Episode 47
The Origin of Appleton Beer Factory w/ Ben Fogle
Our neighbors from the Appleton Beer Factory finally join us! Gary, Bobby, and Allison chat with head brewer, alley sharer, and friend, Ben Fogle, about the origins of ABF's beer, taproom, kitchen, giant steel vats, and more.
Visit Appleton Beer Factory: https://www.appletonbeerfactory.com/
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TIMELINE
00:00 Martian Brewing Consultant?
00:43 Introducing Today's Guest: Ben Fogle
00:54 Ben's Brewing Journey Begins
01:15 Family Influence and Early Brewing Days
02:43 Engineering @ College
04:22 Building the Brewery: Challenges and Triumphs
10:20 Opening the Appleton Beer Factory
11:57 The Brewery's Unique Construction
13:55 Custom Building ALL Their Equipment
16:34 First Brewing Experiences
18:56 Lessons Learned Along the Way
21:09 Ben Hated Their Kitchen at First
25:03 And Then Came the Music
27:44 Ben Will Return!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:My name is Gary Arndt with me again is the man that when SpaceX creates their colony on Mars, they will do a consultation for their brewing industry, Bobby Fleshman also, the professor of physical and spiritual chemistry,
Allison Fleshman:Gary.
Gary Arndt:Allison McCoy.
Gary Arndt:And when we get a guest on the show, we will go to the ends of the earth.
Gary Arndt:We will find people on any continent.
Gary Arndt:We will hunt them down, whether they're in the middle of the Amazon rainforest or brewing in Antarctica, but for today's guest, we literally just opened up the window and yelled.
Gary Arndt:Please welcome the head of brewing at the Appleton Beer Factory, Ben Fogel.
Gary Arndt:How are you doing?
Ben Fogel:Great.
Ben Fogel:That was perfect.
Ben Fogel:Insert some applause there.
Ben Fogel:Got any buttons for that?
Gary Arndt:So before we get into the relationship that these two breweries have, why don't we start with how you got into this?
Gary Arndt:Because everyone has a different yet kind of similar story of how they get into brewing.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, absolutely.
Ben Fogel:So where do I start?
Ben Fogel:yeah, well, okay.
Ben Fogel:It's a good earth formed jump around a little bit.
Ben Fogel:So I'm told some of this from my dad that he and my grandfather started brewing around the time I was born actually my mom was pregnant with me supposedly, and they were actively.
Ben Fogel:brewing and that was, that did not work for her, smell wise and all that jazz.
Ben Fogel:So that was kind of the the end of that for a while.
Ben Fogel:going back a little bit, my dad is a, Steam fitter by trade.
Ben Fogel:And so he, he really liked making the his own equipment.
Ben Fogel:And I think he actually kind of talked, my grandfather into being the head brewer of this brewery that he just wanted to make.
Ben Fogel:So that's how they kind of got started.
Allison Fleshman:And like legit make, cause like everything shiny over at your places, he built it mostly.
Bobby Fleshman:What year was this?
Bobby Fleshman:Did you say that?
Ben Fogel:So supposedly 1984 ish.
Ben Fogel:Okay.
Ben Fogel:Right.
Ben Fogel:So then, yeah, they.
Ben Fogel:Other things happen in life, so they shelved that super crude hobby for a while.
Ben Fogel:And, eventually I came along and with kind of more engineering, scientific y, thought process, got involved with them.
Ben Fogel:I'm told that was around age 15, I guess.
Ben Fogel:I really don't know exactly when we started messing around with, brewing again.
Ben Fogel:But then, so the three of us were doing it.
Ben Fogel:Which was pretty fun.
Ben Fogel:Still very crude hobby.
Ben Fogel:Then ended up going to college, meeting some people.
Ben Fogel:one of my best friends, Carl, who is more of a foodie.
Ben Fogel:and he got involved with, and also loved drinking beer as well.
Ben Fogel:so he, he got involved, when we would come back home for holidays and stuff.
Ben Fogel:And, he started to elevate our recipes with his more food background, passion.
Ben Fogel:And we just kept doing it and drinking beer together and eventually looked around at each other and said, Hey, Maybe we, maybe we can do this brewing thing, that we're starting to see really catch on fire around, around that time.
Ben Fogel:It was even in the middle, right in the middle of the, the time frame where breweries are getting added left and right around the nation, so.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, for context, we 2000, we had maybe a couple thousand breweries in the year 2000 and we're sitting at about 10, 000 now.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:So this would have been
Allison Fleshman:around 2005 or six.
Ben Fogel:The, yeah, so we graduated 2008.
Ben Fogel:So yeah, five or six is when we would have been kind of looking around at each other.
Ben Fogel:Like,
Allison Fleshman:yeah,
Ben Fogel:Hey, maybe this is a good idea.
Allison Fleshman:Well, 2008, that's a fantastic time to do any sort of like financial investments and or changes.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, we can get into
Ben Fogel:that.
Ben Fogel:But, That was the, the
Gary Arndt:time frame that, that all kind of took place.
Gary Arndt:I completely missed that recession.
Allison Fleshman:Oh.
Gary Arndt:Didn't even know it happened.
Gary Arndt:I was in Vietnam.
Gary Arndt:I wouldn't have known.
Allison Fleshman:That's fair.
Gary Arndt:Everyone has these horror stories and it like just didn't happen for me.
Allison Fleshman:We just stayed in grad school because the jobs market stopped.
Allison Fleshman:Anyway, long story.
Allison Fleshman:So okay, so that was 2000.
Allison Fleshman:So how long did it go from when the, the idea started to start it to, okay, let's actually build a building and do it or buy a building.
Ben Fogel:Maybe before you, I know it's such a long time.
Ben Fogel:I know it's hard to like it, but I was going to say that you have in your background something to do with stage construction or management of some kind.
Ben Fogel:Right.
Ben Fogel:So I don't know.
Ben Fogel:It's more in the fabrication side of your DNA is what I'm trying to get at.
Ben Fogel:You guys are definitely fabricators.
Ben Fogel:It was kind of like.
Ben Fogel:I had the same thought process as my dad.
Ben Fogel:Like I like building things too.
Ben Fogel:And, but we got to, we'd have to be good at brewing.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:So yeah, we were more, I don't want to say passionate necessarily.
Ben Fogel:My dad was definitely more passionate about just how, how can we make this ourselves and make it better and blah, blah, blah.
Ben Fogel:Cause he originally had the idea, he says of, having a microbrewery like back in, you know, the, the early nineties or even pre, you know, pre nineties.
Ben Fogel:So I don't know if How true that really is, but sorry, dad.
Ben Fogel:And coming from Oklahoma, Alison and I often say that people build shit here.
Ben Fogel:We look around everywhere.
Ben Fogel:There's people building shit.
Ben Fogel:It's amazing.
Ben Fogel:And I bring that up because Miller electric is based here in Appletown and it's the One of the biggest welding companies in the world.
Ben Fogel:I, I would think it's definitely in the United States.
Allison Fleshman:They make paper.
Allison Fleshman:They make the, the Nina foundry when they do all like that.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:On and on.
Allison Fleshman:But, but your dad had,
Ben Fogel:your dad had some relationship with Miller at some point.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:So I'm just trying to give some more background as to how much of a builder you guys were at coming into this.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, of course.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:I mean, you're, you would speak to it better really.
Ben Fogel:Cause I'm You're right, you're next to it too.
Ben Fogel:So yeah, I don't even think about it.
Ben Fogel:So yeah, I, I don't even know where to go.
Ben Fogel:Like, you, you asked about.
Ben Fogel:How we got, or how I got into beer.
Ben Fogel:That's even a separate, that's kind of that story versus the, well, yeah, because I'm interested in
Gary Arndt:making things can lead you to having a model train collection or could lead you to this.
Gary Arndt:I mean, those are, there are multiple paths, right?
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:So
Ben Fogel:why beer and your dad's day job still is to, to work in breweries and built big shit, big equipment.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Which will hopefully.
Ben Fogel:stop sooner rather than later
Allison Fleshman:and he's built breweries for like the big, big three.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:He worked for
Ben Fogel:indirectly for Anheuser Busch for, years and years.
Ben Fogel:So that's where a lot of that inspiration I think came from as well.
Ben Fogel:And thinking.
Ben Fogel:Boy, I hope he doesn't listen to this, thinking he could take really that knowledge and, and directly apply it to a very microbrewery.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:it's nice to be pulled along with that too.
Ben Fogel:It's also nice to be pushed with that philosophy.
Ben Fogel:Sure.
Ben Fogel:I mean, there are things that apply, but then we have to actually.
Ben Fogel:Do the practical aspects of, of all of those amazing expensive things.
Ben Fogel:so, but yeah, why beer?
Ben Fogel:Certainly grew up drinking a lot of beer.
Ben Fogel:I like, as opposed to like model trains
Ben Fogel:you know, being able to I don't know.
Ben Fogel:I'm going to say mix things together and analyze the different ingredients.
Ben Fogel:and, and really the processing of it.
Ben Fogel:I, I always found to be really engineer brain.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:In addition to the The biological aspect to it as well.
Ben Fogel:Like we only have, you know, a piece of the, we're only doing part of the, the job, so we, we have to hand it over to the yeast and, and, I always found that kind of interesting too.
Ben Fogel:So, yeah, I don't know.
Ben Fogel:It's, it's not a really good direct answer, but you yourself came from instrumentation, right?
Ben Fogel:That's you're a mechanical engineer, mechanical engineer.
Ben Fogel:So that's true too.
Ben Fogel:I, did a decent amount of automation, design for, for Plexus here in town.
Ben Fogel:And, so I bring that passion certainly to the, to the brewery as well.
Ben Fogel:So, yeah, it's almost like brewing is, I don't want to say it's, it, it facilitates the, the other things that I like to do as well.
Ben Fogel:I don't know.
Ben Fogel:It's kind of fun.
Ben Fogel:It's certainly not secondary, but this brewery brought together my background in construction Right and science and then this new passion for making beer it all kind of came together on this project.
Ben Fogel:So I get that
Allison Fleshman:so Fun side story when we got the job in or I got the job at Lawrence in 2013 We looked up all the different breweries y'all hadn't opened yet And I, we emailed you, I don't, it must've been your dad or you or the info at abf.
Allison Fleshman:com.
Allison Fleshman:And I
Ben Fogel:think I dug that up recently when you applied.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Anyway.
Allison Fleshman:So we were like, Hey, we're curious.
Allison Fleshman:We're moving to town.
Allison Fleshman:Brewery.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:you know, we'd like to be involved and I believe y'all said thank you, but we're not looking for anyone at the moment and as you should have, right?
Ben Fogel:You should re forward that to me.
Ben Fogel:No, we shouldn't.
Ben Fogel:Well, we should have because we were not even remotely close, right, to having a functioning brewery.
Ben Fogel:I think you should print it out and make a poster.
Ben Fogel:Oh, that's funny.
Ben Fogel:We could hang it.
Ben Fogel:But Bobby's not the, I'm glad you brought that up, Bobby's not the only one, Simon, also.
Ben Fogel:He was at Central Waters.
Ben Fogel:So he also had applied at one point before becoming the head brewer at Central Waters.
Ben Fogel:I swear there was somebody else.
Ben Fogel:Well, you have a great system over there.
Ben Fogel:So you've created your own competition.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, by
Ben Fogel:politely ignoring all these other people that really do what they're doing, yeah.
Ben Fogel:Right now, you're probably getting a lot of solicitations now for a job, or, or, resumes.
Ben Fogel:We've both gotten a couple.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:I really need to reply to them.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:The industry is I think I'd learn.
Allison Fleshman:Okay, so you, it was 2013, no, when did you open?
Ben Fogel:2013.
Allison Fleshman:13, okay.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:So, we bought the building.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, I got ahead of myself there.
Ben Fogel:develop the business plan in the timeframe we were talking about.
Ben Fogel:I definitely remember being in my fifth year of school, spending time developing a business plan which would have been 2008.
Ben Fogel:But it was still just a plan, right?
Ben Fogel:It'd be a boring podcast, but it's for anyone that wants to go into business.
Ben Fogel:It's worthwhile going through the steps of making a business plan.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:And compare it to where you actually, well, we do that once in a while and in some ways, in some ways it's, we've kind of mirrored it in other ways.
Ben Fogel:We are in another, Yeah,
Gary Arndt:I've, I've never made a business plan.
Allison Fleshman:Of course you haven't.
Allison Fleshman:Well,
Ben Fogel:you're unique.
Gary Arndt:Well, I'm also, I've never had a capital intensive business.
Gary Arndt:Right.
Gary Arndt:True.
Gary Arndt:I've always done stuff with computers.
Allison Fleshman:It's so expensive.
Gary Arndt:Like I've never had to take out a loan.
Gary Arndt:I could, I could bootstrap everything.
Gary Arndt:And I just like, I have a direction.
Gary Arndt:It's like stuff's going to happen in that direction.
Ben Fogel:Well,
Allison Fleshman:we're not in the business of making money.
Allison Fleshman:I mean, making beer is the most expensive way to enjoy a hobby.
Ben Fogel:The, the, more fun, the job, the, the less the pay I find.
Ben Fogel:And, and I think Gary might
Allison Fleshman:disagree with you on that one.
Allison Fleshman:Maybe.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:But I think that that's what, what I always say to people that want to get into this industry.
Ben Fogel:There's a trade off.
Gary Arndt:I assure you that the vast majority of podcasters.
Gary Arndt:Make no money.
Gary Arndt:That's fair.
Gary Arndt:But if you can catch lightning in a bottle, it scales, which is the beautiful thing about it.
Gary Arndt:So when did the Appleton beer factory open it, open its doors?
Gary Arndt:it was
Ben Fogel:November 23rd.
Ben Fogel:I want to say of 2013.
Ben Fogel:A massive construction project happened that we didn't even.
Ben Fogel:It's it's a whole podcast and y'all won
Allison Fleshman:the Appleton downtown renovation award.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Like we did.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:so yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:That's beautiful.
Allison Fleshman:Anyone that
Ben Fogel:doesn't know the story should come in and see it and hear it because it's massive over there.
Gary Arndt:I was going to say, I didn't, your building looks new.
Gary Arndt:I
Ben Fogel:didn't know if it
Gary Arndt:was all
Ben Fogel:right.
Ben Fogel:Sure.
Ben Fogel:So yeah.
Ben Fogel:Well, you can't see all the dirty backend stuff probably, but we, yeah, no, we spent, three years renovating along with the.
Ben Fogel:Building the bring equipment and renovating before it
Allison Fleshman:was like an auto parts.
Allison Fleshman:Yep.
Allison Fleshman:Auto parts.
Ben Fogel:God, it was, Schrader auto parts.
Ben Fogel:As far as we know, that was the only other tenant there since 1940.
Ben Fogel:So.
Ben Fogel:Definitely old building, not as old as your building.
Ben Fogel:And you're talking about the, the building, but you guys, you built your own brewing system too, right?
Ben Fogel:It's a, it's an extraordinary project.
Ben Fogel:I mean, when I say built it, cause you said your dad made it.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:So he, he and I designed it, on paper.
Ben Fogel:I eventually.
Ben Fogel:Transpose that, CAD.
Ben Fogel:But, and before, before you go into it, you guys, you drew a brewing system for the building we're sitting in right now and, and, well, y'all, where do you want it?
Ben Fogel:Okay.
Ben Fogel:Well, I don't want to be real too much, but we kind of followed up on one of your branches that you didn't take.
Ben Fogel:We followed up and built a brewery in a building that you considered, right?
Ben Fogel:We had an entire business plan for your building before that fell through.
Gary Arndt:So there's a lot that aren't aware.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:These two breweries are literally
Allison Fleshman:10 paces apart.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah,
Ben Fogel:25 feet.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Mm hmm
Gary Arndt:apart from each other So it's a we'll get into the 25 feet 4 inches.
Gary Arndt:Yeah Relationship, but there's literally just a narrow alley
Allison Fleshman:and I can see
Gary Arndt:separating the two buildings.
Gary Arndt:Mm hmm when McFleshman's you made your got your brewing equipment fabrical you got it Used from South Korea, right?
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:It was built in the Czech Republic.
Ben Fogel:Got it.
Ben Fogel:So it was kind of, you
Gary Arndt:just had, you bought it all at four
Ben Fogel:photographs and they chopped it up with hacksaw with a sawzalls and it was just four photographs and it's a pretty complex system with all the valves.
Ben Fogel:So we got to know it pretty well, having to do it that way.
Ben Fogel:Ben's journey is different though.
Gary Arndt:Yeah, I was going to, I mean, where does one get a huge stainless steel vat?
Gary Arndt:Well, you can buy them.
Gary Arndt:Vats-R-Us.com?.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Well, these days,
Ben Fogel:yeah.
Ben Fogel:can definitely buy them.
Ben Fogel:but we weren't going to do that because we like making stuff.
Ben Fogel:And we, it's also, we're trying to fit it into this really specific space too, to maximize space.
Ben Fogel:That's why we ended up designing a gravity feed system as well.
Ben Fogel:So it's literally, you know, it's two stories on top of.
Ben Fogel:On top of itself.
Ben Fogel:we literally ordered the shells, which is the side wall of the tanks from one of the fabricators in town here and the heads, which is the top and bottom from a specialist up in, Minnesota and we welded them all together.
Gary Arndt:So when you say you built your stuff, you literally, Built the vats and everything from basically scratch.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, there's a lot of good pictures of certainly us being inside of them
Ben Fogel:Stand I have a good one of me standing on top of the brew kettle that's upside down because we weld the feet on the bottom and you know, it was from Standing on top of it But yeah, and anyone that that's welded.
Ben Fogel:I came from a farm.
Ben Fogel:So I knew how to arc weld, you know Just stick welder so forth.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, you're squirting rough metal.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, you're just putting down with slag and all that.
Ben Fogel:This is sanitary welding.
Ben Fogel:This is TIG welding and it's structural welding and it's pretty, precision art that they put into use.
Ben Fogel:It's amazing to see what they did.
Allison Fleshman:One night we joked with Jeff Fogel, Ben's dad about how he has a PhD in pipe fitting.
Allison Fleshman:'cause like I don't think there's anything, he hasn't welded five years of metals and, or like, he's the wealth of experience and knowledge and all space.
Allison Fleshman:He threw me in the deep
Ben Fogel:stuff he probably hasn't welded on.
Ben Fogel:That's fair.
Ben Fogel:, he was talking about a nuclear plant.
Ben Fogel:he offered a job to, to work at a nuclear plant.
Ben Fogel:I dunno if he took that, but it was a, I don't think so.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:I learned from his dad how to tig weld and he threw me in the deep end.
Ben Fogel:I, I had no idea it was, I was always frightened of it.
Ben Fogel:But yeah, he knows his stuff.
Ben Fogel:He's a pretty good teacher.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:So you have this custom brewery set up.
Gary Arndt:Alright.
Gary Arndt:What, what's the first beer you make?
Ben Fogel:Well, stepping back a little bit, we built our beer lineup primarily around Keweenaw brewing companies, beer lineup because they're up in Houghton, which is where I went to school, or Carl and I went to school.
Ben Fogel:So we pretty much copied that forward.
Ben Fogel:They've always had a blonde.
Ben Fogel:So we started with that.
Ben Fogel:Also interesting story is We so we started brewing before we were open of course because you need beer to when you're open Unless you have other people brew it for you, which I have done that for a couple breweries But, we, at the time of the, of the, the time, the timeline of the project, we, we thought for sure we were going to be open in,
Ben Fogel:I don't even, I'd have to think about that, but point is we, we were like, oh man, we got to get this beer in the tanks because it's got to be ready by X, Y, Z.
Ben Fogel:And we weren't even close to it.
Ben Fogel:So it sat in the tanks for quite some time.
Ben Fogel:But I remember the day, the two, like two days, we, we were brewing those first three beers.
Ben Fogel:We first of all, didn't really know what we were doing.
Ben Fogel:Cause it was the first time we were brewing on the system.
Ben Fogel:So you're learning a lot the hard way.
Ben Fogel:Did you do suds?
Ben Fogel:Were you running water through?
Ben Fogel:I don't remember what it stands for, but start up.
Ben Fogel:Anyway, it's, it's . It's some, whenever you initiate a new system, you run water through it and make sure everything, see what happens, you're valving and your heating and so forth.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Oh, and it's a steam system too, which we installed, so.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:That's cool.
Ben Fogel:So that was a, before you do the, that was its own suds basically.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, yeah.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:Which was a little more nerve wracking because it's pressure.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:15. It's only 15 psi steam, but it's still pressure and it's still steam.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:230 degrees.
Ben Fogel:That was interesting.
Ben Fogel:That's a little story in itself, but, so, but that day again, we were like, we have to get this beer through the system and get it in the fermenters.
Ben Fogel:So we'd like, not only was it the first time we were doing this, but we did it like back to back to back.
Ben Fogel:So I think the first two days we brewed three times
Allison Fleshman:20
Ben Fogel:barrels, And again, we didn't know really what we, you know, didn't know what we were doing.
Ben Fogel:Really.
Ben Fogel:We had no CIP system at the time.
Ben Fogel:So we're hauling the hoses up.
Ben Fogel:With ropes to get them to the tops of the tanks that the spray, get them to the spray balls.
Ben Fogel:And we're just, it was, it was such a cluster.
Ben Fogel:Well, thank God you at least had spray balls for those who don't know.
Ben Fogel:That's it's what it sounds like.
Ben Fogel:We weren't getting in the tanks necessarily.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, it's definitely washing for you, but yeah.
Ben Fogel:So there's a
Allison Fleshman:ball thing that hangs.
Allison Fleshman:It can either be almost like a disco ball, but it shoots water.
Allison Fleshman:The
Ben Fogel:best ones spin and they shoot jets.
Ben Fogel:And then the other ones just, just have holes, perforation, which I can't believe we'll still use that.
Ben Fogel:But so by the time we got to the end of the third brew, we were like hysterical from exhaustion and we, we actually were like, okay, we have to stop because this is getting dangerous.
Ben Fogel:Like we, you know, you're, you're Handling, obviously, really hot liquids, steam chemicals.
Ben Fogel:You can take a, you can take the wrong side of a valve off and you're done.
Ben Fogel:So, we, we just, we're like, okay, we gotta take a break.
Ben Fogel:So the, so, to answer your question, I'd actually have to look back and see what the first four beers were again.
Ben Fogel:But it was definitely Blonde, to answer your question.
Ben Fogel:And I think there was a Heffy and Stout in there too, probably Amber.
Ben Fogel:And I should say our first four beers were made there, I think several times over until we got our system commissioned.
Ben Fogel:So yeah.
Ben Fogel:We opened
Allison Fleshman:in May of 18 and then it wasn't until January of 19 that we did our suds.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, I think we were running with like four flavors till then.
Allison Fleshman:Was our saving grace because we were able to put beer in your tanks,
Ben Fogel:right?
Ben Fogel:And that's cash flow then and yeah, actually sell beer.
Ben Fogel:Yeah, and we did that for lion's tail as well
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, because amazingly enough it took a lot longer to open.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, exactly I've always said
Ben Fogel:this a dozen times on this podcast But anyone that's planning to open first of all, look at the landscape look at the current events, but that's another conversation but Multiply by four the time and the budget that's my own that high but Ah, just for the hell of it.
Ben Fogel:Pad yourself a little, maybe three, easily three.
Gary Arndt:So instead of stainless steel, it'd be gold plated
Ben Fogel:while stainless steel comes at a gold price depending on the market.
Ben Fogel:Especially these days.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:So we're talking about beer and if someone wouldn't know Appleton beer factory, but you guys have a very different business outside of the beer from like what McFlushman's has.
Gary Arndt:this place is kind of a pub.
Gary Arndt:They don't really serve food, right?
Gary Arndt:You guys, yeah, you got to have a full blown restaurant, a menu.
Gary Arndt:Was
Ben Fogel:that from
Gary Arndt:day one as well?
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:That was always important.
Ben Fogel:We had, we had a menu designed in the McFleshman's building as well, but it was going to be much, much smaller, like.
Ben Fogel:Couple panini girls behind the behind the bar kind of thing But once we transitioned over to this different property, which was which is significantly bigger.
Ben Fogel:We were like, okay.
Ben Fogel:Well we can now You know scale that up and do a full Restaurant over there.
Ben Fogel:So yeah and having food definitely cuts both ways, right?
Ben Fogel:Yeah, absolutely.
Ben Fogel:I for the first seven to seven to eight years, let's say seven of our existence.
Ben Fogel:I definitely I'm going to say hated the fact that we had, had a kitchen because it's just, it adds a whole other, it's a business in itself.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Right.
Ben Fogel:just, it can be complicated, for multiple reasons that we can get into if we, if we want, But in the time since I've learned that it's very important.
Ben Fogel:one of my favorite
Ben Fogel:Advisors that I follow.
Ben Fogel:what's it called?
Ben Fogel:The small batch stand.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:It's more, you send me those links once in a while.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Really good financial advisor.
Ben Fogel:You know, he, I don't think he coined it, but he always says not everyone drinks, but everyone's got to eat.
Ben Fogel:So having the food is super important.
Ben Fogel:It definitely augments the, certainly the revenue, but also how the top line revenue, but how many drinks that people will potentially be able to have as well, because they're eating.
Ben Fogel:So I've come around full circle.
Ben Fogel:It's very important.
Ben Fogel:And especially now in the landscape these days, it's, it's, it's, it's It is almost required, I think.
Allison Fleshman:Which is why we're having to move that direction.
Allison Fleshman:Right.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:In some capacity.
Ben Fogel:Exactly.
Ben Fogel:Kind of to the level that you've been describing with the paninis and so on.
Ben Fogel:Yep.
Ben Fogel:Right.
Allison Fleshman:So one of the fun things I like about Appleton Beer Factory is that The design that you'll have in your space, it looks like a factory with the front half is like the fancy office that you'd walk into, and then the back half is like the manufacturing, and it's like two stories all open, and you can see up into where the, mashtun is and the cooker and all that And so you can see all this shiny stainless steel.
Allison Fleshman:so it's just a really unique space.
Allison Fleshman:I think
Ben Fogel:it is.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:And I think what's funny about that is it kind of found, it found its way there.
Ben Fogel:We didn't necessarily plan it to be that way, but then we were looking around and we're like, Oh, well, this kind of makes sense for, as you said, the factory, the front office, it wasn't like, Oh yeah, let's have the front pub room be the front office out of the gate.
Ben Fogel:But we ended up making it.
Ben Fogel:Kind of by accident.
Ben Fogel:I think so or Nate, especially by the time the Amish got in there and put the coffers, it's hard to gloss over.
Ben Fogel:It's really hard to gloss over
Allison Fleshman:that state.
Allison Fleshman:I was pushing us that direction.
Allison Fleshman:I was
Ben Fogel:like, okay, well we can put a story to that kind of like, yeah, this is the front office of the factory.
Ben Fogel:And the, and then we called the side room, the boardroom of the factory.
Ben Fogel:And we kind of leaned into that a little bit.
Ben Fogel:Anyone not from here may not realize how many Amish there are and how big the how great their construction can be, and how good they are at what they do.
Ben Fogel:Yeah,
Allison Fleshman:it's really pretty wood ceiling.
Allison Fleshman:It's so pretty.
Gary Arndt:Given the rate of population growth, there will be 300 million Amish in the United States in 200 years.
Allison Fleshman:How do you know
Gary Arndt:this?
Gary Arndt:There you go.
Gary Arndt:There it is.
Ben Fogel:There's your party face.
Gary Arndt:Trey for the day.
Gary Arndt:I don't even know what to do with that.
Gary Arndt:You are my phone
Allison Fleshman:a friend, by the way, anytime.
Allison Fleshman:I'm like I
Gary Arndt:literally was someone's phone a friend, who wants to be a millionaire.
Gary Arndt:Oh my gosh.
Gary Arndt:About 20 years ago.
Gary Arndt:That's great.
Gary Arndt:That
Allison Fleshman:makes so much sense.
Allison Fleshman:Before
Gary Arndt:we close this episode, there's one other thing that I think you guys are really well known for, and that's live music.
Gary Arndt:Oh, sure.
Gary Arndt:Was that part of the business plan from the start?
Ben Fogel:That's a great question.
Ben Fogel:absolutely not.
Ben Fogel:that kind of a kicked high gear about four years ago, three, three to four years ago when Mark, moderate came along and became a partner.
Ben Fogel:That's his passion.
Ben Fogel:It, but it was born in a way out of, I mean, really out of Mile of Music happening every once a year.
Ben Fogel:That was our only music that we would have.
Ben Fogel:In the building every year, basically one weekend out of the year, the city has X number of, shows and bands and it's like a
Allison Fleshman:700 sets.
Allison Fleshman:I think the first weekend in August, book your tickets now, actually it's all free.
Allison Fleshman:Well, it's free to the participants.
Allison Fleshman:That's another story.
Allison Fleshman:We can do a whole mile of music
Ben Fogel:episode.
Ben Fogel:but that's really, that's what it was born from.
Ben Fogel:And then we took that, Really, Mark took that concept and said, we can do this, you know, pretty much year round and
Gary Arndt:this
Ben Fogel:is
Gary Arndt:something I'm just ignorant of.
Gary Arndt:I mean, you have a pretty good venue for music for this area.
Gary Arndt:Is there anything that really, any other like bars or pubs that compare to it?
Gary Arndt:I, in my opinion, not really.
Gary Arndt:Does
Allison Fleshman:Gibson have food?
Gary Arndt:No.
Allison Fleshman:Okay.
Gary Arndt:And
Allison Fleshman:so Gibson music hall, which is downtown and it's smaller.
Allison Fleshman:Isn't that like
Gary Arndt:a nonprofit thing now or something?
Allison Fleshman:It might be affiliated with Mile, I'm not
Ben Fogel:sure.
Ben Fogel:But I think you see some venues that are smaller, some that are larger.
Ben Fogel:I think theirs is unique in its size.
Ben Fogel:There is a couple bigger ones, but yes, it's unique in its size in that it's more intimate, I think.
Ben Fogel:But you can still have 275 people in a sold out show there, so.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:So yeah, it was not at all part of the business plan but it ended up being a really sweet spot for, it feels like with food spirits and now music, they're all there.
Ben Fogel:I would, I'm putting words in your mouth, but in some ways they're there to motivate or to make more beer sales, right?
Ben Fogel:Absolutely.
Ben Fogel:That's what it's all about.
Ben Fogel:That's the game, isn't it?
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Getting as many people in the door to drink your beer, right.
Ben Fogel:Butts and seats and.
Ben Fogel:Selling as much selling beer across the bar is everything.
Ben Fogel:So all the tricks that you can employ, that's where the margin is.
Allison Fleshman:Well, I mean, all tap rooms are going towards this, you know, destination experience.
Allison Fleshman:And so if you make great beer, like you have to make great beer first.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah, it's table stakes.
Allison Fleshman:They got to come back after they've had you have to then have, you know, some sort of draw to the location.
Ben Fogel:And it takes a lot of work, just any partners like Mark that are focused, fixated on so focused on and we'll do that.
Ben Fogel:We'll have him on here eventually.
Ben Fogel:But, but yeah, he is on the music.
Ben Fogel:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:Walk
Allison Fleshman:away.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Ben Fogel:David, David, Gary Lee.
Ben Fogel:Well,
Gary Arndt:that's going to wrap up this episode of respecting the beer.
Gary Arndt:Make sure to subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast player.
Gary Arndt:So you will never miss an episode and join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes.
Gary Arndt:And you can support the show over on Patreon we actually have t shirts now, links to both of these are in the show notes and until next time, remember to respect the beer.
Allison Fleshman:God, you still have that?
Allison Fleshman:Oh my God.
Allison Fleshman:That's
Bobby Fleshman:breaking my heart.
Bobby Fleshman:Let's just have a whole episode of silence for
