Importing Beer: Live! at Snallygaster

Welcome back to The DC Beer Show, your go-to source for everything craft beer in the DC area! In this enlightening episode, our host, Michael Stein, is joined by an illustrious panel featuring Christian Gregory, John Sten, Justin Hawke, and Ryan Dorosky, recorded live at Snallygaster 2024. 

Together, they navigate the intricate web of beer importing, exporting, and the evolving craft beer landscape. Justin Hawke dives straight into the heart of brewing, blending California innovation with German natural techniques and British real ale traditions. The result? Delightfully sessionable beers with classic styles and natural carbonation, perfect for any occasion.

Meanwhile, Christian Gregory brings an interesting twist to the conversation, shedding light on the rising trend of traditional Lambic beers. These nuanced, balanced brews are winning over wine and cider enthusiasts, signaling a shift towards more refined palates and away from gimmicky beer trends.

Michael Stein then raises the alarm about a potential decline in new European brands entering the U.S. market. He stresses the need to breathe new life into existing brands and lure consumers back from the clutches of RTD cocktails and hard seltzers.

Our discussion then delves into the fascinating world of beer export challenges, with a special shoutout to a Moldovan brewer's intricate experiences with local regulations. Christian Gregory shares remarkable insights on varying export hurdles across destinations, from minimal paperwork when exporting to the EU to the extensive lab tests required for Brazil.

Justin emphasizes the paramount importance of respecting and maintaining classic beer styles that have stood the test of time, a sentiment echoed by all. Ryan Dorosky chimes in with insights on state-level distribution challenges, pointing out the added complexity on the international front. From the surprising popularity of certain beer brands in South Korea and Russia to the critical need for accurate demand forecasting, he covers it all.

One particularly interesting point was the logistical headache of returning empty kegs to their breweries. A growing solution? One-way recyclable kegs, reducing both environmental impact and logistical nightmares. Christian Gregory even shares a personal account of substantial capital being tied up in unreturned kegs.

Our engaging chat winds down with a hearty acknowledgment of all participants and a big thank you to our loyal listeners. 

So, grab your favorite brew, get cozy, and enjoy another fantastic episode of The DC Beer Show! Cheers!

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Creators & Guests

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.

Michael Stein [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the DC Beer Show. I am your host for this panel, importing excellence, imported beer today and tomorrow. And I've got a star studded panel here for wonderful guests. I would say from around the world but maybe from North America and England is more accurate. TBD. I'll get back to us on that one. So, kicking off our panel we have Christian Gregory who started at Shelton Brothers in 2009 as the Belgian portfolio manager and gradually worked into an overarching supplier manager role until their doors closed in 2021. Christian started managing the US market for Drei Fonteinen immediately after and in 2023 partnered with Drei Fonteinen to open their own self importing company, WILD Collective. WILD Collective? Wild Collect

Christian Gregory [00:00:54]:
WILD Collective, but personally WILD

Michael Stein [00:00:56]:
Collective, Danka. They import only Dreyfontein and natural wine. I also have John Sten. He started driving the truck and working his way into sales with a local brewery. He worked as head of sales at Great Lakes Brewing Company for 10 years and has spent the last 20 years as a beer importer for Merchant du Vin, specializing in world class historic beers. In 2019, he was knighted in Brussels and was received into the brewers mash staff. John, welcome. Thank you. Alright. We also have Justin Hawk who founded Moor Beer Company in 2007. Named for the Levels and Moors where it was originally based, Moor Beer has been credited with revolutionizing British Brewing. Winning more than a 100 medals for their top rated beers, Justin started the un fine beer movement creating a new vegan friendly beer segment as well as being recognized by the campaign for real ale better known as camera for brewing the first canned conditioned beers. All this earned Moor Beer, a golden award on Camera's 50th anniversary, as well as the British Guild of Beer Writers naming Justin as brewer of the year in 2017. Originally from California, Justin graduated from West Point and was stationed in Germany, finally settling in England to found his brewery based on the influences from those great brewing locations. More beer are respected globally for both their ale and lager programs. The brewery was expanded and moved to Bristol in 2014 and has 2 tap rooms, 1 in Bristol and 1 in London which have become hubs and do it your of the do it yourself music scene for both local and international bands. Finally, we have Ryan Dorosky who's the mid Atlantic sales rep for D and V International Celebrating their 25th year in the business, D and V International import, Saint Bernardis, Bauhuy Verhey, Val Dieu, and a handful of other world class European breweries. Ryan has been in the role for the past 2 years, previously working for Remarkable Liquids Distribution in New Jersey, where where he discovered the DMV portfolio and his love for Belgian beers. Just before we get going, I'm gonna butcher every name, not in English, some names in English as well as French, German, Dutch, Flanders. So just a precursor there. Let's get into the meat of our show, which is import hurdles. What are some of the biggest hurdles you've experienced importing beer from England or Germany or Belgium?

Justin Hawke [00:03:17]:
I guess being the, the brewer, I see see the other side of it. So, unfortunately, in the UK, we have something now called Brexit. So we separated from the European Union and that's created a huge number of problems for us exporting to to different markets, obviously, not to the US. But, yeah, the US, obviously, the the challenge that we've got here is the disparity between the the pound and the dollar, so our beers would be considered relatively expensive for beers that are meant to be sessionable and highly drinkable. So that's, you know, one of the things to overcome, but quality is worth paying for.

Michael Stein [00:03:52]:
Well said. Thank you, Justin. Import hurdles. Christian, what are some of the biggest hurdles you have to jump over to bring Belgian beer into the US?

Christian Gregory [00:04:01]:
Well, I'll deviate since I know these guys both work with a lot of Belgian breweries. When I was at Sheldon Brothers, we worked with Japanese and Kiwi breweries, and it was just so difficult to get the logistics straight for those because the demand is only so high for these niche beers for, Japanese hop lager, for example. So you can only take over so much, but at the same time, you need to fill a container to make sense of your freight costs. So, yeah, I would say matching your freight with your demand and making sure you're not yeah. It it's like walking a line, I guess, with those. It's it's was always much easier for us coming from Europe in terms of the logistics side. So, yeah, that's the one that sticks out to me.

Michael Stein [00:04:42]:
Well said. John, how about you? What are some of the hurdles you have to jump over?

Michael Stein [00:04:45]:
Well, it's a good question because, you know, the first thing is we don't own our breweries, and they're gonna make their own decisions on how they wanna do things. So trying to translate what they think is effective for their markets, and we're talking about breweries that have been open for 100 and 100 of years who really don't care for what we do in America, so their packages aren't the same size. We got 20 bottle cases, 24 bottle cases, 12 bottle cases, 11.2 ounce bottles, 14.9 ounce cans. We've got 16.9 ounce bottles, and then marketing and different things you have to do. And you guys brought up shipping and the cost of shipping as well, and the buying the pound to buy a case. All of that though are problems that grow to when it hits the shore here in the United States and trying to then negotiate with the distributor to keep all these breweries in different packages in. And so those are the biggest hurdles. All the little ones that they create, since we don't own the breweries and we're on their time schedules, then trying to talk to somebody over here in America to pay more money for the beer before it even gets to retail and getting it as fresh as possible. So, you know, it's it's not an easy business, but, you know, sowing beer is a contact sport. So that's why they only have the best people doing it.

Michael Stein [00:06:05]:
That's right. And I wanna thank you all for not having extra sharp elbows as you gain market share. Ryan, tell us a little bit about, Belgian imports and what you do at DMV. What are some of the hurdles and how have you overcome them?

Ryan Dorosky [00:06:20]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I think John made a great point that, the format issue, between the traditions and cultures and standard formatting in Europe and Belgium and translating that into the US market. That's definitely, a big hurdle we all face and trying to, educate the market and distributors as a whole as to, what we have available. And then on the flip side, logistics and timeline, that's one of the biggest hurdles we face. The recent port strike, was a big mess and, I know everyone's really affected if you're coming to the Port of New York or really anywhere on the East Coast. So trying to time things out, keep beers in stock depending on the season, and it does take so long for that beer to get made on a boat over to the port, and keeping keeping the popular skews in stock as long as some of the esoteric and and keeping that, liquid in the market, while also trying to have that beer come from a foreign country across the pond. That's always a bit of a challenge and a hurdle. So trying to look down the line, see what we need, and keep the best forecast possible. That's that's really a hurdle.

Michael Stein [00:07:27]:
Yeah. I I wanted to say thank you Ryan for opening the port back up. You solved the strike single handedly. You were in Louisiana. You were in Baltimore. Thank you. But in all seriousness, we did hear that that's why we are not having some Franconian, stitch fast gravity fed, lager kegs because, because of the the port strike, which is now resolved. So we'll work through that. Hard to look into the the glass ball and see. But I'm gonna ask you guys, looking at import beer today, do you think import beer is in decline or does it chart a growth path? Does it somehow feel steadier than, say, domestic beer who just, not that long ago, we heard from the beer institute had a 7.7% decline. Do you see imports taking a 7.7% decline or

Michael Stein [00:08:13]:
do you think

Michael Stein [00:08:14]:
you can carve out a path of growth or at least stability, comparatively to domestic

Michael Stein [00:08:20]:
beer?

Justin Hawke [00:08:21]:
Yeah. So that's a that's a really interesting question for us. We're seeing growth because we had, been out of the US market for a little bit when, when when Sheldon folded. But that also timed, if you think about it, with COVID. So that's that was really the problem is COVID just completely changed everything. All of the markets we operated in, no one could import or do anything. Everyone went hyper local, so which is great. You wanna support your local brewer, but obviously, after a bit of time, you want to have access to things that, you know, you used you couldn't get for a while and you wanna start to drink again. So it's great to have the variety, definitely support your local brewers and, you know, we all benefit from that. But there's things that, you know, we as a brewer do that don't get done locally here, so the only way to do it is to, you know, come to us. Same thing with the the Lambics and and whatnot.

Michael Stein [00:09:14]:
Thanks, Justin. Christian, what's your take? Are are we gonna nose dive imports? The 7.7% the beer institute, told us about? Or do you think you can chart stability in these times in the future?

Christian Gregory [00:09:26]:
So I feel like imports started feeling it earlier than the rest of the industry. So we I mean, we were having this meteoric rise in, say, 2012 and later on. And then with the sort of saturation of the US market, people's interest in imports sort of tapered a little bit. And then just industry wide, and I can say this on the beer and the sort of natural wine side. It's just a universal decline for everyone. So I don't really it might be a little bit less of a hit just because we've already taken that hit in advance, but I think the hit is coming from changes in lifestyle and habits and spending and so on and so forth. So I we're certainly not immune to it. In terms of, like, I can speak to Lambic specifically, and it's it's so we're in a weird place because we're sort of not quite what people expect of beer, And then wine drinkers don't really know what it is either even though the process after the brew day is way more similar to wine making. So for our side of things, we've been pivoting more and more towards, marketing to wine folks who are into things that are made naturally, where that they they care where it came from, they care about the story behind it, and so on and so forth. So we've been able to mitigate some of the losses by sort of opening up our market to people who just maybe they're not interested in an IPA or a stout or whatever, but we fit in somehow there. So that's that's been the the strategy, I guess, to to even things out a little bit. I can't say whether it's gonna succeed in the long term, but that's kind of our best, our best bet right now and it's a natural fit. So it's just kind of the the organic progression of things for us.

Michael Stein [00:11:00]:
Well said. John, what do you see with, brewers? You you obviously have producers, not necessarily in in Lambic country but, in England, you know, the British Isles, in Germany and eyeing. What's the report, you know, from from eyeing Germany or from other other places around the world? Is is there stability or can they even carve out growth or are people prepping for a decline?

Michael Stein [00:11:26]:
Well, each brewery is different. You know, we have an umbrella at Merchant of Inn. We offer brands from England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany. For instance, the Germans are doing really well and growing and they've been growing for about 10 years straight. Their their success has been basically consistency. The Trappist Monasteries as well are growing but, you know, they don't need to grow meteorically. Just nice, considerate, simple growth every year is what the monasteries want. Lampic breweries like Linenmens and stuff like that from COVID spiked really high then fell off when the rubber band snapped afterwards. So for each brewery it's a different program. What we've tried to do at Merchant of Inn is be as consistent as we can on pricing, be as consistent as we can on education. Because for the reason why imports were important 30 years ago and 40 50 years ago, is why they're important today. You know, none of these American craft breweries would be here today if it wasn't for English breweries. Samuel Smith was the only brewery in the world making an oatmeal stout in 1979. And they started sharing the recipe with breweries that we're opening in the United States. So if you wanna have a bar that has a full menu, then you need to have some imports. And on the import side, like myself, the guys at DMV, at guys at Duval and stuff, we've started working together and doing some marketing programs and stuff where we kinda work together at Total Wines and Wegmans and different chains to bring more eyes together as a group on brands. So we'll all weather the storm that after COVID that we've had, and we'll weather the, you know, this craft storm by having great products, great stories, and basically, breweries that invented the styles of beer that are being brewed here in the United States today. So will it be tough times? There always is. Will there be good times? Yes. So but consistency is the answer, and really being a good partner to your distributors is what's gonna bring, you know, the ball across the line. So there you go.

Michael Stein [00:13:29]:
Yeah well said. Ryan I want to ask you, you're welcome to touch on the last question, but

Ryan Dorosky [00:13:34]:
I was thinking I would ask you to look into your crystal ball. Looking at the future of imported beer, what do you see on the horizon? So for the future of imported beer, I see, some type of modernization appealing to the demographic that are essentially entering their prime drinking age, that 25 to 35 demographic. Here in the US, people generally in that age range, they grew up in the craft beer boom. So they've been to all the hype breweries. They've had every style of American beer possible and giving them an offering from an old world brewery that is 3, 4, 5 generations deep, 100 of years old possibly. We have a new offering to give you that is world class liquid and it's something new and exciting to them, because they grew up in that craft beer boom and now they have an opportunity to explore the old world classics from Belgium, Germany, anything in Europe essentially. And it's a fantastic offering of liquid to a very educated market. Anyone in that demographic has been to dozens and dozens of brewery in in 21 plus drinking age. So, having a a really high high end liquid to give them with a fantastic story behind it, really draws in the crowd. It's something different, something unique and for imports especially at D and V that's our main goal, is to attract that younger younger demographic, whether that's a different skew that comes out that is geared more towards their drinking palate. We have some some fruit forward sours or, some fruited whip beers or collaborations that are coming out and trying to draw the eye and essentially draw the wallet of of that younger demographic and and get them involved and and get the liquid to lips and really expose them to the world of import beers.

Michael Stein [00:15:20]:
I do love it when I meet someone who's a little older than half my age and says what is Saint Bernardis? I've never heard of it or what's Dre Fontaine and what is this beer that comes in a champagne bottle? Tell me about it. I love that. Justin, I'm gonna ask you the same question. Looking into your crystal ball, I know the last time we had some email correspondence, we talked about actually bringing the ABV of of some already sessionable beers down. What do you see on the horizon for more beer?

Justin Hawke [00:15:45]:
Yeah. So we have always tried to infuse the three influences. So coming from California, I tend to pick up the flavor, with things the German side of things was all about being natural, kind of more Rhineheitsgebot, which got us onto the the unfined bit, which at the time was pretty revolutionary in the UK to serve something that was hazy. Not hazy in the way that we would call it now, but 17 years ago, it was a it was a different thing. They they definitely have. And then the British side combining the real ale secondary fermentation, the natural carbonation that you get. So our beers are kind of, they bring those three things together, in a way that that we and our our fans kind of think is, is a bit unique and we do it most of the time in a very sessionable way. So our beers start I mean, actually, sometimes they're down about 2 a half percent, but our core beers go from 3.4% up and I'd say the bulk of it sort of 3.44%, 4.1. Those are like our bestsellers and we always like to say, you know, we judge a beer by can you drink 10 pints of it? And I wanna drink 10 pints of a 4.1. I don't always wanna drink 10 pints of a 9% beer and our pints are 20 ounces, so a lot bigger. Well said.

Michael Stein [00:17:00]:
I I want 10 pints of a 9% beer over 10 to 12 days. That's that's what I want. Christian, I'm gonna ask you similarly. Reading the crystal ball, reading the tea leaves, you spill the coffee rinds out, what do you see coming down the pike, particularly with with, Villed Collective and and the importation?

Christian Gregory [00:17:19]:
I guess I just jumped ahead on the last question a little bit because we are trying to pivot more toward people who just haven't discovered what traditional Lambic is. I think most people's impression of Lambic is Linda Mann's, which I think is broadly it has a huge appeal, across the board and ours is much more, say, niche. It's, some it's pretty polarizing, I think, on first taste because people don't know what they're getting into and some people love it, some people don't. So, yeah. Pivoting toward the the wider market, whether it's restaurants or or wine folks or whatever, I or cider drinkers, actually. There there's so many similarities there. So that's the direction we see ourselves going, I would say. And then I I would just add to, my wife also works for Lime Ventures Importing, so I hear what they're doing, you know, with various Belgian breweries, with Justin's beer, with more beer, etcetera. And I will say that they've already seen a sort of trend, at least on the West Coast starting where there is more interest, in sort of balanced classic nuanced beers as opposed to, more hops, more alcohol, more whatever. So, yeah, I do I definitely see it going toward, you know, people's palates getting refined and wanting something that's less of a, what am I trying to say without being insulting? But less, we'll just say gimmickry, I guess, and more about, like, what do you actually want to sit down and drink with dinner or, like Justin said, have a few glasses of instead of one that's gonna zonk you out. So, yeah. I I see people getting more refined, I guess, in that sense. What what do

Michael Stein [00:18:53]:
you think, John? It's a big question. You know, everybody's trying to look for that magic, you know, that that that magic wand to get the answer. Lindeman's is gonna be coming out with an 8% of fruit beer this coming year. You know, breweries like Iyengar and Sam Smith though are just this is what we do and this is what we've always done, and that's what it's gonna be. You know? So everybody's gotta find what works for them. I do see, though, right or wrong, I do see less new brands coming to America from Europe. I say they're gonna stick with core brands, core breweries, and, you know, ourselves will have to work together and find how to do that together, you know, in a nice way. Like, you know, for instance, Linenman's has given Lambeth to 3 Fontanen for years to keep them going. You know, people rip for Linenans because they say it's Kool Aid and everything but, you know, the the biggest Lambic brewer in the world. So but they're the ones brewing all the beer for everybody else. We're gonna have to start doing things like that over here for people where we're working together. We're we're bringing people to do a tour of Lineman's and then go to see Saint Bernard's and then go see 33 Fontanin and then go over and go see this guy and then go over and see that guy. You know what I mean? But I do see less you know, when you go to the 3, the weekend of the beer, you'll see breweries you've never heard of that are just popping up in Belgium. I don't see them coming to United States anytime soon because they don't have the pedigree and they don't have the story and the history behind them. And so you're not gonna see many retailers willing to give a try to somebody.

Justin Hawke [00:20:22]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Stein [00:20:23]:
So knock on wood. Things will, will pan out for us in a couple years and we'll see how it all works. The biggest thing, we gotta get people drinking beer though. We gotta get people out of drinking, you know, the soda waters that have alcohol on them, and we gotta start drinking beer.

Michael Stein [00:20:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good point about the overall pie and market share is how do you lure the, RTD cocktail drinker, this hard seltzer drinker in back into beer and it's there. And I think to your point, it's easier to revive brands that have been in the States for a little while easier than to get somebody who's just starting out to to export or import them to the states. And I have to credit you for for mentioning the collective that the tie in between, Lindemann's and Dre Fontana. I totally forgotten about that. Shame on me. But it's also bearing out in US craft brewing where we're seeing small breweries, if not merge or acquire come into a partnership with other breweries. We just saw one in Boston or Massachusetts last week, we've seen it in New Jersey, kinda all up and down at least the East Coast and a little bit into the South as well. But I digress. My next question is is a bit of a wild I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you what's the hardest country to export out of, to import into? I'll I'll give the backdrop that, I know a brewer in Moldova and he loves to bring new beer to market. So he's more sort of the, the blue jacket cushoire or other half locally And he goes to the state technical office and he gives, the Babichka's there, the grandmothers that work in the state office, a pale ale. And they say, Sergei, this pale ale is full of oranges, but you have no oranges on the label. What the hell is this? And he just says, oh, well, it's it's cascade and citra hops and they give flavor to this. So every time Sergei wants to release a new beer, he's gotta go sweet talk their grandmothers at the state run laboratory. So I just thought I would share that little tidbit. But I'm curious from you, have have you had some real difficulty getting beer out of a country or getting beer into a country? If so, where were they or or what was that about? I'll probably

Justin Hawke [00:22:33]:
leave this one to you guys to answer more, more late because yeah. We have exported to, I'd say, over 30 different countries around the globe at different times, but that's definitely post COVID and post Brexit has contracted quite a bit to the markets where, yeah, we're we're respected and I have heritage as a brand. I always built more because I wanted it to be one of those classic brands that will be here in a 100 years' time that people use as a reference and, you know, for me as a drinker, I still go back to the classic Belgian beers. I still go into Samuel Smith pubs back home, Fuller's, even though they got bought out by Asahi. You know, I still respect those traditional brands and I think if you look at the life cycle and the maturity that people have when they're drinking, it's really easy to start and find your way in via you like really hoppy flavorful things or you want a pastry stout, whatever your gateway is, eventually, you'll probably wind back up drinking a fantastic lager, fantastic bitter, fantastic stout, the classics, because they've been there for 100 of years for a reason. It's kinda my take on it.

Christian Gregory [00:23:36]:
Oh, exactly. This is Christian from, I guess I'll tackle the export first because we did a fair amount of exporting when I was at Sheldon Brothers, and I still hear bits and pieces from my colleagues, Andrea Fontana, about our challenges there. I would say there are different challenges in different places. Obviously, the exporting from the US to the EU is actually incredibly easy. There's very little that goes into it in terms of paperwork and so on and so forth. It's it's about as straightforward as it could get. Exporting to somewhere like Brazil is incredibly difficult because you need to fill in pages and pages of paperwork for each individual beer. You need to have laboratory testing that not just includes alcohol, but all sorts of other elements as to what goes into it. Special labels that US brewers elements as to what goes into it. Special labels that US brewers don't want to end up applying for sending 20 cases over. So you have, like, we'll say compliance challenges in some places, and then you have other areas. So Scandinavia, for example, all the Scandinavian countries or I should even say Nordic countries, have state run monopolies. I'm sure Justin has dealt with this. Yeah. Systembolaget and, Vin Manopolett, excuse my pronunciations. So for those, it's in a way, it's incredibly easy because what they're they tell you what they're looking for, they put out a tender, and if you tick all the boxes and they accept it, then they'll take a container of beer which for us is a huge amount of our production. So that's always nice when you land one of those, but it's also difficult to just be the one that does get selected. Even the same with, like, the SAQ in Quebec, they also do tenders like that. It they have a well, whatever. It's not worth getting into. So that's a separate set of challenges. And then you also have, like, I remember we were trying to take some imperial stuff from Russia. This is and and we don't have to get it. This is pre the Ukraine war. This is, like, 2016, I think. It was such a pain in the ass to get the beer. 1st, you have to send it to the EU and then from the EU to the US, but then the Russian Duma, like, the legislative body changed laws while we were mid order, and we ended up we couldn't take the beer in the end. So then you just have, like, total curve balls like that. Sorry. That was, like, a an import side question. And then, yeah, I had touched on this earlier just in terms of imports. Sometimes logistics just don't make sense, period. As much as you might want a beer, as, lovely as the people might be, and as high quality as the beer might be, you just can't make sense of bringing it over. So yeah.

Michael Stein [00:25:59]:
Any curve balls mid, shipment or has you as you watch the boat leave the port, some some local, body change their laws.

Michael Stein [00:26:07]:
You know, it's just amazing to me that, you know, you've got 4 major shipping companies and miraculously, their prices are all the same. I don't know how that happens. It it's a it's a it's a miracle to me and, you know, it's a mystery. But your question's about, you know, do you see is a tough exporting, is a tough purchasing? You know, first, you gotta get a brand that fits your portfolio, then the brewery's gotta be quality, then the pricing's gotta work, the consistency's gotta be there, and then you gotta really temper their expectations on how much beer they're gonna sell. And if you can get all that stuff, and we've introduced 2 new Trappist Monasteries, our first two new breweries we've had in many years, and it's not easy to grow a brand today. And we're we're talking only maybe 2, 3000 cases a year for these breweries these new Trappist monasteries. One from the Netherlands called Zunder, and another one then from England, the only Trappist monastery in England called Tint Meadow. Nothing is easy anymore. Nothing is easy. Shipping's not easy. Pricing's not easy. And so everything is a fist fight. So that's their curve balls, they're out there. You know, the brands that you'd wanna have, there's not as many as there used to be. So, yeah, it's it's a tough jam. No doubt about it.

Michael Stein [00:27:25]:
Ryan, any curve balls that you you knocked out of the park or just slipped right by you at home play?

Ryan Dorosky [00:27:31]:
Well, fortunately for myself, I don't deal, as much with the multinational export. Probably a few rungs above my pay grade as we get into the brewery level, but I can speak on the the domestic importing, into the US. I can really only compare the state level distribution and the bureaucratic logistics that are involved with that. It's extremely complex just at the US state level, so expanding that to international, importing and distribution must be an absolute nightmare at some points. I give anyone who has their hand in that or is directly involved in that a ton of credit. The the paperwork involved in getting a single item or a single brewery into a country must be extremely complex. I I would say that curveballs is essentially forecasting what a country, or a specific territory would be looking for. That might be the biggest hurdle. For example, Duchess de Bourgogne is massive in South Korea and Russia as well, and and not not as big in other countries and then similar with Saint Bernardes, or or Val Dieu even. Predicting what each country's demand is going to be, what style or what beer is going to best fit that market is a huge hurdle. So, for the breweries above me that that I essentially import, and and work for, All the applause to them for for figuring that out, that that's a massive hurdle and and yeah. Great job essentially forecasting that.

Michael Stein [00:29:04]:
You know, one curve ball, I was just, you know, hit me when you were sitting I don't know whatever you said hit me in the head. Just getting empty kegs back to the breweries. You might as well cut your arm off.

Ryan Dorosky [00:29:15]:
Need those kegs back, man.

Michael Stein [00:29:16]:
You so we're going to one way kegs from Polykeg for a lot of breweries because imagine trying to get beer over consistently. Yeah. You know, we can't even we've got warehouses full from kegspediter and you name it company who you know, getting kegs back to the breweries. It's not worth it, You know? So we're changing to a lot of one way kegs now. Yeah. It's gonna be better for the environment because they're recyclable, and you're not using caustic to clean them. So there are some pluses. But that's something, you know, literally, when I got in this business 30 some years ago, didn't exist. And now I'm the biggest proponent for them. So, yeah, there are curve balls out there. No doubt about it.

Christian Gregory [00:29:54]:
Yeah. To that point, I would say I I remember at a certain point at Shelton Brothers, we had something like €50,000 worth of kegs from Kulmbacher Brewery in stock, empties. So they're just tying up cash. Exactly. You're a small company and all your cash tied up in empty kegs in there. Yeah. And the Germans are angry because you've got all their kegs and they want them back. So it's like yeah. I I am so as as resistant as I was to poly kegs or key kegs in the first place, and they had their hiccups, they are sort of a game changer for those of us in the importing side. So

Michael Stein [00:30:25]:
Mein Gott, ze kegs in Kulmbach. Alright. With that absolutely corny note, I'm gonna take us out. I just wanna say thank you, Ryan. Thank you, John. Thank you, Christian. Thank you, Justin. Stick around. Brandy Holder, our co owner of DC beer, is up next with Vibes. It's an incredible panel. You don't wanna miss it. Thanks, DC Beer listeners. You could have been anywhere in the world. You chose to rock here with us, and for that, we are grateful.