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I discuss the challenges of creating effective marketing for local businesses, emphasizing the need to understand the target audience. Using Swim University as an example, I highlight the importance of aligning content with business goals and audience needs. I explore the potential of Brew Cabin to attract new homebrewers with community-driven content and advanced brewing techniques. Finally, I brainstorm creative ideas for engaging short-form content, including experimenting with unique and outrageous brewing ingredients.
Creators & Guests
What is Money Lab?
Matt Giovanisci and friends drop the gauntlet of truth about being self-employed, serial entrepreneurs. They're not "teaching" how to build a successful company. Instead, they run business challenges and experiments offering a transparent view of what it takes to make money online.
Hey. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. I walking around in my brewery, and I had a meeting today with some friends to discuss some marketing stuff. It's kinda like brain picking, you know, situation, and we were talking about, you know, email marketing for for a legit you know, I should say legit, for a legit, real in person business and how they could do marketing.
Matt Giovanisci:And before I would tell you know, because of their business, I would say, you know, get on Instagram, that's where your biggest following is right now, lean into that as your single channel, have some sort of sticky capture mechanism in place like email, and then just just focus on doing that until, you know, it's you you've you've until you have the capacity and sales to invest in another channel. And I came home after that meeting and thought, man, I I really, it's really difficult to do for for an in person local business because, you know, it's Instagram. And to me, I'm on Instagram, but I have a national business or a worldwide business. So it kind of makes sense. Everyone is my potential customer.
Matt Giovanisci:Whereas if you're a small business, local, and you have a post that does really well, well, you know, a lot of people are seeing that, but they're not not necessarily seeing it within your within your county even. Could be in your state, but a lot of states are huge. So I don't know. I came home from that and I I thought to myself, this is we were we were so we were talking about, like, the different types of content, and they had suggested a few types of you know, we were, like, trying to basically come up with a templatized version of like, hey. We can try this style of content on Instagram and this style of content and etcetera.
Matt Giovanisci:And there was a couple that they had brought up where I pushed back a little bit, and I thought, yeah. I mean, yes. It sounds good on paper, but does it translate to what you're ultimately selling and trying to get across? And that thought, I came home, and I was like, let me let me have a thought exercise. How would that apply to a fluffy type of business?
Matt Giovanisci:Now with Swim University as an ex as a quick context example or or laying some, like, foundational groundwork here before we talk about this other thing. I've had this conversation so many times. Swim universities, the target audience is people who own pools, and the problem that we solve is we teach people how to take care of their pools the fastest, the easiest, and the cheapest way. Right? That is that is what we do.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? We sell chemicals to help them with that. We sell education to also help them with that. So the content that we publish on social media fits that bill. For example, we publish short form educational pieces of content.
Matt Giovanisci:Now it's never gonna go viral because why would it? But it absolutely reaches our target target audience. If we're like, hey. Is your pool green? Here's 3 things you can do to clear it up.
Matt Giovanisci:Boom. Boom. Boom. And they're like, wow. I learned something from this company.
Matt Giovanisci:Oh, they're in education. Wow. They have a course. I'm gonna take that course, or I'm gonna buy their book, or or they have a chemical that solves the problem that they're discussing. I'm gonna buy that.
Matt Giovanisci:It feels almost duh. Like, of course, that's the content I'm gonna create. Right? That makes sense. It it's perfectly aligned.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I see a lot of my competitors who are not really competitors, but let's just they're in the same space as me. They're posting something completely different. They're posting nice pictures of pools as an as a type of content. I've also seen them post really generic help content, like a photo of somebody getting a water sample out of their pool, and they're like, here's how to take a water sample, and it's just a sentence. And I'm like, uh-huh.
Matt Giovanisci:Or it's just, you know, somebody in fast motion taking a pool from green to clear. And I'm like, okay. Now taking all those pieces of content and thinking about it to the audience, okay, if you're trying to sell, say, chlorine tablets, and that's your product, which is a, you know, a big product in our industry, How does a nice picture of a pool help? Who is your target audience, you know, not thinking of the chlorine tablets, but of that piece of content in particular. Who is that for?
Matt Giovanisci:It is literally for everyone because everyone can look at a nice pool and be like, nice. Thumbs up. Heart. Beautiful. They they're gonna you know?
Matt Giovanisci:And they don't have a pool. An 18 year old boy could could like that picture, and it would be completely normal. Right? Now it may go viral and the company's like, yeah. We went viral.
Matt Giovanisci:We did well, but did you really hit your audience? Take the same piece of content where they're you know, it's a generic, you know, water sample, whatever whatever. It's like, okay. That's not even good. So it's just like a nice photo of a really mundane thing.
Matt Giovanisci:I've kind of learned nothing, so I'm never gonna I'm not gonna share it with my pool friends if I have that. So even that little tiny bit of virality isn't even possible with that post, and but it does hit the right audience. It's just not gonna go anywhere. Like, it's just not. No one's gonna like it because why?
Matt Giovanisci:They didn't really learn anything from it. So it's it's weak, I should say. Okay. 3rd piece of content. Somebody this this works incredibly well.
Matt Giovanisci:You see somebody take a green pool to a clear pool, and they do all of this work and they speed it up and and you get that satisfaction of, oh, and that that pool was disgusting, but now it's clean. Great. You ever see the guy that, like, cleans out storm drains and it's satisfying to watch all the water start to drain out of the roads. It's weird, but it's a thing. And even, like, the pool guy, like, that's what he does, and it's like he's got a ton of followers, but he doesn't sell.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? He does that's not his that's not his business. But if I were to do that, I yeah. You're damn right I'd go viral. But why?
Matt Giovanisci:Like, it's not any again, anybody can like that. You don't need a pool to appreciate that. You absolutely need a pool to appreciate our content, and it's helpful enough where you do get something out of it. And so we do have the potential to go perhaps viral within our own space, which is not much. But we've had pieces of our content on TikTok specifically get upwards of a 150,000 views.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, about literally just how to content about pool algae. I don't. There's no way a 150 there those are a 150,000 pool owners. There's no way. But that happened.
Matt Giovanisci:And on TikTok or on Instagram, we've probably gotten as high as 10 or 15,000, which is huge for our business, huge for, like, our industry. So that's the context. It really does matter. It really, really matters what type of content you're making. And thinking about the your end customer, your end goal is where it has to start.
Matt Giovanisci:And then once you fully understand who you who you are reaching and why, then you can start to design what type of content is really gonna feed them, even if it means you'll probably never go viral. And that's I think that that's okay because a lot of people think, I'm just gonna copy what go what works, what goes viral if I'm gonna have any sort of content in that area. And, unfortunately, like, you're gonna waste a lot of time and effort going viral, but is it actually gonna move the needle in your business? So the the the brainstorming thought experiment exercise for me was perhaps I could take a brand like Brew Cabin and kinda use it as a fun experiment bed to do something that proves this concept. Because we're already doing it at Swim University, and what's fun about doing short form content is that it's short, and I get to scrutinize every millisecond of a video to improve it, and that's really cool to me.
Matt Giovanisci:But I am not doing that on some university because we really don't need to, because we're just pumping out the jams there. So I was like, alright. If I'm gonna sit down and, like, have a fun thought experiment, let's let's do it about Brew Cabin. Now the context of Brew Cabin as it stands right now, and this could change, but here here's what it is. Brew cabin doesn't make any money.
Matt Giovanisci:There's no I'm not really selling the course anymore. I'm not collecting email addresses, but I would like to start making video content again. And I wouldn't mind using Instagram slash TikTok to do short form stuff as well. I wouldn't mind it. But who is my target audience?
Matt Giovanisci:This is and this is so important. Now if I were to target existing home brewers versus people who are slightly interested in home brewing and wanna get started. That distinction alone changes the kind of content you make. And the the the quickest way before I get into that, the quickest way I can describe that is the difference between somebody who already owns a pool and somebody who's who's thinking about buying 1. The thing is is that our content, if they were to watch our content, they'd be like, maybe I shouldn't buy 1 because they see how much work it is.
Matt Giovanisci:But if you already have a pool, our content is absolutely for you. In home brewing, if I showed my setup, my brewery, okay, and and showed all the intricate parts and stainless steel and tri clamps and all the gadgets, and you weren't a homebrewer yet, but you were, like, maybe thinking about it, that content might turn you off. Because you're like, oh, that's how much effort this takes to make good beer? Like, pass. I'll just go buy a can at the store.
Matt Giovanisci:You know what I mean? So I so so if I were to go after, say, people who I'm trying to if I'm the, American Homebrewers Association and my ultimate goal is, yes, I have to support home brewing as a hobby, but it behooves me to get more people into the hobby. So you have to view that you have to you have to straddle a line for both because it you know? And, yes, I could say the same thing about Swim University. Like, we could do content about buying a pool, but it completely changes what, you know, what we do.
Matt Giovanisci:But let's say the 's main goal, and I just that's the short version for the American Homebrews Association. And just as an example, let's say they're trying to go after new home brewers. The content that I would show would be It would be perhaps more DIY equipment. Like, I would show more community pieces where there were, like, you know, a bunch of people home brewing together, drinking beer, you know, having a good time brewing in in fun locations with equipment that looks inexpensive and and showing, like, how good you can make beer at home better than what you can do, what you can buy at the store with very few pieces of equipment and and the friends that you'll make along the way. That vibe is what I would be promoting.
Matt Giovanisci:So I would be doing if I were them and I was and and, again, the type of content matters. Because if I were showing really advanced digital, you know, touch like, my brewery has got touch screens, and it's like it looks expensive. Like, it's a turn off for new brewers. It's like, oh my god. Like, I'm never gonna it's like yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:It's it's porn for home brewers. But for but for people who aren't even in the hobby yet, it's like it's a detractor, I think. So and you can make the argument like, oh, what if they aspire? It's like, yeah. There's that too, but I think you're it I would be I would change the content.
Matt Giovanisci:So so how would I do that? So how would I create that content for the to attract new brewers? So if if I wanna I would I would lean I would lean into okay. I would do 2 things. For photos, I would, every fucking weekend or every week, since I'm it's my full time job, I would be home brewing in in a studio, outside.
Matt Giovanisci:I would go to people's houses, I would throw events, and I would, you know, maybe bring a photographer or be my own photographer and take pictures of people home brewing together with the basic equipment. That's what that's what I would I would stage those every week or or once a month, I would just get a shitload of photos. You could probably do it once a month. You know, go to a park or go to a public space and set up all the equipment or go to someone's backyard, set up the equipment, not much. Again, you don't need much.
Matt Giovanisci:Go into someone's home, you know, show that, and just show real people home brewing, even small scale brewing, like 1 gallon, 5 gallons, and with the the most basic equipment, etcetera. That is your base. You could do that forever. The content is is literally endless. It creates a vibe.
Matt Giovanisci:It's cool. It's interesting, and I think it would get people pumped and motivated to homebrew. I can make friends. I can make great beer. It doesn't take that much equipment.
Matt Giovanisci:I could do it in my apartment. This is for me. Now that's photos. That's what I would do. I would not show ingredients, meaning, like, a sexy photo of hop pellets.
Matt Giovanisci:It looks like rabbit food. Unless you know what it is, unless you're already a home brewer, it's not something that you'd wanna show somebody. Whole leaf hops, very different. That looks sexy. It's vegetal, not processed in the in the in the rabbit food looking stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:Malt, again, most people, like, if they saw a close-up of a mash that was happening, they wouldn't know what that is or it doesn't look sexy to them. And and quite frankly, like, mashes don't really look sexy. They smell great. And that's like, take a picture of somebody smelling it. Like, that's that's the what you really need.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I think all that really like, thinking through that really matters. Because just the pellet thing. Like, yeah. You gotta take a step back. You know, showing yeast packets on a like, no one if you're not into homebrewing yet, this doesn't look cool to you.
Matt Giovanisci:This just this is not interesting. It's not even a good picture. Really? Like, what is that? I think it has to be community, people it has to be people driven, community driven.
Matt Giovanisci:You have to you have to create a sense of this is for all types of people, not just white older men, so get that involved. Show people drink like, show the aftermath of brewing, the drinking part of it, the the, you know, the the camaraderie of getting together and brewing and then being able to enjoy that later or enjoy brewing or enjoy drinking while you're brewing. So that I would be doing photoshoots every month in someone's backyard, in someone's kitchen, small scale, semi large scale, extract extract brewing, partial mash, all grain. You could endless, endless, endless, endless, endless supply of photos and and really puts the vibe out there. Now if I were doing videos, I would be doing I would be interspersing it with educational content.
Matt Giovanisci:I would be doing small scale brewing, tabletop, quick, you know, quick quick cut, making different styles. We're gonna make a porter, 1 gallon porter. Quick cut. Boom. Boom.
Matt Giovanisci:Boom. We're gonna show you how to bottle in 1 gallon. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Matt Giovanisci:We're gonna show you how to, you know, you know, keg, a little mini keg. Boom. Boom. Boom. We're gonna show you how to can your own homebrew, how to how to, you know, find the right bottle caps.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, you can get that fucking endless. But all with the mindset are all with the with the angle of educating new brewers and trying to get them to understand this hobby is actually really simple. And if you are a beer connoisseur, like, this this this is really easy for you to do, and you can start super small with minimal equipment. In fact, you could do a whole series of, like, brewing without buying any equipment. Here's how you can do it from home with stuff you probably already have.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's what you need. And I would I would set up a a a mini studio where I would just create that content. I would, you know, do it do it kinda the way we do it, where we have, I would I would have a teleprompter with a script, perhaps, and I probably wouldn't even go that far because I I know it so well that I could just film it. And I would have a stationary camera and a handheld camera, So it would take 2 people to do it, and I would just bulk, you know, get all those videos for the month and do them all in one in one, recording sesh. And that's for a very specific type of thing.
Matt Giovanisci:Now the videos if I'm if my goal with Brew Cabin in this fake scenario, kinda fake, it's mean I do it does exist. If my goal is to get people to watch my videos, right, My videos, I believe, appeal to existing home brewers. I'm if you see if you watch my videos and you're not a homebrewer, it's probably gonna make it's not gonna it's not gonna make a lot of sense. Obviously, they can watch it and and get a lot of value from it, but I I just I don't that's not who I would appeal to. I would appeal to people who already are doing this thing.
Matt Giovanisci:So what does that mean? What kind of content would I make for people? Basically, me's. Who would I make? It's like, I am the target audience there, so I don't need basic ass education.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't need to know how to do, you know, a a a partial mash extract batch. Like, I don't need to know how to do that. I also really don't need I would say I'd like tips, but I'd want those tips to be high level. So and I and I don't want porn as a brewer, personally. I because when I watch, and I mean home brew porn, when I watch that kind of content where it's just, you know, somebody making a beer and it's like they do it in slow motion or they you know, it's like, well, I do that's I do the same thing.
Matt Giovanisci:I do that. But I'm not there's no value that I'm getting from that because I can just I I can experience that. I don't need to reexperiencing it in a short format. It's not it's not interesting to me. Now is seeing someone's, like, ridiculously nice homebrew setup important to me?
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. That's a tough one because I have that. So it's so no. For me specifically, no. Not but I do get value when I see someone else's setup, but I need something explained to me.
Matt Giovanisci:And I can I can look at a picture and be like, what the fuck is that thing? I I wanna know what that is. So it would almost be, here's home brew porn, but there's a but there's a little piece of education to it. Like, oh, here's how here's the my process for x, and here's a picture of that process. So okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So that would be helpful. What would be what would be really cool is a, for me, a carousel of advanced brewing techniques. For example, I the one of the tips that I, recently employed in my process has which has been incredibly helpful in a weird way is I've been spraying this is gonna sound for those who don't homebrew. I've been what's called I've been conditioning my malt, and I've been spraying my malt with water. And when I grind it, there's no static electricity.
Matt Giovanisci:There's no grain dust, which is a big problem. So this I actually knew that this was a thing that people did, but I thought it was to improve efficiency in brewing. But then I saw a coffee guy do it. He had a little spray bottle, and he sprayed his beans, which this sounds silly too. And when he grinds them in his grinder, he doesn't have, like, the static electricity issue with the with the grinds being all over the place and getting just and I'm like, oh, well, I wonder if I sprayed them all, then I wouldn't have this grain dust issue.
Matt Giovanisci:And it turns out yeah. And it also improves my efficiency. So that to me is an advanced tip because, one, someone needs a to mill their own grain. So if you're milling your own grain, you're a fucking you've been home brewing for a minute. No one's doing that out of the gate.
Matt Giovanisci:I could do that as a video, but it'd probably be better to do it as a you could do it as a carousel as well because it's it's not it doesn't require a whole video, I don't think, because it's such a quick tip. So I could so for the Brew cabin thing, I was like, I really want my photos to be sexy or beautiful is kind of the the vibe I wanna go for. And the reason I wanna do that is because, you know, I want to I want to I want to put out a, the vibe that I wanna put out is an elevated home brewing experience. Like advanced, like, we take this shit seriously. Therefore, the content that I put out, I take it very seriously.
Matt Giovanisci:Now with that said, there is another home brewer out there, on Instagram who has has that sort of elevated level of content, meaning his his the visuals that he puts together are very next level. They're very, very good. And, unfortunately, I think he's and I don't know him, but if from my perspective, I've I've stopped really paying attention because I he shifted away from home brewing content and more into food because I think he was more interested in being an influencer than he was being a a specifically a home brewer. Whereas, like, to me, influencer is second and homebrewing is first. I think for him, it's kinda flipped.
Matt Giovanisci:And the only reason I say that is because he did cooking videos, and those must be doing better for him because he's doing them a lot more often. And I believe you know, and home brewing is not as popular as it used to be. And also the home brewing content that he was doing was showing the sexiness of brewing, but I never really got any value out of it. Because as a home brewer who has a sexy setup, I don't want the sex. I want the I want the tips.
Matt Giovanisci:I wanna improve my home brewing, or I want to be thoroughly entertained. And I think that word thoroughly entertained is a very different it's very different. You can't really do that in 60 seconds. And so brew cabin, yeah, as a thought experiment, it feels a little bit it feels slightly more difficult because I understand what that if if if the idea is to be thoroughly entertaining and to make home brewing fucking cool and awesome and ridiculous, like, and just an incredibly fun hobby, then my YouTube channel is my product, and that's exactly what I'm selling there. Do I just wanna take pieces of that content that I'm doing there and put it up as Instagram content?
Matt Giovanisci:No, no. I don't want to make boring how to content, but I do want to make how to content. And just in a I wanna I wanna educate a home brewer in the same way that and I've talked about this in previous episodes, I believe, that there's this there's this YouTube channel or it used to be a a vod vlog vodcast that that used to exist called brewing TV, and it was an arm of Northern Brewer, which is a retailer. And, like, they weren't a how to resource. It was a television show where they interviewed, you know, home brewers.
Matt Giovanisci:They interviewed big brewers, they and they would make beer, and they would talk about making the beer, and they would they they they traveled, they did this different stuff, but it wasn't a how to, but you did learn sometimes. And that is exactly the vibe, but you are entertained. Like, you could sit through 30 minutes because it was all good. You know? Like, there wasn't a boring moment.
Matt Giovanisci:There wasn't a you know? It didn't happen. So that is what I'm trying to recreate in my own way on the YouTube channel. So here's what I'll so because I can't really it's hard for me to say it in my own so let's so let's say brewing TV was is still existed. And, again, this is a show that I watch.
Matt Giovanisci:It's on YouTube, Like, the older episodes are there, and somebody made a playlist of them all in order, and I've just been watching them like I'm watching a massive season of a television show just on repeat every night. That's been my, you know, the show that puts me to sleep kinda thing. And if I were to use Instagram to drive awareness to that YouTube channel or or if I wanted to create a just a supplement content for that, like, what would I do? If I'm them, The first thing that came to my mind was they used they had a concept called short pours, which I don't think they did many of. I at least I can't find them.
Matt Giovanisci:But they would reference them in the show where they were like, hey. We made this beer. There'll be a short poured episode where we taste it, and it basically was like, you know, you're not gonna do an entire episode where you're tasting the beer. You could do that in 60 seconds, or you could do that in 3 minutes or 5 minutes and have just a little mini conversation about the beer, etcetera. That's interesting because it almost has maybe a mukbang effect where you your content could be the that that idea of short pours, like things that wouldn't don't make sense to put in the video, but are worth are worth their own little minute miniature thing.
Matt Giovanisci:So that that that I kinda like because you could do an episode of brewing TV where they make a beer, and it's not a grain to glass episode. And grain to glass episodes are the common where the brewer will brew the beer and then also taste it within the same episode, which means it takes about a month or longer for them to make that piece of content because it's how long it takes to brew a beer. But if you if you tasted your own home brew and just did a little miniature episode where you just described the taste and, like, how you made it, that's alright. That's not a terrible idea because I personally don't like tasting videos because I think that they're kind of a waste of time because it's like I I, like, I understand it in the context of, okay, grain the glass. Like, I wanna see you make the beer and I want you to taste it and I want you to tell me how it tastes quickly to tell me, like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. This was good. Here's what I like, the apartment brewer does a really good job at this. I believe his tasting segments are a little too long even for me. I mean, for me, I I just don't like watching people talk about something in retrospect.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, just, like, is it good? What would you change? You know, what do you you know, like I said, what do you taste? What would you change? And, like, call it a day.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, make it quick. It's like if you watched, it's like if if if, Ina Garten, it was like, you know, the whole like, half the episode was just her fucking eating and talking about it. It's like, okay. I get it. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:Interesting. I mean, that gave me an idea for a video. Doing, like, an old school cooking show, like, an old school Food Network show, but do a beer where you have, like it's like, oh, this beer is, like, you know, the magic of television where you, like, they open the oven. There's, like, a already done version in there. You got a beer too.
Matt Giovanisci:That would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Short pause is an interesting idea. I I don't I I still can't visualize why I would watch it.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, you know, one of the ideas that I had were doing recipe episodes, like recipe shorts, because I've heard people say this and I I'd a 100% agree with it, is that the recipes really are not as important as the process, and the process is long, but a recipe is short. You could, and I've and I've really this is something I've thought about in the past. I thought about creating recipe videos where you could use all b roll. Where you would you could say, like, hey. Here's a you know, like, you know, the the the content can be simply like, you know, hey, brewers.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's a here's a recipe for here's a award winning recipe for a chocolate porter, and you show, you know, all the ingredients. You show you know, you on screen, you would show the ingredients, the percentages, and, you know, you could you could basically create a bunch of b roll of, like, chocolate malt. You could have all the malts kind of, like, already filmed, and then all you're doing is putting together the recipe because ultimately and you would have to have the finished product in your hand. That's hard to do, but you could technically do it with commercial beer if you really wanted to. You could just thinking out loud here.
Matt Giovanisci:Again, more of a thought experiment than anything, but you could say, here's how to make a chocolate porter, and in your hand is a pint of chocolate porter or fucking any porter because who really knows that that's what that is? Because you're watching a video. Right? So that way you didn't have to brew these beers to show it, you just show it. Now I know that's faking, but ultimately, that's the content that matters.
Matt Giovanisci:And the hook is always like, you know, here's how to make a chocolate porter, here's how to make a, you know, an American double here's a award winning arrest double IPA with with Citra, and you go, it starts with, you know, 20% of marasade or blah, blah, blah, blah, and all these different malts with their percentages, and, you know, or even poundage. You throw them on the screen. You shot it's b roll of all the ingredients. When you talk about the mashing schedule, you show mashing, you know, just different versions of a mash. You show Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:I mean, you could take all the b roll that you've ever filmed for any of your videos and put those together because the content basically is already written, they're just recipes, and you could take those recipes from anywhere because no one owns recipes. Now in a good boy world, you which is I which is the world I like to live in, you would be giving out your own recipes, or you would be getting permission from the, you know, recipe developer to share it, which, of course, you should. That's still, I think, a great idea, but doesn't really make sense for brew cabin, but it would make sense for brewing TV, I think. But, again, it's just like dissect yeah. And I think, yeah, I don't I don't you know, for for the other thing that brewing TV did, which I liked, was they were really and and I'm dissecting it from my point of view, and I don't know if everybody else felt this way, but it it had this sense of community because they involved a lot of other people in the show.
Matt Giovanisci:And you like, if you were to do a if you were to do a supplemental additional content, you save I think what you do is you save the videos for the videos, but you use photos to I don't know. It just feels kinda almost like a wasted effort. Unless you really like alright. Yeah. Here here's my thought.
Matt Giovanisci:If my if I'm trying to get home brewers to watch Brew Cabin content, if my goal is simply to attract them off of Instagram to watch my long form content, or if I had a course to sell or whatever, like I would be perhaps posting educational content on Instagram. I don't know if I would be doing just entertaining, which which, again, like, what does that even mean? So there's so the the entertaining things that I see are just people brewing. There's no storytelling. It's just here's me brewing, here's me dry hopping, here's me doing this thing.
Matt Giovanisci:That's the kind of content I would make as well for brew cabin, where it was like, you know, there was a I did one that I thought would do well and it didn't, and I understand why. It was I decorated my brewery for Christmas. And I did a video where, like, I was drinking a beer and like we were doing a spin around the brewery, but it's like it your brain can't process what the fuck you're watching. Now if I There's there's another, there's another company doing shorts. So the one guy that's doing shorts that I said it was really good, his shorts were just so beautiful looking, but you kinda learned nothing because he would show you, like, a sexy process, but as a home brewer, you're like, cool, but I don't know what you're doing, or, like, can you explain more?
Matt Giovanisci:And I almost went like, I don't really wanna see sexy process. I wanna know what the fuck you're doing because that is who the content is for. Like, I I'm oh my god. That's cool. I what is that?
Matt Giovanisci:Like, as a home brewer, I immediately, like, what is that? Like, tell me. So the the thing that and so, like, as a as a recipe idea or a short pour, to me that's mostly just entertainment and and it doesn't attract I don't think it attracts brewers because, like, recipes I mean, like, you can get a recipe anywhere. Like, that's not the hard part or that's not the interesting part. Now let like, if I poured I have had, you know, videos where I've poured a cask beer, which is like a very nerdy thing to have in your home, but it's just sex.
Matt Giovanisci:It's not it's not I'm not learning. It's not not you know what I mean? It's like it's like it's cool, and it could go viral, but there's, I don't really see it. It's just sexy shots. And sexy shots go viral for, like, epic, epic, epic things.
Matt Giovanisci:Mostly, I'm thinking, like, travel photos or travel videos or nature videos or something or like stunts, you know, like, those are epic, you know, just pure process epicness. Homebrewing, even if you do the most epic thing in home brewing, it's still never gonna go viral because it does it's not it's just it's, 1, it's just home brewing, and, 2, like, not that you're, like, what are you gonna fucking do? Okay. Maybe. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:I hate this idea, but I'm gonna say it out anyway. There I saw a guy. He has a Mead short channel or, like, I there's a coffee guy who has a channel where he lot of his content, he's like, I'm gonna make coffee with an avocado, like, an an a weird ingredient. So weird ingredient brewing, like, I'm gonna make a beer with I'm just looking around. Like, what do I have?
Matt Giovanisci:I'm gonna make a beer with, I don't know, a 100 bags of Hershey Kisses. It's like, that is now we're talking like epic mealtime virality and interestingness. Okay. Okay. Hold on.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm having a alright. This is this is going a little bit more in my direction. Doing something fucking a little outrageous in brewing. I can and and something that would not be worth an entire video, entire long form video, but I still wanted to do something insane, and I could create a short version of that. Uh-huh.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. This feels better and more interesting, and we'll go, wow. If he's willing to do this for a short, what is his YouTube channel like? This feels better. Although, I'm not really one to make crazy beers, but it could be I could still do it in a way that's not that's not gonna fuck with my personal belief about beer.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I like, I'm not gonna put Hershey Kisses in a beer. 1, I know it wouldn't work, and 2, it wouldn't work because of the, the fats in in a Hershey Kiss. You would it would kill your head retention, and it would just taste like shit. But what you know, like, I know James Spencer, who I'm friends with in the home. He doesn't he's done serial ones where he's taken, you know, like, specifically for Halloween, he was like, he's gonna mash with count chocolat.
Matt Giovanisci:I would never do that because, 1, I don't wanna consume Count Chocula in my body, so therefore, I'm never gonna make that beer. But I've also seen somebody say that they've done cucumber they've used cucumber water to make, a beer. I was like, okay. Now, you know, I I think I think he's even used, James has even used, like, Mountain Dew, and that was the mead guy. He had done a a series where he was like, I'm making mead if I'm Mountain Dew.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's like, you're just kinda curious what the fuck that's gonna taste like. So but if but but for that, you don't necessarily have to be a mead maker, but it does at least somewhat align. One one one idea that I have just kinda floating on the top of my head as we speak is just doing an outrageous hop like beer. A hot like like brew a beer where I build, like a big hop back and I just fill a bucket full of whole leaf hops and I just like soak beer through it. Or, you know, I would get a bunch of juniper branches and put those in a beer or buy a bunch of spruce tips and throw those in a beer, or, you know, things that would normally go into beer that are like kind of like, oh, I you know, fuck.
Matt Giovanisci:I would do that, but, oh, he took it to the next level. You know, maybe it's, I'm trying to think. This is this would be hard to have ideas around, but the few ideas that you did have and that you execute it, one would be super fun to home brew in general because you'd be doing something, like, different and interesting and you get to, like, shop for ingredients you'd never really think about and make something that could truly be fucking awesome and and no one has ever made and show that process and do it within 60 seconds would be insane, especially if you were doing, like, I always thought it'd be cool to do Grand Glass 60 second shorts. But, technically, that's easy to do because you could take but it's also like there's nothing about it that's interesting. You're just brewing a beer, But if you were to do something that had a little tiny bit of outrageousness to it or like epicness to it, I'm almost thinking like, so the mister beast so the beastification of home brewing.
Matt Giovanisci:But, obviously, without the insane, like, you obviously wouldn't go that insane. But, like, I'm trying to think, you know, maybe you could even mash beers in weird vessels. Can't think of anything. Like I know 1 guy did a mash or fermented a beer in his bathtub. And I was like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:But alright. So that and the the reason I think that that won't work is because that just sounds like a bad idea. Like that's not, you're not, you're not, you're a little curious how it turns out, but you, if you're a true home brewer, you know, well, it's gonna turn out it's gonna turn out fine. So it's not that crazy, but it's, like, also kinda disgusting and, like, why? Know what I mean?
Matt Giovanisci:It's not a bad idea. It's a good idea. It's just I I I'm less interested in the way that turned out than I would be if you made I'm I'm thinking of, so this is there's this brewery. Again, I don't like this idea that much, but there's this brewery that used to do these things, where once a year they would do a beer that was kinda like, why the fuck did you do that? They had one that was a spaghetti goza, So it was, a sour beer, but it was made with spaghetti and tomato sauce.
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. They had another one, it was a taco goza, which is another sour beer they made with taco spices. And I had both of those beers. The spaghetti one wasn't too terrible, but the taco one, it's it was certainly drinkable, but maybe like a tiny like a couple of sips and you're like, okay. I get it, but I don't want any more of this.
Matt Giovanisci:I did this past year, I did a gingerbread wit where I, you know, zested a bunch of oranges and ginger and, you know, put that in, you know, made that beer and it tasted really good. But from a video perspective, like, it's not that impressive because, you know, it's just normal ingredients that you would put in a beer. Like, it's not crazy. Now had I taken an entire like, had I built an entire gingerbread house and then smashed it and stuck it into the mash and made a beer that way, now that becomes a little more interesting because you did something that is next level outrageous that you wouldn't think to put in a beer. Like, why would you go through that?
Matt Giovanisci:And then, you know, now you have like, that's alright. So that to me, I feel like would make sense, but I don't wanna drink that beer, but you'd be interested in the outcome of that. The hot like, extreme hopping is is interesting idea. You know, using something other than plain water is kind of interesting if it if the process of getting that liquid was worth watching. For example, let's say you made it I I think I've seen this done before, so it's not this is nothing new.
Matt Giovanisci:But if the if the idea was to make a beer with watermelon juice or even cucumbers, you know, and the first thing you showed was just an epic amount of watermelons or an epic amount of cucumbers, and then you spent all this time juicing an insane amount like, you know, for a 5 gallon batch of beer, that's a lot of fucking cucumber. Like, it's an insane amount of cucumber. You'd have to go to multiple stores or you'd have to go to the farmer's market and just completely buy out all their cucumbers in bulk. And it's it would be an insane thing to do, but you'd be fucking curious and the hook would be the I you know, the hook would be that that initial shot of you, like, all the cucumbers, like, ridiculous amount of cucumbers and then juicing them all, which would take forever. That's that's the kind of thing I'm I'm like, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:That's interesting. You know, so using so you you juice you know, using, liquid like that is is somewhat interesting. I think some sometimes, like, you could probably do like a full fruit, like a like a like a ridiculous amount of fruit, into a beer. That may work. It's not that crazy because, again, the ingredient itself is not that crazy.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, the ingredient of cucumber water is, is crazy. No one's gonna actually do that. But somebody would go buy a bunch of fruit and put it into a beer. Like, that's not that crazy of an idea. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:One idea I have, which I think is kind of ridiculous, but, you could source outrageously expensive ingredients and put those into beer, and those ingredients can be somewhat normal. What I'm thinking of is you like, there's that, there's that coffee that, like, comes from the animal that, like, eats the beans and then shits out the, you know, eats the coffee cherries and then shits out the beans and then it's like that coffee is, like, really expensive because it's, like, delicacy. But it's still coffee and it probably tastes great. And it's like but you could tell the story of how this coffee was sourced, put it in a beer, and then you have people drink the beer. Like, I've seen actually mister Beast do that as a short.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's like, okay, just take that as you can take that idea a step beer. And just, you know, so it's like, okay, that's not there's probably a lot you could do. Just, I'm just, you know, like my brain's just not thinking of the the insane amount of possibilities there. But you could okay. Here's a great idea.
Matt Giovanisci:I guess, and I don't know how possible this would be, but like getting durian, which is like that fruit that smells horrible. And so like sourcing durian and being like, oh, this stinks. I'm gonna stick I'm gonna make a beer from this and then make a make a beer from that and then, like, see if it's like then you smell the beer at the end and see if it still has that smell and, like, oh, it tastes pretty. You know, like, that would be good. That would be a good and that would be something I would actually want to do because it's still, like, you're just fruiting a beer, and it's also like a really crazy ingredient to throw in a beer.
Matt Giovanisci:That you could do. That, it feels interesting and would be and I would want to drink that beer. I the problem is is like I don't necessarily want to make 5 gallons every time, but it would but, again, if you did it, that's the that could be the epicness of it is, like, there's 5 gallons of this, and then you serve it and having people taste it. So you that's a really good idea, actually. Is, you know, 1 hour into this hypothetical conversation, and I'm finally feeling like I landed on something that's worth even thinking more about, which is doing, like, crazy ingredients, and then the so you'd have the virus so the hook would be this this ingredient.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm gonna I'm gonna make a I'm gonna make a beer from this ingredient. Alright. Now you've hooked me. I wanna see the result of this. I wanna see how and as a home brewer, it would be fascinating to watch how how you go about adding that particular thing.
Matt Giovanisci:So, like, it there is a little bit of education in the middle of coffee. The the this, like, weird coffee bean source, and it's like, okay. One way you could add the coffee beans to the boil. You could add coffee beans to the fermenter, you could add you know, there's all these different places, and I'd wanna know as a home brewer where the person was gonna add the coffee beans, like which part of the process did he choose. And then what I'd wanna know what I'd wanna do is I'd wanna see the results at the end, but I'd I'd wanna see other people drink it.
Matt Giovanisci:I wouldn't wanna see like, it would be cool to see other people have it. And if you could get home brewing celebrities to come over and drink it, then you really got something going. Or you or maybe you can even send it to those people, like, okay. That feels like a really good idea, and something that I would probably do, and not worth making an entire video about. It would be worth you know what it would be worth doing?
Matt Giovanisci:It'd be worth trying once. It'd be worth going, okay, I have a crazy idea. Like the Dorian one sounds somewhat interesting to me because I'm like, I've never had Dorian before. I would love to try it. I don't know how the fuck I would get it, but I'm sure it's I'm sure I can get it and I'm sure it's expensive, but that's fine.
Matt Giovanisci:So I get it. I make a wheat beer, you know, some super simple beer, you know, film that whole process vertically on my phone, and then at the and then, yeah, put the durian in and then serve it to people. That fucking may work. Alright. I just burped.
Matt Giovanisci:That means it's the end of this episode. I'm gonna think more on that, but I think that that was super helpful and interesting. So sorry, it was an hour and 3 minutes. If you're still here, thanks for sticking around. Email me, matt@moneylab.co.
Matt Giovanisci:Bye.