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 WILD
Collective, but personally WILD 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?
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.
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? 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. Well said. John, how about you? What are
some of the hurdles you have to jump over? 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. 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?
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. 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 do you think you
can carve out a path of growth or at least stability,
comparatively to domestic beer? 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.
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? 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. 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?
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. Yeah
well said. Ryan I want to ask you, you're welcome to touch on the last
question, but 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. 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? 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. 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?
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 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. Yeah.
Yeah. 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. 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
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. 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.
Any curve balls mid, shipment or has you as you watch
the boat leave the port, some some local, body change their
laws. 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.
Ryan, any curve balls that you you knocked out of the park or
just slipped right by you at home play? 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. 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. Need those kegs back, man. 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.
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 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.