Episode 73
Mitch Steele of New Realm Brewing Looks Back on 40 Years of Brewing
How do you pivot from one of the largest breweries in the world to starting your own brewery? Mitch Steele of New Realm Brewing brings over 40 years of brewing experience to these next two weeks. He shares how his love for brewing took him from UC Davis to Anheuser-Busch before landing in the craft brewery scene.
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TIMELINE
00:00 Joel is in Charge!
01:47 Welcome Mitch Steele!
03:04 Mitch Steele's Brewing Journey
08:04 Challenges of Opening a Brewery
13:53 Experience at Anheuser-Busch and Stone Brewing
21:53 Founding New Realm Brewing
27:00 More Mitch Next Week!
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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.
Speaker:Welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:I am your host, not Gary Arnt.
Speaker:This is Joel Hermanson filling in for Gary Arnt, who unfortunately, for those of you who are frequent listeners, Gary's Iron Man Streak has ended the Cal Ripkin of beer podcasting.
Speaker:Had to take a back seat on this episode.
Speaker:We're all struggling to try to fill in, you know, and, and pick up a little bit of the slack.
Speaker:Fortunately we have an incredible panel with us today.
Speaker:With me as always.
Speaker:And I'm gonna try a, a Gary aren't m Yeah.
Speaker:A Gary Ism.
Speaker:The brewer that Oklahoma Brewing and Science has designated as the most likely brewer to take nitrogen from Uranus and to turn it into a carbonated beverage.
Speaker:Our very own Bobby Fleshman.
Speaker:Bobby, how are you today?
Speaker:I'm not responding.
Speaker:That was good.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And bad.
Speaker:That was awful.
Speaker:Yeah, there
Speaker:was a, there was a couple of errors there.
Speaker:I know that you have a different pronunciation
Speaker:of the, you have your choice.
Speaker:It involves urine or the other one.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But there is a lot of nitrogen on Uranus
Speaker:ab.
Speaker:Yep, absolutely.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So you
Speaker:could clearly take that and, and start powering a stout over that.
Speaker:Oh, is Mitch still watching?
Speaker:Is he still here?
Speaker:Yeah, no, Mitch is still here.
Speaker:We're gonna get to Mitch.
Speaker:I'm also joined by, still make Brewings.
Speaker:Stephanie Harvey.
Speaker:Stephanie, how are you?
Speaker:Pretty
Speaker:good.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:We, however, are blessed today to have one of the true stars.
Speaker:Brewing somebody I've been really excited to talk to.
Speaker:And that is Mitch Steele from New Realm Brewing.
Speaker:And Mitch, we're gonna give you a chance to introduce yourself a little bit, but I've been reading up a lot about you.
Speaker:You are an interesting cat.
Speaker:It doesn't seem that way from here, but yeah.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:It's good to be here.
Speaker:You know, I've been in this business for um, gosh, it's getting close to 40 years now, so I've seen a lot of things happen in craft beer and have been able to do a lot of different things, you know, from uh, my days at Anheuser-Busch to my days at Stone Brewing and now with New Realm.
Speaker:So it's been a crazy ride for sure.
Speaker:And for those of you who aren't privileged to be staring at Mitch, while he is saying this, I'm having a hard time reconciling the 40 years with your face because I'm wondering is that you look like you're about 43, so I don't know how you're doing
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Add, add 20 years to that and you'll be
Speaker:close.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:Congrats.
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Beer keeps you young.
Speaker:I, I, I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah, I, I mean, we've been trying to prove that theory.
Speaker:I don't know if we
Speaker:have, it's, it's like going to a high school reunion thinking that you're the only one that looks young and everyone else is aged.
Speaker:We, we, we've convinced ourselves of these kind of things.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I think when you hang out with a bunch of beer drinkers, then you kind of recalibrate your expectations, so That's true.
Speaker:So, Mitch, you have a fascinating backstory.
Speaker:You, you have done you know, your, your biography and brewing is, is kind of incredible when, when I've been researching it and we're currently holding a copy of, of your book as well.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:You
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:I know
Speaker:that you and Bobby kind of had a little bit of a similar.
Speaker:Experience in that you're both UC Davis grads.
Speaker:I've never been in a room that's this many UC Davis people.
Speaker:This is,
Speaker:I guess, I guess, you were, you were a fermentation degree was as an undergrad.
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:that, yeah, that's correct.
Speaker:I was a fermentation science major.
Speaker:I studied wine making and brewing at Davis.
Speaker:Yeah, I graduated in 1984 and I got this new hat here.
Speaker:You see this?
Speaker:It's the UC Davis brewing school hat.
Speaker:I picked that up at the Craft Brewers Conference last week, which I thought was kind of cool.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Yeah, that is a great hat.
Speaker:So you started brewing in college, if I am remembering correctly.
Speaker:Is that, is that correct?
Speaker:Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker:I, I was like I said, I was studying fermentation science.
Speaker:I had just taken the first brewing science course and me and a, a really good friend of mine decided we were gonna brew a batch of beer.
Speaker:So we did it at home.
Speaker:So that was my first home brewing experience.
Speaker:It was, you know, an extract brew with with whole hops and dry yeast and the whole bit, you know, like everybody else, we fermented in a white plastic bucket and packaged the beer up and it was exceptionally bitter.
Speaker:And that's about all I remember about it.
Speaker:And from that moment, were you hooked?
Speaker:I mean, because we've all had that same experience and I think initially I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be a craft brewer.
Speaker:I'm gonna be Ken Grossman, you know, and, and
Speaker:I, I think there's no rung between
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And not brewing at all.
Speaker:And being Ken Grossman, I was gonna go from white bucket to Chico.
Speaker:Like it was a really short jump.
Speaker:So did, like, did you feel at that time that this was your passion?
Speaker:Like.
Speaker:You know, ironically, I think I think I kind of knew it, but what really sealed the deal for me was about a year later taking a field trip to Chico and visiting Sierra Nevada.
Speaker:And they, they had been open for, I don't know, four or five years at that time.
Speaker:I mean, they were still new.
Speaker:They were still brewing with and fermenting with open dairy tanks, and they had a, like a 10 barrels, maybe a 15 barrel system.
Speaker:But you know, once we walked into that brewery and got to taste their beers and talked to them about how they were making their beers, I think that's really what, what put me over the edge and, and made me really realize you know, the brewing was something I wanted to pursue.
Speaker:Were you with Michael Lewis at that time?
Speaker:Was he a, a professor?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Michael Lewis was the professor, you know,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and you know, he's, he's such an interesting dude and, and, and really you know, he, he tells great stories and he was, he was pretty tough, you know, but he had very high expectations of his students and he let us know, you know.
Speaker:But I, I liked Michael Lewis a lot.
Speaker:I've, I've been lucky.
Speaker:I've been able to stay in touch with him off and on over the years in my career, you know, and, and lean on him at times.
Speaker:And you know, he's just a wonderful person, a great instructor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I remember I took the extension course and I remember him saying, he's not teaching any of us how to run a business.
Speaker:I just glossed over that.
Speaker:He says, all we're learning here is how to brew.
Speaker:I thought, well, I can pick up the rest of it.
Speaker:And it's been the school of hard knocks ever since, for sure.
Speaker:But he's a really smart guy, and you're right, he, he is tough on you to get every, every bit of your vocabulary correct in your responses.
Speaker:That's for sure.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:Being as British as he can be.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:He was a pretty intimidating man.
Speaker:I, I really had to drum up a lot of courage to, you know, when I was deciding to kind of focus on brewing, you know, I went in to talk to him and, you know, and, and he had his office hours and I went in to talk to him, and I was scared to death, you know, because I'd only seen him in like big lecture halls, guest lecturing about microbiology or something.
Speaker:And a lot of the people who were focusing on wine making saying, I could never be a brewer.
Speaker:I could never take classes from that man.
Speaker:But, you know, I, I got enough courage and went in there and had a great conversation with him and, and you know, just went from there.
Speaker:This is a decade before the lovable Charlie Bamforth arrived, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think it was about 10 years.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Have, have you met Charlie?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I've met Charlie.
Speaker:I know Charlie.
Speaker:What, what a treasure.
Speaker:yeah, I, I love,
Speaker:there's a lot of crushes in here.
Speaker:I, I just like listening to him talk.
Speaker:I mean, the man is brilliant.
Speaker:Obviously he was a perfect successor to Michael Lewis, but you know, just listening to him talk and the humor and his stories and, and the man's, you know, he's genuinely funny and you know, let alone knowing everything there is to know about brewing good, good glass of beer.
Speaker:But yeah, Charlie Bamforth is wonderful.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:So, Mitch, when you first decided to open the brew pub in Hollister,
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Can, can you walk us through a little bit about that origin story?
Speaker:'cause a lot of the work that we do here on this podcast, and that's why I'm glad that Stephanie's here today.
Speaker:You know, Bobby just alluded to it, you know, putting great fluid in a glass is only one part of, of the journey.
Speaker:And we have tried to highlight.
Speaker:Some of the, you know, the ups and downs and, and lessons and it's, it's kind of been, you know, almost like an oral history of the journey that Mc Fleshman has had from conceptual idea to what the people here would consider to be the best brewery in the, in the state of Wisconsin, a place that has a lot of good breweries.
Speaker:So can you talk a little bit about your own journey at the, the brew pub that you opened?
Speaker:And he's,
Speaker:He's impressed with our humility right now.
Speaker:well, I, I'm, I'm not, Bobby is, Bobby would say, I don't even know if we're the best brewers on the block, but that, that's, you know that,
Speaker:Not to interrupt that
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I, I don't, I don't have that same Oklahoma sensibility.
Speaker:So, anyway, Hollister origin story, how did that go?
Speaker:Yeah, it's so, you know, just to, to set the table here, I was working full-time at a winery at the time in Hollister, in Hollister, California.
Speaker:For those that don't know where it is, it's, it's about 45 minutes south of San Jose, California.
Speaker:So it's still considered part of the greater Bay area of California, although it's closer to Monterey than it is to anything in the Bay Area.
Speaker:But you know, it's a farm town and I was working for a company that had two wineries in, in the area south of town.
Speaker:And that was my full-time job.
Speaker:And I, I just picked up the local paper and read an article about a gentleman who was starting a brewery in town.
Speaker:And this was right about the time when I was starting to think seriously about trying to do that myself.
Speaker:You know, so I, I got out the phone book and I looked up his number and I called him and I said, I'd love to just come see what you've got going on here.
Speaker:I'm a, you know, I'm a UC Davis Brewing science grad.
Speaker:I'm working in a winery down the road and, and have been wanting to get in a brewing for a little while.
Speaker:And I, I'd love to see what you're doing now.
Speaker:This was Bill Millar, who, who started the company.
Speaker:So he really started it.
Speaker:I, I can't claim any credit for putting that brewery together.
Speaker:When I walked in, he had already ordered the equipment.
Speaker:He had the building.
Speaker:It was an old creamery in downtown Hollister that had been closed for a while.
Speaker:And, you know, so it had tile floors and it had drains and everything else, and he just, he got the building, he leased it and he put equipment in there and put the brewing equipment over in a room.
Speaker:It had tile floors and drains and you know, I walked in there and the equipment hadn't showed up yet, but he had it all laid out.
Speaker:And, we chatted and, you know, my intent was just to kind of get a feel for what he was going through to start it up so that I could do the same at some point.
Speaker:And we ended a, you know, two hours later we ended the conversation.
Speaker:He, he said, you know, I don't have a brewer yet.
Speaker:And I said, really?
Speaker:And he goes, you want the job?
Speaker:And I said, sure.
Speaker:And, and, and so I, I joined forces with Bill.
Speaker:And but you know, his, his life happens, you know, this article that I had read in the paper, unfortunately, his bosses at the Tomato Cannery also read this article, and they fired him for having a second job.
Speaker:And he ended up having to take a full-time job in the, in the brewery he was starting with.
Speaker:And his wife worked there as well.
Speaker:And I basically moonlighted for four years there.
Speaker:And I helped create all the beers.
Speaker:I did some brewing for him.
Speaker:I did bartending for him.
Speaker:I just, it, it became my hangout.
Speaker:And it was a, it was a pretty cool experience.
Speaker:But you know, was a tough business.
Speaker:You know, this was 1987 and 88, and.
Speaker:Before all the shirtless models wearing jeans came to town?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:You know, but, you know, it was a, it's, it was a hard town to sell craft beer in, you know, because 99% of the town drank Budweiser or Coors products.
Speaker:You know, but we were, we were there with, with some of those early, you know, early brewers that started in the 1980s in, in California, in the Bay Area, you know, Gordon Biers and my gosh, Triple Rock and Winchester, and, and you know, there were a whole bunch of breweries that were starting up right around then.
Speaker:So there was something happening, but, you know, we, we made a go of it and.
Speaker:You know, it turned into a family business for Bill, which I know was not his original intent, but I worked there for four years, realized it was never gonna grow to a point where he could afford to bring me on full-time and I'd still be able to pay my bills.
Speaker:So, you know, and, and with his blessing, I started looking for some other jobs in the industry.
Speaker:But I, I, at that time, I felt it was time to, you know, move away from wine making and, and really focus on brewing as my career.
Speaker:So you guys kind, I mean, there's a little bit of overlap in your stories.
Speaker:I mean, your work that you had with Stone Arch kind of leading, you know, some of their work and Yeah, I guess there's some
Speaker:truth to that.
Speaker:There's about a 3,500 barrel brewery per year, a small one that I was involved with doing that many barrels on a seven barrel system.
Speaker:Oh, lot.
Speaker:You, you run that math.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:a lot.
Speaker:a lot.
Speaker:A lot.
Speaker:So I got, I got to get my hands on some, some pretty good statistics there because you can, you can imagine how many turns we're doing and with one yeast strain and so forth.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I can appreciate where, where this lineage goes.
Speaker:And from the experience in Hollister, you, you, you ended up at Budweiser for a time.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Now a lot of our listeners are, are gonna be familiar with what I'm about to say next.
Speaker:But Bobby has said this on a number of occasions and, and I'll let you fill in the rest, but you've talked about the quality of brewing that happens at these macro breweries and that it, it would be an excellent place to learn.
Speaker:I don't think I'm the guy that should be telling that story.
Speaker:I No, but I want your quote
Speaker:and then we'll have Mitch respond to it.
Speaker:Well, I think my quote is just that I kind of echo Charlie's sentiment about quality and how it is having control of process and, and making something repeatable.
Speaker:Whether or not it someone enjoys it or not, it's not the point and that's that control.
Speaker:I don't think anyone has it, such as the, the large macro brewers do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Would, would you concur with that?
Speaker:Yeah, I would especially back in 1992 when I was, when I was looking at joining them, I, you know, it, it, and Anheuser-Busch has always had a very strong relationship with UC Davis.
Speaker:And, and so Michael Lewis was a big fan of Anheuser-Busch.
Speaker:A lot of the graduates of the program at Davis went on to careers with Anheuser-Busch and, you know, so I had a, a. Not quite a foot in the door, but almost, you know, just because of my degree and, and where it came from.
Speaker:But yeah, Anheuser-Busch you know, both, both Michael and Charlie preached about how you know, about quality and consistency and managing the brewing process and how good Anheuser-Busch was at it.
Speaker:And you know, and I went into it, thinking, you know, and I was applying to breweries all over the country and just places I thought I might enjoy living.
Speaker:I'd grown up in California and spent all my life there for the most part.
Speaker:And, you know, it was just, there was part of me that was also looking to try something different and explore a little bit, you know, part of the country.
Speaker:But you know, I, you know, I figured if I got an on with Anheuser-Busch, I would, I would stick with it for five years and try and learn as much as I can about how to run a brewery and how to manage the processes, the brewing processes, how to track things, how to, what you need to check for, which, you know, it is, it, it go, went on and on.
Speaker:That company knew how to make beer and, and the people that were making the beer in that company were as passionate about what they were doing as any craft brewer is you know, it, it's it, with the exception of the creativity part, you know, which I think is a big component of craft beer.
Speaker:You know, at Anheuser-Busch, you were, you were brewing what you were told to brew.
Speaker:And, and there was somebody in St. Louis or a group of people in St. Louis who were deciding how that beer should be made.
Speaker:But within those parameters, you know, you had to really make sure you were doing everything right and, and everything in that process was monitored and checked and observed.
Speaker:And it was really a pretty unbelievable thing to walk into from my experience.
Speaker:Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker:And then you ended up at Stone and I have to tell you that way back in the early two thousands, I know it for you, it was probably a little earlier, but it was.
Speaker:Like a quest for people to try to get their hands on an Arrogant Bastard like that was like trying to get your hands on a Zombie Dust, a Heady Topper, you know, a Pliny the Elder.
Speaker:'Cause when you're from outside the region, that was like one of the, you know, one of the, the Mount Rushmore beers where, you know, one person would get, you know, the leader bottle of Arrogant Bastard.
Speaker:And we would all gather around it and look at it and be
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:The big,
Speaker:became a big one.
Speaker:So I, I sort of was the beginning of my brewing journey.
Speaker:I was raised on the, all of the, the personalities on the brewing network.
Speaker:So I, I, you know, Jamil Jamil, Zish chef, and I know you have the collaboration or had that with, with him.
Speaker:And I, I was thinking back to one of his shows, the Can You Brew It?
Speaker:And they were trying to get out of you how to brew that beer and.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:guess it was tasty McDo that thinks he nailed it, and I guess your silence was the answer, but
Speaker:That was so fun.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And, and you know what?
Speaker:Jamille and, and Tasty became extremely good friends through that,
Speaker:through that whole process.
Speaker:And I, I just really adore both of 'em.
Speaker:They're both, you know, they were both great people.
Speaker:Jamille Iss, great person.
Speaker:Tasty, I miss him tremendously, you know, now that he's gone.
Speaker:But I mean, that was you know, it, it, it's funny when I, when I joined Anheuser-Busch, I, I gave myself kind of a five-year plan.
Speaker:I got promoted in year three and moved to St. Louis and got put in charge of new products for Anheuser-Busch for about four years.
Speaker:And, and really that was, you know, that kept me there for, for another four years.
Speaker:And, and you know, I was learning all about brewing different types of traditional beer styles and some new craft beer styles and things like that.
Speaker:And then I got transferred to Merrimack, New Hampshire to run the brewhouse and the fermenting cellar of, of their brewery there.
Speaker:And I had done a lot of work there when I was doing new products, 'cause a lot of 'em were being made in New Hampshire.
Speaker:And I just fell in love with the area and, and I ended up staying at Anheuser-Busch for 14 years.
Speaker:You know, and when I went in with a five-year plan it was a good career for a long time.
Speaker:But you know, all good things come to an end you know, and it was starting to get kind of,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:the corporateness of Anheuser-Busch and the, and it was starting to wear me down a bit.
Speaker:And, and so when I saw the, the head brewer job open its stone and, and my wife and I had just been in San Diego like six months before and really enjoyed it.
Speaker:And I, I remember calling her over to the computer and I said, Hey, look, Stone's looking for a head brewer?
Speaker:They're in San Diego.
Speaker:And, and she encouraged me to apply.
Speaker:You know, and, and so yeah, I spent, I, I went to Stone in 2006 and working for Greg and Steve was completely different than working for Anheuser-Busch, and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Speaker:It was wonderful.
Speaker:Was it as advertised, like the way they presented themselves to the, the world and through marketing?
Speaker:Was it the same way behind closed doors?
Speaker:Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker:I, I mean, Greg, Greg's pretty genuine.
Speaker:You he wa he wasn't faking it.
Speaker:He wasn't putting on an act.
Speaker:I, you know, he believed everything that he said, and, and he was about as passionate as anybody I had met.
Speaker:Steve Wagner was kind of the quiet guy in the partnership, but he was the one that ran the breweries, and he was the one that, that made sure that the breweries were set up properly, that we hired good people and everything else.
Speaker:So Steve was the original brew master.
Speaker:And in, you know, it, it, after a few years of, of being there, first his head brewer and then head brewer and production manager Steve promoted me to brewmaster so he could start focusing on more of the business, and, and he let me run the breweries.
Speaker:But
Speaker:You know, the, the people there called called Steve and Greg, Yin and Yang.
Speaker:And I mean, I mean, Greg and Steve were polar opposites in, in personality and, and in the way they, they dealt with things and people and everything else.
Speaker:It made for a pretty interesting and work environment for sure.
Speaker:You know, and Greg, Greg is Greg.
Speaker:I mean, you know, he's the one that came up with all the stuff on the back of the Arrogant Bastard label.
Speaker:He came up with a concept.
Speaker:He, he was a genius in a lot of ways.
Speaker:He came up with some really neat ideas before I got there.
Speaker:I, I got there when they were just going into their 10th year, so been around for a while and established themselves.
Speaker:But you know, Greg, Greg was pretty much, you know, as advertised, definitely.
Speaker:And you know, it was a fun place to work for, you know, I worked there for 10 years and I, you know, it was a, a wonderful experience.
Speaker:Some of the best times I've ever had.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then from Stone, you opened the New Realm facilities.
Speaker:Is that,
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, next step in the ladder?
Speaker:yeah, in, in, in 2016 I was approached by a, a couple of people who I'd never crossed paths with at Anheuser-Busch, but they had worked Anheuser-Busch sales and logistics and, and you know, national accounts and things like that.
Speaker:They were pretty high up the ladder and, and they left after InBev had bought Anheuser-Busch or taken over Anheuser-Busch, however you wanna word it.
Speaker:Eventually they left and, and were doing other things and they wanted to start a brewery and in the Southeast and they approached me and, i, you know, I said no, I, I said I'm real happy here at Stone.
Speaker:My daughter's just starting high school.
Speaker:I'm, you know, in a good spot.
Speaker:I've had a great run at Stone.
Speaker:I really enjoy it.
Speaker:And they were very persistent.
Speaker:And you know, they they wanted to start the, the company that became New Realm.
Speaker:They wanted to, to headquarter that company in Asheville, North Carolina.
Speaker:And I loved Asheville, North Carolina, and I still do.
Speaker:I, I think it's one of the most beautiful places in the country.
Speaker:It's got a really cool vibe, a lot of great breweries.
Speaker:Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:And I was like, wow, this is my chance to move to Asheville and I could stay here the rest of my life and then that would be great, you know?
Speaker:And that didn't work out.
Speaker:But they, you know, they eventually wore me down, I guess.
Speaker:You know, and they, they offered to fly me back and forth while my daughter finished high school in California.
Speaker:'cause I absolutely was not going to move while she was in high school.
Speaker:And so for three years, I, I commuted from San Diego to Atlanta.
Speaker:We ended up head building our first brewery in Atlanta.
Speaker:Which I wasn't expecting at all.
Speaker:It wasn't on our shortlist of places we were talking about when I was interviewing with him.
Speaker:But Carrie, who's still here, he is our CEO lived in the Atlanta area and found this building that, that turned out to be incredible.
Speaker:And, and so that's where we landed.
Speaker:But yeah, I've been at New Realm since 2016.
Speaker:We started brewing beer in late 2017 and you know, ever since.
Speaker:What was the most difficult part of opening your own shop?
Speaker:Because you'd been a part of a new facility in Hollister, but you weren't the proprietor, you weren't, you know, pulling the levers.
Speaker:Then you moved to Stone, which was more established.
Speaker:What was the most challenging part of doing it from the ground up?
Speaker:And, and again, for those of you, of you who are listeners, you probably are familiar with Bobby's story about that same thing.
Speaker:And then I want to connect you 'cause you were an eyewitness to some of those same, same days.
Speaker:So, anyway, Mitch, what was, what was the most difficult part in that journey?
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:There were so many things that were hard.
Speaker:I mean, you know, the, the kind of facetious but true answer is that naming the company was the hardest thing we did.
Speaker:I, you know, we couldn't come up with a name to save our lives.
Speaker:And, and I think I realized at that point that Carrie and Bob and I were very different people.
Speaker:We had a, a stack of names that, you know, half an inch to an inch thick that just didn't pass.
Speaker:Everybody had veto power, so if one person didn't like the name, we moved on.
Speaker:But that being said, I think you know, the permitting getting the permits and getting the inspections done making sure that we were covering all of our bases with utilities and trying not to go over budget.
Speaker:All of those were incredibly difficult and, and we succeeded in some ways and didn't in other ways.
Speaker:We went way over budget.
Speaker:You know, we didn't when we walked in, you know, we, we had to get you know, we had to get more power to the building.
Speaker:We had to get more water to the building.
Speaker:You know, all those things you don't think about when you're looking at building and kind of envisioning how cool it's gonna be when you're done.
Speaker:You know, selecting the equipment was hard.
Speaker:You know, you know, a lot of different things to consider.
Speaker:I, you know, I think just from a brewer's perspective, getting all the quotes and all the equipment and trying to compare apples to apples was incredibly difficult because they all quote very differently and they had different pieces of equipment.
Speaker:So you're looking, you're trying to.
Speaker:Kind of put things on an even playing field or a level playing field, and you couldn't do it because all the quotes were so radically different in the way they were formatted and what was included and what wasn't.
Speaker:You know, so working through all that stuff, not brewing for two years was really hard,
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:you know, that that sucked.
Speaker:I, you know, I, I really missed it.
Speaker:And the whole hazy IPA thing really took off when we were planning and building our brewery.
Speaker:So I missed that boat completely.
Speaker:So that was hard.
Speaker:But there were a lot of things that were really hard.
Speaker:you wanted to put Stephanie on the spot?
Speaker:Yeah, I, I want,
Speaker:I mean, I've heard your perspective.
Speaker:I, I would like, a third party perspective
Speaker:just drink my beer.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I work at a brewery like 40 minutes away from McFleshman's, but I was at McFleshman's year one, just so you know, Mitch.
Speaker:But I sort of got to come in where Bobby and the McFleshman's crew like, kind of knew what they wanted to do and they like had a plan and then I came in and told them how wrong they were doing everything basically.
Speaker:But yeah, I think like, like even you were saying Joel, I think a lot of people home brew and they're like, well, my friends love it.
Speaker:I'm really good at it.
Speaker:I'm Ken Grossman.
Speaker:These are the styles I should make.
Speaker:I should open up my own brewery.
Speaker:Yeah, people love free beer.
Speaker:they, they absolutely love free beer.
Speaker:Free beer does better than
Speaker:other
Speaker:beer.
Speaker:But yeah, I think there's just a lot of things, even like you said about all the little stuff you don't really consider when you think about opening your own place, which I didn't get to witness here because the building was already here for almost a year before I started.
Speaker:But the rest of it just how important the
Speaker:brand
Speaker:building, marketing and brand, brand building is.
Speaker:You know, you could have the best liquid in the world or on the block or in the state or in the city, but at the end of the day, if people aren't picking it up, it doesn't matter.
Speaker:Nobody cares.
Speaker:Nobody cares how good your beer is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so that's kind of where I came in at Mc Fleshman and was constantly saying, nobody cares.
Speaker:Like, yes, English IPA, this English IPA is so delicious.
Speaker:I don't wanna sell it.
Speaker:Nobody cares.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I, yeah, I, I totally relate to that.
Speaker:I when, when we started brewing you know, we started brewing some classic beer styles.
Speaker:You know, we'd brewed a pale ale.
Speaker:We had a porter we had a West coast.
Speaker:IPA, everybody complained about our beers.
Speaker:They're too bitter there, you know, and, and you know,
Speaker:What San Diego Brewer
Speaker:I, I know I'm like, you, you know who you hired, right?
Speaker:know, you know where I'm coming from here.
Speaker:I, I'm brew beers this way and this is the way I do it.
Speaker:And to be honest, you know, once we got started, that was probably the hardest thing I had to deal with, was to start
Speaker:And that's gonna wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:Come back next week as we continue our conversation with Mitch Steele of New Realm Brewing.
Speaker:if you have an idea for another brewer that we should have on the podcast, reach out to us at respecting the beer@gmail.com or head on over to our Facebook page to make a recommendation.
Speaker:You can also support the show over on Patreon.
Speaker:Where you can get episodes a week ahead of time and special beers brewed specifically for the Patreon members.
Speaker:. The show is produced by me, David Kalsow with music by Sarah Lynn Hus.
Speaker:And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
