Vinnie Cilurzo's Woes on Opening a Second Russian River Brewing Location

David Kalsow: 00:00:04

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Respecting the Beer.

David Kalsow: 00:00:07

This week we're continuing our conversation with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Company.

David Kalsow: 00:00:11

That's right, Pliny the Elder, the Younger, and everything else in between.

David Kalsow: 00:00:16

Let's just jump right back in

David Kalsow: 00:00:18

McFleshman's: so

David Kalsow: 00:00:18

we can't, we can't go too far before we talk about your sour beer program that you, you're a wine guy originally, and this has to have something to do with how this came to be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:00:28

Yeah, the, the, uh, you know, that, that trip I mentioned the Belgium in 1999.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:00:34

I, I was 19 years old.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:00:36

I remember going to Canon on that trip and doing a walking tour through the, the brewery there, which you've, if you've never been, it's one of the most amazing breweries in the world that, that I've been to.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:00:49

you know, it's ti it's truly a museum.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:00:52

And the brewhouse runs on one motor and then they've got these belts and pulley that crisscross each other and they've just got a rubber mallet and they can knock the belts from one set of pulleys to the other to drive other gears that do this or that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:07

It's pretty spectacular.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:08

Um, and I was, I,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:10

McFleshman's: OSHA approved, I'm

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:11

Yeah, I was a, I always been a big fan of Brit Myis, the yeast that is a part of the lambic process, and we, we use it in a, in all of our wild, funky beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:21

But, you know, I do have this connection to barrels and, you know, taking care of them.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:27

And so I, I think there is a connection there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:29

It's, it's ironic that one of the reasons I liked home brewing was that it got me into making beer that, you know, took 14, 21 days, you know, maybe a month.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:41

And, and it got me away from wine making that was, you know, year two years to make a product.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:47

And now, you know, it comes full circle that we're doing all these wild, funky beers that sometimes take up, up to three years to make.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:54

But we, you know, it's also the connection we have.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:01:56

We're in the middle of wine country, so Sonoma County where we're at has.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:00

You know, several hundred wineries over the hill is Napa more famous than Sonoma but more known for auto parts.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:07

We're known for wine and beer, of course.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:09

And but, uh, but all, all kidding aside, so we do have literally hundreds of wineries.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:14

So sourcing barrels is super easy for us, and they're a, they're a big part of the whole program.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:21

And so we have a, a whole line of beers where, you know, they match the beer, matches the specific barrel, whether it's a pinot noir barrel or a Cabernet barrel, and the recipes are built around it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:32

They all have Bri Icees, most of them have bacteria.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:36

So good bacteria is like lactobacillus poc, occus, which, you know, for lactobacillus you find that in yogurt, kimchi, you know, so on and so forth.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:45

It's, it's in, you know, kombucha.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:47

It's in a lot of, of products that people eat, you know, consume, whether it's a beverage or a food.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:02:53

and it's a, and we also spontaneously ferment, so we have a cool ship as, as well, and that's more of that lambic style that we call sonam.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:02

So it's Sonoma and Lambic contracted

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:04

McFleshman's: Which is a beautiful name.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:06

We're trying to come up with one a name, as good as that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:10

But, uh, but yeah, it's, you know, it, it, so to answer your question, yeah, it's a little bit back to my wine making, uh, background as much as our love for wine, that higher acidity, um, the creativeness that comes with it, that really.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:26

There is no styles if you don't want there to be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:29

There can be, but there doesn't have to be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:32

you know, and, and it's also, especially with the spontaneous beers, it's Mother Nature is really driving where the flavor profile goes.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:39

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:40

I'm glad you bring up Canone.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:41

'cause I believe we told the, well, surely we've told this story about how we had a friend who had canone bottles that we were like, oh, let's not clean those out and let's, let's build that up a little bit.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:51

Propagate those drag, propagate that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:52

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:53

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:53

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:54

So our, our program was a fast forward 12 years.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:56

12 years.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:56

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:03:57

We have, I would say, I think we're 36 or 40 casks

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:02

amazing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:03

That's cool.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:03

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:04

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:04

No, it's, I mean, it's something you can do anywhere.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:06

Um, and it doesn't, you know, have to be super elaborate.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:11

And at one point that represented 10% of our volume

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:15

sales every year.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:16

Once we built the big

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:18

Windsor facility, that number dropped significantly.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:21

But, uh, and, and at a time, maybe, yeah, probably a couple years pre COVID it seemed like everybody in California was making a wild, funky barrel age

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:32

beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:32

And it got to the point where everyone was just diluting themselves in the market and there wasn't, there was a lot of bad, wild, sour beer out there where a lot of acetic acid, acetic acid being the balsamic vinegar, compound, which is not good.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:49

You want really clean, crisp

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:51

acidity.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:51

You don't want balsamic vinegar.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:53

McFleshman's: And Dan Carey talks a lot about that too.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:55

He has philosophies on

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:56

absolutely.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:58

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:04:58

Dan, Dan and I are very much aligned there and and.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:02

And I hate to say say it, but the fact is, is that it's been better for those of us that are still in it because everything out there, at least in California is that, you know, for breweries that are making these beers are super clean and, and really nice, you know, acidity and great flavor profile.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:21

but it also has meant that sales have gone up for us.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:24

So we've, we're actually now adding more barrels and, uh, we, we have a, everything's more draft driven now than bottles.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:33

'cause I think, I think a lot of people that were really are, are into these beers still have like massive sellers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:39

But that's okay because we're available mostly statewide through California.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:43

So if an account wants a true barrel age, you know, funky wild sour beer, we have them available and we have them rotating around from one variety to

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:53

McFleshman's: Always at the.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:54

And yeah, and, and we, we have a whole line that uses grapes.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:05:58

You know, we're in wine country, so we've, we do one every year with Sauvignon Blanc.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:02

We've done one with Petit Zarah, with Merlott,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:04

with Rah, Cabernet, uh, so on and so forth.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:07

It's, it's a really fun, uh, program to, to have.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:11

And it's just, you know, I, I, when Natalie and I. Talk about our business model.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:17

It's been diversified the whole time.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:19

Whether it's like truly how we distribute through our, we used to be one pub, now two restaurants.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:25

We've always had distribution.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:26

We run self distribution locally, so we have 500

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:29

accounts that we deliver to in the Bay Area and Napa and Sonoma, Marin.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:33

Um, so that from a business standpoint we're super diversified.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:36

And then from a portfolio standpoint, yes, it's mostly.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:40

P, plenty of the elder with an IPA, but now, you know, we were talking about laggers before, specifically STS and our, our two lagers now represent 15%

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:49

of our total volume production, and that was virtually at zero when we opened the Windsor facility in 2018.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:56

So that's gotten to that point.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:06:57

You know, we have the sour, wild, funky beers, and then we've also have a little five barrel pilot brewery that I run myself.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:03

And so we've got all kinds of, you know, experiments going that then trickle down into the actual, you know, production beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:12

And we rarely create new recipes in there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:15

It's more like brewing, uh, different, uh, practices or concepts or trialing something that will eventually work its way into a beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:24

And, um, a good example is a, there's a new hop from Siegel Ranch called Angier.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:29

And right now we're the largest purchaser, purchaser of Angier.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:34

And that's now.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:36

Blind Pig and Pliny, and that started out just in the pilot brewery a couple years ago.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:40

And Tangier is this amazing orange focused quality.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:44

Like if you want orange in your flavor, aroma in your beer, Tangier is the

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:48

hop.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:49

And we've, you know, Piney has always been built on pine from the Simco stone fruit from.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:07:55

The Amarillo Hops and then the citrus co component came a little bit from Simco, but it was always a hodgepodge of other hops and we could never like get it super consistent.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:06

And I can still remember the first time being out in the field at Siegel Ranch with John Siegel and the ranch manager, Martin Ramos and, uh, rubbing Tanger and going, oh my God, this is just straight up orange.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:19

It's like cutting into an orange in that split second when the oil sprays out and you

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:23

smell it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:23

That's, that's Tanger.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:25

And John goes, that's exactly what I told Martin.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:27

And, and I said to John, I said, this is the hop I've been looking for like forever because it helped clean up the hop bill in Pliny the Elder.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:36

I would always, I was always blending like multiple hops to try to get this clean orange citrusy kind of quality.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:43

And, and then here comes this hop that they bred and it's like, this is it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:47

So,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:48

McFleshman's: did they know, so it was chicken and egg.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:49

Now, did they know that you were seeking this type of, of punchy citrus flavor or was it like, oh, by happenstance,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:08:56

was just by happenstance and, and I think, I think that is where people like Martin or Jason Peralt, who's the, one of the two breeders for the hot breeding company, which is Yakima chief and Haas together, or Dr.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:12

Ron Beatson from New Zealand, like these guys are the real legends of the IPA movement because I'm, I'm sure you guys know this, but maybe your listeners don't, that it takes at minimum eight to 10 years to get a hop from its first, you know,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:28

time when it's been bred to being commercially released.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:31

And so when you think about Simco being released 25 years ago, you know, so in the late, late nineties or whenever it was like they had bred it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:40

10 years, started breeding it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:42

10 years before that, nobody was making an IPA at that point.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:46

There was no use for it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:47

Granted, it was supposed to be a bittering hop, but still, you know, Citra was, I believe originally bred by the request of Miller and it just hung out in the field.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:09:58

And then eventually a couple breweries, um, both West Coast here and some from your area were like looking for something that was like that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:08

And they were like, oh, we have this hop that's been hanging out

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:11

McFleshman's: Oh, by the way.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:12

You know, mosaic is Simcoe's daughter,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:16

so without.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:17

Simco Mosaic doesn't even exist.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:19

But, but it shows you like how important the HOP readers are.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:23

These, these, these people are the backbone of the IPA movement and they never get their due credit, but they, they, they deserve a lot of credit for the IPA movement.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:33

And even, you know, for the flavors that we can create in beer from sometimes a pretty small amount of,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:41

of hops like New Zealand hops.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:43

So that's why I love New Zealand hops.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:45

We just started making, uh, commercially for distribution though West coast pills.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:51

I'm not sure if you're familiar with that style.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:53

It was first brewed by a little brewery in Southern California.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:58

Highland Park, Bob Kunz,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:10:59

the co-owner with his wife.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:01

it's basically, um, it's a pilsner but hopped like an IPA, so fermented cold, so lower alcohol body of a pilsner, but hopped like an IPA, we just, we've been brewing it in the pilot brewery and then at our Santa Rosa pub last year and did our first big distribution release about a month ago.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:19

And, it's lower alcohol.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:21

So Tanger is the main hop in it, but we're supporting it with New Zealand hops.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:25

'cause New Zealand hops tend to have a big polyphenol like kick to it, which gives you mouthfeel and

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:30

body just like it would in wine.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:32

And um, New Zealand hops are great like that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:34

It doesn't take a lot of 'em to make that fullness.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:37

You,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:38

McFleshman's: What, how does that relate to a cold IPA in your mind?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:41

Uh, to me a cold, IPA would, would have a full adjunct load.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:45

So you would

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:46

eat, you would use rice, or, uh, maybe corn.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:50

I guess I, the better ones I've had use rice, whereas, um, west coast pills is a hundred percent malt.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:11:57

Uh, and both would be fermented cold.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:00

But I think your, your, uh, west coast pills, you're gonna get a little bit of the nuanced qualities that you would get of the fermentation profile from.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:10

A true pilsner that's not using IPA hops.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:13

And then with the West coast pills you're using IPA hops.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:16

So, um, and I'm, and I'm ours is called Russian River one 10.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:19

It references the length of the Russian River in miles from

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:22

start to finish, 110 miles.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:24

But I'm loving the style 'cause it's 5.2% alcohol, at least ours is.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:29

And you know, as you get older you can't drink

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:31

as much, but you still want the big hop load.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:34

And, and I'm, I would love to see West Coast pills get brewed more would love to see a, I mean, we're 50,000 barrels.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:43

We're not a small brewery anymore.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:45

Um, but I would love to see someone even bigger, take it nationally just to get it out there and get it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:53

Uh, get people educated, uh, by it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:12:55

But we're, we're fully committed to the style and are gonna do probably six releases a year of, of Russian River one 10.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:03

And, uh, we've turned it into a, uh, fundraiser beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:06

So a portion of the, uh, proceeds from the beer will go to a local nonprofit, the Russian River Keeper, and that's who keeps the Russian River clean.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:15

And that's, that's our water source here in

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:16

Sonoma County.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:17

So it's an important organization and we thought it was the right thing to do to support them with this beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:22

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:23

McFleshman's: That's awesome.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:24

Yeah, we'll do our part.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:24

We brew a ton of West Coast styles.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:27

We'll do our part to bring that to the Midwest best.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:29

We can.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:30

We think we meet some of the best West Coast, uh, around, we have, uh, quite a following around here.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:35

It's not like there we're competing against all of the breweries, not that you guys compete against, but still out here, we, we do.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:41

it's the beauty of the, you know, beer industry is that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:45

You know, high tide floats all boat and everyone shares information.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:13:48

you know, especially now as there is, you know, some people will tell you the industry's a little bit shaky, but you know, now's more of the time than ever that we all need to support each other and get people in drinking beer and whatnot.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:02

McFleshman's: Okay.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:03

I'm gonna have to lead you into this Windsor story.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:05

This is the culmination of your, of your life's work, uh, you and Natalie both.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:09

I, I want to hear about this.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:10

I haven't been able to make it there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:12

I know you, you mentioned a cool ship and, uh, you talked to open fermentation.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:17

I, this is like everything that you've been talking about this hour.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:20

You've been talking about your IPAs and your lagers and your sour program.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:24

Y Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:24

You know, the idea of building what we affectionately call our dream brewery was something that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:33

Uh, I'm not sure we, I mean, you always in the back of your mind like, yeah, I wanna build a brewery like Sierra Nevada for you guys in your area to be like, new GLADiS, just

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:44

this like pinnacle place.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:47

And both, both of those breweries were, uh, incredibly inspirational for Natalie and I and but you, you don't know that you can ever get there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:14:57

It's, it's like the average person being able to build their own home from scratch.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:02

That's the best way that I can describe it in the sense that you, you know, let's say you're are lucky enough to, you know, have a blank piece of land and you can build the house and if you're into cooking you can build, you have your dream kitchen with whatever kind of stove and the layout and maybe you want an island or, you know, whatever it is.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:23

And most people don't get to do that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:24

And, and so we've been very fortunate to be able to, to do this.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:29

But there was one thing that we had.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:31

Ultimately decided on, and we weren't gonna do it while we still had investors.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:36

And so, in two, I think it was about 2014 when we bought out 20 of our 25 investors, and then a couple years later, we were able to buy out the remaining five.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:47

During that period, we started designing a brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:51

And, you know, thankfully we had this beer, plenty of the elder that was selling.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:56

We were selling an awful lot of it just through our, our brew pub.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:15:59

People were lined up to buy it by the case.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:01

And, um, and so it helped fund the brewery, buy out our investors and, and fund this, you know, our dream brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:08

Um, and it was an amazing process.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:10

I, I'll never wanna do it again.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:12

Um, you know, I, I remember

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:15

McFleshman's: Deb talk about their

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:16

after, uh, Sierra Nevada built, uh, mills River.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:20

Ken said to me, if I ever say I'm gonna do this again, don't let me do it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:23

Just

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:24

McFleshman's: That's fair.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:24

kill me.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:25

Take me out.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:26

they, they did this.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:28

This, uh, what was it, like 80,000, 90,000 square foot expansion a few years ago in Chico.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:34

And I said, well, Ken, you did it again.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:36

And he goes, no, I didn't put a brew house in, so it doesn't count.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:39

So,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:40

but uh, but yeah, so the process was longer in design than it was in actual construction.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:47

Construction was only 18 months for an 85,000 square foot

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:50

McFleshman's: Wow.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:16:51

but yeah, everything from a German brewhouse fully automated to, uh, six open top fermenters to a full yeast propagation system, automated, um, a slew of lin conical, so cone bottom tanks.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:06

They're all, it's technically an.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:08

Outdoor tank system that we put indoors.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:11

So there's a whole catwalk system on them so we can dry hop from the top.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:15

And then packaging hall, at the time we, when we built it, we weren't canning yet and we still mostly bottle, but we do can some of our beers and then the full funky.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:26

Sour Wild Brewery, which we've since downsized into Just what, what is the barrel room?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:32

And then that other portion that was, uh, the Funky Cellar has now become what we call lager house.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:37

And so we've got all the lagering tanks in there, and we are a can line in there and we can make ails in there of course, but we mostly do do lagers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:46

Yeah, it's, it's kind of a, the culmination of all of Natalie and, you know, mine's years work it's also a bit of our retirement, if you will, you know, someday we're, you know, we're gonna have to figure out what the next step is.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:17:59

And, um, and so there's all kinds of expansion capability built into it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:04

But in the meantime, we're really happy where we're at and we're back to our two, 3% growth a year.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:11

And that's always been our, our mindset and mantra.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:15

And, you know, we always think about like.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:17

What, like what's the purpose of the decision?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:21

Like, do you just add a tank to make more beer?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:24

Well, in the world of IPA and you're distributing like we are, that's just more stress, you know, to like stress about is the beer fresh?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:31

Is the bartender cleaning the lines, blah, blah, blah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:34

So, you know, we're really happy with the volume of beer we make and it's more than I ever thought we would make.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:40

But it's, it's also, you know, pretty crazy to look at the building and see the size of it and look at the operation and just are like, wow, look, look what it's become.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:51

So all from home brewing?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:18:54

McFleshman's: Yeah, well we're, we're a ship in a bottle here 'cause we're, what are we, we're at just over a thousand barrels a year.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:01

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:01

We're maybe, we're little.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:02

We contract up to 1400 and we're, we're looking for our next steps and Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:07

But we are a ship in a bottle and it's like, I, like we, um, a shout out to our neighbors.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:12

Appleton Beer Factory is actually the brewery next door to us.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:14

And they house our joint sour beer program.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:17

'cause they have this huge basement, which we don't have.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:19

But it's, it really, it's like those tiny house shows where you, like, you can't imagine people living in these little spaces.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:25

And it's like when I go to other breweries or hearing about yours, like, what, what are the feelings of this?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:30

Like I actually have space to do stuff now.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:33

Because your other breweries are pretty small

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:35

Yeah, it did.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:36

You know, they were, and, but you know, with that comes a giant loan payment.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:41

'cause we've

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:41

done this on cash flow

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:43

McFleshman's: Trade off.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:44

and debt.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:45

We, we don't have any investors.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:47

We don't have private equity.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:48

We don't have a multinational brewery behind us.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:51

Mul, multi international brewery

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:53

behind us.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:54

Nothing, not there's anything wrong with that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:55

It's just, it's just how it is.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:57

We're

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:19:58

kind of fiercely independent in, in that sense.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:01

And, um, and I, and I still remember those, those small, you know, when we, when we were a thousand barrels

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:08

or a couple thousand barrels and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:13

You know, I think that's.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:15

One of the things, and Natalie and I talk about this all the time that we believe has kind of clouded the industry in, in America.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:23

It's always like, you gotta grow, you know, grow or die.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:26

You know, I remember being at the CBC one year, a larger craft brewery owner said that, and, and that that just isn't the case.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:33

I mean, we're amongst hundreds of wineries who a winery is 10,000 cases or 5,000 cases and they figure it out, you know, every year.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:41

And you know that, that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:42

Ethnic restaurant on the corner, whether it's a Chinese restaurant or Mexican food or whatever it is, local restaurant, but it doesn't have to be ethnic, like, you know, it's just a family running the business and that's it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:53

Like, it doesn't, doesn't, everyone doesn't have to grow.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:56

And so, you know, when.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:20:58

When you see the Brewer's Association numbers and it says 50% of the breweries are growing and 50% aren't, it's like, yeah, but how many of those that aren't are just flat?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:07

And

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:08

that's

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:08

McFleshman's: They're maintaining.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:09

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:09

they're maintaining and you know, there's all kinds of ways to be efficient, both small and big.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:15

I mean, it's easier to find those efficiencies, I think when you're big like we just put in a second baler, one for plastic and one for cardboard, and it's gonna save us $24,000 a year in trash recycle

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:28

pickup fees.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:28

And the whole thing cost us like $12,000, which is a lot of money.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:32

But when the ROI is six months, it's like, this is amazing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:35

And that's gonna be in perpetuity.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:37

So you can find ways to save money, or like our production manager finding a new box company that, you know, a box is a box as long as the flaps close and the print looks good.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:48

Like, it's not like hops or something where maybe the quality is, it could be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:21:54

One way or the other which obviously we would never compromise there, but there's so many places that small businesses can find, ways to save money, which then go to the bottom line and become profitability, and those become the raises you give your employees or you take home, whatever it is.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:10

So, and

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:11

McFleshman's: And this, and this kind of, you walked right into one of my bigger questions I wanted to ask you, and it's about Windsor and I meant to ask, uh, Ken Grossman about the Mills River Brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:24

I meant to ask him this and I forgot to, and so I thought when I, when I have this interview, I'm gonna ask Vinny, did you open Windsor because you needed to or because you wanted to?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:35

Uh, it was both.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:37

And I can answer and I can answer, I can answer that for

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:40

Ken.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:40

'cause I know him well enough that they kind of needed to.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:43

I

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:43

remember having a conversation with their then, um, director of finance, bill Bales, and there was like the, the inertia of the ball was rolling and like they were at capacity in Chico and they had to open it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:22:57

Like when you're that big, you know, their distributors are like, kind of demanding it for us.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:03

It was both.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:04

I remember this, this moment with Ken where, uh, I was telling them we were gonna build our dream brewery and what it was gonna be, and, and we were debt free at that point.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:13

And I remember Ken asking me, he goes, you sure you wanna do this?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:17

And he goes, why?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:18

And I said, 'cause I want a brewery that we can be proud of.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:21

Like, you know, before we were just in this tire, our old production brewery was in this tired building.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:26

And, you know, it just was kind of, it was not, it was okay, but it wasn't like pristine in what we wanted.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:32

you know, and, and our, our, what we searched and sought for quality required this brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:39

And, um, and he never asked me that again.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:42

And, you know, it was, Ken was a huge part of helping us with, you know, design and that sort of thing, which was really great.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:51

But, but yeah, so it's, so it's a little, it was a little bit of both.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:23:54

And then we, we designed in certain things that we couldn't afford at the time, and that was something that Dan Carey had said to me at some point during the design phase.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:04

He's like, look, if you have.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:07

Something that you want to design in, but you can't maybe afford it, bring over the old piece of equipment, but design the space for the new piece.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:16

And we did that with our, our keg racker.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:18

Um, we wanted to do CO2 recovery, couldn't afford it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:23

Plus we were in a CO2 contract, but we just got out of the contract and fired that up.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:29

This past July.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:30

So we're now a hundred percent off the grid with CO2 and we're capturing all of our CO2

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:36

and you reuse it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:38

And we have so much CO2 that we send it to Santa Rosa as well.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:42

And that runs a hundred percent on our own CO2.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:45

So we no longer purchase CO2.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:47

So then there's like that sustainability piece.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:49

Uh, all the wastewater in Windsor gets captured and then runs through a whole cleaning process.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:24:55

And then that, uh, water goes through at a point where typically you would discharge it back to the municipality that goes through a multiple multi-step filtration process.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:05

And then that water comes back in the building.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:07

And that's our cleaning, CIP water for the brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:10

So all of our brewery water is reclaimed and we get to to, to buy water, uh, non-potable water at a discount from the municipality, from the town of Windsor.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:19

And that's all the water that landscapes, that, that water is the landscape.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:23

And, uh, bill just got passed in California that will hopefully will.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:29

Actually clear the true legislation of it in the next year or so, and we'll be able to run all of our toilets on that re recycled water, what's called purple pipe water.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:38

And so we, we double plumbed all the restrooms to be able to run on recycled water and unpotable water that we can buy at a discount, which ultimately is saving water because now we're not using domestic water.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:52

And, uh, and we've, you know, those are things that we couldn't do on a smaller scale.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:25:58

But on a larger scale you can start to realize some of these sustainability, you know, practices and initiatives.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:06

And it's not the end all.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:08

And you know, every brewery does a little bit of.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:12

Some sort of environmental sustainability recycling with the fact that your spent grain goes to a farmer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:17

Probably, you know, the, I, you know, most breweries heat exchanger, where they cool the wart and the unfermented beer is, you know, room temperature, water flowing one way, or cold liquor water flowing one way.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:27

They exchanged their heat and now you've just saved all that energy.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:30

So, there's, there's a lot of sustainability that happens even in the smallest brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:37

McFleshman's: So I'm going to be listening to this recording myself many times over and playing it for my wife, Allison, as we, as we plan or don't plan our expansion.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:47

I was about to say, I appreciate the inspiration of the beers, but I'm looking over at him going, we are not building another building.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:26:55

No, but I, I, I appreciate though the, the when we built our building we, uh, we planned to put a cool ship up on the top and I don't remember how big it's gonna be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:04

Uh, just a 10 hec, we just a 10 hec.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:06

But when we had the whole place gutted, we actually built these piers uh, steel piers that go all the way up through.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:12

And so all we have to do is just set the cool ship on it

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:15

to support it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:16

McFleshman's: like, it's all there and we've got space for two other horizontal tanks that we've already got the glycol and everything plumbed and ready to go for that forward thinking.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:23

We're our cellar expansion now, which will double our, of course we are in the benefit of Wisconsin.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:28

And so, um, about, was it a week ago?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:31

We were battling minus 20 and our glycol froze

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:35

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:36

It's the other problem you have.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:37

It's too cold.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:39

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:39

If you, we had to tent our glycol compress.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:41

I like how he says we, I did nothing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:43

He was up on the roof in minus 20 a space heater under the tent.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:47

It's straight up Wisconsin, but it was minus 40 windchill I think up there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:51

Yeah, it's rough.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:51

Well, that's like I was saying though, the beauty of this industry is the fact that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:27:56

You know, you can reach out to other people in the industry that have gone through it, smaller, large, you know, and that's, uh, that's, that's amazing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:04

There's this, there's this moment when we had put the silos in and, um, then we have two 50,000 pound malt silos at the Windsor Brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:15

And I woke up at four in the morning and had this like, thought like, oh crap.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:21

I think I, I think we set them the wrong way.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:24

And I went in on Sunday morning and I would often go in on Sunday and meet with a couple of the job site superintendents.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:30

And that was the one day that nobody was there.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:32

But it was a great day to walk through and see things.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:34

And sure enough, I, not only did we set them wrong, but the in bed plates were in the wrong place.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:39

So the way that the auger line was supposed to work wasn't gonna work, and we were gonna have to rip up.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:45

It was, it ended up being $48,000 worth of concrete and labor.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:50

And anyways.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:52

I literally just randomly Ken happens to call me and says, Hey, how's it going?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:28:56

I'm like, well, let me tell you, I cried on his shoulder for

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:00

half an hour.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:01

And then he's like, ah, the number of times that I've, you know, that we've screwed up did this, that he's probably just BSing me.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:07

It's probably never happened.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:08

But, uh,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:10

McFleshman's: we

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:10

no, but that was, but it was very like, helpful and that, you know,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:14

the, these things, these things do happen, and when you are spending multiples of millions of dollars, mistakes are gonna happen and, uh, you're, you're just gonna have to roll with the punches.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:25

but yeah, so

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:26

McFleshman's: We always talk about Allison and I about commiserating with local brewery owners, my gosh.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:31

Of our scale.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:32

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:32

Very different scale, but still you need, you need your peer group to commis with Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:36

Because there's, there's only so many ways you can say like owning a brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:39

Huh?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:39

It's like, it's, it's really about, you know, cleaning toilets and working on cash flow.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:44

It's not, I mean, the beer is just

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:45

plumbing a

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:46

and then you, you know, you throw in the restaurant aspect

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:48

McFleshman's: Oh gosh,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:49

is, you know, the restaurant business is, is hard.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:51

And, uh,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:53

you know, we've, we've got two and, um, you know, we, we love it for

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:57

McFleshman's: You didn't learn the first time, so,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:29:59

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:00

We love it for the, that direct connection to the customer and

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:04

getting feedback and I'm, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but like, you know, that, that difficulty of, of the restaurant industry, it's, it's

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:13

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:14

Well, I'm.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:15

what they say

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:16

McFleshman's: We say, I say, yeah, we actually, so we were strongly advised against opening a restaurant.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:21

So we actually aren't, we are just a

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:23

Just a brewery.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:24

Okay.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:25

McFleshman's: we tried and are still trying the, um, the food truck endeavor we do have, so we're in the downtown space, which remind you it was negative 40 wind chill last week, week.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:33

So the truck industry has it seasoned.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:35

Well, I mean, it warmed up.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:36

I think it's only 20 outside.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:37

No packed downstairs, but it's carrying food.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:40

We got food trucks.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:41

We hope we do.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:42

But now it's a challenge because people demand food.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:45

And so it's now we're trying to figure out how can we in our ship, in a bottle, you know, build a small pizza oven or

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:50

Yeah, well,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:51

pizza's a, pizza's a good one to do 'cause it's,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:54

you know, you can do it easily.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:30:56

Thin crust doesn't overfill them, still sell beer and it's pretty good profitability.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:01

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:01

That's the hope.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:02

Before we sat down, we weren't intending to make this a question, but it became one, someone mentioned, uh, or maybe they did mean to, uh.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:11

Ask.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:11

Ask Vinny what his death row beer flight would be.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:14

Death row beer flight is now our new thing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:19

I think it's, they asked me about it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:20

Yeah,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:21

McFleshman's: like, if you were convicted of a crime that you clearly did not commit and you were about to be executed for, what four beers would you have in your beer flight?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:29

We used to do the Mount Rushmore thing, and maybe we still will, but brewers get a little uncomfortable with that.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:33

Like they don't wanna leave off names, so

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:36

Uh, so four, four beers is my, is my, uh, quota here.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:40

I would go,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:42

McFleshman's: to be you have, wait, wait.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:43

You're at least at your original location.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:46

How many is in a flight?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:47

uh, like 18?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:49

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:49

No,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:50

Our, uh, our flight

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:51

McFleshman's: going industry standard.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:52

our flight is legendary

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:54

At some point, it was in the top five photographed food items on Instagram.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:31:59

Uh,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:00

it was in there with like voodoo donuts from Portland, Oregon.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:03

I was like, what?

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:04

This is crazy.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:05

Four beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:06

I would go,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:07

um,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:08

McFleshman's: on a flight is crazy.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:09

boy, uh, probably, uh, Schrom, uh, Pilsner from Germany, uh, Schrom or Brewery or Pilsner.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:19

Going with, uh, probably Orval.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:24

I'm gonna go with

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:24

McFleshman's: I had it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:25

I'm, I'm gonna go with like multiple Belgian beers here.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:28

I'm a huge Belgian beer fan.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:30

Duval.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:32

McFleshman's: Good one.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:33

And, um,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:36

I'd probably have to throw in, uh, one IPA and I would go for, uh, north Park Brewing Hop Fu.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:43

So, but Honorable mention would go to, uh, TAUs Bulba from Durka or from, uh, uh, de la San.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:51

And then Xx Bitter from Durka and Belgium are both two of my favorite beers as well.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:32:56

I'm, I love, love, love Belgium beer, and we still brew as many as we can, but, uh, yeah,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:02

it's my, I think my, my favorite place to go drink beer is in Belgium.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:06

It's such

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:07

a great beer culture.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:08

McFleshman's: I have yet to go.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:09

I, uh, we will make it there soon.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:11

Check out that humility.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:13

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:13

Of his, of his, I love it.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:16

nah,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:17

McFleshman's: Drinking two of his

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:18

no.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:18

And the reason I, the reason I like Orval or.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:22

Uh, like a Brett finished beer, like

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:24

revolves that it's constantly changing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:26

So you have this evolutionary beer that's like if you're on a desert island, if you're on death row, well then I guess it till you get, get whack.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:33

But

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:34

McFleshman's: that's true.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:36

But you, if you're de if it's deserted island, you need to replenish it in some way.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:39

So there's, you know, not quite deserted, I

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:41

Yeah, well, at least with Val then you have the yeast and the Belgian beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:44

You have yeast in the bottle and you could keep re, re propagating when, when, when you're in Belgium, uh, you know, the glassware is a big part of it, but like Dove is a completely different beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:33:58

It's so hoppy and snappy and bitter and, it is just an absolute be, you know, beautiful beer and West Mall Triple there is, is just so yeast driven and focused and, they're wonderful beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:10

I, you know, those, those beers don't sell near like they used to here in the States, whether they're the true Belgium beers or if you're making inspired beers from Belgium like we do, but we still won't give up on them.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:22

You know, where,

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:23

you know, we have those on the board all the time.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:26

McFleshman's: I am so thirsty now.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:29

Those are, those are classic.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:30

I regret only one thing about this interview is that's not having an orval in front of me before we started it, I knew it was gonna come up.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:37

Uh, yeah, I, I was gonna say congrats on everything.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:40

You know, your, your career in the, in the Windsor facility and what you've done for the entire industry.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:45

You are the most, one of the most, uh, communicative.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:50

And I, like I've emailed you and I don't wait long for that response.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:53

And it seems like you do that with everybody.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:55

I.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:34:55

We try, we try and yeah, it was a lot of people helped us in our early years and you know, we're firm believers of the high tide floats all boats and that you need to get back and that we're, you know, we're kind of one big team in the craft beer industry.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:08

I mean, we're still

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:09

a tiny amount of the beer sales compared to all the bigger industrial breweries.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:14

So, you know, I'm pretty sure that helping someone else in a different part of the country isn't gonna affect us at all and it just makes for better beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:24

McFleshman's: well, hey, say hey to Natalie and I may take you up on the in kind thing.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:29

We'll see how that works out.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:30

Absolutely.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:30

Would love to.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:32

Cheers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:32

Yeah.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:33

Cheers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:33

Thanks.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:34

McFleshman's: yet.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:35

Alright, that'll conclude this episode of Respecting the Beer.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:38

The producer of Respecting the Beer is David Kalsow.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:39

Without David, there would be no show.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:41

Please remember to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and to join the Patreon page where you can get invites to special events and access to special beers.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:51

Links to both of these are in the show notes.

Vinnie Cilurzo: 00:35:53

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