Episode 82
Fuller's Brewery Knows Innovation w/ John Keeling
How does beer bring communities together and enrich our lives? John Keeling, former brewemaster for Fuller's Brewery, emphasizes the social benefits of drinking beer in communal settings, talks American influence on British pubs, and what the future may look like for beer.
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TIMELINE
00:00 Welcome John Keeling!
03:44 The Joy of Drinking with Friends
04:34 Tasting and Brewing Insights
05:09 The Evolution of ESB
08:11 American Influence on UK Beer
13:26 The Decline of Pubs in the UK
25:22 Mount Rushmore of Beer
31:53 Support us on Patreon!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Joel Hermansen
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:Thank you for your patience as we get back into our conversation with John Keeling.
Speaker:I hope you enjoyed our Octoberfest episode last week!
Speaker:So without further ado, John Keeling and Fuller's Brewery.
Speaker:drinking with friends in the pub to me.
Speaker:Is the best way of experiencing beer.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:and, and to do that I, I, I think is a, a, a great thing be because it makes you a more social person as well, and it makes, it makes you enjoy the beer more.
Speaker:And it makes, I mean, beer is meant to be drunk together, and, and that's the end of it.
Speaker:Drinking any form of alcohol on your hot, on your own, I don't think is a good thing.
Speaker:You, your quote was emblematic of something that Charlie said when he was on our broadcast.
Speaker:'cause he was talking a little bit about how beer tends to be demonized.
Speaker:Um, and, uh, he said, almost identical to what you said, that, um, when you consider the social benefits of beer, that it brings people together and it is so good, uh, for, for the, for the mental space that we occupy that, you know, when we sit and talk about, uh, beer is being high caloric and, uh, and, and we're supposed to monitor its consumption, et cetera.
Speaker:Sure, great.
Speaker:But what about the social ramifications of that?
Speaker:And that's at, at this pub.
Speaker:We have a, a very strong community of, of pub clubbers, as we call 'em, repeat customers who are constantly coming back, um, who revel in the introduction of every new beer, who appreciate our cask line, who appreciate our luer faucet, who appreciate our, our West Coast IPAs, et cetera.
Speaker:And at the core of it is exactly what you just said.
Speaker:Beer is good for community and everybody that comes in here, or in the the pub in, in Manchester, whether they're man city or man united, uh, they're happy in a pub.
Speaker:And people, people benefit.
Speaker:From that social element.
Speaker:So thank you so much for saying that.
Speaker:Yeah, no, and no, no matter how many awards we win, our greatest success is, is that we have people that come here 200, 300 times per year, right?
Speaker:They're not, they're not coming to get smashed.
Speaker:They're just coming to get a pint and say hi to their, their family, away
Speaker:You know, I, I used to say to my team, uh, you, you know, you could have the worst day imaginable at work.
Speaker:You know, you're expecting to go home at.
Speaker:I don't know, five o'clock in the, the pumps break down.
Speaker:The boilers break down.
Speaker:You're still there at 10 o'clock at night trying to finish the brew off.
Speaker:You do it and then you, you, you go home, you get off the bus next to the local pub just looking through the window and see everybody enjoying the beer that you make.
Speaker:And if that doesn't bring a smile to your face and a deep sense of satisfaction, then I don't know what will.
Speaker:Amen to that.
Speaker:I got up this morning at four 30 to set up a beer garden that's about four blocks from where we're sitting at our local farm market.
Speaker:And I did that because, not because it's, it makes good money, although we hope it does.
Speaker:We do that though to connect with the, with our community at large.
Speaker:And it's, it's why we do it all to see that beer go across the bar and into, into their glass.
Speaker:That's, that's everything.
Speaker:I think,
Speaker:And they're spending
Speaker:you know, providing it's all done properly.
Speaker:You don't want people to get drunk.
Speaker:You don't want people to.
Speaker:You know, abuse, alcohol, but done in the right way.
Speaker:You know, it brings so much joy to people's lives.
Speaker:And I've lost count of the number of times in the last couple of months.
Speaker:I've gone to meet old friends for a beer and we've talked away, the night's gone, et cetera, and we've got, got an home safe, no problem.
Speaker:Gone up the next day, no problem.
Speaker:But the joy of those couple of hours talking to old friends is, you know, it makes life worthwhile.
Speaker:I agreed.
Speaker:I, I, just as a tangent to all this, I was thinking about when I'm milling grains and staging up a brew, I'll oftentimes grab some and try to taste it in my mouth, conceptualize how it might end up.
Speaker:I find myself eating so many specialty, uh, crystal malts and and such from the uk.
Speaker:They are delicious.
Speaker:They're, they're some of the most delicious ingredients in the world, and there's no doubt as to how these, these ca styles came to be, or at least how those, especially malts came to be produced to go alongside this concept of a ca scale.
Speaker:Anyway, just a tangent, but I just couldn't help but think about it as you were talking about.
Speaker:Engli English beer in general.
Speaker:I, I wanna bring up one thing, uh, you can confirm or, or deny this did ESB.
Speaker:I know that you, I know Fullers is the originator of the style, and I know that the Great British Beer Festival has awarded it top honors.
Speaker:Is it true that it came to pass, that it, it did not win at it's three or four years down the line after being introduced, and then the judge's notes said that it was not to style.
Speaker:Is that, is that true or?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We, we, we won a gold medal at the Beer World Cup with ESP.
Speaker:Oh, bill.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then the very next competition, we never made it to the final.
Speaker:And, and the notes that I got back was not true to style.
Speaker:And, you know, you know, but styles evolve and beer evolves and we should not stand in the way of that.
Speaker:Um, but at the same time, we can't leave the consumer behind.
Speaker:So in this rush to find new flavors, develop new, make styles, evolve and whatever, if the consumer's not with you as you go along this path, it's a waste of time.
Speaker:You have to take them with you.
Speaker:And, and, and again, racking back to my own career, I was made, uh, head brewer.
Speaker:Uh, after 19 years of brewing at Fullers, I got the top job and it took me nine and I held that job for 19 years as well.
Speaker:Uh, but when I got the job, the senior management team all had more experience of Fullers than me.
Speaker:So it shows you how much experience the senior manager's team had at that point, but also the number of people that had been drinking full as beers for longer than me that I could meet in the pub was huge.
Speaker:I could meet lots of people who've been drinking London Pride for longer than 19 years, and therefore when we come to make beer and we tasting our beers and whatever, we should respect them and, and we should be aware of their opinion.
Speaker:As well.
Speaker:So that means to get that opinion, you'd need to drink your beer in the pubs and listen to what people are talking about.
Speaker:And that's what I did and, and you have to respect people who know, because they've been drinking that beer for so long, who know what it should taste like and
Speaker:I love this.
Speaker:You're speaking to the consumer in this case, in the, in the United States, we don't get this a lot, but in this case, you're, they're actually anchoring you down to what you do here.
Speaker:We tend to get rushed off to the newest, latest, and greatest every week.
Speaker:It's, that's
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:John, how do you feel about the influence of American beer in Europe?
Speaker:One of our, our patrons is from Germany and he comes and, uh, a couple times a week and he's back in, in Germany often, and he reports back to us on the impact of things like IPAs, as an example in, uh, in Germany, which obviously has a rich brewing history as well.
Speaker:Do you see a lot of influence of American style, uh, brewing in the uk?
Speaker:Of, of course I do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There's, there's lots there.
Speaker:But you have to look at, you know, the history that I, I was part of, 'cause I started making Bear way back in 74 when I joined Wilson.
Speaker:So I've been doing this for a long time and I, I remember, um, in my early years of Fullers.
Speaker:American hops were frowned on, not by Fullers, but by brewers in general.
Speaker:In, in Britain.
Speaker:They, they were not, they were, they, they, we had this flavor, that flavor, but it is not suitable for English beer.
Speaker:Fine.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:But then if you move on, uh, fuller started, uh, exporting their beers, and then American brewers started coming to drink English beer.
Speaker:And the people who did that were, were the first craft beer brewers.
Speaker:I, you know, there was Garrett Oliver, there was John Hall from Goose Island.
Speaker:There was Sierra Nevada.
Speaker:There was Ken Grossman.
Speaker:And, and these people would get inspired by British breweries.
Speaker:But what happened then is they put an American twist to that.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And then they, and then all of a sudden the American craft beer took off.
Speaker:And brewers in the UK.
Speaker:Craft brewers in the UK started drinking American beer and said, we want to make beers like that.
Speaker:And they, and then so the influence washed over from England into the United States and then washed back.
Speaker:And then when we was, uh, looking at, uh, past masters beers, the first beers we looked at from 1819, from that early 19 hundreds had amazing, because some of the recipes can say contained, you know what?
Speaker:Californian hops, so British brewers were using them in the early 19 hundreds.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So fashion changes and influence changes.
Speaker:Now there is, I would say, a drive in Britain to return to tradition, to return to traditional British bears.
Speaker:And a away from American influence.
Speaker:And and why is that?
Speaker:Because everybody's doing American influence base.
Speaker:To be different, you have to go back to tradition.
Speaker:And, and that's not a bad thing, these things.
Speaker:Well, and every, every generation wants to do something different than their
Speaker:Well that's right.
Speaker:You either do what your parents do because you respect your parents or whatever.
Speaker:Or you rebel against your parents.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's what happens.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We definitely see that.
Speaker:Here.
Speaker:Um, John, are you a fan of the hazy IPA?
Speaker:Um, depends how hazy, you know, to me, if sometimes if it gets over, over cloudy, over hazy, it affects the texture and it, it, I don't like the mouth feel.
Speaker:Is that a sufficient answer?
Speaker:Bobby?
Speaker:I I'm not, I'm looking at Bobby because No, no, no,
Speaker:no, no, no, no.
Speaker:I, I'm not going to go on record.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:About the, I I actually appreciate them.
Speaker:I'm learning too, more and more.
Speaker:Every, every style was new at some point.
Speaker:Uh, it's just, it's time for that
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I,
Speaker:Uh, you said something that I was kind of surprised at.
Speaker:You said that the, the, the ca beer consumption in the UK is probably under 10% now, which I, I've traveled extensively throughout Britain.
Speaker:I've been to a lot of pubs, and that kind of surprised me because.
Speaker:Uh, I recall seeing casts, you know, the cast polls everywhere and you never see them in the us but it must
Speaker:be the beer they buy though at the store that's offsetting that.
Speaker:And in part it's creating that
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:yes, I, I mean, don't forget, Caskey is only available in the pub.
Speaker:You can't, you can't buy it at
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and, uh, I think it's now.
Speaker:55% coming up to 60% of all beer is drunk at home.
Speaker:Right,
Speaker:only 40%, 45% is drank in the pub.
Speaker:Now, uh, of that it's, you know, there's, there is a fair amount of cas beer, but keg beer does, you know, and beer sales in the UK are down as well.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:right.
Speaker:people are not going to the pub as often.
Speaker:So, you know, there's, there's a little bit of doom and gloom in the air, but I, I, I think it's rescued by the fact that the specialist brewers and the specialist pubs are being successful.
Speaker:Uh, on that note, I'm sure you've seen the, the TV show, you've heard of it, Clarkson's
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I just watched the, the recent one with Jeremy Clarkson this season.
Speaker:His big thing was opening a pub, and one of the things they talked about is that it was almost every pub they looked at was for sale and that there's this kind of crisis of pubs closing down throughout Britain and then the number of pubs per capita has dropped precipitously over the last few decades.
Speaker:Is this something that you've seen that there just aren't as many pubs
Speaker:well certainly pubs are closing and I think there's a, a myriad of reasons why pubs would close, you know, population movement.
Speaker:Um, there's less people in cities now, so a lot of the city pubs are, uh, uh, particularly in the old working class, areas are closing down because people are moving out.
Speaker:It's more expensive.
Speaker:There's not as many people living there.
Speaker:Uh, so that's one of the reasons.
Speaker:But another reason, I, I, I think pubs have been badly wronged, uh, a lot of pubs, and I think the best pubs have an individuality about them and what pub chains do when, you know, if you own a thousand pubs.
Speaker:Uh, people have in the past tried to make them all the same and uniform.
Speaker:So they have the same food menu, they have the same beer menu, and you get, uh, and you get very little individuality or chance for individuality, you know, and it becomes what people call a professional business, and the accounts take over.
Speaker:And you know what I, I think when you let accountants run business, they stifle creativity.
Speaker:They stifle being an entrepreneur.
Speaker:And that's what's happened, I think, to pubs and, uh, you know, the fame, the famous mine host, pub landlord, has disappeared to a degree.
Speaker:And that's why these specialist pubs are so successful is because, not because just because they're a selling cas beer.
Speaker:It's because they have an individual approach.
Speaker:They listen to their customers and they tailor their pub, pub to their particular customer.
Speaker:And I think that's what pub chains don't do.
Speaker:They think people will come in if we advertise it, people will drink this beer if we market at them, et cetera.
Speaker:And, and I think,
Speaker:So I, I haven't even, we haven't even asked about tide houses and how that looks right now.
Speaker:Today it, it's full floors operate their own share of
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, first, firstly, I, I've been retired now since 2018, so I'm not part of Fullers.
Speaker:I'm employed a little bit as a consultant for as who, uh, owned the brewery.
Speaker:And, and I talked to them about Bay et cetera from time to time.
Speaker:Uh, but that's the, the extent of my involvement with, with, with Fullers.
Speaker:And, but yes, Fullers Tide pubs still exist and.
Speaker:And they are still very individual.
Speaker:And, and I think that that is great.
Speaker:You know, they have their own beer menus, their own food menus.
Speaker:They decide what, uh, how to look after beer as well and keep it, and it, it, it is a joy to, to go to those types of pub to be honest.
Speaker:When you find a good one, it's well worth going to.
Speaker:And that's a model that, I mean, we're orders of magnitude smaller than what we're talking about here, but it's a model I'd like to follow because we're we're, we'd like to say we sell two things, beer and conversation, and, and we wanna bring that second piece by opening other pubs
Speaker:Well, I mean things, it is a good ambition to have, but I think, you know, in Britain, beer is overtaxed.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and that causes problems because you don't have as bigger.
Speaker:Profit margin as perhaps you should, which means you've, you know, and the pubs are the same.
Speaker:They get a lot of VAT business rates shift on their pubs, so everybody tries to squeeze.
Speaker:There's, if there was a little bit more margin in everything, it would bring back the quality and the service into those pubs.
Speaker:Um, and, and everybody's not chasing the last penny as they do now.
Speaker:John?
Speaker:Are people in the UK drinking other things that's distracting from the beer industry?
Speaker:You know, we're, we're here in the United States.
Speaker:We're seeing.
Speaker:You know, uh, canned cocktails we're seeing THC stuff.
Speaker:We're seeing seltzers that are kind of distracting from the magnificence of beer.
Speaker:Do you see any of those same trends, uh, in the,
Speaker:quite, quite definitely.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:These trends happen, I think, and have been happening all the time.
Speaker:And they tend to be short-lived trends.
Speaker:But then another trend comes and um, you, you know, this is perpetual.
Speaker:And I think a lot of it is to do with marketing and accounts, designing things rather than somebody who drinks designing it or somebody who makes a drink design it.
Speaker:And I think there's a disconnect between the creation of a drink and the drinking of the drink and the marketing of that drink and the finances of that drink.
Speaker:And those all things need to be tied up.
Speaker:And I've been involved in quite a lot of market research as well, and I've seen market research and, you know, people.
Speaker:Take bits out of marketing research they like and they ignore the other bits.
Speaker:Uh, I just think it makes drinking in pubs, drinking, uh, in clubs, uh, drinking in bars, more uniform and you know, you get fed up with thinking, you know, I'm drinking in a pub.
Speaker:What town is it in?
Speaker:What city is it in?
Speaker:It doesn't matter.
Speaker:It reflects nothing of the locality within that pub.
Speaker:And what I want to do when I drink in the pub in Scotland, I want it to tell me I'm in Scotland as well as give me a great experience, a great drink, et cetera.
Speaker:I've, I've heard of, uh, conglomerate purchasing Irish pubs and ghost so far as to remove the slate on which people walked for hundreds of years and grooved out.
Speaker:Of course, those, they went under or they were successful in their own right.
Speaker:But it's a, it's a flash in the pan, right?
Speaker:These are, they're polished new, uh, bars and restaurants, but then they're, they closed, whereas the, the business that they bought and then paved over literally, uh, was there for over
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Things
Speaker:they want to manage by formula
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:understanding what the, what the Drinkery walks into that bar once.
Speaker:And you must have heard of the stories where regulars are no longer welcome.
Speaker:I've been drinking in this bar for 10 years.
Speaker:Well, you it, it, we're changing the bar and we don't want your type in there.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:happens.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that and
Speaker:It's quick money.
Speaker:And that bar is never successful.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, I have to ask you some recommendations.
Speaker:What are your, what are your top three pubs that
Speaker:Oh, you
Speaker:know, there are great pups.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, for instance, there's a, there's a great Fullers pub called the Churchill Arms on Kensington High Street, and that is a fantastic pub.
Speaker:It actually has a Thai restaurant within it as well.
Speaker:So they serve great Thai food as well.
Speaker:But it's run by characters and that's what makes the people running the pub.
Speaker:Makes the pub.
Speaker:So I have,
Speaker:It's half of the experience.
Speaker:I have a local pub.
Speaker:I live in Q in, in, in Richmond, in, in London.
Speaker:And uh, we, I live right on the River Thames and there's a pub on the River Thames called the.
Speaker:Um, bell and Crown and, and it's at a place called Strand on the Green.
Speaker:And again, I, I know the bar staff.
Speaker:I know the landlady and I walk in there and they welcome me and say, hello John.
Speaker:How are you?
Speaker:And it makes everything comfortable and it's like drinking with friends in your own living room, but it's also open to other people as well.
Speaker:And that's, that's a great pub because of that.
Speaker:But you, you, you know, the classic pub is the Churchill Arms.
Speaker:The local pub is the Bell and Crown.
Speaker:Tho those, you know, those two, uh, I might, you know, amongst two of my favorites.
Speaker:But there's, there's so many pubs that are, are, are good pubs, but you have to become part of that pub.
Speaker:You're not just there to admire it, you know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Here we have these beer passes that, that people come through and they punch us off and move on.
Speaker:Once in a while though, we, we, we create a new fan.
Speaker:So they, they're not completely unsuccessful in that regard, but just speaking to, we, very different approach to beer, but
Speaker:the, the sense of community and redundancy of visit is what we're really trying to get.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's the way to go.
Speaker:It's is I want to see the locals in the regulars
Speaker:in the pub.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Most of our decision making is how can we, uh, maintain and expand that group, uh, of people and make sure that they are happy and that they feel comfortable,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:whether it be Cask or West coast IPA, it, it, it's the same.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You have a strong community on both
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker:I, and it does, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, uh, I think people nowadays are more, uh, repertoire drinkers and, you know, when I first started drinking at fullest.
Speaker:I go into the pubs and I talk to people drinking, and I say, what beer?
Speaker:What beard do you drink?
Speaker:And, and, and they say London Pride.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And how many pounds of London Pride do you drink a week?
Speaker:Oh, about 30, maybe 35.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Do you ever try ESB or Chis it?
Speaker:Which are two other Fullers beers?
Speaker:No, I only drink London Pride nowadays.
Speaker:If you go in and ask the same question, you say, um, you know you're drinking London Pride there.
Speaker:How many, how many pounds of London Pride do you drink a week?
Speaker:Oh, maybe 10.
Speaker:Do you drink anything else?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, me, I drink a Guinness from time to time.
Speaker:Sometimes I have a lager, you know, so people change and have a repertoire, and again,
Speaker:And and they're less,
Speaker:know, people are affected.
Speaker:less brand loyal.
Speaker:The brand loyalty is not as big now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It still exists, but it's not as big.
Speaker:And, um, people wouldn't change before.
Speaker:But now I think the fashion has been to try other things and I think people do.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Is it time for my question?
Speaker:Here comes the question.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is, this is how we conclude a lot of our.
Speaker:Uh, podcast.
Speaker:Yeah, this is a good one.
Speaker:Are you, are you ready
Speaker:for this,
Speaker:No, go on.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Okay, good.
Speaker:Then this is the perfect time to ask.
Speaker:So here in the United States and South Dakota, we have, uh, a famous monument depicting, uh, four excellent presidents, Mount Rushmore.
Speaker:I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker:Um, our closing question to all of our esteemed guests, of which you're, you're certainly one.
Speaker:If you could create a Mount Rushmore of beer uk, us, wherever, who is on John Keeling's, Mount Rushmore of Beer?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:well, I think,
Speaker:you
Speaker:know, there's, there's so many people that deserve to be there, but one person I would put on I is, um, a guy called Sir Jeff Palmer.
Speaker:And Jeff was my professor at Harriet Watt, and he, he taught me about brewing, and he taught, he's taught so many people.
Speaker:He was knighted by the queen, uh, for services to charity and to brewing.
Speaker:So as far as I know, he is the only brewing knight.
Speaker:Uh, unfortunately a month ago or so he died.
Speaker:And, um, it's, it's a very sad event in the world of beer on this side of the Atlantic, and even in uh, America.
Speaker:His reputation is there as a, as a brewing scientist and a great man as well.
Speaker:A great person to talk to, great person to be with.
Speaker:And one of those people who've come from nothing.
Speaker:He was born in the West Indies, went to live in Brixton, and then went to Scotland to become a professor of brewing.
Speaker:I think that's some life.
Speaker:And I would put in,
Speaker:That's a,
Speaker:I would put in there,
Speaker:that's a great, that's a great person to have on there.
Speaker:And I'm sorry for, for your loss personally.
Speaker:It's, you know, people grow old and they die.
Speaker:But when somebody like that was so influential on me, dies, uh, it was, you know, in incredible.
Speaker:And I would, I mean the, the two brewers that have the, have had the most influence on personally on me.
Speaker:Was the head brewer of Young's Ken Don and the head brewer Fuller's Red Brewery.
Speaker:And both them had a huge influence on me as a brewer, uh, growing up in London.
Speaker:But, but, and, and I, I suppose in the case of Red, certainly he developed an international reputation because at the time he, he was making beer, Fullers started to export.
Speaker:And so he was my head brewer right up to 1999.
Speaker:And during this phase, Fullers grew, uh, and grew and exported.
Speaker:So our beer became famous in America under Reg.
Speaker:And then I took over and I, I think I would have to put Reg there, uh, alongside, uh, Jeff as the two biggest influences, Ken Ken's influence.
Speaker:He was the head brewer in, in an in the other.
Speaker:Brewery and he taught me much about being a brewer outside the brewery.
Speaker:You have to put stuff back into the industry as well as take.
Speaker:He said to me, and that's why I'm still a member of the London Brewing Alliance, I'm their president.
Speaker:I I, I was on the Harriet Watt Advisory Board for about 25 years because of Ken.
Speaker:I was in the Brewer's Guild here because of Ken, and he, he taught me that you have to put back and you listen to the consumer.
Speaker:You listen to the person drinking your beer.
Speaker:He, he taught me all those touchy feely things about being a brewer.
Speaker:Regs taught me the mechanics of brewing, the science of brewing and the finances of brewing, and understanding sales and marketing and all those.
Speaker:Black and white things.
Speaker:Ken taught me so much about the gray things as well.
Speaker:So for me, Ken and, and Red who are up there, and then I'd have to pick somebody from America who,
Speaker:He's forced to.
Speaker:it's not, it's that.
Speaker:It's that there's so many American brewers have been hugely influential in the United States in particular, but Garrett Oliver drove that influence outside America as well.
Speaker:Not, not particularly with the beers he made, though.
Speaker:He made good beers.
Speaker:It was the sheer personality of the man coming over, writing books, wanting to speak to you, looking you out, up.
Speaker:You know, he, I remember,
Speaker:Dressing better than anyone in the room.
Speaker:He just came to, he came to see me at followers.
Speaker:He wanted to do that, and you know, his sheer personality drove a. Um, you know, but there, there's, so, I mean, Ken Grossman as well.
Speaker:I, how can I forget him?
Speaker:You know, it's, it's, so, it's fan fantastic.
Speaker:Hello?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Statistically, Ken Grossman ends up on that list for a lot of our guests.
Speaker:but I, I mean,
Speaker:What a fabulous answer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:See John, our audience, um, will, not, will, will really benefit from that answer because they're gonna be sitting listening to this podcast or, you know, out on a run or whatever, and they're gonna look up the people that you mentioned, if they're unfamiliar.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:With any of those.
Speaker:I do the same.
Speaker:And, and you, I know one of your, uh, standards in brewing, and you mentioned it when you were talking about your Mount Rushmore, but you are known for your outreach in the community and the influence that you've had in educating people about beer, uh, in the same way that Charlie Bamforth does that.
Speaker:So I think our listeners are, are really gonna benefit from your answers.
Speaker:Thank you for that.
Speaker:I mean, it's been great.
Speaker:I've had a good time.
Speaker:Very good.
Speaker:Alright
Speaker:then.
Speaker:I think that will conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kalsow.
Speaker:Without David, there wouldn't be a show.
Speaker:Feel free to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and to support the show over on Patreon where you can listen to the bits that don't make it onto the show.
Speaker:And to get access to specially brewed beers like the latest Belgian Triple.
Speaker:Links to both of these are in the show notes, and until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
