The Art of Ale Sales w/ Stephanie Harvey

Gary Arndt: 00:00:05

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

Gary Arndt: 00:00:07

My name is Gary Arndt with me as usual, is the man who is currently working on carving his own lagering tank out of solid wood, Mr.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:16

Bobby Fleshman.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:18

Hi Gary.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:19

And the first time in the show we are gonna talk about.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:21

The art of selling beer, which is really kind of where the rubber meets the road.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:26

If you're gonna run a brewery.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:27

Stephanie Harvey.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:28

Welcome to the show.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:00:29

Thank you.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:30

So you've been working with Mc Fleishmans for a while now on the marketing side of things.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:34

So why don't you give a quick overview of how that came about and how you guys met and discovered each other.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:00:40

Sure.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:00:41

So, back in the day I I was a fine artist, wanted to follow my dream, doing great.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:00:46

Uh, that road took me to doing a lot of social media consultancy work and I was helping anybody from restaurants to dance academies, kind of all across the map with photography social media, starting email, newsletters, that type of thing.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:02

So your career as an artist took you to not art,

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:04

correct?

Gary Arndt: 00:01:05

Yes.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:05

Okay.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:05

My parents were thrilled, as you can imagine.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:08

But yeah, one of my clients at the time was this new brewery in town and I loved beer, and so I thought, yeah, I could, I know enough about beer, I could help them sell beer and take pictures and kind of teach 'em a little bit about their ideal clientele and working with their social media.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:22

So I did that for only a few months, and then Bobby Fleshman said.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:27

You're pretty good at this.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:28

We could really use you on the road, maybe selling beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:32

You're already selling beer in our social media, but if you wanted to start visiting bars and restaurants, maybe you could sell more beer for us that way.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:41

So, uh, I thought, uh, I don't know exactly, but I thought hanging out in bars and restaurants didn't seem like the worst thing to get paid to do.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:48

So I said I would give it a try and I loved it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:51

I knew enough about their brands and the products and where they were going that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:55

I was really excited and I love what they do in the community and what they were striving to do in the community.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:01:59

So it was like really easy to be passionate about it and just wanna get the beer out there.

Gary Arndt: 00:02:06

And Bobby, what did you think about Stephanie, that you were like, well, you're really good at this.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:12

so Stephanie was passionate about everything we did at the beginning.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:17

This is like what Covid times.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:02:20

This is around before then.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:02:23

Even before then.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:02:23

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:23

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:24

Uh, and everyone was doing everything here.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:27

We all wore all the hats back then.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:29

But none of us realized that part of this business is of having a business is selling the product or marketing the product, and those are things that's amazing how that works, isn't it?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:40

And so, I mean, it was completely a blind spot and it, I could have, I could say that it was in the business plan, but in reality it was never in my mind.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:48

I thought like everybody that's naively starts a small business without a background in marketing that it would sell itself.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:56

And Stephanie says that it was, I don't know if you use the Pac-Man analogy, but basically how you have to put your efforts a lot more heavily in that pie to your marketing and sales than we were at the time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:09

But she was good.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:12

She was good at reading people and she was good with the graphic design side of things.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:18

And all of her skills in marketing and art and her people skills led her to be a good salesperson even before she was one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:26

She worked a little bit in the tap room, a little bit on our social media and she sort of had a better view of what we were doing than I did.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:33

'cause I was in, I was just thinking about the next beer and just getting, just executing on this idealistic vision of what this company could be.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:42

She thought, how can we make, I think your slogan was, uh, beer flavored beer before.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:47

It was used by 15 other breweries by now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:50

Uh, and it was right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:52

She hit the nail on the head and we ran with that slogan for a while.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:56

And there were other ones, she said, Stein after Stein.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:00

That stuck with me.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:01

I think that's a Cyndi Lauper reference somewhere.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:05

And then, uh, there were other ones.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:07

I think there were girls.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:08

Just want to have suds, God, Gary, on the spot.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:11

Just like that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:12

See, you guys come from the same cloth that, uh, we got in the, my, I don't know if I had my fancy $2,000 minivan at the time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:22

Maybe I did.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:23

And we, I went on a sales run with her to show her what that was all about is if I had any idea and I think I sold.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:30

Three, six barrels, which if anyone doesn't know, that's not a lot of beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:34

I did it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:35

All of three, six barrels in an hour.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:37

And she was really impressed.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:39

This is what I tell myself about how good of a salesperson I was.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:43

Uh, actually she was probably sad about how bad it looked, and so she decided to take the reins eventually.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:48

But, uh, she was my only, uh, Partons, or no, there was Alex Schultz before that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:54

So Alex Schultz and Stephanie Harvey helped me sell beer before we even knew what we were doing.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:59

, we sold it around Appleton.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:01

We ended up selling it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:03

As far as Sheboygan, I think we might've even hit the time, maybe we touched Madison in Milwaukee at the time, and then north of here we were in, in Green Bay and elsewhere.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:13

Uh, anyway, there's a different time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:16

We didn't have a script.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:17

We were all trying to survive through COVI.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:19

And Stephanie was in the right place at the right time with her skill sets, and she helped us get where we are today.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:25

She's gonna brag about some of her creations in a minute.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:27

I'm not gonna do that right now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:28

Let

Gary Arndt: 00:05:28

me say the problem that you faced is a problem that so many businesses face.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:32

It's not just a brewery thing.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:34

I've seen it in podcasting.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:36

I've seen it when I've run internet companies.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:37

I've seen all sorts of people.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:39

They have a build it and they will come attitude.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:41

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:42

And it just doesn't work.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:44

No.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:44

There are too many businesses.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:45

There are too many beers.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:46

There are too many things.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:48

For people to go out of their way to find you.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:52

You have to kind of find them and get them interested in your product.

Gary Arndt: 00:05:57

And that takes time, effort, and money.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:59

And if our audience is, would be craft brewers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:03

That's a great message for this entire podcast.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:06

Is that running a business is about marketing and selling the product.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:10

And I know Stephanie's loving hear this, play out.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:12

Beer is interesting because some of the most iconic commercials in history are beer commercials.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:18

Some of the most iconic ad campaigns taglines, slogans have been beer related.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:24

And one of the reasons I think that is, is at least for American beer, the average person cannot tell a Budweiser from a Coors from a Miller that if they were given them side by side in a blind taste test, they could not tell you which one is which.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:37

'cause they're all basically the same.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:40

Which is why they need to rely on marketing.

Gary Arndt: 00:06:43

So that being said, how do you sell McFleshman's?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:50

And we, maybe we should back up about a few steps here, because Stephanie was with us up until... would you say, was it three, three years ago?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:58

Three years ago, yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:59

And now she's with Stillman Brewing Company in Green Bay, but uh, green Bay.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:05

Green Bay.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:05

Damn it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:06

I knew you were gonna call me out, so anyone that doesn't know.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:09

I am from Oklahoma and this bothered me and I let Stephanie know it bothered me, and she has never let it go.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:17

As to how to say Green Bay or Green Bay?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:21

Green Bay

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:22

Green.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:23

Oh, see, here we go.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:24

Nope, there's.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:25

So pronounce it for the audience correctly that are not from the area.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:29

Green Bay.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:30

There we go.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:31

Green Bay for the record.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:33

Yes.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:33

I've never even thought that there's a different,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:35

I know it's me out of towners, it's out people from Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:39

Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:39

They'll say Green Bay.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:42

How did we go there?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:43

I was gonna say though she hasn't been here for a while, but I guess in retrospect you could speak to how does one sell?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:49

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:50

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:50

It's more of a generic question about beer and then specifically.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:54

What are the attributes that, that this place has to separate it from other places?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:59

Sure.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:07:59

So I think you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about, So many small businesses don't understand the importance of marketing.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:07

Um, they don't know who their ideal clientele is.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:10

They also don't really know what makes their business special because they're so close to it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:14

And that's one thing that somebody who is in that field, or even just who is creative can provide.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:21

And one of the things I'd always thought about Mickle men's was that number one, Bobby was working at nasa.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:27

Like, these are very intelligent people, and when you're hanging your hat on making quality.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:32

Beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:33

That's something to brag about that you have, you know, kind of the skillset in science and all these things to be able to rely on.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:42

It's also just an interesting story that people get into.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:44

Oh,

Gary Arndt: 00:08:45

I don't know if you've listened to all our episodes.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:47

I've heard you say it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:49

They have under, I was like, hell yeah, Gary.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:50

They have

Gary Arndt: 00:08:50

undersold so much of what they do here, that to them it's just, well, well, yeah, we do this.

Gary Arndt: 00:08:56

I'm like, why

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:57

don't you talk about that?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:58

Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:08:59

Huge selling points.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:00

Um, but again, when people are close to it, it's also sometimes hard to brag about yourself.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:04

when I was self-employed doing all my artistry, it was really kind of, it feels really kind of shameless and dirty saying like, oh, these are all my accolades.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:13

This is,

Gary Arndt: 00:09:13

I have no problem with it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:15

I'm one of us.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:17

I'm definitely, I've developed the skills.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:18

Trust me, I'm like my own biggest fan all the time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:21

One of us at the table has how many thousands of downloads per week of, of their podcast.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:26

Per week or month or day, hour, I get 50,000

Gary Arndt: 00:09:30

a day roughly.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:31

But yeah, understanding your ideal clientele is something that smaller businesses often don't really understand.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:38

I think that I've dealt with a lot of different places, breweries, um, especially that just think, well, we're offering this premium beverage, our ideal client is somebody with money.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:47

And it's simply not.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:48

People that appreciate craft beer in general aren't always people with a lot of money.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:53

They're just people that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:09:54

Respect the beer and the craft, or it's, they like the message that the brewery is sending in whatever way.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:10:02

So being able to, um, provide that not only like in commercials but even just like the names of your beer, the styles of the beer that you're making, or beverages in general.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:10:11

Is just like vital to get those ideal clientele, not only to buy you once, but to keep buying you and to keep being interested in and wanting to buy without seeming like you're selling them anything.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:23

I'm surprised you say that.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:23

'cause beer really isn't a high end thing.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:26

It's not like wine or spirits where you could get a bottle for hundreds if not thousands of dollars, right?

Gary Arndt: 00:10:35

There, there's no such thing as a thousand dollars bottle of beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:38

You know, there, there are higher end beers I suppose you serve, but it's like, well it's 'cause it's barrel aged, right?

Gary Arndt: 00:10:43

And it's, you have to work hard to find a thousand dollar bottle, but it's like, you know, $2.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:48

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:48

More.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:48

Not something like that.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:49

Seriously

Stephanie Harvey: 00:10:49

scratching notes on a piece of paper.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:10:50

Right now, in two years we'll have a thousand dollars bottle.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:10:53

Oh,

Gary Arndt: 00:10:53

I've told them they should do this.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:54

Just for marketing purposes.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:55

Just rarity.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:56

That's all it comes down to.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:57

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:58

So I'm kind of surprised that someone would think like, oh, well our clientele is someone that spends a lot of money.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:02

Because even when I think of people who are beer connoisseurs, let's say, or enthusiasts, yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:08

They're not, it's not like a wine, right?

Gary Arndt: 00:11:12

Where someone is gonna try to, you know, visit a vineyard or something, or take a trip to South Australia to go visit wineries, uh, and get expensive wine.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:21

It's just they're willing to visit multiple, craft

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:24

breweries.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:25

I, I think beer has done that to itself to some extent.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:28

It's sold the stainless steel, that's what breweries are.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:32

And wineries are about the vineyard and they're about the barrels and all of this.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:38

And that's a whole different thing, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:40

I think that's some of beer doing, 'cause we could have taken them to the hop yards.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:44

We could have taken 'em to the malt plants and the barley, uh, fields.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:48

But that's just, that's another tangent.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:51

But it's true.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:51

We've, we said we just we're just stainless steel.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:11:54

I mean, it's definitely not like, considered high end, but it's also not I'm from Wisconsin born and raised, as you can tell in my sexy accent.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:12:03

But it's also not a $2 tall boy of, you know, some Big Mac of beer either.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:08

No.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:08

There is differentiation in the market, but it's not super high end.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:12:14

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:15

If you go to a fancy restaurant, the fanciest three star Michelin restaurant, and I don't care what beer you order, you are ordering a beer at a Michelin star restaurant as opposed to wine or something like that.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:28

Yep.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:28

And so it's just not that highbrow of a thing.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:33

You're never gonna make your money on having.

Gary Arndt: 00:12:35

Margins that are super, super high by, you know, creating super rare bottles of beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:41

That's also the strength of beer though, that it's so available to everybody in theory.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:47

I think that's why it's, and it's for every occasion.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:49

I think that's why beer works.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:51

But yeah, it does make it such that it's not for those most elite occasions.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:55

For sure.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:58

So

Gary Arndt: 00:12:59

with that being said,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:59

I'm thinking about the movie Sideways right now, by the way.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:02

I feel like we're, and that's a good example.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:04

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:04

But I'm thinking, I've been to a lot of very high end restaurants where they will have a $10,000 dollar bottle of wine right on their wine list.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:14

And it's for hedge fund managers that come in and they're closing a deal or something like that, and they just wanna blow a lot of money.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:20

And that just doesn't exist with beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:23

They've never seen an eight liter methuselah bottle of name, your Belgian brewery that makes 12 of such bottles per year.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:31

That's a scene.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:32

You get a person holding.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:35

Eight liters of, uh, an eight liter bottle of beer, and they pour it as they walk down the bar into all the available glassware.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:41

I haven't either, by the way, but these happen, and these high end bars do have these bottles available for maybe not quite that price, but several thousand dollars for a bottle like that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:53

And it makes for quite an occasion.

Gary Arndt: 00:13:54

So do you think are the attributes then of this place?

Gary Arndt: 00:13:58

When competing, again, when you're trying to get other places to sell Mc Fleshman beer, why would they do that?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:06

So part of the job of sales is just building relationships, but about the overall marketing.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:12

It's really kind of like I said, leaning into appealing to this ideal clientele for McFleshman's

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:17

I thought the science aspect of it and the respecting the beer kind of everything along those lines was so important.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:25

So I was always an advocate of you know, that should be the styles you make.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:29

Like you should never make a hazy IPA.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:32

It's a really, it's a very sore subject.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:34

Oh yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:34

Question.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:35

It still pains me after I left, I saw Bobby made a hazy IPA and I was so sad, but it was, it's really good.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:41

But, um, yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:42

But yeah, just kind of, I struggle with it leaning into that because sometimes at a certain point, if you, beer does have a wide audience, but if you're trying to appeal to everybody, you end up appealing to nobody.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:53

Um, so to be able to create these advocates that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:56

You know, kind of love what you do and are so into it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:14:59

Um, and appreciate proper glassware.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:01

They appreciate, you know, how long it takes to make a lager.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:04

They're interested in all these crazy beer styles that are, you know, kind of historical and, you know, adhere to Reinheitsgebot and everything else.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:12

I think is, uh.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:14

You know, really leaning into that ideal clientele who is educated.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:17

And I always hate saying beer snob.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:20

I like beer geek because beer geek means you're not a jerk about other people drinking different beers.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:26

You just are educated and know what you like and appreciate what you like.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:15:29

But that being said it is also a hard business to run in, you know, the Fox Valley serving those kind of styles.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:37

Yeah, I was about to say that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:38

If we were in Chicago, we could, I always say, I've said this a number of times on the podcast, we could pick a lane and say, screw the rest of the field.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:47

We're gonna make that thing.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:49

But in Appleton you do have to, you have to make almost everything.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:53

I don't wanna say for everyone, but you can't ignore the hazy.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:57

You have to, not to be literal or explicit about it, but.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:01

But you gotta find balance, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:02

Because now we're talking hard kombuchas now and THC infuse, and it's just where does this thing end?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:08

So yeah it's a challenge.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:10

Well, that's something that a lot of people breweries have asked me lately, because we're all talking about the shrinking craft beer space.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:16

Due to like NAs THC, still to a certain point, seltzers took up some space in the market a few years ago.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:25

Like all these RTD drinks, all those things make craft beer space have made craft beer space shrink.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:32

So people ask me like, well, what are you guys doing?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:35

What do you know, what do you think we should do?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:37

It's like, yeah, those are the trends.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:38

You're gonna see more hard teas.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:40

You're gonna see maybe some more seltzer still, lot of THC drinks.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:44

You're gonna see a lot of this.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:45

And my advice to any brewery is.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:47

Don't do it unless it's on brand for you.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:16:50

If you've got a younger clientele who's already drinking THC drinks, who's already smoking weed regularly or taking gummies yeah, you should dial that in and make a THC drink.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:00

If not, you probably shouldn't.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:02

If you're making, you know.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:04

Rock beers and Baltic porters and Vienna laggers, and that's kind of like your jam.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:09

I don't know that you should be messing with THC.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:11

I think you should kind of stay the course and lean into this fact that you are staying traditional as fuck, and that's where you stand.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:20

And people who appreciate that are gonna appreciate it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:23

Um, people that aren't are gonna go to the brewery, you know, maybe down the street.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:27

But again, to create those kind of loyal fans and have that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:31

Ideal clientele for what you do is, um, is everything.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:34

She just refreshed beer, flavored beer, traditional as fuck.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:38

That's our new, that's our new campaign.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:40

She's not even on payroll.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:42

I guess I'll have to give her some beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:43

Send me the check.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:43

Yeah, send me the t-shirt.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:17:44

Gimme a bumper sticker.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:45

Oh, you know, it would sell so fast.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:47

To be honest.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:47

If you were in a larger city like Chicago and you could focus on one thing, you might find a niche for that.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:54

And from a business standpoint, just being in a larger city that you might, do well.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:00

But I also think that because you produce so many varieties of beer and it's, the menu is always changing, that is kind of become your calling card.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:11

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:12

That this is, and it's that you have so many different types and it's all in-house.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:19

That's the other thing I think that blows a lot of people away.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:20

I've come in here the size of this place especially and people were wondering, it's like, well, what are the brewers like?

Gary Arndt: 00:18:25

No it's all here.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:27

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:27

This is all made on site and that impresses a lot of people that you have the sours, you have the barrel aged beers, you got laggers and stouts and the nitro and the crazy faucet from Czechia and all that stuff that, that it kind of feeds into the whole beer enthusiast.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:46

Thing.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:47

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:48

With, um, as you're saying all of that, I was gonna ask Stephanie a question about do you think that brewers have created this or responded to this, or is it a little A and b?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:00

Uh, I think a little bit of both.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:03

I think that the breweries, okay, so I'm sure you guys have talked about all the breweries that have.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:08

Already closed that maybe are going to close.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:11

All this kind of stuff.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:12

What the beer industry is challenging right now, but I think the, where's our news sound?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:16

I think the ones that we're gonna see succeed or kind of stay the course are those ones who are kind of staying in that zone of, yes, reinventing, you know, yourself to an extent and making new beers, but also relying on your tried and true core beers too.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:31

With the economy, with everything else.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:32

I think people want.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:35

They don't, people are sick of wasting $28 on a four pack of a hazy IPA with glitter and marshmallows in it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:43

So I think they're going back to that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:45

And I think we did create some of this because we got so.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:19:50

Everybody got so crazy and so innovative that, uh, it was like sort of just like a playground to goof around in

Gary Arndt: 00:19:58

my little pony hazy iPA

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:01

dry pony.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:02

Yeah, I like it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:03

We make a beer at Stillman called Fluffy Unicorn.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:05

IPA.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:06

Oh yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:06

And it flies.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:09

Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:09

Did you like that?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:10

Uh, uh, every year.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:12

Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:12

It sells out faster and faster, and it don't get me wrong, it's great beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:16

But also it's called the fluffy unicorn.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:17

It's cute as shit.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:18

Yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:20:18

Everybody wants to buy it.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:19

We've talked a lot on the show about and you've touched on some of this, the problems in the industry that on one hand there still aren't as many breweries today, as there were say, I don't know, 60 years ago, 70 years ago, that there used to be a lot of breweries, especially you're talking about

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:37

per capita, right?

Gary Arndt: 00:20:38

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:38

I mean, well even, you know, like every city in Wisconsin had kind of its own brewery.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:43

Yep.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:43

So on one hand, the number of breweries has grown a lot.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:48

Primarily because there were so few breweries in the 1970s that it, uh, it was the nadier of the brewing industry but still not as many as there used to be.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:57

So what do you think is the future of the industry in terms of where it's going?

Gary Arndt: 00:21:01

Are you gonna see more consolidation or more growth in terms of the number of individual craft breweries?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:07

You know, I, I only know how we're doing and yeah.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:10

Our business is really good.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:11

But my boss is, uh, Brad Stillmank has always been really forward thinking in, you know, like years ago he was thinking about making THC whether we'll do the drinks or not.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:23

I really, I don't know, but, you know, developing a cider company because that's like a huge thing.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:28

People think cider is more natural and healthier than beer for whatever reason.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:34

And being able to tap into that market.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:35

We didn't wanna get into the RTDs or anything like that, but that's sort of our, um, kind of resolution for being able to put out a product that's still on brand for us.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:45

And hitting some of that market without getting into, you know, margarita, THC, RTD...

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:53

Pickle Beers,

Gary Arndt: 00:21:54

Skittles pale Ale.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:55

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:55

It's

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:56

Skittles Pale Ale.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:57

The pickle beer...

Stephanie Harvey: 00:21:57

I kind of want that one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:58

It's the most polarizing beer that comes out of this brewery.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:00

We'll do like five gallons at a time.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:22:02

That sounds gross.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:22:03

When you,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:04

we just, people would love it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:05

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:05

On a given fr you know how it goes.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:07

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:07

On a given Friday it's really loud on social media and.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:10

A couple of our people take their clothes off for it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:12

It gets weird around here.

Gary Arndt: 00:22:15

Do you think the popularity of a lot of these, of the seltzers and the hazy IPAs and all the fruity stuff, it almost seems like there's an infantilization of the market where people are drinking like their children, like they want the fruit drinks and the fluffy marshmallow, like you said, and stuff like that, as opposed to.

Gary Arndt: 00:22:36

FI don't know, for lack of a better word, in comparison, adult beers, which are beer flavored beers.

Gary Arndt: 00:22:42

I mean, is that kind of the direction where things are going?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:45

You're describing the extreme opposite of the wine culture that you were just talking about in

Stephanie Harvey: 00:22:51

Well, I think that the novelty of it is always gonna drive customers.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:22:57

That's what we saw in craft beer for a while, right?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:22:59

Like.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:00

It was kind of like a novelty thing, so people were like, oh, this is I don't, what am I gonna see this again?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:05

I'm gonna buy this to the point that like any brewery could put out any 16 ounce, four pack of hazy IPA.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:14

Pretty much almost call it whatever you want.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:16

And it could be made by any brewery and people would buy it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:20

Not unless it had like a clown or a ninja or both on another planet.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:25

It had to have a label that would sell.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:26

Yeah, I think cursive font label curse.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:28

Oh yes.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:30

Where can't gloss over that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:32

The cursive font comment at some point after me learning that you actually have to do something to sell your product.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:39

I gave Stephanie the advice.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:42

That one of our labels was it Our label maybe could handle some cursive font.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:48

I was trying to teach Bobby A. Little bit about marketing.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:50

I said like, well, if you're gonna make this kind of beer, consider what kind of people are gonna drink this beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:56

And he was like, you know what?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:23:57

I think you should use a cursive font on this.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:00

That was his.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:01

That was his big dive into marketing and graphic design.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:06

I really hope that this is coming through on this recording because Stephanie, she responds to that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:13

Oh, really?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:15

And then she pulled out her pencil and paper to take notes from me all, but it felt like I was very much Patriot.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:21

I believe this was during the pandemic, and at some point I said.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:24

Thank you, Bobby, where did you get your marketing degree again?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:27

And he said, understood.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:29

I'm gonna leave you alone for now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:30

Yeah, I'm going back to the brewery.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:32

That would probably be best

Gary Arndt: 00:24:34

for, I get to see a couple guys at the, at a liquor store.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:36

Hey, Hank.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:37

What do you want to get?

Gary Arndt: 00:24:38

I don't know.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:38

This one is a cursive font.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:40

Hey.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:41

Hell yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:41

Even if they don't say it,

Stephanie Harvey: 00:24:43

Pull up the truck.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:44

Everybody will buy the oldest German beer with the gold filigree.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:48

They'll buy it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:48

It doesn't matter how much dust is on it, it how old it is, they'll buy it every time over the fresh.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:53

You should just have a beer called.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:55

Cursive font.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:56

I was thinking that as we were saying, as we were having this conversation, it has to happen at some point.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:01

Breweries try very hard to get bars to serve their product, one of the things they certainly use, you go into a bar and you'll see tons of beer signs, neon beer signs.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:11

I've seen some very elaborate ones.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:13

I've seen some very simple ones, and I've seen them forever, ever since I was a kid.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:17

These larger breweries put in a lot in the relationships with bars and restaurants.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:25

When you go to a bar restaurant, what would your selling point be for, not even McFleshman's but just any smaller brewery that's trying to compete with these big players, and what do you have to provide to them beyond the beer to make it a compelling, uh, case for them to carry it?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:25:43

Well, I mean, you've seen me, so obviously I'm like very good looking and have dazzling personality and very humble.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:25:49

So I think that usually helps sell it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:25:51

But it's definitely hard to compete with the bigger breweries, whether they be national or statewide, or these kind of quote unquote craft breweries that are owned by Anheuser-Busch or whoever.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:02

But I think being able to offer of a more personal touch to your accounts is.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:07

Kind of the best way to do it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:08

Whether that be offering them, some sort of customized posters or whatever, Again it's, it's hard at different accounts because you wanna kind of meld your ideal clientele and that product that you are selling and how is it gonna appeal to those people versus kind of their clientele.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:24

And where do you find that common ground in being able to put something out that people just wanna buy it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:30

And I think.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:31

Being able to set yourself apart from other breweries in doing that.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:34

Um, leaning into your slogan, leaning into that product and what you're doing or just having fun with it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:40

I have some accounts that are just really fun and good natured and kind of raunchy sometimes.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:46

We had a whole stint for a while.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:47

We came out with a beer called Little Blue Pills, and I made a bunch of posters that said Coming soon, and it was spelled C-O-M-I-N-G soon.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:26:58

But we left the posters in certain spots where we expected that people would change the spelling of the coming soon, and it was.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:27:07

Really stupid, but it was really fun and it worked and people got very excited for the beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:13

Back to what Gary said about the people that drink wine versus the people that drink beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:27:20

You were talking about statewide breweries, and I assume that you're talking about New Glarus.

Gary Arndt: 00:27:26

I have been to many restaurants, for example, within, you know, spitting distance of where we're sitting right now, and they'll have a menu for beers that I've seen and it will say local beers.

Gary Arndt: 00:27:37

And it Spotted Cow.

Gary Arndt: 00:27:39

And I'm like, you do know that there's a brewery that you could throw a baseball and hit from where we're standing right now that is far more local than something which is not, you know, anywhere in this community.

Gary Arndt: 00:27:51

And I think there's a lot of people that just, I don't know, if they don't know or they don't care or what, but it's, it seems to me it's a tough sell.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:00

I think a lot of bars and restaurants assume that if they haven't heard of something, it's not good.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:06

Just another reason why you should spend money and time on marketing your product.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:11

'cause it definitely will help.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:12

Even if you obviously don't have the money, like larger breweries, um, it'll definitely help to be able to get the word out there.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:21

But I've talked to all sorts of people in.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:25

Northeast Wisconsin, and really just like the last year I've been driving that home more and more.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:29

A lot of our branding has Dr. You know, literally says Drink local on it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:34

Most all of our beverages in any capacity, say Green Bay, Wisconsin on it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:38

When I talk to people one-on-one who are buying for restaurants, bars, anything I'll say like, well, we're your neighborhood brewery.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:47

And they kind of think about it and yeah, maybe they're swayed a little bit.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:28:51

But I think what ends up doing it is that when I tell them, well, your neighbor that lives down the block, do you want them to drive to Milwaukee to eat every time they wanna go out?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:29:01

Well, no, I'd expect 'em to come here because they're in our neighborhood.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:29:05

Right.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:29:05

It takes them a second, but then they're kinda like, okay, yeah, we'll take whatever beer you're trying to sell us.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:29:10

Right?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:29:11

Uh, and as far as it is important, and

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:13

As far as, this is a much bigger conversation, but as far as the locally owned, whatever local means.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:19

Uh, that upside down bottle of beer that says independently owned or independent craft is very important.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:26

And if anyone wants to know where their beer's coming from, and I mean that in a metaphorical sense, I don't mean physical sense that it's coming from an independently owned small craft brewery.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:36

The only way you're gonna know that is look to look for that insignia.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:40

So, because all of these craft breweries, half of them are owned.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:43

If you follow the money by very large breweries.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:46

And I tell people that all the time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:47

I dunno if it's the same way in wine and spirits and everything.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:49

It probably is, but at least in beer, we have that logo to, to guide us.

Gary Arndt: 00:29:54

One more thing before we close up.

Gary Arndt: 00:29:56

The brewery you're working for now, it's in Green Bay.

Gary Arndt: 00:29:59

Green Bay is a big event coming up.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:00

They're hosting the NFL draft.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:01

What?

Gary Arndt: 00:30:02

Which would not be a big deal in pretty much any other city in America, but it's a huge thing here because it's pretty much the biggest event that we can handle.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:11

And you guys did a draft day beer?

Gary Arndt: 00:30:15

Tell us about that.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:16

Uh, and market it, sell it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:18

So our Green Bay draft is a honey malt lager.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:22

All the malt for all of our beers actually at still make come from Briess.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:25

That's always one of our big selling points is that almost everything we do is local.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:29

For the meat we make, we use, honey from Kiwan County.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:33

A lot of the apples that we use for some of our ciders are from Door County.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:36

our labels are printed in Green Bay.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:38

Pretty much anything that we can do on a local level even when it's more expensive or a pain in the ass, uh, we do because we really believe in it and we think our customers do.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:50

Our Green Bay draft beer is a honey malt lager.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:53

Uh, all the malt is from Briess out of Wisconsin.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:30:57

And just like a really nice easy drinking beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:00

The artwork on the can is pretty dope.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:02

It is made by mural artist Bo Thomas, who's, does a lot of the murals in Green Bay.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:07

Uh, it's just super cool, easy drinking beer.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:09

It's a lot of fun.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:11

It is selling really fast.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:13

Are you doing anything special in terms of promoting it or doing anything for when the Draft is taking place?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:20

Like any other business in Green Bay, we're just kind of doing our best.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:24

It's really hard to know how people are gonna filter in and out of the town.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:29

We know we're gonna be busy.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:30

Um, for a lot of reasons.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:31

The tasting room itself will be really busy just with people coming in and out because we are family friendly.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:37

We're gonna have a bunch of food trucks around for that week.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:40

And not only do we have beer, but we also have our own cider glass, apple cider, and all these seltzers mead.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:45

We do kind of have something for everybody that we make in-house.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:49

But we're also very distribution focused, so I will be probably running around and helping people out the best I can.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:31:56

I've already done a lot of consultancy and just helping out my accounts to kind of educate them on local beers and saying like, Hey, if you're not gonna carry my beer, you should at least carry this 'cause it's local, it's Green Bay, or it's Appleton.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:32:08

But being able to create kind of that perfect lineup of all these local beers is really important to us and to craft beer in Wisconsin in general.

Gary Arndt: 00:32:16

And will this be a limited run or something you'll keep doing after the draft?

Stephanie Harvey: 00:32:20

I've jokingly said I wanna just keep renaming it every couple months based on our mood and what the local thing is because it's such a good beer and people really dig it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:32:28

And they've been digging it since August when we first released it.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:32:32

But we'll see.

Stephanie Harvey: 00:32:33

I think we're just gonna be making it indefinitely and kind of see where the sales kind of go afterwards.

Gary Arndt: 00:32:39

All right, well that'll conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:32:43

The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kalsow

Gary Arndt: 00:32:45

without David Kalsow the show would not go.

Gary Arndt: 00:32:47

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

Gary Arndt: 00:32:50

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

Gary Arndt: 00:32:56

Links to both of these are in the show notes.

Gary Arndt: 00:32:58

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