Randy Mills of Burnish Beer Company

In this episode of the DC Beer Show, the hosts engage in conversation with Randy Mills from Burnish Brewing, discussing a range of topics, including unique beer choices, the brewing process, seasonal beers, and the importance of community support in the brewing industry. Randy shares insights about his brewing philosophy, the challenges of running a brewery, and the significance of collaboration in creating new beers. The conversation also explores regional differences in beer preferences and strategies for attracting foot traffic in a competitive market.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brandy Holder

This southern girl got a late start in the beer world, but with such a bold and intoxicating personality behind the name, booze was destined to be a part of her endeavors.

Host

Jacob Berg

Jake’s beer education began when his dad brought home a 6-pack of Brooklyn Lager in the mid-90s. It was love at first sip.

Host

Jordan Harvey

As a born and raised Georgian, lover of music, and HBCU advocate, Jordan’s affinity for craft beer kicked off after being exposed to the craft beer scene in Pennsylvania and the legendary beer scene in Europe.

Host

Mike Stein

Michael Stein is President of Lost Lagers, Washington, DC’s premier beverage research firm. His historic beers have been served at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Polish Ambassador’s residence.

Producer

Richard Fawal

President of DC Beer Media LLC and Publisher of DCBeer.com and The DC Beer Show

What is The DC Beer Show?

The official podcast of DCBeer.com! Everything you need to know about the people, places, and brews that make the DMV America’s best beer scene, including the best local places for eats, brews, trivia, live music, and more! Learn about the latest trends in craft beer – from the beers, to the breweries, to the business – from the editors of DC Beer.

Jake Berg (00:06)
Welcome everyone to the DC Beer Show. We're at DC Beer across social media. Jordan, what are you drinking tonight?

Jordan (00:12)
Good afternoon, folks. ⁓ I'm actually, I'm trying to be the change I want to see in the world. I'm drinking a growler. That's a lot of growlers out in the wild anymore. But I grabbed a growler from denizens of their Hyteapsia Keller beer. So I'll be drinking some Keller beer tonight and enjoying that. ⁓ Brandy, what's in your handy?

Brandy (00:28)
Well, I'm just finishing up this beer I think that Stein gave me from Wiseacre Skydog, Amber Mexican style lager. It was actually really good. if Stein, if that was you that gave me that, thank you. But then about to literally crack open a Baltic, the Baltic Porter from Port City, which we just got this past Saturday. ⁓ And ⁓ I can't wait to have it. I had it there for a little bit, but I'm going to be jazzed to have it.

as we record this lovely podcast with a very, very special guest, which I'm so excited about. Stein, what you got? In a Stein, question mark?

Mike Stein (01:03)
I'm having a

Polish style beer brewed in Germany. It's Helle Tromm, you know them as Schlankerla, Grazitskija. And it's actually, I believe a collaboration with Pinta or Pinta, which is a Polish brewer. They traveled, I believe all the way to Bamberg to make the Polish specialty. So this is Helle Tromm or Schlankerla's take on Grazitskija Pivo.

Jake, what are you enjoying this fine evening?

Jake Berg (01:36)
What a world in which Jordan has the growler of Keller beer. And I have Jordan's favorite, Hazy IPA. But this actually happens to be the Vales, crucial, crucial, shredder, shredder. A beer so nice, they double dry hopped it. Not twice, but just once, because double dry hopping would be quadruple. But it's our beer of the month. And if you're a member of the DC Beer fam, that is patreon.com slash DC Beer, it can be yours for 10 % off at the brew shop. But if you're not a member of DC Beer,

could probably buy it anyway. ⁓ Five and a half percent. It's a beer you can drink whenever. It's like the hazy beer flavored beer. ⁓ Is there citra in there? Yes, of course there is citra in there. But back to lager. Randy Mills of Burnish Brewing on the Eastern Shore. What are you drinking this evening?

Randy Mills (02:26)
I know this is going to come as a shocker, but I'm drinking burnished beer tonight. This is Drift, which is our new winter lager. ⁓ It's brewed with subtle notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pear. This was originally ⁓ a collab that I did with Dogfish Head, and I liked it so much that we decided to scale it up this year and ⁓ put it out there full time into production.

Brandy (02:31)
Hehehehehe

Randy Mills (02:53)
So it's a 6 % lager with, I guess it's subtle notes of cinnamon nutmeg and pear. Goes down really nice. Beautiful winter lager.

Brandy (03:01)
That sounds lovely. I can't recall having a lager anytime in my recent past with nutmeg and cinnamon. Can you hand me that through the screen, please, so I can try it?

Randy Mills (03:12)
you

think it's important that it's like in subtle amounts too. I feel like nutmeg especially can be overdone in a lager. Just need a little bit, just a little bit of flavor there for the season.

Brandy (03:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jake Berg (03:29)
I

appreciate a beer that kind of sort of tastes like a winter warmer, but is a lager. Was that kind of sort of what you're going for here? Thinking back to some, you know, six, seven, 8 % spiced British ales, but this 6 % lager.

Randy Mills (03:36)
Yeah, that was the concept.

Yeah, we, you know, you see winter warmers out there. I feel like sometimes winter warmers are misunderstood and a lot of the general public don't know what they are. So can kind of scare them away. So going in this direction, staring more towards the lager opens up, especially, you know, over in our area of Maryland, people see lager, they're more apt to try it. And that's what we wanted to do here. multiple beers we've done, we try to

You know, we trick people into drinking a better lager than they think they are or, ⁓ you know, try even, ⁓ with when it comes to Saison's calling them a farmhouse because people for some reason will buy a farmhouse, but they won't buy a Saison around here. So yeah, 100%.

Brandy (04:22)
marketing. But

yeah, when was the last time I had a winter warmer though? Like it's been a hot minute. I don't know. know I, okay, yeah, I'm going to need some of this. Maybe when we get some more immaculate whip at, at EBs, we'll, we'll get a drop of, ⁓ of your winter warmer. ⁓

Randy Mills (04:40)
Sure.

Jordan (04:41)
So Randy, I'm the resident hophead as Jake so eloquently stated. So I tend to like hazies, but you're enjoying a subtle nutmeg lager. What other beers are burnished really known for and that you really want the market to know you guys for?

Randy Mills (04:58)
I we definitely do our fair amount of hops. feel like, you know, IPA is number one in craft for a reason. People love the hops. So it's always been a part of our, our program here. Like we have actually have a lot more IPA on the, we currently, we normally do, we have eight on at the moment out of our 16 taps. Usually we have four to six IPAs on. ⁓ it just depends, but that's how it worked out with our release schedule.

⁓ I've done a lot of different styles of IPAs through the years. Obviously, you know, getting into the softer, more, you know, floral IPAs is what people want to drink these days. ⁓ So we have an abundance of those and we also do West Coast IPAs as well. In the springtime, actually, we did one with NRG Group for their beer.

they're beer club, yeah.

Mike Stein (05:49)
Yeah. So Randy, noticed half of your drafts, ⁓ at the brewery were IPA and ironically enough, it was the same setup at blue jacket two weeks ago when, Jake and I were there. ⁓ do you find yourself leaning more IPA heavy at certain times of year? it generally like half of the drafts or pale LIP a hazy, ⁓ you know, that soft aromatic hoppiness versus eight.

lager something dark obviously a winter lager is for this time of year But do you find that eight out of sixteen is standard or you find a variation throughout the year?

Randy Mills (06:24)
⁓ We like to kind of have a pretty wide variety. There's it's funny because when ⁓ Emily was opening EBs a couple weeks ago, she reached out to me about draft beer. And I said, what do you want? What kind of style do you want? She said, I want an amber ale, which you don't hear a lot of people ask for, but I love a good amber ale. And we do make one on our small pilot system that we have on periodically here.

It so happened that I had a keg and I brought that up for her. So we try to make things like have a diverse lineup. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. ⁓ We tend to at least have, like I said, four to six on the hop year range because those are some of the more popular ones that sell for us for sure.

Mike Stein (07:12)
Yeah. And mentioning Eby's corner bar for listeners who are not familiar ⁓ is run and owned by a good friend of the show and your friend, Emily Brown. ⁓ So Randy, tell us about Emily's Immaculate Whip. Brandy teased it a bit earlier in the episode. What is it? What makes it tick? What is Emily's Immaculate Whip?

Randy Mills (07:34)
⁓ I guess it all, it all kind of stemmed from like, you know, we're all good ideas come from late, late night, ⁓ drinks, probably at after Snally Gaster, one of these years. And we were talking about beer labels and I always liked the concept of what evil twin would do at times with like the photos on the cans. I thought that was, you know, different and I really liked it and

We always joked about her car. It's very well known in the DC community that it's been broken into many times and, you know, she's found people in her car and all kinds of stuff. The note has been ⁓ shared around Reddit forums all around. So we thought it would be fun to use her car on the label, kind of in the concept of like Kendrick Lamar, I forget the album, the one that had the minivan on it. I always thought that. Thank you.

Jordan (08:25)
Good kid, Mad City.

Randy Mills (08:26)
I thought that that

Jordan (08:26)
Yes, sir.

Randy Mills (08:27)
would be fantastic, you know, for her car and to like do it that way. And so we talked about it probably like two years ago. So when, you know, she the idea came about the concept for E.B.'s, you she said, look, when I open this bar, we got to do this beer. We got to like make it happen. And of course, I wanted to make that happen and support her in any way that I could. I've obviously opened

a business and I know how difficult it is to do that and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of time, ⁓ a lot of love. So I want to support in any way that we could.

Mike Stein (09:01)
And is it true that ⁓ Emily's Immaculate Whip has bloody butcher grits in the recipe?

Randy Mills (09:08)
That is not true. ⁓

Mike Stein (09:10)
⁓ okay, cool. Yeah, no, that's fine. My editor is wrong every now and again. I also serve

as chief fact checker, so I just had to.

Brandy (09:19)
That is

very true.

Randy Mills (09:20)
I mean, you can say that they're in there, sure. It's a very simple beer. idea we always joke about, especially over more so in the Eastern Shore of Maryland, like it's not Natty Bo, it's natural light. Everybody drinks natural light around here. And so it was jokingly, you know, we wanted to do a light lager, something kind of in that vein. And that's what we were going for. Definitely a lot of corn.

Mike Stein (09:22)
Hahaha.

Randy Mills (09:46)
in there as are a lot of the mass produced loggers that are out there.

Mike Stein (09:52)
Yeah, it's a great story behind Emily's Immaculate Whip and that you brought a great story to life with a beer at Evie's Corner Bar is wonderful. ⁓ I asked Josh Chapman ⁓ about corn in your beer and he said, well, I don't know if it's my corn. Josh is of course the only bloody butcher grits corn farmer I know. ⁓ So I texted him to ask about you and he had some very kind words that I want to

put forth to you and of course the DC beer listenership. wrote, Randy is the guy you dream of having in your corner. He's been through it all and he's equally excellent in capability and capacity. If you need something, he will find a way to make it happen. And when the shit hits the fan, he's the knowing hug that helps you see the forest for the trees.

I'd say most of that is because Bren is just the best and is everything for Randy that Randy is for all of us. Ha ha, smiley, laughy emoji. Um, your thoughts, your thoughts.

Randy Mills (10:50)
We all love Josh. mean,

happy enough. He is a phenomenal human and that makes me feel very good coming from him. ⁓ And it's funny, speaking of my wife, I don't like pictures of myself, never have. And so there's not like tons of like pictures of me. I'm not a selfie guy. And I was like, crap, I got to get this. I got to this picture to Brandy. need a picture. So this afternoon at like 330.

Brandy (10:54)
Who doesn't love Josh?

Randy Mills (11:19)
She took those pictures that she sent to you.

Brandy (11:22)
It's a great picture. I was

like, my god. ⁓ I did want to ask you real quick because, know, Emily, well, we all know you in the beer world. And you have this wonderful reputation about you, the nicest guy. You know, you're on par with Josh Chapman, which is a huge compliment, really. ⁓ But ⁓ you make delicious beer. I am curious. Like, I know you.

I know you make the immaculate whip for E.B.'s, you mentioned how it kind of came about, but that Emily Brown, the beverage director for Green Zone and all of the Andy's pizzas, et cetera, et cetera, chose you and Burnish as the brewery specifically to make her in-house beer. I'm very curious about that.

What's the relationship between you and Emily? Do you guys go like super duper way back or does she just love Burnish beer and was like, Randy, please make my beer?

Randy Mills (12:25)
think it's a combination of things. ⁓ First off, there's a tremendous amount of just mutual respect there as like she is a hustler. Anybody I'm sure you guys know like the things that she's done to get to where she's at, like she's worked so hard. You know, she was cleaning houses at one point to put food on the table to, ⁓ you know, to make it to this point. She's, you know, worked her butt off and I respect that.

you know, I had to kind of do the same thing here and in the past, just like, you know, work in 15 hour days or ⁓ literally putting up part of the farm to, you know, start this business. So we have that tremendous amount of mutual respect and ⁓ we talk to each other a lot about the business side of things. Always have beer business, but also just like business in general.

⁓ interacting with employees, accounting, you name it. Like I said, tremendous amount of mutual respect there.

Jake Berg (13:24)
you

Brandy (13:26)
Awesome. Yeah, Emily's wonderful. She's been an incredible, I know this episode is about you, but I really want to do another love for Emily Brown because if you guys haven't been to EB's, you really should. It's phenomenal. she's donated so much Andy's pizza to all of my women's panels. She was on my panel last year. She's just, I think she, you, Emily Brown, Josh Chapman, you know, the

people in the beer world are really just the most wonderful, most beautiful backbone of the community that I've experienced. And I feel very privileged to be a part of this. And I think really thank you for coming on the show. And I don't think we've had you on, Randy. So this is a first. I'm so jazzed about it. ⁓ Mike Stein usually has these really great questions as does Jake.

⁓ I'm just like fan girling out right here. I'll just be over here waiting for my beer.

Randy Mills (14:24)
I gotta get you the wet lager I'll take care of you.

Jake Berg (14:24)
Yeah, so

Jordan (14:24)
Yeah, and

And it sounds like at least eight of those beers would take care of me too. It's not to say I wouldn't enjoy the Other Half of the tap list, but I definitely, I like what I like, which is cold beer. But in terms of Maryland, East and shore, how has that community been versus like, I mean, we're in the city with it, right? So like, is it, have you seen, have you noticed differences between?

Brandy (14:26)
You

Jordan (14:49)
like what you've seen working with Emily and DC versus like Maryland East and Shore. And I keep saying university because that's one of the HBCUs and everyone knows I care about HBCUs, but how is Maryland East and Shore? How and how they treat it, Burnish.

Randy Mills (15:03)
Mostly we all get along very well. I I think it was Sam Calzoni once said like that the beer industry is 99 % asshole free. I'd say it's more like 80 % to be honest. But we have a lot of good people down here. The Dewey guys, Berlin Beer Company is just getting rolling down here. Evo was my first.

Brandy (15:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Stein (15:17)
You

Brandy (15:21)
Huh!

Randy Mills (15:29)
job ever so I have a lot of love for those guys. ⁓ The ⁓ dogfish guys like I've known Sam a long time you know we've had the opportunity to brew with him a couple times and I've learned a tremendous amount about the brewing industry from him and also just like even looking stuff about the business side of it like when we were trying to get our first loan for Burnish he gave me

some very good advice that helped me ⁓ eventually secure our loan. So, very helpful.

Brandy (16:01)
Has Burnish been open? How long you been open?

Randy Mills (16:03)
We just hit four years of flies. So we opened up at the tail end of COVID. So it was October 21st of 2021. We were building out basically during all that. So I pretty much was just at work every day during 2020, just putting this place together.

Brandy (16:22)
Wait, what? Okay, hold on. Richard and I went to this Eastern Shore beer event, which was actually very well done. And we, yeah, we hung out with you, but that was before COVID. That was February of 2020.

Randy Mills (16:30)
I remember that.

Yeah, that was like right before we like we had the business that the actual inception of the business was March of 2019 and we were brewing at other places and doing collabs and such but we didn't start build out until April of 2020. Yeah.

Brandy (16:54)
Okay.

Okay, yeah, because

I vividly remember I had have a picture with you, I'm pretty sure. Okay, cool. All right, I was just time-lining in my head. All right.

Mike Stein (17:07)
Yeah, so I'm curious, Randy, you mentioned ⁓ the winter lager that you have that you're enjoying now started out as an earlier batch with dogfish head used throughout scaling up. ⁓ What does that mean? Does it mean literally more barrels brewed now with this batch? Does it mean it's in cans now and it wasn't in cans before? Tell us what scaling up means.

Randy Mills (17:28)
⁓ Scaling up in regards to the production of it, sending it out. It did get canned before, but it was just a release, small batch release. Now ⁓ we're doing this in 12 ounce cans and getting it out there. We're distributed in Delaware, Maryland, DC and Virginia and randomly in Japan and Taiwan, ⁓ which is an interesting story in itself. that all happened kind of during

Brandy (17:54)
Please tell.

Randy Mills (17:58)
⁓ COVID too before we were open and we're in this big boat factory down here. It's a tremendous space and ⁓ a buddy of mine ⁓ that works it up well at Other Half I'm sure you guys obviously know those guys reached out because their shipment of beer was ⁓ headed to Norfolk and the truck broke down.

It was them and Tired Hands and a bunch of other New York, New Jersey breweries. And they just asked, they'd heard that I'd had the warehouse and if I could ⁓ help them out. So I ended up taking the beer in here. It was like 20 pallets of beer, storing it for them. And then a new truck came a couple days later and I loaded it up so it could head off to ⁓ Japan. And the distributor owner, you know, reached out to me and was like,

How can I pay you? How can I take care of you? We're very grateful for this. And I said, look, I'm not open yet, but I'm going to be. And I would love to send my beer over there. I think it would be amazing. I've always wanted to go to Japan. I haven't done it. It's on my list. And so that's kind how that came about. Years later, we ended up signing with them.

Brandy (19:09)
That's a great story. my God, thank you for telling us that. That's awesome. I mean, things happen for a reason. That's dope. Jordan, I think you had a question.

Randy Mills (19:16)
Yeah.

Jordan (19:18)
yeah, it was just along the lines of, so I think typically when we as ⁓ industrious or entrepreneurial people, when we want to start a business, we kind of have a goal in mind and we have some motivation and the ambition is at an all time high. With just everything that's happened in the current market, which you got celebrating four years ⁓ about three weeks ago, what's keeping you going now? Like what are you looking forward to making burnish as you continue to grow?

Randy Mills (19:43)
mean, there's still challenges out there, things that I want to do as a brewer and more like these days I'm more of a production manager. So I write the recipes and, ⁓ you know, do keep the day to day ordering and keeping the brewing and the overall business going. ⁓ But there's a lot of things, especially like, I think a lot of us are kind of trending more towards lager. A, it's delicious and

the, you know, ABV as, especially as I get older, I'm like, I want something a little less, you know, ABV, give me something in the five or 6 % range or less. So I think there's a lot of challenges in, in, you know, dialing in your craft and evolving that, you know, it doesn't matter how long you're in the game, you can still continue to do that. And also I think it is hard to build a brand these days, like,

I was a partner in the head brewer at RER when they opened and kind of exploded initially. And it was, it took off during that time very quickly and it was a lot easier to build a brand than I feel like. Now it takes more time. It takes a couple of years. You really got to get out there and beat the streets, which I don't mind doing and well do. That's why I'm up late hanging with you guys because I appreciate this and getting my name out there more.

Mike Stein (21:06)
Oui, so...

Brandy (21:06)
do want to

ask before Stein ⁓ jumps on with his probably very deep question. ⁓ I know that a lot of the local breweries around here, the foot traffic has been really hurting. ⁓ There's really just one brewery in particular that I can think of that is just nestled beautifully in a neighborhood that comes out constantly and they're always busy. But all the other breweries are really, really hurting as well as the other restaurants and such.

You're in the Eastern Shore. I'm curious how have you seen a decrease in foot traffic in this past calendar year or since January? If so, how are you combating that and how's your team taking it?

Randy Mills (21:51)
I things are obviously changing for a variety of reasons. But that's one of the things. This was in our conceptual plan before COVID even hit. We knew we were going to have to have a restaurant as well, especially being more rural down here. You got to keep butts in seats. So you need to find reasons for them to want to stay there besides just your beer.

Our goal was to make it as inviting as possible and tried to give a variety of offerings. Obviously we love having beer people there, but we also have wine. have a good cocktail program. We try to do food specials all the time that keep it fun and exciting. And that has kept us like steady and we haven't really noticed a reduction in traffic this year. I talked to a lot of my friends in the industry and I know unfortunately,

⁓ A lot of them are dealing with that. Another thing is events are having huge for us ⁓ Just like we have an oyster event this weekend. We do that do ⁓ those twice a year oyster fest ⁓ Do a lot of like craft vendor events. My wife Brenna takes the lead on those and ⁓ Those bring in ⁓ Usually bring in 30 to 40 vendors and we'll see somewhere in the neighborhood of

600 to 700 people in a day coming in for that. ⁓ those things, it's not reinventing the wheel. I know a lot of other people have done those things, but it's been helpful to us.

Brandy (23:19)
That's amazing.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Mike Stein (23:24)
Yeah,

it's not reinventing the wheel, but it's playing off good historic data. I remember the first time I read a Brewers Association publication article, like newsflash. If you have food, guests will stay longer. And this was 10 years. This is probably 2015, like 10 years ago. And on some level it's like, no shit on another level. It's like, we have hard numbers that show if you have food, customers bump from a 20 to 30 minutes stay.

to a 60 to 120 minutes day, right? Like hard concrete data sets. Anyways, I diverge. Randy, you are from the area. were, you, I believe born and raised around where Burnish is operating. Is that true?

Randy Mills (24:05)
Yeah, grew up just outside of Salisbury. And that's why it was one of the things with the working in Cambridge, it was about an hour away. And, you know, it was 55 miles, just straight drive each way. You know, didn't mind it, but especially, you know, after time, I just wanted to be spending more time with my family, especially I have younger kids, be home more. It just made sense to have something closer to home.

Mike Stein (24:30)
Yeah, I'm curious how you've noticed Salisbury's unique or different. You mentioned your beers in Delaware, Maryland, where you are, DC and Virginia. Are you seeing regionality in this, in these markets or is it your core, you know, the beers you were brewing the most of that you're sending out across to the four very different, you know, mid Atlantic regions.

Randy Mills (24:51)
It's there's definitely differences. It's funny. ⁓ Virginia seems to like the fruited sours more. So we see more of those going over there. IPA does well across the board ⁓ everywhere. Shine is our core IPA and that does very well. ⁓ DC has always been to me where you get. Like. A little bit more sophistication.

Brandy (25:00)
You

Randy Mills (25:18)
Like I said, I mentioned earlier about Cezanne's like we can call it a Cezanne in DC and it'll sell fine. ⁓ Our lagers that we do, they tend to always do better in DC or like in the ⁓ MoCo County area. ⁓ Down here, ⁓ Light Lager, Roy Light and Shine are two kind of core beers are our number one sellers in the tap room. People tend to kind of stick to what they know.

And then we try to bring in other offerings to try to get them to break the mold a little bit.

Jordan (25:52)
And just out of curiosity, are you putting smoothie sours on pallets to Japan and East Asia? Is that what they want in those countries? Or are they wanting the lagers? I'm just curious. I'm hoping they won't shine the IPA. But I mean, I'm just curious what the East Asia market is looking at.

Randy Mills (26:09)
It's a lot of IPA. A lot of IPA. we do, ⁓ you know, kind of not like a super beer geeky beer, but we do a peach wheat beer. And apparently they love it over there. It just kind of blew my mind. They're like, this is the best peach wheat beer we've ever had. Can you keep brewing more of that? And they're buying like a pallet at a time of our peach wheat beer. But you know, whatever floats your boat.

Jordan (26:13)
the people.

Brandy (26:36)
That's

awesome, yeah.

Jordan (26:38)
Wow.

Jake Berg (26:39)
Since you mentioned Roy Light, I want to take it back to the beer that we started with, Immaculate Whip. What's like the difference really between those two beers? I haven't had Roy Light in a minute. Immaculate Whip I've had a couple times now.

Randy Mills (26:51)
Roy Light is like a sneaky Boh Pils And again, it's just like, I go back to like trying to trick people into drinking in our area, like drinking something like, you know, a little different. These don't know it. I'm just, I kind of laughed at myself cause I'm getting them to drink. Like that's Brighid with Wireman. You were talking about Bamberg earlier. ⁓ I've made a trip over there a couple of times and that, ⁓

Wireman malting is right there in Bamberg and their Boh Pils is what we use in Roy Light It's a phenomenal malt, you know, it's all German hops, malt and yeast in that beer. I love that beer.

Mike Stein (27:28)
Randy, I would argue that if you're sneaking a Bohemian Pilsner into a American light light lager branding, it's not actually a trick. It's a treat. If you'll allow the pun to flow.

Brandy (27:39)
Hehehehehe

Randy Mills (27:39)
I agree. I agree. I agree.

Jake Berg (27:42)
Very cool, all right.

Brandy (27:42)
know

a fun, fun fact about Randy or like I want, I want to go out on like a funny laughing note. Like tell us something funny that's happened to you in the brewing process. You told me a lot of stuff keeps breaking recently because of the weather, but tell us a funny story. Take, take us out funny, Randy. I know you got it in you. Let's hear it.

Randy Mills (28:05)
I got a couple of minuers like,

every job in a brewery, I've done it. And, you know, you even like now it's because I do more of the production manager side of things, but you got to jump in and do whatever. But I do remember this is not per se about brewing, but it was about ⁓ it was about a beer festival. It was actually like I think it was at Craft Brewers Conference. ⁓ We ⁓

you know, everybody's out drinking late. You know, you're out there with brewers from kind of around the world. And, you know, I want to say it was in Denver at the time. So great location to great bars out there. And I got back to my room. I don't know. I want to say one o'clock in the morning, maybe two and went to bed. But I got awoken by a knock ⁓ somewhere in the middle of the night. And I don't know.

I didn't know the guy. He was, but I knew I recognized him from from being on the floor at the Crapper's Conference. And he was very inebriated in. He ⁓ was adamant that it was his room. This is his room. So I being very tired and a little drunk, maybe even a little little high from the good weed out there, I ⁓ decided to.

go ahead and just let him sleep on the couch, which he did. And so this random stranger ended up sleeping on my couch that night at Craft Beer's conference.

Brandy (29:38)
Because you're a good guy. And now that they woke up and they're like, man, that Randy guy, he's a good dude. He started this, he started this Randy's a nice guy rumor. Randy, thanks for coming on. Yeah.

Mike Stein (29:43)
you

Randy Mills (29:44)
Thank

Jordan (29:46)
⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Stein (29:48)
I heard he's big in Japan. Thanks so much, Randy.

Jordan (29:53)
And Randy, you never know that random stranger may get you imports down to Portugal and, or ⁓ you just never know who that person might be. So it's nice to put it, to kind of pay it forward. But yeah, thanks for sure for coming on. We appreciate it.

Randy Mills (29:59)
Right?

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Jake Berg (30:08)
Great, thanks everybody. ⁓

Brandy (30:09)
We're going to take a field

trip up to Burnish. All right.

Randy Mills (30:12)
Please do.

Jake Berg (30:13)
All right, we are at DC Beer Across the Socials. Check us out on Instagram. We got Brandy doing a whole bunch of cool stuff over there, reels, events, what have you. ⁓ Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, and ⁓ we'll see you back over here. We're at DC Beer, dcbeer.com slash Patreon. Thank you for your support, and Randy, thank you.

Randy Mills (30:34)
Cheers, thank you.

Jake Berg (30:35)
Cheers.

Jordan (30:36)
Cheers.

Brandy (30:36)
Drink local.