Beer Cup ceremony, and the, the brewers that walk across the stage to win those medals are doing it because they do every one of those little things.
Allison Fleshman:And- Hang on.
Allison Fleshman:Did we an- enter for World Beer Cup?
Bobby Fleshman:547 and Public House.
Allison Fleshman:Okay.
Allison Fleshman:So if we win, they get to walk across the stage.
Bobby Fleshman:I made… I said, "You gotta walk across stage, guys."
Allison Fleshman:Well, let's see.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, that's the way it goes.
Decker:They should carry a picture of you.
Allison Fleshman:That's true.
Decker:A little Bobby on a stick.
Allison Fleshman:We would say, in grad school we called it pocket Bobby.
Allison Fleshman:Pocket Bobby.
Allison Fleshman:Everyone wanted a pocket Bobby that they could pull out and he would like walk over with the big pencil and do your homework for you.
Allison Fleshman:It was so great.
Bobby Fleshman:I was, I was Claymation.
Decker:That is, uh-
Bobby Fleshman:Okay
Bobby Fleshman:… Decker: there you go.
Bobby Fleshman:Turn it the other way.
Bobby Fleshman:Or turn it, spin that question in a different way.
Bobby Fleshman:Were there guests that you remember that you thought were the best that we ever had while you were doing the interviewing?
Bobby Fleshman:Any of those stand out to you?
Gary Arndt:Um, the interview we did with the, uh, who are the guys that, uh, do the Oshkosh beer blog?
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, uh, Lee?
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:There was a lot about that that I didn't know.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Uh, that was very interesting.
Decker:Like the Oshkosh beer history?
Decker:The,
Gary Arndt:that one?
Decker:Yeah.
Decker:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Um, a lot of the big name guests that you had were a far bigger deal to you guys than they were to me.
Bobby Fleshman:Uh, clearly, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:That's fair.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:If it had been like big time photography people, that would've been where I would've been sitting.
Bobby Fleshman:Like I, cool.
Bobby Fleshman:I, I see what you mean.
Bobby Fleshman:But thanks for, uh, pandering or catering to us.
Bobby Fleshman:Certainly Joel was getting into that too.
Bobby Fleshman:I, I feel like- Now what about Mitch Steele?
Bobby Fleshman:What about, like, the guys in the middle?
Bobby Fleshman:You know, the guys that inve- He was the guy that sort of in- He wrote the, literally wrote the book on IPA.
Allison Fleshman:Bobby, that might be a you thing.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a you, me thing.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:He's not the owner of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, but he is somewhere in the middle.
Bobby Fleshman:That did not ring a bell for Gary.
Gary Arndt:No?
Gary Arndt:No.
Gary Arndt:Um-
Allison Fleshman:Again, it's a you thing, Bobby
Gary Arndt:And for a lot of those guests, I mean, I'm, I mainly just shut up and let you guys do the talking because you could speak more authoritatively about it.
Gary Arndt:And even- Yeah … you, you know far more about beer than I do, so you're gonna take a very different approach to this.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:It's- Um, because you're, you can speak more authoritatively than I can.
Decker:It has been a, a weird… But I, I'm, I'm usually, I'm asking questions to, like, musicians and stuff and asking about, like, creative inspiration and the world and things like that.
Decker:So it's, it is different having, like, a hyper-specific thing like beer to talk to people about.
Decker:And, you know, to have a place like this where y- locally where you can talk about great beers.
Decker:I'm having an, a European pale lager out of a Lukr faucet.
Decker:That's freaking cool, man.
Decker:And and to Gary's point right there, I mean, like, that's me getting a little beer nerdy about it.
Decker:Mm-hmm.
Decker:Um, but I think it, it's just different, different approaches to it and I think it's gonna… I, I'm, yeah, I'm excited for the future, but we've had some really… Uh, the, the, the interviews have been very, very interesting and, uh, the… I, I think to answer Bobby's question for Gary- … I think his favorite guest that he has had on this podcast as host has been Bobby and Allison because they've talked about- Oh, I thought you were gonna say Decker.
Decker:No.
Decker:He's… I don't know.
Decker:I don't think so.
Gary Arndt:A lot of the, the, my, the most memorable things- But I think it was you guys … weren't
Allison Fleshman:even on the
Gary Arndt:podcast.
Gary Arndt:It was… Okay.
Gary Arndt:That's fair.
Gary Arndt:Um, when, when you got him the Lukr faucet.
Gary Arndt:The Lukr.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I was here when you opened it, and the expression on your face was-
Allison Fleshman:He had no idea it was coming.
Allison Fleshman:It was… Well, no, you kinda figured it out … the way you, the
Bobby Fleshman:way you revealed it, the… I thought I'm getting one
Bobby Fleshman:Lukr
Bobby Fleshman:and there were two and-
Allison Fleshman:There were two … Jade's
Bobby Fleshman:revealing this whole thing.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, my God.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:It was so great.
Gary Arndt:But I didn't know what a Lukr faucet was.
Allison Fleshman:It's the Lukr faucet.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah,
Gary Arndt:and- That's become kind of a thing here.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And- On/off valves
Bobby Fleshman:and on/off valve.
Bobby Fleshman:What's the big deal?
Allison Fleshman:Oh, my
Gary Arndt:God.
Gary Arndt:You know, I, I didn't know about the different types of pours you can do from it and everything that was involved in it, and now that's become a, a staple here.
Gary Arndt:And again, something which very few breweries have.
Gary Arndt:I don't, I don't know if you could find another brewery in the state that has cask pulls- Hmm
Allison Fleshman:a
Gary Arndt:Lukr faucet, and normal taps.
Allison Fleshman:Don't forget the nitro.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And, and that's been for me, like, we're, we wanna, we wanna be as nerdy as we are, as we really are when you strip us down, but not… We don't wanna turn everyone off.
Bobby Fleshman:And so we gotta… We've been trying to figure out w- how to thread that needle since we opened.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean- No,
Gary Arndt:and I, I'm, I-
Allison Fleshman:But I think it's helpful, Gary, in our conversations that we've had with you, you've, you've leaned in with curiosity on the parts that we can focus on because, I mean, there's so much more science than just the water chemistry, but if that's something that's- An easy bite-sized morsel that someone can say, "Oh, wait, you treat your water beforehand?"
Allison Fleshman:And people know about water treatment.
Allison Fleshman:You have a Brita filter, great, you know.
Allison Fleshman:So it's, it's an easy uh, connectivity to, to our patrons
Gary Arndt:and- But even the different types of, uh, hops that you use in Five Forty Seven.
Gary Arndt:I didn't realize that it was a specific blend, that how many that went into it.
Gary Arndt:Uh, the episode we did with Briess on malts I didn't realize were that many different types of malts that went into it and the selection of malts.
Gary Arndt:I th- I think there's all these aspects of beer and, you know, what you do that I just didn't know, and I think a lot of people didn't know.
Gary Arndt:We are obsessed.
Allison Fleshman:We are.
Gary Arndt:And p- is that a lowercase we or is that an uppercase?
Gary Arndt:We
Allison Fleshman:know we are.
Allison Fleshman:We are!
Allison Fleshman:Is it all of
Gary Arndt:us?
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Hey.
Allison Fleshman:Sorry.
Allison Fleshman:Um, okay, so G- Gary, can I ask you a question then?
Allison Fleshman:Sorry, not to continue on this conversation.
Allison Fleshman:Brand new question: So your podcast is becoming bigger and such.
Allison Fleshman:So what, what things do you have for your future?
Bobby Fleshman:And, and how much does Joel suck at writing for your show?
Allison Fleshman:Oh, stop it.
Allison Fleshman:Joel's amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:No, I'm kidding.
Bobby Fleshman:So Joel's writing for you, right?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Some of your episodes, yeah.
Gary Arndt:So I have two writers now.
Gary Arndt:I still do all the, the science stuff topics myself.
Gary Arndt:It's, it, it's taken a big load off me not having to write a 2,000-word research paper every single day.
Gary Arndt:So it takes me maybe an hour maybe to edit.
Gary Arndt:And it, it, it depends.
Gary Arndt:There are some edi- uh, episodes I have to edit heavily, some that are very minimal.
Gary Arndt:The minimal ones are always the better ones for me.
Gary Arndt:I'm gonna be launching a subscription version of the podcast next month.
Gary Arndt:And there's a- What do they
Bobby Fleshman:get?
Gary Arndt:It's just ad free- Nice … basically.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And there's a whole bunch of other things.
Gary Arndt:I've, I've, I've never sold merch, and I've had people begging for that.
Allison Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:So I'm gonna try to get around to doing that.
Allison Fleshman:You know, Gary, marketing's really important.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:You should probably market your podcast a little
Gary Arndt:bit more.
Gary Arndt:You're listening to this show.
Gary Arndt:Just saying.
Gary Arndt:This, this is monetizing,
Allison Fleshman:not marketing.
Allison Fleshman:Full circle moment.
Allison Fleshman:Like, buy, buy, you know, make T-shirts and stuff.
Allison Fleshman:Just saying.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:That, that's not marketing.
Gary Arndt:That, that's monetizing.
Allison Fleshman:Oh.
Gary Arndt:There you go.
Allison Fleshman:Fair
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: what I wanna do is create diplomas- … for the Completionist Club.
Decker:There you go.
Decker:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:But you, but you… They have to… So what, what's the time increment though?
Allison Fleshman:Because, like, as soon as they complete, they, you know, you've got 10 more 10
Gary Arndt:days later.
Gary Arndt:If at any point you have listened to every episode, you're in the Completionist Club.
Allison Fleshman:Ah.
Bobby Fleshman:So did you decide whether they have to listen to the repeats of the episodes to be a completionist?
Bobby Fleshman:No,
Gary Arndt:they… You can skip those.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Gary Arndt:And it, it, it's on your, it's on the honor system.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Gary Arndt:But the weird thing is, so I've done 2,000…
Gary Arndt:Tomorrow's episode will be episode number 2,115.
Allison Fleshman:Oh my God.
Allison Fleshman:That's so
Gary Arndt:crazy.
Gary Arndt:Not only do I have thousands of people that have listened to all 2,000-some episodes, but I have people that listen to every episode twice.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm.
Gary Arndt:In a few cases three times, and in one insane case four times.
Gary Arndt:That is 8,000 episodes.
Gary Arndt:And I calculated if you listen- That's beating
Bobby Fleshman:The Turtles and then The Beatles- I'm about to do that calculation right now
Bobby Fleshman:and, and Mario Brothers and then again and again and again.
Gary Arndt:The average length is 15 minutes for a podcast, including ads.
Gary Arndt:I, the last time I calculated it, it was 16 consecutive days- Jesus … of audio content.
Decker:Yep.
Decker:Did you send them a letter and ask if they were okay?
Decker:Send a welfare
Gary Arndt:check?
Gary Arndt:Oh, I, if you've done it four times, I, I…
Gary Arndt:You are in the you need to seek help category.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:It's like please stop, because you're listening to my voice more than me.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm.
Allison Fleshman:That is true.
Gary Arndt:Um- So it
Bobby Fleshman:goes from completionist to you need to seek help.
Bobby Fleshman:So somewhere in the middle.
Gary Arndt:And then the other thing I'm, I'm thinking of doing is maybe going on tour.
Allison Fleshman:Tour.
Allison Fleshman:Oh my God.
Allison Fleshman:So, like, you up on stage, like, monologuing or-
Gary Arndt:I haven't, I
Allison Fleshman:have to figure out what it is-
Gary Arndt:every podcasting from the- But you were here for when I did the event at-
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:You,
Bobby Fleshman:you
Allison Fleshman:are,
Bobby Fleshman:you are sort of a magician, right?
Bobby Fleshman:When people say, "Hey, here's this question about this place and this time or this, this topic," and you're able to pull either from your memory or from your photo bank, whatever it is, a picture, and then talk about it.
Bobby Fleshman:There, there's something there y- the way you can engage and interact with people- That's true … with the most random of topics.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I, I don't know what it'll be yet.
Gary Arndt:I don't think it can be all just answering questions like that.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:But there would be some sort of… A lot of what a lot of podcasts do is they will do a live show, but their shows have either co-hosts or they interview someone, and so it's them sitting on a stage and they'll interview the person.
Gary Arndt:My show doesn't work that way, so I need to think of something else to do that would be both entertaining and possibly kill two hours.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:And I may start doing some smaller events first.
Gary Arndt:I was very pleased by the turnout I had here- Yeah … uh, when I did my thing live, 'cause if people are willing to come to Appleton-
Bobby Fleshman:States away
Allison Fleshman:Oh, states away,
Gary Arndt:and they brought, they do bring a lot of popcorn
Gary Arndt:No, I had people from New Jersey and California that flew in.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:So if I went to a larger city-
Bobby Fleshman:We… Whoever had the caramel popcorn, make sure they get us some more of that.
Gary Arndt:Dude, I don't know why you guys don't sell it here.
Gary Arndt:The guy's from Upper Michigan.
Gary Arndt:That
Bobby Fleshman:stuff
Gary Arndt:is- It's not far away … awesome.
Gary Arndt:Go to caramelcorn.com.
Gary Arndt:It's like
Bobby Fleshman:Edward popcorn.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:It's great.
Gary Arndt:Oh, it's so
Bobby Fleshman:good.
Gary Arndt:Yeah, and he brought boxes of it.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh
Allison Fleshman:my God.
Allison Fleshman:Boxes.
Allison Fleshman:It was so good.
Gary Arndt:So those are the, the things and, uh, just kind of generally, uh, growing the podcast.
Gary Arndt:Given the nature of my show, it's never gonna be the most popular podcast in the world because there's a, a very…
Gary Arndt:Celebrities talking to celebrities will always get more interest in people because most people are not curious.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, that, it hur- it breaks my heart, but it's true.
Gary Arndt:I know.
Gary Arndt:And the, I get such a weird cross-section of people that listen to my show.
Gary Arndt:I get people at Oak Ridge National Labs-
Allison Fleshman:Mm
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: and truck drivers, and 11-year-olds, and retirees.
Allison Fleshman:And I can't pin down what a typical listener looks like because it's so different.
Allison Fleshman:I get, I get parents that listen with their kids, but I also get high school kids that write me and it's like, "Yeah, I, I listen to this show and, like, school's so easy now because I can just get through all this stuff." So just to find out how to reach people like that, and that's a hard thing to do 'cause it's, it's hard to pin down the type of person that, that's interested in those things.
Bobby Fleshman:I can relate to that.
Bobby Fleshman:Be- be- being raised on a farm and being inquisitive and- You were raised
Allison Fleshman:in the middle of nowhere, yep
Allison Fleshman:… Bobby Fleshman: I was absolutely, I didn't even have, I barely had algebra before I graduated.
Allison Fleshman:You didn't have algebra before you graduated 'cause you had to do algebra- I taught
Bobby Fleshman:myself, yeah
Bobby Fleshman:… Allison Fleshman: your first year of return to college.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:So I, I get where Gary's coming from.
Bobby Fleshman:But are there other anything else in your, in your future travels in, in mind?
Gary Arndt:I don't… I haven't left the country since the pandemic.
Allison Fleshman:That must feel so weird for you.
Gary Arndt:No.
Allison Fleshman:Really?
Gary Arndt:I get, I get that all the time.
Gary Arndt:It's like, "Wow, you must really be wanting to go." I'm like, "I had my fill."
Allison Fleshman:I guess that's true.
Gary Arndt:Like I spent a decade at the travel buffet-
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: and went back for the soft serve machine many times.
Allison Fleshman:Like I got my fill.
Allison Fleshman:I will be traveling again.
Allison Fleshman:Like I was gonna go to Australia this last winter.
Allison Fleshman:I may do it this winter 'cause I, I ended up moving.
Allison Fleshman:But I, I'm not gonna travel like I used to.
Allison Fleshman:I was running around all the time.
Allison Fleshman:I would get in a, you know, take a two-week road trip or something.
Allison Fleshman:Uh, if I do something like this I'm just gonna go and get a place.
Allison Fleshman:Maybe I might go to New Zealand, 'cause it's a little cheaper, but get like a, just an apartment rental for two months and just record the show there locally.
Allison Fleshman:So that's something I might do.
Bobby Fleshman:Let me know when New Zealand happens.
Bobby Fleshman:It's been on my mind a lot lately.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh.
Allison Fleshman:New Zealand's great.
Allison Fleshman:Dude, you are not going to lose- New Zealand.
Allison Fleshman:I'm going to New Ze- You're staying here with the- Let's all go.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, let's all go.
Allison Fleshman:Let's bring the whole- Oh, that's fair.
Allison Fleshman:I don't even realize that we could both go.
Allison Fleshman:The whole
Bobby Fleshman:pile.
Bobby Fleshman:What?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Allison Fleshman:yeah.
Allison Fleshman:You know, we should send David to New Zealand just because.
Allison Fleshman:That's
Bobby Fleshman:true.
Allison Fleshman:Let's just-
Bobby Fleshman:Subscribe.
Allison Fleshman:Subscribe to our Patreon and help us send David to New Zealand.
Allison Fleshman:Well, if you do, let me know.
Allison Fleshman:I mean-
Bobby Fleshman:That's the goal … I would love to go to New Zealand.
Bobby Fleshman:It's been on my mind a lot.
Bobby Fleshman:Scotland … I wanna go back there, but I wanna go to New Zealand, yeah.
Gary Arndt:It's about a nine-hour flight direct from LA.
Gary Arndt:The dollar is very strong right now, so you can kinda g- go nuts.
Gary Arndt:Well,
Allison Fleshman:we don't have any of those- … so it doesn't matter how strong it is.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Well, you're gonna need dollars if you're gonna go anywhere.
Gary Arndt:At least use it to steal while
Gary Arndt:you're there.
Gary Arndt:H- what are the…
Bobby Fleshman:What's the blackmail conversion in New Zealand?
Gary Arndt:The place where that w- used to be a thing was O- was Argentina- … where you… And, and the black market wasn't very black.
Gary Arndt:Like, you'd go to a cop on the street and, like, "Where can I go to the black market to exchange dollars?" "Oh, come over there." You… 'Cause everybody did it.
Gary Arndt:But they've lib- they've opened up the exchange rate since then.
Gary Arndt:But yeah, so I, I might do that.
Gary Arndt:I was thinking of actually going to California.
Gary Arndt:I'm building up a buffer of shows that my writers did.
Gary Arndt:I was gonna go to California in May for a week, 'cause I'm trying to… I w- if it wasn't for the pandemic, I would've visited every national park in the US.
Gary Arndt:I need six more to go.
Gary Arndt:Three of which are in California, so I'd go to Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Channel Islands.
Gary Arndt:Then the other three… I've been to all the hard ones.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Uh, so I've been to the ones, like, above the Arctic Circle in Alaska and all that, and I've been to American Samoa.
Gary Arndt:So three in, three in California, Big Bend in Texas, the new one in West Virginia.
Allison Fleshman:You've not been to Big Bend?
Bobby Fleshman:We have something on Gary.
Bobby Fleshman:What?
Bobby Fleshman:High five across the table.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, my God.
Bobby Fleshman:High five across the table.
Gary Arndt:But that wouldn't be hard either.
Gary Arndt:It's
Gary Arndt:not
Gary Arndt:hard
Allison Fleshman:at all.
Allison Fleshman:Just fly into El Paso or, uh, San Antonio.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:But for this moment, we have something on Gary.
Allison Fleshman:Wow.
Allison Fleshman:It's like a four- That's where we hiked for, like-
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: a four-hour car ride, I think, there and back, and then-
Allison Fleshman:… Allison Fleshman: 12 days, it seemed.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Wow.
Gary Arndt:And then the last one will probably end up being US Virgin Islands.
Bobby Fleshman:Nice.
Gary Arndt:Which, again, is not hard to get to once you're there, but- Yeah … when I was in the, the USVI last time, I didn't go to the park
Bobby Fleshman:Did, in the past, have we talked about Kwajalein, the Marshall Islands?
Bobby Fleshman:Have you been there?
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Bobby Fleshman:So you have been there.
Bobby Fleshman:I
Gary Arndt:landed in, uh- Yeah … I landed in Kwajalein, but you couldn't get off the plane.
Bobby Fleshman:Yep, yep.
Gary Arndt:'Cause you, they, they have a military base.
Gary Arndt:We had special clearance
Allison Fleshman:to do
Bobby Fleshman:so.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:So two things you have from Gary.
Allison Fleshman:What?
Gary Arndt:Wow.
Gary Arndt:How many people can say they've been to the Marshall Islands?
Bobby Fleshman:Just us three.
Allison Fleshman:We
Gary Arndt:have.
Gary Arndt:Yep.
Gary Arndt:The ISO.
Gary Arndt:Can I tell you the story of the, like, the first morning I was there on Majuro?
Gary Arndt:Where they are, so, like, you wake up in the morning and you're able to watch Monday Night Football on Tuesday morning.
Allison Fleshman:Yes.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And so I was staying at this kind of dive.
Gary Arndt:I just had a bed, a cot, in a back room, and, uh, it was at this one bar.
Gary Arndt:And these guys are there watching football, and they're kinda older, scraggly.
Gary Arndt:And so I order breakfast, I'm just at a table by myself, and this guy comes over, he looks really rough, has a beard and he's bald, and he's like, "What are you doing here?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm just visiting the Marshall Islands." Like, "Oh, well, come over next to us." And these guys were fascinating.
Gary Arndt:Like, they were in merchant marines and stuff, and this one guy was an engineer, and after he retired it's like, "I'm gonna go buy a solar panel and live on an island," like some remote island.
Gary Arndt:So he lived in one of the remote islands.
Gary Arndt:It had no electricity, was undeveloped.
Gary Arndt:Got a Marshallese wife, and he just happened to be in Majuro for the day.
Gary Arndt:And it, like, all… It was just this motley group of people that you wouldn't find anywhere else, and they were just out in the middle of nowhere in the Marshall Islands.
Bobby Fleshman:It's amazing.
Gary Arndt:And this is also, like, I went to their communication head the, the company that did it, and they only had, like, poor satellite internet at the time, because it wasn't connected by cable to anywhere.
Allison Fleshman:When were you there?
Gary Arndt:2007.
Gary Arndt:We were in three.
Allison Fleshman:No, we were in six.
Bobby Fleshman:Was it six?
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, two and six.
Allison Fleshman:Okay.
Gary Arndt:But there was f- internet was expensive and bad.
Gary Arndt:Yep, yep.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And but now- It- … with Starlink you can get-
Allison Fleshman:Oh, that's true … just
Gary Arndt:everywhere.
Allison Fleshman:Wow.
Gary Arndt:Oh, it, it's… People don't realize this has been one of the most transformative technologies globally as far as what it's been able to do and bring the internet to, to places and people that you otherwise would never be able to use it.
Allison Fleshman:Wow.
Bobby Fleshman:Pissing off astronomers, but yeah.
Gary Arndt:Well, I think the future of astronomy's gonna be s- space telescopes.
Allison Fleshman:Oh.
Allison Fleshman:That's fair.
Gary Arndt:And what they need to do is, like, the web was great, but they need to create a system that is, that can be replicated.
Gary Arndt:Everything they do is a one-off thing which raises the cost.
Gary Arndt:But if they could make something modular, then make 20 s- space telescopes.
Gary Arndt:Like, they
Allison Fleshman:made two Voyager 2s.
Allison Fleshman:Or, well, I guess they made two Voyagers, 1 and 2, so
Gary Arndt:You know, two 2s.
Gary Arndt:But for example- They made five Sevens … the Webb had-
Allison Fleshman:Yeah
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: find a way to mass produce them.
Allison Fleshman:And maybe ma- mass produce isn't the right word, but-
Allison Fleshman:Again, back to that Gary has tons of great ideas- Make tons of them
Allison Fleshman:but then there's, like, the follow through bit.
Allison Fleshman:But, yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, yeah,
Gary Arndt:follow through.
Gary Arndt:Because everybody right now, they have to apply for time on the telescope, right?
Gary Arndt:Yep.
Gary Arndt:Well, if you could increase that by, you know, 10 to, to 20-fold, the amount of stuff that people are gonna be able to sign up to see would, would just be an explosion in, I think, discoveries.
Gary Arndt:'Cause there's so much we're getting from it.
Gary Arndt:I mean, all the really kind of the, the groundbreaking stuff is all coming from that one telescope right now.
Allison Fleshman:Yes.
Gary Arndt:Which has nothing to do with beer.
Bobby Fleshman:All right.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, we're, we're gonna- And that's- … we're gonna sponsor the new podcast, the one where he flies all the people in.
Bobby Fleshman:That's what we're gonna do.
Bobby Fleshman:Wait, wait.
Bobby Fleshman:And
Gary Arndt:I will say this- Wait … what I still wanna do, I wanna make… Well, I don't wanna make it, I want you to make it.
Gary Arndt:An Everything Everywhere beer.
Allison Fleshman:No.
Decker:It's a stout, it's an IPA, it's a saison- … it's a wit.
Bobby Fleshman:Is it… Yeah, it's fermented with, with lager yeast, but it's made with California amber ale.
Bobby Fleshman:If we can put the amber in- Made with
Allison Fleshman:amber
Allison Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: that would be great.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:in the,
Gary Arndt:in the, in the amber.
Gary Arndt:I have it.
Gary Arndt:I don't know how
Bobby Fleshman:to-
Allison Fleshman:I have the thing- We'll, we'll get that figured out … I have the amber.
Allison Fleshman:I have a little- That is
Gary Arndt:a engineering and chemical challenge.
Gary Arndt:We got that.
Allison Fleshman:I've got the little bag of amber.
Gary Arndt:But just something.
Gary Arndt:It's
Allison Fleshman:amber,
Gary Arndt:yep.
Gary Arndt:Like, if it's a premium beer-
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah
Bobby Fleshman:… Gary Arndt: you don't need to make a large batch.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Put it in specialty things.
Allison Fleshman:Heard.
Gary Arndt:Like one gallon.
Gary Arndt:Uh- Oh,
Bobby Fleshman:things, thing.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm gonna put it on, like, that pedestal, the Indiana Jones one, where you gotta swap- Well, we can't put it on a pedestal, can we?
Bobby Fleshman:the sandbag and you get shot by all the poison darts.
Bobby Fleshman:It's gonna be one bottle.
Gary Arndt:I would… I mean, there's a limit to, to what I can sell given the restrictions on, like, mailing beer.
Gary Arndt:Oh,
Bobby Fleshman:yeah.
Gary Arndt:But even if it's within the state, or I could have people come here to buy it or something like that, or even if I go to an event, I could not sell it maybe- True
Gary Arndt:but, you know, give it away as, like, a, a free little donation.
Gary Arndt:Something I, I think that would be very cool and it'd be something that I could promote.
Bobby Fleshman:That is… You got the amber, right?
Bobby Fleshman:Yes, I do.
Bobby Fleshman:Yes.
Bobby Fleshman:I have
Allison Fleshman:the amber.
Decker:I think she said about 17 times- I know … she has the amber.
Decker:The
Bobby Fleshman:problem is I don't think it's very water soluble, so I don't- We're gonna work on it.
Bobby Fleshman:She's a chem- if only we knew a chemist.
Bobby Fleshman:She's a chemist.
Decker:Ooh.
Decker:I don't-
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, I know.
Allison Fleshman:Same.
Allison Fleshman:It's cool.
Decker:Well, Gary, thank you so much for coming in to, uh, I guess a, a, a proper send-off for the man.
Decker:Lots of things to follow.
Decker:How do we follow you on, uh, social media so we can stay in the
Gary Arndt:know?
Gary Arndt:Uh, you cannot find me online.
Gary Arndt:Perfect.
Gary Arndt:I love that.
Decker:I have been completely scrubbed.
Decker:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I am the easiest person to find.
Gary Arndt:I used to tell people to search for the word Gary and travel.
Gary Arndt:I don't know if that still works.
Gary Arndt:But I, I, I'm not hard to find.
Allison Fleshman:But the Everything Everywhere Daily podcast, you can get it on anywhere you can find our podcast, I think.
Allison Fleshman:Is that true?
Gary Arndt:Yes.
Bobby Fleshman:You're still gonna bomb, you're gonna photobomb is the equivalent of that on our podcast
Allison Fleshman:somewhere.
Allison Fleshman:I thought he was gonna bomb something.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, no, no, no bombing anything.
Allison Fleshman:No, no,
Bobby Fleshman:no.
Bobby Fleshman:Pod bomb.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, if
Gary Arndt:you guys ever need me- Yeah … I'll, I'm happy to, to show up and- Love it … especially if you do something like Lagerfest, where you get a lot of interviews.
Gary Arndt:Yes.
Gary Arndt:Yes.
Allison Fleshman:Well-
Gary Arndt:Where that can be a lot to do, you know?
Gary Arndt:A lot.
Allison Fleshman:From the bottom of mine and Bobby's hearts, thank you so much for pushing us to do this.
Allison Fleshman:It has been absolute pleasure as well as, um, it, it has really helped shaped a lot of, um- Stretched our marketing muscle … what we do.
Allison Fleshman:You introduced us to David, who we could not do without, that we are so thankful for.
Allison Fleshman:So thank you.
Allison Fleshman:We really appreciate it.
Decker:My pleasure.
Bobby Fleshman:Thanks, Gary.
Decker:That's gonna wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Decker:The show is produced by David Kalsow with music by Sarah Lynn Huss.
Decker:Be sure to join the Facebook group to connect between episodes and support the show over on Patreon where you can get uncut episodes, access to specialty brewed beer, and more.
Decker:Until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
