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Join Blake Hunter, Iowa and Nebraska REALTOR, with his clients and colleagues as they discuss the current market, and the ins and outs of buying and selling real estate in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area.
Blake Hunter (00:01)
Desi, thanks so much for coming on today. Like we're talking, it's hard with busy schedules and running a business to take the time to do these types of things. I really appreciate your time. today, Desi's here. I'm going to let her introduce herself and her business. I'll let you do the intro.
Dessie (00:21)
Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for having me, Blake. First thing, which this happens all the time, so I'm not trying to correct you, but my name is actually Desi, just like Jesse with a D, yep.
Blake Hunter (00:33)
Jesse, Jesse, every
time I've said it, I'm like, hope that I'm saying it right, but I'm glad you said that.
Dessie (00:42)
Yeah, yeah, no worries. I honestly don't really correct people very often, but since you know this is being recorded and we're being so official, I thought I should do that. yeah, anyways, my name is Desi Redmond. I am an owner along with my husband, Full Fudge Brewing Company located here in Council Bluffs. We opened in July of 2019.
Blake Hunter (00:51)
Good, I appreciate that.
Dessie (01:08)
and have been kind of full-fledged forward ever since then. Do you want me to kind of go into the background of how we got started or?
Blake Hunter (01:18)
Well,
I just wanna talk about like, yeah, what led you guys, like how did this idea come about? And then like, what's it look like from you guys having this idea to like making it a real thing?
Dessie (01:32)
Sure. Well, it stemmed from Marshall. He went to brewing school to learn how to brew commercially. So he's been in the industry for about 25 years. And he went to business school prior to going to brewing school. And it's kind of always been like a lifelong dream for him to open up his own brewery. He has brewed all over the country, California, New Mexico, Texas.
Nevada, just to name a few. And I'm from the area and we were living in Texas when the idea kind of spurred. And I was like, well, maybe if we move a little bit closer to my family, you can, you know, open up your dream business. And so that's kind of where it started. And we were approached by my brother actually who lives in the area. And he was like, why don't we just do this? Like, let's let's open a business.
And we were like, okay, well, let's go see council Bluffs first. We kind of need to visit there. So I hadn't been back to actual council Bluffs for a few years. And so we flew, got on a plane and we met with Paula Hazelwood with advanced Southwest, advanced Southwest Iowa. And you know, it just kind of snowballed from there. And our original plan actually started outside of the city limits.
Blake Hunter (02:48)
Mm-hmm.
Dessie (03:01)
We were gonna be kind of like a destination brewery, gonna grow some of our own hops and do some of that thing. But running a brewery on a septic system is not ideal. And so it was actually Paula's idea to say, hey, why don't we look at some locations inside the city limits?
Blake Hunter (03:06)
Mm-hmm.
Man, I would have never even thought about that. I mean, I definitely see like the destination type thing, but I would have never even thought of like even being in real estate, I would have never thought about the septic and the access to water and sewer and those types of things. you guys start and you guys open July, 2019. When are you taking the trip to Council Bluffs to kind of check things out?
Dessie (03:29)
Yeah.
So it would have been about a year before then, because it took us about nine months to build out the space. I mean, I know you're familiar with the area, but it was a complete shell, right? There were dirt floors, no walls built or anything. So the space took about nine months to build out.
Blake Hunter (03:45)
Okay.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And you guys have an awesome space there. I know, I know Mike and Myers, he's with errors and errors, and I'm pretty sure that they did your build out. so yeah, it's, if anyone, if you're listening, you've never been there. It's like, it's a really cool space, very inviting. And that's why I like really wanted to have Desi on today is because I feel like with community, like people talk about like,
parks, talk about attractions. Like I think that having things like your brewery are like so important to our community because it's different and it's another place to go. And it's like not just to go have a beer, but you guys have entertainment, you guys do all sorts of stuff there.
Dessie (04:47)
Yeah, we definitely try to be a community space that's always been part of our business plan. We like to be family friendly, family oriented. do events that you can bring the whole family down to. We also do live music. We have dog wash days where you can bring your dog. And we partner with a lot of nonprofits and other organizations to kind of.
make these events appeal to as many people as we can to the community. One other thing that was always really important to Marshall as he was writing the business plan, it was having a local worthy cause. And what that is, is it's a beer called Worthy Cause. It's our amber ale. And a portion of the proceeds go to helping a local organization with what
they, you know, what their idea of is what they do as an organization. So for example, we're currently working with the Cosmopolitan Club of CB. And what they do is they help to raise funds for people with type one diabetes to get them their service dog that like alerts them if they're gonna have an episode. So we're gonna have a bag toss tournament with like over 20 teams.
and you know, you have to pay to be a part and those funds go towards towards their organization.
Blake Hunter (06:19)
That's cool. Yeah. I mean, you guys are doing you're doing probably at least a couple events a month, right? If not every weekend.
Dessie (06:26)
Yeah, we really do try to do at least like two live musics a month and then maybe like another big kind of event with a food truck or something. And then we sprinkle in some like little random kind of things like, for example, we do International Backwards Day. What does that have to do with beer? Absolutely nothing. But we took our 712, which is our area code.
flipped it backwards and we sell pints of beer for $2.17. One of the biggest, busiest days of the year. Is it super profitable? No, but it's a thing for anybody can afford a couple dollars for a beer and people can come out and it's a really fun, fun event. we try to do unique stuff like that too.
Blake Hunter (07:14)
Yeah.
Well, I think, I mean, from the outside looking in, I think, you know, you'll agree with me is that you guys do all these events, you get people come in the door, but you also have like a really loyal customer base in Council Boss. I mean, you know, I hate to say the word regular sitting at the bar, but man, I mean, there's some people that I can almost count on seeing when I walk in.
Dessie (07:37)
Yeah, we are very lucky. We are the only brewery in Council Bluffs. So if you're into craft beer, you're definitely interested in coming through our doors. We do have a Mug Club membership too, which is like an annual membership and all the mugs are made locally by a local pottery. He is a Winchester pottery out of Persia. And so he makes all of these mugs.
and you can renew annually and those just keep, you know, kind of like our local big craft beer drinkers coming back on a very consistent basis. And we do special events for them and stuff like that.
Blake Hunter (08:18)
Yeah, how many?
How many Mug Club members do you have?
Dessie (08:24)
We have 148. Yeah, and 10 of them are lifetime members. So we actually did us like a auction off for the first 10 during our soft opening. think the number one went for like $900. So it was pretty exciting to see. we actually, he...
Blake Hunter (08:27)
Holy cow.
Dessie (08:45)
Part of that, just for mug number one, was we picked a local charity to donate that to. So that actually ended up going to the Micah House, I think it was. But yeah, just for an example, so they renew every year. We only had nine memberships that didn't open up last year, and only seven the year before that. So they are very highly sought after memberships, for sure.
Blake Hunter (09:12)
That's cool. I know that that is, I've always noticed the people sitting at the bar with their mug. I'm like, that is a sign of status when you walk in.
Dessie (09:19)
Right, for sure.
It's fun.
Blake Hunter (09:24)
So I just had a memory come up on my phone and I'm sure that you're tired of talking about like running a business through COVID, but I had a memory pop up on my phone. was from, it was literally like two weeks ago. It was like March, 2020. And I remember the picture was, I had just come down and you guys were like, literally you could come drive up and buy beer.
like at the back door basically, and we, my wife and I had just done that and I like took a picture of the beer and I was like, then it rang a bell. I'm like, I remember doing that. I remember you guys trying to promote that and then you were delivering it too. Right.
Dessie (10:03)
Mm-hmm,
we were, yep.
Blake Hunter (10:05)
Yeah, so what'd that look like?
Dessie (10:07)
So, you know, I haven't talked about COVID for a while and there was a point in my life where I was like, I'm not even gonna talk about it anymore because it's like all you talked about, right? During that period of time. But, you know, I was thinking about it today as I was kind of like preparing some mental notes for this discussion is, you know what it really taught us to be and which I think you have to be as a business owner is to be scrappy. And we learned that very quickly through COVID.
Blake Hunter (10:14)
Yeah.
Dessie (10:35)
You know, anything we could do to get rid of any sort of expense, we cut out of our budget. Anything that we could go after, we went after a couple of grants, we went after. So it just taught you how to really be a scrappy business owner. And I'm not sure we would have learned that lesson so early on, you know, without kind of the hardships that came with COVID.
Blake Hunter (10:59)
Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask you is like, as hard as those times were to run a small business, especially literally just getting off the ground is like, do you think that it really excelled your growth actually because of what you learned from it?
Dessie (11:15)
I think it did. I think it maybe didn't excel it, but it taught us how to excel it in the future. And it also taught us like, Council Bluffs is a cool place. Like we had folks like you who had never maybe, well, you've never been to a brewery in Council Bluffs because there wasn't one, but we had you guys come and buy and we had a ton of support from the community. So that's kind of the two main things that I think it taught us.
Blake Hunter (11:22)
Yeah.
Dessie (11:45)
being said, I never want to go back, that's for sure. And you know what? I was also thinking y'all had your rehearsal dinner at the brewery.
Blake Hunter (11:48)
Yeah, yeah, good point.
We did, and that was also in 2020.
Dessie (11:58)
Right, yes, I remember that. And we had a little malfunction with the TV or something and you were like so cool about it. And I was like, thank you, thank you.
Blake Hunter (12:00)
Yeah.
yeah.
We don't get too worked up about that stuff. No, that's funny. I was going to mention, you know, we did have that there and that worked so well. And it's funny that that's been that long ago. And we had, you know, speaking of another small business, we had the Barbecue Brothers who were over in the old famous Dave's at the time at the Kitchen Council.
Dessie (12:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Blake Hunter (12:33)
And you recommended them. You're like, cause we're like, Hey, we just want to have like a low key thing. We're not trying to have this like, you know, extravagant wedding rehearsal dinner. And you're like, we'll try these guys. So we went over there, taste tested. was, you know, unbelievable. And, it's just funny, you know, five years later, they, they now have some brick and mortar and, and they're another, another small business that's done well and, and has grown and it's just all connected.
Dessie (12:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for supporting small businesses. I can say that we very much appreciate it.
Blake Hunter (13:05)
Yeah,
for sure. So what does the day to day operation look like? You know, I mean, you guys have staff, you guys are brewing beer. You know, one thing I was thinking about is it's hard enough to to run an operated business and be profitable. But then you guys also have this. The other side is like your beer also has to taste good. So what's that look like and how does that all come together?
Dessie (13:33)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, your business doesn't close after 5 p.m. I'll tell you that. And it doesn't close. It doesn't open at eight. Yeah, right. So, you know, it's it's a lot. I will will say that Marshall is here pretty much all of the time. And I'm not like exaggerating. And I learned that I can't fight that battle anymore. I just have to let him do his thing. But
Blake Hunter (13:42)
get started, right?
Dessie (14:02)
You know, we have a full-time brewer that when Marshall was trying to do run the business and be the brewer, it was it was a little too much. And so we hired our first kind of full-time person to come in and brew beer. So he brews probably two to three times a week, just depending on time of year, really, you know, like we're starting to amp up or our distribution will will grow quite significantly here as the warmer months come up.
And so we have one full-time brewer, Marshall's here full-time, and then we have like nine part-time staff and then a part-time salesperson. So nine beer tenders. you know what is tremendous is we have awesome people that work for us. Like if I would go to battle for any of them, are truly, you can depend on them to show up. You can depend on them to keep themselves busy.
and they're just loyal to the brand. They're loyal to Craft Beer. And I think having that and just communicating with folks is really how we get by. And we have about a million to-do lists. So just add it to the list. When you can mark five off, take them off. But it's just kind of this reoccurring to-do list to keep everything flowing pretty smooth.
Blake Hunter (15:27)
So you guys are, you're operating the tap room. So you have staff there. You have people coming in, you're running events, and then you're also distributing beer. And so you're distributing it, you know, locally, like at different bars and restaurants, but you're also canning and distributing elsewhere, correct?
Dessie (15:45)
Yeah, we are river to river now in Iowa. So we are all the way on the other side of the state, which just happened about a year ago actually. And so that's how we grow our business is we find additional distributors to get our product into other markets. But yeah, we can see you'll find our beer and high V's and fairways and stuff like that.
And then obviously our tap handles throughout the state of Iowa and into Nebraska as well. We actually hopped the other side of the river first before signing with the Iowa distributor.
Blake Hunter (16:26)
Okay. So have you guys just been randomly traveling around and gone into place and seen your, your handle somewhere? That's, that's gotta be a great feeling.
Dessie (16:35)
Yes, it's really cool. Yeah,
it is. It definitely, you know, makes your eyes just a little shiny and bright. And it is a very cool feeling, especially when you're on the other side of the state or somebody sends you a picture from North Platte and like you're in North Platte. Like it's like, oh, that's so cool. So.
Blake Hunter (16:45)
Yeah.
Yeah. That's cool.
I know I sent you a picture this fall, but we had some friends get married in North Carolina and I didn't like, I just walked outside and they had a kegerator outside and their handle was on and I'm like, what the hell? And then I put together and I was like, okay, the bride's parents are frequent flyers at full-fledged and they bought a handle for the groom and
Dessie (17:14)
Yes.
Blake Hunter (17:23)
So that was cool. I had no, we just walked into their house and it was there and I was like, that's sweet.
Dessie (17:24)
enough.
Yes, I remember that. You sent me like a little video and I was like, started to tear up. I'm like, my gosh.
Blake Hunter (17:33)
That's like,
mean, I equate that to like being a musician and hearing your song on the radio.
Dessie (17:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yes.
Blake Hunter (17:42)
So
the distribution piece, like, is that becoming the, like a majority of your, of your business and like your revenue?
Dessie (17:52)
no, I wouldn't say yet, but that would be hopeful. know, hopefully we keep adding more states. but like our biggest profit is when we pour a pint in the tap room, when we pour it out of our, you know, tap handles and give it to a person just across the bar. That's going to be where we have our highest profit margin. you know, obviously when you sign with the distributor, they take their cut. So it's, it's a third person party.
Blake Hunter (18:05)
Okay.
Yeah.
Dessie (18:21)
But how we grow eventually, hopefully our sales of distribution will be more and more and more.
Blake Hunter (18:30)
Cool. So what does, what's the future look like for full-fledged? Obviously try to grow that distribution, but what's your, you know, what's your vision?
Dessie (18:41)
Yep. So we are very lucky to have Marshall on the team because he had worked in so many breweries that he kind of knew the exact layout of what he wanted to do. So like our tap room, our brewery, we can still add more tanks in there without having to like do any sort of major infrastructure. And we can, we're still, probably about, we're probably about half capacity. So we can continue to.
brew a lot more beer without having to do any sort of major work. But eventually we hope to have more tanks, bigger tanks, which would be, you know, going across the space next door. It's currently vacant. Will it be vacant forever? No, probably not. So we just kind of have to cross our fingers on that one. But also, so we just signed with another Iowa distributor. Just, I think they picked up their first order today.
Blake Hunter (19:30)
Yeah.
Okay.
Dessie (19:39)
So
we'll be just trying to work with more distributors and trying to get our product. Luckily, Marshall makes a great product. So they've won over 30 international beer awards, which is a pretty big deal. They're very competitive. I'm not sure if you've heard of like the World Beer Cup or anything like that, but basically what it entails is at least 150 different breweries from all over the world.
basically packaging their product and sending it in and getting judged by pretty high up, they're called Cicerones. And so they test all these beers and blindly, and then they rate them. And then, you know, there's gold, silver, bronze, metals. And so the guys have won over 30 of those just in the last, they just started submitting them in 2002 too. So just the last three years.
Blake Hunter (20:36)
Okay.
Dessie (20:37)
Yeah, so, you know, that helps
Blake Hunter (20:39)
What's the most
Dessie (20:40)
grow your product. When you have a good product, that helps.
Blake Hunter (20:43)
Yeah.
Well, I imagine like, especially when you get into those like really serious beer communities, when you start winning those awards, then people will come find you because they want they want your product. So what's your is the Barbarian is that is that the most popular?
Dessie (21:01)
Our most popular is actually Council's Kolsch. Yep. Yeah. But Floyd is pretty consistently second or third. Our worthy cause, Amber, I think because we partner too with so many organizations, so they're always coming in and drinking it. And then we have a really, really good Heff, a German style Heff that if you're into Heffs, people are blown away by it every time.
Blake Hunter (21:05)
okay. That makes sense.
Dessie (21:31)
they try it. just like, this feels like I'm back in Germany. So.
Blake Hunter (21:34)
Yeah,
think I've I'm I mean, I'm a Floyd the barbarian guy usually bloody barbarian when you got it. It depends on the season for the worthy cause. I don't know if I've tried the half I might have to try that next. I'm getting thirsty talking about it. But so how do you guys handle like sourcing all of your ingredients?
Dessie (22:03)
Marshall, he does all of that. mostly gets, you know, hops from the north, northwest area. And then he has a particular for his adjuncts, he has a company that he sources most of those from. And so he is making orders, at least on a weekly basis. You know, the fruit that they put in like the Bloody Barbarian is, and we always
do fresh pureed fruit. It's never like, you know, fake fruit. You can always tell in a beer when your beer smells like cough syrup, that is not real fruit. Do not drink it. But yeah, so, so there is a lot of ordering and then kind of like on my side of the things I like order, you know, like our cleaning supplies and like just we have random things like pretzels and pop and
Blake Hunter (22:44)
Interesting.
Dessie (22:58)
All the things it takes to keep the taproom kind of up and up and going
Blake Hunter (23:03)
Yeah. Did you guys recently start doing, serving other drinks besides beer?
Dessie (23:09)
We did, we recently started serving spirits and we have these little higher end cocktail mixes. So one reason why our staff love to work here is because it's not like, you know, you're not sitting here making a martini, you're pouring a beer and you're giving it to the customer. So we wanted to keep it pretty simple for them, but we have like an old fashioned mix, like a mule mix, and these are a little bit higher end.
Blake Hunter (23:23)
Yeah.
Dessie (23:38)
cocktail mixes, but it's literally putting the liquor in and then adding the mix. So you're not like having to mix multiple ingredients.
Blake Hunter (23:46)
Yeah,
yeah. Well, that's, that has to help with your, mean, I'm assuming you did that because of your clientele. And like, you know, for me, like, I know there's like, I can go drink a beer and be fine and not have to not have anything else. But I know there's some people are like, you know, I'd love to go sit down with you and have a drink, but I'm not really a craft beer person. So I'd have to help having that option, right?
Dessie (24:08)
Yes.
Absolutely. Another good thing from COVID is the law actually kind of changed before. Breweries could only brew a certain percentage of liquor. And now they changed it to where we can carry any percentage after COVID. I think they're just trying to help small businesses take a little bit of the red tape off. But we were a little hesitant because we have this image of being a community space.
Blake Hunter (24:29)
Ahem.
Mm-hmm.
Dessie (24:40)
And we
didn't want that to change with the sell of spirits. But ultimately what you just said is it just appeals to more people. And we just, have to, we have to do that. You know, you have to change as a business too. If you want to grow, you have to listen to what people are saying. And we just have big groups that come in, like people who rent the event room, like, you know, there might be 3 % of those people that don't even drink craft beer. And so they're
maybe gonna hang out for a little bit and then leave. We want them to stay and hang out with us. So, and it's gone over very well. We're not looking back after adding the spirits.
Blake Hunter (25:12)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine, especially with your location next to the Mid America Center and like people just coming through and like big groups, like especially with like youth athletic events and those things, you get the parents come in and they just want a little bit more of a variety.
Dessie (25:38)
Yes, it is definitely appealing to the cheer moms.
Blake Hunter (25:43)
so the other thing I was thinking about is like, much trial and error is there when you're like, you're trying to come up with, a new beer? I mean, once you get something dialed in, I could see you're pretty dialed in, but like, if you're trying to make something new, what's the trial and error look like?
Dessie (26:01)
So in our brew, we have a 15 barrel brew house and we have kind of like a really small tank that they can kind of experiment with. So they'll do that. They'll make a couple small batches. I'm sure you've seen us, you know, where we're like, well, we don't want to make a full batch of this beer because maybe people won't like it. So we'll make a small batch. And if they like it, then, you know,
they'll brew a full batch of it. So we have it set up to where we can kind of do like a test run. the guys will, Mac and Marshall will like sit down and like try to develop a recipe, know, pull hops from this part of the country, pull hops from that, them, you know, and like, yeah. So they have a system where they're developing recipes.
Blake Hunter (26:32)
Yeah.
That's cool. I imagine the more you do, I mean, for like, for those guys, the more you do, you know kind of what to expect when you're getting your hops and putting things together. That's, I think that's so cool. I mean, you can be so creative and then when you make something actually taste good, I mean, that's, I don't know. That's cool. So cool.
Dessie (27:14)
Yeah, that's actually one reason why I fell in love with Marshall's because he has this super creative side, but then, know, brewing beer is very scientific too. So he has both sides and it just comes together nicely. And you just don't find that in a lot of people. And so, he is very creative with the recipe development. I'm not very creative cooking wise at home though.
Blake Hunter (27:24)
Yeah.
Hey, you can't have it all, okay? So you guys have any big events coming up that you want to share any plans this summer?
Dessie (27:39)
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Like I said, we're we are partnering with the Cosmopolitan Club to do our Worthy Cause event and that's at the end of this month and we'll have like a DJ outside. A lot of our summer events we try to do outside. We got Touch of Grey, which is a local band. I'm not sure if you've heard of them. Yeah, so they're coming to play.
Blake Hunter (28:06)
yeah. Yep.
Dessie (28:10)
I think the first weekend of April and we'll have a couple of food trucks and we'll have them set up outside, know, pending weather and everything. So looking forward to them. We have Turning Gears, which is another local band that plays here quite often. And then we always do our anniversary celebration, which is outdoors with a ton of like outside games and a couple of live bands, food trucks.
and people really come out and support us for that. This will be our sixth anniversary. Last year was one of the biggest days we had when we celebrated our fifth. it's a lot of fun and there's sometimes a guy walking around in a chicken suit, which is entertaining.
Blake Hunter (28:55)
Yes.
No, I, that just, forgot about that. Yeah. I've seen that dude. well, thank you for taking the time to do this. I'm hoping that, you were, you guys were really instrumental in, in one of our client events that we had. Gosh, I think I guess last year we had the white catfish and you kind of helped me facilitate that. And we bought a bunch of beer and brought that down. And I always like.
Dessie (28:59)
Yeah.
yeah, that was fun.
Blake Hunter (29:22)
You know, I always like adding, especially for me, like I'm my business is based on the community. And so like, like to incorporate that stuff. And so maybe we can work on something together and do something fun.
Dessie (29:36)
Yeah, that was a really fun event. You had a photographer, a lady walking around. I still have that photo hung up on our refrigerator. Yeah, I mean, just don't take, know, as you get older, you just don't take as many. So I thought that was a really nice touch to that event.
Blake Hunter (29:41)
Yeah.
Awesome.
Thank you. Yeah, we'll look forward to having another one. And now I'm going to have to find my time that I can make it down to the brewery have a beer here soon. That's true. I might have to do that and take them home tonight and then we'll save it for the weekend to come down. But thanks, Tessie. I really appreciate your time. See you soon.
Dessie (30:02)
Yeah, or pick some up at Hy-Vee, you know? Yeah. Cool.
All right, thanks, Blake. Have a good one.
See ya.