The Low Down on Leinenkugels w/ Badger Beer Report

Gary Arndt: 00:00:05

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

Gary Arndt: 00:00:08

My name is Gary Arnd.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:09

With me again, as usual is Brewer Extraordinaire.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:12

Bobby Fleischman.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:13

Bobby, what are you drinking today?

Gary Arndt: 00:00:15

Tall mast English IPA.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:17

How about you?

Gary Arndt: 00:00:18

I'm the Horace Cider Rock and roll.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:20

Something that isn't.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:21

We got two special guests with us today.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:24

The guys from the Badger Beer Report.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:25

And quite frankly, rather than introducing you, I'm gonna let you guys introduce yourselves to explain who you are and a little bit about what the Badger Beer report is, and then we'll get into our topic for this episode.

Landon Cerny: 00:00:37

I'm gonna let Chris go first 'cause he is more impressive than I am.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:41

I don't know about that.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:42

I'm Chris Drosner I am executive editor of Milwaukee Magazine and the beer columnist for Wisconsin State Journal the Beer Baron Column.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:52

I've been writing that for about 14 years.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:54

Holy smokes.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:55

Coming up on that.

Chris Drosner: 00:00:56

And we've been doing Badger Beer Hour since about 2020.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:01

It was a monthly live stream.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:04

That, went to all of our various social medias talking about beer events beer culture in Wisconsin, lots of news.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:13

And we just recently have shifted that to a kind of a, as it happens model with monthly events and.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:20

reviews and stuff like that, but we're doing news kind of as it happens on multichannel.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:26

It's a whole big thing.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:27

So, that's what Badger Beer report is, and, it's kind of just getting off the ground basically right now.

Chris Drosner: 00:01:33

So it's exciting and thanks for having us on.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:37

Yeah, no problem.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:37

And Landon?

Landon Cerny: 00:01:38

Yeah, I'm much less impressive than that.

Landon Cerny: 00:01:40

I don't write a beer column.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:42

But do you drink

Landon Cerny: 00:01:43

I, do drink beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:45

That makes you an

Landon Cerny: 00:01:45

so yeah, actually for about eight years I was part of taproom Travelers.

Landon Cerny: 00:01:53

we've kind of disbanded since then.

Landon Cerny: 00:01:55

COVID kind of took us out, but, so we used to go around and shoot mini episodes, kind of like mini documentaries of breweries throughout the Midwest.

Landon Cerny: 00:02:05

And, so yeah, that's kind of how I got into beer, quote unquote expertise.

Landon Cerny: 00:02:13

I drank a lot of it along the way.

Landon Cerny: 00:02:14

Yeah, so otherwise daytime, I, I do video, audio, that kind of stuff.

Landon Cerny: 00:02:20

I've been in, the broadcast business for, well, at least I started in TV for three years and then I just kind of moved along as it were.

Landon Cerny: 00:02:29

Produced Menards commercials for eight years, so, yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:34

All right.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:35

So what we're gonna talk about in this episode is perhaps, I don't know if you'd call it the quintessential Wisconsin brewery.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:42

There's been a lot of breweries but certainly one of the most notable, I don't even know if you could call it an indie brewery but it's leinenkugel's.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:50

I think if you live in Wisconsin, everybody knows about Leinenkugel's.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:55

Certainly, I lived in Minnesota for a while.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:56

Everybody knew about Lennys.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:58

I think the further you get away from Wisconsin probably becomes a little less.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:01

So why don't you start talking about the origins of this brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:08

Yeah, this is one of the oldest breweries in not just Wisconsin, but kind of anywhere.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:15

it started in, I believe it was 1867.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:18

I should have my, my facts straight before I start shooting from the hip here.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:22

But it's 167 years that number I remember and this goes back to the days before craft breweries, before micro breweries, before really be, be really before the industrialization of brew of beer.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:37

where, you know, we see this in Wisconsin.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:39

Some of these brands have, have survived in Wisconsin where they are you know, a brewery that served the town and Leinenkugel's in Chippewa Falls was particularly successful at that, and they became kind of a, a regional forest before that was as, as the brewing industry.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:57

You know, accelerated and became industrialized.

Chris Drosner: 00:03:59

They scaled up and, and were able to meet that for, you know, up north western Wisconsin, Minnesota, and eventually the whole upper Midwest.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:08

The, the big, thing that you alluded to, Gary, was the, the sale to, at the time, Miller Brewing Company, I believe this was 19 87, 86, 88, somewhere in there.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:20

And, that kind of changed the, the nature of the game for, for Leinys they, you know, they weren't really a craft brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:27

They were kind of just a brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:29

Similar to what we saw from point before, they kind of got into the craft game.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:34

You know, the, they, it's a, lager, light Lager.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:38

They had a Bach beer, but you know, it, it was kind of traditional brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:42

I believe it was primarily after the acquisition by Miller, they started diversifying and basically started doing more craft beers.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:51

I, I think Lenny's Red was their first big hit.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:54

I think everybody of a certain age knows about Lenny's Red and has probably had one.

Chris Drosner: 00:04:59

I feel like that was kind of like the universal beer of the very early, kind of micro brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:05:08

Boom.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:08

Just to take a step back.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:10

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:10

Line.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:11

So we, we've talked about this several times on the show.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:13

Every community kind of had its own brewery at one point in the early 20th century here in Appleton, we had Adler Brow.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:20

Oshkosh had Chief Oshkosh is line and cools, then just kind of a local brewery that just happened to survive.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:26

Yeah, that it kind of just made it through this period.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:29

I think it was in like the sixties.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:30

You saw a lot of these things closed down seventies.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:33

You saw a lot of consolidation and then like, and point, like you mentioned, is another one that just kind of never died out.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:39

It just sort of kept going.

Chris Drosner: 00:05:41

Y Yeah.

Chris Drosner: 00:05:42

Landon, you may be able to speak to this better, but my impression is that yeah, they were, it was, it was large enough and successful enough in, in the markets that it was in, that it was able to kind of withstand that significant pressure of all of these acquisitions and outright closures too, but a lot of these brands got swallowed up.

Chris Drosner: 00:06:01

By, and, the really big regional ones still survive in, in a lot of markets.

Chris Drosner: 00:06:06

And a lot of them are under the Pabst portfolio now.

Chris Drosner: 00:06:09

and my impression was that they started like a Chief Oshkosh and were large enough that they were able to kind of survive the, consolidation and kind of ramification of the sixties and seventies.

Landon Cerny: 00:06:22

I, I think too, that they had, they had such a strong local community feel and, and people of Chippewa have felt like they owned Leinenkugel's or, you know, even though they didn't, but, but they had a, a big stake in it.

Landon Cerny: 00:06:38

You know, people from Chippewa, you know, even up until recent years, you know, they drink Leese Light, they drink Leese original, they drink, you know.

Landon Cerny: 00:06:48

That beer is ingrained in the community.

Landon Cerny: 00:06:50

And even when you look around the, the city of Chippewa, there are Chip, you know, there's leinenkugel signs that are from forever ago that they just keep repainting, you know, and they're on the signs sides of all the buildings.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:05

And there's, there's just leinen cools everywhere.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:10

So, so what made them the shiny object?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:12

Why were they set up so well for acquisition?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:15

is it just the, the, the nature of the times were, every brewery standing would eventually be absorbed or what, what was unique?

Landon Cerny: 00:07:24

I mean, when you listen to the Leinenkugel family talk about, they don't, they don't ever, obviously, they don't ever talk about it as a sellout.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:31

Right.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:32

And that's usually what you hear when you hear Leinenkugel's being bought by Miller.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:38

It was a sellout.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:39

Right.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:40

but they did it.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:43

As a way to position themselves better to distribute whatever, you know, they, they, the Leinenkugel's family tells you that's why they did it.

Landon Cerny: 00:07:54

I think they

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:55

But on the Miller, but on the Miller side, what, what was shiny about

Landon Cerny: 00:07:58

I think it just a diversity, you know, Miller didn't have a strong hold in this side of the state.

Landon Cerny: 00:08:08

Leinenkugel's was, has been big here forever and, and by the way, I'm in Eau Claire, so I'm 15 miles away from Chippewa.

Landon Cerny: 00:08:15

So Leinenkugel's is huge in the Chippewa Valley and has been for years.

Gary Arndt: 00:08:21

From my understanding, when they were bought, I think they were also having financial problems at the time.

Gary Arndt: 00:08:25

so the sale to Miller was kind of, a way to, to get out of it.

Gary Arndt: 00:08:30

And they were big enough that Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:08:32

They took interest

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:33

in it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:33

And I assume to, to fund expansion through infrastructure as well.

Chris Drosner: 00:08:38

Yeah, there's a book called um, the Beer that Made Wisconsin famous by Doug Hoverson.

Chris Drosner: 00:08:42

he's a really, he's like a historian.

Chris Drosner: 00:08:44

So he, he takes the, the academic, his history approach to the beer industry and his story of, of that acquisition was that.

Chris Drosner: 00:08:54

It had a, he didn't quite say this, but there was a little, there was some air of doing a favor while also, you know, securing a viable asset that with the right amount of capital could, do exactly what it did for a really long time.

Chris Drosner: 00:09:07

For the Miller cos slash Molson cos portfolio.

Chris Drosner: 00:09:10

So and you know, this is a, a, a relationship that existed before.

Chris Drosner: 00:09:16

I believe in Doug's book it talked about some distributor overlap and you know, that, that this was not.

Chris Drosner: 00:09:22

Hey, let's meet.

Chris Drosner: 00:09:23

And then in six months later, there was a deal, you know, that, that the Leinenkugels knew, the Miller people and vice versa.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:29

I grew up in Wisconsin, and I'll be honest, I don't remember hearing a lot about Leins until after it was sold.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:37

Granted, I didn't live in, you know, the, the Chippewa Falls Eau Claire area.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:41

But it was after that.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:42

Then I started hearing about a lot of different I don't know if it was just more money behind the marketing or or they were introducing new different types of beers.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:51

I know the summer Shandy has become really popular.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:56

I don't know if it's their bestselling beer, but it's one I always kind of hear people talk about the most.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:02

Yeah,

Gary Arndt: 00:10:03

yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:04

I, I, it seems to me in some ways that Miller kind of resurrected the brand in a lot of ways, or at least made it expand to a level that it, it never really was at before.

Landon Cerny: 00:10:13

I think more than anything the, the money meant a lot.

Landon Cerny: 00:10:16

for Leinenkugel's.

Landon Cerny: 00:10:17

Speaking of Summer Shandy, that was like a Dick Leinenkugel invention, you know, plus whoever was helping him out at the time, he, he talked a lot about coming up with that beer, something about relating to their German heritage.

Landon Cerny: 00:10:34

And you can believe that if you want.

Landon Cerny: 00:10:36

But, i, I think it was the money because the advertising and, and everything that you saw for Leinenkugel's, even just recently in the last 10 years, there's been a lot of money put behind Leinenkugel's and getting their name out there.

Chris Drosner: 00:10:54

yeah, I mean, to that point, no question.

Chris Drosner: 00:10:57

I mean, you know, Summer Shandy, I, I believe, in my research for an article, it was something like a 200,000 barrel product at its peak or something like that.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:08

you know, that is a lot of Summer Shandy and at its peak, I don't even think it was a year round.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:12

I think it was still a seasonal beer for them.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:14

Unquestionably it was coast to coast.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:17

It was you know, national advertising.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:20

It was a thing.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:21

And the, the time of that coincided perfectly with the rise of craft beer.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:27

And I think it's telling that.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:29

You know, the, the current corporate parent, Molson Coors did away with all of the Johnny come lately, craft brewery acquisitions and stuck with Blue Moon, which was their own creation and Leinenkugel's, which has been in the company for, more than 35 years.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:45

So there's a lot to read into that that sale and, and, the reason that we're talking about Leinenkugel's right now.

Chris Drosner: 00:11:51

But they were a horse for, for that company for a long time.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:56

Let's jump ahead then to the present, in,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:59

I feel like we're glossing over a whole bunch.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:01

I didn't wanna do that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:02

No, no go.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:02

No, no.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:03

I don't have much else to say about it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:04

I just wanna make sure before we do, are we leaving out some important chapters?

Chris Drosner: 00:12:08

Yeah, I mean, I think, well, we could talk about the, the, the product.

Chris Drosner: 00:12:12

I mean the wiess beers were, were, I think what really kind of, I mean, that was the predecessor to the Shandy.

Chris Drosner: 00:12:19

And so we could, we could go into that.

Chris Drosner: 00:12:23

this is exciting not doing this live.

Chris Drosner: 00:12:24

I mean, I could, I could

Landon Cerny: 00:12:26

some, some of their, some of their Bach beers too.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:28

I mean, now, now you hear, I think it's more of nostalgia.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:33

They were big at the time, but I don't think that the advertising and the awareness was there before, like it was for summer Shandy.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:42

So like the big butt Doppel bch, I'm probably missing a few of them in there.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:48

But that, that was a big one.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:51

Big Eddie.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:52

Especially when craft beer was really booming big.

Landon Cerny: 00:12:55

Eddie was huge.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:57

you just brought me back 20 years.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:59

I think that I had a, so I was in Oklahoma when I had somebody find, yeah, of course.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:05

You get a spotted cow from Wisconsin and you're in Oklahoma.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:07

That's a big deal.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:08

But Big Eddie made such an impression on me.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:11

I, I hadn't thought about that in a while.

Landon Cerny: 00:13:13

Yeah.

Landon Cerny: 00:13:14

And they're actually, I, I mean, we're not, we're not gonna get ahead to today yet, but they're, they're remaking it now,

Chris Drosner: 00:13:21

right.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:21

So, that's right.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:22

Yeah.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:23

To me, the, Lenny's Red was the first beer I had with my dad.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:27

so, you know, this is like probably 19 96, 6 or seven or something, and we're around the campfire up north and he's a big red lagger or amber lagger guy.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:36

And he had, a six pack of, of Leiny's Red and.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:39

And, that was a beer that was around a lot and was pretty popular during the kind of craft beer awakening, like, not quite the boom, but when people really started saying, Hey, there's, there's other stuff going on here.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:53

And it was accessible in all markets.

Chris Drosner: 00:13:55

I grew up in Green Bay and, there wasn't really a lot of Lakefront Beer or.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:01

Sprecker, Sprecker, Amber, and, you know, I don't even think, I don't, I don't remember seeing Lakefront Beer at the time,

Chris Drosner: 00:14:07

but, you know, Lenny's Red was like, kind of like your, your, your mainstream alternative to fizzy, yellow water, you know, and then, then came the, the wiess boom for, for Leinys which was, the honey wiess and the berry wiess especially really opened the door, I think, for them to really, bring in a new class of drinkers, more casual people who were not, you know.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:32

Hardy lager folks and and they kind of really doubled down on that through the years.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:37

I remember Sunset Wheat coming out during this was probably.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:42

Man, 2007 or something like that, you know, you, you really started to see, see they lean into the fruit, they lean into the kind of sweetness and, but I think underpinning all of it, there was an ethos there that made sense.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:55

You know, it's a German family.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:56

And, those roots were important to them.

Chris Drosner: 00:14:59

Obviously this is like, six generations in, or maybe five at this point.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:03

So they were slow to just throw out an IPA, you know, which, I'm curious what the discussions were at the time Miller and later Miller Coors with the Leinenkugel's family.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:12

'cause they're like, I talked with Dick Leinenkugel once about when they launched the IPL.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:17

and this was probably.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:20

Man, 2015 or something like that.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:24

They did an IPL and he talked about why he doesn't like hoppy beers because when he was a kid , he would have to go into the big hop rooms where they had, like mountains of hops and they would shovel 'em Into whatever conveyance that they brought him to the brewhouse with.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:39

And the, the resins and stuff would get on his fingers and, and he's like, oh, I just, I just hated that.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:45

And, to this day I can't stand it.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:46

And, you know, props to him for saying no, probably to a lot of people who wanted him to make an IPA for all those years.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:54

And then when they finally did get in the hoppy beer game.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:57

It was an IPL, it was a lager.

Chris Drosner: 00:15:59

And even the Shandy, you know, I mean, a lot of people don't like Summer Shandy.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:03

I get it.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:04

But, you know, that's a riff on something that existed in Germany.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:09

I mean, the Shandy name is English, but the Rattler has roots in Germany.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:13

And you know, I think that the traditional nature of the brewery was appealing to at least people in Wisconsin.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:20

You know, the, the branding had a huge part in, in the success too.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:23

I think, you know, the, the friendliness, the up north, the, the, you know, we're out here, the canoes and the, all that stuff.

Chris Drosner: 00:16:31

I mean, it was a good brewery for, scaling up to, you know, a national, audience.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:37

Yeah, they they were part of a class of brewers that, that laid the groundwork for where craft brewing went after that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:44

I, I'm, I'm appreciating that in real time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:46

I'm listening to you talk about this and, and yeah, these flavors and these styles.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:51

we're built on over the next couple of waves of craft beer movements

Chris Drosner: 00:16:56

and you know, it's, it's been interesting to see the Shandy decline.

Chris Drosner: 00:17:00

I, you know, I haven't seen numbers, but I assume that it, that it's, it's not what it was just based on the marketing power that, they're putting behind it.

Chris Drosner: 00:17:08

And, I, I don't know that, that

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:12

what a complicated question.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:13

Question That is where, where market share is being divided so widely, amongst so many categories now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:19

It, it's, it's a crazy place.

Landon Cerny: 00:17:23

And you have to wonder if that's partially due to, because that's not seasonal anymore.

Landon Cerny: 00:17:28

That used to, it used to be like an event, right.

Landon Cerny: 00:17:31

There

Landon Cerny: 00:17:31

were people that posted about, on social media about, Ooh, social, you know, summer Shandy

Chris Drosner: 00:17:37

right here.

Chris Drosner: 00:17:37

You don't have to, you don't have to refer to me in the third person.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:42

I'm, I'm

Landon Cerny: 00:17:42

I don't, wanna call

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:43

I'm you guys are probably familiar with Oberon.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:46

I, I think now Oberon from Bell's, I I think maybe it's year round.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:49

Is that right or not?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:51

Right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:52

I may they, they might have teased that and experimented with it at some point, but, but I think they, maybe they backed away from it, but for that same reason, 'cause there was such a buildup

Chris Drosner: 00:18:01

mm-hmm.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:01

they definitely have like variants of it, like Obon Ultra or whatever.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:05

it's

Gary Arndt: 00:18:05

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:06

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:08

I think there's definitely something to be said, even if it's popular of just keeping something seasonal.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:13

It's like the McRib

Chris Drosner: 00:18:15

that that's exactly what it is.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:17

Uhhuh.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:17

Yeah, totally.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:18

No, I mean, McDonald's purposely does not put the McRib on the menu permanently, even though it's real popular.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:24

Precisely because it becomes a special event then.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:26

Right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:27

And so they add up their total sales and it's probably more than they would otherwise have had.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:30

Yep.

Landon Cerny: 00:18:31

Yeah.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:31

Yep.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:32

And there, there's something about summer or or the end of winter, at least to that, that I think is very, like you, you mentioned ob, LeBron, it's the same deal.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:41

You know, it's pretty early and it, like Summer Shandy, like we, we, we were probably past seasonal Summer Sandy, summer Woo.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:48

Summer Shandy season already here as we record in late February.

Chris Drosner: 00:18:53

I think it was like, I think the last seasonal release of it was like mid, mid to late, like late January maybe.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:00

But like, you know, some like spring arrives in different places everywhere.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:04

And, you know, summer Shandy is a good beer to have.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:10

You know, at the beach bar in Key West, and you're on the boat in, you know, in or at the pool in Arizona.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:17

I get the, the seasonal aspect of it, but maybe it could do, I don't know, regional.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:21

Listen, I'm not here to offer marketing strategy advice to a, a giant multinational corporation or anything.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:27

But yeah, I, Yeah, seasonal.

Chris Drosner: 00:19:31

I, it works.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:32

It's clear from this conversation, the equity that Miller has through Leinenkugel.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:37

There's a lot of equity, there's history, there's innovation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:40

And you guys, you're from Wisconsin.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:42

I'm coming here now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:43

11 years we've been here.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:45

And I appreciate the beer culture, and it seemed like that, yeah, that would've been a good acquisition, a good pony to ride in with if you're Miller.

Gary Arndt: 00:19:52

This seems like a, a decent segue to get into talking about the events that have happened in the last few months.

Gary Arndt: 00:19:58

In November, they announced that they would be closing down the dedicated Leinenkugel's Breweries in Chippewa Falls and in Milwaukee.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:08

And I assume just.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:10

Brewing it where they do all their other beers, I don't know, in the Miller Brewery or something like that.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:14

And supposedly there was an offer made by the Leinenkugel family to buy back the brand, but that was rejected.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:23

I think, I think the reasons for the, the closure is probably pretty obvious.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:27

It's just a cost saving measure,

Landon Cerny: 00:20:28

yeah.

Chris Drosner: 00:20:30

not actually.

Chris Drosner: 00:20:32

There's pretty interesting backstory to why they closed that brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:20:36

So I think, so the, the, one of the kind of hidden factors here is that the big Miller brewery, the one in the Miller Valley, the one with the giant, you know, 20 story tanks and silos that brewery had been producing Pabst products.

Chris Drosner: 00:20:52

On a contract basis for a long time Pabst is, had been entirely a, what do you call it, virtual brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:20:59

Like all, they don't have, they didn't have any facilities of their own.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:02

They were contract brewing at all kinds of places all over the country.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:07

And, but one of the big, one of the big workhorses of that comp of, of Papst was the Miller Brewery in, in Milwaukee.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:15

And we know all this, normally this stuff is like really tight.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:17

We know all this because they went to court and they went to trial.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:21

They went to trial over this, a dispute over when this contract ended and, and the terms of it and everything.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:28

So all this stuff got brought out into the light and.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:31

The reporting on it has not been as robust since, the, and of course they don't have to say anything but it hasn't been as robust since the trial ended.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:40

But, and like, who won doesn't is, I, I, I'm not even sure who won because it doesn't really matter.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:45

Like, you know, the, the terms of the contract were whatever.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:48

But, the bottom line is that at the end of 2024.

Chris Drosner: 00:21:52

production of Paps Brewing Products was gonna stop in Milwaukee, and you could think about how much volume that might be, you know, in a, in a, a couple million barrel brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:04

So that, that is a, that is an important domino in, in what happened here.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:09

they had the smaller brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:10

I mean, they, they, they say the Lein Leinenkugel's Brewery in Milwaukee.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:14

I, I mean, it's a most, that's a Molson Coors Brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:17

It's a corporate brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:18

It produced all kinds of products, including Terrapin Beer, which was one of the brands that, that, that Molson Coors sold.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:25

It was branded, it had big, bright red paint on the, and it was right next to the freeway in downtown Milwaukee.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:31

So it was very high profile in that way, but.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:34

It was built in 1986 by Hileman, and it's kind of been in the Miller family for, I think since the, maybe late nineties, something like that.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:45

And the weird thing is that they had just put in a significant amount of money.

Chris Drosner: 00:22:49

You know, I think maybe over $10 million I should, should have been, had my facts straight, but, To, to trick that brewery out, to make it more suited for small batch production, for craft brewery, craft beer.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:04

That's what they did.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:05

And, and that this was like three years ago.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:07

So they did not see this, they did not see this coming, or let, they probably would've delayed that project.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:13

The Chippewa Falls one though, know.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:15

That hurts.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:15

I mean, that community is built.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:18

I dunno, Landon, you can speak to, I think you, you spoke to this a little bit already, but this, the community's identity is leinenkugel's and to have it just summarily shut down you know, it's pretty sad.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:29

They, they did this, this morose, social media video of.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:34

you know, The last brew at that brewery where they had, you know, all the employees come through and pour a bucket of hops in and stuff.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:42

Just brutal stuff.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:43

I dunno.

Chris Drosner: 00:23:43

Landon, you wanna take,

Landon Cerny: 00:23:44

Yeah, and they, and that one, you know, it's obviously the loss of jobs is a huge thing.

Landon Cerny: 00:23:51

Chippewa, I think it had 50, mid fifties jobs that they lost.

Landon Cerny: 00:23:57

Obviously when you go to Chippewa and if you know anything about beer, you wanna see the, the iconic Leinenkugel's Brewery with the old barn and the, you know, the big leinenkugel's emblazoned on the side of it and all the things that are there because it's, it's big and it, Chippewa Falls isn't very big, but this stands out in Chippewa Falls.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:20

So to lose.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:22

The actual brewery and the, the brewing there and the whistle that goes off every day when the, the shift ends and, you know, all the, the things that everybody in that community's gotten to know because of Leinenkugel's is a big deal.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:38

That brewery in itself I believe Dick said.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:42

They only brewed contract beer.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:45

So every beer that they brewed in that place was already spoken for before it even left the door.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:52

So it was just going to places around here in the Chippewa Valley.

Landon Cerny: 00:24:56

I will tell you, and, and I mean you can dispute this if you want.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:01

The beer that came out of that place tasted much different than the beer that comes outta Milwaukee and it's, it's a huge loss.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:08

People were.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:10

I, I mean, especially in 2024, some of us don't remember that at the beginning of 2024, they had a strike at Leinen Cools Brewery that went on for weeks.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:21

I don't even remember how long.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:22

It might've been over a month, maybe two months.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:25

So there's that.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:26

Then they got out of that, and then everybody's thinking, okay, we're, we're back on track now.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:32

Start brewing beer.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:33

We got our jobs and everything at the end of 2024.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:37

Their jobs are gone.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:38

And now I don't, I don't know.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:41

I know that

Landon Cerny: 00:25:42

those of us that drink beer around here don't feel as much of a, symbiosis or whatever you want to call it with Leinenkugel's anymore.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:51

'cause all that's left is their their lodge and.

Landon Cerny: 00:25:57

There seems to be just a, a huge hole there without the brewery actually running.

Gary Arndt: 00:26:02

Do you think it's gonna hurt loyalty to the brand?

Landon Cerny: 00:26:05

I think it already has.

Landon Cerny: 00:26:07

I they lost a ton of people just because of the strike.

Landon Cerny: 00:26:10

And then when they got back what people that they kept, I, I think because they closed the brewery in Chippewa, they, they lost the rest of them.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:26:20

What's the, what's the call to action, at large here in, in terms of craft beer, macro beer and the state of beer?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:26:28

Is, is this a headline and we, we just shed a tear and move on?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:26:31

Or do you guys see these acquisitions having any ripple effects that have any change?

Chris Drosner: 00:26:37

I, I don't know.

Chris Drosner: 00:26:37

I mean, to me the big story is, is Molson Coors is basically getting outta the craft business like the, what, what I think craft people think of as craft business, craft beer people.

Chris Drosner: 00:26:50

I think that most craft beer people kind of already saw line's as kind of something adjacent but separate.

Chris Drosner: 00:26:56

I think, I think it'll be interesting to watch the future of Leinenkugel's and their, their brand mix and their portfolio.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:03

And do they, you know, blue Moon doesn't make any IPAs either.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:08

And IPA is still the number one style by a long shot in craft beer with air quotes, you know, specialty type craft beer, which is how, you know, a large company like Molson Coors sees it.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:22

is, is Leinenkugel's gonna be the, the IPA standard holder for their portfolio?

Chris Drosner: 00:27:29

It seems unlikely to me that they would just let that portion of the market go entirely.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:36

but.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:37

I, I don't know if the family has pushed back or if they weren't asked to, but Leinenkugels has not done that in the 35 years under Molson, under Miller, et cetera, since, you know so I, I don't know.

Chris Drosner: 00:27:50

Or if, if, if not, then that is something maybe even more concerning for, you know, the craft, like a craft brewer maybe that this big company that seems, that probably knows what's coming or, or has an idea what's coming doesn't think it's even worth it to, to, to do stuff like this.

Chris Drosner: 00:28:10

Especially when they had a brewery that they had invested heavily in to, to do exactly that.

Gary Arndt: 00:28:15

I did wanna ask, have you heard any rumors about what they're gonna do with the facility in Chippewa Falls?

Landon Cerny: 00:28:22

So from what I hear, they are still going to do tours.

Landon Cerny: 00:28:27

Obviously, you'll not be touring a operational brewery, but they will take you through the whole facility, show you how it used to run, and then bring you back to the lodge.

Landon Cerny: 00:28:42

But as far as anything else, that's it.

Chris Drosner: 00:28:47

I have to tell you, I had the, I had a dream that the Leinenkugels were successful in their bid.

Chris Drosner: 00:28:52

A dream, literal dream, like my subconscious is, is really working on the story that the leinenkugels were successful in buying back the brewery.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:02

You know, and one thing I, we should probably clarify, like, they didn't spec, they didn't necessarily specify that they were gonna try, that they were trying to buy the brand.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:12

They said the brewery, and I, as maybe that means the line buying back their name or something.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:17

I don't know.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:18

I mean, it, it's a good play, like from the, from the family's perspective.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:21

Like, Hey, you wanna get outta the craft beer business?

Chris Drosner: 00:29:25

We would like to get in back into the craft beer business and we, we would like to do that with our family's brewery.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:33

And it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:33

wasn't a bad play because like you said, there's been a lot of.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:35

A lot of other breweries that have been bought and then purchased themselves back after five or 10 years, just recently.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:42

A lot.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:42

It's played over and over.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:44

Yeah.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:44

And, and like the dream was like what would this brewery look like.

Chris Drosner: 00:29:50

If it were successful, what would a Leinenkugel's brewery in that facility look like?

Chris Drosner: 00:29:58

What would the product mix be?

Chris Drosner: 00:29:59

What would the brand be?

Chris Drosner: 00:30:02

What would I I I mean, there's a lot of, I have, I have many questions and zero answers.

Chris Drosner: 00:30:06

You know, both sides have been, have not really been saying anything on this, since the, you know, the, the news really was kind of happening back in well, it, it's been a couple months now, but, I don't know.

Chris Drosner: 00:30:20

Like what, like what do you think?

Landon Cerny: 00:30:22

Dunno.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:24

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:24

It's, it's definitely been seismic, where we are in beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:27

I'm thinking about Anchor brewing Company as we're sitting it's probably played out a hundred more times.

Landon Cerny: 00:30:32

Right.

Chris Drosner: 00:30:33

It's a fascinating story and it's, and really it's, I mean, this is the biggest news story, beer news story that I've, that I can remember.

Chris Drosner: 00:30:39

And I mean, we, we've had a lot of closures and stuff.

Chris Drosner: 00:30:42

Now, but the, the closing of 160 7-year-old brewery by a multinational corporate parent is pretty, it's about as big and frankly shitty as you can get.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:54

Yeah,

Gary Arndt: 00:30:54

All right well, that's gonna have to wrap up this episode.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:57

Why don't you guys tell us where people can find you online?

Landon Cerny: 00:30:59

Go ahead, Chris.

Landon Cerny: 00:31:00

Mine's easy.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:01

I, Badger beer report.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:03

I believe we'll have, we'll have a website within the next month or so, maybe.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:06

But, for now you can find my work and certainly most of what try to stay abreast of what my Badger Beer report colleagues do on my.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:14

Probably my Blue Sky account.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:15

Actually.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:16

I'm not really doing a whole lot on Twitter anymore.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:18

But my handle on both platforms is Wi Beer Baron.

Chris Drosner: 00:31:22

And certainly all our video content is available on YouTube at Badger Beer Report

Landon Cerny: 00:31:29

And Badger beer report on Instagram too.

Landon Cerny: 00:31:32

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:33

Alright, and that concludes this episode of Respecting the Beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:37

Make sure to make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player, so you will never miss an episode.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:42

And feel free to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and to support the show over on Patreon.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:47

Links to both of these are in the show notes.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:49

And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.