Jimmy, AJ and Joe stop in to Bellaire, MI to check in with our old friends at Short's Brewing, and my how things have changed. Is Bellaire still a quiet Hamlet or a Beer Mecca? And is the slogan still "Michigan Only, Michigan Forever"? (hint: both times, check the latter.) Enjoy a visit with some old friends. Cheers!
St. Louis Dispatch: An Interview with Tom Schlafly.
Jimmy had a chance to sit down with Tom Schlafly, Chairman and co-Founder of Schlafly Brewing in St. Louis, at their BottleWorks facility - what a lovely afternoon. He had some fascinating answers to our incredibly succinct questions. Also a big thank you to Lindsie Van Winkle for her service as still photographer and new-to-the-team dark haired Happy Hour Gal. Enjoy!
At The Happy Hour Guys we’re fascinated by Craft Industries - and we feel that our business (Acting) is a Craft industry as well, so there’s a simpatico there.
We’re both lucky in that we found careers and what from most people call Recreation - I mean, I’m a lawyer in my other life, and nobody ever says anything nice about lawyers, so…
What was your ‘Gateway Beer’?
Well, let me give you some context. I was in San Francisco in 1983 and I tasted Anchor Steam, my first different experience from light Pilsners and Lagers, but I didn't fully appreciate it… but then later in 83 I went to a continuing legal education program at Oxford, so I could say that I read law at Oxford - I mean, it was 2 weeks, that’s kind of like a Rhodes scholarship, right? (laughter) Nowadays I say I learned more about English beer than English law. So I came home, and I was speaking to a former Law partner, he said “How was it?” and I said, “Oh, I had some great beer there, it’s a shame that no one is making beer like that here,” and he said, “You need to meet my son, Dan.” I think it was after Dan approached me that I started paying attention to Craft Beers and seeking them out.
Dan Kopman, who got me into the business and is my Founding Partner at Schlafly, was working for Young’s Brewing in London - he was an Export Manager, selling Young’s here in the U.S. He noticed that local craft was being sold next to the exports in stores then - so he was the one that convinced me that Craft could work here.
What was it like to start a brewery in THE Budweiser Company Town in 1989?
Well let me put it this way; I wrote a book for our 15th Anniversary called “A New Religion in Mecca - Memoir of a Renegade Brewery in St. Louis.” Producing any other kind of beer in this town was considered HERESY.
I grew up in St. Louis. And in the beginning we were just a little brewpub in a crummy area of downtown. Funny story; before we moved in, the film ‘Escape from New York’ shot footage in what would become our taproom. I guess they couldn’t find a bad enough location in the South Bronx, so they came to our neighborhood.
Even today, years after Annheuser Busch has been sold to InBev and is no longer an American Company, I mean it’s owned by a Brazilian Hedge Fund… even today, on the radio if there’s traffic out on I-55, they’ll just say that there’s “Traffic out by The Brewery” - no name, just THE Brewery. We had our work cut out for us, but we started small and just kept going. Friends would say, “Oh that’s a terrible idea to open a brewery here. No one will come. I mean, I’m coming, but no one else will.” Turns out a lot of people said that. We’re the largest American owned brewery in Missouri now.
You helped change the legal issues around Craft in Missouri, yes?
AB was and is extremely influential in the Missouri Legislature. But when we started the law was that a brewery could not own an interest in a retailer, with two exceptions: If the retailer was Busch Stadium or Busch Soccer Park. That gives you an idea of the playing field, as it were. You also have this tension between those folks in the southern part of the state, what we call the Buckle of the Bible Belt, who oppose alcohol in any form, and the massive corporate lobby that the AB folk have. Big differences there. But we had an advantage in that no matter what the dispute was, they were never going to openly say they were picking on us. No matter what, we were David and they were Goliath - those optics in the press are terrible.
So we opened as a Brewpub in the taproom downtown, but could only sell our beer onsite. Then we got the law changed in ’93, so we could start selling tap beer to other bars and restaurants. We opened this location, our Bottleworks, on the 70th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Our geographic footprint is now around 1400 miles - we distribute to 15 states, plus DC.
You’re part of the ‘earlier generation’ of American Craft Brewers. A few years ago, in 2012, you sold a significant percentage of the brewery to a Private Equity Firm. Why?
AB was sold to InBev on my 60th birthday - we had a party at the taproom. So there were all these TV cameras, and reporters asking what it felt like to be the biggest American Brewer in St. Louis now, and I’m saying, “Oh, well, by the way it's my birthday.” And I realized that someone else was going to own the brewery in 30 years, and the transition could either be smooth or chaotic. And my nightmare, frankly, would've been for my executor to have to sell to the highest bidder, and InBev would buy it and say, “Well this is a nice brand name, but we can brew more efficiently several states away,” etc etc - and fire everyone.
So I thought, “Who are the stakeholders, to which I owe something?” Obviously the employees, the customers who embraced us when everyone said a Craft Brewery would never work in St. Louis, and the communities who supported us. I just wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of. The Private Equity firm we partnered with, the Sage Group, are local people, and there’s also now employee ownership within the company. Our employees collectively own about 10% of the brewery. A lot of our employees are not experienced investors, but it’s been very gratifying to watch them choose to invest in us - we’ve helped to get them to think long-term. It was complicated, and the easiest thing would have been to take a check from InBev, but I’d never be able to show my face in St. Louis after that, after all these pieties I’d been preaching.
I’m still the single largest shareholder, and I’m still the Chairman. But if I’m hit by a bus, the company goes on now, and we think in the right way.
When you reflect on what you’ve gotten out of this business, what comes to mind?
I’ve made money, I mean if you don’t make money you can’t stay in business. I’ve had fun, and there’s a little sense that we’ve done something good; I mean two neighborhoods are better, we went into two vacant buildings and two zip codes are better off. It’s not the world, but… we’re proud of it.
You’ve been ‘ahead of the curve’ in many ways in Craft. Can you see the future, or are you just lucky?
Lucky. (laughter) The real visionaries were the ones who started breweries with no one to look at, like Ken Grossman and Fritz Maytag. I saw Craft working in other cities, and figured it could work in St. Louis - even though most folks said it wouldn’t. I figured if I didn’t do it, in 10 years someone else would be doing it successfully, and I’d be kicking myself. It was an instinct, it was a fantasy thing: I mean I can’t be a Super Bowl Quarterback, and I can’t be Mick Jagger, but… owning a Brewery is pretty cool.
Video #312: Transmitter Brewing, BC1, and...LIC? WTF?
In the most industrial of neighborhoods of NYC, a Transmitter: A small brewery making, of all things, Farmhouse Ales. And the proprietors of Beer Culture, a local favorite Happy Hour Guys haunt, just happen to be there on this day... brewing a house beer?
Click play to enjoy the smallest of details in the largest of cities - and once again, a big shout-out to Squigs for some stellar camera work.. Cheers!
Blogpost: Much Montana!
Montana! The sky out there really is bigger...and so is the Craft.
Jimmy has just returned from a week in the Big Sky State (he flew out to see the Happy Hour Gal performing in shows at the Alpine Theatre Project and, as usual, he took the THHG camera gear with him). Last Fall at The Great American Beer Festival, when Montana clocked in with a surprising 6 medals (including 3 Golds), Mark and Jimmy knew that things were changing in a state that had previously been relatively quiet, Craft-wise. Folks, there is MUCH Craft news to report from northwest Montana!
In Whitefish, MT.
The visit began with a trip to the Bonsai Brewing Project in Whitefish. They've just moved in to a new facility and boast a 7 barrel BrewHouse in a beautifully designed former restaurant on a plot of land "just across the tracks" from downtown. It turns out that Whitefish, on the shores of beautiful Whitefish Lake, is a stop on one of the major east-west rail arteries in the NW United States - (in fact, the creation of the Great Northern Railway spurred the development of the town.) But back to Bonsai: Head Brewer and Owner Graham Hart was featuring 10 different beers the day we visited, from a 'Bouquet IPA' brewed with Lavender, Rose and Juniper, to Brother George, a funky barrel-aged dark ale that set our senses humming like strummed guitar strings. And why the name Bonsai? "We like small and incredibly well made, suggesting an age possibly beyond our years", suggested Graham. "We're lurking in the shadows of giants."
Turns out they're poetic as well as ingenious in Montana.
Focus.
Another hallmark of this part of the state is that it's on the very doorstep of Glacier National Park, one of the most stunning Tracts of Land in all of the U.S. - so the second day of CraftVenturing took Kristen & Jimmy to Glacier Distilling Company in nearby Coram, MT; Glacier Distilling is just a few miles from the west entrance to the Park. Owner Nicholas Lee started GDC in 2010 after getting snowed in with some buddies in a nearby mountain pass. When the conversation turned dystopic (as stormy night talks often will... I mean, don't they for you?) Nick realized that while Montanans were distinctly capable of riding out an apocalypse with most basic needs cared for...NO ONE WOULD BE MAKING ANY WHISKEY. Of course this needed to be taken care of immediately, and thus, GDC was born; fast forward to today, when they're distilling 15 different products using 3 separate stills, ranging from a dynamite cask-strength Rye Whiskey to a Prohibition inspired 'white dog' called Glacier Dew. A morning of shooting and sampling that included some nicely palate pleasing cocktails, and then an afternoon hiking up to Avalanche Lake in the Park: This was an amazing, memorable day.
Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park.
Oh, sweet mystery of life...
Day 3 found the crew at Glacier Hops Ranch back in Whitefish; after paying such close attention to Craft Beer around the world, it's terrific to delve into the craft and science behind the specific ingredients that make them so great - and no ingredient is as lauded in Craft Beer (for better or worse) as hops. Owner Tom Britz has a limited experimental 1/8 acre plot on farmland he owns; his initial intention was to awaken farmers and investors to the fact that Montana has a perfect climate for hop growing, with long summer growing days and low humidity - a terroir perhaps even on par with one of the epicenters of the hop world, Eastern Washington.
Jimmy will now be using this shot for everything.
Mission accomplished: Tom has had enough interest (and support) that he'll be entering Phase Two next year by planting a massive expansion of 27 acres! And much of his projected crop is already spoken for through term contracts from local brewers that are growing fast and are desperate to source local hops for 'wet hop' harvest beers, as well as pellet-tized hops for year-round use. Oh, and one huge difference between Glacier's product and other hop growers; with all hop growers, the processing from field to pellet involves drying hops so that they don't spoil. But too high a temperature during that process (unavoidable when you're processing A LOT of hops) can actually boil away some of the most tender oil compounds in the hop cone; so Tom uses a low-heat drying process (he calls it 'Artisinal') that preserves many of the hard to maintain flavoring / aroma oils that brewers so deeply prize. It's slower and more expensive, but the rewards are instantly noticeable. The upshot? Expect big things from Glacier Hops Ranch in the coming years.
Glacier Hop Ranch Owner Tom Britz and the Happy Hour Gal.
And from The Happy Hour Guys, expect upcoming video episodes to augment each of these places in this here blog post! Stay tuned, everyone - because it's always a good time to laugh, learn, and drink. Now let's get our Big Sky on.
CHEERS!
We're headed back to the Berks. (And MOE's!)
It's not often that we hope to go back to a particular Craft destination... oh, who are we kidding, we hope for it all the time. But there are so many other tremendous places to visit, and more every second, that it almost doesn't seem fair to go back to a place when there are so many more to discover; there are only so many hours in the week. However, sometimes, 'The Work' orders us to places, and we just have to go.
That being said, Jimmy is heading back to the Berkshire Theatre Group this summer for the first time since 2011. Perhaps one of the prettiest (and during the summer, the ARTSIEST) destinations in the mountains of the East Coast, the Berkshire Mountains are home to great theatre including BTG, Williamstown, Shakespeare & Company, and Barrington Stage:
Always great to be headed to do a fantastic show with old friends, and new ones yet to be made. And if we're in Western Massachusetts, THAT MEANS WE'RE HEADED BACK TO MOE'S TAVERN, one of the most stupendous Craft Bars we've ever been in. (And that is saying something!) Here's our coverage from the visit 4 years ago:
We can't wait to see what other Craft Destinations have sprung up in Western MA since we've been in residence. What's new in the area? Got a line on a good new bar, Craft Maker of some kind (any kind, really!) or destination? Give us a shout in the comments below. And here's to Musical Theatre in Very Pretty Places. CHEERS!
Video # 309: Firestone Walker Lion down with Mission Dolores.
4th avenue near Carroll St. in Brooklyn has long been one of NYC's most vibrant neighborhoods, and at one point was a leader in Craft, as prior to Prohibition there were many breweries within just blocks. Nowadays, after years of being a Craft desert, there's a diversity here that boggles the mind and rivals any other Spectrum of Awesome in New York City. The Guys make their way to Mission Dolores for a meet-up with The Lion himself, David Walker of Firestone Walker Brewing, who is visiting Craft Street (and seeing the growth for himself) from Paso Robles, CA. Enjoy!
'THE' Brink? Really?
Craft, Yoopers and Waterfalls: Tahquamenon Falls Brewery & Pub.
Over and over again on our show, we've proven the Rule of the Exceptional: You'll find Craft in amazing places. Even in the middle of a 50,000 acre State Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Tahquamenon Falls, near Paradise, MI. The Upper Peninsula, y'all. It's magical.
The Tahquamenon River's tannin-rich, tea colored water flows through the northeastern Upper Peninsula, old canoe/portage shortcut for the natives that were traveling along the southern shores of Lake Superior to trade in Sault Ste Marie to the west. And unbeknownst to many, in the midst of that river line is the second highest waterfall east of the Mississippi, beaten in height only by Niagara Falls. The entire park contains wonder after wonder - stunning views, hiking and cross-country ski trails, nature as varied as moose, martens, black bear, wolves, and... Craft Beer?
Camp 33.
Jack Barrett of the Barrett Logging company purhased the land adjacent to the falls because he and his wife, Mimi, enjoyed the beauty of the area so deeply. In the 1950s, he built a road to the site near the falls and gifted most of the land to the State for use as a Park, with a detail in his instructions that the road must terminate 3/4 of a mile from the falls, near Camp 33. If you want to see the water, you've gotta walk.
With "Brewster" Lark Ludlow at the Brewery. Jimmy's drinking the Stout, BTW. Nice.
"People come in the restaurant and say, 'Oh, I can't see the falls from the window here,' laughed Lark Ludlow, the Owner and 'Brewster' of Camp 33, or the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery. "And my answer always is, 'Nope. No, you can't.'" They want it that way.
Lark is Jack's granddaughter - the family set aside a 2 acre parcel at the termination of the road into the Park that they still own - a rare private property inside of a State Park - and perhaps the only one in the US that has a Craft Brewery on site. The structure was christened Camp 33 when originally built, as most logging camps are numbered instead of named, and it would be the 33rd logging camp of the Barrett Logging Company. The grandkids rebuilt it in 1990 to serve the Park, and in 1996 Lark had the idea that maybe this 'Craft Beer thing' might be a good addition. But who would brew? Well, she did. And still does.
She started brewing onsite with a 10 barrel system in 1996, making her only the 3rd Craft Brewer in the Upper Peninsula, after The Vierling Brewpub in Marquette and Lake Superior Brewing in Grand Marais (also a brewpub). She offers a rotating lineup of beers, and had 4 taps running the day we visited. Our favorite was a lovely Stout that leaned towards the sweeter side, with plenty of roasty/chocolate-y notes. A full restaurant with a menu of local items (get the whitefish!) offers plenty to pair with.
Camp 33 is an unusual and extremely welcoming part of a trip to a gorgeous area - The Happy Hour Guys recommend a beautiful drive, an even prettier walk to the thundering falls, and the capper (as always) a terrific pint to make the day even more memorable.
And we'll see you next time. Cheers!
