Episode 69
The Secrets of Vault 202 Brewery w/ Scott Krebsbach
We welcome Scott Krebsbach to the Appleton brewery community. Scott comes from the brand-new Vault 202 Brewing, who plans to be open for Mile of Music 2025 in the old Chase bank building. Steal a peek behind the scenes as Scott gives us all the details about his brewing career and what he's most excited about for opening.
Vault 202 Brewery Website: https://vault202brewery.com/
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TIMELINE
00:00 RtB E68 Vault Brewing with Scott Krebsbach MAINFEED
01:17 Scott's Brewing Journey Begins
01:59 Brewing in Minnesota and New York
04:38 Burn Out is Real
05:26 Back to the Town Hall
06:16 To the Mecca of Beer
08:52 Opening Vault 202 in Appleton
10:59 Where Vault Got Its Name
12:25 Ebb and Flow of Craft Brewing Industry
19:20 Brewing System and Logistics
22:25 Unexpected Construction Challenges
22:54 Discovering the Building's History
24:00 Preparing for the Grand Opening
25:01 Managing Tap Lines and Beer Selection
27:00 Joining the Appleton Brewing Community
27:33 Collaborations and Future Plans
29:57 Stocking Up Beer Takes Time
31:12 Joel's Finger Injury Story...
31:24 Join the Patreon!
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Joel Hermansan
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Mentioned in this episode:
Gary's Everything Everywhere Daily - 5 Year Anniversary
Come and join the party to celebrate Gary's podcast turning 5. RSVP here -> https://www.facebook.com/share/1HvAwzVVZ4/
Transcript
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:My name is Gary Arndt and we got a full house here today.
Gary Arndt:Everybody is gonna be on the mic with us, as usual as the historian hops.
Gary Arndt:And Joel, there's, there's something different about you.
Gary Arndt:I can't put my finger on it.
Gary Arndt:I got a haircut.
Gary Arndt:Ouch.
Gary Arndt:Oh.
Gary Arndt:But
Gary Arndt:yeah, that must be it.
Gary Arndt:Well, anyways, my hat's off to you there.
Gary Arndt:We also got.
Gary Arndt:Brewer extraordinaire, Bobby Fleshman and the co-owner, Allison McCoy Fleshman.
Bobby Fleshman:How are you guys doing?
Bobby Fleshman:Good.
Bobby Fleshman:She'll be on the mic.
Bobby Fleshman:Mostly.
Bobby Fleshman:We're sharing a mic here, so we are sharing a mic.
Bobby Fleshman:We're not doing a duet.
Bobby Fleshman:We got a special guest that's for Patreon.
Bobby Fleshman:The duet will be on Patreon.
Gary Arndt:We got a special guest with us today here in the prohibition room, a man who looked at the market in Appleton, Wisconsin and said, there's not enough beer being served.
Scott Krebsbach:Amen.
Gary Arndt:The same question that Bobby and Allison came asked back in 2019 and came to the same answer.
Gary Arndt:Scott Kressbach., did I say it correctly?
Scott Krebsbach:Krebs Bch.
Scott Krebsbach:Krebs Bch.
Scott Krebsbach:Don't forget the bs.
Scott Krebsbach:That's what we do.
Scott Krebsbach:A
Gary Arndt:Vault 2 0 2 is gonna be opening up a brand new brewery in town.
Gary Arndt:so welcome.
Scott Krebsbach:Thank you.
Gary Arndt:And so why don't you tell us the story about how you decided to open up a brewery, because we've talked a lot about starting a brewery on this show and everything that these guys went to, and you are now in the middle of it.
Gary Arndt:So why don't you start at square one and say how you kind of decided to go down this route?
Joel Hermansen:The Krebsbach origin story.
Scott Krebsbach:It is a long securous route.
Scott Krebsbach:That's for sure.
Scott Krebsbach:If I said that word right.
Scott Krebsbach:I started brewing or looking to get into brewing in 1999.
Scott Krebsbach:So I found my first basically
Gary Arndt:This is 'cause of Y 2K concerns?
Scott Krebsbach:Exactly, yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:I was just.
Scott Krebsbach:Had to get the bunker full of beer just in case.
Scott Krebsbach:You never know.
Scott Krebsbach:After graduating from college, I was looking around for brewing jobs and it was, it was difficult to find anything because, I don't know, in 1999, there just weren't a whole lot of breweries.
Scott Krebsbach:So I finally found a place up in Duluth, Minnesota that was basically taking volunteers.
Scott Krebsbach:So I volunteered for about six months until I ran outta money.
Scott Krebsbach:But while I was up there, I met everybody in the Minnesota brewing industry and I ended up getting my first actually paying brewing job at the Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis.
Scott Krebsbach:So if you've never been there before, just to tout them a little bit, they're one of the most award-winning breweries in Minnesota.
Scott Krebsbach:they're still going 25 plus years later.
Scott Krebsbach:And, Mike Hoops was my brewmaster there and absolutely loved that place.
Scott Krebsbach:So if you ever make a trip up to the cities, stop in.
Scott Krebsbach:Cool.
Scott Krebsbach:I was there for a couple of years and then a head brewing job opened up in St. Paul.
Scott Krebsbach:So I went over to Great Waters Brewing Company in St.
Scott Krebsbach:Paul was there for about three years, and then I. It was a small brew pub, so you, I sort of hit the ceiling on how much you could make and how much you could brew and, and I just wanted to challenge myself a little bit more.
Scott Krebsbach:And since I'd only lived in the upper Midwest my entire life, I got a job at Oma Gang in New York, and I was there for about three years.
Scott Krebsbach:That's kind of a funny story to you, is when I applied for the job, I didn't realize that Randy Theo was the brewmaster at the time, and he is now.
Scott Krebsbach:I don't exactly know what his title is, but he's at New Glarus running most of the stuff down there too.
Joel Hermansen:So Including your beloved Moon Man.
Scott Krebsbach:Exactly.
Scott Krebsbach:Yep.
Bobby Fleshman:And there's an r and d series right at New Glarus?
Bobby Fleshman:Is that?
Bobby Fleshman:I think so, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Is Randy and and Dan.
Bobby Fleshman:That could be.
Bobby Fleshman:I think that's their seller project.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:So.
Scott Krebsbach:As the second I got the job at Oma Gang, Randy took off his boots and went upstairs to the office and just worked on expansion projects.
Scott Krebsbach:'cause at that time, Duvamortgat had just bought them.
Scott Krebsbach:So they were going through a, a huge expansion.
Scott Krebsbach:So we went, by the time I was there, I think we were making 3000 barrels, and it was about seven or so by the time I left.
Scott Krebsbach:And it was still really only.
Scott Krebsbach:Two people down on the production floor, me and one other brewer, we had a, a head brewer who was just doing scheduling and ordering and working with all the, the distributors.
Scott Krebsbach:And then Randy was just working almost exclusively on, on a little research and development, but mostly expansion projects.
Scott Krebsbach:So after about three or four years there, to be honest, I got kind of burnt out with the brewing industry 'cause it was a lot of work.
Gary Arndt:And what time is this approximately?
Scott Krebsbach:Like oh six or oh seven?
Scott Krebsbach:And then.
Scott Krebsbach:I had made a terrible mistake and not this part.
Scott Krebsbach:Moving back to Wisconsin was not the terrible mistake, but it was trying to become a real estate agent in 2007 and eight.
Scott Krebsbach:Oh.
Scott Krebsbach:So yeah, I could probably sell, you know, 20,000 $8 beers to somebody.
Scott Krebsbach:But to try and sell one house to someone in a, in a market that's crashing and everybody's scared and you're just handholding and.
Scott Krebsbach:It was awful and I wasn't very good at it.
Scott Krebsbach:So, after a couple years of struggling, I reached out to my friends back in Minnesota and the Town Hall was going through another expansion.
Scott Krebsbach:Where the laws of Minnesota are weird, where you can, well, actually, I don't know what the laws are exactly here in Wisconsin too.
Scott Krebsbach:I think they're kind of similar now.
Scott Krebsbach:But if you are a brew hub and that was your license, you can open up satellite bars and restaurants, tap rooms or whatever, but that's the only place you can distribute your beer to.
Scott Krebsbach:So you basically had to open a bunch of tide houses or else there's no way to expand your, your production.
Scott Krebsbach:So, yeah, I was in Minnesota for another seven years working for the Town Hall.
Scott Krebsbach:At that point, I was mostly out of the brewery and helping them just with front of house expansion projects.
Scott Krebsbach:So I was the GM at a couple of different restaurants that they had.
Scott Krebsbach:And then after about seven years there, my wife really wanted to live in Colorado.
Scott Krebsbach:So.
Scott Krebsbach:We packed up our stuff and we moved to Colorado.
Scott Krebsbach:I was out there and I worked at Station 26 Brewing Company, which is, it's a small brewery inside of an old, an old fire station, obviously, and it's right in the north east part of town.
Scott Krebsbach:So right across the street from where the old airport used to be.
Scott Krebsbach:So old Stapleton Airport, which is now just a bunch of, you know, Walmarts and a subdivision sort of area, but it's a really cool old fire station that was built specifically for the, airport.
Scott Krebsbach:But once they built the brand new airport out in Kansas or wherever the heck it is, if you've never been to Denver airport before, it is miles outside of town.
Scott Krebsbach:But, they obviously built a new fire station there.
Scott Krebsbach:So my job at, station 26 ended up being more of a operations and logistics manager.
Scott Krebsbach:So I got a little bit more involved in the brewery, but it was still more on the management supply chain.
Scott Krebsbach:We had our own distribution company too, there, so I would deal with the sales team back and forth in that way.
Scott Krebsbach:So
Allison Fleshman:how big was that brewery?
Scott Krebsbach:We did 3000 barrels at the brewery.
Scott Krebsbach:Mm-hmm.
Scott Krebsbach:And then I was also in charge of dealing with the contract part of it.
Scott Krebsbach:So we worked with the Sleeping Giant and they built, they probably did another 6,000 barrels for us.
Scott Krebsbach:Wow.
Scott Krebsbach:So cool.
Joel Hermansen:Yeah.
Joel Hermansen:So, so prior to doing this, you've been dabbling in all phases of opening, running a brewery.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:That's why I,
Joel Hermansen:and brewery.
Scott Krebsbach:I would say, yeah, I would say I'm, I'm knowledgeable and experienced in a bunch of different things.
Scott Krebsbach:I. But I don't consider myself an expert in any one particular thing, so I try to surround myself with people who know what the heck they're doing and are experts in their field.
Scott Krebsbach:And then I'll,
Allison Fleshman:We should do that.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I dunno if you've ever seen a map of the United States by bars per capita.
Gary Arndt:Yep.
Gary Arndt:Wisconsin just crushes every other state
Scott Krebsbach:I would assume so.
Scott Krebsbach:I don't know
Gary Arndt:if you've looked at a map of the state of Wisconsin by bars per capita.
Scott Krebsbach:I have not.
Gary Arndt:Outagamie County, I'm pretty sure it's number one.
Gary Arndt:It's the drunk.
Gary Arndt:The hardest county is College Avenue.
Gary Arndt:So your opening really in the heart.
Gary Arndt:This is ground zero.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:This is mecca of drinking in the United States, perhaps the world.
Gary Arndt:So you, when you come here, I. You're, you're in the pros.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:So what was the decision to come to Appleton and plant your flag right in the hit?
Gary Arndt:Because I don't know if you've ever walked down College Avenue and counted the bars.
Gary Arndt:It's ridiculous.
Scott Krebsbach:I, I have recently now, but, so yeah, there's a lot of competition.
Gary Arndt:There's like seven on the other side of the performing arts center, and the only reason there aren't more on that block is because the performing arts center takes up all of one side.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:The main reason is because my two business partners are from here.
Scott Krebsbach:So they were the.
Scott Krebsbach:The main construction slash financial backers of it and they wanted to do it here.
Scott Krebsbach:to be perfectly honest with you, I didn't really care where it was.
Scott Krebsbach:But now that I've gotten to know Appleton more and more, I'm super excited it's here and not anywhere else.
Gary Arndt:You got a pretty good location.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:Mm-hmm.
Scott Krebsbach:I mean, what sold us on that location is we actually have 30 parking spots in the back that are dedicated to us.
Scott Krebsbach:'cause I know in any downtown in the entire country, everybody complains about parking spots, so
Allison Fleshman:I'm aggressively shaking my head yes because, oh my gosh, parking
Scott Krebsbach:I am sure with this building you guys have run into challenges of just being downtown and getting, there have been no challenges of this brewery getting deliveries and getting spent grain outta here and all the other stuff that, you know, the brewery at Town Hall in Minneapolis was similar.
Scott Krebsbach:It was right down by the college, right down by US Bank Stadium, so it was.
Scott Krebsbach:Kind of a nightmare.
Scott Krebsbach:We would have to get trucks of grain there, would stop on a main road, and then we didn't have an elevator to bring grain down to the basement where our mill was.
Scott Krebsbach:So we had basically a cavalcade of guys would come back there.
Scott Krebsbach:Turn around, get a hundred pounds of grain put on their shoulder.
Scott Krebsbach:They walk into the brewery, walk down the stairs, dump it in the grain room, go back upstairs and we'd empty, you know, three or four pallets every couple of weeks like that.
Scott Krebsbach:And
Allison Fleshman:This reminds me next door, for Appleton Beer Factory.
Allison Fleshman:They have like this really great little el or not elevator, conveyor belt.
Allison Fleshman:Is that what that's called?
Allison Fleshman:Anyway, for that very reason.
Allison Fleshman:'cause it goes down floor and a half.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:It's just, I mean, it's dangerous.
Scott Krebsbach:I'm surprised nobody ever hurt themselves, but it's, it was an interesting,
Gary Arndt:And for, for, well, I guess the people live in this area.
Gary Arndt:You are in the old bank, building, correct?
Gary Arndt:Is it Chase?
Gary Arndt:Chase, yeah.
Gary Arndt:Which is.
Gary Arndt:Lot of windows.
Gary Arndt:Mm-hmm.
Gary Arndt:So people can look in.
Gary Arndt:And I assume that's where you got the name Vault from?
Scott Krebsbach:Well, there's a huge vault downstairs in the basement too.
Gary Arndt:So it's, and it's hard to move a vault.
Scott Krebsbach:It's, I don't know.
Scott Krebsbach:I mean, they must have built the vault and lowered it in and lowered the door in with the crane and then built the building on top of it, because that thing is, it's not going anywhere.
Scott Krebsbach:It's a pretty massive piece of art.
Gary Arndt:Whatcha gonna do with it?
Scott Krebsbach:Well, is that we're gonna
Joel Hermansen:Store your secrets?
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah, exactly.
Scott Krebsbach:Or the rough customers are gonna know that.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:we're gonna turn it into just like a little lounge space eventually.
Scott Krebsbach:So our construction schedule is pretty aggressive, but I don't know if we'll get to that yet, so we'll at least do a little room on the outside.
Scott Krebsbach:And then hopefully a little satellite bar similar to what you have up here.
Scott Krebsbach:And then inside the vault is just, you know, couches, chairs, lounge areas.
Gary Arndt:Put something valuable in it.
Gary Arndt:'cause I planned out a whole heist.
Gary Arndt:Okay.
Gary Arndt:And I, I don't want all that work to go to waste.
Allison Fleshman:I'm just imagining Gary, no, it like lasers that he has to like duck underneath
Bobby Fleshman:Mission Impossible style.
Scott Krebsbach:Just put one beer in the back of the room.
Scott Krebsbach:You gotta dance around and get to.
Scott Krebsbach:I like it.
Joel Hermansen:He's surprisingly nimble too.
Joel Hermansen:Yeah.
Joel Hermansen:Don't let, don't let it fool you.
Bobby Fleshman:So in, in a landscape where breweries are closing, at least as fast as they're opening, overall, I was looking at the Fox Valley the other day.
Bobby Fleshman:I think we were communicating through email.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:About, celebrating the fact that we're actually growing.
Bobby Fleshman:In number of breweries in the Fox Valley going from two to, I think 12, depending on how you count, the Fox Valley in, I think seven year, no, maybe 10 years.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, adding about one per year and it's steady.
Bobby Fleshman:That's impressive.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:There, and that's something that I think other communities like Fort Collins and Let's see, Austin and so on in Asheville is an extreme example, have have Staken acclaim to, grand Rapids and as becoming like these beer centric communities.
Bobby Fleshman:And I think there might be a window of opportunity if the breweries in the area can latch onto their respective identities and create a destination.
Bobby Fleshman:I think that's kind of what we were going on about in that email.
Scott Krebsbach:Yep.
Scott Krebsbach:I mean, I. I am impressed with the, the level of skill and experience in this community too.
Scott Krebsbach:So just all the breweries here are, are top notch.
Scott Krebsbach:So I mean, I obviously hope I can fit in pretty well too.
Scott Krebsbach:I'm gonna do my best to keep up the reputation of the area, so I'm, I'm excited to be here.
Allison Fleshman:Well, one of the nice things too though, is you come with a lot of experience.
Allison Fleshman:I mean, so a lot of folks, they don't necessarily go, like, you can go and do the professional brewing and such, but there's a lot to be learned just by.
Allison Fleshman:I mean, you know, making work for, you know, years and years on, on with, in particular for you, all the different systems that you had to adapt to.
Allison Fleshman:Yep.
Allison Fleshman:So that's pretty impressive.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:I feel like I learned a lot along the way, obviously.
Scott Krebsbach:And, you know, hindsight is 2020, but I should have,
Allison Fleshman:oh, hindsight.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:Should have opened up a brewery 15 years ago.
Scott Krebsbach:But, you know, I. I was always that guy who I guess I thought there was always something more to learn.
Scott Krebsbach:Somebody else could teach me something.
Scott Krebsbach:I, and then, and I'll be talking about breweries closing.
Scott Krebsbach:I feel like I've been in the business long enough that I've seen so many ups and downs that it's.
Scott Krebsbach:There's never a good time and there's never a bad time to open it up.
Scott Krebsbach:You just do it and figure it out, so, so I'm gonna do it and figure it out.
Scott Krebsbach:We'll see what happens.
Scott Krebsbach:Like when you open a brewery
Joel Hermansen:and then you get hit with a global pandemic.
Joel Hermansen:Yeah, exactly.
Joel Hermansen:It's fun.
Gary Arndt:That's how you gotta do anything.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I mean, everything I've ever done like that in my life, it's just sort of like, all right, let's figure it out.
Scott Krebsbach:Yep.
Scott Krebsbach:Just try not to be scared, I guess.
Scott Krebsbach:Gary has swagger
Gary Arndt:if you haven't picked up on it.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Gary's confident.
Gary Arndt:Well, I mean, I started a business when I was in my twenties, and then I had a friend who had a friend.
Gary Arndt:Next thing you know, I'm hiring people and they're like, how are you gonna handle taxes?
Gary Arndt:And I'm like.
Gary Arndt:I don't know.
Gary Arndt:And I turn, it turns out there are companies that do that for you.
Gary Arndt:Hey.
Gary Arndt:And they will deliver the paychecks for everyone.
Gary Arndt:I'm like, alright, problem solved.
Gary Arndt:And then there's just the next problem and the next problem.
Gary Arndt:And you figure it out because there are other businesses and they've all solved those problems.
Gary Arndt:So it's not rocket science.
Gary Arndt:These are solvable problems.
Gary Arndt:The business stuff, the beer stuff is probably a bigger challenge.
Gary Arndt:And I, you know, when you're talking about all the breweries in this area, I don't think you're necessarily competing against other breweries.
Gary Arndt:It's all the bars that are up and down the avenue that people just go into for a drink.
Gary Arndt:And the other
Bobby Fleshman:experiences, you know, it's everything from the timber rattlers to, all the music that's happening in all the different places and, and the breweries.
Bobby Fleshman:People don't go out to breweries like they used to.
Bobby Fleshman:They used to be an exciting phenomenon.
Bobby Fleshman:You would be able to go.
Bobby Fleshman:Into these towns, like I mentioned before, and, go from one door to the next and celebrate the beer on its own.
Bobby Fleshman:And that's, I think it still happens, but it's not like it used to be.
Bobby Fleshman:So we're all doing different stuff now.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Establishing identities beyond the liquid, for sure.
Allison Fleshman:Ooh.
Allison Fleshman:Which brings me to a question.
Allison Fleshman:so what sort of like, we, what do we focus on?
Allison Fleshman:I have to think about it for a second.
Allison Fleshman:We focus on German loggers and British ails.
Allison Fleshman:Yay.
Allison Fleshman:oh.
Allison Fleshman:And also West Coast IPAs.
Joel Hermansen:Thank you.
Allison Fleshman:I'm having to shove Bobby against the wall to get to the microphone.
Allison Fleshman:what is, so I, I know nothing about the Vol or 2 0 2 volt.
Allison Fleshman:So what's, what's coming?
Allison Fleshman:Where does the
Bobby Fleshman:2 0 2 fit in the name?
Bobby Fleshman:I'm trying.
Bobby Fleshman:You said Vault the address?
Bobby Fleshman:It's an address for the love of goodness.
Bobby Fleshman:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Bobby Fleshman:Officially in the, in the, it's Vault
Scott Krebsbach:2 0 2 Vault Two Vol Vault oh two
Bobby Fleshman:Brewing Company.
Scott Krebsbach:Brewery and Tap Room, technically.
Scott Krebsbach:Gotcha.
Scott Krebsbach:But it's, yeah, it's a mouthful.
Scott Krebsbach:So do you have a lineup yet?
Scott Krebsbach:We don't have a lineup per se, but I guess I am also a little bit more of a traditionalist too.
Scott Krebsbach:So, you know, I would like to eventually have four to five.
Scott Krebsbach:Flagship beers.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:West Coast IPAs.
Scott Krebsbach:5 48.
Bobby Fleshman:5 49.
Bobby Fleshman:You a picked up on it?
Bobby Fleshman:We have a, you you?
Bobby Fleshman:Oh yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:I've listened to the podcast a couple of times.
Scott Krebsbach:So 5 48.
Scott Krebsbach:Where you go?
Scott Krebsbach:One more five.
Bobby Fleshman:The,
Scott Krebsbach:so I, we'll, we'll do a little bit of everything.
Scott Krebsbach:I, I don't want to, I don't know, I don't wanna force beer down people's throats.
Scott Krebsbach:I want.
Scott Krebsbach:The, I don't wanna be full on mob Craft here, but I definitely want the customers to tell me what they like and.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah, and I like to make money, so we'll have a hazy IPA on top whether there we go or not.
Scott Krebsbach:That's,
Bobby Fleshman:it's a trend.
Bobby Fleshman:It's fine.
Bobby Fleshman:It'll go with the internet when they're gonna go away.
Bobby Fleshman:I just like the internet.
Gary Arndt:We've, we've talked about this.
Gary Arndt:When Bobby started, he was a purist and it was just gonna be, oh, I, I'm doing it for the beer.
Gary Arndt:And next thing you know, it's, it's hazy.
Gary Arndt:IP is welcome, cherry and shit and everything now, and.
Joel Hermansen:So he still does beer flavored beer better than anybody I've seen.
Bobby Fleshman:Actually, half the time I can't.
Bobby Fleshman:I have to go back to this full on Mob craft.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm gonna text Billy over at Youngblood because every time I get a, every time I hear a young blood beer name, I have to let him know.
Bobby Fleshman:Full on Mob Craft has gotta be young blood beer.
Bobby Fleshman:I like it
Bobby Fleshman:real time.
Gary Arndt:are you guys gonna serve food?
Gary Arndt:Yes.
Gary Arndt:Like a full kitchen or
Scott Krebsbach:no?
Scott Krebsbach:we're getting a gas fired pizza oven.
Scott Krebsbach:The logistics of this building also is, we wanted to put the kitchen sort of in the middle to be a little bit of a focal point too, but then we have to vent everything about, I don't know, 150 feet to the back of the building.
Gary Arndt:I'm guessing a bank was never designed for Yeah, exactly.
Gary Arndt:Venting.
Gary Arndt:Exactly.
Scott Krebsbach:So it, I don't know, it would be prohibitively expensive to get some kind of a, a hood in there.
Scott Krebsbach:So if we just do gas fired pizza, all you need is a long vent with a, a little bit of an exhaust fan on it.
Scott Krebsbach:So that's what we'll do.
Scott Krebsbach:So
Bobby Fleshman:as much as I was saying that you have to do more than than beer, let's talk about your brewing system.
Bobby Fleshman:Yep.
Bobby Fleshman:What's, what's it gonna look like, the size and number of tanks, et cetera?
Bobby Fleshman:A number of beers are focusing on,
Scott Krebsbach:we got a 10 barrel system from QTS, four fermenters and a bright right now.
Scott Krebsbach:So we'll just keg everything off.
Scott Krebsbach:We have a draft cooler upstairs where we'll have our 12 beers on tap that we're serving, and then a backup.
Scott Krebsbach:And then there's a, a larger cooler downstairs in the basement that will put in all the, eventually it might be nice to have serving tanks, but then it's, it's gonna be drilling holes in the floor and running.
Scott Krebsbach:A pipe from the, or two pipes from the brewery all the way to the front of the building underneath the tank.
Scott Krebsbach:So it's crazy.
Scott Krebsbach:I
Allison Fleshman:am just gonna say, I feel seen right now because these are the conversations we had for years and years and years about how you expand, how do you build, and then how do you lower the tanks down.
Allison Fleshman:I've, I hear you, man.
Allison Fleshman:Oh, it's, maybe Bobby is
Joel Hermansen:a new.
Joel Hermansen:Friend to talk
Bobby Fleshman:about You're off The, so elevator exists, right?
Bobby Fleshman:There are
Scott Krebsbach:two small elevators that can fit like four kegs in there.
Scott Krebsbach:Enough.
Scott Krebsbach:So that's enough.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah, that's enough.
Scott Krebsbach:That's
Bobby Fleshman:fantastic.
Bobby Fleshman:Yep.
Bobby Fleshman:That's.
Scott Krebsbach:I being who I am and the experience I have, I looked at this building and I'm like, oh God, okay.
Scott Krebsbach:I need to solve all of these problems before we actually sign the, the lease on this thing.
Scott Krebsbach:Mm-hmm.
Scott Krebsbach:'cause I still don't know exactly how we're gonna handle where the spent grain is gonna be out back.
Scott Krebsbach:And I still have to find a farmer yet too.
Scott Krebsbach:But, you know, little things like that, that I'll, maybe I'll just take the grain home and dump it in my backyard.
Scott Krebsbach:I don't know.
Gary Arndt:Mash Mountain.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:I mean, I suppose that's what a lot of people don't realize is that.
Gary Arndt:It's a great location in terms of being centrally located.
Gary Arndt:Everyone's gonna see it.
Gary Arndt:You got a lot of windows and everything, but it just wasn't built for this.
Gary Arndt:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:And so just in terms of infrastructure, yeah, I can see how this is totally gonna be a pain.
Scott Krebsbach:So I thought this was, you know, it's a vault, it's a huge bank.
Scott Krebsbach:The, the floors looked like they were super thick and could handle putting tanks on it, but.
Scott Krebsbach:Of course you get a structural engineer in there and they tell you that's gonna cost you tens of thousands of dollars now to put more iron bracing downstairs.
Scott Krebsbach:So if that's what we have to do, so that sucks, that's expensive.
Scott Krebsbach:and then we can't just cut a hole in the floor for a big trench drain too.
Scott Krebsbach:So we have to.
Scott Krebsbach:Kind of, we're gonna slope the floor as much as we possibly can, but there's just gonna be little drains on the floor periodically, wherever the low spots are.
Scott Krebsbach:So it's, you feel so vindicated.
Allison Fleshman:I can't tell you how.
Allison Fleshman:Oh my God.
Allison Fleshman:Well, and that was our, so we and structural engineer as well came in and no, we completely gutted our space.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:and, and found some subfloors that we didn't know were there.
Allison Fleshman:talk about adding some cost, but then when we, when they were like, okay, this is the, this is how you need to build, basically build the steel frame.
Allison Fleshman:I think it, we had to overshoot by what.
Allison Fleshman:10 to 150,000 pounds at st. Oh geez.
Allison Fleshman:Yep.
Allison Fleshman:Mm-hmm.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:and so, yeah, so we went in thinking, okay, we have, you know, completely gut it and build it, but then we had to end up overbuilding.
Allison Fleshman:We're thankful now.
Allison Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:But it was very hard to convince me why we were spending an extra 50 grand to bring out the steel farther into the prohibition room area, which has no tanks whatsoever.
Allison Fleshman:Yep.
Allison Fleshman:Again, I, so there's a space beneath the brewing area.
Allison Fleshman:No.
Allison Fleshman:Well, there was, so there was a, a separate building that this was built onto, and so when we dug into the subfloor to like lower the tap room down by three feet, we found the remains of the previous building that had been here.
Allison Fleshman:Oh,
Allison Fleshman:wow.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:That, that building was, tannery built in like 18.
Bobby Fleshman:70, if I'm not mistaken, this building was built in the teens or around that time.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, it burned down.
Bobby Fleshman:But yeah, we found the remains of it
Allison Fleshman:fun side story.
Allison Fleshman:So we really, we, for a hot minute, we thought that there was a basement and we didn't know exactly how to determine whether or not there was a basement.
Allison Fleshman:And so I contacted my geology friend and I was like, Hey, do you have like a seismometer type thing so you can like ground
Gary Arndt:penetrating
Bobby Fleshman:training radar?
Bobby Fleshman:Yes.
Allison Fleshman:Just to see.
Allison Fleshman:But no, there's no basement.
Bobby Fleshman:We made too many jokes about if we had found Native American bones, that no one would mention the fact, because everything comes to a halt.
Bobby Fleshman:It would halt your destruction.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, exactly.
Bobby Fleshman:So maybe we did, maybe we didn't.
Bobby Fleshman:We totally would've said something.
Scott Krebsbach:Honesty is the best policy.
Scott Krebsbach:Right?
Scott Krebsbach:That's what I've heard.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Gary Arndt:Uh, one is the scheduled opening day.
Scott Krebsbach:our goal is to deal the day before Mile of music.
Scott Krebsbach:Exactly.
Scott Krebsbach:Literally, that's, I. It's getting down to crunch time where it, it seems like it took us a really long time to plan and design and get everything set up, but you know, we've only been under construction, I think for a couple of weeks and we are moving very fast, so, so you got
Gary Arndt:all the tanks and everything at least ordered.
Scott Krebsbach:Oh, we ordered those in December, so they should be ready by the first week in June and delivered that week.
Scott Krebsbach:we're just waiting for our floor to be poured and ready to go and set up and cured so it, it's stable to drop the tanks in and then it'll take them about, I think they said 10 to 14 days to hook everything up, get the boiler and chiller all ready to go, and then we can start passivating the tanks and, and, get in there and start brewing.
Scott Krebsbach:So
Gary Arndt:how many taps do you plan on having?
Scott Krebsbach:We'll have 12.
Bobby Fleshman:The first year you'll, you'll say 12.
Bobby Fleshman:Be enough?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, I know.
Bobby Fleshman:It's, it's
Scott Krebsbach:What
Allison Fleshman:do you guys got now?
Allison Fleshman:28. Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:28 in one spot.
Bobby Fleshman:It's 46 alt hold.
Bobby Fleshman:Geez.
Bobby Fleshman:You don't have different, these mystery taps.
Allison Fleshman:Well, no.
Allison Fleshman:There's three up here and there's eight down outside,
Bobby Fleshman:eight there, and then 28 downstairs.
Bobby Fleshman:And I'm forgetting something else.
Bobby Fleshman:Does that
Joel Hermansen:include the luker?
Bobby Fleshman:And that doesn't include the luker, so it's 30.
Joel Hermansen:And, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:It adds up.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:It's,
Scott Krebsbach:but it's not 30 different beers that you have on, is it?
Bobby Fleshman:it close.
Bobby Fleshman:Could be.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And they're not all beers, you know, everything's going beyond beer now.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And the cooler that they, that these kegs are.
Bobby Fleshman:'cause we don't have brights either.
Bobby Fleshman:We come outta kegs.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And the cooler is built for 16 and we're putting 30 in there.
Bobby Fleshman:It's, it's quite the thing to navigate back there.
Bobby Fleshman:yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:You never have enough of some of these things.
Bobby Fleshman:Cold storage.
Bobby Fleshman:but, but you would be smart if you can figure out a way to navigate and keep it to 12, that would be really intelligent.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Joel Hermansen:You think very highly of me, don't you?
Joel Hermansen:We'll see.
Joel Hermansen:We'll see.
Joel Hermansen:Again, for those listening at home, Allison is experiencing a profound sense of vindication.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:The, I mean, the little satellite bar downstairs for the private event space will probably have four to six taps, and then I don't, we don't have a whole lot of room to expand necessarily.
Scott Krebsbach:We don't.
Scott Krebsbach:Have a really great space for a patio.
Scott Krebsbach:We'll have some chairs and tables out on the street side, but the back is gonna be all parking lot.
Scott Krebsbach:So I guess our space kind of limits on how many taps we're gonna have anyway.
Joel Hermansen:But, so that's 16 total taps.
Joel Hermansen:So you'll have 15 IPAs.
Joel Hermansen:What'll that last tap be dedicated to?
Scott Krebsbach:Probably some Bud Light clone, I think.
Scott Krebsbach:Okay.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah, something like that.
Bobby Fleshman:Another good Young Blood name.
Bobby Fleshman:Exactly.
Bobby Fleshman:Some Bud Light clone.
Scott Krebsbach:So, yeah, we are super excited to be in Appleton, that's for sure.
Scott Krebsbach:I'm, I'm, I'm glad that this was the location that the, the partners wanted to be at, and I'm glad, I, glad I can be a part of it.
Joel Hermansen:Well, there's a history of collaborative relationships that the breweries in this neck of the woods have.
Joel Hermansen:obviously with a, b, F, but stone arch as well.
Joel Hermansen:so I, yeah.
Joel Hermansen:You in Hop Yard.
Joel Hermansen:Yeah.
Joel Hermansen:You, you're coming into, I think, a pretty tight knit community here.
Joel Hermansen:Well, I think
Bobby Fleshman:he kind of knows him.
Bobby Fleshman:Is it too soon or should I say anything about a potential collaboration?
Scott Krebsbach:I don Yes.
Scott Krebsbach:You can say whatever you want.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:We're, we're, we're sort of talking about that between a number of us breweries.
Bobby Fleshman:I think even Hop Yards was mentioned in this.
Bobby Fleshman:Yes.
Joel Hermansen:Oh, you're gonna do an IPA together?
Bobby Fleshman:Cool.
Bobby Fleshman:Nice.
Bobby Fleshman:So I don't know if even we've kind of talked about styles, but yeah, it'll be IPA will be in the name.
Bobby Fleshman:It sounds like.
Allison Fleshman:How about a pale?
Bobby Fleshman:It's in the name.
Bobby Fleshman:It's in the IPA.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Allison Fleshman:Well, we are super, super excited for you to join.
Allison Fleshman:again, as Joel says, it's a very tight-knit community.
Allison Fleshman:and I think we're all kind of figuring out our way, but it's, there have been countless times that one of us has texted one of the other one of us and, Hey, do you have an extra bag of this grain?
Allison Fleshman:Do you have malt or the, the hops or the yeast or, Hey, do you have the oxygen meter?
Allison Fleshman:Oh, our CO2 just went down.
Allison Fleshman:Hey, can you help out?
Allison Fleshman:Whatever.
Allison Fleshman:So I welcome to the neighborhood and luckily you're closer and can easily like help you out.
Allison Fleshman:Oh my gosh.
Bobby Fleshman:Welcome to the circus.
Bobby Fleshman:Hope you never need those services.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, it's better.
Scott Krebsbach:I hope so too.
Scott Krebsbach:Let's do some proper preparation preventing piss poor performance.
Bobby Fleshman:Right, right.
Bobby Fleshman:Are you a Belgian beer fan having worked at Oma Gang?
Scott Krebsbach:So I wasn't at all when I first went out there, but yeah, now I am.
Scott Krebsbach:Okay.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah, we're,
Bobby Fleshman:We'll get into that eventually over time.
Scott Krebsbach:So yeah, it's definitely.
Scott Krebsbach:Belgian beers.
Scott Krebsbach:The brewer that I hired is a fan of Belgian beers too, so we'll put together some recipes for that and try.
Bobby Fleshman:What was his name by the way?
Bobby Fleshman:Did we catch that earlier?
Scott Krebsbach:It's Chris Schempf and he works currently at Hinterland.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Scott Krebsbach:So that'd be awesome.
Scott Krebsbach:I approached him a couple of months ago and saw thought of.
Scott Krebsbach:See if he was interested in this opportunity.
Scott Krebsbach:So cool.
Scott Krebsbach:I
Bobby Fleshman:I sense there'll be some Belgian themed collaborations down the line.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yep.
Bobby Fleshman:That'll be awesome.
Bobby Fleshman:I love that we have no more tanks.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm gonna steal capacity everywhere I can.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:As if you will have any tanks.
Scott Krebsbach:Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:That's the, the main reason for the collabs in the beginning here Yeah.
Scott Krebsbach:Is I, I think the best we're gonna be able to do is maybe get five of our own beers on 12 lines.
Scott Krebsbach:So if we can do a collab with.
Scott Krebsbach:You guys, and we've been talking with, cocoon and G five down in Beloit.
Scott Krebsbach:I know Tim rather well, so mm-hmm.
Scott Krebsbach:I think Tim collaborates with everybody in the state every chance he can.
Scott Krebsbach:And
Allison Fleshman:I'm gonna add this.
Allison Fleshman:Um, so to all the listeners out there, this is where, it takes, quite a while to actually stock up enough.
Allison Fleshman:And so I know a lot of breweries who open up and the first thing people say is, gosh, they ran outta beer.
Allison Fleshman:It is so hard to like prepare.
Allison Fleshman:To open, to predict, to predict, and also.
Allison Fleshman:Because you've only got so much tanks.
Allison Fleshman:You've only got so much time before you have to open, and so please, please enjoy these new breweries with a kind open mind and be very happy when they only have two or three on tap because they're figuring it out and trying to work it out.
Allison Fleshman:We got so slammed by so many people saying that you only have three beers or four beers on tap.
Allison Fleshman:You have so many taps.
Allison Fleshman:What's the deal?
Allison Fleshman:And you only have them, brewing at Appleton Beer Factory.
Allison Fleshman:You don't even brew your own beer.
Allison Fleshman:It's because we had a. Very hard to install tank system that we were trying.
Allison Fleshman:But anyway, so drink with kindness as we open up.
Scott Krebsbach:That should be a bumper sticker.
Scott Krebsbach:Drink with kindness.
Scott Krebsbach:The last thing I'm gonna do is push beer out.
Scott Krebsbach:That's not ready to, so it's, I don't.
Scott Krebsbach:I am more than willing to even have an empty tap line if I have to, if the beer needs
Gary Arndt:Joel, you always have your finger on the pulse of things.
Gary Arndt:That's
Joel Hermansen:As long as it's not this one.
Joel Hermansen:Ouch.
Joel Hermansen:Okay.
Joel Hermansen:Listeners, for those of you who are wondering what Gary's been poking me about, you'll have to subscribe to the Patreon to hear the full story.
Gary Arndt:Well, now that we're fully off track, I think this is a good time to conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:Producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kalsow.
Gary Arndt:Without David, this show would not exist.
Gary Arndt:Remember, you can follow the show over on Facebook to get updates between the show and over on Patreon to hear wonderful stories like how Joel mangled his hand.
Gary Arndt:And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
